“Understood, sir,” she quickly responded. “And thank you, sir.”
It was obvious from the expression on his face that he was far from happy about this, but he didn’t want to just arbitrarily ignore what she’d brought him just in case there was something to it.
“Yeah, yeah.” Carver waved her away. “Just get out of my office. And close the door behind you,” he added sharply.
“I always do, sir,” she responded with a smile as she gripped the doorknob.
She thought she heard Carver mutter something caustic under his breath as she left, but she knew better than to ask what. Pretending she hadn’t heard his voice, she closed the door behind her.
As she paused by her desk to make a notation on her computer, she glanced up to see that her partner had just walked in and was approaching his desk.
The next moment he was removing his jacket and draping the twenty-year-old article of clothing over the back of his chair.
Glancing over toward her, he asked suspiciously, “Who brightened your day?”
She was not about to waste any time going into specifics. Warner had a habit of taking everything apart and down to the tiniest component. Opting for brevity, Moira simply said, “The lieutenant just gave me a case to look into.”
Warner dropped into his chair. The fifteen pounds he had gained on the job in the past year caused the chair to creak loudly in protest.
“Hell, I’ve already got too much to do,” he complained.
“This is just a solo case, Warner,” she told him cheerfully. “Nothing for you to worry about.”
Which, once the words were out, she knew was exactly what Warner was about to do since she wasn’t giving him any details. The detective was not keen on exerting more effort than he possibly had to, but neither did he like being purposely excluded from anything.
Moira admitted to herself that it was small of her to bait him this way, but she had heard the man say several nasty things not just about her but about others in her family. It had been all she could do to hold her tongue when she did.
Making the man feel as if he was missing out on something was, in her estimation, merely a small payback.
“See you later,” she told him cheerfully as she walked away, heading toward the doorway.
“Wait, what’s this case about?” Warner called after her.
Moira pretended she didn’t hear the question and just kept walking.
Her smile widened. Maybe she was being petty, but as far as she was concerned, Warner deserved it. She couldn’t ask for another partner—there had to be a specific reason for the request and saying that the man annoyed her just wouldn’t fly with the lieutenant—so she had to satisfy herself with this.
Besides, according to her father, this was the kind of thing that built character. Had she actually said anything to her father, he would have advised her to stick it out with Warner.
“I’m going to have one hell of a character by the time that man retires,” she mumbled to herself as she pressed for the elevator. “If I survive,” she added in an even softer whisper.
Moira glanced around to see if anyone was nearby who might have overheard her monologue, but although there were a few people in the hallway, no one appeared to be in close hearing range.
She would have to watch herself, Moira silently chided. She talked to herself far too often. She didn’t want anyone thinking, or worse, saying, that she was crazy.
The elevator still hadn’t arrived. Impatient, Moira pressed on the down button a second time.
Where was that damn elevator, anyway?
It seemed to her that the thing ran slower and slower every day. She was anxious to get going before Carver suddenly changed his mind and had someone come after her so he could tell her to drop her yet-to-begin investigation.
Now that she had gotten the green light to investigate the scene at the cemetery, she intended to make the most of it, especially since she was flying solo.
She could tell by Carver’s expression that he hadn’t thought there was anything to her hunch. But she did. She was a Cavanaugh and she had yet to meet a single one of her extended clan who didn’t believe in hunches or rely on them heavily when push came to shove.
The elevator still hadn’t made an appearance.
Annoyed—and growing more so—Moira glanced up to see that according to what was registering above the elevator doors, the car was still on the sixth floor, where it had been for at least the past three minutes.
What if it was broken again? The elevator had been out of commission for half a day last Tuesday. And before that it had been down for the better part of two days about a month ago.
Giving up, Moira went to the stairwell. Good exercise anyway.
The heavy door shut behind her as she entered the stairwell. Her hand was on the banister when she heard the sharp staccato of a pair of men’s shoes hitting the metal steps.
Obviously someone else had lost patience with the elevator, too, she thought, glancing overhead to where the sound of quickening footsteps was coming from.
Her mouth dropped open as, for the second time that morning, she found herself looking at the blond stranger from the cemetery.
As she stood there, with the fire door closed at her back, Moira watched the blond stranger quickly make his way to the next staircase. Dressed exactly the same way as when he’d helped her to her feet outside the cemetery, the stranger appeared to take no notice of her as he headed down the stairs.
“Hey, you!” Moira called out, stunned that he’d made no acknowledgment whatsoever that he wasn’t alone in the stairwell. “Wait!”
Apparently the man had hoped to just keep going. However, since she was the only other person in the stairwell, surely he realized she was trying to get his attention.
He paused for a moment midway down the stairs and was obviously waiting for her to either say something or to ask him a question.
“What are you doing here?” Moira asked, cutting the distance between them quickly. If the man from the cemetery was surprised to see her or even recognized her, Moira noted that he gave no such indication.
“Going down the stairs,” he noted with minimal inflection. “Same as you, would be my guess.”
Was he being funny or didn’t he understand the gist of her question? Upon closer scrutiny, he looked too intelligent to be dumb, so her guess leaned toward the former, even if his expression remained dour.
“I meant in the precinct.” Her mind gravitated back to the cemetery and to what Carver had said about needing someone to sign a complaint regarding the headstone being disturbed. Was that what he was doing here? “Are you registering a complaint?” she asked. It seemed a logical explanation for his being there, although not why he was in the stairwell.
There was no inflection in his voice as the stranger responded, “Not unless you intend to do something complaint-worthy.”
Was he deliberately drawing this out or had she just misjudged him, after all, and he was just being obtuse? She tried again.
“Then why are you in the building?”
The attractive, breathless woman asked an awful lot of questions considering that they didn’t know one another, Davis thought.
“Well, for one thing, they pay me to be here.”
He watched as her eyebrows pulled together