Cavanaugh Stakeout. Marie Ferrarella

be a mistake. Well, she was here, so she might as well see where this led. But she did want to get something out in the open. “You don’t play well with others, do you?”

      His expression darkened again. “What is that supposed to mean?”

      “Well, you really don’t know me, but you just accused me of making things up to further what you assume is my agenda.” She waited for him to deny it—or to have an epiphany, if that was possible.

      His darkened expression only lightened by a fraction. “Sorry if I insulted you,” he said sarcastically.

      Finn wasn’t prepared for the smile that came over her face—it seemed to light up the whole immediate area, even though the sun had already risen.

      “Okay,” she said brightly. “Apology accepted,” Nik told him.

      He scowled at her. He didn’t like having her think he was apologizing for anything. “I take it you’re not acquainted with sarcasm.”

      “Oh, I’m acquainted with it,” she assured him. “I was just hoping that your lack of social skills made what you meant as an apology sound as if you were being sarcastic.” She grew serious. “I think that if you stop thinking of me as someone interfering in your investigation and start thinking of me as an asset to utilize, we stand a chance of getting along a whole lot better.”

      Finn chose not to reply to that. Instead, he told himself that the sooner he and the others working with him on this case could pull all the stray pieces together, the sooner he could be rid of this irritating woman.

      At least he could hope.

      “Do you think that Marilyn Palmer’s mother will be up yet?” he asked Nik.

      “Oh, I know that she is,” Nik assured him. When he raised his eyebrow, appearing doubtful because of the hour, she explained. “She hasn’t really slept since Marilyn didn’t come home the other night.”

      That wasn’t all that unusual, he thought. Nodding, he suggested, “Why don’t you lead the way?” And then he added, “Slower, this time,” he added.

      “I didn’t speed,” she told him, throwing a grin over her shoulder. “I was just anxious to see you and, like I said, it turned out that all the lights were in my favor.”

      There was laughter in her eyes, most likely at his expense, Finn thought. Ordinarily, he would have taken offense that she was laughing at him, but for some reason, he didn’t.

      “Yeah, right,” he muttered. “Let’s get going,” he ordered, waving a hand at her car.

      “I’ll go slow so you don’t lose me,” Nik said, remembering his instruction with a smile as she pulled open her driver’s-side door.

      “I should be so lucky,” Finn murmured under his breath.

      “I heard that, Detective,” Nik responded with a laugh.

      “Just go. Don’t worry about losing me.” Even if she did, he had the address to the Palmer house.

      Finn got into his vehicle. Again, he told himself that he really needed to have his head examined for having called this woman. Still, he supposed that there was an outside chance that this woman that Nik Kowalski was initially looking for was involved in not just Seamus Cavanaugh’s carjacking, but in the murder of the woman who had been found in the Dumpster as well.

      In any event, he wanted to interview Marilyn Palmer’s mother and he had a feeling that taking this annoying blonde chatterbox with him to run interference might make things a little easier. She was right about one thing, he grudgingly acknowledged. He wasn’t as good as some of his cousins and siblings when it came to questioning people and getting them to trust him.

      Finn started up his vehicle, pulled up directly behind her and they departed.

      It didn’t take him long to realize that if this woman was driving any slower, she could have been accused of actually going backward.

      He trailed behind the woman ahead of him for approximately three city blocks. Then, having had enough of this charade, he sped up and passed her.

      Which was when she did the same thing.

      Finn suppressed the urge to speed up again. He wasn’t usually competitive, but there was something about this woman with the laughing eyes that certainly had a way of pressing all his buttons, he thought.

      This, too, shall pass, he promised himself.

      Maybe it would, he thought, but definitely not soon enough for him.

      They wound up reaching Kim Palmer’s house faster than he had intended. The modest one-story house had all the lights on despite the fact that it was now a little after seven in the morning. There was no need for so many lights to be on—unless they had been deliberately left on overnight to act as a beacon for her missing daughter.

      “What was that all about?” Finn asked, getting out of his car at the same time that Nik emerged from hers.

      She looked at him as if she didn’t know what he was talking about, her eyes wide.

      “You started out going slow, but you sped up,” he told her.

      “Oh, that,” she responded.