Internal Affair. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ sigh was liberally laced with guilt. “I should have married Edna,” he lamented. “She would have found a way to shave those rough edges off you.”

      “No, Edna would have turned out to be the reason I ran away from home.”

      Edna Grady was the woman his father had dated when she was fifteen. The widow had her cap set on marriage and would have stopped at nothing to arrive at that destination. She had a host of ideas about what their life was going to be like after the ceremony. It hadn’t included having a stepdaughter under her roof. That was when her father had balked, terminating their relationship. Maggi had been eternally grateful when he had.

      Maggi paused to kiss the top of her father’s snow-white head, her heart swelling with love. He really was her rock, her pillar. “You did just fine raising me, Dad. You gave me all the right values. I’m just making sure they’re in play, that’s all. And that everyone else shares them.”

      While he applauded the principle, he didn’t like the thought of his daughter risking her life every day. He vividly realized what his wife must have gone through all those years they were married and he was on the force.

      He looked at her, disgruntled. “If I hadn’t been shot, you would have been married by now.”

      “Divorced,” she corrected, “I would have been divorced by now.”

      She firmly believed that. Maggi thought of Taylor Ramsford, the up-and-coming lawyer she’d met while working on the vice squad. He’d dazzled her with his wit, his charm, and they’d gotten engaged. But Taylor, it turned out, was not nearly the man she’d thought he was. Beneath the appealing exterior, there was nothing but a man who wanted to get ahead. A man centered on his own goals and nothing more. Marrying her had just been another goal. When she’d told him she was going home for an indefinite period of time to care for her father, he wouldn’t stand for it.

      “Your place is with me,” he’d told her.

      She’d known then that her place was anywhere but with him.

      She gave her father a quick hug. “You know you’re the only man for me.”

      He patted her hand affectionately. The day she was born, his partner had expressed his regret that his wife hadn’t given birth to a son. Maggi was worth a hundred sons to him, and he told her so.

      “Not that I’m not flattered, Mag, but I’m not going to live forever.”

      “Sure you are.” She walked over to pick up her service revolver and holster from the bookcase in the family room where she’d left it. “And I don’t need a man to survive. No woman this day and age does.” She spared him a tolerant glance. “Catch up to the times, Dad.”

      He thought of his late wife. Maggi looked just like Annie had at her age. She’d had a way of making him feel that the sun rose and set around him without sacrificing a shred of her own independence. She’d been a rare woman. As was his daughter. He hoped to God that she’d find a man worthy of her someday.

      “’Fraid it’s too late. No new tricks for me. I’m the old-fashioned type, no changing that.”

      “Don’t change a hair for me,” she teased. Glancing at her watch, she knew she had to hit the road or risk getting stuck in ungodly traffic. She strapped on her holster, taking care to position the revolver to minimize the bulge it created. It was wreaking havoc on the linings of her jackets. “I’ve gotta go, Dad. Have a good day.”

      He nodded. It was time he got to work as well. To pass the time while he’d been convalescing, he’d taken to writing down some of his more interesting cases. Now he was at it in earnest, looking to crack the publishing world with a fictionalized novel.

      Matthew rose from the table, walking Maggi to the front door. “Would I be threatening some chain of command if I told you to have the same?”

      Have a good day. That wasn’t possible, she thought. Her new assignment was taking her back undercover. Not to any seedy streets where the enemy was clearly defined the way her old job had been, but into the bowels of the homicide and burglary division of the Aurora force. She felt this was more dangerous. Because there were reputations at stake, and desperate people with a great deal to lose did desperate things when their backs were up against the wall.

      Was Detective Patrick Cavanaugh a desperate man? Was that what had led him to betray the oath he’d taken the day he’d been sworn into the department? Had it been desperation or greed that had made him turn his back on his promise to serve and protect and made him serve only himself, protect only his own back?

      Not your concern, Mag, she told herself. She wasn’t judge and jury, she was only the investigator. Her job was to gather all the information she could and let someone else make the proper determination.

      If that meant putting herself in front of a charging bull, well, she’d known this wasn’t going to be a picnic when she’d signed on to help rid the force of dirty cops.

      She frowned, thinking of what her superior had told her about Cavanaugh. The detective had a list of honors a mile long and he was braver than the day was long, but he was as hard as titanium to crack. And as friendly as a shark coming off a month-long hunger strike. The dark-haired, scowling detective went through partners the way most people went through paper towels. The only one who had managed to survive had been Eduardo Ramirez. Until the day he was shot. Ramirez had managed to last two years with Cavanaugh. According to what she’d read in his file, that was quite a record.

      Detective First Class Patrick Cavanaugh was the product of a long blue line. His late father had been a cop, one of his uncles had been the chief of police and he was the nephew of the current chief of detectives. Not to mention that he had over half a dozen cousins on the force at the present time. Possibly covering his back. In any case, she knew extreme caution was going to have to be exercised. There could be a lot of toes involved.

      She was Daniel, entering the lion’s den, and all the lions were related.

      But then, she’d always loved a challenge.

      Maggi flashed a smile at her father, meant to put him at ease. “I’ll see you tonight.”

      He watched as she slipped on her jacket, watched the weapon disappear beneath the navy blue fabric. “I’ll hold you to that.”

      She winked and kissed his cheek before leaving. “Count on it.”

      He did.

      The call had reached him before he ever made it to the precinct. An overly curious jogger had seen something glistening in the river, catching the first rays of the dull morning sun. It turned out to be the sunroof of a sports car. An all but submerged sports car. He’d called in his find immediately.

      A BMW sports car had gone over the railing and found its final resting place in the dark waters below. Patrick told dispatch he was on it and changed his direction, driving toward the river.

      Even before he’d closed his cell phone, he’d been struck by the similarity of the case. Fifteen years ago, his aunt Rose’s car was discovered nose down in the very same river. All the Cavanaughs had gathered at Uncle Andrew’s house, trying to comfort his uncle and the others—Shaw, Callie, the twins—Clay and Teri—and Rayne. It was the only time he had seen his uncle come close to breaking down. Aunt Rose’s body wasn’t inside the car when it СКАЧАТЬ