Cavanaugh Stakeout. Marie Ferrarella

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      But he just continued being unconscious.

      “I sure hope you can tell us who did this when you come to, because you know that you’ve got every single member of the family dying to make that person pay for hurting you.”

      For a second, he could have sworn he saw his father’s eyes flutter. But then they were still and his father continued sleeping.

      “Chief?” Logan said respectfully, peering in between the curtains.

      Andrew knew that his time was up. “I’ve got to go, Dad.” He leaned over his father’s bed and pressed a kiss to the older man’s forehead. “I’m happy you’re still with us. Happier than you’ll probably ever know.”

      Andrew went to retrieve his father’s cell phone from the plastic bag where his clothes and possessions had been placed. Finding it, the former chief of police stepped away from the hospital bed and reentered the corridor.

      Despite the fact that his father was unconscious and couldn’t help provide any leads, it was time to get this investigation started. In his experience, there was always someone, whether they knew it or not, who had seen something.

      The trick was to find that someone.

      With renewed purpose, Andrew went back out to where the rest of his family was waiting. He looked around for Brenda, one of Brian’s daughters-in-law. Brenda was the head of the IT section in the crime-scene investigation lab. He needed the young woman’s expertise at the moment.

      Spotting her next to her husband, Dax, Andrew headed over to them. Brenda and Dax were instantly alert the second he approached them.

      “How is he?” Dax asked before his wife could.

      “Still unconscious. He looks pretty banged-up,” Andrew admitted. “But he’s a tough old bird. He’ll be issuing orders by morning,” Andrew said confidently.

      Murmurs of “That’s great” and “Thank God” echoed throughout the area.

      Andrew held out the phone he had taken to Brenda. “This is my father’s phone,” he told her. “Pull whatever you can off it so we can retrace his steps before he was attacked.”

      Brenda immediately took possession of the cell phone, wrapping it in her handkerchief to avoid smudging any possible fingerprints that might be on it and didn’t belong to anyone in the family.

      “Right away, sir,” she promised.

      “Once the chief of police, always the chief of police,” Brian commented to his older brother with a smile.

      “Look,” Andrew began, “I know that technically I don’t have the authority to ask anyone to do anything, but—”

      “Sure you do,” Shaw, the current chief of police and Andrew’s son, said, interrupting his father. “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll find the SOB who did this to Grandpa,” he promised. “There’ll be so many of us out there combing the area, we’re going to wind up tripping over one another. But we’ll find him.”

      Andrew looked over toward Finley, who had been keeping silent, but Andrew could guess what was going on in the young man’s mind.

      “Finn was the one who was first on the scene,” he reminded the others. “That makes him the lead detective on this.”

      “Once I realized who the victim was, I knew that there would be no shortage of help with the investigation.” Moving toward the center of the group, the tall, good-looking, dark-haired young man’s green eyes swept over the people standing closest to him.

      Finley Cavanaugh belonged to the other branch of the family, the branch that Andrew had uncovered when he went to search for Seamus’s younger brother, Murdoch. Murdoch and Seamus had been separated at a very young age when their parents divorced, splitting the family in two and going their separate ways.

      Things didn’t always have fairy-tale resolutions, despite the best intentions. Murdoch died before the two brothers could be reunited. Even so, Murdoch’s four children and their families slowly migrated to Aurora and eventually became, to a great extent, part of the city’s police department. Some had already become police detectives before they transferred, while others were eager to prove themselves in this new venue.

      All were happy to become part of a larger whole.

      And now they found themselves united in a less joyous undertaking: trying to find and bring to justice the cold-blooded carjacker and would-be killer who had done this to one of their own.

      “This isn’t a matter of territory and I’m not about to try to pull rank here,” Finn told the group. “We all want to get whoever did this to Seamus and then left him to die in a deserted parking lot,” he said, his voice growing cold and steely.

      Several voices resounded in the group, agreeing with what Finn had just said.

      Riley shivered. “If that man hadn’t been walking his dog when he was…” Her voice trailed off, as she was unable to finish her thought.

      “But he was out in the right place at the right time,” Brian told his daughter. “Focus on that.” Wanting to say something further to Finn along those lines, Brian turned toward the young detective. But the man was no longer there.

      Seeing the perplexed look on Brian’s face, Sean asked, “Who are you looking for?”

      “Finn. He was just here,” Brian said, still looking around to find Finn. He hadn’t seen the young detective leave.

      “Looks like he wanted to get started looking for the person—or persons—who did this to Dad,” Sean said, supplying his take on the matter.

      Brian nodded. “He’s got the right idea.” He raised his voice to address them all. “Let’s put all our resources together and see if we can make short work of this. Those of you who have them, talk to your CIs.” He glanced at the members whom his order applied to. “I want answers, people. Was this a random mugging or was Seamus targeted? If it’s the latter, find out why he was targeted and by whom,” the chief of detectives stressed. “We have got one of the finest police departments in the country,” he reminded the people gathered around him. “Let’s put that to good use.”

      Everyone knew that wasn’t a suggestion—that was a quietly issued order.

      “Well, that certainly didn’t take long,” Sean commented to Finn several hours later as he and two other members of his crime-scene investigation team carefully circled around the abandoned, badly battered vehicle that had been tracked down. The car had been discovered less than ten miles away from the parking lot where Seamus had been found.

      Finn had been the one who had found the car, after beginning his search the moment he had left the hospital. As soon as he had verified that the vehicle was the one that had belonged to Seamus, he had immediately placed a call to Sean.

      Sean and his team were out there within twenty minutes, snapping photographs and documenting anything that could even remotely be considered evidence.

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