Cavanaugh Watch. Marie Ferrarella

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СКАЧАТЬ lot beyond. As she watched, wondering what to make of this man who had been there for her in the right place at the right time, she noticed him going toward a beaten-up vehicle. Its blue paint fading, the car had undoubtedly seen at least one complete rotation around the odometer, if not more.

      Not someone high up on the crime food chain, Janelle decided.

      “Are you all right, Nelle?”

      The question came from behind her but she didn’t have to turn around to see who the voice belonged to. Dax. When she did turn, she saw that her brother seemed genuinely concerned.

      “I was just inside the building.” He jerked his thumb at the electronic doors as he joined her.

      Behind them at least a dozen people spilled out of the courthouse to see for themselves what was happening. The cry of “Shots fired!” had echoed over more than one walkie-talkie as bailiffs and security guards hurried into the center of the crowd.

      She was vaguely aware that her brother was supposed to testify before a grand jury convened in one of the rooms on the second floor. These days, she was so busy, one of the few times she got to see her family was when their paths crossed during her workday.

      She knew that Dax still tended to think of her as the little girl who had trouble tying the laces on her sneakers, instead of the quick-fisted tomboy who could sucker punch him at the drop of a hat. She silently prayed he wouldn’t embarrass her in front of Stephen.

      “I’m fine, Dax,” she told him. “Really. Some guy threw himself on top of me at the first sound of shots. If anything, my bones are crushed, but the rest of me is intact.”

      Dax took hold of her shoulders anyway, as if he didn’t trust her to tell him the truth. She did have a way of trying to brazen things out, which went back to the years when she had tagged along after him, Jared and Troy, determined not just to keep up with them but to show them up whenever possible. She knew she’d been the thorn in their sides, but they’d all been protective of her.

      When she shrugged him off, he dropped his hands to his sides. “Good. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to tell Dad that his baby girl got shot on the courthouse steps.”

      “How very touching,” she quipped. “Thanks for the concern.”

      “Anytime.” And then his expression grew serious as he looked over her head at the assistant district attorney. “Either one of you know of anyone who might have it in for you?”

      “Other than my immediate family?” Janelle deadpanned. She followed it up with a “No,” uttered a little too quickly. She realized her mistake the moment the word was out of her mouth. If she hadn’t, the look on Dax’s face would have alerted her. She knew that look. He didn’t believe her.

      At her side, Stephen shifted slightly.

      Oh please, don’t pick now to be straightforward with a question. Telling Dax anything about the major case they were handling would only make her older brother worry about her. And it wouldn’t change anything. Certainly not her involvement in the case. The one that promised to be the biggest of her career so far. Perhaps the biggest one she would ever have. It was certainly big by any standards.

      Anthony Wayne, the son of Marco Wayne, reputed first lieutenant within an organized crime network that had bedeviled all efforts to dismantle it for more than the last fifteen years, had been brought up on charges of possession of cocaine with intent to sell. The story went that the third-year premed student was supplementing his income with drugs, cutting into his father’s turf, as it were.

      As was usually the case, the D.A’s office had come by their information purely by accident. Vice had busted a minor player who’d managed to land a decent public defender who’d finessed a deal for him. Sammy Martine, aka Sam Martinez, a two-bit criminal facing a third conviction and a lifetime of prison, had offered up Tony’s name in exchange for a more lenient sentence that still had parole attached to it. The search warrant had turned up more than a kilo of cocaine in Tony’s apartment. Vice had been waiting for Tony when he’d gotten home from classes and had arrested him. The case seemed airtight. A slam dunk that would put a feather in the hat of the D.A. and anyone else associated with the case.

      Now that she’d had a couple of minutes to reflect, with the good Samaritan’s deep voice echoing in her head, she knew that this could have been a warning from Tony’s father to back off. To do whatever had to be done on their part to get the charges against Anthony dropped so that his son could once more be out on the street, a free man.

      Not damn likely, Janelle silently vowed. It was going to take more than a few bullets fired into the air to intimidate anyone at the D.A.’s office, even Stephen Woods. For one thing, the district attorney was a seasoned war veteran who had actually seen combat as a young man. More than anything, he relished a good fight. And this was a good fight. And as for Woods, he saw it as his moment to shine.

      Suddenly, Janelle could have sworn she saw a light dawning in Dax’s eyes.

      Oh damn, he knew.

      She should have known better than to hope that word about the Wayne case wouldn’t spread. It was almost a given. Apparently there was no such thing as secrets in the law-enforcement world. Somehow, things always managed to leak out, at least to their own, despite the best precautions. Wedded to the courts the way law enforcement was, there always seemed to be an overlap of information. In the interest of keeping the informant alive, the D.A.’s office had tried to keep the case under wraps until it actually came to trial.

      By the look on Dax’s face, they’d failed. But she had a feeling that her brother still might be in the dark about who was going to be second chair on the case.

      The position was hers.

      She’d earned it. Not by coasting on her father’s name, the way some in the D.A.’s office—those who didn’t know her—maintained. But by working twice as hard as anyone else in her position. It was the same kind of situation her brothers all had faced. And her cousins, as well. While she and her brothers were the children of the current chief of detectives, five of her cousins were the offspring of the former chief of police.

      Only Patrick and Patience hadn’t had to struggle out from beneath that sort of heavy mantle because their late father had never risen up through the ranks. Officer Michael Cavanaugh had been killed in the line of duty while still a uniformed patrolman. Even so, Patrick had still, on occasion, been accused of riding on his uncle’s coattails. Only Patience had eluded that insult altogether. A veterinarian, Patience was the only one of them who had a “civilian” career. The only contact she had with the police department, other than at the table or with her husband, was when she cared for the force’s K-9 squad.

      Janelle had been given the position of second chair on the Wayne case a little more than two weeks ago as a reward for all the long hours and extensive work she’d put in since she had come to the D.A.’s office.

      When Stephen Woods had called her into his office to tell her the news her first impulse had been to call home. To tell her father, her brothers, her cousins that she was finally getting somewhere.

      Her second impulse had to do with family, as well. It had to do with shielding them because, even though they were all on the force, they tended to worry about one another. Because they all knew what could happen, knew all the ins and outs, all the chances that were taken and the odds of coming out unscathed.

      It made surviving within the framework of the family difficult СКАЧАТЬ