Cavanaugh or Death (2 page)

Chapter 1

E
very morning, halfway through her run, Moira Cavanaugh asked herself the same question: Why am I doing this?

The answer she'd arrived at some time ago, and that still held as of this morning, was that if she
didn't
put her running shoes on, throw on a sweatshirt and shorts, then pound on the pavement for a good hour, she would be moving around at half speed for the rest of the day. Not to mention that she'd spend the rest of the day feeling guilty for slacking off. Because of what she did for a living, she needed to be at the top of her game all day,
every
day.

So here she was, a police detective like most of the rest of her vast, sprawling clan, sweating and breathing progressively harder in the predawn light, counting off the seconds until she was nearing the end of this self-inflicted torture. And fervently wishing that she was more like her older brother, Malloy, who rolled out of bed, hit the ground running, was bright-eyed and bushy-tailed by the time he drove into the Aurora Police Department parking lot.

But she wasn't like Malloy. To be in peak condition, she needed to jump-start her day, and running seemed to be the only thing that accomplished that for her. Varying her route caused her to remain wide-awake instead of merely going through the motions.

By choosing a different route each morning—one of ten or so she'd marked down for herself—she had to stay alert to take the right path home. She only had twenty minutes once her run was over to get ready and be in the car, on her way to work.

The only thing Moira hated more than being sluggish was being late.

Jogging first thing in the morning before she was even fully awake kept both from happening—even though it felt like hell while she was doing it.

This morning's route was the creepy route—especially since the street lamp in front of the cemetery had picked today to go out and there was only a half-moon up in the sky to guide her past the tall, imposing, black wrought-iron gates.

Cemeteries didn't bother her in the light of day, but there was almost a sinister vibe about them before the sun came up.

However, this was the route she'd drawn out of the candy dish where she kept all the routes she'd picked to run. Being guided by the luck of the draw was another way she had of combating monotony.

“Just a little farther, Moy, just a little farther,” she mumbled, egging herself on. “You can do this. You've done it before, you'll do it again. Pay no attention to the eerie place on your left. It's just your imagination, you know that.”

Her imagination and the ghost stories Malloy had loved telling her every night when their ages were both still in the single digits.

“Just keep on running. There're no such things as ghosts or creatures that go bump in the night, just Malloy, doing his best to scare you. Think about something else.”

His best, back then, had always been more than good enough and it had laid the foundation for the uneasy wariness she experienced whenever she passed a cemetery after twilight.

Logically, the fear had no foundation. Emotionally, though, was another story entirely.

Emotionally, it was—

Moira's breath caught in her throat.

There were two shadowy figures racing out of the cemetery—and they looked as if they were running right toward her.

Moira jumped out of the way, just in case they actually
were
running toward her, but the evasive maneuver only managed to complicate matters.

One of the shadowy figures slammed right into her, knocking the air out of her.

Her imagination going full blast, Moira had half expected the shadowy figure to go right through her, but it hadn't.

And now that she thought about it, the figure had felt very solid for a ghost.

She watched, stunned, as the “ghost” scrambled to its feet and then proceeded to run off despite the limp it seemed to have acquired from the collision.

The shadowy figures just kept on going as if she hadn't been there.

Maybe to them she wasn't.

“Hey!” she cried, rattled and stunned as well as beginning to lose her temper. The notion that the duo were ghosts had quickly disappeared. Nothing that hit so hard upon collision was made of vapor and air. She had definitely been hit by a flesh-and-blood human being. It frustrated her that she was unable to specify anything beyond that vague description.

Because of the fact that both running figures had been covered in black from head to foot, she couldn't have even identified the gender of either.

The next second she saw the reason that the duo had come flying out of the cemetery. They were being chased by someone.

Him
she could make out.

He was a tall, dark-blond haired man who ran with both the grace and speed of a professional athlete. He'd appeared to be gaining on the slower of the two shadowy figures until he'd seen her sprawled out on the pavement.

The thought that she'd had more graceful moments flashed through Moira's mind.

Stopping for a second, the dour-looking stranger put his hand out to her. Her ego bruised, Moira accepted his help. There was a time for pride and a time for practicality. This was one of those latter times.

“You okay?” he asked in a resonant voice as he pulled her to her feet.

“Yes.”

She was about to add a coda that it actually depended on his definition of “okay” since her unexpected sudden meeting with the pavement had jarred her to the roots of her teeth, but Moira never got the opportunity.

The blond stranger was off and running after the duo in less time than it took for her words to form in her head.

Dusting herself off, Moira stared after the stranger's departing figure, no longer able to see the two he was chasing and trying to overtake. They'd had too much of a head start on him.

It seemed as if everyone was in top physical form, she thought grudgingly. The next moment the chivalrous, silent stranger disappeared from her view.

Moira sighed. Maybe all this was just a figment of her bored imagination, but somehow she strongly doubted it.

At this point dawn was laying the finishing touches for its dramatic entrance, turning up the light around the edges of the visible world and then multiplying that light and spreading it around the surrounding area.

Moira turned and looked at the entrance to the cemetery. It no longer appeared like the scene of countless ghost stories waiting to be told—or lived—just a place where people brought their loved ones so the latter could have a final resting place.

Moira regarded the cemetery thoughtfully.

Just what was the big deal in the cemetery at this hour of the morning, anyway? The duo that had run right over her certainly seemed as if they could belong to a cult, but that wasn't true of the man who had helped her to her feet then taken off before she could thank him.

Could he have been the night watchman or maybe the groundskeeper?

Curious, Moira glanced at her watch. If she ran at her best top speed to her condo, she could make it in twelve minutes. That left her about five to investigate whatever had been going on in the cemetery—if there actually
had
been something going on.

She regarded the grounds beyond the arched entrance.

That was an awful lot of territory to cover in five minutes. Still, mysteries of any kind had always intrigued her. She couldn't resist.

Running in and moving fast, Moira managed to take in close to a quarter of the area. Scanning it, nothing caught her attention.

Maybe the duo had been just kids dressed in black to blend into the night as they explored the cemetery. Maybe they were doing it on a dare.

A lot of stupid things were done in the name of a dare.

If the blond stranger
was
a security guard—or a groundskeeper—then he'd been chasing them off.

She turned to leave the cemetery when something caught her eye. Aware of the seconds ticking by, Moira still felt compelled to investigate. It was in her DNA, not just because she was a Cavanaugh, but because she was part of the police department's understaffed robbery division.

Moving closer, she realized what it was that had set off her alarm.

One of the headstones in the vicinity looked as if it had been knocked over and then righted again—but not all that well. The stone was tilted.

Stepping even closer, Moira read the writing on the headstone. “‘Emily Jenkins, beloved wife of Hal Jenkins.'” It also gave the year of her birth and her death. Whoever Emily Jenkins was, she had been buried a couple of months more than twenty years.

Moira regarded the list of the headstone. Maybe it was just due to regular shifting of the earth. After all, this was California. Some areas moved more than others. If there had been regular minor tremors or just simple shifting, that could have made the headstone move and lean as if it had had one too many.

Reaching out, Moira touched the headstone. She immediately saw that it was not only listing, it was downright loose. That took effort.

Human effort.

Could the people who had knocked her down been grave robbers?

Grave robbers? Moira, this is Aurora. Nobody even
touches
a headstone if they can help it.

Yet what other explanation could there be? This needed further examination—but not at this moment, Moira sternly reminded herself. She had someplace to be.

Taking off from the cemetery to avoid being late to work, Moira made herself a promise to come back as soon as she could today to investigate the scene thoroughly.

Emily Jenkins had been violated—or at least her grave had.

What she needed to find out was why.

* * *

Moira made it back to her home in what amounted to a new record, at least for her. Her lungs were near bursting as she shed her clothes all the way to the shower, littering the floor with them.

Jumping into the glass enclosure, she turned on the water before she had even securely locked the shower door. Five very swift minutes later she was toweling herself dry, leaving tiny pools of water to mark her path to her closet.

She had no time for breakfast or the life-affirming coffee she usually swore by. Instead, dressed, Moira was back out on the pavement less than twelve minutes after she had first inserted her key into her condo's front door.

She hoped she could find something edible and at least vaguely nutritious in the vending machines at the station. She had her doubts.

Pulling into the station's rear parking lot, Moira could have sworn she saw someone who vaguely reminded her of the dark-blond stranger who had helped her to her feet.

At least, he resembled the man from the rear, which was the only view she had at the moment. Tall, dark blond and broad shoulders, he
could
have been the stranger from the cemetery.

Or, more likely, just another private citizen coming to the station to lodge a complaint or to respond to a call from one of the many police detectives inhabiting the building.

Her curiosity still on high alert, Moira quickened her pace in an attempt to catch up with the blond stranger.

He entered the building before she did. Moira stepped up her pace again.

As she got into the building, she discovered that not only should she have quickened her pace, she should have increased it to a sprint. The stranger she was trying so hard to get a better look at was nowhere to be seen.

“Must have caught an elevator,” she told herself under her breath.

It was either that or accept the explanation that the stranger had vanished into thin air. She preferred the elevator.

“You know, they say the mind's the first to go for some police detectives. Of course, that's assuming that they
have
a mind to lose, which, in your case, the jury is still out about.”

Moira didn't have to turn around to know who was talking to her. But she'd learned a long time ago that ignoring her brother and pretending he wasn't there didn't make him go away. If anything, it just made Malloy up his ante.

With a sigh, she turned around to face him. “I see that someone woke up on the right side of the bed this morning.” The smile she forced to her lips looked deliberately phony by all accounts.

The grin on the tall, handsome detective's face was, according to more than half the female population, incredibly enticing.

“Actually, little sister,” he told her with a wicked wink, “it was on the right side of the lovely Patricia Morgan, but why quibble over words?”

“Why indeed?” Moira asked crisply, striding toward the elevator quickly.

She knew there was no losing her brother, but for the sake of the game, she had to look as if she at least tried.

“Hey, you okay?” Malloy asked, catching her by the shoulder to take a closer look at her face. “You look like someone rode you hard and put you away wet,” he observed seriously.

Moira pulled away from him, although her expression never changed. “Ah, you're as golden-tongued as always, big brother. I can see why all the ladies find you so terribly charming. You obviously have to beat them off with a stick.”

“Seriously, Moira, you all right?” Malloy asked. “The back of your head is partially damp. Are you trying for some sort of a new style, or did they turn off your electricity while you were in the middle of blow-drying your hair?”

This time Moira frowned. She hated when he started being too observant when it came to her. “You're the detective, you tell me.”

Malloy arched a bemused eyebrow. “Since when has anyone ever been able to tell you anything?” he called after her as Moira walked into the elevator.

“I always listen to someone who makes sense,” she replied innocently, then added, “I guess that leaves you out, doesn't it?” just as the elevator doors closed, taking her away from his view.

Only when the doors were securely closed did Moira reach behind her head and touch the back of her hair—and frowned.