Cavanaugh on Duty

chapter 18



There was no answer when they knocked on the door of Kyle Masters’s single-story house.

“Maybe he’s at work,” Kari said. But even as she said the words, she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she was wrong.

Esteban had moved over to the window that was adjacent to the door and peered in. The see-through curtains at the window afforded him a view into the living room.

“Not today.” He grimaced. “There’s a body lying on the floor in the living room...and my guess is that it’s his.”

They were too late, she thought, frustrated. “We need to kick down the door.”

“Much as I’d like to watch you try to do that,” Esteban told her, “I’ve got a better idea.”

“Okay, I’m listening,” she prodded.

But rather than answer her, Esteban moved her out of the way, then took something out of the wallet in his back pocket. Inserting the match-thin metal into the lock, he began to work at the lock.

Approximately ninety seconds later, the door was unlocked.

Kari suppressed the impulse to whistle her admiration. “Very nicely done,” she told him as she prepared to go in.

He grinned at her. “I learn from the best,” he told her with a wink that, despite the gravity of the moment, made her heart flutter.

Later, she promised herself. I’ll think about this later.

Right now, they had a serial killer to catch.

He saw Kari take a deep breath as she trained her gun dead center at the door. She was psyching herself up. So was he.

“Ready?” he asked, his voice dropping to hardly a whisper. He slowly twisted the doorknob, easing the metal tongue from its groove.

“Ready,” she mouthed, accompanying the word with a nod of her head. Adrenaline was surging through her at incredible speed.

The next moment, in one quick motion, Esteban pushed the front door all the way open. Every fiber of her being was on the alert as Kari entered the seemingly empty house.

But the second she crossed the threshold, she felt her left arm suddenly being grabbed from the side. And then a hunting knife, still covered in the latest victim’s blood, was being pressed against her throat, the tip nicking her skin as she was dragged backward and to the side.

“Don’t come any closer!” a frenzied voice behind her threatened Esteban. “I’ll slash her throat just like I slashed his. It’s your call.”

“Put the knife down, Mr. Gibson,” Esteban said in a reserved, calm voice that belied the turmoil that was churning inside him. “You don’t want to do this. We’re police detectives. You don’t want to hurt her.”

“No, but I will,” the distraught man cried, his voice rising and on the verge of cracking. “Unless you put your gun down, I will.”

“Don’t listen to him, Esteban,” Kari ordered. “Take the shot. He’s going to kill us both if you put your gun down. Take the shot!”

Esteban never took his eyes off the man. “Is she right?” he asked in the same monotone voice he’d used before.

His mind raced, frantically searching for an alternative, a way out for Kari. But the knife the man held against Kari’s throat was almost drawing blood. Gibson could kill her in an instant.

The horror of that thought almost paralyzed him, all but making him physically ill. He couldn’t lose her, he couldn’t.

“Will you kill us both if I put my gun down?” Esteban pressed, his tone flat, devoid of emotion.

There was hysteria in the other man’s voice. “One thing’s for sure. I’ll kill her if you don’t.”

Oh, God, Kari thought, Esteban was wavering, she could see it in his eyes. They were both lost if he bought into this.

“Don’t,” Kari cried. “Don’t do it. He’s killed at least seven people—”

“They deserved it!” the man interjected, screaming the words.

“What’s to stop him from killing two more?” she pointed out, completing her thought and praying Esteban listened to her.

“Can’t risk it,” Esteban said to her. Then, very slowly, he lowered his weapon to the floor.

Okay, it was now or never, Kari told herself. The man with the stranglehold on her waist had nothing to lose by killing them. All she could think of was that she couldn’t let that happen.

With a wild, guttural cry, she suddenly used both hands and grabbed the arm that was holding the knife to her throat. Adrenaline pounded through her veins even faster as the pain of a sharp prick registered.

Focused only on one thing, she sank her teeth into Gibson’s wrist. The blood-curdling shriek almost made her deaf. She thought he’d screamed because she’d bitten him, but then she felt Gibson’s hold around her waist loosen and realized that his body was sinking down behind her.

His knees hit the floor, and as she jumped aside, she saw the rest of him go down, face-first, on the rug.

That was when she finally swung around to look at Esteban, who was also on the floor. It took her a split second to realize that with Gibson momentarily distracted, Esteban had dived to retrieve his weapon, and from his awkward position on the floor had shot the deranged man.

Scrambling up to his feet now, Esteban was beside her in less than a heartbeat, his hands on her shoulders. The deadly calm expression was gone from his face, replaced by one of mingled fear and concern.

“Are you all right?” he demanded hoarsely.

She pressed her lips together and nodded. Something was hurting, but she’d probably gotten banged around. “Never better,” she cracked.

“He cut you,” Esteban gasped, staring at the blood he saw oozing along her throat.

She touched the wound gingerly and winced. “Oh, yeah. I guess he did. It’s just a flesh wound,” she assured him. Glancing at the man who was lying facedown on the floor, she saw the pool of blood that was forming a red outline around his head. “Nice shot,” she commented. Her eyes shifted back to Esteban’s face. She’d never seen him look so pale. “I take it that wasn’t just a lucky shot.”

“Yeah, it was,” he told her.

He’d been shaking so badly inside, he’d been afraid that he would hit her instead, even though he’d had sniper training, thanks to the department.

And then unable to cope with the thoughts that were attempting to crowd into his head, thoughts that all had to do with the devastating consequences they’d have faced if he hadn’t managed to get off that single shot, Esteban just pulled her into his arms and held her close.

She resisted to an extent. “I’ll get blood all over you,” she protested.

“Shut up,” he told her, emotion throbbing in his throat. Emotion that, until now, he’d managed to keep locked away. “Like I care.”

She clung to him, all resistance gone. His presence gave her tremendous solace, and his warm, comforting embrace provided her with the strength she needed at a time like this.

“We need to call this in,” she reminded him after a few moments had gone by.

“We will,” he assured her, his arms tightening. “I just need a second.”

“Yeah,” she admitted quietly. “Me, too.”

* * *

The CSI unit, along with Lieutenant Morrow and the other detectives he’d temporarily reassigned to the task force, all converged on the scene, almost en masse. It took a minimum of detail to fill the lieutenant in.

“I guess he just went off the deep end when his son was killed in prison just after the judge reversed the guilty ruling,” Kari said. “He wanted to make everyone involved in sending his son to prison suffer the same fate his son had,” she said solemnly. “He wrote on his son’s social media page that he was on ‘a mission from God,’” she told Morrow. That was something one of the other detectives had told her just before the lieutenant had arrived.

“Too bad nobody picked up on that and alerted us sooner. Some of these poor bastards would have still been alive if they had,” Morrow commented. “Good work, you two,” he congratulated them. “One last order for the day and then you’re both free to go home and get some rest.” He looked at Esteban intently. “Take her to the hospital to have that looked at.” He nodded at the bandage on the side of her neck.

“The paramedic already looked at it,” Kari protested. “He put some disinfectant on it that hurt like hell and then bandaged it.”

The lieutenant looked unimpressed. “I’m not going to be the one to explain to the Chief of D’s why he’s short one niece.” His eyes shifted toward Esteban. “Take her. Now!” he underscored.

“You heard the man,” Esteban said, taking her by the arm and firmly guiding her to where they’d left their car at the curb what seemed like a hundred years ago.

“I’ve got a better way for you to ‘take’ me,” she said, echoing the lieutenant’s order and putting her own meaning to it.

“Later,” he promised her. “First we get that taken care of.”

“What if I say no?” she challenged.

He was prepared for that. “Then I’ll have to throw you over my shoulder and carry you there.”

A smile entered her eyes. “Can I opt for that?” she asked.

“Shut up and get in the car,” Esteban ordered gruffly.

“Make me,” she countered, curious to see just what he would do.

Rather than pick her up and put her in the car the way she expected him to, he framed her face with his hands and kissed her. Kissed her with all the unbridled emotions that were running rampant through him, all the fear he had dealt with in those split seconds when he’d seen the deranged serial killer put his knife to her throat.

Kissed her as if there was no tomorrow, only this moment, only now.

She went from solid to liquid in under forty seconds, her insides vibrating like a well-struck tuning fork.

When Esteban finally drew back, she all but collapsed into the car. Unable to stand, she definitely needed somewhere to sit.

“You fight dirty,” she accused.

“Only way I know how to fight,” he informed her.

His answer made her smile. “This is going to be a very interesting partnership.”

He spared her a long look before pulling away from the curb. “I was just thinking the same thing.”

Which meant, she thought in sudden realization, that he wasn’t going anywhere. He was going to stay in her life.

* * *

Esteban reached inside the door to his apartment and turned on the light, then stood back to allow her to enter first.

Coming inside, Kari smiled. “It looks a lot better in the light. Dusty, but better.” She turned toward him. “I’m just curious, why did you bring me here?” she asked. “Why not to my place?”

“Because mine’s closer and I’m a man of my word.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. I said I’d take you to bed, remember?”

Her mouth curved. “It was the only thing that kept me from running out of the E.R.”

Esteban smiled at her bravado as he drew her into his arms. “That and the fact that they took your clothes.”

Kari laughed. “If you think that stopped me from running out, then you don’t really know me at all.”

“Maybe,” he allowed for the sake of argument. “But I plan to.”

The next moment, he covered her lips with his own.

The kiss was long and deep and did a great deal to blot out everything else that had happened in the past twelve hours.

She sighed as she felt Estaban draw back for a moment. “More please,” Kari murmured.

“As you wish.”

But instead of kissing her again, Kari felt herself being lifted up off the floor and into his arms.

“What are you doing?” she asked, surprised.

“Guess.”

The wicked look in his eyes made guessing completely unnecessary. Kari knew exactly what he was going to do. And she couldn’t wait for it to happen.

It was a good long, steamy hour and a half before any more words were exchanged between them.

Lying next to Esteban in his rumpled bed—a bed that had already been rumpled before they ever started making love—Kari turned her body into his and said, “I think you might just have stumbled across a new way of treating wounds.”

He did his best to look serious, but failed. The desire to grin was just too overpowering. “Good to know—for the next time.”

The next time.

She clung to that for a moment, savoring what it could—and should—mean before making herself ask, “Does that mean you’ve decided to stay on as my partner?”

“I’m thinking about it,” he replied softly—and then his grin gave him away. Shifting so that his body curved into hers, Esteban grew a little more serious. “I don’t know what it is about you, but for all your annoying little traits, you still made me think that maybe there’s some hope left for this world.”

Pleased beyond words at this change in him, for the sake of the game they were playing, Kari pretended to take offense. “What annoying little traits?”

“We’ll review them some other time. Right now, I’m more interested in going over your redeeming ones—the ones that redeemed me,” he added quietly.

That touched her heart more than she could possibly ever express. “Esteban? You think that the next time you go to see Miguel, I can come along?”

He realized that he’d like that, that he wanted his stepfather to meet this woman. But he still needed to know why she’d want to come with him.

“Why?”

“Because I’d like to meet the man who had a hand in making you the person you are today.”

He felt his heart swell and cautioned himself to take it one step at a time. These emotions were new and he needed to work up his trust.

His bid for nonchalance failed, though, as he said, “Sure, why not?”

Still trying to be cool, she couldn’t help thinking fondly. Esteban’s answer made her smile. “You know I see great things for this partnership.”

Just before he kissed her again, he said, “I was just thinking the same thing.”

Kari would have grinned if she were able, but seeing as how her lips were definitely otherwise occupied, she didn’t.

There was time enough for grinning later.