Cavanaugh Judgement

“The chief of detectives says so, Edith,” Blake corrected. He glanced over his shoulder. Just as he thought, the detective was still there, like a shadow he couldn’t cast off without taking drastic measures. “If you feel uneasy about leaving the courthouse, Edith,” he told the older woman, “I can have Detective O’Brien take you home.”

Greer blinked. Had he just volunteered her services without consulting her? She wasn’t part of his team, to be ordered about, she thought, irritated at his cavalier manner.

She was about to protest, but as it turned out, she didn’t have to. His administrative assistant dismissed the offer with a haughty wave of her hand.

“I’m a big girl, Judge. I stopped being afraid of thugs like Munro when I was in grammar school. He doesn’t scare me.” Her things packed, Edith nodded at her employer. “See you in the morning, Judge.”

Blake barely nodded. A moment earlier, he’d crossed to his desk and was about initiate the procedure that would power down his computer when the big, bold letters that were written across the monitor’s screen caught his attention.

And then raised his ire.

When he made no answer in response to his assistant, a woman he obviously held in warm regard, Greer looked at the judge. She saw the angry look that had darkened his features.

Kincannon was a formidable-looking man, she couldn’t help thinking. She definitely wouldn’t have wanted to find herself on the receiving end of that look. But right now, she was more curious as to what had caused it. It couldn’t be the ongoing situation because he seemed to have calmed down about that—unlike her.

Maybe, instead of throwing herself on top of Kincannon, the situation would have been better served if she’d had the wherewithal to tackle Munro and keep him from fleeing. Growing up with her brothers as playmates and partners in crime had taught her to be fearless, reckless and unafraid of pain if enduring pain resulted in achieving a desired outcome. In this case, it would have been preventing that poor excuse for a human being from making good his escape.

Greer took a second look at Kincannon’s expression. Something was off.

“What’s wrong?” she wanted to know. Not waiting for an answer, she rounded Kincannon’s desk and came up next to him. Since he was staring at the computer screen, Greer looked at it, as well. For a second, the words seemed too absurd to be real.

And then they were all too real.

Back off or you and your father are going to die. Slowly and painfully.

She thought Kincannon was going to hurl the laptop across the room, but he restrained himself. She heard him mutter angrily, “Brazen son of a bitch.”

There was no question that this had come from Munro. “Obviously, he believes in the family plan,” she commented. The next moment, she was hurrying out of the courtroom again.

Turning away from the courtroom in an attempt to create a pocket of privacy, Blake quickly took out his cell phone and turned it on. One of his pet peeves was cell phones that rang during court, but right now he was glad he had forgotten to leave his cell phone in the top desk drawer in his chambers. It saved him precious seconds he didn’t know if he could afford to waste. He was not about to continue underestimating Munro.

“C’mon, answer,” he ordered, addressing a man who wasn’t there. The message he’d left on the answering machine at home was just kicking in when he glanced toward the double doors in the rear and saw O’Brien coming back—and she had the chief with her. “Pick up, Dad,” Blake instructed through clenched teeth. “Pick up!”

And then he heard the receiver being lifted on the other end.

Thank God.

“Bad day in court?” he heard his father ask. “The story’s all over the TV,” Alexander Kincannon, retired marine sergeant and practicing malcontent, grumbled. “It preempted my show. What the hell kind of security have you got down there? Can’t even hang on to one skinny criminal?” he demanded.

Blake was not in the mood to get drawn into a lengthy discussion about how lax current law enforcement had gotten. He needed for his father to listen to him. “Dad, I don’t want you answering the door.”

He heard his father blow out an irritated breath. “What am I, twelve?”

For a second, Blake lost patience. “You’re a hundred and seven, but I want you to make it to a hundred and eight, Dad. Don’t answer the door, do I make myself clear?”

“Why?” the gravelly voice demanded, sounding significantly less combative than it had just a moment earlier.

Reaching the judge and able to make out what the person on the other end was asking, Brian raised his voice so that the judge could hear him over the loud voice on the cell phone. “Tell him I’m sending a patrol car over. It’ll be there in a few minutes.” He made eye contact with Kincannon. “We’ll keep him safe.”

Blake nodded his thanks toward the chief. “Dad, they’re sending a—”

“I heard, I heard.” Alexander cut him off. “I’m not deaf yet, you know.” And then a degree of excitement entered his voice. “This have anything to do with that pusher who took a powder?”

“Maybe. I don’t know yet.” Although, he added silently, he was pretty certain that it was. Blake heard his father sigh dramatically and then abruptly terminate the connection. Closing his own phone, Blake slipped it back into the pocket of his robe. He looked at Brian, his gratitude rising to the foreground. “Thank you.”

“Least I can do,” Brian acknowledged, then he nodded toward his niece. “Greer alerted me to the message you received on your laptop.” He lowered his eyes to the state-of-the-art computer on the judge’s desk. “I’m going to have to take it, Your Honor. Maybe one of our people can trace where the e-mail originated.” He knew for a fact that Brenda, his son Dax’s wife, would all but make a computer sit up and beg. Maybe she could pull this miracle off, as well.

Ordinarily, Blake might have protested about protecting the privacy of his court cases, but in this case, there was no need. Brian Cavanaugh was a veritable pillar of ethics. So he nodded, turning the laptop around and handing it over to the chief.

“Whatever you need,” he told the older man.

Brian closed the lid, securing it in place. “Right now, it’s what you need that’s important,” he corrected. “It looks as if this Munro character feels he has a specific beef with you that goes beyond his own case. As I heard it, you sent several of his people away with the maximum sentence when they were convicted a couple of years ago.”

Blake wanted no credit for serving justice. It was what it was. “Just doing my job, Chief.”

“And now I’m doing mine,” Brian countered. “You need protection, Judge.”

Blake did not savor relinquishing his privacy, but there was his father to think of, so he nodded.

“A patrol car making the rounds every hour or so should do it,” he speculated.

“What about the other fifty-nine minutes?” Brian asked mildly.

Blake’s eyes narrowed as he tried to follow the chief’s reasoning. “Excuse me?”

“The way I see it, Judge, until this drug dealer is caught, you’re going to need twenty-four-hour protection, not just a patrol car passing by every now and then.”

Blake didn’t want to argue, but he definitely didn’t want to acquiesce, either. “Isn’t that a little extreme, Chief?”

“Death is extreme, Judge, everything else is a distant second,” Greer pointed out, feeling that the chief could use a little verbal backup right about now. She could understand the desire to remain independent. In the judge’s place, she’d feel the same way. But Munro would think nothing of putting a bullet right between the judge’s eyes. It would seem like a crime to disfigure that noble profile with a bullet.

In return for her support, Greer saw the chief smile at her. She returned the smile, not recognizing the expression for what it was. Had she been part of the family longer, she might have known that the smile that was curving his mouth was the one Brian wore when he was about to deliver a very salient point, and triumphantly drive it home.

“I’m glad you feel that way, Greer.”

She might not have been able to pick up on the chief’s expressions, but there was something in his tone of voice that softly warned her she was in big trouble. Not the disciplinary kind, but the kind that meant she was on the verge of something she would regard as less than pleasant happening.

“Why, sir?” she asked her superior quietly, never taking her eyes off Brian’s face.

Even as Greer asked for clarification, she had a sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach that she knew why Brian had just expressed his satisfaction at her agreement.

“Because I’m assigning you to be Judge Kincannon’s bodyguard.”

It was hard to say which of them was more averse to the news they’d just received, she or Kincannon.

“I’m not going into hiding,” Blake protested with feeling.

“Nobody said anything about hiding,” Brian told him. With enough effort, they could keep the judge safe and still presiding over his courtroom. But it would be tricky. Which was why he felt that Greer was the person for the job. She was a self-starter who thought outside the box.

“Look, Chief Cavanaugh,” Blake began again, picking his words slowly, “I’m very grateful that you’re sending a car to watch over my father, but I’m not a helpless old man—”

He could just hear his father’s reaction to that description. At seventy-three, the former gunnery sergeant was still fit, still capable of pummeling someone to the ground with his fists as long as that someone didn’t tower more than six inches over him. There was nothing “ex” about this marine.

“A bullet is a great equalizer.”

Had that come out of her mouth? Greer thought suddenly. Even suppressing annoyance at the confining assignment she’d just been handed, she found herself still performing like a good little soldier. Pressing her lips together, she caught herself longing for the days that she’d been a rebel. A rebel wasn’t in danger of going comatose standing guard over someone. Being a bodyguard was only marginally better than being forced to sit in a car, maintaining surveillance on a suspect. She hated both assignments with a passion. Inactivity was not in her DNA.

But it looked like, judging by the chief’s expression, she was stuck.

Maybe so, she thought the next moment, but she wasn’t about to go down without a fight—or without going on record that she was less than thrilled with the assignment.

“That’s right, it is,” Brian agreed with Greer’s succinct assessment. He smiled at his niece, clearly appreciating the backup. “Now,” the chief continued, “until we finally catch this Munro character, you’re assigned to the judge.”

Finally. She didn’t know if she had as much faith in the wheels of justice as he apparently did. Finally could mean days, or, more likely, it could mean weeks. She didn’t want to spend weeks babysitting, even if the person she was watching over was an incredibly good-looking specimen of manhood.

She was a good detective. She belonged in the field, damn it, not hovering over the judge like some misguided shadow.

“Chief, could I have a word with you?” she requested as he began to walk away.

Rather than answer verbally, Brian beckoned her to follow him as he walked out of the courtroom. With the judge’s laptop tucked under his arm.

Chapter Four

Greer stared at the chief of detectives’ back as she followed him into the hallway. Considering the stress and pressure he was always under, the man exuded strength and energy.

There was a lot to live up to being a Cavanaugh, she thought. People expected you to be at the top of your game, sharp and in good physical condition at the same time. It just went with the territory.

For the most part, the commotion in the hallway had died down. The area was relatively empty now. People had been taken aside for questioning and the rest of the police who’d been summoned were scattered throughout the building, conducting an intense room-to-room search.

But her mind wasn’t on the hallway or what was happening beyond it. Greer’s mind was on what she was going to say to the chief and how she was going to say it in order to hopefully get him to see things her way.

She really didn’t want to take on this assignment and her primary reason didn’t even have anything to do with her staunch dislike of inactivity. It went far deeper than that.

It was times like these that she really wished she had Ethan’s golden tongue and his effortless ability to phrase things just right. But she didn’t. All she could do was state her case as best as possible and cross her fingers that it was good enough. Cross her fingers that the chief would understand and see things from her point of view.

Putting her request in the form of a plea wouldn’t carry any weight, she knew that. Even if it did, she didn’t think she was capable of resorting to begging. Begging wasn’t in her inherent makeup. She’d always taken her medicine and stoically faced up to her responsibilities, no matter what.

But in this case, it wasn’t just that she didn’t want to have to be the judge’s bodyguard. She was more than fairly certain that Kincannon wouldn’t want her hovering around him 24/7, or whatever ratio of time the chief decided that she had to put in. If the judge was forced to put up with a bodyguard—and from where she stood, she could see why it would be necessary—she was sure that she wouldn’t be the man’s first choice. Not by a long shot.

Brian abruptly stopped several feet beyond the courtroom’s double doors. Preoccupied, searching for the proper wording, Greer almost walked right into him. Catching herself, she stopped approximately an inch shy of colliding with her superior.

Sucking in her breath, she quickly backed up so that there was a decent amount of space between them. Under no circumstances did she want to appear to be crowding the man.

“Now, what is it you want to talk to me about?” Brian asked her genially.

By his tone and expression, the topic of conversation could have involved something personal and inconsequential. But Greer kept her guard up. He might be her uncle, but here, on the job, he was the man who was ultimately in charge. Family ties didn’t enter into it.

She reminded herself that, like the judge, Brian was tough, but fair. At best, she had a fifty-fifty chance. She’d had worse odds.

Greer forged ahead. “With all due respect, Chief, I’d rather you assigned someone else to be the judge’s bodyguard.”

“And why is that?” he asked her, his voice mild.

She cleared her throat, trying her best not to make this sound as if she was asking for preferential treatment, because she wasn’t.

“The judge and I…” She stumbled, then tried again. “We have some history.”

His expression never changed. “Were you lovers?”

Some of the air seemed to vanish from her lungs. Her eyes widened in disbelief. “No! No,” she repeated, doing her best to sound calm this time. “I…That is, he…”

It was not in his nature to make his people uncomfortable. That went double for family. Brian raised his hand, interrupting the halting flow of words. “If you’re about to refer to what I think you’re going to refer to, I’m well aware of your ‘history’ with the judge, Greer,” he told her.

She stared at him, stunned and at the same time, relieved that she wasn’t going to have to relive the ordeal by rendering a blow-by-blow description for him. “You are?”

The nod was almost imperceptible. “I made it a point to familiarize myself with your files—yours and your brothers’,” he clarified, not wanting her to think that he had singled her out for some reason. She was fairly new in this position and second-guessing was part of the process. He didn’t want to add a strong case of paranoia. “I like to know things about my family—and the people who ultimately work under me,” he explained, answering questions he knew she had to be thinking.

Greer took a breath. This had been easier than she thought. “So then you understand why I think it would be better if someone else was assigned to the judge?”

“No.”

The one word answer came out of nowhere and hit her like a detonating bomb. “No?” she echoed, hoping she’d heard wrong.

“No,” Brian repeated. His tone was mild, but there was no mistaking the firm undertone. “You are the most qualified to handle the job right now. You know the judge and, more importantly, you’re familiar with Munro, with the way he thinks, the way he acts.” That, he indicated, was of paramount importance. “That puts you several steps ahead of anyone else I’d assign to the detail,” he told her. “It only makes sense that I put you in charge.”

It might make sense to him, she thought, but that still didn’t make her comfortable with it. “Chief.” The single word packed all the appeal into it that she could muster.

The chief looked at her for a long moment, his gaze drying up whatever words she was planning to use. Drying up the words and her saliva, as well. It felt as if she had a mouthful of sand.

“You’re not asking me to give you special consideration, are you, Greer?” he finally asked.

God, she didn’t want him to think that. She shook her head with feeling. His tone had been low. Hers wasn’t. “No, sir.”

Brian’s smile was easy, pleasant. “Good, I didn’t think so.” About to turn away, he realized that he hadn’t finished yet. “How long will it take you to go home and pack some things?”

Somewhere distant in her head, she heard a door slamming. The door had bars on it. She was stuck. She was just going to have to make the best of it. “I’ve got a change of clothes in the car.”

The information had Brian’s smile widening. “You’re a Cavanaugh, all right. Always prepared.”

His compliment reminded her of something. Greer shifted slightly. “About that, sir?” she began, letting her voice trail off a little.

Brian waited.

There were seven of them, seven “new” members of the family. There were the four who belonged to his bride of a little more than a year, and then there were the three who none of them had been prepared for. Triplets who comprised his late brother Mike’s secret other family. Lila’s children, all adults and all on the force, went by her first husband’s surname while Greer and her brothers had her late mother’s. All seven were told that they were welcomed to change their names to Cavanaugh if they wanted to.

Name change or not, that was what they were. Cavanaughs. But the decision strictly belonged to the seven individuals involved. He’d heard that it was going to be an “all-or-nothing” deal. The “jury” was still out on which way they would ultimately lean.

Or maybe the jury was ready to come in, he thought, looking down at the young woman who reminded him so much of Mike’s daughter, Patience.

“Yes?” he prodded.

She pressed her lips together. “For my part, I’ve decided yes.”

“Yes?” he echoed, unclear if it was “yes” she’d change her surname to Cavanaugh or “yes,” she’d keep the one she already had.

“Yes,” she repeated. “If it were only up to me, I’d like to change my last name to Cavanaugh. It’d be an honor.”

“We’d all like that,” he assured her. “Especially Andrew. And the honor goes both ways,” he added. “Anything else?”

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