Cavanaugh Stakeout. Marie Ferrarella

       Chapter 3

      “Hey, Finn,” Detective Joe Harley, Finn’s occasional partner, called out as he stuck his head into the robbery squad room. “There’s a woman out here who’s looking for you. She says she wants to talk.” Harley grinned at him. “Looks like you finally got lucky.”

      Finn was already on his feet. Armed with the address that Sean had just given him, he was just about to leave the precinct. He wanted to talk to the twenty-year-old who had just become his prime suspect. Unless this was really important, he didn’t have the time to waste on someone coming in to report something that she only thought was missing but in reality had just been misplaced. It didn’t matter how attractive she was. His focus was on something far more important.

      “You talk to her, Harley,” he told the other detective.

      But the ten-year veteran he sometimes teamed up with shook his head.

      “Believe me—” Harley glanced over his shoulder toward the hallway “—I’d like to, but she said she only wants to speak to the person in charge of the investigation concerning the stolen car found in Merryweather Park…and that would be you.”

      Finn immediately snapped to attention. Maybe this woman did have something significant to tell him after all. “All right, Harley, show the lady in,” Finn instructed.

      Harley pretended to salute as he sighed and retreated. “Y’know, some guys just have all the luck,” he muttered under his breath.

      Finn wasn’t sure just how to take that—until the detective returned less than a minute later. Walking beside Harley was a statuesque blonde with a knockout figure that could, in his opinion, bring strong men to their knees and make them salivate, as impossible fantasies began to dance in their heads.

      However, despite her other attributes, it was the woman’s clear-water blue eyes that instantly caught Finn’s attention. He knew it wasn’t possible, but her eyes looked as if they could see right through a man, and like the fictional superheroine with her golden lasso, would allow nothing but the truth to fall from his lips.

      Getting a hold of himself, Finn managed to regain the use of his tongue just as she came up to him. He put his hand out as he introduced himself. “I’m Detective Finn Cavan—”

      The woman slipped her hand into his and Finn could have sworn that there was a momentary spark of electricity shooting up his arm. He dismissed it as adrenaline, with everything that was going on.

      “I know who you are, Detective Cavanaugh,” the woman said, cutting him off as she smiled warmly at him.

      “Well, that puts you one up on me,” Finn told her. He didn’t like being caught at a disadvantage. “Detective Harley didn’t tell me your name.”

      “Well, that’s easily solved. I’m Nikola Kowalski. Nik, to my friends,” she added, putting her other hand over his as she shook it.

      Because she seemed so friendly, something within Finn backed off. He didn’t trust people outside the family who were this outgoing. They usually had some sort of a hidden agenda. Women who looked as exceptionally attractive as this one did were usually the type to use their looks to disarm people.

      Finn’s voice grew distant as he asked, “Do you know something about the car that was just recovered, Ms. Kowalski?”

      Nik picked up on his cool, reserved voice immediately. He was attempting to maintain distance between them. Too bad. She preferred a warmer, friendlier attitude, but she didn’t need him to be all warm and toasty in order for her to do this.

      “If you’re going to go the formal route,” she said, referring to his using her surname. “The w is pronounced like a v,” she informed him. “But ‘Nik’ is a lot easier,” she stressed.

      He guessed right. The woman who looked as if she had just stepped off the cover of a swimsuit magazine intended to use her feminine wiles to pump information out of him. But he had no intention of being pumped.

      “We’re getting off-topic,” Finn told her. “What do you know about the car that was found?”

      That hadn’t become public knowledge yet. The details about his grandfather’s brother being savagely attacked and left for dead were being kept tightly under wraps. If she knew about it, then she had to be involved somehow. He looked at her with heightened interest.

      She saw the spark in his eyes and wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. He hadn’t acted as if he was interested in her a moment ago. But she did answer his question just to move this along.

      “Well, for starters,” she told the steely-eyed detective in front of her, “I am fairly certain that Marilyn Palmer didn’t steal it.”

      Considering that he had only been given the woman’s name a few minutes ago, Finn’s suspicion that the blonde talking to him was somehow involved increased tenfold. His eyes narrowed as he scrutinized her.

      “How would you even know that we thought that?” he challenged. Not waiting for an answer, he decided to approach this squarely and asked, “Are you mixed up in this in some way?”

      “Only as a Good Samaritan,” she told him.

      “You’re going to have to elaborate on that, Ms. Ko-val-ski,” he said, deliberately stretching out her name.

      Nik winced a little at his belabored pronunciation of her last name. It was right even though, at the same time, it somehow felt wrong. Despite that, she wasn’t insulted. “‘Nik,’ please,” she corrected. She had a temper, but it took a lot to arouse it. She decided to just keep it in check. She had a hunch that she would get further that way. “Maybe I should have told you that I’m an insurance investigator.”

      His expression didn’t change, other than to allow some of the impatience he was feeling to seep in. “I still fail to see the connection here,” Finn told her between slightly clenched teeth. “It’s far, far too early for any insurance claim to have been filed.”

      She had a habit of jumping ahead and burying the headline. Nik took a breath and started again.

      “Marilyn’s mother is a friend of mine. She came to me with her concerns. She’s afraid that her daughter might be in over her head, running around with someone she feels might be taking advantage of her and getting her into some sort of trouble.” Her friend hadn’t given her any names yet, but when she heard through her sources about the carjacking, Nik immediately thought that might be a place to start.

      He thought of the way Seamus had looked when he’d been called to the crime scene. He’d been on the ground, unconscious, deathly pale, with the gash in his head bleeding profusely.

      “I’d say that it looks like she passed the ‘running’ part and is now smack-dab embedded in a very specific kind of ‘trouble.’ Where is she?” Finn asked.

      “I have no idea,” Nik answered honestly. “I’m trying to track her down.”

      He didn’t believe her. “You could be charged with obstructing an investigation, not to mention vehicular theft after the fact.”

      Rather than having intimidated her, Finn was surprised to hear the woman laugh. He hadn’t said anything remotely funny. When he looked at her, puzzled, she said, “I bet you say that to all the girls, Detective.”

      As far as he was concerned, this was not a laughing matter. “Only the ones I arrest,” he responded darkly. “I want you to know that if you’re withholding evidence, you’re on very thin ice—”

      She