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“Good eye,” Andrew said, temporarily taking refuge in the minutia of ordinary banter.
He angled his vehicle into the rather tight space and was out of the driver’s side in a matter of seconds. He heard the passenger door slamming shut and paused, waiting for Rose to join him.
“Don’t wait for me,” his wife said, waving him toward the ER entrance. “Just go!”
Nodding, Andrew made his way to the rear ER doors quickly. How many times had he been here over the course of his career and then some? Far too many to count, he thought. Once, years back, he’d even been brought here himself.
It never got any easier, he decided.
It took Rose two beats to catch up and be at his side.
“You move fast for an old man,” she told him, trying to tease Andrew and lighten the huge weight that she knew had to be weighing down on him.
“Not that old,” Andrew replied.
Just then the young woman behind the registration desk turned toward them. A look of mild recognition crossed her face.
The next moment the pieces of the puzzle were falling into place. “You’re here about Seamus Cavanaugh, aren’t you?”
Under ordinary circumstances, Andrew might have said something light in response, but these were not ordinary circumstances. They were scarier than he could ever remember them being. His father had been beaten, possibly shot. Add to that the man had age working against him. Despite trying to keep a positive attitude, this was not the best of scenarios.
Andrew got down to business immediately. “Yes, we are. How is he?”
“Grandpa’s a hearty warhorse, Dad. You know that,” his oldest daughter, Callie, said as she hurried up to join him.
She was not alone. Behind her was her husband, Benton Montgomery, as well as her two brothers, Shaw and Clay, and her sisters, Teri and Rayn, along with each of their spouses.
Hugging her father, she said, “When Mom called to tell me what happened, I got the word out. Most of the family’s either already here or on their way.”
Rose smiled at her husband when he turned toward her. “I thought it wouldn’t hurt to have a first floor full of Cavanaughs praying for Seamus’s recovery. God can’t ignore this many like-minded people all asking for the same favor.”
Though he tried to mask it, the breath he released was shaky. “Well, that would explain the crowded parking lot. Let’s hope you’re right,” Andrew said to his wife. It was obvious to Rose that he was afraid to be too confident about the outcome.
“I’m always right,” Rose informed him with a confidence she really didn’t feel. She looked around the immediate area. “Anyone know where your granddad’s doctor is?” she asked the ever-growing sea of people.
Dax Cavanaugh spoke up first. “He was here a minute ago,” he told his aunt.
Brian Cavanaugh, Aurora’s chief of detectives, came up behind his son and put his hand on Dax’s shoulder as he addressed his sister-in-law. “I’ll have him paged, Rose.” Turning, Brian spotted an official-looking nurse and headed straight for her. When he saw that she was about to turn away, he called out to get her attention. “Ms.? Excuse me, Ms.!” Brian sped up his pace.
Marsha Williams, whose newly bestowed official title was head nurse of the ER, stopped in her tracks and slowly turned around. The pasted-on friendly smile quickly turned into a wary expression. Before she could stop herself, she murmured, “Oh, lord, they warned me about this.”
Brian cocked his silvery head. “Who warned you about what?” he asked in an amicable voice.
“The last head nurse. Rachel Rubin. She told me that sooner or later—most likely sooner—there would be a flood of you people in here because one of your own was hurt in the line of duty and that you wouldn’t leave until you were absolutely sure that the law-enforcement person was going to pull through.” She had a tablet with her and scrolled through it now, checking on new admissions and recent patients who had been brought into the ER. “But no one like that was brought in.”
“Try again, dear,” Brian’s wife, Lila, instructed the head nurse. There was no mistaking the authority beneath the friendly voice. For the woman’s benefit, the recently retired detective began to fill her in. “Seamus Cavanaugh was brought in unconscious less than—”
Recognition entered the head nurse’s eyes as they came to rest on a recent entry.
“Oh, here he is,” the woman declared. Marsha raised her head. “Dr. Iverson is overseeing his case,” she reported.
“And what’s the name of the doctor who’s actually doing something for my grandfather?” Detective Troy Cavanaugh asked, a note of impatience in his voice.
Marsha Williams’s somewhat high-handed attitude receded. “I’ll go get the doctor,” she replied, moving away.
Having quietly slipped into the circle gathered around the woman, Andrew smiled at the head nurse. “Thank you,” he said in a subdued, civil-sounding voice.
The former chief of police turned toward the rest of his family as the nurse hurried away to find the missing physician.
“Anyone have any more information on what happened than what we already know?” Andrew asked the various members of the family around him.
“Sounds like a mugging gone bad,” his younger brother Sean answered. Several other heads nodded. “Not much to go on yet,” Sean concluded.
“Who found him?” Brian asked, throwing out the question to anyone who could answer it.
“A guy walking his dog,” his daughter, Riley, volunteered. “He called a patrolman.”
“Who was the detective who was first on the scene?” Andrew asked.
“That would be me,” Detective Finley Cavanaugh said, raising his hand as he stepped forward to the front of what was quickly becoming a very large crowd. “I caught the case and I was hoping to have a few words with your father, Uncle Andrew.”
“So are we, Finn,” Andrew replied with feeling. “So are we.” He looked around, hoping to see the ER doctor cutting through the growing gathering of his relatives.
Rose tugged on her husband’s arm. When he looked quizzically in her direction, she pointed toward a rather young-looking man in hospital scrubs quickly walking toward them.
“Looks like maybe the doctor’s finally going to tell us what’s happening,” she said.
Dr. Joshua Logan had recently transferred to Aurora from a hospital located on the opposite coast. He was still getting acclimated to the mild weather. His easygoing manner belied that he was a top-notch emergency-room physician.
Dr. Logan quickly assessed the crowd, then introduced himself. “The good news,” he continued after shaking the hands of the people nearest him, “is that there doesn’t seem to be any internal bleeding or a skull fracture.”
“And the bad news?” Andrew asked since the doctor’s tone clearly indicated that there was a downside as well.
“I’m afraid that your father’s pride was badly wounded.”
Chapter 2 (#u544f9a08-5b66-5a19-b05d-90cf9f5b7cc2)
“Wait,” Andrew responded suddenly as the doctor’s words registered. “Does that mean that my father’s conscious now?” There was no missing the eager hope resonating in his voice.
“He was for a few minutes,” Dr. Logan qualified. “But when I told your father that I wanted to keep him here overnight for observation, he started to become very agitated. I thought that it was best if I gave him a sedative.”
Brian wanted the ER doctor to realize that their father wasn’t just being difficult. “The problem is our father doesn’t really like being in a hospital,” he explained.
Dr. Logan nodded, curtailing the need for any further explanation. “I completely sympathize, but I still want to keep your father for twenty-four hours, just to make sure he’s all right before I discharge him.” His expression turned serious. “Your father did sustain a severe blow to his head,” he told the family gathered around him. “I’m sure none of you want any unpleasant surprises suddenly coming up if he goes home too soon.”
“Do what you need to do, Doc,” Andrew told the emergency physician, speaking on behalf of the entire family. “We want to be sure to keep that annoying old man around for a lot more years to come.”
Dr. Logan seemed to take Andrew’s words seriously. “Well, barring any more unforeseen incidents like this one, I’d say that you should probably get your wish. Except for being banged around and getting a number of cuts and bruises, your father appears to have a very strong constitution.”
Andrew blew out a breath. “That’s definitely reassuring. When can we see him?” the former chief of police asked.
While hearing everything that Dr. Logan had just said was definitely making him feel more hopeful, Andrew still felt a very strong need to see his father with his own eyes before he could begin to rest easy.
“Tomorrow morning,” Dr. Logan replied automatically.
As the ER physician turned on his heel to leave, Rose quickly moved directly into the man’s path.
“Doctor, please,” she said, then looked toward her husband.
Logan read between the lines. The woman’s meaning was clear. “All right. But just one of you,” he asserted, raising his voice so that it carried in order for everyone to hear. “And just for five minutes, is that clear? If Mr. Cavanaugh should come to, I don’t want him getting any more agitated.”
“Understood,” Andrew responded solemnly.
Logan nodded. “All right then. You’ll find him in the third bed.” Since all the beds were hidden behind individual curtains, the ER physician offered, “I’ll take you to him.”
Andrew hesitated, looking back at his two younger brothers, silently asking if either of them wanted to go in his place.
But no one contested the decision. “You’re the head of the family,” Brian told him.
“Go on in before the doctor changes his mind,” Sean urged.
With a grateful nod, Andrew quickly followed Dr. Logan out of the area.
They went down a long corridor and then the doctor abruptly stopped.
“He’s right in here,” Logan said, parting the curtain just enough to give Andrew a glimpse inside the interior. “Remember, five minutes,” the doctor cautioned again and then left in order to give Andrew some privacy with his father.
Drawing closer, Andrew very gently took his father’s hand in his. For the very first time that he could remember, his father’s ordinarily strong hands somehow looked and felt almost fragile. They weren’t the powerful hands he recalled, that seemed capable of lifting up and holding anything.
Hands that seemed almost inconceivably strong and incredibly capable.
Andrew squeezed his father’s hand, but Seamus didn’t squeeze back.
When he thought of what might have happened, Andrew felt tears spring to his eyes. He blinked hard to keep them from falling. This wasn’t the time to fall apart, he thought.
“You gave us one hell of a scare, old man,” Andrew whispered thickly to the unconscious man in the hospital bed. The sight of a bandage wrapped around his father’s head, all but covering his right eye, hurt to look at. What if the damage had been worse? “What did those lowlifes do to you?” Andrew asked, trying to control his mounting anger. “And why were you even there at this time of night? You have people for that,” he insisted almost angrily. This didn’t make sense and it didn’t have to happen. “Young people,” Andrew stressed. “Haven’t you learned how to delegate yet?”
Andrew sighed, answering his own question. “Of course you haven’t. You’re a Cavanaugh and you feel you have something to prove—to yourself if not to the rest of us.”
There was no answer forthcoming from his father even though Andrew would have given anything to have heard his father’s voice as the older man attempted to explain his actions.
But he just continued being unconscious.
“I sure hope you can tell us who did this when you come to, because you know that you’ve got every single member of the family dying to make that person pay for hurting you.”
For a second, he could have sworn he saw his father’s eyes flutter. But then they were still and his father continued sleeping.
“Chief?” Logan said respectfully, peering in between the curtains.
Andrew knew that his time was up. “I’ve got to go, Dad.” He leaned over his father’s bed and pressed a kiss to the older man’s forehead. “I’m happy you’re still with us. Happier than you’ll probably ever know.”
Andrew went to retrieve his father’s cell phone from the plastic bag where his clothes and possessions had been placed. Finding it, the former chief of police stepped away from the hospital bed and reentered the corridor.
Despite the fact that his father was unconscious and couldn’t help provide any leads, it was time to get this investigation started. In his experience, there was always someone, whether they knew it or not, who had seen something.
The trick was to find that someone.
With renewed purpose, Andrew went back out to where the rest of his family was waiting. He looked around for Brenda, one of Brian’s daughters-in-law. Brenda was the head of the IT section in the crime-scene investigation lab. He needed the young woman’s expertise at the moment.
Spotting her next to her husband, Dax, Andrew headed over to them. Brenda and Dax were instantly alert the second he approached them.
“How is he?” Dax asked before his wife could.
“Still unconscious. He looks pretty banged-up,” Andrew admitted. “But he’s a tough old bird. He’ll be issuing orders by morning,” Andrew said confidently.
Murmurs of “That’s great” and “Thank God” echoed throughout the area.
Andrew held out the phone he had taken to Brenda. “This is my father’s phone,” he told her. “Pull whatever you can off it so we can retrace his steps before he was attacked.”
Brenda immediately took possession of the cell phone, wrapping it in her handkerchief to avoid smudging any possible fingerprints that might be on it and didn’t belong to anyone in the family.
“Right away, sir,” she promised.
“Once the chief of police, always the chief of police,” Brian commented to his older brother with a smile.
“Look,” Andrew began, “I know that technically I don’t have the authority to ask anyone to do anything, but—”
“Sure you do,” Shaw, the current chief of police and Andrew’s son, said, interrupting his father. “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll find the SOB who did this to Grandpa,” he promised. “There’ll be so many of us out there combing the area, we’re going to wind up tripping over one another. But we’ll find him.”
Andrew looked over toward Finley, who had been keeping silent, but Andrew could guess what was going on in the young man’s mind.
“Finn was the one who was first on the scene,” he reminded the others. “That makes him the lead detective on this.”
“Once I realized who the victim was, I knew that there would be no shortage of help with the investigation.” Moving toward the center of the group, the tall, good-looking, dark-haired young man’s green eyes swept over the people standing closest to him.
Finley Cavanaugh belonged to the other branch of the family, the branch that Andrew had uncovered when he went to search for Seamus’s younger brother, Murdoch. Murdoch and Seamus had been separated at a very young age when their parents divorced, splitting the family in two and going their separate ways.
Things didn’t always have fairy-tale resolutions, despite the best intentions. Murdoch died before the two brothers could be reunited. Even so, Murdoch’s four children and their families slowly migrated to Aurora and eventually became, to a great extent, part of the city’s police department. Some had already become police detectives before they transferred, while others were eager to prove themselves in this new venue.
All were happy to become part of a larger whole.
And now they found themselves united in a less joyous undertaking: trying to find and bring to justice the cold-blooded carjacker and would-be killer who had done this to one of their own.
“This isn’t a matter of territory and I’m not about to try to pull rank here,” Finn told the group. “We all want to get whoever did this to Seamus and then left him to die in a deserted parking lot,” he said, his voice growing cold and steely.
Several voices resounded in the group, agreeing with what Finn had just said.
Riley shivered. “If that man hadn’t been walking his dog when he was…” Her voice trailed off, as she was unable to finish her thought.
