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And she had no doubt that the D.A. knew exactly who to call. And how to get someone to do what he wanted when he wanted it. A great many people in Aurora owed him favors. She knew damn well that any kind of protest voiced on her part was useless and might even work against her. You didn’t go far in this office if you got on D.A. Ezra Kleinmann’s bad side. And you got there one of two ways. By consistently losing cases or by going up against him.
She knew enough to pick her battles carefully. Her father had taught her that. It was one of the first lessons she’d ever learned.
Brian Cavanaugh had taught her something equally important, as well: how to lose graciously. Not that losing had ever been a large factor in Brian Cavanaugh’s professional life. Personally, however, was another story. He’d lost his wife of twenty-five years, a woman he had looked forward to spending the rest of his natural life with. The loss had been difficult to come to terms with. It caused him to teach his children to be prepared for the worst—just in case.
This was one of those times to step back from the line of scrimmage. Janelle forced a smile she in no way felt. Protesting being assigned a bodyguard, someone who would perforce intrude into the fabric of her life, imposing his will over hers, might be useless, but no one said she had to like it.
“How soon are we getting the bodyguards?” Woods asked.
He sounded eager and relieved, Janelle thought. Relieved that he didn’t have to appear as if he were less than manly because he really wanted someone watching his back until this case was over.
She knew that had been on the assistant D.A.’s mind for the last half hour. It had been apparent in their conversation as they’d returned from the courthouse. She’d asked him several questions regarding the finer points of some of the procedures they were implementing. The answers she’d gotten had been rendered by a man whose thoughts were severely distracted and scattered.
Growing up with three brothers had made her competitive. It had also made her motherly on occasion. She felt the A.D.A’s discomfort, both over the threat and at his reaction to it.
Changing direction, she’d abruptly asked, “Wasn’t that Adam Shepherd I saw outside the courthouse just before the gunshots went off?”
Her question had sliced through the fog and Woods had looked at her. “Yes.”
She grinned. Shepherd was a highly sought after divorce lawyer famed for getting his clients exorbitant alimony settlements.
“So maybe the shooter was a disgruntled ex-husband looking to get revenge because Shepherd had raked him over the coals.”
Woods had looked at her then, a tired smile on his lips, as if to tell her that he knew what she was up to. “I don’t think so, Janelle. But it’s a nice theory.”
“Might be more than a theory. People surprise you sometimes.”
He’d nodded, looking directly at her. “Yes, they do.”
Now, without waiting for further comment or questions, the D.A. pressed a button on his telephone console. “Doris, send the two gentlemen in.”
A soft, disembodied voice informed him, “There’s only one here, sir. A Detective Novak.”
Kleinmann frowned. “Where’s the other?”
“Hasn’t gotten here yet, sir,” Doris told him. “But he did call in,” she added, “said he’d be here shortly. Had something to do first.”
The frown on Kleinmann’s brow deepened as he released the button.
Not that the D.A. said anything outright, but Janelle could see that the vein in his neck was a bit more prominent than usual. That was always an indication for those who worked with the D.A. to tread lightly until the vein returned to its normal size.
The door to the D.A.’s inner office opened and an average-looking man with dark brown hair and a nondescript, slightly wrinkled suit entered.
Detective Novak, Janelle thought.
The man looked vaguely familiar. Their paths had crossed somewhere along the line, she assumed. When their eyes met, she nodded at him.
The detective went on to extend his hand to the D.A. “John Novak, sir.”
Kleinmann took the hand that was offered. “Detective Novak, this is Assistant District Attorney Stephen Woods. It’ll be your job to see that not a single one of the many hairs on his head come to any harm. That goes for the rest of his body, as well.” The D.A. permitted himself a very dry chuckle.
The chuckle was blotted out by the sound of a door being opened and then closed in the outer office. A quick exchange of voices followed. The look on Novak’s face indicated that he recognized the voice of the person who had entered.
Her bodyguard, probably.
Bracing herself, Janelle turned around. Only to discover that she wasn’t quite braced enough. Walking into the D.A.’s office was the very same man who had thrown himself on top of her less than an hour ago.
This day, she thought grimly, just kept getting worse and worse.
Chapter 3
Sawyer made no attempt to mask his displeasure, no attempt to allow his facial muscles to relax out of their current frown.
Other than undercover work when it was necessary, sometimes even to save his own life, Sawyer didn’t believe in lying. The way he saw it, looking pleased right now would have been lying.
He didn’t much like the idea of being asked to babysit. Which was how he saw his new assignment. He was too old for that and too experienced to be wasted on a menial detail. And to Detective Sawyer Boone, a not-so-recent LAPD transplant, that was exactly what being a so-called bodyguard for some bit of fluff currently attached to the district attorney’s office was: the job of glorified babysitter.
Sawyer wasn’t looking to be, nor did he want to be, a glorified anything. He wanted to be on the streets, working undercover. Facing life-and-death situations where maybe, just maybe, death would someday be the viable alternative.
That way, he wouldn’t have to do it himself. Wouldn’t have to actually take his own life. There didn’t seem to be another way to end the unending onslaught of nightmares. The nightmares that haunted him both waking and sleeping. Nightmares about Allison.
Allison had been senselessly wiped out less than a month before their wedding, killed because she’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. While two worthless pieces of scum had been trying to even some imaginary score.
She’d been in her car, stopped at a light, when she’d been caught by a stray bullet during a drive-by shooting. A gang member had peppered a rival gang member’s home. And snuffed out his Allison’s life.
If Allison hadn’t been so damn altruistic, if she hadn’t been part of that free legal aid firm, if she’d just gone into practice with that Beverly Hills firm that had wanted her instead of following in her father’s foot steps, she would be here today.
Or rather, Sawyer thought, his expression dark as he looked from one person to the other in the D.A.’s office, he would have been there. With her. Living with Allison in Southern California instead of here, being asked to do stand guard over the chief of detectives’ little darling because the woman had been spooked by the sound of gunfire.
His superior, Lieutenant Richard Reynolds, had been waiting for him when he’d gotten back from testifying in court. At first, he’d thought the man had been just making conversation, informing him of what he’d just heard had happened. Maybe even waiting for Sawyer to fill in the details. But it had very quickly become apparent that he was being given an assignment. The only kind of assignment he would have turned down. If he’d been given a choice, which he hadn’t.
The incident had taken place less than an hour ago and already the call for bodyguards had been put out and filled. No paperwork or red tape to impede anything.
Apparently, he thought cynically as his eyes washed over the petite blonde in the navy suit, when necessary, things moved fast within the halls of the Aurora police department.
Protesting the assignment would do no good. He’d just wrapped up a case and was considered free. The fact that he didn’t have a relationship of any sort with the woman or any of her family was considered a plus.
“She’s a mite headstrong, I hear,” Reynolds had told him. “All the Cavanaugh women are,” he’d added after lowering his voice. “The D.A. requested someone she couldn’t bully into her way of thinking.”
Well, that was him, all right. He wasn’t about to be bullied by anyone, least of all a woman who thought her name earned her privileges.
Sawyer took slow, careful measure of her now, the way he would have any assignment he’d been given, any person he encountered on the job. Survival usually depended on observation.
He had to admit that, at about five-four, with no spare meat on her bones and honey-blond hair worn up and away from her face, the woman was fairly easy on the eyes. But it wasn’t his eyes that concerned him. He had no desire to be a glorified babysitter under any circumstances and, while the crime organization in question was a formidable one, he was of the personal opinion that what had happened in front of the courthouse an hour ago was an isolated incident, meant as a warning, nothing more.
The man Marco Wayne bore allegiance to was not about to waste money or manpower getting into an unofficial war with the members of the Aurora police department or the district attorney’s office over some lowlife, even if that lowlife was Marco’s son. Marco Wayne had to be acting on his own. And treading a very fine line. In order not to do anything that would put him in disfavor with his boss, or jeopardize his own life, he would have only done something to shake up the D.A.’s office, nothing more.
And the sooner he was done with this assignment, the better, Sawyer thought.
Janelle’s eyes met the detective’s. The connection was instantaneous. She could read his every thought. And it wasn’t flattering.
Janelle squared her shoulders.
Damn but this man thought he could walk on water. It was evident in his eyes, in his expression, in his very gait as he strode into the office. If anything, the man looked even more surly now than he had when he’d pushed her down onto the pavement.
And covered her body with his own, she reminded herself.
Even at her most annoyed, she always tried to be fair. And the truth was, she supposed, she owed this man. She could have been seriously hurt, or worse, if he hadn’t shielded her.
Only in the recesses of her mind did she admit to herself that she wasn’t the superwoman she pretended to be. Janelle frowned. Being somewhat in debt to him, however unintentionally and however unwillingly, meant that she couldn’t protest too loudly about his being assigned to be her bodyguard.
Damn, she thought again.
She shifted her eyes over toward the man whose name appeared on her paychecks.
“Do you really think this is necessary?” she asked, trying to appeal to his legendary frugal nature. This kind of thing cost the department more than just a little money. “Maybe we’re overreacting.” She said we and hoped that it wasn’t overly evident that she actually meant that he was overreacting.
Kleinmann beckoned her over to his desk. Feeling a little foolish, bracing herself for a lecture, she came forward. Her boss lowered his voice, as if to keep it from carrying to the other three occupants of the room. Of them, she noticed that only Woods seemed to be straining a little to hear what was coming next.
Her detective looked like a stone statue. He wasn’t even blinking. Dutifully, Janelle leaned in toward the D.A.
“Your father would cut off my head and have it mounted on a pike in the middle of the city if I ignored this incident and then something wound up happening to you.”
“If anything did—which it won’t,” she interjected, “I’d take the blame, tell him it was my fault. That I refused protection.”
The look on Kleinmann’s face told her she might as well have been reciting The Iliad in the original Greek for all the impression she was making on him with her rhetoric. Kleinmann had made up his mind and there was no budging him.
Having her father as important as he was in the hierarchy of the police department was at times more of a curse than a blessing. She was proud of him, but there was no denying that she’d put up with her share of grief because of who he was, as well. Her own pride and determination had never allowed her to take advantage of the Cavanaugh name, but that never stopped people from thinking she’d advanced quickly because she was the daughter of the chief of detectives and had prevailed on her father to fast-track her.
It was damn frustrating. She expressly didn’t mention anything that went on in the D.A.’s office whenever she did get together with her father.
There were times like this, when she was made to pay the price of nepotism without ever having reaped any of the rewards, that almost made her wish she had taken advantage of the Cavanaugh name. She knew that the thinking was, with so many of her relatives embedded in law enforcement, and her cousin Callie even married to a judge, there wasn’t anything she couldn’t get done, no ticket not taken care of.
Except that she didn’t work that way, hadn’t been raised that way. None of them had.
Virtue is its own reward, her father had taught her. It had to be, she thought now, because nothing else sure as hell was.
Janelle struggled to suppress a resigned, less-than-thrilled sigh. Didn’t matter if she was raised that way or not, she was going to wind up being made to pay for just having the Cavanaugh name.
Okay, she could make the best of this, Janelle told herself. Or at least be civil.
Turning toward the man fate and the D.A. seemed determined to saddle her with, she put her hand out to him. “So, I guess you and I are going to be spending some time together.”
He looked down at her hand and after a beat shook it once before dropping it. The man acted as if any contact outside of the line of duty was distasteful to him. “I guess so.”
Oh, this is just going to be a barrel of laughs, Janelle thought.
And how was it possible, unless you were some sort of a trained ventriloquist, to utter words without moving your lips? she wondered, dropping her hand to her side. Her unwanted bodyguard seemed to be communicating through clenched teeth and barely moving his lips. If she didn’t know better, she would have said that he was using mental telepathy. Except that it was obvious to her that she wasn’t the only one who had heard the deep, rumbling voice.
She found it difficult to keep her annoyance under wraps, but she was determined not to make any undue waves. When she’d signed on to the D.A.’s office, she’d known it wouldn’t be all fun and games, that there would be times she’d find trying, but she’d just assumed it would have to do with the workload and hours spent, not with having to put up with Darth Vader’s better-looking cousin.
Her eyes shifted toward Kleinmann. The man looked rather satisfied with himself for some reason. Sure, why not? He wasn’t the one who had to put up with this tall, hulking shadow.
“How long?” she asked.
“Until the trial is over.” Kleinmann appeared to consider his answer, then added, “Maybe longer.”
Janelle’s eyes widened. Was this some kind of torture devised for assistants to the A.D.A.? Like an initiation for a fraternity?
She glanced over toward the assistant district attorney, hoping to get an inkling of support. But Woods didn’t seem put off by the idea of having a constant companion wherever he went. Well, maybe he didn’t mind, but she did. A line had to be drawn somewhere, didn’t it?
“Longer?” she echoed, staring at Kleinmann. “Why longer?”
“Retaliation—for when we do convict,” he added in a voice that refused to entertain the possibility of anything less than a conviction. No one liked to lose, but Kleinmann had made it known that he passionately hated it.
“Maybe I can get his lawyer to accept a plea,” Woods suggested.
Kleinmann shook his head. “I doubt it. Not after he hears about the attempted shooting. He’ll feel as if his side has all the marbles.”
“It’s not about marbles,” Janelle interjected. “It’s about justice.” She saw Sawyer roll his eyes. Was that contempt she saw on his face, or just badly displayed amusement? She turned on him, her patience at an end. “What? You have something to say? Why don’t you say it out loud, Detective Boone, so that the rest of us can share in your wisdom?”
He’d never liked being singled out, not when he’d worked in L.A. and not here. He was one of those people who wanted no attention, craved no spotlight. He just wanted to do his job and go home.
“Nothing,” he bit off.
She had to be satisfied with that. Until after the D.A. had dismissed them from his office. Once outside Kleinmann’s door and clear of his secretary, a woman who had the hearing range of a bat, Janelle abruptly stopped walking and turned to the man at her side.
“Why did you roll your eyes back there?”
She’d thrown him off by stopping and by the antagonistic tone in her voice. He had no desire to engage her in conversation or to have any exchange of ideas. This woman was his assignment, just like infiltrating a local drug dealer’s gang, following the trail to the top, had been his assignment, the one that had brought him to court this morning.
Except that with the latter, he’d assumed a persona, had come up with a speech pattern, a background for himself, a made-up life he’d stepped into. Here, he was supposed to be Sawyer Boone, a detective on the APD, and he didn’t do all that well as himself. Because being himself meant sharing, something he’d only done successfully once in his life, and she was gone.
“You don’t want to know,” he told her.
Now there was a chauvinistic answer if ever she’d come across one. Raised with and around as many males as she had been, Janelle still had never experienced chauvinism in its truest sense. She was tested as a person, as a Cavanaugh, not as a female in a male world.
“If I hadn’t wanted to hear the answer, Detective Boone,” she told him evenly, “I wouldn’t have asked the question.”
He watched her for a long moment, as if he was weighing something. And then he said, “Because if you think any of this is about justice, you’re more naive than you look.”
Her eyes narrowed as she asked, “And just how naive do I look?”
Sawyer snorted. “Like you could be their poster girl.”
Normally, being referred to as a girl didn’t rankle her. She had no problem with the word because she had no problem with her self-esteem. And anyone who knew her knew what kind of mettle she was made of. But for some unknown reason, everything out of this man’s mouth, including probably hello, promised to rankle her. Clear down to her bones.
She didn’t waste her breath denying his statement or reading him the riot act because of it. She had a bigger question on her mind. “If you find this assignment beneath you, why didn’t you protest when you were given it?”
