Cavanaugh Undercover

As his eyes traveled over the length of her, she felt as if she’d just been undressed.

“Well, if you don’t want to stand out, maybe you should be wearing a bag or a sack over your head, because your looks make you a standout in any circle,” Brennan told her.

Tiana stared at him, stunned. “Are you flirting with me?”

He spread his hands wide in innocence. “Just stating it like it is.”

“In other words, you’re flirting with me,” she concluded.

Think again, she warned him silently. She didn’t trust men, especially good-looking ones. “You can save your breath,” she told him out loud. “I am much too rich for your blood.”

He laughed softly. Brennan couldn’t help being amused by her efforts to put him in his place.

“How do you know what I can afford? Maybe I’ve got a bulging … billfold,” he concluded suggestively.

Her eyes narrowed. She was going to enjoy bringing the law down on this one, she thought.

Cavanaugh Undercover

Marie Ferrarella

www.millsandboon.co.uk

MARIE FERRARELLA, a USA TODAY bestselling and RITA® Award-winning author, has written more than two hundred books for Mills & Boon, some under the name Marie Nicole. Her romances are beloved by fans worldwide. Visit her website, www.marieferrarella.com.

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To

My wonderful readers who wanted

To read about more Cavanaughs.

This newest branch

Belongs to you.

And to Alex Yu who

Told me his friend’s name and

Made a character come to life.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Extract

Prologue

On his way home from the neighboring city of Shady Canyon, lost in his own thoughts, Andrew Cavanaugh smiled broadly to himself.

It had been a good, extremely productive and satisfying visit that had lasted a good deal longer than he’d first anticipated. Dusk had come and gone, and evening, with its long, engulfing shadows, had taken up residence along his route, allowing the hint of a fog to tag along, further intensifying the loneliness of this stretch of land.

It wasn’t often that the former chief of Aurora’s police department patted himself on the back for something, but this definitely was one of those rare times. Through his efforts of relentless investigation, he’d not only discovered the missing branch of his family that his father had charged him with finding, but made contact with them.

Contact? Hell, he made arrangements to have the entire bunch—and it was a rather large bunch—come out to his place a week from next Saturday so that they could get acquainted with a lot of family that they hadn’t even realized existed.

Who would have thought that the missing branch of the family was only a city away? And that those members were all, just as they were here, entrenched in some form of law enforcement?

Andrew didn’t normally believe in coincidences, but this, certainly, was a huge one.

It was a damn small world, Andrew thought, a deep chuckle echoing within the interior of his sedan.

He was really tired, but at the same time, he was very enthused and extremely pleased with the results of his relentless efforts. He’d called Rose before he left for home and shared the entire experience with her. She was as excited as he was about these new family members. She’d said that she couldn’t wait to meet them. That was his Rose, he thought with a surge of affection.

No two ways about it, the woman was a saint to put up with an unending number of family members and still keep on smiling. There were women who would have the exact opposite reaction.

He’d ended the call by telling her that he was coming home tonight, but it might be late so she shouldn’t wait up.

As if she’d listened to him, he thought with a soft laugh. The light of his life listened to him when it suited her, did what she wanted the rest of the time. She always had.

It didn’t matter. He was a hell of a lucky man and he knew it.

He—

Andrew’s breath caught in his throat as he made out something up on the road just ahead.

The slight fog was beginning to settle in more intensely now, and visibility was definitely being challenged.

Damn, what was that, anyway?

Andrew felt for his shirt pocket. It was empty.

Where had he put his glasses? He should have worn them driving home tonight, but they made him feel old.

Hell, you are old, a voice in his head pointed out. As always, he ignored it. He wasn’t twenty-nine anymore, but he was still in the prime of life. Old was destined to be fifteen years older than he was.

Always.

Andrew squinted. He was almost certain he saw someone staggering up ahead in the road. Not wanting to take any chances, he swerved at the last minute to keep from hitting it. As his car spun to the left, he struggled to regain control of it.

Andrew was so busy trying to steer into the spin, he didn’t see the person in the middle of the road raising a gun until it was too late.

The single, resounding shot went into his windshield, shattering it.

The last thing Andrew Cavanaugh was aware of was the windshield glass falling inside his vehicle like so many bits of fragmented snowflakes.

The pain in his chest consumed him, blotting out the entire world.

* * *

The bent, ragged, homeless man, who had appeared to have been so preoccupied with pawing through the overflowing trash cans that were lined up in the alley like so many drunken revelers, came to attention at the first sound of squealing tires. The vacant look on his face vanished as if it had never existed.

Eyes on the fishtailing white sedan in the middle of the deserted road, the undercover DEA agent heard the gunshot screaming through the night air and then saw the shooter hurrying toward the immobilized vehicle.

By then Brennan Cavanaugh stopped pretending that he was just a hapless spectator, interested only in his own survival, and was galvanized into action. He began sprinting toward the car and, more important, toward the victim he glimpsed inside it.

That was when the shooter obviously realized there was someone else in the vicinity besides the driver who had been presumably taken out by the well-aimed bullet.

Biting off what sounded like a livid curse, the shooter turned around and ran back into the shadows, seeking the cover of night. Undoubtedly focused on survival, the shooter didn’t turn around one last time and so wasn’t able to see the ragged man dragging the former chief of police from his car. Consequently, there was no second shot piercing the night air to finish the job.

Only the sound of running feet growing fainter.

* * *

Brennan checked for a pulse the moment he felt he and the victim were far enough away from the car in case it burst into flames.

It took him two tries, but he finally detected a pulse. An extremely faint one.

“Hang in there, mister,” he told the unconscious man. “Don’t die on me. Don’t let me blow my cover and just possibly my whole career for no reason.”

Feeling around in the deep pockets of his filthy khaki-colored hoodie with his left hand—his right was busy trying to stem the victim’s flow of blood—Brennan pulled out his cell phone and called for an ambulance.

As he did so, he couldn’t shake the strangest feeling that he was watching a chapter of his life slam shut.

And maybe, just maybe, another one creak open.

Chapter 1

“You’ve been nursing that beer for the last hour. Something bothering you, son?”

Brennan Cavanaugh was lost in thought as he leaned against the cool white stucco wall and watched people who constituted his newly discovered family enjoying themselves. It took him a moment to zero in on the man asking the question.

Brennan had an aptitude for names and faces—in his line of work, or former line of work, he corrected himself, he’d had to. He knew the man speaking to him to be Brian Cavanaugh, the Aurora police department’s chief of detectives, younger brother of the man whose life he had saved, an act that had, as he’d silently predicted, terminated an active part of his own career, since he had to blow his cover in order to save Andrew Cavanaugh—his long lost uncle. He couldn’t help thinking that truth could be a lot stranger than fiction.

“Not really,” he replied.

It was the easiest answer to give. In his experience, when people asked how you were doing, or if something was wrong, they really didn’t want to know and certainly not in detail.

But Brian obviously did not fall into that general category, because he pressed a little. “Fakely, then?” Brian asked with an understanding smile.

Brian knew all about people’s reluctance to talk. He’d witnessed it initially from his early days on the force when he questioned victims and suspects. He was aware of it currently because of the office he’d held for a number of years.

Since becoming the chief of detectives, he had come across more than one person who was afraid to share his private feelings because he thought it might affected his work life adversely. Brian’s gift was that he knew instinctively how to separate the two and how much weight to give to what he heard in both capacities: as the chief of detectives and as a relative/friend.

“All right, let’s just say, for the sake of hypothetical argument, that there was something causing you some minor concern. What would that be?” he asked when Brennan made no response to his earlier joking comment.

Because he wasn’t quite ready to talk about it, Brennan went with the most obvious answer. “I’ll be the first to admit that I grew up in a crowd scene. Every holiday, birthday or miscellaneous celebration, there were always acres and acres of family—but this, well, this gives a whole new meaning to words like overwhelmed. I’ve heard of family trees, but this, this is damn near a family forest,” Brennan quipped with a grin that took its time in forming.

Brian laughed. “You have that right,” he readily agreed. “But at the risk of harping, that’s not what’s bothering you.” He saw the suspicious way Brennan looked at him. “Don’t look so surprised, boy. I didn’t get to where I am on good looks alone.” The statement was accompanied by another, this time deeper, laugh. “I’m a fair hand at reading people.” And there was definitely something bothering this young man who had saved his older brother’s life. Brian intended, eventually, to get to the bottom of it. “Now, if you don’t want to talk, I understand. But if you do,” Brian continued, “I am a good man to talk to. I listen.”

Brennan shrugged as he stared down at the light that was being reflected in what was left of his beer. The overhead patio light shimmered seductively on the liquid surface, as if it were flirting with him.

“It’s nothing, sir,” he finally said. “I was just wondering what I was going to do with myself come Monday morning, that’s all.”

Brian appeared slightly puzzled. “I thought you were working undercover for the DEA. Something to do with drug smuggling.”

Brian left the statement vague despite the fact that he knew exactly what the young man next to him had been up to when he rescued Andrew. The moment he’d done that, Brian had made it his business to find out everything he could about the tall, strapping DEA agent with the same last name.

Brennan nodded, avoiding his eyes. “I was.”

“Was,” Brian repeated as if he was trying to see if he’d heard the word correctly.

At the last moment, Brennan withheld a sigh. “Yes, sir.”

Brian was about to tell the younger man not to call him sir, but he knew it would be a wasted effort, so he let it pass. “But you’re not anymore.” It was now an assumption.

Brennan frowned, though he thought it hid it. “No, sir.”

“Case over?” Brennan asked. Obviously his digging hadn’t turned up the whole story.

Brennan shook his head. “No, sir.”

“I see,” Brian replied quietly. And he did because all the pieces suddenly came together. “You blew your cover saving my brother.”

Brennan didn’t want any accolades. He’d done what needed doing. That it cost him wasn’t the victim’s fault. “I had no choice.”

“Some people might argue that you did have a choice.”

At bottom it was an argument that debated the responsibilities of a cameraman. Does he or she watch a scene unfold and film it as it happens no matter what that might be or interfere if what is being filmed depicts something immoral or illegal? Some felt it was their duty to record events as they happened; others felt duty-bound to come in on the side of right.

Brennan shrugged. “Doesn’t matter what anybody argues. Way I see it, I didn’t have a choice. He would have been dead if I just stood and watched.”

Brian smiled and nodded. “Good answer—for all of us. So, does this mean you’re currently out of a job?” he asked.

“Change of venue,” Brennan corrected. “They put me on desk duty.”

“Until we can trust you to keep your assignment foremost on your ‘to-do’ list and not play superhero, you stay behind a desk,” Lieutenant Lisbon, his direct superior, had shouted at him. As fair skinned as they came, Lisbon had a habit of turning an almost bright red whenever he was angry and he had been very angry the day he’d thrown him off the case.

Brian looked at him knowingly. “Let me guess. You’re not a desk duty kind of guy.”

“Nope.”

Brian didn’t even pause before asking, “Have you given any thought to having a different sort of change of venue?”

Was the chief of Ds being philosophical, or—? “What do you mean, ‘different’?”

Brian felt him out slowly, watching Brennan’s eyes for his true response. “Let’s just say going from the DEA to being a police detective on the Aurora Police Department?”

Brennan’s electric blue eyes narrowed as he stopped taking in the people in the immediate vicinity and focused completely on the man he was talking to.

“Are you offering me a job, sir?” he asked a little uncertainly.

The politely worded question almost had him laughing out loud. “Boy, after what you did, you can write your own ticket to anything that’s within this family’s power to give, so yes, I am offering you a job. As a matter of fact, something recently came to my attention that you would undoubtedly be perfect for, given your undercover background.”

Brennan could feel himself getting hopeful. He needed to nip that in the bud if this wasn’t going to pan out. “You’re not just pulling my leg, are you, sir?”

“I have been known to do a great many things in my time, singularly or on an ongoing basis. However, leg pulling does not number among them, so no, I am not pulling your leg.”

Setting his own glass—now devoid of beer—aside on the closest flat surface, Brian turned his attention completely to the subject he was about to share with this new member of the family.

“Word has it that we’ve had more than our share of runaways lately. There have always been one or two in a year. However, the number went up dramatically recently. Ten in two months.”

“You don’t think they’re runaways?” It was a rhetorical question.

“I do not,” Brian confirmed. Runaways were bad enough. What he was about to say was infinitely worse. “Rumor has it that these missing girls are being ‘recruited’ one way or another for the sole purpose of becoming sex slaves, used to sate the appetites of men whose sick preferences tend toward underaged girls. Preferably untouched underaged girls. I’m putting together a task force to track down the people in charge of this sex-trafficking ring, and I could use a man like you on the inside to do what you normally do.”

“And that is?” Brennan asked, curious as to how the chief perceived him.

“Get the bad guys to trust you,” Brian said simply, humor curving the sides of his mouth.

This definitely sounded as if it had possibilities and it certainly beat the hell out of sitting behind a desk, aging.

“Who would I have to see about applying for the job?” Brennan asked.

“You’re seeing him,” Brian assured him, then Brian laughed softly to himself as he shook his head and marveled, “Who knew it would be such a small world and that someone from the very branch of the family that Andrew set out to track down wound up saving his life.” Brian straightened, moving away from the wall. “I guess that’s what they mean when people talk about ‘karma.’”

“Maybe,” Brennan allowed.

He certainly had no better or other plausible explanation for why he’d been where he was that fateful night. He hadn’t even known that his late grandfather had had any family other than the four children he had fathered.

The life Brennan had chosen didn’t allow him to make any unnecessary contact with anyone from his “other” life for months at a time. Since he wasn’t married and his last semimeaningful relationship was far in the past, he was a perfect candidate for the job he’d had.

Emphasis, Brennan reminded himself, on the word had.

Brian grinned at him as the man straightened and indicated a keg several yards away. “Let’s see about getting you that refill now,” he prompted.

Brennan looked down at the glass he was holding and noticed that it was empty. Without realizing it, as he’d talked to Brian, he’d consumed the rest of the beer.

He flashed a grin now and said, “Sure, why not?”

Brian clapped an arm around his shoulders, directing him toward the keg. “Can’t think of a single reason,” he confirmed. “Let’s go.”

* * *

“A little overwhelming, isn’t it?” the tall, broad-shouldered man who had joined Brennan nursing something amber in a chunky glass, asked, amused.

The dinner had been served and now everyone had broken up into smaller groups, some remaining in the house, some drifting outside. All in all, Andrew Cavanaugh’s “get acquainted” party was teeming with Cavanaughs. Brennan was still trying to absorb everything that his chance action several weeks ago had brought about.

So many names, so many faces, he couldn’t help thinking.

Brennan looked now at the man who was addressing him. They were around the same height and there was something vaguely familiar about him.

Or maybe it was that the amicable man looked a great deal like the lion’s share of the men who were meandering about the house and grounds, talking, laughing or, in some instances, just listening.

“You could say that,” Brennan agreed.

“Don’t be shy about it. First time I attended one of these ‘little’ family gatherings, I thought I’d wandered into a central casting call for Hollywood’s answer to what a family of cops was supposed to look like.”

“The first time,” Brennan repeated, having picked up the term. “Does that mean that you’re not a Cavanaugh?”

“Well, yeah, actually, I am,” the other man more than willingly admitted, then grinned as he remembered the confusion that had ensued over this discovery coming to light. “But at the time, I thought I was a Cavelli.”

If this was some kind of a riddle, it left him standing in the dark. “I’m sorry, but I just don’t follow.”

Thomas laughed. “At the time, neither did I. I’m Thomas,” he said abruptly, realizing that he hadn’t introduced himself.

Shifting his glass to his other hand, he offered it in a handshake, which Brennan easily took. “Brennan,” Brennan told him.

The expression on Thomas’s face told him that he didn’t need to make the introduction. His name had made the rounds. “My father’s Sean Cavanaugh, the—”

“—head of the daytime crime scene investigative unit,” Brennan completed. “I looked over the roster at the department before I came here.” Even so, he couldn’t untangle the confusion associated with what Thomas was telling him. “But if your father’s a Cavanaugh, then I don’t—”

Thomas decided to tell this story from the beginning. “There was a time when he didn’t know he was a Cavanaugh. You notice the strong resemblance between my father, Sean, and the former chief of police, Andrew—the guy whose life you saved,” he added.

Brennan nodded. “Yeah.”

“Well, so did a lot of other people a few years ago. They thought that the chief was snubbing them and flat-out ignoring them. Since he was doing no such thing and wasn’t even in these places they claimed to have seen him, he did a little detective work of his own to see if he could track down this man who supposedly had his face.

“That led to tracking down a few important details—like where he was born, when, all that good stuff. Turns out that the day my dad was born, so was another male baby. And if that wasn’t enough of a coincidence, they were both named Sean. One was a Cavanaugh and the other was a Cavelli—Two Cs,” he emphasized.

“And let me guess, the nurse got them confused.”

“Give the man a cigar. Story goes she’d just been told her soldier fiancé had been killed overseas by a roadside bomb. She was completely beside herself and just going through the motions to keep from collapsing in a heap. To add to our little drama, the infant the Cavanaughs brought home died before his first birthday.”

“I guess that trumps a divorce and estranged brothers,” Brennan quipped.

Thomas held up his hand, indicating that he not dismiss the matter so quickly. “Not when the reunion brings twenty-four more Cavanaughs to the table.” He laughed.

Brennan looked around. He knew that all his siblings and cousins, not to mention his father, aunt and uncles, hadn’t all been able to make this gathering. Despite that, it still looked like a crowd scene from some epic, biblical movie.

“Just how many Cavanaughs are there?” he asked, looking at Thomas.

“You asking about Cavanaughs strictly by birth, or are you including the ones by marriage, too?”

Brennan shrugged. “The latter, I guess.” He’d heard that once you entered the inner circle, you were a Cavanaugh for life.

“Haven’t a clue,” Thomas admitted honestly, keeping a straight face. “But I’m betting we could have easily had enough people to storm the Bastille back in the day.” The oldest of the Cavanaugh-Cavelli branch—not counting his father, Sean—Thomas grinned as he raised his glass in a toast to Brennan. “Welcome to the family.”

Brennan laughed. “Thanks,” he said, draining his own glass. Being part of what was perceived to be a dynasty felt rather good from where he stood.

* * *

Tiana Drummond didn’t pray much anymore.

It was an activity she’d given up even before her father, Officer Harvey Drummond, had died. There didn’t seem to be much point in engaging in something that never yielded any positive results.