LITMIR.BIZ

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      His age didn’t define him, Seamus thought rebelliously. He was still young at heart, still had a spring in his step, even though, he was willing to grudgingly admit, that spring had gotten just a wee bit rusty of late.

      It was going to rain, Seamus thought now, as he was ready to leave. His shoulder, the one he had gotten shot in in the line of duty almost four decades ago, ached the way it always did just before it rained. Fortunately for him, rain was not a regular occurrence where he now lived, in California.

      Preoccupied with his aching shoulder, Seamus wasn’t aware of what was happening until it was too late.

      One second he had just started to fasten his seat belt—his door was still open because he needed space to wrestle with the belt—the next, someone had come up to his car, aimed a gun at him and growled, “I need your car, old man. Get out!”

      Seamus didn’t know which bothered him more—the fact that someone was trying to steal his car, or being referred to as an “old man.” Having a gun aimed at him notwithstanding, his response was automatic.

      “The hell I will!” Seamus growled.

      The would-be car thief’s expression registered surprise, then darkened. “Wrong answer, old man,” he snapped.

      It was the car thief’s turn to be stunned. Seamus didn’t willingly hand over his car keys or his car. Instead, he angrily demanded, “Who the hell do you think you are?”

      Still partially hidden by shadows, the tall, well-built, dark-haired man’s face went from handsome to foreboding. Despite himself, Seamus felt a chill go up his spine. Out of the corner of his eye, Seamus thought he saw another figure move, but he couldn’t be sure. He was completely focused on the car thief.

      “I’m the man who’s going to be driving that car of yours. You’re two steps away from death, old man, and trust me, you won’t be needing it,” the car thief informed him.

      “But I’m not dead yet,” Seamus countered as he shot out a hand to grab the other man’s wrist.

      With his other hand, Seamus reached for the weapon he carried in his pocket. Although he no longer belonged to any branch of the police department, Seamus had a permit to carry a concealed weapon and he went regularly to the firing range to continue honing his already considerable skills.

      “Wrong move, old man,” the other man snarled.

      Using leverage, the car thief pulled hard, yanking Seamus out of his car. Seamus put up a fight, but he was at least two decades older than his opponent and it acted against him.

      The tug-of-war was short-lived, and Seamus wound up smashing his forehead against the concrete, cutting his temple as he landed facedown in the parking lot.

      Seamus had put up more of a fight than the car thief expected. A barrage of heated curses were heaped on Seamus head.

      Gaining possession of Seamus’s gun, the car thief laughed in satisfied triumph. “How did you think this was going to turn out, old man?” he demanded, uttering another round of curses. Then, drawing in a deep breath as if to fortify himself for what he was about to do next, the car thief shot at Seamus with the weapon he was holding.

      Fighting to remain conscious, Seamus thought he heard a woman’s scream, but that might have just been the buzzing noise in his head. He couldn’t tell.

      “That’s what you get when you mess with your betters, old man,” the robber crowed. He began to bend down to check if he had killed the old man who had had the audacity to try to overpower him. He also wanted to grab the watch that had caught his eye. But as he reached for it, he froze.

      The sound of an approaching car had him abandoning the watch. Instead, he focused on his own survival. Another string of curses erupted from his lips, as he damned Seamus’s soul to hell after his insides had been ripped out and eaten by rabid wolves.

      Seamus couldn’t make out the words. His gut instinct said they were meant for him. Darkness was closing in around him, sealing him away, which was just as well. He couldn’t endure the excruciating pounding in his head any longer.

      Just before he slipped into the smothering embrace of a dark world, Seamus thought he heard the sound of two doors being shut.

      And then there was the sound of a car—his car?—driving away.

      After that, mercifully, there was nothing.

       Chapter 1

      Former police chief Andrew Cavanaugh immediately thought the worst whenever a phone rang, the shrill noise elbowing its way into his sound sleep, especially whenever it happened after midnight. It was at that time more than any other that icy fear would grip his heart even before he was fully awake. Because of the nature of his job and the jobs held down by so much of his family, half-formed dire scenarios would flood his mind the instant the phone began to ring.

      Andrew was groping around on the nightstand, searching for his phone before his eyes were even open or his brain was fully engaged.

      His wife, Rose, shared the very same feelings. And fears.

      “Who is it, Andrew?” she asked, turning toward him in their queen-size bed.

      Andrew didn’t answer her. Fully awake now, he focused on listening to what the voice on the other end of the call was telling him.

      The intense look on his face had Rose grasping his forearm, as if that would somehow help her assimilate what the caller was saying to him. Or, at the very least, allow her to share with him whatever burden those words might be creating.

      What she was hearing from Andrew’s side of the conversation only fueled her dread.

      “When?” Andrew asked, his usually genial face a mask of concern. “How bad? Is he—?” Rose saw her husband exhale a shaky breath, dragging his hand through his hair. For a split second, the man everyone leaned on so heavily looked almost lost. “What hospital?”

      By now Rose’s adrenaline had escalated to an exceptionally high level. She quickly got out of bed and, rather than throw on a robe, automatically began to get dressed. Quickly.

      The second she was finished, she was laying out her husband’s clothing. She knew Andrew inside and out. She knew that the moment he hung up, they would be on their way to whatever hospital the person that this call was about was in.

      With children, brothers and sisters-in-law, as well as an entire extended collection of family members, almost all involved in some capacity of law enforcement, there were many potential candidates for whom that path might have very well ended tonight—or had come very close to ending.

      There was no other reason why a call would have suddenly shattered their night this way, or why her husband looked so distressed.

      Without knowing whom this call was about or what the actual damage was, all Rose could do was pray as she moved quickly to get Andrew’s clothes ready for him. It was her form of “busywork,” something to keep her occupied so that her mind wouldn’t go to that awful place that it was wont to go thanks to this middle-of-the-night call.

      It just went with the territory because she was the former police chief’s wife. A peaceful night’s sleep wasn’t always part of the equation.

      Rose had laid out all of Andrew’s clothing as well as his shoes and had just pulled out a pair of socks when her husband hung up the phone.

      The moment that he did, she whirled around to face him.

      “Who?” she asked breathlessly.

      Throwing off the rest of the covers, Andrew’s bare feet hit the cold floor. The change in temperature hardly registered. His mind was racing, unearthing a dozen memories at once. But mainly Andrew was praying. Praying every bit as hard as he had when he had gone looking for his missing

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