LITMIR.BIZ

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just to keep up with them but to show them up whenever possible. She knew she’d been the thorn in their sides, but they’d all been protective of her.

      When she shrugged him off, he dropped his hands to his sides. “Good. Because I sure as hell didn’t want to be the one to tell Dad that his baby girl got shot on the courthouse steps.”

      “How very touching,” she quipped. “Thanks for the concern.”

      “Anytime.” And then his expression grew serious as he looked over her head at the assistant district attorney. “Either one of you know of anyone who might have it in for you?”

      “Other than my immediate family?” Janelle deadpanned. She followed it up with a “No,” uttered a little too quickly. She realized her mistake the moment the word was out of her mouth. If she hadn’t, the look on Dax’s face would have alerted her. She knew that look. He didn’t believe her.

      At her side, Stephen shifted slightly.

      Oh please, don’t pick now to be straightforward with a question. Telling Dax anything about the major case they were handling would only make her older brother worry about her. And it wouldn’t change anything. Certainly not her involvement in the case. The one that promised to be the biggest of her career so far. Perhaps the biggest one she would ever have. It was certainly big by any standards.

      Anthony Wayne, the son of Marco Wayne, reputed first lieutenant within an organized crime network that had bedeviled all efforts to dismantle it for more than the last fifteen years, had been brought up on charges of possession of cocaine with intent to sell. The story went that the third-year premed student was supplementing his income with drugs, cutting into his father’s turf, as it were.

      As was usually the case, the D.A’s office had come by their information purely by accident. Vice had busted a minor player who’d managed to land a decent public defender who’d finessed a deal for him. Sammy Martine, aka Sam Martinez, a two-bit criminal facing a third conviction and a lifetime of prison, had offered up Tony’s name in exchange for a more lenient sentence that still had parole attached to it. The search warrant had turned up more than a kilo of cocaine in Tony’s apartment. Vice had been waiting for Tony when he’d gotten home from classes and had arrested him. The case seemed airtight. A slam dunk that would put a feather in the hat of the D.A. and anyone else associated with the case.

      Now that she’d had a couple of minutes to reflect, with the good Samaritan’s deep voice echoing in her head, she knew that this could have been a warning from Tony’s father to back off. To do whatever had to be done on their part to get the charges against Anthony dropped so that his son could once more be out on the street, a free man.

      Not damn likely, Janelle silently vowed. It was going to take more than a few bullets fired into the air to intimidate anyone at the D.A.’s office, even Stephen Woods. For one thing, the district attorney was a seasoned war veteran who had actually seen combat as a young man. More than anything, he relished a good fight. And this was a good fight. And as for Woods, he saw it as his moment to shine.

      Suddenly, Janelle could have sworn she saw a light dawning in Dax’s eyes.

      Oh damn, he knew.

      She should have known better than to hope that word about the Wayne case wouldn’t spread. It was almost a given. Apparently there was no such thing as secrets in the law-enforcement world. Somehow, things always managed to leak out, at least to their own, despite the best precautions. Wedded to the courts the way law enforcement was, there always seemed to be an overlap of information. In the interest of keeping the informant alive, the D.A.’s office had tried to keep the case under wraps until it actually came to trial.

      By the look on Dax’s face, they’d failed. But she had a feeling that her brother still might be in the dark about who was going to be second chair on the case.

      The position was hers.

      She’d earned it. Not by coasting on her father’s name, the way some in the D.A.’s office—those who didn’t know her—maintained. But by working twice as hard as anyone else in her position. It was the same kind of situation her brothers all had faced. And her cousins, as well. While she and her brothers were the children of the current chief of detectives, five of her cousins were the offspring of the former chief of police.

      Only Patrick and Patience hadn’t had to struggle out from beneath that sort of heavy mantle because their late father had never risen up through the ranks. Officer Michael Cavanaugh had been killed in the line of duty while still a uniformed patrolman. Even so, Patrick had still, on occasion, been accused of riding on his uncle’s coattails. Only Patience had eluded that insult altogether. A veterinarian, Patience was the only one of them who had a “civilian” career. The only contact she had with the police department, other than at the table or with her husband, was when she cared for the force’s K-9 squad.

      Janelle had been given the position of second chair on the Wayne case a little more than two weeks ago as a reward for all the long hours and extensive work she’d put in since she had come to the D.A.’s office.

      When Stephen Woods had called her into his office to tell her the news her first impulse had been to call home. To tell her father, her brothers, her cousins that she was finally getting somewhere.

      Her second impulse had to do with family, as well. It had to do with shielding them because, even though they were all on the force, they tended to worry about one another. Because they all knew what could happen, knew all the ins and outs, all the chances that were taken and the odds of coming out unscathed.

      It made surviving within the framework of the family difficult sometimes, especially as a female. But she knew she would rather struggle within that framework than live tranquilly outside of it. Being a Cavanaugh, living up to the family’s standards, was of paramount importance to her. It always had been.

      Dax frowned. “This is all about the Wayne case, isn’t it?” It was a rhetorical question, posed to the A.D.A. rather than to her.

      “Might be,” Woods allowed.

      “Or it might be an argument that got out of hand. Some guy getting even with someone who stole his girl,” Janelle offered quickly, hoping to throw her brother off. “You won’t know until you question everyone here.” To make her point, she indicated the vehicle that her so-called protector was just about to enter. The dark blue sports car was old, but a classic. And small. From where she stood, getting into it didn’t look as if it would be easy for him. Well over six feet tall, the man seemed almost as big as the car. “Including the guy who’s just getting into that awful heap.”

      Chapter 2

      Shifting slightly, Dax looked to where his sister pointed. He grinned and he shook his head.

      “That’s one person I wouldn’t need to question in connection with this shooting if I were the investigating officer.”

      In the distance, the sound of sirens was heard. Obviously someone had already called 911.

      There went lunch, Janelle thought, resigned.

      She glanced at Dax, curious. What did he know that she didn’t? It had always been that way between her and her siblings. Each always wanted to get a jump on the others, be the first to know, to do, to win. A sense of competition pulsated within all of them. And none so much as her.

      “Why wouldn’t you question him?” she asked.

      Dax looked at the man finally getting into the vintage muscle car. “Because if he thought the shots were meant for him, he wouldn’t be looking that complacent.”

      Janelle turned around and shaded her eyes, squinting as she peered into the parking lot and tried to make out his face. She’d seen more expression on the surface of a cut-glass vase.

      She laughed shortly. “That’s complacent?”

      “Yeah.”

      She dropped her hand to her side and turned back to her brother. A squad car pulled up at the front of the courtyard

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