LITMIR.BIZ

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force you?”

      Valri stared at the man whom fate and the chief had made her partner. Where had that come from? And what, exactly, was he asking her?

      “Did who force me to do what?”

      “Your family. Did they force you to become a cop?”

      “No. Why would they?” Actually, Brennan as well as her father had tried to talk her out of it when they heard that she had decided to apply to the police academy.

      Alex shrugged. “Well, every Cavanaugh I’ve run into or even heard of seems to be part of one division or other in the department. Even the one who isn’t directly in law enforcement, that vet, I think her name is Patience, the police department has her down as the doctor on call for the K-9 unit in case any of them get hurt.”

      Valri offered a smile in exchange for his speculation. “I guess to serve and protect is just built into our DNA. I believe it’s supposed to be a voluntary gene, though.” Her teasing tone changed to one that was a little more serious. “Why would you think I had to be forced into joining law enforcement?”

      “Because from what you said, you seemed to have other interests—interests that could have taken you in a completely different direction.” The way, he couldn’t help thinking, that his family’s “occupation” could have taken him in, thereby drastically changing the direction of his life. “Besides, you look like you should be a cheerleader for some professional football team, not tackling would-be bad guys.”

      “Cheerleader, huh?” She seemed to roll that idea over in her mind. “Is that a compliment or a put-down?” she asked.

      “It wasn’t meant as either,” he told her. “Definitely not a put-down. Why would you be insulted to be called a cheerleader?”

      In his opinion, the first requirement for a cheerleader was to be absolutely gorgeous. Flexibility was only a secondary requirement. He had a feeling she was both. She was certainly the first.

      “Because the way you say it, it sounds as if you think cheerleaders are bubbleheaded women who share a communal brain. At the very least, they are incapable of a single creative idea.”

      “All that came out of one sentence, huh?” Alex marveled, impressed. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe you do belong in law enforcement. And, in case you’re wondering, that was a compliment.” His eyes met hers for a moment. He felt the undercurrent of something stirring, but he couldn’t put his finger on what. His sense of survival told him that it might be safer that way. “But level with me—” he began.

      “Wouldn’t dream of doing anything else,” Valri responded.

      He looked to see if she was putting him on, but she appeared serious enough.

      “Yeah, well...” His voice trailed off for a moment, as if he wasn’t sure if he should challenge the veracity of her statement, but then he let it go. “Then what did make you want to become a cop?” he asked, really curious now. “Was it because you wanted to ‘belong’?”

      “Belong?” she asked.

      “Yeah. Belong,” he repeated. What was so hard about the word? It seemed simple enough to him. “Everyone else in this huge family of yours is a cop, so you want to be one, too. That way you can have that in common with the others.”

      Valri shook her head, shooting down his theory. “Being a Cavanaugh is having something in common with the others,” she reminded him. She could see that he was waiting for her to say something a little more substantial than the obvious. “And I thought I could do some good.” That sounded hopelessly syrupy to her own ear, even though it was the truth. “Knowing that you’re helping other people is just the best feeling in the whole world. Besides,” she added, “I love solving puzzles. Where else can I do that and make an actual difference in people’s lives but as a law enforcement agent?”

      Easing his foot onto the brake as a light turned to red, Alex looked at her as if to confirm that she was indeed a flesh-and-blood female. “You can’t possibly be that altruistic,” he told her.

      “Sure I can,” she told him, not taking offense at the negativity behind his response. “And I am.” With that, she changed topics. “What about your family?”

      He was on his guard instantly, even though he doubted that she knew the first thing about his less than ordinary family. He’d done a good job burying their connection to him.

      “What about them?” he asked guardedly.

      “Are you following in anyone’s footsteps?” she asked innocently.

      Alex almost laughed at that. The thought that she knew about his family ceased being a concern. The innocent question told him that she didn’t have a clue about what his family business was all about—or what they were really like. If he had “followed” in their footsteps, it was for an entirely different reason than the one he had suggested to her. With him it would’ve been a matter of being hot on one of his sibling’s or his father’s trail. He had been careful not to have that happen.

      “They’re not in law enforcement,” he told her, trying to sound casual.

      “What are they in?” she asked.

      It sounded like an innocent enough question, but Alex wasn’t 100 percent certain about that. She could very well be pretending to be innocent and actually feeling him out. His family’s world was one of deceptions and illusions.

      “Entrepreneurs,” he responded. “They’re entrepreneurs.”

      “That sounds like it could be really interesting,” she commented. “Why didn’t you join them?”

      “Not interested,” he told her. What he really wasn’t interested in was staying two jumps ahead of the law. Granted there’d been a time—a very short period—when he’d found that exhilarating, but that was long in the past. Before he’d been labeled the official black sheep of the family.

      “How many are there in your family?”

      The questioning bothered him more than the silence had and he wished he had never disturbed it. At the very least, Alex didn’t want to discuss his family dynamics—or anything else about them—so he turned the tables on his inquisitive partner and asked, “How many in yours?”

      “Immediate or extended?”

      He lifted one shoulder in a vague shrug. “Start with immediate.”

      “I’ve got six brothers and sisters—four brothers, two sisters,” she explained.

      That was bigger than his by threefold, he thought. “And extended?”

      She laughed. “Oh God, I’m still counting. Ever since the day that Brennan saved the former chief of police from becoming that bloodthirsty serial killer’s next statistic, it feels that the number just keeps growing.”

      “That was your brother?” he asked, surprised.

      Alex was aware of the incident that she was referring to. Who lived in Aurora and hadn’t been aware of the killing spree that had appeared to be mounted by a serial killer?

      The latter had turned out to be the wife of a former police officer who had killed himself after he was fired from the police force. Blinded by grief, she decided to get even with everyone she felt had been involved in her husband’s taking of his own life. But at the time, no one knew if the killer was deliberately targeting law enforcement agents or if the murders were random and the victims had just accidentally been members of the law enforcement community.

      “That was Brennan all right,” she confirmed. “He had to blow his cover in order to save the chief, but that’s what the job’s all about, right? Making judgment calls and saving people. Funny how things just seem to link up.”

      Where was she going with this? “What do you mean?” he asked.

      “Well,

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