“Now wait a minute—”
No, she wasn’t going to “wait a minute.” And she certainly wasn’t going to allow him to snow her with rhetoric.
“A minute ago, you were all ready to write this off as a suicide. You were willing to go with what you saw—or
thought
you saw.”
Only up to a point. Where did she get off, criticizing his work if she hadn’t seen him in action? Gorgeous or not, she needed to be told a few things and put in her place.
“Not if the autopsy contradicts the idea of a suicide.”
Autopsy.
The very word brought up a chilling scenario with it. Someone cutting up her little sister, reducing Paula to a mass of body organs examined, weighed, catalogued and then impersonally stuffed back into her body like wrinkled tissue paper that has served its purpose.
Suddenly, Destiny could hardly bear the wave of pain she felt.
Logan saw the horror that washed over the woman’s fine-boned features before she apparently got herself under control again. Observing her, he had to admit he felt really sorry for the woman. He knew how he would have reacted if that was Bridget, or Kendra, or Kari in the next room.
No rules or orders would have kept him on the sidelines. If he couldn’t have been part of the investigation outright, he would have found a way to conduct his own investigation covertly until he found answers that satisfied him.
Until he found the killer.
He felt a budding respect as he looked at the woman for the first time, not assessing her comely features but taking measure of the person who existed beneath. Thinking of what she was feeling and taking stock of what had to be crossing her mind right now.
Logan relented, backing off from his initial stand. “Look, what if I promise to keep you filled in? Will that be enough for you?”
The moment the words emerged from his mouth, he knew they had come out wrong. He made it sound as if he was trying to dismiss her. He wasn’t doing anything of the kind.
Destiny tossed her head, anger and sadness mingling with the very stubborn streak that had seen her through a less than typical childhood, one that would have conquered a lesser person. And she had been a child at the time.
“No, sorry, not good enough,” she fired back.
“He’s right, you know.”
She didn’t have to turn around and look to know who was behind her. But she turned around anyway. Turned around and looked up at the man she respected and secretly regarded as the father she hadn’t had for all these many years, not since he’d walked out on her, Paula and their mother.
“I thought you’d be on my side,” she said to Sean. She was more than a little disappointed to hear him taking the side of company policy.
“I am
always
on your side,” Sean reminded her kindly. “But the rules are clear about working on a case that you’re personally involved in.”
She knew all the rules backward and forward. She also knew they weren’t going to stop her from working this investigation.
“Sean, please,” she implored hoarsely, her voice brimming with emotion. She laid a hand on Sean’s arm in mute supplication.
“Of course,” Sean continued loftily, as if she hadn’t said anything, “you are a grown woman and I can’t be expected to tie you up and throw you into some corner if you happen to do some poking around into the present case behind my back.” He saw his son staring at him, undoubtedly surprised at this break with protocol. “Oh, like you and those brothers and sisters of yours never bent a single rule,” he mocked.
“Not saying we didn’t,” Logan replied to his father, deliberately flying above this minefield. “But I’ve got to say that I’m really surprised that you’re considering it.”
“Not considering it,” Sean corrected, putting down his fully loaded case that he meticulously organized at least once a week. “But well, what happens when I’m not looking, happens,” he told his son innocently. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I believe the actual scene of the crime is in through there?” He pointed to the bedroom, looking to Destiny for confirmation.
Destiny only half nodded. “That’s the way to the bathroom,” she confirmed. “Whether or not that’s the actual scene of the crime remains to be seen.”
Sean gave her an encouraging smile. “An open mind is the best way to approach anything,” he agreed.
With that, he walked ahead of his son and the young woman to process this particular crime scene.
Chapter 2
F
ollowing Sean Cavanaugh through the bedroom and into the bathroom where her sister’s body was, Destiny could feel every single bone in her own body stiffening as the battle began all over again. Her protective instincts warred with the ones she had developed as a crime scene investigator.
The latter dictated adherence to the first cardinal rule of investigation: that nothing was to be touched, nothing was to be moved. It was of the utmost importance that the scene be preserved just as it was when the deceased died. This had to be done to piece together facts leading up to that person’s final moments. And, with that, the identity of the killer, if there was one.
But Destiny’s protective instincts were just as deeply rooted within her, if not more so. She was the older sister, the one who had always looked out for Paula.
Yeah, and how’s that going for you?
Destiny silently mocked herself.
Being the older sister hadn’t been easy. Though she had never doubted her sister’s love for her, Paula had fought her all the way, desperately wanting to assert her independence.
“I’m a big girl now, Destiny. You can’t hover over me forever.”
Destiny could feel the corners of her eyes beginning to sting again as she struggled for the umpteenth time to hold back her tears.
Yeah, well, you would have done better if I had hovered,
Destiny couldn’t help thinking now. There was no doubt in her mind that Paula would be alive right now if she
had
hovered.
If.
Her protective instincts had made her want to cover Paula up, to give her sister some small semblance of modesty and dignity by draping something over her—at least a towel. She didn’t want to leave her where everyone coming into the beige-and-blue-tiled bathroom could see her like this, utterly naked and exposed.
As if sensing her turmoil, Sean told her, “I promise I’ll make this as quick as I can, Destiny.”
She was grateful to him for his kindness. Pressing her lips together, Destiny nodded, doing her best to smile her thanks and succeeding only marginally.
“Thank you,” she said hoarsely.
Logan, who had entered behind his father and the victim’s sister, squatted down now, his attention focused on the opened cell phone that apparently had slipped from the dead woman’s hand just as life had ebbed away from her.
The cell phone was in the open position and it was still turned on. As he crouched closer to it, Logan could see that there was a text message on the screen. One last message just before death had found her.
Was it a last-minute regret and a plea for help? Or was this intended to be a virtual version of a suicide note?
Using his handkerchief to keep from getting his fingerprints on the phone or contaminating any prints besides the victim’s on the device, Logan was about to pick it up when he stopped and looked over toward his father. “Did you already take a picture of this?”
“Tagged and photographed,” Sean answered as he continued examining Destiny’s sister.
Logan lifted the phone and looked at the screen. There were only three words in the text message:
He left me.
“We need to find out who this number belongs to,” Logan said, thinking out loud as he examined the cell number the message had been sent to.
“Not necessary,” Destiny told him stoically.
Each word she uttered felt as if it scraped along an incredibly dry tongue. Her whole mouth felt like a desert in the midst of a seven-year drought. And she was having trouble getting air into her lungs. Part of her was numb, the other was almost on fire.
“She texted you?” Logan guessed, glancing toward her and reading her body language.
Right now, the woman appeared to be shut down tighter than Fort Knox. Logan absently wondered what it would take to loosen her up, then dismissed the thought since right now, knowing that wasn’t going to help him. Thinking of her as a woman was completely out of line. She was the victim’s sister and his father’s assistant, nothing else.
At least, not right now.
Logan caught himself hoping that there would be a later.
Destiny heard the detective’s voice as if it had originated in an echo chamber. It sounded as if it was coming at her from a great distance.
She blinked, forcing herself to stay focused. If she let her mind wander, she wouldn’t make it out of this room without coming apart. She’d already cried once. That was all she could afford to grieve. She had work to do.
“Yes, it’s my number. I called her back almost immediately after she sent the message, but she didn’t pick up.” She pressed her lips together, taking a breath before continuing. Her voice sounded strained. “I’d been calling her all day without a response, so I got worried.”
“Why?” Logan asked. “Was she unstable? Were you afraid that she was likely to harm herself?”
Destiny stared at him. What was he talking about? He didn’t know Paula. He had no right to his assumptions. She took offense at the implication behind his questions.
“I got worried because I’m her
sister,
” she retorted angrily. “Because Paula normally keeps in touch. And she doesn’t send short text messages.” The three-word text was out of character for Paula. “She goes on and on, whether it’s a phone call, a text or in person. My sister is—was,” she corrected herself painfully, “not a person of a few words. She never said anything in three words that she could say in forty.”
He thought of pointing out that distraught people, especially people about to commit suicide, didn’t always conform to their normal behavior, but he had a feeling she wasn’t in the mood to be contradicted.
Instead, he focused on another piece of the puzzle. “Who’s this ‘him’ she’s referring to?” he asked.
“I don’t know.”
Destiny took a deep breath, angry with herself for not having pushed when Paula had opted to keep the man’s name a secret. If she’d badgered Paula enough, she
knew
Paula would have finally caved in. Why hadn’t she pushed? Why had she just elected to respect her sister’s boundaries? At the very least, this mystery man of Paula’s could give them insight to her frame of mind the last time he saw her as he left.
If
he’d left her, Destiny amended, ruling out nothing.
“You don’t know?” Logan echoed, more than mildly surprised. “Then you two weren’t close?” That was the only conclusion he could draw.
“No, we were,” Destiny insisted. “Very close.” They had been that way once and they had gotten that way again just in the past couple of years.
“Then why don’t you know the name of the guy your sister was seeing?”
Because I’m an idiot.
“Paula was a little superstitious. She said she didn’t want to jinx the relationship by saying anything about it too soon.”
God, that sounded so lame, so childish now that she said it out loud, Destiny thought, on the edge of exasperated despair. Why hadn’t she pushed? Insisted? Maybe if she’d known more of the details, she could have somehow prevented this. Even though she didn’t believe in her heart of hearts that her sister had done this, had committed suicide, a tiny part of her was afraid she had.
“All she’d tell me was that he was someone ‘important.’ And, that for now, he wanted to keep their relationship ‘special’ by keeping it out of the public eye. Apparently, I was part of the public eye,” Destiny said with barely controlled frustration.
Most likely, the guy was married, Logan thought, and when he’d decided to go back to his wife, the victim had killed herself.
“And you don’t think that this is a suicide?” Logan asked again. It was obvious from his tone that he felt that the evidence they’d reviewed so far clearly pointed in that direction.
“No,” Destiny said with feeling. “If this ‘important’ bastard had left her, she wouldn’t have killed herself. Paula was the type to have gone upside his head, to have raised a stink, not taken the breakup docilely, given up all hope and killed herself.” She raised her chin defiantly as she added, “I know my sister. That’s just not like her.”
Did anyone really know anyone else? Logan wondered. Of late, since the big revelation that had jolted his family down to their roots, he’d faced that question more than once.
“That’s what you
think,
” Logan pointed out. And, as far as he was concerned, there was an entire world of difference between prejudiced perception and actual fact.
“No,” Destiny said flatly. “That’s what I
know.
My sister believed in revenge,” she was quick to add, seeing the suspicious light coming into the detective’s all-but-magnetic green eyes. “And by that, I mean she would have dolled herself up, found the first good-looking male she could and deliberately shown up somewhere where she knew that ‘Mr. Special’ would most likely be. Then she would have flaunted the fact that she was having an exceptionally good time with someone new and gorgeous. Paula was not the kind to just give up,” she insisted. “She was stubborn that way.”
How long was it going to take to get used to referring to Paula in the past tense? Destiny wondered, her heart aching in her chest.
“I take it stubbornness runs in the family?” Logan surmised, watching her. There was just a hint of an appreciative smile on his lips.
Her blue eyes narrowed into slits. “Damn straight it does.”
“You might be right,” Sean interjected as if there was no other conversation taking place. Having completed his preliminary examination of the dead woman, he straightened up.
“About which part?” Logan asked, just taking it for granted that his father was talking to him and not to the sexy, headstrong woman before him.