Cavanaugh on Duty - By Marie Ferrarella Page 0,14

tambien, Padre, Esteban thought, watching Miguel leave. “And you, too, Dad,” he murmured out loud.

* * *

For what felt like the umpteenth time, Kari glanced up from her desk to the one butted against hers and sighed.

The chair facing hers was still empty.

The desktop was glaringly clear, save for the run-of-the-mill computer monitor and the single white coffee container perched in the middle of the scarred tabletop.

The coffee was her combination welcome-to-the-job/peace offering.

The dark-roasted blend that she’d picked up at a local coffee shop and placed on what was to be Esteban’s desk was probably cold by now. Standing unattended for over an hour, even though there was a lid on it, did that to any drink, even one that had started out scalding hot.

She had gotten it on the way to work because she thought Esteban might appreciate something a little better than the sickly brown liquid that came out of the precinct’s vending machines and was laughingly passed off as coffee.

She made the choice going on instinct rather than any information she had gleaned. When she’d gone to Brenda for Esteban’s address, she’d also asked for any background information on him that might be available. There was none.

Technically speaking, that actually hadn’t been exactly the case. There was some information, but whatever had been originally written down on the page had subsequently been redacted. Every line of type had been run through with a black permanent marker that promised not to disappear or fade over time.

So she had gone with her gut. Men like the one she’d met with last night—the man she still thought could be the Steve Fernandez she’d gone to high school with—didn’t care for any frills. That included fancy rhetoric and coffee that bore a longer, fancier name than some people she knew.

The coffee was black...just like the mood that was slowly coming over her.

When she’d departed his house last night, she’d been fairly confident that she’d gotten Fernandez to come around, to connect with her on the most basic level. Having her body tingle for more than an hour after she’d left him had been a small price to pay.

But now she was beginning to think that maybe she’d been wrong about his coming around, and it bothered her more than she cared to admit. To her way of thinking, she’d dropped the ball.

She didn’t like letting the Chief of D’s down, not because he was her uncle—or because she felt she had something to prove so she’d move up the food chain within the department. She didn’t like letting the Chief down, because he’d asked her to do something and she wanted him to know that she always delivered on her commitments.

This was the first thing he’d actually asked her to do, and she’d failed.

Granted, it was still early. The workday had barely started, but all that translated to was more time in which to feel like a colossal failure.

She’d arrived at the precinct almost an hour earlier than she was supposed to, anticipating Fernandez’s arrival. For her, the minutes had already stretched themselves out as thin as thread, each inching by as she waited for Fernandez to walk into the office.

It promised to be a very long day from where she was sitting.

“New guy not here yet?”

Startled, it took Kari a second to collect herself before she turned around to look at the man who had somehow managed to come up behind her without making a single sound.

The question had come from Lieutenant Tim Morrow, a rumpled, unimpressive-looking former vice detective with yellowish-white hair and a waist that was slowly becoming wider than the breadth of his shoulders. Morrow had worked his way diligently through the ranks.

At the moment, the lieutenant was looking at the empty chair opposite her own, but his expectant manner, as well as his question, was directed toward her.

She wondered if Morrow knew about her visit to the Chief of Detectives yesterday.

Of course he did, she upbraided herself the next moment. If Fernandez was supposedly going to be working for the department, Morrow would have been notified of everything pertaining to the former undercover detective.

Had she and Fernandez already had some sort of working relationship, she would have been quick to attempt to cover for him, giving Morrow some sort of plausible excuse as to why the other man wasn’t anywhere within eyeshot. Loyalty was something that was inbred in her, thanks to her father.

But since she didn’t know if Fernandez was even going to bother showing