Cavanaugh Strong. Marie Ferrarella
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idea seemed to catch Noelle completely off guard. She looked at him, somewhat confused. “You mean you?”
Duncan laughed at the surprised expression on her face. “Well, I can’t very well offer up anyone else’s company to you, now can I? I mean, maybe I could—but I wouldn’t,” he added mischievously. “Yes, O’Banyon, I mean me.”
So far the only time she had seen Cavanaugh after hours and out of the office was at Malone’s, a local bar that was frequented by members of the Aurora Police Department and that had only been a couple of times. Not to mention by accident because she hadn’t known he was going to be there. Up until now, they hadn’t made arrangements to meet anywhere that didn’t have to do directly with police work.
Since he appeared to be serious—or as serious as he could get—Noelle considered his offer. Cavanaugh was a little unorthodox, but she figured that he meant well and besides, her grandmother responded well to good-looking men. Cavanaugh was nothing if not that.
“Sure,” she said. “Why not? If you’re there, it might help her keep her chin up.” And then she flashed her partner a smile. “Thanks.”
“Hey, what’s a partner for, right?” he said with an easy, sexy smile.
She tried not to notice just how easily that smile seemed to slip under her skin and unsettle her just before she managed to shut it down.
“Right,” she murmured, focusing on the gesture and not on the man. Her life was just about as complicated as she was willing for it to be. There was no room in it for anything extra.
Certainly not for a cocky police detective with magnetic green eyes and a sexy swagger.
“Are you sure that you’re up to this, Lucy?” Noelle asked her grandmother as they approached the cemetery that was on the far side of Aurora’s southern boundary three days later.
It was midmorning on Monday. She’d dropped Melinda off at school and driven here for the funeral with Lucy. There was a small, nondenominational chapel on the premises for those who wanted some sort of a service before standing at the deceased’s grave site, but her grandmother had opted to bypass that.
Henry never attended a service while he was alive. It’d seem strange having him there now that he was dead, Lucy had reasoned.
“Of course I’m up to this,” her grandmother now answered, shortly. “I’m the one who made all the arrangements. It’s not like I can call a time-out and put that minister on hold because I’m having heart flutters.”
Noelle pulled her car up into the small, uneven parking lot that was in front of the cemetery. Turning off the car’s engine, she shifted in her seat to look at her grandmother, searching for any telltale signs that might indicate that Lucy was in any sort of physical distress.
“Are you having heart flutters?” Noelle asked, concerned.
“No, I am not having heart flutters,” Lucinda stated firmly. “Stop looking at me that way, Noely, I’m not some Dresden doll ready to break because you breathed on it. You ought to know that by now.” She pressed the release on her seat belt. “Now come on, let’s get this over with. Henry’s probably looking down right now, annoyed at all the fuss. He never did like making a big deal out of things.”
Lucy wasn’t fooling her. She knew that her grandmother liked putting on a blustery front, but she was a softy underneath all that. “You sure you don’t want to take a minute to take a deep breath or anything?”
“My breathing’s just fine, Noely,” Lucy assured her. “Besides, if we don’t show up soon, the minister’s going to think no one’s coming and he’ll just go and do whatever it is that ministers do when they’re not praying over people they didn’t know.”
Noelle read between the lines. “Are you telling me that no one from the home is going to be coming?”
“That’s what I’m telling you. Those old biddies don’t like to be reminded that they might be next,” Lucy told her loftily.
“How about Henry’s family?” Noelle asked, coming around to the passenger side of her car.
As always, her grandmother had already opened the passenger door and gotten out. Lucy wasn’t looking for any assistance, but Noelle couldn’t help thinking that the woman suddenly appeared rather frail to her right now. But she knew better than to offer her grandmother her arm unless so requested. Lucy was extremely sensitive and proud that way.
She shook her head in response to the question. “Henry didn’t have a family. His wife, Jenny, left him years ago, thinking she deserved better—she didn’t.” Lucy shrugged as if the woman under discussion was of no consequence. “I heard that she died a couple of years back.”
“Children? Grandchildren?” Noelle asked, thinking how sad it had to be to know that you didn’t have anyone to mourn your passing.
“No and no,” Lucy replied, shooting down each question.
Something wasn’t adding up for her. “But didn’t you say that Henry took out an insurance policy?” she asked. Because it was slightly uphill, progress from the parking lot to the cemetery was slow.
“He did.”
Okay, now she was officially confused. “If Henry had no family, just who did he leave his money to?” she asked. And then it dawned on her. Or at least she thought it did. “You?”
Lucy abruptly stopped walking and looked at her incredulously.
“Me?” The woman waved away the very thought. “No. What would I need with Henry’s money? It was his friendship I wanted, not his money. Hell, when I came to pick him up on Thursday I was going to talk him into getting out of that depressing place and coming to live with me.” They resumed walking as Lucy sighed, resigned. “Guess that’s all water under the bridge now, or whatever trite saying fits this occasion. Oh, damn.”
They had just walked through the cemetery gates when Lucy stopped short for a second time.
“What’s the matter?” Noelle asked, glancing around to see what had caused her grandmother to utter the words of distress.
Lucy remained where she was, her eyes narrowing in obvious displeasure. “She’s here.”
“She?” Noelle repeated. “Who is ‘she’?”
“That annoying volunteer from the retirement home,” Lucy said with contempt. “The one who tried to keep me out of his room, acting like she knew Henry better than I did.”
Her grandmother had told her all about that when she had recounted all the details surrounding her discovery of Henry’s lifeless body. It was obvious to her that Lucy had more than just feelings of friendship cloaked in nostalgia when it came to Henry.
Turning toward the person who had aroused Lucy’s anger, she noticed a tall woman, her face all but obscured by the scarf she wore on her head and the dark, oversize sunglasses perched on her nose.
“Want me to arrest her for you, Lucy?” Noelle asked brightly.
Moving forward, Lucy never took her eyes off the woman who’d stirred her ire. “Don’t be ridiculous, Noely.”
“Sorry. Just want to make you feel better,” Noelle told her drily.
Lucy frowned, making no effort to disguise her feelings as she glared across the field at the other woman.
“Besides,” she complained, “you don’t have anything to charge her with.”
Noelle smiled to herself. “You have a point.”
And then it was her turn to stop walking, but for an entirely different reason than her grandmother’s.
Wearing a dark