Cavanaugh’s Woman (9 page)

Jenkins, the porno shop owner, had given them the name of his landlord, the man who held both the deed to the firetrap that housed his business and who’d supplied the Kiddies for Kicks tapes that had been found on the premises. But as of this morning, the landlord was nowhere to be found. Shaw had a hunch that he would turn up in some shallow grave somewhere. This was bigger than just some lowly scum.

They needed more leads. If enough leads came their way, one of them would hopefully send them off into the right direction.

All it took was one.

Moira continued staring out the window, wishing she was closer, wishing she could hear what was being said, but Shaw had been very stern as he’d issued his warning. He’d underscored it by saying he didn’t want her in harm’s way. It was either his way or no way and she had a feeling that this time, he meant it.

The man was accustomed to being obeyed, she thought absently. She watched him approach a young girl. At first, she thought the girl had just lost her way and wandered into this part of town by accident. She looked so incredibly young.

But then she took a closer look. The girl had already assumed the uniform of the trade. A short, vinyl skirt, boots that covered far more of her than her clothing did and enough makeup to outfit a busy cosmetic counter at any major department store.

Moira couldn’t turn her eyes away.

Damn it, what was she, fourteen? Fifteen? The girl should have been home, daydreaming about the latest boy band, not looking around for someone to throw her a few dollars for the use of her body.

She saw Shaw giving the girl money. For information?

Without thinking, Moira got out of the car and headed straight for them.

Reese saw her coming first. “Uh-oh. Torpedo at nine o’clock.”

Shaw glared at his partner, not bothering to hide his annoyance. This was the first underage prostitute they’d managed to come across and he didn’t want anything scaring her away. Like her sisters of the trade, the girl was uncooperative, but he had a feeling that he could get her to come around if he only pressed the right buttons. He’d given her a hundred dollars, not for information, but for a respite. If he gave it to her, that meant she didn’t have to sell herself for the amount.

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Our ride-along,” Reese managed to say before Moira was there next to them.

She couldn’t keep her eyes off the girl. Close up, the makeup was even more appalling. A pathetic child playing dress-up in a macabre world.

“How old are you?” Moira demanded.

“Moira, get back into the car or I swear I’ll send you back to your studio in a box,” Shaw barked.

“Moira?” the girl repeated, clearly impressed despite the bored, woman-of-the-world stance she was so desperately attempting to emulate.

“Moira McCormick,” she introduced herself. “And I’m not the issue here. How old are you?”

“Eighteen.” The lie was automatic and laughable. She looked thunderstruck. “Moira McCormick, the movie star?”

Looking at her, Shaw could almost see the gears in Moira’s head shifting. “Yes. Do you want a job?”

“What?” The incredulous question had come from Shaw as Reese looked on, as dumbstruck as his partner.

Moira ignored the two men, her attention completely focused on the girl. On saving the girl.

“I’m making a movie here in Aurora. I need extras. You’ve got the right face for it—with a little less makeup. The pay’s three hundred dollars a day. And hot food,” she added. From the looks of the girl, meals had not been all that plentiful.

The girl looked torn between being skeptical and elated. “Who do I have to do?”

“Nobody,” Moira said firmly.

He’d had enough. Shaw grabbed Moira firmly by the arm and dragged her aside. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

“Offering her a way out.” How callous had his heart gotten while he worked these streets? “She’s a baby.”

“She could also be the key to unlocking everything. So that ‘babies’ like her aren’t bought and sold—and who knows what else—for some creep’s sick pleasure.”

“She can be a ‘key’ working at a different profession, can’t she? It doesn’t change what she knows, what she can tell you. And maybe if she’s not scared, not surrounded by this kind of filth, she will tell you what you want to know.” She struggled against the tide of emotion welling up within her. “Shaw, look at her. That’s someone’s daughter.”

He knew that. And he was trying to save a lot of people’s daughters, not just one. But, he supposed, as surprising as it was, Moira was making sense. He thought of what she’d told him this morning, about giving her sister a job. Apparently her do-goodism wasn’t restricted to just family. “And what are you, Saint Moira?”

“No. Just doing my part whenever I can.”

He was beginning to believe she meant that. And she did have a point. If the girl wasn’t in this element, she might not be afraid of any reprisals and would talk to them. Looking over her head, his eyes met Reese’s and he nodded.

“Okay—” he took her arm again “—go, do your part. It might even help.”

The girl stood watching her, wary, afraid. Awestruck. “Did you mean it?” she asked the moment Moira approached her. “What you said about the work?”

“Absolutely.” And if there wasn’t some small part for her in the script, she’d have the writer create one. “What’s your name?”

“Desiree.”

She looked at the girl. “What’s your real name?”

The girl looked down at the ground, as if she was debating how far she could trust this woman she knew only through the magic of Hollywood. And then she looked up again. “Amy. Amy Kendell.”

“Well, Amy Kendell—” she smiled warmly at the girl “—it’s nice to meet you.” Moira fished out a card from her pocket. “Here’s my card.” She took the pencil Shaw had been using to make notes and wrote on the back of the card. “And here’s the name and number of the casting director. Ralph Ebersole.” She said the name slowly, letting it sink in. “Tell him that Moira McCormick sent you and if he has any questions, to call me.” She gave Amy the card. “Now do me a favor.”

The girl eyed her with a wariness that seemed embedded in her. “Yeah?”

“Get off this street corner. Go home and take a shower. Watch a little TV. And then call Ralph. Remind him that he still owes me a favor and I’m calling him on it.”

Shaw remained with the girl a few more minutes, telling her to get in contact with them the moment her “memory” about things returned.

He had a feeling that they had found one of the girls that was being used in the underage prostitution ring. Only sitting down and viewing the scores of tapes they had seized from Jenkins’s porno shop would tell him whether or not he was right. The idea of the task sickened him, but someone had to do it.

Moira, he thought, walking back to the squad car, looking at her very pleased face, might very well have allowed them to get their first decent lead.

Chapter Nine

A
ndrew hadn’t thought it would be this hard on him. All these years of looking for some trace of Rose, for some clue that verified that she was still alive, he’d thought that the search was the most difficult part. That once he’d found her, everything that came afterward would take on a positive glow.

But watching her interact with him and their children, politely but with a built-in reserve whose origin he couldn’t begin to guess at, was proving to be even more difficult for him than enduring the constant uncertainty that had been the cornerstone of all the years of searching. It threatened to rip his heart out, not once but several times over.

She was with him and yet she wasn’t.

“I feel like Jimmy Stewart in
Vertigo,
trying to make Kim Novak over into the woman I lost just because she looked like her,” he’d confided to Shaw this morning just before his oldest left the house.

Shaw had come for breakfast, joining a full complement at the table. Even some of their cousins had shown up to lend support. During the meal, conversation had moved along, but not with the flow it usually had. It was as if they were all still holding their collective breath.

“Except that we’re sure this is Mom,” Shaw had been quick to point out. “The fingerprints proved it. You’re not trying to make her over, Dad. You’re trying to help her remember. It takes time.”

He’d nodded, looking at the woman he loved with all his heart talking to one of their daughters. It would have taken such a little stretch for everything to be all right. “Yes, it does,” he’d agreed. “At least I know that she’s alive, that she’s safe. That’s a hell of a lot more than I knew for the past fifteen years.”

He’d looked at his oldest, grateful that Shaw had managed to swing by. Grateful for the entire support system that was in place and always had been, ever since the beginning. That was all to Rose’s credit, not his. She’d raised them while he’d been out, making their corner of the world safe, forgetting at times that his first allegiance should have been to his own.

But Rose hadn’t. She’d kept the home fires burning, kept their kids on the right track by putting them on the path that eventually led them to becoming the fine men and women they were today. All Rose’s doing, and she didn’t remember any of it, he thought now sadly.

He’d squeezed his older son’s shoulder. “Thanks for coming.”

Shaw had shifted his weight slightly. Gratitude, Andrew knew, was something his oldest wasn’t comfortable with. Shaw had never liked praise. “We’re all here for you, Dad.”

Andrew knew that to be true. Knew, too, that he shouldn’t be impatient, shouldn’t allow this temporary standstill to wound him as much as it did. He reminded himself that if Rose had been in possession of her memory all these long years, she would have returned to him, to them, on her own long ago.

Something had happened to her to blank out her memory of who and what she was. He was grateful that the circumstances had arranged themselves so that he could find her. That last gap, the one that led her back to the family who loved her, would be crossed, too, he promised himself. In good time.

Now, with the last of their children leaving, Andrew rose from the table, gathering up his own plate. He always ate last, after he was sure everyone else had their fill.

He could feel her looking at him. What was she thinking? She’d been here for several days. Was anything the slightest bit familiar to her?

“I’m sorry.”

He stopped and wearily set down his plate on the table. “You don’t have to keep saying that.”

“I know. But I am.” She smiled bravely at him, but there was no love behind the expression, no secret communication. She was still Claire and not Rose. “I just can’t remember. I thought that if I came here, if I met them, if I stayed in the house where you said we lived—” He hated the way she qualified that, but he held his tongue. In her place, he might have felt the same way. Wary, uncertain. “—I would remember. But I don’t.” She sighed and shook her head, dragging her fingers through her hair just the way she used to do. Just the way her daughters did now. “I feel I should know you, know all of you.” Her smile was brave and apologetic. “If I did, it would be a lovely thing because you all seem like such nice people—”

“You made us that way,” he interrupted.

She didn’t see how that was possible. He was just being kind. How many years had she dreamed about someone like him? Someone kind and good? The entire time she’d lived near Bainbridge-by-the-sea. “According to you, I’ve been gone fifteen years.”

Because he knew the way her mind worked even if she didn’t, he knew what she was going to say. “But you laid the foundation. Took care of the kids. Gave me someone I loved to come home to.”

Claire smiled sadly. Reaching out, she touched his face, gliding her fingertips lightly along his cheek. Wishing with all her heart that the blindfold would finally lift from her mind. But it was secure, refusing to let more than the smallest glimmer, the tiniest inkling that something was vaguely familiar, in. It frustrated her more than words could say.

“I wish…” Claire began, then her voice trailed off.

He turned her palm in toward his lips and kissed it lightly. The way someone who’d spent a lifetime with a mate would. He saw something fleeting in her eyes, but it was gone before he could grasp it.

“I know.” And then there was something else in her eyes. A restlessness that made him nervous. Did she want to go? She couldn’t leave—not now, not yet. Not until she remembered. He struggled to curb his own fears. “Give it time.”

“Time,” Claire echoed. That was all she’d ever had. Time and an uneasiness that haunted her dreams like a specter without a face.

She rose from the table, a need to be busy taking precedence over everything else. She needed to feel useful, to work, not vegetate like some specimen in a laboratory petri dish.

“Let me handle those,” she told him, moving Andrew aside. She began to pick up the breakfast dishes, stacking them on top of one another. “At least it’s something I know.”

“There’ll be more, I promise.” Dishes in her hands, she looked at him then, as if afraid to believe him. “I never break a promise,” he told her.

Claire merely nodded and continued stacking the plates together.

Aiming the remote control at the twenty-inch television set the department kept inside the smaller of the two conference rooms on the floor, Shaw terminated the hazy image on the screen in front of him.

He felt utterly drained and in silent despair for the human race. If it could spawn creatures who took pleasure in what he’d just been subjected to, then maybe the human race really wasn’t worth saving. Maybe it wasn’t worth putting his life on the line every day.

He needed a stiff drink. Something to anesthetize his brain and make him forget all this.

Shaw closed his eyes, waiting for the tension to leave his shoulders, his body. So far he hadn’t found the girl Moira had befriended the other day. When he’d questioned her, Amy had turned out to know very little. Or so she maintained. What she did tell him was that she’d heard the so-called studio where these videos were made was completely mobile. That was borne out by the tapes he’d already watched. The movies were filmed anywhere and everywhere—the inside of a van, different motel rooms, attics, basements, any place that allowed a smattering of light in. Always with girls who looked as if they belonged in high school if not middle school.

It made his flesh creep and his stomach turn. He would have liked to toss aside his gun and badge and spend ten minutes alone with the so-called film-makers. It wouldn’t have accomplished anything, but it would have made him feel better.

Shaw squinted as the door opened. Fluorescent light from the precinct hallway pooled into the room. A hazy halo glowed around the woman in the doorway. For a second, he couldn’t make out who it was.

The next moment, he knew.

She didn’t have to say a word. He didn’t even have to see her. Her perfume, distinct, evocative, preceded her. He took a deep breath, wishing the scent could erase what he’d just viewed. But it couldn’t. He doubted that anything could.

Moira took a step into the room, peering at his face. There was concern on hers. “Are you all right?”

“Sure,” he snapped a little too quickly, then caught himself. “Why shouldn’t I be?”

Moira slipped her hands into her pockets. “Well, for one thing, you look as if you could bite the head off a live chicken. For another, you’ve been in here for a while.”

She glanced at her watch. He’d barred her from the room, not that she would have wanted to watch what he was viewing. That had been over three hours ago. She’d spent the time with Reese and moving around the floor, talking to various police officers. But all the while, her mind had been on Shaw and what he was doing.

She gave him her warmest, most sympathetic smile. “I thought that maybe you were entitled for some time off for good behavior.”

She talked as if she understood what he was going through. As if she knew how disgusted all this made him feel. But how could she know? She came from the world of make-believe and he came from a world where reality arrived outfitted with razor-sharp spikes that could eat into your flesh.

Shaw pushed back his chair and rose to his feet, tossing the remote onto the table in front of him. “Yeah, I think I’ll call it a night.”

He sounded weary, she thought, and tense. She made her own diagnosis. “Reese is taking me to the Shannon. Would you like to come?”

“The Shannon?” Shaw echoed. She was talking about the local bar where they all hung out after work. It was strictly a cop bar and outsiders were not encouraged. Knowing that his partner probably wanted to impress her, he would have thought Reese would want to take her to a high-end restaurant. “Why is he taking you there?”

“Atmosphere,” she explained. “The Shannon is part of your life, isn’t it?” She didn’t wait for him to answer. “I’m thinking of asking Joshua to put in a scene in the movie using a local hangout.”

He looked at her blankly. “Joshua?”

“Walhberg.” She gave him the famous screen-writer’s last name and saw that it meant as much to Shaw as the first name had. Zero. “He’s the one who wrote the script.”

Shaw laughed shortly, popping the tape out of the VCR and putting it on top of the viewed pile. “You get to boss him around, too?”

“It’ll be strictly a suggestion,” she informed him. “The rest will be up to Joshua. But I think a scene like that might make my character seem more human to the audience.”

He tried to follow her reasoning. “And going to a bar makes me more human?”

She didn’t know about that, but she did know one thing. Moira nodded at the pile of tapes beside the VCR. There were dozens more in the boxes on the floor. “Watching that kind of filth and not going on a rampage makes you a saint. I figure maybe you wanted to counterbalance that.”

“A saint.” Reese laughed, coming into the conference room to join them. Reaching over on the wall, he flipped on the light switch. “Now there’s something nobody ever accused Cavanaugh of being.” Becoming serious, he nodded toward the dormant television set. “You find her yet? Amy.” He said the girl’s name in case Shaw didn’t know to whom he was referring.

“No.”

So far, Amy had only said she knew of the tapes, and of girls she’d told them had been snatched up off the street and forced to make these videos. But she’d sworn that she hadn’t been one of them. Whether that was the truth or not still remained to be seen.

Moira looked from one man to the other. After a long session at the police station, Amy had come back to the hotel with her last night. She’d gotten the girl a room across the floor from her own. “Would you like me to talk to her?”

Shaw paused to consider the offer. The woman was a born orchestrator, not to mention meddler, but this time it appeared to be doing some good.

“Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” Shaw allowed. Since she was determined to be part of this, he might as well use her where she did the most good. “Seeing as how you’ve got her staying at a room in the hotel.”

As far as he knew, Moira was paying for that out of her own pocket, and while the actress could well afford it, it wasn’t something he figured most people did for total strangers. He had to grudgingly admit that Moira McCormick was a unique woman.

Moira wondered if she had finally won him over. She had strong reservations about that. Shaw was not easily led, like the rest of them. She recalled her father’s advice on the subject.
Always play up to the hardest mark in the room. You win him over, you’ve got everyone in the palm of your hand.
She was willing to bet that right now, she had everyone
but
Shaw in the palm of her hand.

She nodded. “I’ll see if I can get Amy to trust me.”

He laughed shortly as he walked out of the room behind Moira and Reese. “Why not? You seem to have everyone else eating out of your hand.”

Funny that he should use the exact same image she’d just thought of. She looked at Reese, knowing she could count on Shaw’s partner for support.

“Is it just me, or did he sound as if he was accusing me of something?”

Reese shrugged good-naturedly. “That’s just Cavanaugh’s way. He’s not happy unless he’s grumpy.”

Moira pretended to consider that as she stopped and cocked her head to look at Shaw. “Isn’t that a contradiction in terms?”

“Yeah, but so’s Cavanaugh.”

“Hey—” Shaw tapped Reese on the shoulder “—I’m right here, remember?”

In silent agreement, they all headed toward the elevator together.

“Yeah, I know,” Reese lamented. “You wouldn’t be except that Moira insisted we bring you along. Thought you might need to reconnect with the human race.” The elevator arrived and Reese waited for Moira to get in first before he followed her. “I told her that it was an impossible cause, but she seems to think you can be redeemed.”

Shaw said nothing as he got in behind them. After viewing the tapes, he was more inclined to agree with Reese than Moira.