A Cavanaugh Christmas Read Free

content and well adjusted as he was, Tom was fairly certain that his job, particularly the failures that went hand in hand with the caseload, would have haunted him beyond the point of human tolerance.
    He wasn’t sure how others survived within this particular environment, but as for him, for the most part, he focused on the successes. Focused on them to almost the exclusion of all else because he knew he had to keep a good, optimistic frame of mind in order to keep on doing what he was doing. And he had to keep going because there were children who needed someone to find them, to bring them home and to punish the person or persons who were responsible for having taken them away in the first place.
    For a moment, his thought froze in place as he watched the woman coming closer, a lyrical song in heels that were far from sensible. It struck him that, despite her austere expression, this woman cared about appearances. At least her own.
     
    She was a long way from home.
    The thought came out of nowhere, in response to nothing in particular. But it was true. And it was for the first time.
    In this day and age of facilitated travel, Detective Kaitlyn Two Feathers, of the Taos, New Mexico, Police Department, had never been outside of New Mexico, scarcely out of Taos, actually.
    At least, not to her knowledge.
    She’d been in her maternal grandmother’s care the first four years of her life until the state, alerted by an anonymous “good citizen,” had become aware of what was happening and had ultimately taken her away. Grandmothers weren’t supposed to try to sell their unmarried daughter’s child, even if that daughter was serving twenty to life for second-degree murder of said child’s father.
    It was quite possible that, in her grandmother’s efforts to sell her—the woman and her boyfriend needed money to support their ever-growing dependence on drugs—she might have been taken across a state line or two. But since she had no extensive recollection of that time, it didn’t count.
    Wanderlust hadn’t brought her to Aurora, a city in Northern California, but a promise. A promise she had given to a distraught mother who had begged her to bring back her baby. That the woman also happened to be her cousin just made the promise much more urgent and personal. It was a promise she had every intention of keeping, even if it wound up taking her to hell and back.
    So far, though, it had only taken her to Aurora, California. She’d come as fast as she could, and with any luck she would still be in time to save Megan Willows before the four-year-old was completely swallowed up without a trace.
    She’d promised to reunite mother and child by Christmas, and that meant within two weeks, leaving her with little time. She didn’t plan on wasting any of it.
    As she drew closer—close enough for Tom to become aware of a fresh, herbal scent—her brilliant blue eyes swept over the nameplates on both desks. The perusal brought a slight reproving frown of confusion on the woman’s full lips.
    “I’m looking for Detective Thomas Cavanaugh,” she said in a voice that reminded a man of golden whiskey being poured into glass used only for very, very special occasions. “Do either of you know where I might be able to find him?”
    The question was directed at both men as she studied each, one at a time.
    “Right there,” Angelo volunteered, pointing to his partner.
    Tom noticed that LaGuardia pressed his lips together—probably to keep from literally drooling as he gaped at the woman.
    For good measure, Kait looked down again at the nameplate on the man’s desk. This time, there was displeasure in her frown. The nameplate didn’t read Cavanaugh, it read Cavelli.
    Kait didn’t appreciate being jerked around. She’d had more than her share of that for a good part of her life. As first a police officer, then as the youngest officer to make detective, she’d had to prove herself over and over again. It got to be almost a daily