“Are you just trying out my name because you’ve forgotten how it sounds, or do you actually want to say something?” Morgan asked.
By now Fredericks had reached the two desks that butted up against one another in the squad room. Fredericks eyed his desk, obviously tempted to take a load off, but there was apparently something stopping him.
“Umm, didn’t you tell me that one of your cousins just got married?” he asked, stumbling his way into the reason he had come looking for Morgan in the first place.
The latest Cavanaugh wedding had just recently taken place. The entire police department had been invited and most of them had attended. Fredericks was one of the few who had not because his wife had insisted on picking that exact week for their annual vacation.
“You know I did,” Morgan told his partner, doing his best to hold on to his patience. “Finn and Nikki. I showed you their wedding pictures,” he reminded Fredericks. “Why? Where are you going with this?”
Fredericks bit his almost nonexistent lower lip. “I’m not sure,” he confessed.
Morgan temporarily abandoned his paperwork and pinned the man hovering over his desk with an impatient look, waiting. Sometimes Fredericks could become exceedingly tongue-tied. That was a direct result of his wife of eighteen years never allowing him to get in a word edgewise.
“C’mon, Fredericks. Spit it out. What is it you’re trying to say?” Morgan pressed.
“Would you happen to know if the newlyweds were due back early from their honeymoon?” Fredericks asked awkwardly.
“They weren’t,” Morgan answered without any hesitation. “Why? And for heavens’ sakes, sit down and stop hovering like a seagull that’s circling a garbage heap, looking for lunch,” he said, exasperated.
Shifting and obviously undecided, Fredericks remained on his feet. “You think I could see that picture again?” he asked. When Morgan looked at him quizzically, his partner elaborated. “You know, the one from their wedding?”
Morgan had brought the photograph in to show one of the people he worked with who wasn’t able to attend the ceremony. After he did, he shoved the photograph into a drawer and then promptly forgot about it. That was the only reason the photograph was still in the squad room rather than back at his place.
Morgan thought Fredericks’s request was rather odd, but he shrugged. “All right.” Opening the wrong drawer at first, he located the photograph and took it out. He passed the photograph to his partner. “Okay, again I ask, what is this all about? Or do you just have a thing for wedding pictures?”
Fredericks frowned as he studied the photograph Morgan had handed to him. “Yup, it’s her all right,” he murmured under his breath.
“‘Her?’” Morgan questioned uncertainly. Just what was Fredericks getting at? His partner was known to be quirky on occasion, but this was downright weird.
“Your cousin’s wife,” Frederick answered, handing the photograph back to Morgan. “You’d better brace yourself,” he warned. “I think something’s wrong.”
Definitely weird, Morgan decided. “You know, for a detective with the Aurora Police Force, sometimes you can be as clear as mud. What the hell are you talking about, Fredericks?” he demanded.
Fredericks pressed his lips together, making them almost disappear altogether. “She just came in asking for you.”
“Who came in asking for me?” He was barely able to keep from shouting the question.
And then, before Fredericks could make another attempt to explain himself, Morgan suddenly had his answer. Finn’s wife had just come walking into the squad room and now appeared to be heading straight for him.
He had only met Nik a handful of times, one of which was at the actual wedding. He had no idea why she would be back from her honeymoon so soon but by the expression on her face, something was definitely wrong. Not only that, but out of all the Cavanaughs who were available in this building, why would she be coming to see him? If there was some sort of a problem going on, he would have thought that Uncle Andrew, the former police chief of Aurora and the real family patriarch, would be the one the newlywed would be more inclined to turn to, especially since she had been instrumental in helping to bring Andrew’s father, Seamus, around after a mugging had thrown the older man into a depressed tailspin.
Morgan rose from his chair just as his new cousin-in-law reached his desk. A dozen questions went through his head, none of which he felt were his place to ask. But still, maybe he could. After all, she had sought him out, he reasoned. He wasn’t the one who had come to her.
“I take it you’re Morgan Cavanaugh,” the woman said to him just as she reached his desk.
Morgan gave her a bemused look. Granted, she had met a great many Cavanaughs on her wedding day, even more than she had initially met at Uncle Andrew’s party on that first occasion. He knew that kind of thing could be very confusing for some people, what with trying to keep all those names straight, not to mention remembering who was married to whom. There was a time when he had gotten confused himself and he was family, although, at the time, that had been a huge revelation, finding himself related to such a huge family.
He smiled at the shapely blonde. “We met at Uncle Andrew’s party,” he reminded her.
She surprised him by firmly shaking her head and denying his assumption. “No, we didn’t,” she told him.
Morgan opened his mouth, about to tell her that she was the one who was making the mistake, but then he closed it again. He wasn’t about to argue with her and get off on the wrong foot with this newest family member, so he just let her statement go.
Instead, he decided to try another approach. “Where’s Finn?”
“Still with my sister would be my guess,” Krys answered.
“Your sister,” Morgan repeated, feeling as if he had suddenly, without
