Cavanaugh's Surrender by Marie Ferrarella Page B

of all yourself. “Don’t I look like I’m serious?”
    What he looked like was a guy who didn’t have a care in the world—except where his next romantic interlude was coming from.
    She wondered if she could appeal to Sean and ask him if anyone else could work on the investigation with her. But then she remembered that technically, she wasn’t really supposed to be working on this at all and the investigation belonged to this laid-back detective who seemed more interested in wordplay than in solving six homicides.
    She pressed her lips together. Logan Cavanaugh had to be better than she thought he was. Otherwise, last name or not, he would be out on his butt. According to what she knew about Brian Cavanaugh, he was a good man who was always there for his men and he didn’t suffer idiots. So this all just had to be an act on Logan’s part.
    Why?
    With a sigh, Destiny resigned herself to the fact that it was either work with Logan or return to the bleachers and watch the investigation into her sister’s death unfold from the sidelines.
    There was absolutely no way she was about to do that. So, for better or worse, she was stuck with the man.
    “My mistake,” she murmured. “You look serious.” And with that, she launched into a summary of what she had entered into the file he wasn’t opening.

Chapter 7
    T here was one thing wrong with the summation that Destiny had given him regarding her sister’s social life. For the most part, it involved the past. The present was covered only in generalities. There was no mention of actual names. Was that because there were too many—or because she didn’t know any?
    “Do you know the names of any of your sister’s current friends?” he asked, cutting in when she paused for a breath.
    Destiny flushed. “I used to.”
    God but she hated admitting that.
    Once upon a time she and Paula had been closer than two shadows on the wall. But then things began to change. Maybe Paula had seen her as too much of a mother figure and not enough as a sister-confidante. That had come about because she’d been the one left in charge, despite the fact that she wasn’t really that much older than Paula. It happened out of necessity. Because their father had just walked out on them one day, their mother was forced to take any work she could to pay the bills and hold body and soul together. Most of the time, that took two jobs. Their mother was hardly ever home, which put the burden of responsibility on Destiny’s shoulders. Paula grew to resent having to listen to her sister. Rebellion followed.
    All in all, though, Paula had turned out all right. She’d gone to college, gotten a degree and went on to make a good career for herself.
    And they were finally getting closer again—until this had happened.
    “Our careers took us in different directions,” she told him. “We moved around in different circles. But we were getting in touch more often again,” she said with emphasis.
    That wasn’t the part he was interested in. “What kind of circles did your sister move around in?” he asked.
    Her sister was a fundraiser, working for a charitable foundation. That put her in touch with a broad spectrum of people. Interesting people, Destiny imagined.
    “Mainly they had to do with her job.”
    “Remind me what that was again,” he said.
    She’d mentioned it in passing in her summary and for a couple of minutes there, he’d been so busy just watching Destiny speak that he had lost the thread of what she was saying. That was probably when she’d mentioned her sister’s job title.
    “She was a fundraiser for the Children’s Hospital of Aurora,” Destiny told him again. Was he trying to trip her up? Bait her? Or what? “And she was very good at it. Even in these rough times, she knew just how to coax major corporations and wealthy CEOs into making sizable donations to the hospital.”
    She knew that because other people had told her. Paula had never been one to sing her own