Cavanaugh's Woman. Marie Ferrarella

effortless. And she had a feeling that it was going to take a lot of effort to make this unsmiling detective with the piercing blue eyes come around to her side of the table.

      “You haven’t heard of me,” she concluded.

      “I’ve heard of you.” In the last seven years, he’d seen maybe five movies. He believed in other forms of diversion. If he needed to knock off some steam, he turned to sports. He loved basketball and baseball the most, but almost any sport, other than golf, would do. To him, playing golf seemed too much like standing on the sidelines. Maybe that was why movies seemed such a waste of time to him. Plunking down money for a two-hour vicarious experience had never really sat right with him.

      But he knew who she was. He would have had to be living in a cave not to.

      Still, if she was expecting him to turn into a puddle of pulsating semisolid flesh, the way Reese apparently had, she was in for a disappointment.

      Moira nodded. The detective’s reply had an air of finality to it. Which meant he wasn’t going to gush.

      Which meant he was perfect.

      She still had doubts about his partner, though, but that could be handled. Worst-case scenario, she could get Chief Cavanaugh to reassign the shorter detective to another partner for the time being.

      She wanted the stubborn one. In her gut, she knew he’d be the one to show her the ropes, the one who wouldn’t sugarcoat things. She wouldn’t take no for an answer.

      Flashing another brilliant smile, Moira turned toward the chief of detectives. “You’re right. He’s perfect.”

      Shaw didn’t like the sound of this. Wary, feeling like someone who’d just been blindfolded and pushed out onto a very thin tightrope, he looked from the movie star to his uncle.

      “Perfect for what? What’s going on here, Chief?” For the first time he saw that the woman had a small, thick spiral notebook on the desk in front of her. She was making notations in it. “Why’s she doing that?”

      “Ms. McCormick is about to make a movie dealing with an inner-city vice squad,” Brian said cautiously.

      “Good for her,” Shaw bit off.

      His uncle looked at him sharply and Shaw inclined his head by way of a minor apology. It was just that he didn’t see the point of making movies about the kinds of thing he and Reese dealt with on a daily basis. At best, his work could be described as long spates of monotony interrupted by pockets of adrenaline-rushing moments comprised of sheer danger and terror. If portrayed accurately, no one would come to see the movie because the kind of life they led was boring ninety-seven percent of the time. If not portrayed accurately, why bother making the movie at all? In his experience, movies such as the one his uncle was describing were just excuses to blow up a lot of things.

      He had no use for that kind of so-called entertainment.

      Shaw turned his attention back to the woman who was watching him so intently. Was she expecting him to perform tricks? He wasn’t about to be anyone’s trained monkey or stooge.

      “You know, I’m a huge fan,” his partner was saying, taking Moira’s small hand in his and shaking it again. “I’ve seen all your movies.”

      Very carefully, she managed to extricate her hand without giving offense. That, too, was training from way back when.

      “So you’re the one.” She laughed.

      Reese looked at her, his face a mask of confusion. Moira McCormick’s movies broke records. There was even talk of there being an Oscar nomination for her last role as a turn-of-the-century Irish freedom fighter. How could she downplay attendance?

      “What? Oh, that’s a joke?” And then Reese laughed as if he’d just caught the humor of it. He looked up at her much like a puppy looked at its master.

      Shaw struggled not to scowl. He’d never seen Reese like this. Just showed you never really knew a person. His impatience began to break through.

      “So you want to do what? Ask us questions? Pick our brains?” He glanced at his partner. “Such as they are,” he added.

      Moira exchanged looks with the chief. It was clear that she wanted to take the lead here. “Actually, I’d like to do more than that.”

      He really didn’t like the sound of this. He especially didn’t like the fact that his uncle had obviously yielded center stage to this Hollywood bit of fluff.

      “More?” he echoed. “More as in how?”

      “As in riding along with you for the next week or so.” She uttered every word as if it were a sane request.

      If granted at all, ride-alongs were usually conducted by patrol officers along routes they knew ahead of time were going to be safe, or as safe as could be hoped for. He and Reese did not patrol fantasyland. They went where the action was.

      This time, he scowled darkly at her. “During work hours?”

      Moira had a feeling she was being challenged. Nothing made her feel more alive. It reminded her of the old days. “That would be the point.”

      “Oh, no, no. Sorry, out of the question. We don’t do taxi service.”

      Brian took a step forward, his message clear. Shaw was to toe the line.

      “Shaw—” Brian began, then looked surprised as Moira held up her hand, unconsciously silencing him. Ever since she could remember, she was accustomed to fighting every battle for herself. She’d come here looking for resistance, because only a real, dedicated detective was going to be of use to her.

      “You wouldn’t be driving me around. I’d be an observer. You wouldn’t even know I was there,” Moira assured him.

      The way she looked at him made Shaw feel as if there was no one else in the room. He supposed that was part of her attraction. And her weapon. He shook himself mentally free.

      “I highly doubt that.”

      A man would have to be dead three days to be oblivious to her. He saw amusement play along her lips. Shaw deliberately shifted his eyes toward his uncle, who seemed rather amused by the whole exchange. Had everyone gone crazy? Shaw shifted, his body language asking for a private audience with his uncle.

      “With all due respect, sir, wouldn’t she be better off observing another woman?” He thought of his sister. Now there was someone who wouldn’t mind serving as tour guide. She had the patience, the temperament for it. “Callie, for instance—”

      Brian shook his head. “None of the female detectives are in Vice and Vice is what Ms. McCormick wants to observe.”

      “Then team her up with another pair of detectives,” he suggested firmly.

      Reese made a strange, protesting noise that sounded like the gurgle of a castaway going down for the third time.

      Moira hardly heard the other man. Her attention was focused on Shaw. It was this man or no one.

      “I don’t want another pair of detectives,” she told him, rising to her feet and looking up into his eyes. She wasn’t a short woman, but he made her feel like one. Was he protesting because this arrangement would make his girlfriend jealous? “I want this pair.”

      “No offense, ma’am,” he said evenly, “but what you want really doesn’t concern me.”

      Ma’am, she thought. If she tried hard, she could almost see him tipping the brim of an off-white Stetson. Because this man was off-white, not the pure hero type, not quite the black-hearted loner he made himself out to be.

      It’s going to be fun, getting under your skin, Detective Cavanaugh, she thought. And fun was part of the reason she was in this business. The money was the other, because without money, she wouldn’t be able to take care of those who needed caring for.

      “It does this time, Detective,” Brian told his nephew sternly.