Cavanaugh Standoff. Marie Ferrarella

had told him the truth and she didn’t see any reason not to say as much. She knew that she always liked hearing good things about her family from other people.

      “Yeah, I know,” Ronan responded, his voice so low it almost sounded as if he was talking to himself rather than answering her.

      Low voice or not, it was a start. Maybe, in time, she’d wear him down and actually draw O’Bannon into a normal conversation that didn’t require pulling teeth.

      Focused on getting O’Bannon to talk to her, she hadn’t really been paying attention to the area they were driving through. But when he brought his vehicle to a stop a few minutes later, Sierra looked around for the first time.

      They definitely weren’t in Aurora anymore.

      The buildings on both sides of the streets all had a worn, run-down feel to them. Poverty, desperation and fear almost seemed to waft through the air. This was the kind of area people with any sort of ambition typically strove to leave behind, not come home to night after night.

      And yet, for many, there was no other choice.

      Eventually the streets won and the area beat people down, stripping them of all their hopes and dreams, as well as their dignity, leaving them with nothing to hold on to.

      Ronan glanced at her. “You wanted to come along,” he said gruffly.

      It was as if he could intuit what was going through her head, Sierra thought, doing her best to banish her reflections.

      “I’m not complaining,” she told him, getting out on her side.

      “Maybe I am,” Ronan murmured, hardly audible enough for her to hear.

      The address on Walker’s license coincided with a five-story brown building that had gone up in the early seventies. Situated in the middle of a block, there was a bakery right next door to a shoe repair shop. A boarded-up dry cleaner’s was on the other side.

      The building where Walker had lived had a front stoop. Several men, ranging from the ages of around seventeen to their midtwenties, were either sitting or standing in the stoop’s general vicinity. There were five of them, just enough so that, immobile, they all but barred access to the entrance.

      “Mind getting out of the way?” Ronan asked evenly. His no-nonsense tone told the loiterers that they had no choice in the matter.

      Mumbling, the five men moved only enough to create a small, accessible space to the door. Ronan went first, creating the path.

      When Sierra started to follow him, one of the men on the stoop shifted just enough to keep her from entering the building.

      Ronan never even turned around. “I heard one of you shifting. That had better be to give her more space, not less,” he warned.

      The immediate shuffling noise that followed told him that the offender had moved out of the detective’s way.

      “That’s a neat trick,” Sierra told him, falling into place beside Ronan once she’d crossed the threshold and had gotten inside the building. “Do you have eyes in the back of your head, too?”

      “Don’t test me,” he told her. He expected that to be the end of it.

      “Don’t tempt me,” she countered.

      Since it didn’t appear as if there was an elevator, Ronan walked to the base of the staircase. “You always have to have the last word?” he asked.

      “Not always,” she answered. Her cheerful response told him more than her words. “Lead the way, Fearless Leader.”

      He looked back at her and frowned. “Don’t call me that.”

      “Choi did,” she reminded him, using that as her excuse.

      “That doesn’t make it right.”

      “Want me to tell him to stop?” she offered, still searching for a way to get on O’Bannon’s good side—if there was such a thing.

      “I want you to be quiet and stay sharp,” he told her, looking around the poorly lit area carefully. The dim lighting on the stairs made it difficult to see beyond a few feet, which in Ronan’s mind placed them at a definite disadvantage.

      “I can do both,” she told him, but for the sake of peace—and pleasing O’Bannon—she deliberately kept quiet as they carefully made their way up the next five flights of stairs.

      Coming to the landing, Sierra blew out a breath. She exercised daily and felt she was in decent shape, but climbing all those stairs still took a bit of a toll on her, given that she was trying to keep up with O’Bannon’s pace.

      “Wow, I’d hate to have to do that after a long day at work,” she commented.

      “Could be why Walker and his so-called ‘friends’ didn’t work,” Ronan said cryptically, adding, “At least not in the traditional sense.”

      Finding the apartment number he was looking for, Ronan knocked on the door. He gave it the count of ten and was about to knock again when they heard the sound of several locks being opened on the other side. Then someone pulled the apartment door back a crack. There was a chain holding the door in place.

      The wary-looking woman on the other side of the door appeared as if she had once been very attractive. But it was obvious she had weathered more than her share of the worst that life had to offer.

      Dark brown eyes regarded them both suspiciously, coming to her own conclusions. “If you’re selling religion, I tried it but it didn’t work.”

      With that she began to close the door on them but Ronan put his foot in the way, which prevented her from shutting it.

      “Hey!” she shouted in protest.

      Ronan held up his badge so she could see it. “We’re with the police department.”

      “I tried them, they didn’t work, either,” the woman informed him. There was a deep chasm of bitterness in her voice.

      “Are you related to John Walker?” Sierra’s question was an attempt to cut through any further protest the woman might have to offer.

      A flicker of despair passed through the woman’s eyes. “I’m his mother, why? What’s he done this time?” she demanded. There was anger in her voice as well as weariness that went clear down to the bone.

      “May we come in?” Sierra asked politely.

      But the older woman held her ground.

      “No. You have something to say, you tell me from where you’re standing. What’s he done?” Walker’s mother demanded again, looking from Sierra to the man who still had his foot in her doorway.

      Despite Ronan’s thoughts to the contrary, she had never had to break this sort of news to a deceased’s family member before. Sierra could feel a lump forming in her throat as she struggled to push the words out.

      It almost felt surreal as she listened to her voice saying, “Ma’am, I’m sorry to have to tell you—”

      “Oh, Lord, he’s dead, isn’t he?” Mrs. Walker cried. Her small, frail body began to shake. She struggled as she removed the chain from the slot where it was anchored. “I told him,” she cried with anguished frustration. “I told him that the kind of life he was leading would kill him.” The woman sobbed, looking as if she was going to dissolve where she stood.

      Once inside the apartment, Sierra tried to put her arms around the woman to keep her from sinking to the floor.

      Walker’s mother fought her for a moment and then gave up as she broke down, sobbing against her shoulder. And then, after several minutes, Mrs. Walker straightened, seeming to tap into an inbred resilience.

      Squaring her bowed shoulders and holding her head high, she looked at Sierra. “How did it happen?”

      “Someone shot him. His body was found in