Dangerous Games by Marie Ferrarella Page A

I’m not even sure about that,” she admitted.
    “Voice synthesizer?”
    She shook her head. “Whisper. Whoever called me on my cell whispered. Could have been a female, now that I think of it. Some women have deep voices.”
    Rayne had a deep voice, he thought. Just deep enough to slide effortlessly under a man’s skin. His eyes held hers. “Like warm bourbon being poured down the side of a glass on a cold day.”
    The look in his eyes was doing it again, causing earthquakes in heretofore peaceful regions. Rayne took in a long breath. There was no getting away from it, something was definitely going on here between the two of them, something she couldn’t—wouldn’t—put a label on. But that didn’t make it disappear.
    “Something like that,” she murmured.
    He didn’t bother hiding his disappointment. Granted he’d approached her on Friday and this was only Monday, but still, he’d expected her to come through with some sort of tidbit, some kind of insight in that time. “And that’s it?”
    Why did she suddenly feel like a gifted child who had uttered the wrong last letter in a national spelling bee contest? She hadn’t failed, not yet. It was too soon to fail.
    Too soon was a relative term, she reminded herself. In this case, Eric Garrison didn’t have all that much time before too soon became too late.
    However, that didn’t change the fact that she didn’t have anything new to offer his brother. “No earth-shaking revelations, if that’s what you mean. The only inside track I have is to paperwork I’m sure you’ve already gotten your hands on nefariously.” The items in the evidence room had been no less enlightening. So far, she had to admit that the case was stacking up against Eric. And yet when she’d read the autopsy report she’d come away with a nagging feeling there was something she was missing.
    He shoved his hands into his pockets. “You mean, the official police report.”
    So far she’d only been able to get her hands on the first part of the report. Longwell wasn’t an eager beaver, but he was good about filing his paperwork. “I took a look at Officer Longwell’s statement. No surprises there. As for Rollins and Webber—” she shrugged vaguely to hide her frustration “—neither one takes too kindly to having someone looking over their shoulder. They’re kind of like my partner that way.”
    He was surprised by her admission. He’d thought that all police partners were supposed to present unified fronts to the public and one another. “Your partner doesn’t like you looking over his shoulder?”
    Patterson hadn’t gone out of his way to hide the fact that he felt saddled with her. She knew that he was waiting for her to fail ignobly. The fact that she did well only seemed to irritate him further.
    She laughed dryly. “My partner doesn’t like anyone who can’t remember the Vietnam war from firsthand experience.”
    “You don’t get along.”
    Because she was determined to do well and not give her father any cause to be ashamed of her, she kept her tongue in check whenever Patterson directed a snide comment in her direction.
    “Let’s just say we have a tentative truce. I’m sure if I put in for a transfer tomorrow, Patterson wouldn’t shed any tears. He thinks I am where I am because of my name.”
    He could see how that ticked her off. Not that he blamed her. “Are you?”
    A dangerous light shone in her eyes as she looked at him. He found himself amused as only someone in the same boat could have been.
    “The only thing my name ever did for me was put unnaturally high expectations on my performance. Being a Cavanaugh doesn’t open doors, it gets you an audience, people watching, waiting to see if you mess up.”
    “Not easy living with a name, is it?”
    She opened her mouth, then shut it again, realizing that, by the look on his face, she’d stumbled across something else they had in common. “You’d be the one to know, wouldn’t you?”
    He