Playing with Fire (13 page)

“
What?
” Carolyn gasped. “You didn’t call me. You didn’t say anything. Are you okay?”

“Carolyn, I’m fine.” Maggie dragged her attention back to the other woman. The rest of her comments came out in short machine-gunlike bursts as if she could only trust herself with a few words at a time. “I love you. Go away. I’ll tell you everything later, but right now, Mr. Grayson and I have to talk. Alone.”

“Are you really okay?” Carolyn asked again, and this time her tone alerted Beau to the undercurrent of understanding between the women. Carolyn was obviously aware of Maggie’s panic attacks and just as aware of what was causing them.

“I really am fine,” Maggie assured her. “Just go open the shop. I can handle this.”

Carolyn adjusted her grip on the huge handbag, shot him a warning look corrosive enough to peel paint off a Chevy, and gave Maggie a brief hug of support. Without a word, Maggie waited for her to clear the threshold and then slammed the door. The old Venetian blind cord on the windowpane of the door gave out, and the blind rattled down to cover the glass.

Funny, Beau thought, he knew just how that cord felt. Every time he was alone with Maggie, he felt stretched tight, ready to snap. One of these days he
would, and it wouldn’t matter what baggage they had between them.

“Why don’t you flip the rest of the blinds while you’re at it, Maggie?”

Her chest rose and fell deeply, and her voice shook. “You smug son of a bitch.”

Beau didn’t flinch. He’d been called worse.

“So far, Maggie, we’ve confirmed that I don’t know who my daddy is and that my mama was hell on wheels.” He loosened his tie and settled his hands back on his hips. “Both those statements are fairly accurate by the way. Now, do you want to get to the point or do you just want to keep maligning my family tree? If that’s the case, I’ve got a funny uncle you could really do a number on. Man wore his pants backward before it was fashionable.”

Pain and betrayal edged out the hot anger in her eyes. That was a good sign. A man couldn’t reason with anger; anger wanted only to lash out. Pain, on the other hand, wanted to know why. Pain would listen.

“Your choice, Maggie May. Are we going to do this the hard way?”

“Don’t we always?” She tossed her purse in one of the chairs and flipped the vertical blinds. When she swung around, she asked the question she’d come to ask. “Why did you call Bennett? I asked you what was going to happen, and you said, ‘Nothing.’ Right there in my kitchen. I trusted you. Why’d you lie, Beau?”

Maggie realized losing her job had made her angry, but there would be other jobs, other hospitals. What Beau had done to her hurt a lot more. He lied. And that cut her pride, because she’d believed him. Everything about Beau had promised he was a man of his word. He wore integrity like a second skin. When he said nothing would happen because of the barn fire, she had trusted him.

What a fool. The advertising had suckered her in again.
Nothing was ever as good as the advertising.
How many times did she have to learn that lesson?

Fool, fool, fool. Because she was hoping, even now, that Beau had an explanation. He had been quiet so long, she thought he might be considering whether or not to throw her out of his office. The easiest way to avoid questions you didn’t want to answer was to get rid of the person doing the asking. That particular philosophy had worked well for Bennett so far. Maybe Beau had taken notes from the doctor.

The silence was uncomfortable and orchestrated. He
studied her the way once-a-year museum goers studied abstract art—not really understanding it but fascinated by the complexity. Maggie was about to break the unbearable stillness when he finally answered her question.

“I didn’t lie to you, Maggie, and I didn’t call Bennett. He called me.”

“Oh, right! He just called you up out of the blue and said, ‘Hi, how ya doin’ and has Maggie burned down anything else this week?’ And you felt compelled to share.”

“
No
,” Beau ground out. “This conversation’s going to take a long time with you taking potshots at everything I say. I don’t want to do this the hard way, but I guess we’re going to.”

He came around the desk, kicked a chair to an angle and stared at her until she got the message. When she sat down, his grim expression eased the tiniest bit, and he leaned back against the desk, positioning himself squarely in front of her.

“Pay attention, Maggie. I’m only going to say this once. Bennett called
me
before eight o’clock. I just happened to be here early because by the time I got home there wasn’t much sleep left in the night …”

He paused for an apology, insinuating she should feel guilty. She did feel guilty, but she’d be damned if she’d apologize for asking him to do his job. So she forced herself to return his expectant gaze and said nothing.

“Okay,” he continued. “At least you’re listening. When Bennett called, he asked only one question. If I hadn’t answered it for him, he would have found someone else. He wanted to know if the barn beside your house had burned last night.”

“What?” She was out of the chair instantly. “And you didn’t go arrest him? What more proof do you need that he set me up?”

He laughed at her suggestion. “Jesus, Maggie, I have less evidence to arrest Bennett than I have to arrest you.”

“Think about it! Bennett just happens to call you about the barn fire this morning. How’d he know about it? It happened too late to make the paper, probably wouldn’t have anyway. There were no news cameras there. It was just an old barn, for crying out loud.”

As she talked the logic seemed so inescapable; she couldn’t believe that she had to explain it to him. She moved closer so she could see his eyes, see if he was getting the point she was trying to make. “So how did he find out about the barn unless you told him or I told him? Huh? Either the person he hired to burn the barn told him or he set the fire himself. How else could he know?”

His expression didn’t change. She hadn’t convinced him of a thing. Maggie felt her excitement drain away, felt the awful certainty that nothing she could say or do would stop the tornado of damning coincidence that swirled around her. Beau was about to punch holes in her neat conclusions, and once he did, she’d be the prime suspect again—a disgruntled nurse out for revenge.

For the first time, Maggie began to be afraid of more than the memories. She began to fear the future, began to wonder how much evidence was enough. How much coincidence was too much? She began to wonder if she knew any good lawyers, and if she could afford them without a job.

“I’m sorry, Maggie,” Beau said softly. “I know you
want this fire to be Bennett’s fault, but I can’t decide guilt based on one phone call. He could have found out a hundred ways.”

“How?” she shot back. “Give me a ‘how’ that makes more sense than my version.”

“Simple. One of the firefighters from last night could have seen the article in the newspaper this morning and called his favorite board member—Bennett.”

“How could they know Bennett?” she objected.

“Volunteer fire crews are a mixed bag of society, Maggie. Politicians, business owners, plant workers, accountants, the butcher, you name it. One of them could have been Bennett’s golf buddy for all we know.”

“No, I don’t think—”

“Shh. Don’t think. It’s my turn now. You asked.” Beau ticked off the other possibilities. “One of your neighbors could have read the newspaper, driven by, put two and two together, and called Bennett. Your last name’s on the mailbox. Or the man who owned the barn could have called Bennett. People know your doc’s on the Cloister board. He’s in the society and charity news all the time. Most people call the board member whose name they can remember. Anyone could have called him.”

She reached for the front of his shirt in a reflexive gesture. She curled her fingers in the material, giving a little tug in frustration. “No. It wasn’t anyone. It was someone. You should have gotten the name. I can’t believe you didn’t ask for a name.”

“Maggie, a rookie knows enough to ask that question. I asked. I asked again. Bennett refused to budge
from the story that the call came from a concerned citizen at the crack of dawn this morning.”

“Where does that leave me?”

“Where do you want to be left?”

“Alone.”

“No, you don’t,” he snapped as he grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands away from his shirt. “You’ve been left alone all your life.”

She tried to drag her hands away from him, but Beau tightened his hold and wouldn’t let go. He held her hands between his, his grip like steel. She wasn’t getting away from him, not until he made his point.

“If you had really wanted out of this—to be left alone—you could have explained about the panic attacks and why you failed one of the polygraphs. While you were at it, you could have mentioned Sarah Alastair. You were there, weren’t you? The night Sarah died? That is the reason you failed the polygraph, isn’t it?”

Beau uttered a curse when she winced. He had deliberately exposed a nerve, but he hadn’t expected to cut so deeply. She tried to jerk angrily away from him again, but he held on. If she knocked over the chair—if
anything
went crashing to the floor—Russell and Jim would use the noise as an excuse to come running. The door wasn’t locked. They were probably already eyeing the blinds, and speculating.

She didn’t need witnesses for this. He didn’t need witnesses for this. Manhandling suspects was frowned upon.

“Maggie, don’t,” he whispered. Some of the tension went out of her, but she wouldn’t look at him. “We don’t need a scene or my men bursting in here.”

Her brow furrowed. Maybe she was trying to collect herself, to weigh her words before she spoke. Beau put her hands on his chest, holding them there until she stopped pulling away.

There were no tears slipping from the edges of her lids. He doubted Maggie cried easily. Regardless, he brushed his thumb across her cheek and let his fingers slide into the short mop of hair to cradle the side of her head. “I’m sorry, Maggie. I didn’t mean to open up an old wound. Not like that.”

Maggie stared at her fingers splayed out on Beau’s chest. She realized it was possible to hate someone and need their strength all at the same time.

She was so cold on the inside. Fear did that to her. It froze her and made her heartbeat thunder in her ears. None of this would be happening to her if Beau had just left everything alone. Left
her
alone. Believed her.

But he hadn’t.

Maggie hated Beau because he knew too much. She hated herself because she didn’t know enough, and she never got any closer to the truth. The flashbacks were only fragments of time with no continuity. They were slices of an invisible whole, a worthless kaleidoscope of that day.

Eventually she looked up; she had to. She found the same old Beau—eyes that got her right in her flimsy knees, a haircut that was sliding past “regulation cop” into “bad boy” territory. He’d missed several spots on his jaw with his razor. He was probably too rushed this morning to do a decent job of shaving.

But no, he hadn’t been rushed. He got to the office
early. So why not take the time to do the job right? Beau Grayson was a man who tended to the details.

Why would you rush to get to the office, Beau? she wondered suddenly, the idea capturing her attention. Why be careless today? If you didn’t sleep, you had plenty of time to shower and shave.

“You okay?” he asked, breaking into her thoughts. That whisper of his was as raspy as the morning after and sent a twinge of quicksilver low in her belly. His big hands shifted and began to work magic on her back—an apology that kneaded her muscles and warmed her soul.

Maggie didn’t answer right away. Something important was trying to make its way through the disorganized labyrinth that pretended to be her brain. She didn’t have time to listen to her body. Why were you so hot to get to the office, Beau? The question hammered at her, demanding an answer.

While she puzzled it, her brain zigged and zagged, filtering the pieces. An easy explanation was that the barn fire made him want to dig around in her past. That he was rushing to get a head start on the investigation. But there was more to it. If she could just grab on to the thoughts as they zoomed past.

She kept coming back to his interest in the case. He hadn’t assigned it to someone else. Why would an Assistant Chief drive all the way to her house in a nasty storm just to look around? Why not send an underling? Same mission—to look around—but a lot less obvious. Why take his own personal time? And why drag himself out in the middle of the night because a woman calls?

He’d given her the answer himself. Taking her to bed wouldn’t even scratch the surface of what was between
them. Beau wasn’t calling the shots any more than she was. And he got off on the risk of being attracted to a suspect. The only way he could get any measure of permanent control over his attraction to her was to prove her guilty. Then she’d truly be off-limits, but until then Beau was having himself a grand old time—playing with fire, dancing on the edge. Taking an impossible risk. Just like the risks he used to take before he gave up the ax and the hat. Beau wanted to see how much heat he could take without getting burned.

If he gave in to temptation, she won. If he resisted, he won.

Her fingers curled into his shirt again, but this time she knew exactly what she was doing as she raised up on her toes and pulled him closer. One good bombshell deserved another. With her mouth close to his ear, she whispered, “Who do you think you’re fooling? The guys out there? Carolyn? Me?”

“What are you talking about?” Beau took her shoulders and shoved her away so he could see her face.

She stared back at him, one eyebrow raised and with a confidence in her smile that he hadn’t seen in a while. The transformation was nothing short of miraculous.

“I got news for you, Beau,” she told him. “You’re not fooling me. Not anymore. You can pretend that you’re some long-suffering investigator who’s stuck with me, but you’re the one who doesn’t want out of the middle of this investigation. You could have tossed this baby in someone else’s lap first thing this morning and gotten rid of me. But you didn’t. Why didn’t you?”