by Aleah Barley
Hustling into the living room, she’d taken the time to let her hair down from its high ponytail and bite her lips in an effort to color them without raspberry gloss.
She hadn’t changed her clothes.
The idea of talking to Jack while wearing her little black bikini—showing off skin that glowed a deep caramel from the sun and stretched over adult curves she’d only just gotten used to—scared and excited her in a way she didn’t quite understand.
Her heart had beat fast inside her chest. She could still remember the force of it leaving her breathless. Taking that final step into the living room, she’d thanked any higher force that was listening. Jack’s presence in her life was a sign: her luck had finally changed for the better.
Only, it hadn’t been Jack waiting in the living room. It had been a tall woman in an elegant sapphire sundress and an absurd picture hat with feathers and flowers trailing down the back. The hat was stylish—Honey had seen one exactly like it on the cover of Vogue at a local newsstand—but it was also absurd. All that stuff on top. It had to weigh a ton.
“You must be Honey Moore.” The woman’s quiet sniff left no doubt that her impression was less than favorable. “I’m Amelia Ogden. Jack’s mother.”
“Jack’s mother,” Honey choked.
After that, she hadn’t been able to say anything. She’d sat there quietly and listened while Amelia did all the talking.
The conversation couldn’t have lasted more than twenty minutes, but it felt like an eternity passed while Amelia explained in careful detail that Jack was going to be a politician, a senator. While other people went along with their ordinary lives, Jack was going to change the world for the better. Surely, Honey could understand why her presence would not be appreciated.
At the end of Amelia’s tirade, Honey had steeled her spine and said, “If Jack doesn’t want me around, he’ll tell me.”
“Jack doesn’t know what he wants,” Amelia said. “I want you to think about this carefully. If you insist on seeing my son, I will have to take steps to separate the two of you. You may have tricked your way into the Black Palm Park Academy, but that doesn’t mean you’ll be staying.”
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“A girl with a criminal record? The board will have a thing or two to say about that. Logan Burrows got you in, but he can’t keep you there, especially if you’re in foster care.” There had been a gleam in her eyes as she explained. “I’ve done my research, young lady. Your grandfather can’t be your guardian if he’s in jail, and believe me, if that’s what it takes to keep you away from my son, then that’s what I’ll do.”
Standing in the mausoleum that was the Ogden dining room, Honey’s voice broke, and she rushed through the story of that afternoon so many years earlier. Shame washed over her as she explained to Jack how she’d let a single vague threat get in the way of their happiness. That this was why she’d done the things she’d done—all those pranks. Because she hadn’t trusted herself to keep away from him otherwise. It was easier to cultivate an air of anger and mistrust than it was to admit the truth.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.” Tremors ran through her body. “I was a kid. An idiot. I didn’t know what I was doing. I should have fought for you when I had the chance.” She grabbed at Jack, fingers twisting in the collar of his crisp cotton-linen shirt. “Please forgive me. Please don’t hate me.”
“Hell, Honey.” Jack’s arms wrapped around her, warming her. “I don’t hate you.” He bent down slightly, pressing his lips against her neck. Kissing her softly, tenderly. “I could never hate you. I—”
A sharp ring interrupted his words.
Slowly, Jack dropped one hand from her waist and pulled his cell phone out of his back pocket. “Ogden.”
Whoever was on the other end of the line had Jack straightening up. His jaw clenched.
“You gave me the day off, remember?” Jack’s free hand balled into a fist. “I’m recovering from a bar fight.”
His step backward should have left Honey feeling cold, unwanted. But his gaze never left her face. “I plan on spending the entire night flat on my back.”
Honey took two ragged breaths, drawing air into her lungs. “Don’t worry about me,” she said. “If it’s important—”
“Clay Parsons is Burrows’s cousin. He’s a state senator and the old man’s heir.” Jack’s words came fast. His expression was all business. “The house is a museum. Great art, fantastic security. You go in there looking for a reason that someone might target Logan Burrows, and you’ll be running down every cat burglar in the northern hemisphere. It’ll take months.”
There was a long pause while he listened to the man on the other end of the line. “Can you keep Burrows on ice for a couple of minutes? I’m just around the corner. I want to be in on the interview.”
Jack didn’t wait for the answer, ending the conversation abruptly. His eyes closed.
“That was my boss.” His eyelashes fluttered upward to reveal soulful blue eyes. “He wants my opinion on the Burrows case. Parsons is starting to throw his weight around, and the captain thought I might have special insight on why someone would want to burn the man’s house down.”
“And?”
“I don’t think that the fires were about the car. The Volvo Sport. The fire originated in his study, not the garage.”
That made sense. The Sport was valuable, but the last will and testament of Logan Burrows would be priceless. Honey took a deep breath, trying to calm her shaking nerves.
“What do you think it’s about?”
Jack stepped away, pacing. In his black suit and crisp blue shirt, his gun nearly hidden by his jacket and his badge glittering at his waist, he was everything a detective should be. If he couldn’t figure out what was going on, no one could.
“I have to ask you a question.” He shoved his hands into his pockets, his expression suddenly grave. “An important question. You have to tell me the truth.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What is your relationship with Logan Burrows? How does he know you?”
“I don’t know.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“Yeah, well, strap me to a lie detector, because it’s the truth,” she said. “I’ve met Logan Burrows exactly two times. He spoke at my high school graduation—Black Palm Park’s first citizen—and he shook my hand when I crossed the stage. Then last week he showed up at the garage where I work to ask for my help. That’s it.”
“Can you describe what happened? Exactly?”
Honey ran her fingers through her hair. She closed her eyes, trying to concentrate. “Logan was driving a black car. A new Ford Mustang.”
“He drove himself?”
“Yeah.” Honey’s eyes flickered open. There was a frown on Jack’s face. Apparently Logan didn’t drive himself very often. Just one more thing she didn’t know about the man who was going to leave her millions of dollars in property.
“He drove all the way into the shop, which got me all excited. I thought I’d have a chance to work on that car. Mustangs aren’t usually so high-end, but this one had been given a good once-over by someone who knew what they were doing. A lot of custom work.” The engine had sounded like a jet thundering down an airfield.
“He was wearing tailored khakis, a gray sweater. It’s hotter in the Valley than it is on the coast. He had to be boiling.”
“Did he ask you to retrieve the car right away?”
“No, he was mumbling, nervous. Not ready to get down to business. He asked for something to drink. I was done for the night anyway, so we shared a couple of beers on my couch. He smoked a cigar. He said that he missed the days when men could smoke at the country club without being harassed like criminals. He reminded me of my grandfather.”
They’d talked for an hour at the most, about silly things that had no relationship to reality. At the end of their talk, he’d asked her to find the car almost like it was an afterthou
ght, but it must have been why he’d come to the Valley in the first place. Men like Logan Burrows didn’t pay twenty thousand dollars to find an afterthought.
Only she was beginning to realize there were no “men like Logan Burrows.” The old guy was definitely one of a kind. Had he decided to leave her the house because she’d been nice to him, taking the time to sit down and talk in a world where people moved too fast? Or was there another reason he’d shown up at her garage under cover of darkness?
“Did Logan have any ideas about who stole his car?”
“He said it had gone missing.” That had been strange. Things didn’t go missing in Black Palm Park. There was always a culprit. Back when she’d gone to school in the area, she’d been the usual suspect. Just because she’d left was no reason to think things had changed.
Honey shoved her hands in her pockets, wishing she had something else to wear. Something nice, put-together. Anything more than a pair of short shorts and an obscene T-shirt.
“Let me grab my backpack, and we can go.”
“We can go?” Jack asked, his face registering shock and confusion. “You’re not going anywhere.”
“No—” Her voice cracked. “No, please! You can’t leave me. I can’t stay here. Your mother could be back any minute. I need to be safe, and the arsonist is still out there. This address is listed in the phone book. Right under yours.”
“How do you know that?”
“How do you think I found you?”
When Jack stood there, his brow furrowed, she repeated, “Please.”
She could understand why he didn’t want her company at a crime scene. Taking her along was a bad idea. It would mean answering awkward questions, and it could get him in trouble. Real trouble.
Part of her wanted to run away. Fleeing the city—maybe the state—not just to get away from the arsonist but also to get away from Jack. After so long apart, suddenly they were together. In every possible way. It was overwhelming.
But staying with Jack was the only way she’d feel safe.
“Please don’t leave me.”
Chapter Eleven
“This place is crazy.” Jack was having trouble finding a place to park outside of Logan’s house. He finally gave up and parked the Super Bee illegally in the middle of the street behind a dozen different news vans, a fire truck, two ambulances, and more patrol cars than he cared to count.
Malibu Police Department. Los Angeles Police Department. Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Logan’s place was filled to the brim with cops—uniformed, plain-clothed, and department brass. A real who’s who of the Los Angeles law enforcement community.
Jack opened the car door. “Come on.”
“I can wait here.”
“Someone’s trying to set you on fire, and you want to wait in the car? Like hell.”
Jack tapped one foot impatiently. Honey was the one who’d insisted on coming to the crime scene. After her little revelation, he could have used some time alone to think.
It wasn’t that he cared that Honey had rejected him so many years earlier, turning what had seemed like a beautiful possibility into a knock-down, drag-out war. It wasn’t even that he cared that Honey had caved to his mother’s threats. Amelia was famous for taking down even the strongest opponent. An out-of-her depth teenager would have been a piece of cake.
The only thing he cared about was spending more time with Honey, exploring the growing closeness between them.
He held open his door until Honey finally got out a minute later. He grabbed her arm and marched her quickly past the long line of reporters. A local anchorwoman in a tight red suit turned in their direction, trying to decide whether they were worthy of her time before going back to watching the plumes of smoke still lingering around Logan’s palatial manse.
Six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and a formal ballroom, all wrapped up in a tidy four thousand square feet. Small compared to the eight-thousand-square-foot pied-à-terre a movie star had built down the block a year earlier.
Jack lifted the crime scene tape, pushing Honey across into Logan’s front yard. Her body stiffened. Her legs slowed.
“Come on,” he growled.
“I’m just looking around.”
“Why? You must have seen it when you dropped Logan’s car off.”
“That was before.” She dug her teeth into her bottom lip. Sharp. Petulant. Her head shook, red-gold curls streaming down her back. “Things are different now.”
“Not really.”
The house had suffered some damage in the fire, but most of it was smoke or water related. The flames themselves had been caught early, dealt with quickly.
The fire might have been set by the same arsonist who’d attacked Honey’s house, but if so, he’d done a much less thorough job.
He dropped Honey’s arm when they entered the police perimeter, ducking underneath a strand of yellow crime scene tape. “I want you to stay here.” One of the sheriff’s officers was passing out snacks. “Grab some coffee. Eat a donut.”
“Ogden!” Captain Michaels’s greeting rang across the large area.
Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and walked over to talk to his boss.
“I know you’ve got the day off, but really…” The big Irish cop grinned. “What are you doing bringing a woman to a crime scene?”
“I was with her when you called.”
“Your current fling?”
“She’s not a fling.”
Jack didn’t know what Honey was exactly. She wasn’t his girlfriend or his wife, and she definitely wasn’t a fling. If he had to sum up their relationship in one word, he’d say it was “complicated.”
One word wasn’t enough. A hundred words wouldn’t be enough, or a thousand. All he knew was that he could spend the rest of his life studying her every move, and he still wouldn’t be able to figure her out. Of course, he was beginning to wonder if he should even try. Maybe he’d jumped the gun thinking they should move in together. There were still a lot of things he didn’t know about Honey.
Maybe they should take things slow. Dinner on Friday night and movies on Tuesday.
“Don’t talk about her like that.”
“They’re all flings with you, Jack.” The captain’s blond hair was flying in every direction. His suit looked like it had been slept in. “You should give me a call when you’re ready to settle down. I’ll have Shirley arrange a dinner, invite over some of her friends. My wife’s not much of a cook, but she’s a hell of a matchmaker. Of course, that’ll mean cutting back on your hours. Respectable women don’t put up with that crap.”
The captain was crude, but he wasn’t wrong. Jack worked sixty hours a week. Even when he was off the clock, he never really stopped working. The lifestyle didn’t leave a lot of time for relationships.
He turned slowly, surveying the scene. Maybe he couldn’t give Honey what she needed, but he could make sure she was safe.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”
Logan stood on his front stoop in a dark silk dressing gown with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his hair gleaming like a freshly minted ten-cent piece.
Another man stood at his side. Slightly younger, wearing a designer suit and a disgruntled expression. Clay Parsons. The heir apparent. Distinguished, wealthy—although not wealthy enough to catch Jessica’s attention—and powerful.
“You see that idiot?” The captain indicated Parsons, his voice thick with rage. “That moron called the governor—at least his secretary—and now nobody will go near Burrows. Can’t get any damn questions answered.”
“What about you?” Jack asked.
“Me?” The captain shrugged. “I’m not getting within ten feet of that guy. Not without bulletproof armor. Political bastards, all too concerned about their own careers.”
Jack’s suit might not have been made out of Kevlar, but it had been custom tailored, the cloth imported from Italy at great expense. In a city like Los Angeles, money was power, and a g
ood suit could command attention from across a city block. “Parsons is a jackass.”
“I couldn’t agree more. You say that to his face, and you’re suspended. Five days at least. Turns out I’m a political bastard, too.” The captain let out a hoarse laugh. “Of course, if you knock the guy out, there might be a commendation in it for you.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Michaels might imagine he was a political, but he always came back to solid ground after a few minutes.
From where Jack stood less than a hundred feet away from Logan, he could tell that the older man’s eyes were half shut, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Ignoring the police officers streaming in and out his door, he clearly wasn’t afraid of what they might find inside.
Maybe there was nothing to find.
No. Jack bit back a grin. There was always something to find. Maybe that was the kind of thinking that made him a cynical bastard, but it also made him a good cop. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”
“Uh-huh.” The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Where should I be looking?”
“The outbuildings, the garage, the pool house, the—”
“This is no time to be a blushing schoolgirl, detective. If you know something, tell me. What exactly am I looking for?”
“A car. A baby blue Volvo Sport. It was stolen last week.”
Captain Michaels frowned, disgruntled. “There was no police report.”
“He used private retrieval.”
“A detective? Private investigator type? Someone we can talk to?”
Jack had never lied to his commanding officer, had never withheld information, but he couldn’t talk about Honey. Not without putting her at risk.
Michaels was a good man and a good cop, but he’d think Honey was responsible for the arson—that she’d set fire to her own house to cover her tracks. It was a reasonable assumption. If Jack didn’t know her so well, he might be inclined to think that way himself.
Setting fire to her own house, moving into a new neighborhood—it would be a way to start over. For Honey, it might be her only chance at a fresh start. But he’d seen the look on her face as she stood in her backyard, stained with the smoke and ash from her home. The pain in her eyes had been real.
