by Lisa Jackson
A vein ticked angrily in his forehead. “Because, whether you believe it or not, I love you and I’d rather die than lose you.” The fire in his eyes had frightened her but made her believe him.
And now he wanted a divorce. And was willing to sell his shares of the company. A complete turnaround. Because of what he’d been through? Because of the fire? Because he’d finally faced the truth that they could never make their marriage work? Just when she was willing to try again. Ironic, wasn’t it? They never seemed to put out the effort at the same time.
She walked outside—past hanging pots of fuchsias with their dripping petals, and heavy-bloomed roses—following a brick and cement path to long grass and wildflowers that grew near the water’s edge. When he’d dug out the lake, he’d refused to have it landscaped, insisted that the old walnut tree be left standing and let nature decide what would grow on the sandy shores.
Hearing her approach, he lifted his head. Slowly, his bruised face was becoming more recognizable.
“You worried me,” she said, sitting down on the beach near the tall grass and staring across the smooth water. “When I couldn’t find you in the house.”
“Can’t stand being cooped up.”
“I know.” Shoving off her shoe, she dug a bare toe into the white sand he’d had trucked in from the beach years ago. She’d always thought she would watch her children build sand castles here, splash and swim in the clear water, fish and hunt for crawdads and periwinkles where the water lapped beneath the trees. But she’d been a fool. A silly, hopelessly romantic fool.
“You should have told me about Willie as soon as you found out.”
“Probably. I was just trying to—”
“Protect me?” he mocked, his words and voice still muffled from the wires. “I don’t need you to save me from the truth.”
“Do you need me at all?”
He didn’t answer, just picked up a flat rock with his good hand and, flipping his wrist, sent the stone sailing over the water, making it skip four times, causing rippling circles to play on the glassy surface of the lake.
“Look, I’ve been thinking…” She gazed across the water to the horizon where the smoky ridge of the Cascades met the sky. “Maybe we should try harder.”
“To what?”
“Save our marriage.”
His jaw worked and his eye trained over the water seemed even more distant. Geese flew across the sky, reminding her that summer would soon end. A breeze ruffled the drying leaves in the walnut tree and teased at her hair. “Why?”
Why. “Because it was good once.”
“Was it?”
“In the beginning,” she reminded him. “Once we’d settled the past, it was good. Even after we moved here, for a while…” She let her voice trail off.
Geese honked in the distance and the scent of dying roses perfumed the air. Somewhere far away a tractor’s engine rumbled, and high in the sky the wake of a jet billowed fluffy white against the blue sky.
“You don’t have to feel obligated. Just because of what I said about not letting you divorce me—”
“I don’t. Well, maybe I do a little, but not because of what you said, but because I want it, Chase. I want it to work for us.”
He considered, his eye narrowing at some inner vision. “And if we fail?”
“We’re no worse off.” She reached for his hand and his reaction was swift.
Drawing away, he turned and glared at her. “I don’t want your pity, Cass.”
“I don’t pity you.”
“And I don’t want you to feel duty-bound to a crippled, half-blind man. You don’t have to pretend to love me.”
“I would never—”
“Of course you would. You already have. Don’t lie, Cass. Whatever you do, don’t lie to me.” The words seemed to reach back to another time and place, a distant, fuzzy place she couldn’t remember.
“Look, Chase, I don’t fake feelings. And most importantly, I don’t lie.” She stared him straight in that ugly, healing eye. “I just want to start from square one—a clean slate, okay? Neither one of us will pretend anything. Everything’s on the up and up. We’ll try to work this out together, and if things fall apart, then we’ll talk.”
He snorted, as if the outcome had already been determined.
“Just tell me you’ll try, Chase.”
“If it makes you happy.”
“Say it.” She stood and her skirt whipped around her legs with the breeze that blew sand over the tops of her feet and caused the branches overhead to sigh. “Say it.”
He hesitated for a second, then lifted a shoulder. “Okay. Fine. I’ll try.”
“Good.” Relief washed through her. There was a chance they could put together their lives again, find what they’d lost.
“But I think we should keep things on an even keel, so I’ll be staying in one of the guest rooms, for now.” He must’ve seen the pain in her eyes, and his throat worked as he dragged his gaze away from her again. “Considering the circumstances, it would be best.”
“This is temporary?” she asked, remembering his aversion to touching her. Since the fire he’d not reached for her once, wanted no physical contact whatsoever, insisted that she keep her distance from him.
“Yes.” He took in a long breath. “Just until we see which way the wind blows.”
“Meaning you don’t trust me.”
He planted his crutches into the sand and stood, staring down at her. “Meaning that neither one of us really trusts the other.”
They ate together, though most of what Chase could put down was blended and sucked through a straw. Fortunately the wires holding his jaw together were scheduled to come off in a couple of days. He was still on pain medication and he wasn’t much interested in thin mashed potatoes and pureed meat. “Feel like a damned baby,” he complained.
“Things’ll get better.”
“Will they?” he asked from his chair near the window, and she knew he wasn’t talking about the food. Behind him, in the fading sunlight, a hummingbird hovered near a feeder.
“Sure. You’ll be in physical therapy starting tomorrow, the wires off in a few days, your casts will be off before you know it and—”
“And we’ll still be here. In limbo.”
She picked up the dishes and carried them to the sink. She’d planned to come home and have it out with him, demand answers, ask him questions he’d refused to answer, but she’d backed down. Why? Because she was afraid of the truth?
“There’s no reason to rush things, is there?” he asked.
She nearly dropped a plate because he was so wrong. Ever since the fire, she’d felt that time was running out, like sand passing through the neck of an hourglass, slipping away forever. As it had for Brig. Her heart squeezed.
Chase settled back in his chair, his leg stretched out to the side of the table, his eye regarding her silently. “I thought you wanted out so badly.”
Frowning, she set dirty plates and bowls in the dishwasher. “I didn’t want to go on treading water,” she admitted. “I know that you said you loved me the night of the fire, but before that…well, you remember. We drifted apart.”
“And you had an affair,” he said quietly.
She shook her head. “Never. I’ve never cheated on you Chase, and I never will. As long as we’re married, I’ll be faithful.” She slammed the dishwasher door shut, turned and, resting her hips against the counter, wiped her hands on a towel. “I expect the same from you. If you can’t trust me, then you’d better let me know now.”
He muttered something under his breath as the phone rang. They looked at each other and let the answering machine pick up in the den. Reporters had been calling and Cassidy hadn’t been interested in dealing with them. She would listen to the messages later, and together they would decide whom they would call back.
“Tomorrow,” Chase said, straightening, “I’ll need to talk with the insurance people, Derrick and the cops. The mill’s been shut down too
long. Those men need to get back to work, the records are going to have to be reconstructed, a new—temporary office found near the mill, or maybe we can have one of those modular things brought in.” He rubbed his eye, then stood and stared out the window as if he were searching for something or someone.
“Let Derrick handle it,” Cassidy advised. “You can’t do much now. Until you’re on your feet and—”
He swung his crutches under his arms, and stood. “I am on my feet, in complete control of my faculties, and as long as I don’t take too many of Doc Okano’s horse pills, I’m reasonably able to function.”
“You should rest.”
“While Derrick runs the company down the tubes?”
“He’s not—”
“Your brother is a liar and a cheat and he’s been skimming money from the corporation.”
“You have proof?” she asked, not really surprised. Chase had hinted that Derrick was embezzling before, but he’d never pursued it.
“What do you think?” He glared at her and she swallowed hard.
“Is that why you were at the mill that night? To check something?” When he didn’t answer, she let out her breath. “You—you think he started the fire to destroy the records?”
“I don’t know what to think. There’re copies of everything in the main office, on the computer, unless that’s been screwed around with. But the books were at the mill.”
“I can’t believe that Derrick would—”
“I’m not saying he did. I’m just not taking any chances with the company. Or my life.” Squinting through the window again, he scowled, then hobbled into the den with Cassidy on his heels. Her mind was spinning ahead to possibilities. What Chase was suggesting was that Derrick may have started the fire to destroy the books…or to kill him. Or both. She remembered how cruel Derrick had become as a teenager, but arson? Attempted murder?
She paused at the doorway to the den and watched as Chase rewound the tape on the recorder. He waited impatiently, then listened as reporter after reporter left a message. There was another one from Dena and one from Felicity but none from the person he was waiting for. None from his mother. “Where the hell is she?” he growled as Detective T. John Wilson’s voice filled the room and he announced that he’d be stopping by later.
Chase’s scowl deepened and he jerked his way out of the room as the tape player clicked off. Great, she thought sarcastically. Just what they needed. Another interrogation from the inimitable T. John Wilson.
Thirty-four
“The detective’s here.” Cassidy paused at the doorway to the den where Chase was propped up on a recliner. He’d never said a word to the police in the hospital, only answered questions with a nod or shake of his head.
“Well, by all means, show him in,” Chase said.
A few minutes later T. John was declining Cassidy’s offer of coffee and balancing himself on the arm of a leather sofa. “You may as well stick around,” he said to Cassidy, “this might interest you as well.”
“What?”
“Our John Doe finally got himself a name. Postmortem, but a name nonetheless.”
Cassidy ignored the hammering of her heart and braced herself for the truth. “Did he?”
“Marshall Baldwin.” Chase’s voice was the clearest it had been since the accident, though he was still speaking through a wired jaw.
T. John grinned. “Thought you might have known him.”
“Who is he?” Cassidy asked.
“Well, now, that appears to be the million-dollar question. Ol’ Marsh, he seems to be some kind of enigma.”
“He’s a developer and lumber broker from Alaska.”
“That’s right; a self-made millionaire.”
“What was he doing here?” Cassidy asked, her eyes rounding on her husband. How many secrets had he hidden from her over the years? She’d been so certain the dead man was Brig. Relief swept through her blood.
“Interested in selling me raw lumber. Even talked about buying out our mill, or some other one down here.”
Cassidy couldn’t believe her ears. “Now? In Oregon? When mills are shutting down all over the state? That doesn’t make much sense—”
“I know. Told him as much. But he said the prices were right. He could get a helluva deal.”
“Why were you meeting him at night?” She couldn’t help being suspicious.
“Isn’t it obvious?”
“No.”
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want you or Derrick to find out. I suggested we meet in Portland, but he wanted to see the operation firsthand, so we settled on meeting at the mill, then going into town.”
“You were hiding this from me?” she asked, a trace of bitterness in her words. She shouldn’t have been surprised—she’d learned over the years that Chase ran his life by his own rules. Still, she felt betrayed.
“I just wanted to get all the facts straight. Then, if I’d decided we should sell—”
“If you decided? Don’t I have a voice in this? For God’s sake, Chase—” She caught the warning look in Chase’s eye and stopped cold. This wasn’t the time or place. He seemed to be silently warning her, telling her not to make a scene in front of the detective.
“Baldwin was interested. That’s all.”
“And so you met at the mill and then what?” Wilson asked.
“We’d just left the office and were walking up the ramp to building one when there was a blast—so loud it sounded like dynamite exploding in a tunnel. The walls started to collapse and we tried to run.”
“Was Marshall holding anything in his hand?”
“I don’t remember.”
T. John shifted. “Was he wearing a chain with a St. Christopher’s medal?”
“I didn’t notice.”
“What was he wearing?”
“Hell, I don’t remember.”
“A suit?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sport jacket and slacks?”
“Jeans maybe, but it was too hot for a jacket. I left mine in the office.”
“Why wasn’t his wallet in his pocket?” Wilson demanded.
“I don’t have any idea.”
Wilson slowly unwrapped a piece of chewing gum and frowned, his gaze centering on the fireplace, though Cassidy suspected he was watching Chase’s reaction in his peripheral vision. “Let me get this straight. You planned to meet a guy you’d never seen before late at night at the mill to talk about the possibility of selling it.”
“Or buying his lumber. Either way.”
“The way I heard it, you were like a son to Rex Buchanan, put in eighty—maybe ninety-hour weeks. Some people around here think that mill meant more to you than anything, even your family, but all of a sudden, out of the clear damned blue, you were thinking of selling?”
“I’m always thinking of selling if the price is right.”
“What would your father-in-law say?”
“Hadn’t gotten that far.”
“But he’d taken you under his wing, loaned you money for your education, let you work your way into being the corporate attorney and then senior vice president. Above his own son.”
“Not above. Not even equal to. But almost. Rex has great faith in my abilities.”
“And for that you sneak around, thinking about selling out your share without telling him.”
“Yes.” Chase’s glare was cold as ice.
“Well, why’s that? Hell, I’m no businessman, just a podunk policeman with a badge, but it don’t make a helluva lot of sense.”
Cassidy went cold inside. She never would have thought Chase would have entertained the idea of selling. Not the night of their last fight.
“You were thinking of getting out, maybe?” the detective persisted. “Leaving town because of marital problems?”
“Wait a minute—” Cassidy interrupted but Chase held up a hand to stop her protests.
“That’s personal, and has nothing to do with the mills.”
; Rage poured through her blood. He had no right to discuss this with anyone! Not even the police.
“All patched up, I hope.”
“All patched up,” Chase said without inflection.
T. John thought about it, lifted a shoulder as if to ask, Who could understand love? “Okay. Whatever.”
Cassidy knew he wouldn’t give up on it, he was just appeasing them both. He stretched out his leg before bending it and clasping his hands over his knee. “So you and Baldwin, you’re both two big corporate execs—hell, you’re a goddamned lawyer and neither one of you remembered your button-down shirts, suits, or briefcases for a meeting that might result in some major corporate changes.”
“It wasn’t that kind of business meeting.”
“What kind was it?”
“Casual.”
Wilson’s eyebrows drew together. “So you said. Just strikes me as kind of funny, that’s all.”
“We’re not talking Wall Street, for Christ’s sake. Major deals are struck every day on tennis courts or on golf courses. It isn’t always necessary to get the board together—not until something’s been decided, and this was preliminary, very preliminary. As I already said, I might have ended up just milling some of his lumber.”
Cassidy stared at her husband, looking for perspiration or any sign of nervousness. There was none. His face was impassive, nearly bored, one arm in a sling, the other resting on the arm of the chair. No fingers drummed, no sweat dampened his hair, no nervous tick gave a clue to the level of his anxiety.
Wilson scratched a day’s growth of beard. “So what did you discuss that night?”
“Not much. He’d barely gotten there when I started to show him the layout.”
“Wouldn’t he want to see the mill up and running, you know—check the equipment, make sure it was in working order, keep track of the employees to find out if they showed up on time or cut out early? Watch the men working together and see how you bring in log trucks and empty them, how you cut your boards, all that shit?”
“That would come later—if he decided to buy and I was willing to sell. It wouldn’t matter much if he was just trying to sell me some raw lumber, though. All he’d be interested in would be the terms and the price.” Chase leveled the detective a single-eyed gaze meant to cut through granite. “It wasn’t such a big deal.”
