by Helen Conrad
“Good idea.” He sank to the couch, groaning, and he did look pale. “Could you find it for me?”
“Sure.” She put her hands on it quickly enough, but her father’s behavior bothered her. He wasn’t one to ask others to do things for him, no matter how sick he was. And looking at him, she had a feeling this illness had more to do with his emotions than his physical well-being.
As she left him, she headed upstairs to her own room, between Jimmy’s and Megan’s. She needed a moment alone, a moment to think. She had some awful evidence on her hands, and the first order of business was to make sure Lee Nielsen never found out about it.
* * *
LEE GOT OUT of his car and stretched, trying to work out the kinks. It had been a long day and he was hungry as hell. It looked like Marge’s was still open, so he headed for the diner, his stomach growling in anticipation.
The place was half-empty, and a cursory glance revealed no one he knew. He was aiming for a seat at the counter when a graceful hand reached out and snagged his arm, pulling him into a booth instead.
“Well, hi there,” said Liza, smiling as though she’d just made a trophy catch. “You’re just the man I’ve been looking for.”
“Me?” Lee smiled at her crookedly, not sure if this was good or bad.
“You.” She looked him over with interest. “I’m Liza.”
He glanced around the room. No one else seemed to be treating her as a crazy person, and she was a pretty woman.
“I’m Lee,” he said.
“Yes, I know who you are.” She looked at him wisely and waved a finger in the air. “I guess I should place myself a little more specifically for you. I’m a Baron, my mother is an Ingalls and I’m married to Cliff Forrester.”
“Who is not with you tonight,” he noted, looking around, revamping his thoughts and wary for the possible jealous husband. He’d had run-ins with that type before.
“No,” she said airily. “Cliff’s home baby-sitting tonight. But that’s okay. I can handle myself without a man to back me up.”
Lee’s gaze came back to settle on her and he grinned. “I can see that.”
Liza smiled, pleased with his answer. She waved a hand as Marge approached. “Go ahead and order. In fact, let’s get you some food. Then we’ll talk.”
Lee chuckled, amused by her spirit, but he nodded to Marge and ordered a steak sandwich and potato salad. “Can I get anything for you?” he asked Liza.
She shook her blond head. “No thanks. I’ve eaten.”
He nodded, and sitting back, examined her with curiosity. “Tell me. Have you been waiting here for me all evening?”
“Just about.” She grinned, playing with her long mop of blond hair and looking at him as though she knew all about him. “Don’t worry about me. I know just about everybody in town. I’ve been well entertained and had a lot of company.”
He lifted one eyebrow. “I’m glad. I’d hate to think I caused you a boring evening.”
She gazed at him coolly. “I don’t think there’s anything very boring about you, is there?” She caught her lower lip with her teeth, looking him over. “Glenna’s told me all about you.”
He raised his eyes quickly, looking at her in surprise. This was an angle he hadn’t expected. “Glenna?”
“Yes, Glenna.” She noted the reaction but decided to tease him. “You know, the cute one with the black hair and the bright blue eyes?” She leaned forward. “I suppose you’re charming all the unattached women in town, so the names might tend to blur.”
He shook his head, but his gaze was now veiled and she couldn’t read anything in it. “No. I know who Glenna is,” he said evenly.
Liza stared at him. “She stands out, does she?”
He grinned at her, reading her mind. “What’s your game, Liza?”
“Glenna’s a good friend of mine.” Her face became serious, but she waited while Marge served him his dinner, smiling briefly when Marge made a comment about her cowboy boots. Once they were alone again, she went on as though they hadn’t been interrupted.
“Glenna was hurt pretty badly when her husband turned out to be a rat. She doesn’t need any more rodents in her life. You got me?”
“I got you.” He bit into his sandwich, but there was a flicker of resentment in his eyes for a split second. He leashed it and went on lightly. “I consider myself more of a puppy dog, actually.”
“Yeah?” Liza wasn’t mollified. “I’ve known some puppy dogs who turned into wolves at the slightest provocation. Watch that stuff, okay?”
His smile was deceptively bland. “Or what?”
Her own eyes blazed. “Or you’ll have to answer to me and quite a few others in this town. Everybody loves Glenna.”
He looked down at his plate so the resentment he couldn’t hide any longer wouldn’t be so apparent. “I’m not going to hurt Glenna,” he said, his voice hard.
“Good thinking.”
They were both silent for a few moments while he ate. He was bound and determined he wasn’t going to let another woman ruin another meal, so he chewed steadily, even though the food didn’t have the taste it might have without Liza’s company.
“So,” he said as he finished eating. “Was that it? Were you waiting around all this time to lecture me about how I treat Glenna Kelsey?”
“No.” Liza sat forward. She’d been thinking over how to approach him about what she wanted from him, how to get her way without making things worse. But she knew now that what Glenna had said was true. He was going to be tough. His eyes could be cold as ice and that jaw had a strong set to it. She didn’t know exactly how to play him. It was probably best to just go full tilt at him, as was her natural impulse anyway.
“Okay, I understand that you’re the man hired to come to town and dig up the scoop on how the fire happened. I can appreciate that. You’ve got your job to do. You have to examine evidence and root out evil and all that. Great. Go for it.” She leaned even closer, her face right in his. “Just don’t do it on the back of my grandfather.”
Lee stared at her, not sure what she was getting at. “Who is your grandfather?” he asked.
“Judson Ingalls.” Liza’s sparkling gaze hardened into a challenge. “I hear you’ve been asking around about him. Well, I want you to leave him alone. And if you want to know anything about him, I’m here to give you any answers you may need.”
“Oh, you are?”
“Yes.” She slapped the flat of her hand down on the tabletop. “Listen. You want to know anything about my grandfather, you come to me, okay? Ask me anything.”
He blotted his mouth with his napkin, watching her, his eyes hooded to hide his amusement. “I’ll let you know when I think of something I need,” he told her evasively.
She wasn’t satisfied with that. “I want to know what you think you’ve found out about him. Tell me what you’ve heard.”
“Fair enough.” He shrugged. “I found out that everyone respects him, that he supplies a lot of jobs and a lot of character to the place, that he’s a father figure to a lot of people, and they’ve asked me not to bother him with questions. And I’m respecting that because I haven’t heard one bad thing said about him.”
“Oh.” Liza looked a bit deflated for a moment, but that didn’t last. “Then why are you asking so many questions?” she demanded defensively.
“Because it’s my job.”
She shook her head so that her blond hair whipped back and forth. “Not good enough.”
He sighed, looking pained. “Liza, your love for your grandfather is commendable,” he said at last. “But there’s nothing you can do to protect anyone from something like this.”
She looked stricken. “What are you saying?”
He groaned. “Not what you think I’m saying.” Reaching across the table,
he grabbed her hand. “Look, lighten up. Your grandfather is not a suspect in any way.” Dropping her hand, he leaned back in his seat. “I’m not suspicious of anyone in particular. I’m just trying to lay a foundational background to this case. You’ve got to admit, I couldn’t ignore the man. It’s his plant that burned. That fact causes a red flag to go up.”
He held up a hand to stop the protest she was on the verge of making. “But that’s been pretty much laid to rest. I wouldn’t worry about your grandfather.”
She searched his face. “Really?”
“Sure.”
Her eyes widened. “Then who should I be worrying about?”
He laughed. She was definitely irrepressible. Taking out his wallet, he threw down enough money to more than adequately pay his bill and started to slide out of the booth.
“There is no suspect as yet,” he told her. “There is no final evaluation on the cause of the fire. Give it a rest. Go home to your husband and kid. Relax. Have a nice Christmas.”
“Hey.” Liza grinned up at him, looking relieved. “You, too.” Her face changed. “And remember what I said about Glenna,” she reminded him as he left.
He turned up his collar against the cold. The street was bright with lights and decorations, but he hardly noticed. He strode to his car, on his way to his lonely room, but his mind was full of calculations and misgivings. From what he and the crew had found today out at the F and M, he was pretty sure the verdict was going to be arson. In fact, he was almost certain of it.
* * *
“OH, GLENNA, I MET that fire investigator of yours today.”
Glenna jumped and caught herself. She couldn’t do that. She couldn’t cringe every time Lee Nielsen was mentioned. She had to act naturally.
But Bob Quentin didn’t seem to notice anything out of the ordinary. He looked at her cheerily, peering over the top of his newspaper. When he wasn’t playing with the kids, he liked to read the news by the fireplace after dinner. “Oh, yes. I met him over at the fire station this afternoon. I went by to see my son-in-law, Gordy, who works there, you know. The investigator shook my hand. Quite a personable young man. He mentioned you.”
Glenna glanced up and half smiled, but she resisted the temptation to ask what he’d said. That would only encourage this mania everyone seemed to have to link her to Lee.
It had been three days since he’d come to town, and life hadn’t been the same since she’d looked up out of the driver’s seat of his low sports car and seen him scowling down at her. Two things were obsessing her now, two things that were intertwined—Lee, and her father’s strange visit to the fire scene. She couldn’t seem to drop either issue from her mind.
“I met him at the diner,” drawled Tisha Olsen, floating through the room on a cloud of perfume. Back now from her Tucson holiday with Judson, she always livened up the house with her outrageous comments, her exotic clothes. Glenna tensed, expecting the worst, but Tisha only said, “Mmm-mmm. What a body,” before heading down the hall.
“Hey, Glenna, I met your guy, too.” Patrick had dropped in to pick up some of his mother’s famous piccalilli sauce for Pam. He swooped close, pulling one of her braids, as though he was still twelve and she was ten.
Glenna looked at him in annoyance. “Why does everyone call him mine?” she complained. “I have no claim on him.” She looked away. “Why don’t you use his name? It’s Lee Nielsen.”
Patrick slumped down onto the arm of the overstuffed chair she was sitting in. “He told me he’d been talking to you,” he confided.
“He did?” Glenna grimaced, looking away.
“Yeah. He’s a great guy, isn’t he? I really like him.”
Glenna looked from one to the other. “You like him?” she repeated, incredulous. “Why on earth would you like him?”
Patrick’s good-natured face looked puzzled. “Why wouldn’t I like him?”
Glenna gave him a significant glance. “Are you still going to like him so much when he ruins Tyler’s economy?” she asked acidly.
“Ah.” Patrick waved that fear away. “No such luck. He’s bound to okay the accident scenario, and then the insurance company will have to pay up. The old F and M will be better than ever. You wait and see.”
The stone in the pit of Glenna’s stomach indicated otherwise. She didn’t know how her brother could be so optimistic.
“Anyway, we talked for a while, Lee and I,” Patrick continued. “He was interested in the old days, the background of the town and all. I guess someone had been trying to build on that old feud between the Kelseys and the Ingallses, make it seem like something important. I told him not to pay any attention to that. That was a hundred years ago and time moves on. Nobody thinks about it, nobody talks about it. It’s over.”
Glenna glanced over at the table to see how her father was reacting to what Patrick was saying, but his face was impassive as he continued to work on his crossword puzzle. Only the slight throb at his temple signalled any unease. She looked away again and tried to calm her own fears.
“Did he say when he would announce his findings?” Bob Quentin asked. “I guess the whole town is waiting on that day.”
“He didn’t say, but it should be soon. What’s he going to find out, anyway? It was an accident. There’s no reason to think otherwise that I know of.”
“I thought someone was seen setting the fire,” Bob Quentin mentioned, frowning. “That’s what my son-in-law said.”
“No,” Patrick told him. “The night watchman thought he saw someone, and there’s a buzz around town that it might have been that Michael Kenton who’s been doing work at the church. He once did time in jail for arson, apparently. But when I asked Lee about it, he didn’t seem to put much store in it. I think they’re going to declare it an accident and be done with it.”
“I sure hope so.” Bob Quentin sighed. “They say business is bust all over town. Everyone’s waiting. Everyone’s afraid to spend a dime.”
Johnny finally lifted his head and looked out at his family, and to Glenna, his eyes looked tired and bloodshot. “I guess I’d better go see this guy,” he said quietly. “I talked with him earlier, but I might be able to give him some more help.”
Glenna’s heart skipped a beat and she tried to smile, but couldn’t. Now her father was getting pulled into the vortex. What was going to happen if he really did go into things with Lee? What would he tell him?
Were they all blind? Didn’t they see the danger Lee Nielsen posed to this town with his snooping? And here she still had that awful tape sitting in the den. She had to erase it. She had to do it soon.
She wasn’t sure why she hadn’t been able to do that yet. There was something about it that held her off. Every time she watched it she hoped to find some explanation that would render it innocent, after all. Every time.
“Here you go, Patrick.” Anna came out of the kitchen with a jar of piccalilli. “I didn’t know Pam was such a fan of this or I would have sent some over sooner.”
“I didn’t know, either,” Patrick said good-naturedly. “I always hated the stuff myself. But all of a sudden she was crazy to have some.”
Anna cuffed him gently and handed him the jar. “Take good care of that wife of yours,” she told him affectionately. “She’s worth keeping.”
“You bet.” Patrick kissed his mother on the cheek and headed for the door. “And you keep an eye on Glenna so she doesn’t make a fool of herself over Lee Nielsen.”
He grinned, dodging the pillow Glenna threw, and left, laughing, out the front door.
“Glenna, telephone,” her mother called a moment later. “A man,” she whispered, her hand over the mouthpiece.
Glenna took the receiver from her, expecting to hear Lee’s voice for some crazy reason. Instead, she found herself talking to Tony Perini.
“You’ve been lea
ving messages on my answering machine,” he said, amusement sparkling in his smooth voice. “I feel like a wanted man.”
She suppressed a smile. Though tall and darkly handsome, Tony had a reputation as a playboy and was hardly her type. “You are,” she told him. “As I told you in the note I left in your office, I’m hoping you’ll take a look at the videotapes I’ve been making. I really think I could have something marketable here, and I’d like your advice.”
He sighed heavily. “How about a hot, romantic weekend in Chicago instead?” he suggested wickedly.
Glenna took a deep breath. Naturally shy, she wasn’t used to pushing people for something she wanted, but this she wanted very badly. For once she had something going for her and she had to follow through. “All I’m asking you to do is look at them,” she said, ignoring his flirtatious comment. “If you don’t think this is worth pursuing...”
“Do you have any idea how crowded the video market is? The fresh ideas have been done to death. There’s nothing new in video. Sales are down. The big boys control everything. It’s virtually impossible for a novice to break in.”
She swallowed, wincing. She didn’t want to hear this, and in the past, his words might have dashed her dreams and killed the whole thing. But not this time. No, she couldn’t let it happen this time. Determinedly, she presented her case again. “Tony, please just take a look,” she said when she was finished. “Then you can give me your gloom and doom.”
He sighed. “I’m just trying to be honest, sweetheart. There’s no use getting your hopes up. Not even if it would buy me a weekend in Chicago.”
Hope was fading, but she wouldn’t let herself give up. “Let me bring a tape by your office tomorrow and—”
“No, listen. I’m about to close up shop for the holidays.” He groaned. “Okay, okay. I’ll look at some of your tapes. But I’ll have to call you when I can do it. Maybe come by your place. Maybe your roommate would like to go to Chicago,” he added hopefully.
Glenna laughed. “That was my mother.”
He groaned again. “She lives with her mother. Yeah, maybe we ought to meet at my place, after all. I’ll call you, kid.”
