The Marine Next Door

by Julie Miller

  Maggie hooked her thumbs into her utility belt and looked him straight in the eye. “You should go back to the waiting area, Mr. Boyle.” She eyed the front of his jumpsuit for a visitor’s tag. “You need to sign in.”

  “But he said he was only going to be half an hour.” Boyle faced her fully to plead his case. “I’ve got my van parked downstairs. We’ve got a job to get to.”

  Danny pulled out another tissue to wipe the blood from his face. “It’s okay. I may be a little longer, Lawrence. I have business to attend to.”

  “Yeah, I know what kind of business you’re interested in.” Maggie put a hand on Boyle’s shoulder to keep him from entering the room. Although she felt him stiffen inside his coveralls at her silent command, thankfully, he was more willing to cooperate than Danny had been. With a nod, he promised to stay put and she released him. “Seriously, Danny? Breaking the law right here at the police station? What’s the good of me giving an ex-con a break and hiring you when you go and get yourself into trouble again? And over a woman?”

  “She’s hot when she’s all fired up and in charge, isn’t she?” Danny seemed oblivious to his friend’s frustration and her revulsion at the worthless compliment. “Nobody else will ever love you the way I do, Mags.”

  Lord, she hoped not.

  “Everything okay here?” Maggie masked her sigh of relief at Nick Fensom’s arrival, and channeled the raw energy coursing through her into the white-knuckled grip she had on her belt. Danny and Lawrence Boyle might top Fensom in height, but there was a cagey, badgerlike intensity about the stocky detective that made both men sit up straight and retreat a step. “I thought I asked only one of you to come in for questioning. I don’t like a party.”

  Maggie was glad for the backup, but prayed her relief wasn’t flooding her cheeks with heat. “Your appointment is in Interview Room D. Just so you know, Danny Wheeler is my ex-husband and coming within fifty yards of me is a violation of his restraining order.”

  Nick eyed the duo in matching coveralls before dismissing her. “I’ll have a personal conversation with his parole officer, Sergeant. You get back to work.”

  “You interested in her, too?” Danny taunted from inside the room. “Come on, Mags, you’re my wife, remember?”

  Nick grabbed the door and flicked a thumb over his shoulder, warning Boyle out of his way. “You, out. You, shut up.” Turning his attention to Danny, Nick closed the door.

  The squeaky soles of Lawrence Boyle’s shoes told Maggie he was hurrying to catch up with her. But she hadn’t expected him to latch on to her arm or for her swerving release to be so obvious. She clamped her mouth shut and waited for the bleach-haired exterminator to speak.

  “Sorry, Mrs. Wheeler. When Danny said he was in a position to do the cops a favor, I thought it was a good thing. I didn’t know he was coming here to hit on you.” Hit on her? Oh, the irony of that cliché. But those bug eyes were round and dark and smiling with good intentions. So she clamped her mouth shut and let him finish. “But Danny’s a good worker. My business is expanding and I could really use his help. If Danny gets released again, I promise I’ll keep him in line.”

  Impossible.

  No one could keep Danny Wheeler in line.

  No one could keep him out of her life.

  Maggie saw the blood staining the sleeve of Boyle’s coveralls and knew it had come from her hand. She hid her palm against her thigh and changed course to head for the bathroom. “Excuse me, I need to clean up.”

  Any extra confidence that the task force meeting had built inside her was gone. By the time she got inside the john, away from ex-felons and fellow cops, her knees were shaking so badly she had to grip the edge of the sink to keep them from collapsing.

  After ten years Danny could still take her back to that place of insecurity and terror in an instant. She wasn’t ready to be a detective. She wasn’t ready to take a chance on a new relationship. She wasn’t in any shape to be much good to anyone else as long as Danny could get to her like this.

  Because until she could get a handle on the fear, the anger and the paranoia and second-guessing they inspired, she wasn’t even any good to herself.

  * * *

  JOHN’S BOOTS CRUNCHED over the melted plastic and metal bits of the Wilson Irrigation Supply Company’s collapsed roof. He’d replaced his ball cap with a hard hat, and his ax and fire hose with a flashlight and a computerized clipboard.

  He saw the sweep of Meghan Taylor’s flashlight coming up behind him before he heard her voice. “What does it look like to you, John?” She’d shed the heavy weight of her coat and breathing gear, but still wore her helmet, boots and overalls. The pale hair sticking to the sweat at her temples indicated she hadn’t been home to get any sleep since yesterday’s alarm. “Hazmat cleared the place of any toxic chemicals, but the rest of this place looks like a total wipe to me.”

  He followed her glance up to the skeletal walls and twisted metal shelves of what had once been a storage facility for miles of irrigation pipe. He agreed with her danger assessment of the surviving structure. “What’s left is going to have to come down before they can do any rebuilding.”

  “I know they’ve lost a ton of inventory with this fire, but if they’re going to claim it for insurance, I want to make sure it wasn’t deliberate.”

  He nudged aside the mucky layer of water and ash with the toe of his boot and aimed his flashlight at the charred remains of an exposed wiring box. “I haven’t seen any pour patterns that indicate the fire was intentionally set. But we might have a case for old age and negligence. It’s a good thing your team turned off the gas feed or we’d be looking at an explosion instead of a slow burn. That junction box had probably been sparking and smoldering for days before it ignited.”

  John took a couple more measurements and entered his notes while Meghan climbed through the warehouse’s wreckage with him. This warehouse was probably about the same 1930s vintage as The Corsican, the building where he and the Wheelers and an odd assortment of retirees and recluses lived. He wondered how many upgrades there had been as superficial and cosmetic as this place. While the fire department’s visit last night had given him a plausible excuse to check on his neighbors and put together a list of all the building’s recent mishaps and repairs that could be attributed to the decaying structure and quick, less-than-stellar fixes by Joe Standage, he was having less and less doubt that Maggie’s problems hadn’t been caused by age or accident.

  “You okay?” Meghan asked, pulling him from his thoughts.

  John dismissed her concern. “This just reminds me of another antique that needs to be fixed.”

  “I heard you had a small fire in your building last night.”

  “Yeah, a cigarette butt caught some old insulation wrapping on fire. We put it out with an extinguisher before the crew from Station 15 ever got there.”

  “We?” Meghan asked.

  Two years ago—hell, even two days ago—John would have been more concerned about helping Meghan over a pile of rubble that had been knocked down to prevent it from collapsing on the firefighters who’d been fighting the blaze through the night. At the last second, he held out his hand to balance her on the climb down toward the exit. “A neighbor lady and I discovered it.”

  “But you don’t think the fire was an accident?” He released her hand as soon as they hit solid ground.

  “I’m beginning to think The Corsican is a death trap.”

  Meghan scoffed at his doomsday pronouncement. “Come on, I know you. I know you checked the inspections and building codes before you ever moved into the place.”

  She was right, he had made sure The Corsican met city safety codes before signing the lease. “Let me rephrase that. It’s not the building that has issues—it’s some freak who’s trying to bring the place down around us.”

  “Why? What else has happened?”

  It felt like a violation of trust to share any of the sick details about Maggie’s disastrous marriage, even with a l
ongtime friend like Meghan Taylor. “It’s personal,” was the only explanation he offered. “I need to do a little more poking around before I figure out exactly what’s going on there.”

  He was surprised at how readily Meghan accepted his answer, and at how vehement she was about supporting his concern. “If you need anything, you put my number on speed dial. Or call the station. I haven’t forgotten how you were there for me when that arsonist was setting fires in Kansas City, and I seemed to be in the middle of all of them.”

  “Gideon Taylor was there for you,” John corrected her.

  “The man I love, my boys and my best friend—” she squeezed his arm to emphasize his importance on that list “—were there for me. That’s how I got through it, John. I owe you.” She patted his arm and moved on ahead of him. “You call, whether it’s another fire or anything else. We’ll do whatever we can to help.”

  “Thanks, boss. I’ll keep that in mind.”

  By mutual consent, they changed direction and headed outside to where Dean Murphy and the rest of the Station 23 crew were rolling up hoses and stowing gear. Before they hit asphalt and the jokes and shouts of the crew, Meghan stopped in front of him and turned. “I’ve been worried about you, John. You seem different. A heck of a lot more introspective. And here I thought it was me, that I made coming back to work uncomfortable for you. But if you’ve got something you’re dealing with, maybe some issue with this neighbor lady you mentioned, then I won’t worry so much. Unless you need me to. I don’t make you uncomfortable anymore, do I?”

  John looked down into the eyes of a friend. And even though there were certainly hints of regret and might-have-beens lingering inside him, the sharp pangs of unrequited love had truly dulled. His thoughts were centered on another woman now. One who just might need him the way he was beginning to need her and her son.

  “No.” The answer felt more honest than he’d expected.

  “Yo, Big John!” John groaned at the taunt from Dean. “You know you miss this. Why don’t you get your old bones on over here and show us you can still haul all this equipment.”

  “You’re just trying to get out of work, Dean. I am old enough to be smarter than you and have your games figured out.”

  The younger man laughed and took a few more good-natured gibes from the rest of the crew before they all went back to finishing up the job at hand.

  “You do miss it, don’t you,” Meghan observed. “Being in the middle of the action?”

  “I get paid more than he does, and my muscles won’t ache at the end of the day.” Not from lifting the heavy hoses and gear at any rate. “Besides, I’ve seen more action than any man needs to.”

  “John, are you happy to be home?”

  That was the million-dollar question, wasn’t it?

  Leaving it unanswered, he opened the door of his truck and tossed his hard hat and clipboard inside. “I’d better get back to the station and get my report written up. My boss is a real stickler for gettin’ the job done fast and right.”

  Meghan smiled at the friendly jab but didn’t back away from her concern. “If you need more time—to recover from your injuries or adjust to the new job or get better acquainted with the neighbor lady—”

  “Are you matchmaking?”

  “Do I need to?”

  He climbed inside behind the wheel. “I’ll see you back at the station.”

  Chapter Nine

  A couple hours later, John was sitting in his office, pulling up the layout of the Wilson warehouse on his computer to add to his KCFD report. Although he’d bagged up some of the toasted wiring to be analyzed at the state fire lab, his preliminary findings were that the fire was accidental.

  He brushed his fingertip over the top of the mouse and eyed the public building links on the screen in front of him. How hard would it be to pull up the blueprints on The Corsican—to double-check what should be in that building compared to what was actually there, and find out who had access to the building to perform inspections or maintenance on phone lines and elevator wires? Just how far should he go, following his instincts about there being something very wrong about the old building? Did one kiss, battling a fire together and a late-night heart-to-heart make him Maggie Wheeler’s protector? How much of the lurking sense of pending danger surrounding Maggie was him trusting his gut? And how much was just a lost man without a purpose seeing enemies where none existed?

  And was there something to Meghan’s teasing about the neighbor lady? Was his brain still so fogged up with war and loss and recovery that he was missing something his station captain could see that he couldn’t?

  A soft knock at his door diverted his attention. “John?” Meghan pushed open the door. “You have a visitor.”

  “I do?”

  Meghan stepped aside to usher in Maggie Wheeler. In that moment, John knew that his feelings for his boss were a thing of the past. He stood as the red-haired cop stepped into his office. Meghan’s sunny blond hair faded into a pleasant memory as his pulse kicked into overdrive at the impact of Maggie’s copper-haired beauty.

  But the pale cast to the skin beneath her freckles tempered the rush of hormones. She stood tall and strong, a poster image for serving and protecting with her navy blue uniform, Kevlar and badge. But there was a searching request in those deep green eyes and a nervous fluttering of fingers through the wisps of escaping curls at her temple and nape.

  “Sarge?” Meghan disappeared from the room and closed the door as he circled the desk. “What is it? Did something happen to Travis?”

  She shook her head, alleviating that fear at least. “I saw Danny today. He came to the police station.”

  John guided her to a chair and shut the blinds on the office door. He brushed his hand across her shoulder as he perched on the edge of his desk facing her. Maybe he was offering comfort, or maybe he needed the feel of her strength and warmth for himself—a tangible reassurance that she was okay. “I thought you had a restraining order.”

  Maggie shot to her feet, avoiding both his touch and making eye contact. She dusted her fingers over the empty shelves behind his desk. “He had a legal way around it. He’s a person of interest in the task force’s investigation case. Detective Fensom wanted him to come in.”

  John stayed put, letting her pent-up energy carry her around the room. He couldn’t imagine what kind of courage it required, and what kind of terror it caused, to come face-to-face with the man who’d raped and beaten her and stolen her child from her—a man she should have been able to trust. Protective anger fired through his blood, making it difficult to keep his own voice calm. “I’m guessing the investigation wasn’t the real reason he agreed to help.”

  “Who knows? He could use some good karma with the police department, but…who knows?”

  Beginning to understand her need to pace, John followed her to the bookshelf. Again he tried to touch her, but she crossed her arms and moved away. It was then that he saw the bruises on her wrist, the five purpling dots of violence that indicated Danny had put his hands on her.

  Ah, hell. The marks were there beneath her collar, too. Double hell.

  John pushed his fist against his mouth, bottling up his curse. Although he thought he could understand why Maggie might not want him touching her right now, he seethed at the idea that this wasn’t the first time Danny Wheeler had hurt her.

  Maybe sensing his growing rage—hell, maybe avoiding it—she abruptly changed the topic. “You don’t have a single decoration in here. What about a picture of your sister? Do you have one with the two of you together? I know, you could put your medals and ribbons in a shadow box and hang them on the wall right next to your investigator certification. Or maybe frame your honorable discharge. You’d be doing this big, empty wall a favor. Showing off your accomplishments isn’t bragging, John. It’s just a statement of fact.”

  “Sarge… Maggie.” He was stupefied by the sudden lightness of her tone but wasn’t buying the “everything’s hunky-dory now” attitude o
ne bit. He moved in closer but didn’t touch. “You didn’t come here to decorate my office. When you ramble on like that, I know something’s wrong. Why are you here?”

  She turned to face him, eyeing his chest like she wanted to be there. He breathed deeply to conquer the urge to pull her into his arms. He squeezed his hands into tight fists down at his sides when she reached up to fiddle with the collar of his shirt—adjusting it, smoothing it, touching that one little corner of cotton knit like she was afraid to act on the need in her eyes…like she just might be afraid of him.

  “Talk to me, Sarge. How do I make this right for you?”

  She looked up at him then—and he was certain that green would forever be his favorite color.

  Maggie pulled her hand from his shirt, denying him even that little bit of contact. But her brave, beautiful eyes never once looked away. “I want to go with you to check out our building. Now. As soon as you can get off work. If there’s any way we can do it before I have to pick up Travis, that’d be great.” He was ready to answer yes, but she had more to say. “I need to get ahead of this mess, John. I’m tired of just reacting. I’m at a disadvantage. I need to take control. I want to know for sure whether Danny has been in the building, and if he’s responsible for any of the weird stuff that’s been going on. I need to find out if there’s any more crazy in store for me and the people who live there.”

  Her fingertips brushed against his fists and something like relief, acceptance—need—sparked between them at the shy request. John opened his hands and laced his fingers together with hers, holding on tight. It was a welcome, a promise. The trust in that simple gesture cracked open something cold and doubting that had encircled his heart.

  And then he felt the grip of her fingers squeeze around his knuckles, holding on just as tightly to him.

  * * *

  “THAT AIN’T GOOD.”