Books by Nora Roberts

by Roberts, Nora

  "Yes. There are some spreadsheets I should have looked at yesterday."

  "So I'll call you."

  As Ry helped her on with her coat, she glanced over her shoulder. "All right."

  He turned her completely around and indulged himself with one long, hard kiss. "Tell you what, I'll just come by when I'm done."

  Natalie worked on getting her breath back. "Better," she managed. "That's even better."

  By the middle of the week, Natalie had discovered that for the first time in memory she was behind on her own personal schedule. Not only had she blown the previous weekend, but she hadn't put in a decent night's work all week.

  How could she, when she and Ry were spending every free moment together? Every evening they settled into her apartment, ordered dinner—which more often than not had to be reheated after they'd feasted on each other.

  She didn't think of work from the time he arrived on her doorstep until she rushed into her office the next morning.

  She didn't think of anything but him.

  Besotted was what she was, Natalie admitted as she stared out her office window. Fascinated by the man, and by what happened every time they got within arm's reach of each other.

  It was crazy, of course. She knew it. But it was so wonderful at the moment, it didn't seem to matter.

  And she could justify it, since she hadn't yet missed any meetings or business deadlines. Now that Ry had given her the go-ahead, she'd authorized the cleanup and redecorating at the flagship store. The stock there was nearly all in place, and the window-dressing was complete.

  It was only a matter of days before the grand opening, nationwide, and there'd been no more incidents. That was how she liked to think of the fires now. As incidents.

  She should, of course, be making plans to visit all the branches within the next ten days. But the thought of traveling just then seemed so annoying, so depressing. So lonely.

  She could delegate Melvin or Donald to make the tour. It wouldn't even be outside of proper business procedure to do so. But it wasn't her style to delegate what should be done by her.

  Maybe, if things got settled somehow, Ry could get a few days off, go with her. It would be wonderful to have company—his company—on a quick business trip. She could put it off until after the grand opening, instead of before, and then—Turning away from the window, she answered the buzzer on her desk. "Yes, Maureen."

  "Ms. Marks to see you, Ms. Fletcher."

  "Thanks. Send her in." With an effort, Natalie shifted her personal thoughts to the back of her mind and welcomed her accounting executive. "Deirdre, have a seat."

  "I'm sorry I'm so behind." Deirdre blew her choppy bangs out of her eyes before she dropped a thick stack of files on Natalie's desk. "Every time we turn around, the system's down." Natalie frowned as she picked up the first file. "Have you called in the engineer?"

  "He's practically living in my lap." Deirdre plopped into a chair and set one practical flat-heeled shoe on her knee. "He fixes it, we forge ahead, and it goes down again. Believe me, running figures has become a challenge."

  "We've still got some time before the end of the quarter. I'll call the computer people myself this afternoon. If their equipment's unstable, they'll have to replace it. Immediately."

  "Good luck," Deirdre said dryly. "The good news is, I was able to run a chart on the early catalog sales. I think you'll be pleased with the results."

  "Mmm, hmm…" Natalie was already flipping through the files. "Fortunately, the fires didn't destroy records. You'd have a real accounting nightmare on your hands if it had gotten to the files at the flagship."

  "You're telling me." Deirdre rubbed her fingers over her eyes. "The way the system's been hiccuping, I'd sweat bullets without those hard copies."

  "Well, relax. I've got copies of the copies, as well as the backup disks, tucked away. I was hoping to run a full audit by the middle of March." She saw the wince before Deirdre could mask it. "But," she added, leaning back, "if we keep running into these glitches, we'll have to put it off until after the tax-season rush."

  "My life for you." Solemnly, Deirdre thumped a fist on her breast. "Now to the nitty-gritty. Your outlay is still within the projected parameters. Barely. With the insurance payments, we'll offset some of that."

  Natalie nodded, and made herself focus on budgets and percentages.

  A few hours later, in a seedy downtown motel, Clarence Jacoby sat on his sagging bed, lighting matches. His hands were pudgy, smooth as a girl's. Each time he would strike the match and watch the magic flare, waiting, waiting until the heat just kissed the tips of his fingers, before blowing it out.

  The ashtray beside him was overflowing with the matches that had already flared and burned. Clarence could entertain himself for hours with nothing more.

  I He thought nearly every night about burning down the hotel. It would be exciting to start the blaze right in his own room, watch it grow and spread. But he wouldn't be alone, and that stopped him.

  Clarence didn't care overmuch about people, or the risk to their lives. He simply preferred to be alone with his fires.

  He'd learned not to stay overlong after he'd ignited them. The rippling scars over his neck and chest were daily reminders of how quickly, how fiercely, the dragon could turn, even on one who loved it.

  So he contented himself with merely conceiving the fire, basking for a regrettably short time in its heat, before fleeing.

  Six months before, in Detroit, he'd torched an abandoned warehouse that the owner had no longer needed or wanted. It was the kind of favor, a profitable one on all sides, that Clarence enjoyed. He had stayed to watch that fire burn. Oh, he'd been out of the building and deep in the shadows. But they'd nearly caught him. Those cops and arson people scanned the crowds at the scene just for a face like his.

  A worshipful face. A happy face.

  With a giggle, Clarence struck another match. But he'd gotten away. And he'd learned another lesson. It wasn't smart to stay and watch. He didn't need to stay and watch. There were so many fires, so many fierce and beautiful blazes living in his mind and heart, he didn't need to stay.

  He had only to close his eyes and see them. Feel them. Smell them.

  He was humming to himself when the phone rang. His round, childlike face beamed happily when he heard the sound. Only one person had his number here. And that person would have only one reason to call.

  It was time, he knew, to free the dragon again.

  At his desk, Ry pored over lab reports. It was nearly seven, and already dark outside. He'd given up on cutting down on coffee, and drank it hot and black from a chipped mug.

  He needed to quit for the day. He recognized the slow process of shutting down in his mind and body. Somehow or other, in the past couple of weeks, he'd gotten into a routine he was now beginning to depend on.

  No, not somehow or other, Ry reminded himself, scrubbing his hands over his face. Someone.

  He was getting much too used to knocking off for the day and heading for her apartment. He even had a key to her front door in his pocket now. Something that had been given and taken without ceremony. As if neither of them wanted to acknowledge what that simple piece of metal stood for.

  They'd have a meal, he thought. They'd talk, maybe watch one of the old movies on television—something they'd discovered by accident they both loved.

  Most of what they'd discovered about each other, he mused, had been by accident. Or by observation.

  He knew she liked long bubble baths in the evening, with the water too hot and a glass of chilled wine sitting on the rim of the tub. She stepped out of those ankle-breakers she wore the minute she walked in the door. And she put everything away in its place.

  She slept in silk and hogged the blankets. Her alarm went off at seven on the dot every morning, and if he wasn't quick enough to delay her, she was out of the bed seconds later.

  She had a weakness for strawberry ice cream and big-band music.

  She was loyal an
d smart and strong.

  And he was in love with her.

  Sitting back, Ry rested his eyes. A problem, he thought. His problem. They'd had an unspoken agreement going in, and he knew it. No ties, no tangles.

  He didn't want them.

  God knew he couldn't afford them with her.

  They were opposites on every level but one. The physical needs that had brought them together, no matter how intense, couldn't override everything else. Not in the long term.

  So there couldn't be a long term.

  He would do what was smart, what was right, and see her through the arson investigation. And that would be that. Would have to be that.

  And to save them both an unpleasant scene, he'd start backing away a little. Starting now.

  He rose and grabbed his jacket. He wouldn't go to her place tonight. He looked guiltily at the phone, thinking of calling her, making some excuse.

  With an oath, he turned out the lights. He wasn't her damn husband, he reminded himself.

  He never would be.

  Compelled by a nagging sense of unrest, like an itch between his shoulder blades, Ry drove out to Natalie's plant. He'd done a great deal of driving around since he left the station.

  It was after ten o'clock now, moonless, windless.

  He sat in his car, slumped behind the wheel, and tried not to think of her.

  Of course, he thought of her.

  She was probably wondering where he was, he figured. She'd assume he'd gotten a call. She'd wait up. Guilt worked at him again. It was his least favorite emotion. It wasn't right to be inconsiderate, to worry her just because he'd had a scare.

  And maybe he wasn't in love with her. Maybe he was just hung up. A man could get hung up on a woman without wanting to slit his throat when she walked away. Couldn't he?

  Disgusted, Ry reached for his car phone. The least he could do was call and tell her he was busy. It wasn't like checking in, he assured himself. It was just being polite.

  And since when had he worried about manners?

  Cursing, he began to dial.

  But the itch came back. Slowly, his eyes scanning the dark, he replaced the phone. Had he heard something? A check of his watch told him the patrol he'd assigned would make their run by in another ten minutes.

  No harm, he decided, in taking a look around himself on foot in the meantime.

  He eased his door open and slipped out. He could hear nothing now but the faint swish of traffic two blocks away. Cautious, he reached back in the car for his flashlight, but he didn't turn it on.

  Not yet, he thought. His eyes were accustomed enough to the dark for him to see where he was going.

  Instinct had him heading silently around the back.

  He'd already cased the plant himself, noting where the exits were located, the security, the fire doors. He'd make a circle, check each door and window on the main level himself.

  He heard it again, the scrape of a foot over gravel. Ry shifted the flashlight in his hand, holding it like a weapon now as he moved closer. Tensed, ready, he slipped through the shadows. If it was the security guard, Ry knew, he was about to give the man the fright of his life. Otherwise…

  A giggle. Faint and delighted. The slow, moaning whine of a metal door moving on its hinges.

  Ry flashed on his light, and spotlighted Clarence Jacoby.

  "How's it going, Clarence?" Ry grinned as the man blinked against the glare. "I've been waiting for you."

  "Who's that?" Clarence's voice raced up a register. "Who's that?"

  "Hey, I'm hurt." Ry lowered the light out of Clarence's eyes and stepped closer. "Don't you recognize your old pal?"

  Squinting, Clarence separated the man from the shadows. In a moment, his baffled face exploded in a wide grin. "Piasecki. Hey, Ry Piasecki. How's it going? You're Inspector now, right? I hear you're an inspector now."

  "That's right. I've been looking for you, Clarence."

  "Oh, yeah?" Shyly, Clarence dipped his head. "How come?"

  "I put out that little campfire you started the other night. You must be losing your touch, Clarence."

  "Oh, hey…" Still grinning, Clarence spread his arms out. "I don't know nothing about that. You remember when we got burned, Piasecki? Hell of a night, wasn't it? That dragon was really big. Almost ate us up."

  "I remember."

  Clarence moistened his lips. "Scared you bad, too. I heard the nurses talking in the burn ward about the nightmares."

  "I had a few of them."

  "And you don't fight fire no more, do you? Don't want to slay the dragon now, do you?"

  "I like squashing little bugs like you better;" Ry swung his light down, shone it on the gas cans at Clarence's feet. "What do you know, Clarence? You still use premium grade, too."

  "I didn't do nothing." Clarence whirled to make a dash into the dark. Even as Ry leapt forward, the man jerked back, as if on a string.

  Staggered, Ry stared at the dark-clad arms that seemed to shoot straight out from the building's wall and wrap around Clarence's neck.

  Then it was a shadow flowing out of nothing. Then it was a man flowing out of the shadow.

  "I don't believe the inspector was finished talking to you, Clarence." Nemesis kept one arm hooked around Clarence's neck as he faced Ry. "Were you, Inspector?"

  "No, I wasn't." Ry let out a long breath. "Thanks."

  "My pleasure."

  "It's a ghost. A ghost's got me." Clarence's eyes turned up, white, and he fainted dead away.

  "I imagine you could have handled him on your own." Nemesis passed the limp body to Ry, waiting until Ry had hefted Clarence over his shoulder.

  "I appreciate it, anyway."

  There was a quick flash of teeth as Nemesis smiled. "I like your style, Inspector."

  "Same goes. You want to explain that little trick when you came out of the wall?" Ry began, but he was talking to air before the sentence was finished. "Not bad," he muttered, and was shaking his head as he carted Clarence to the car. "Not bad at all."

  The phone awakened Natalie from where she'd dozed off on the couch. Groggy, she stumbled toward it, trying to read the time on her watch.

  "Yes, hello?"

  "It's Ry."

  "Oh." She rubbed the sleep from her eyes. "It's after one. I was—''

  "Sorry to wake you."

  "No, it's not that. I just—"

  "We've got him."

  "What?" Her irritation that he had yet to let her finish a sentence sharpened the word.

  "Clarence. I picked him up tonight. I thought you'd want to know."

  Now her head was reeling. "Yes, of course. That's wonderful. But when—?''

  "I'm tied up here, Natalie. I'll get back to you when I can."

  "All right, but—" She took the receiver away from her ear and glared at the dial tone. "Congratulations, Inspector," she muttered, and hung up.

  With her hands on her hips, she took several deep breaths to calm herself, and to clear her head.

  She'd been worried sick. Her own fault, she admitted. Ry was certainly under no obligation to come to her after work, or to call. Even if he had been doing just that for days. And even if she had waited by the phone for hours until simple fatigue spared her the continued humiliation.

  Put that aside, she ordered herself. The important matter here was that Clarence Jacoby was in custody. There would be no more fires—no more incidents.

  And in the morning, she promised herself as she stomped bad-temperedly off to the bedroom, she'd track Ry down and get the whole story.

  In the meantime, she thought as she slipped out of her robe, all she had to do was teach herself to sleep alone again.

  Even as she settled onto the pillow, she knew it was going to be a very long night.

  Chapter 9

  Since there seemed little point in going home after he'd finished at the police station, Ry dropped down on the sagging sofa in his office and caught three hours' sleep before the sirens awakened him.

  Following
old habit, his feet hit the floor before he remembered he didn't have to answer the bell any longer. Years of training would have allowed him to simply roll over and go back to sleep. Instead, he staggered, bleary-eyed, toward the coffeepot, measuring, flipping switches. His only goal at the moment was to take a giant mug of coffee to the showers with him, and to stay there for an hour.

  He lit a cigarette, scowling at the pot as it filled, drop by stingy drop.

  The brisk knock on his door only made his scowl deepen. Turning, he aimed his bad temper at Natalie.

  "Your secretary isn't in."

  "Too early," he mumbled, and rubbed a hand over his face. Why in hell did she always have to look so perfect? "Go away, Natalie. I'm not awake yet."

  "I won't go away." Struggling not to be hurt, she set her briefcase down, put her hands on her hips. Obviously, she told herself, he'd had little or no sleep. She'd be patient. "Ry, I need to know what happened last night, so I can plan what steps need to be taken."

  "I told you what happened."

  "You weren't very generous with details."

  Muttering, he snatched up a mug and poured the miserly half cup that had brewed. "We got your torch. He's in custody. He won't be lighting any fires for a while."

  Patience, Natalie reminded herself and took a seat. "Clarence Jacoby?"

  "Yeah." He looked at her. What choice did he have? She was there, stunning and polished and perfect. "Why don't you go to work, let me pull it together here? I'll have a report for you."

  Nerves jittered up her spine, and down again. "Is something wrong?"

  "I'm tired," he snapped. "I can't get a decent cup of coffee, and I need a shower. And I want you to stop breathing down my neck."

  Surprise registered first, then retreated behind hurt. "I'm sorry," she said, voice cool and stiff, as she rose. "I was concerned about what happened last night. And I wanted to make sure you were all right. Since I can see that you are fine…" She picked up her briefcase. "And since you haven't had time to put your report together, I'll get out of your way."

  He swore, dragging a hand through his hair. "Natalie, sit down. Please," he added, when she just stood aloofly in the doorway. "I'm sorry. I'm feeling a little raw this morning, and you made the mistake of being the first person in the line of fire."