by A. J. Goode
It was white, and it billowed in the wind created by the churning flames that were beginning to eat away at the wall. It was balled up in a small, vaguely human-shaped heap on the couch that had started to smolder.
A . . . wedding dress?
Maeve.
Of course. Whoever had taken her could have found these empty cabins and taken over this one as the perfect place to hide his victim.
Sean vaulted through the window and ran to her. He knew that entering a structure fire with no gear and no back-up was a direct violation of SOP’s -- standard operating procedures -- but he also knew that he’d been given a second chance to save Maeve Renault, and he’d be damned if he was going to fail her again. By the time he reached the couch, his eyes were stinging and his lungs felt ready to burst from the smoke and fumes. He lunged for her, stumbling, coughing.
Only to plunge his arms into a pile of white fabric -- bedding, maybe? -- with no person inside.
It wasn’t Maeve. It wasn’t even a person.
He stumbled again, and dropped to his knees. Stupid, stupid rookie move! he scolded himself. He should have known better than to charge into a burning building without packing up or waiting for backup. He’d allowed emotion cloud his judgment, not to mention his common sense.
He was crawling now, trying to reach the window that was suddenly so far away. The room he had crossed in a matter of minutes just seconds ago had become a vast expanse, an impossible distance. He had dropped the flashlight somewhere; he didn’t remember losing it but it was gone, and the thick, dark smoke was squeezing in on him.
Someone shouted his name. He tried to shout back, but no sound came out. He flapped one hand in the direction of the door, praying that someone would see him.
“Jackson!”
He felt hands clutching at him, dragging him to his feet. He stumbled along blindly, gasping and choking. His head swam. No, damn it, I will not pass out!
Then he was outside, struggling desperately to draw the sweet night air into his tortured lungs. More hands, more shouting, and a persistent orange glow at the edges of his vision that just refused to clear. Something was being pressed against his face, and he clawed at it frantically.
“Easy, Spiffy,” a deep voice commanded. “Deep breaths.”
Gradually, Sean became aware of the cool grass beneath him and rumble of nearby diesel engines. He blinked rapidly as his vision began to clear.
“Can you hear me, Kid?”
Sean nodded.
Griswold let out an explosive breath and turned the younger firefighter’s face slightly so that Sean was looking directly up at him. “You’re an idiot,” he snapped.
Sean nodded again.
“Ambulance is on the way. Just lay here and breathe until the paramedics gets here.”
Sean shook his head.
Tim’s face moved into his line of vision. “Is he gonna live?” he asked nervously.
“Only ‘till I kill him.”
Sean smiled weakly behind the oxygen mask as the rookie moved away again and Griswold rolled his eyes. “God save me from rookies and glory hounds,” the man muttered. “I’ve got to deal with him bouncing around like a frickin’ Chihuahua on meth, and all of a sudden you think you’ve got to go charging into burning buildings with no gear. What the hell, Jackson? What the hell? You know better than that, especially after everything that went down with Mikey last fall.”
Sean didn’t answer. At that moment, the medics arrived and the chief returned to the fire as soon as he was sure his Lieutenant was in capable hands.
What the hell, indeed. How could Sean explain to his commanding officer that he had charged into the burning cabin without gear, without following protocol, because he thought he saw the woman he’d abandoned on a dark and rainy roadside just a few nights earlier?
By the time the others had the fire under control, Sean felt almost back to normal. His throat was still rough and he felt as though he could sleep for days, but his head was no longer spinning and he was finally able to focus his thoughts again. And the one thing he could focus on was the fact that he needed to come clean to his chief about everything. About seeing Maeve in the road, about dismissing her as a hallucination, about thinking he saw her inside the little cabin.
If it meant the end of his career, then so be it; he was done lying. He tried to ignore the way that realization made it difficult to breathe all over again.
Slowly, he made his way over to Griswold. “Chief, I ...need to talk to you.”
“Can it wait, Spiffy? I’m asshole deep in alligators here.”
“It’s important.”
“Chomp-chomp. Schedule’s full for the next few hours.”
“A woman may be dead because of my mistake.”
Griswold stared at him for a long, silent moment.
“All right,” he finally said. “Looks like my schedule just opened up.”
Chapter Thirteen
Maggie didn’t even try to sleep for the rest of the night. She paced within the confines of the tiny room, planned out conversations with Lindsay and Devon, and picked up the phone at least a dozen times before putting it back down without dialing. Everything she wanted to say, every action she wanted to take, every number she wanted to dial, everything came down to just one thing.
I am in so much trouble, she told herself over and over.
She made up her mind near dawn and made a few calls to determine the local train schedule. She had just enough money left to buy a ticket home; but there were no trains leaving for Chicago until evening. She would just have to hide out right here in this room all day, and hike to the train station at dinner time. She’d be home by midnight.
She wasn’t quite sure what her plans were once she reached Chicago, but she knew she was going to have to call the police at some point and explain to them that she hadn’t been kidnapped. She’d have to convince them that she wasn’t part of the crazy scheme to make it seem that way.
She wasn’t going to call Lindsay. That was for sure.
She debated calling her father. He would be angry at her, of course, for letting the situation get so far out of control, but he must be getting worried as well. If he had seen that same news report with those awful pictures, he must be out of his mind with worry.
She started to dial the familiar number, but hesitated. Lindsay thought the police might be monitoring her phone lines to catch the so-called kidnapper; was it possible they were monitoring her father’s phone as well? Good Lord, the man would go ballistic if anyone tried to implicate him in some way with this insane pseudo-kidnapping.
No, better to leave him out of this. For the time being, at least.
Fortunately, the “breakfast” part of Carrington Manor Bed and Breakfast was well worth staying for. She sat alone in the little dining room and lingered over the Eggs Benedict and fresh fruit, sipping on more cups of coffee than she cared to count, before borrowing a stack of paperback novels from Angie and wandering back up to her room to wait for the day to pass.
Angie’s taste in literature was rather colorful, and Maggie found herself blushing over the selection of racy love stories that made her think of the night she had shared on the beach with Sean.
No, she wasn’t going to think about him. He had made it perfectly clear to her that he regretted what had happened between them.
Of course he regrets it, she thought. He just realized he had sex with a liar and a car thief. He probably thinks I’m some kind of trashy whore for begging him like that on the beach.
If only she’d told him the truth from the very beginning.
Right. I can see it now. ‘Hi, I just ran out on my contract and abandoned my groom at the altar in front of millions of TV viewers on live TV, costing the network millions of dollars. I hid out in your truck and your garage, and I watched you walk around your house naked. So, can you help me?
Sure, that would have worked out well.
She paced some more, which wasn’t easy given the dimensions of the tiny room. Fi
nally, late in the afternoon, she had enough. Heck with this, she could just as easily wait at the train station.
Maggie scrambled to gather her few meager belongings into her tattered backpack and cast one last longing look around the cozy little room. Beach Haven had indeed proven to be a haven after all for these three days, but as of right now, she had to be done here. It didn’t matter that this place somehow seemed more like home than Chicago.
She had paid in advance for her room here, so there was no need to tell the Carringtons she was leaving. She could see them sitting outside on the patio, leaning against each other and watching the sunlight sparkle on the Lake, and she felt a little pang of envy for their closeness. She wasn’t going to find that kind of love with Devon or Sean, apparently.
She left her key and scribbled a quick thank-you note before letting herself out the front door with every intention of walking to the train station in town.
That plan went up in smoke almost immediately, for there sat Sean in his truck, waiting for her in the parking lot. He hopped out and headed her way, seemingly unable to look her in the eye. She could see that his hair was damp from a shower, and she breathed in his clean, masculine scent as he approached her. He didn’t look like he had slept any more than she had the night before.
“Maggie, I -- we need to -- I have to tell you something,” he began.
“I have to tell you --” she said at the same time. They both fell silent.
“How long have you been sitting here?” she demanded.
He shrugged. “I’m sorry about last night. I wasn’t thinking straight, and I, well, I wasn’t thinking at all.”
Sorry? Maggie drew in a sharp breath and tried to step away, but he caught her hands.
“I haven’t been myself these last few days. I . . . I’ve done a terrible thing, and I can’t lie anymore. I’ve spent the last hour confessing everything to the chief and turning in my gear. I’ve resigned from the department.”
“You did what? No, Sean--”
“Maggie, I almost hit someone with my truck a couple nights ago. It was dark and raining and I was too tired to be driving. I shouldn’t have been driving at all. I should have stayed at the station or had someone else take me home. I should have -- well, I should have done a lot of things differently.”
“Sean, wait --”
“No, I have to say this. You think you know me, but you don’t. You need to know what kind of man I really am and why I don’t deserve you. You think I’m some kind of hero because I’m a firefighter, but the truth is that my mistake may have cost a woman her life. I spun out and stopped on the side of the road, and I got out of my truck to look for her. I swear I looked for her. I swear it, Maggie! But I didn’t see her, and it was raining and I was so damn tired, and I just . . . I thought I must have been hallucinating. I drove home. I left her there.”
“But you didn’t --”
“I did. I did know. See, there’s this TV show, and this beautiful woman named Maeve Renault who disappeared that night. And last night, that car I towed was the car she disappeared with. Do you understand what that means?”
“Stop it, Sean!” Maggie cried, but he plowed on.
“It means I left the scene of an accident. It means I could lose my certification. It means a woman could be dead because of me.”
“She’s not dead!” Maggie told him. “Sean, I’m--”
“Freeze!”
All at once, the little parking lot was swarming with people. Maggie was seized from behind; she felt her teeth clack together from the impact as she was forcibly jerked out of Sean’s grasp. Sean shouted her name once, and then disappeared from her line of vision as he was dragged to the ground and pinned.
“You’re all right now,” a man’s voice murmured near her ear.
“Wait--what?”
“We got the kidnapper!” Another man bellowed, and a cheer arose from all around them.
Horrified, she could only watch as armed officers hauled Sean to his feet with his hands cuffed behind his back. He stared at her.
“Please, this is all a big misunderstanding!” she cried. “He’s not a kidnapper!”
“Miss Renault, please come with me,” an officer said, politely but firmly pulling her away from Sean. “Your fiancé is on his way here.”
“’Miss Renault’ . . .?” Sean echoed, looking dazed. Slowly, his expression changed to anger as he studied her face. “’Fiancé’? You’re Maeve Renault? You’ve been lying to me the whole time?”
“I never meant to hurt you,” she said weakly.
He didn’t answer. He looked away, shaking his head as he was led to a waiting patrol car. Most of the officers on scene were wearing dark blue State Police uniforms, but one man in a brown uniform stepped forward to say something to Sean and shoot a dirty look in her direction. He put a hand on the firefighter’s shoulder and guided him into the back seat of the car and slammed the door with a little more force than necessary.
Maggie shrank back as the man strode toward her. “Congratulations, Maggie or Maeve or whoever you are,” he snapped. “I hope you get a hell of a lot of money from that show.”
“Dan,” a blue-clad officer warned.
The man in brown held up his hand. “Sean Jackson is no kidnapper,” he said. “I know it, and she knows it. Anyone who knows Sean knows it. I just want to be sure that whatever her prize is, it’s enough to make up for ruining a good man’s life.”
She hung her head. No amount of money was worth the hurt she had seen in Sean’s eyes.
Or worth the pain in her heart when she understood that she had truly lost him.
Because she had just realized too late that she had fallen in love with him.
Chapter Fourteen
“I’m afraid this really isn’t my area of specialty,” Ben Jacobs told him. The lawyer sat down across from Sean at the small table and put the thin folder on the surface between them. “You’re going to need someone who works with Criminal cases.”
“But I’m not a criminal!”
“Maybe not, but you’re being charged as one.” Ben began shuffling through the papers. “Tell me about your relationship with Maeve Renault--”
“Her name is Maggie,” Sean told him. “Maggie Reynolds.”
“Margaret Elizabeth Reynolds, to be exact. Her ‘stage name’ for the reality show was Maeve Renault. Do you mean to tell me that you never made the connection?”
Sean shrugged helplessly. “I don’t watch much TV, Ben. I had never heard of Maeve Renault or that stupid reality show until Dan told me about it last night.”
“Then how do you explain the wedding dress in your garbage can?” The lawyer held out a stack of pictures that showed a ripped and stained wedding dress.
“I -- I don’t . . .”
“And can you explain how pieces of this dress and trace evidence shows that Maeve/Maggie was in the back of your truck at one point, under the tonneau cover?”
Sean was silent.
“With all the different hotels and Bed & Breakfast places in town, why did you hide her away at Carrington Manor, so far outside of town? Did Brad and Angie somehow keep her from leaving?”
“No! They were just repaying a favor -- they didn’t do anything wrong, Ben! They don’t deserve to get into any kind of trouble over this.”
The lawyer didn’t answer. He was busily shuffling through more papers, pulling out more pictures. “Sean, do you remember the big uproar over cameras on the beach a few years ago?” he asked, after a moment. “The Chamber of Commerce wanted to put cameras on all of the beaches and connect them to a website so potential tourists could check in twenty-four hours a day to watch the sunset or the girls in bikinis or whatever.”
“Sure, I remember. The town was pretty divided over it, whether it was good for publicity or bad for privacy. My mom was in charge of the group opposing it.”
“If you remember that, then you probably also remember that the cameras ended up going up in a few spots, including the n
orthern edge of the public beach. Up near Carrington Manor.”
Uh-oh.
“There was some interesting footage last night. Dan Harding was nice enough to print out a few stills for me. You might want to take a look at them.” Ben spread out another handful of pictures on the table. “Most of the . . . ahem, action . . . takes place in the very corner of the screen, so he had to zoom in to get these. They’re not the best quality, but good enough.”
The first picture showed Sean pinning Maggie to the sand. The next few showed different stages of their passionate encounter on the beach, up to and including the moments when Sean had covered her mouth with his hand.
“It’s not what it looks like,” he said weakly.
“Really? So you didn’t force yourself on a missing woman on a private beach, covering her mouth to keep her from screaming? Oh, I can’t wait to hear this.”
Sean gaped at him.
“You know me, Ben! You know I’d never . . . I wouldn’t . . . I couldn’t . . .” his voice trailed off as a thought occurred to him. “What is she saying, Ben? Come on, she knows I didn’t kidnap her or rape her.”
“I do know you, Sean, and I believe you. But you’ve got to admit this looks pretty bad.”
“Have they talked to Maggie at all? Surely she could clear all of this up.”
“She’s defending you,” Ben assured him. “She swears she acted alone and that you had no idea who she really was. She also insists that the business on the beach was consensual.”
Sean breathed a sigh of relief. “Then why am I still in here?” he demanded.
“Because that idiot publicist is trying to call it Stockholm Syndrome. You know, that’s when a victim falls in love with a kidnapper for all kinds of psychological reasons that I am not qualified to explore.”
“In . . . love? Maggie’s in love with me?”
Ben snorted. “I wouldn’t be so quick to believe anything she says. I’m not so sure she’s very good with the concept of telling the truth.”
“Can I see her?”
The lawyer hesitated.
“Come on, Ben. Five minutes. Five minutes, and I’ll bet we could clear all of this right up.”
