by Marta Perry
He’d just had time to hold her and pray while he waited for help to arrive, but his boss didn’t need to know that.
“And the cause?”
“The utility workers are still checking it out. It’s an old range. It could have been an accident. Or it could have been deliberate.”
Some faceless person might have crept into Jade’s house while she was at work, rigged a death trap and walked away with no one the wiser. She should never have stayed in this isolated house by herself. Phillips grunted. “Could have been a suicide attempt, too.”
That hadn’t occurred to him, and he bit back a quick defense of Jade. Phillips wasn’t interested in psychological opinions from his people, just good, solid investigation.
“I’d have expected her to blow out the pilot light and put her head in the oven, then. Not set out a casserole and go into the other room.”
Had she planned to offer him a share of that casserole, arriving as he did right at mealtime? If she had, he wasn’t sure he’d have had the sense to refuse, and the image of the two of them, sitting at a candlelit table, slid into his mind.
“Maybe. Maybe not.” Phillips chased the image away.
“Or she might have set up the whole scene to look like an attack. She knew you were coming.”
The anger he felt at that comment astounded him. He was careful not to let it show in his voice.
“That would have been a dangerous thing to do. I could have been delayed. She could have died. As it was, she was barely breathing when I got here.”
“That’s a point.” Phillips sounded reluctant to admit it. “Still, she might figure it would convince us she’s an innocent victim in this whole mess.”
His boss’s cynicism didn’t surprise him. But Micah hoped he never got that way. He made an indeterminate sound that his boss might take for agreement.
“Try to get her someplace safe until you’re able to talk to her. And I understand your brother’s coming in—what’s that about?”
Micah had to force his mind back to Kristin Perry. Her visit seemed a century ago.
“He gets in sometime tonight. I imagine he plans to brief us tomorrow morning.”
Or not. Agencies didn’t always share everything they knew with each other.
“Keep me up to speed on that. And on the Summers woman.”
“Right.” An investigator had to be able to multitask, but he was finding it unusually difficult this time. His own fault, probably, for letting his emotions get in the way.
He shoved his cell phone back in his pocket and returned to the kitchen. It seemed even colder than it had moments earlier. At least that meant it would be impossible for Jade to argue that she could stay here tonight. The utility worker straightened, making a note on the clipboard he’d dropped on the counter next to the casserole dish.
“So, what do you think?” The county sheriff was too eager to wait on protocol. “Was it an accident?”
The man shrugged, wiping his hands on a rag. “Most likely. Well, you can see for yourself that range is not in good shape.”
“Could someone have done it on purpose?” Micah stepped in front of the sheriff.
The workman’s eyes lit with interest. He glanced back at the stove, then at Micah. “Sure could. C’mere, I’ll show you.”
Micah joined him. Together they leaned over to peer at the back of the range. The man reached down to touch a pipe with an oily finger.
“See, there’s where the leak is. That joint coulda come loose by itself. Or somebody coulda rigged it. No way of knowing that I can see.”
“You didn’t find any fresh wrench marks on it?”
“No.” He sounded regretful. “But it wouldn’t take a wrench to pull it loose. A good twist with your hand would do it.”
And leave no marks. He’d have dusted for prints, but he wasn’t hopeful. Dissatisfied, he left the sheriff and the utility worker deep in discussion and made his way around the house to the front.
Jade was still sitting on the back of the ambulance, with her neighbors and the paramedics close at hand. One of the paramedics moved away as he approached, giving him a good look at her. The complete and utter fragility of her face shook him.
“You should be in the hospital.” Worry made the words sharper than he intended.
Her face came up, a little spark lighting her eyes. “I don’t need a hospital. I’m perfectly fine.”
He turned to the paramedic, hoping for some support.
“What do you think?”
The woman shrugged. “She doesn’t require hospitalization. We can take her in if you want, but they’ll just check her out in the emergency room and release her.”
“You see?” Jade seemed to take that as a sign the battle was won. But he wasn’t finished fighting. He glanced at the others. “Give us a minute, will you?”
The paramedic shrugged, heading off around the vehicle. The neighbor woman looked ready to argue, but her husband towed her away.
“Fine. If you don’t need hospitalization, I’ll drive you to Billings and check you into a hotel.”
Predictably, she shook her head. “I’m staying right here.”
“You are not staying right here.” He leaned over her, intent on making her understand. “You almost died this afternoon.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” A little color came into her cheeks. “I owe you my life. Again.”
He shook that off. “If the gas leak was deliberate, it’s a criminal matter.”
“Deliberate?” Her green eyes darkened with shock.
“But my landlord said it was an accident. Ellen was berating poor Herb for not putting a new range in. Are you sure someone tampered with it?”
“There’s no proof.” He hated admitting that, because it weakened his argument. “But given what’s been happening, we can’t take any chances.”
Jade was already shaking her head. “If there’s no proof, I can’t see any point in running away from my home. Surely I can stay right here while you investigate.”
He counted to ten, forcing down the impulse to snatch her up and remove her bodily, as he’d done when he got her out of the gas-filled house.
“You certainly can’t stay here tonight,” he pointed out reasonably. “I owe you a new window, for one thing. And for another, the firemen are still venting the house. It’s as cold as the inside of a freezer in there.”
“All right, all right.” She leaned her head on her hand, looking as if that brief spurt of opposition had suddenly worn her out, leaving her exhausted again. “I won’t try to stay here tonight. I’ll go to Herb and Ellen’s.”
He didn’t like it, but it was probably the best he was going to get, short of taking her into custody. Tempting as the thought was, he really didn’t have grounds to do that.
“Promise me you won’t attempt to come back here by yourself.”
She sighed. “Not until Herb gets a new window put in, in any event. Ellen’s not going to give him any peace until then.”
She tilted her head back to look at him, and he was struck again by her pallor and the dark circles that lay like bruises on her skin. The longing to protect her swept through him.
“I forgot,” she said. “You wanted to talk to me about something. That’s why you came.”
Yes, he had, but the urgency had been wiped away in the terror of seeing her unconscious.
“It’ll keep. I’ll come back tomorrow.” He touched her then, just a flick of his finger against her cheek as an assurance that she really was alive and well. “Stay safe, will you?”
She managed a smile. “I’ll try.”
SEVEN
Micah tried to concentrate on the stream of reports that came to his desk the next day, knowing that any one of them might contain the valuable hint that would unravel the confusing case. Unfortunately a certain green-eyed redhead kept intruding on his focus.
He’d already called her once this morning to see how she was. She’d still been at the neighbor’s hou
se, but insisted that she felt fine and would be going to work this afternoon. After a brief, futile argument as to the wisdom of that, he’d given up. She’d probably be safer in a public place like the library, in any event. And however much he might want to hear her voice, he really couldn’t justify checking on her again this soon.
If yesterday’s incident had been an accident, pure and simple, that was serious enough in itself. If it had been more—
Phillips had cast doubt on that idea in this morning’s briefing. Fiddling with a gas connection was hardly the MO of the typical Mafia hit man. Micah had sensed that his boss still leaned toward the theory that Jade had done it herself.
And Micah’s only defense—his gut instinct that Jade was innocent in all this—didn’t hold much water without proof to back it up.
And then there was his brother’s sudden trip. Jackson’s flight had arrived in the middle of the night, so he’d gone to the closest motel instead of staying with Micah. He’d been tight-lipped about Kristin Perry when he arrived at the Federal Building, and was even now closeted alone with her in Phillips’s office.
Alone, shutting out not only the rest of the U.S. Marshal Service, but his brother, too. Jackson was the consummate professional, but this secrecy was carrying things too far, in his opinion. After all, the Perry woman had come to him first.
He was still watching the office door when it opened. Kristin Perry emerged first, her bright jacket making a splash of color against the beige background. Then Jackson came out, looming over her, the strong planes of his face giving away absolutely nothing.
“Thank you.” She offered her hand, and it was swallowed up in Jackson’s. For a few seconds Jackson stood frozen, clasping her hand, his gaze intent on her face. Micah, watching, could a sense strong emotion being held down fiercely under Jackson’s iron control.
And then the moment was over, and Kristin strode quickly down the hall toward the elevator. Jackson watched until the elevator doors closed behind her. Then he turned and walked quickly to Micah.
“What did you think of her?” he asked, his tone abrupt. Micah leaned back in his chair. It seemed as if he was always looking up at his big brother, both literally and figuratively.
“We didn’t talk long yesterday. My impressions?
Young, naive, still grieving her parents. Maybe a little too eager to connect with the birth mother whose existence she just discovered.”
Jackson’s frosty blue eyes were remote. “I’d add a strong core of determination to that list. It won’t be easy to discourage her.”
Micah refrained from saying that he’d pointed that out in the conversation the previous day. “Is that what we’re going to do?”
Jackson surveyed the room. Two criminal investigators worked at their desks, one sifting through the endless series of tips, the other writing a report. Mac Sellers was focused on his computer in the far corner.
“Let’s take a walk.”
In other words, Jackson had something to say that he didn’t want anyone to overhear.
“Right.”
Shrugging into heavy jackets, they took the elevator down to the ground floor in silence. In fact, Jackson didn’t speak until they were a good block away from the Federal Building.
“You up for hearing a story about the old days?” His brother’s question came out on a breath visible on the frosty air.
“Sure thing. How old we talking? Prehistoric?” He matched his brother’s long stride.
Jackson’s lips twitched slightly. “Not that bad. Twenty-two years ago.”
Twenty-two years ago he’d been starting elementary school, and Jackson had been a rookie FBI agent. That simple equation was a measure of the gap between them.
“I take it this is about Kristin Perry.”
“In a way.” Jackson frowned, eyes seeming focused on the past. “You’ve probably never run across this, but Sal Martino was actually put away for a time, thanks to the testimony of a young witness.”
His mind filled in the gaps in the narrative. “Kristin Perry’s mother?”
Jackson nodded. “She wasn’t much more than a kid at the time, but already a single mother. She’d had a rough time of it, but she showed a lot of courage, getting on that stand.”
“I see.” Micah mulled it over, filling in the gaps in Jackson’s sparse narrative. “Then she went into Witness Protection.”
“She did.” Jackson’s jaw tightened. “She should have been safe. I assured her that she and her little girl would be safe.”
He understood the feeling. At bottom, their job was always to keep the innocent safe. “You said what any of us would.” Obviously it hadn’t gone by the book.
“I was wrong.” Jackson’s voice grated. “Somehow they found her. She and the baby were nearly killed in an explosion. They were lucky to survive.”
“That’s rough.” Maybe Jackson had reason to understand his feelings about Ruby’s death. Jackson jerked a nod. “We were going to relocate them again, but I guess Eloise figured she couldn’t trust us. She disappeared, leaving the baby behind to keep her safe. She left me a note asking me to be sure that the baby had a good, Christian home and a new life.”
Micah blew out a breath, trying to assimilate it all. “So you helped arrange Kristin Perry’s adoption. Did you tell her all this?”
“Not all.” His wintry expression told Micah how much he was hurting. “How could I? This isn’t an ordinary situation with an adopted child trying to find her birth mother. If Eloise is still alive, she has a target on her back. She put Salvatore Martino away, at least until his battalion of smart lawyers got him out again. Sal wouldn’t forget that.”
“Sal is supposedly dying.” He was feeling his way through the situation, weighing the possibilities.
“That doesn’t mean the danger is over for her. Even if I knew where she was, which I don’t, I couldn’t tell the daughter that.”
“So you tried to discourage Kristin Perry.” Well, it was what he’d done himself, and he hadn’t known the whole story.
“Tried is the operative word. She’s got some of her mother’s courage. I told her I’d look into it for her, hoping to buy some time.”
“If you found Eloise, if she agreed to go into the program again, she could have her daughter with her, if that’s what they both wanted.”
“That’s a lot of ifs, kid.” Jackson halted, turned. “We’d better head back. You’ve got enough on your plate with the Ruby Maxwell killing. I wanted you to know about this, but I’ll deal with it.”
Of course he would. Jackson always preferred to deal with things himself. At least he’d trusted him with the background. But…
“You don’t suppose there could be any connection between that old case and what’s happening now, do you?”
He could see Jackson turning that over in his mind.
“On the face of it, I don’t see how.” His words were slower than his usual incisive tone. “Still, it is odd, Ms. Perry showing up just when you’re dealing with a Mafia hit. Maybe a coincidence.”
“Maybe.” Jade’s face appeared in his mind, vulnerable and grieving. “But I don’t like coincidences.”
Jade parked in front of the library and took her time getting out. Despite her insistence to Ellen, as well as to Micah, that she was fine and she’d be better off going to work, she still felt a bit shaky after yesterday’s experience. But she’d improve once she got busy. Sitting around, listening to Ellen bemoan their failure to put in a new stove hadn’t exactly cheered her up. It had been a constant reminder of how close she’d come to death. She paused to survey the library building as she often did, trying to see it through the eyes of someone who might be persuaded to come in. The turn-of-the-century brick building was one of the oldest in town. Library service had declined slowly over the years, until some determined citizens started putting pressure on the county to hire a qualified librarian and increase the budget. She smiled with satisfaction as she pushed through the glass-paneled door. Now t
he library was growing into the kind of vibrant, active place she’d envisioned it could be. Circulation was up, activities had skyrocketed in the past six months, and she had an interested, supportive board behind her.
And will they stay behind you if you keep having odd ‘accidents’? The little voice at the back of her mind was persistent.
Yesterday was an accident, she told herself firmly. No one could blame her for that. As for the rest of her misfortunes—well, it was up to the marshals to sort that out. She was just an innocent bystander. She walked quickly through the stacks at the front of the library before going to the circulation desk, just making sure all was as it should be. She had some teenage volunteers who came in after school to reshelve books, but sometimes their grasp of the system was a bit shaky. The marshals, in the person of Micah McGraw, would handle the aftermath of Ruby’s death. He’d already called first thing this morning. She’d steeled herself at the sound of his voice, ready for whatever questions had brought him here yesterday, but he’d just wanted to know how she felt, his deep voice warm with concern. She couldn’t deny that she’d been affected by his caring, to say nothing of the fact that he’d saved her life twice. Still, he’d be forever linked in her mind with what happened to Ruby.
And to him, despite his apparent concern, she was part of a puzzling case, if not a suspect. That was all they could possibly be to each other.
She reached the circulation desk. Allie Brandon, her assistant, greeted her with a worried smile.
“I thought you weren’t coming in today, Jade. I don’t mind staying on, really I don’t.”
“I’m better off here.” She glanced at the round schoolhouse clock over the desk. “I have story hour at two, and I don’t want to miss that.”
Allie shook her head, unconvinced. “If you don’t mind my saying so, you’re looking pretty washed out. I can take over the story hour, or we can cancel it for today. No one will mind. Everyone’s heard about what happened to you.”
Of course they had. She gritted her teeth, hating the thought that everyone was talking about her. Wondering about her.
