Beckett's Convenient Bride (11 page)

Carson unsnapped his seat belt, then reached over and unclipped hers. And then he did what he'd been wanting to do all evening, but for entirely different reasons—or maybe not.

He hauled her into his arms. “Shh, we'll take care of it,” he murmured. He'd buy her another car. Hell, he'd buy her a fleet of the things if it made her happy, he thought irrationally.

She didn't say a word, just burrowed into his warmth, her fists working their way up under his arms like a pair of heat-seeking missiles.

If she wanted heat…

Not now, dammit!

Holding her, feeling the small shudders that coursed through her body, Carson heard himself making the kind of ineffectual sounds that were meant to comfort. Meanwhile, his mind was racing along three separate tracks at once.

Had to be arson, but why? Insurance? He could easily find out who owned the place, but the timing was too pat.

A warning?

Or something more serious. A calm sort of resolution came over him. Let the locals figure out what it was all about—that was their job. His was getting her the hell away from here.

She wasn't crying, at least he didn't think she was. He almost wished she would. Evidently the pressure had been building since before he'd ever met her. Before she'd practically knocked him off his feet.

His arms tightened. He moved his hands up and down her back, his palms sliding over the slick fabric under his own jacket. When his fingers felt the band of her bra, his imagination took off on a course of its own before he could rein it in.

Back off, man, you're way out of line!

What was it with this woman? It had to be some bizarre chemical reaction that triggered a hormone attack every time he touched her—or even thought about touching her. He reminded himself for the second time in less than an hour that he was too old for this kind of thing. Not
old
-old, just too old for Kit, he amended quickly.

Forcing his mind away from the woman in his arms—the woman who was clinging to him, her arms around his waist, her knee poking into his hip and her head burrowed under his jaw, Carson directed his attention to the scene in front of him. The situation warranted his full attention, because something dirty was going on here.

As if sensing his change of focus, Kit took a deep breath and pulled away. Together they stared at the half-dozen volunteer firemen watering down the ruins. Not that there was anything left to save. The fire had burned too hot, too fast. Carson had to wonder if she'd had any sense of precognition when she'd mentioned the refrigerator as a safe place in case the house caught fire. Good thing he hadn't taken her at her word.

She finally spoke, her voice low, but steadier than he would have expected. “I didn't know—I never dreamed—I'm so sorry about your check. I guess if something, even a refrigerator gets hot enough, anything in it might get scorched.”

“Scorched. Yeah, that about describes it.” His mind was busy gathering and collating impressions. “It was your check, not mine. And in case you were worried, it's in my briefcase in the back seat. I didn't leave it.”

He'd seen the blackened refrigerator and thought about her earlier suggestion that she leave it there in case the house caught fire. Along with being psychic, was she also a mind reader? Somehow, it wouldn't surprise him. He only hoped she didn't pick up on the way his body reacted to the scent of her, the feel of her—hell, even the sight of her in her crazy, wild-colored clothes.

“My poor car,” she whispered.

“I'm really sorry about that, honey. I know it meant a lot to you.” The endearment just slipped out. In his family, it was a comfort word. As in,
“Have another piece of chicken, honey, you need to build up your strength.”

“It needed a new transmission, did I tell you? And some other parts, too,” she said wistfully. “I made an appointment for next week. I can't really afford it yet—royalties won't be out until May, and they're not all that
much. But I have to have my car in case I want to—to move or something.”

When her voice squeaked and broke it was all he could do not to drag her back into his arms and promise to buy her the car of her dreams. The woman was obviously screwing up his mind on more than one level.

He started to tell her that with ten thousand dollars to spend, she could easily afford a new transmission, but under the circumstances, it might be better not to mention it. “Look, I need to speak to the firemen, but—”

But I hate to leave you here alone, he finished silently. Fortunately, he had sense enough not to say it. Fragility mixed with independence and impulsiveness was a dangerous combination.

Someone rapped on the window and he turned away. Seeing a familiar face, he rolled down the glass, but didn't speak. His look said it all.

“Man, this is rough,” Jeff said. “When we saw Kit's car, we thought—” The Crab House proprietor broke off, obviously shaken. Leaning down, he looked past Carson and said, “Thank God you were gone, Kit. Look, I've got a spare room I can clean out if you need a place to stay, and Bambi—she's right over there—” He indicated the cluster of onlookers still huddled behind one of the bright yellow fire trucks, “She says she can put you up if you don't mind sleeping double.”

“Thanks Jeff, but—”

Carson took over. “She appreciates it, but she's going home with me. Sorry about leaving you in the lurch like this, but under the circumstances…” He didn't elaborate. Didn't need to. The guy was sharper than he looked, and he was obviously deeply concerned.

Jeff nodded and straightened up, but left both red-knuckled hands on the door. “Hey, we can handle things
okay at the restaurant. Bambi's got a friend that can fill in if we get in a bind, so you go ahead—do whatever you need to do. Too much going down around here lately anyhow, if you ask me.”

“You got that right,” Carson muttered. “Hang around a minute, will you, Matlock? I want to go speak to one of the firefighters.”

Carson left after telling Kit he'd be back in three minutes. After surveying the scene, he homed in on one of the firemen in full turnout gear. He needed certain suspicions confirmed. If these guys were as sharp as they appeared, they could tell him what he needed to know without waiting for lab results.

And then he'd get her to hell out of this place, the sooner, the better.

L
ess than twenty minutes later they were on their way, Carson's worst fears confirmed. The deputy sheriff had dismissed his questions about the cause of the fire, even though the smell of gasoline still hung in the air, mingled with the acrid smell of smoke.

“Nah, these old houses, they go up this way all the time,” the young law officer had replied. “Wiring shoulda been inspected, but you can't get these locals to do a damned thing.”

These locals? Who did the little jerk think he was working for? Carson had seen similar cases, when some kid fresh out of training pinned on a little too much attitude along with his badge.

“Funny, it doesn't smell like an electrical fire,” Carson had observed. He didn't know what an electrical fire would smell like when the house had burned to the ground, but he'd lay odds that it didn't smell like gasoline.

The deputy had abruptly wheeled away to bark orders to a bystander who wandered too close while Carson lingered a few more minutes, looking for something that would deflect his suspicions. Lightning, for instance.

But if there'd been a lightning storm, someone would have mentioned it. And lightning didn't smell like gasoline. According to the volunteer firemen he'd spoken with, no effort had been made to disguise the agent used. “Don't know if there was any insurance or not. These old places…” He shook his head, his meaning clear. Houses this old weren't worth insuring, especially if they contained a woodstove or a working fireplace.

Carson had brought up the fact that the VW had been far enough from the house so that it shouldn't have ignited on its own.

“Gas tank coulda had a leak. Might've flashed over. Shame, though. I wouldn't mind owning it, myself. Old times sake, y'know. Used to have one, but mine was gray. Coulda painted it up like a moth, I reckon, if I'da thought about it.” He shook his head, and Carson left him to his job of wetting down the surroundings and any flare-ups.

Whether or not the car had burned was not as important as what its presence outside the house indicated. This time of night, whoever had poured gasoline around all four sides of the house and tossed a match had to have considered the possibility—hell, the probability—that Kit was inside. That thought alone chilled him right down to the marrow.

Ruling out insurance fraud and accident, one question remained. Had the fire been intended to scare a witness into silence?

Or to silence her permanently?

Fortunately, she hadn't asked questions when he'd come back to the car. The locals had their work cut out
for them, but with a few notable exceptions, they were probably up to handling it. Not all the brains were found in the big city. Some of the county offices he'd had dealings with could be every bit as effective. They always had access to the SBI—and in this case, possibly the DEA.

Back at the car, he exchanged places with Jeff Matlock. “Thanks, I'll take over now. We'll be in touch in a day or so.”

His instincts told him the guy was trustworthy, and until this case was wrapped up he was going to need a contact here, someone who was on the site, someone who knew who belonged in the neighborhood and who didn't. Because no matter how long it took, Carson wasn't about to bring her back here until this business was wrapped up with no loose ends left to trip over.

Legally, any dwelling could be considered inhabited whether or not it was actually occupied at the time of a fire. Getting rid of the gunshot victim had indicated a certain level of professionalism, but in this case, the job had been crudely and quickly done, with little attempt to make it look like an accident. Either the perp was an idiot, or he was desperate. Either way, Carson wanted Kit out of there.

They were on the way out Waterlily Road when Kit spoke for the first time since they'd driven away from the scene. She was wearing his sport coat over her dress, but with her arms wrapped around her body, she still looked cold. She was quiet, too. With Kit, that was a cause for concern, because she was a talker. Carson made a mental note to watch for signs of shock.

“Do you think I should call the sheriff again and tell him what we know?” she asked.

“Your call, but think about it first. You heard an ar
gument, you heard a shot, you saw a body, right? You've already reported all that.”

“I know.” She sighed, her hands now clasped between her knees.

Nearing the intersection with Highway 158, he rolled to a stop. One look in those wide gray eyes of hers and he wanted to pull over, take her in his arms and hold her until some of the sense of unreality she must be feeling went away. Something like this was all in a day's work for him, but not for Kit.

Not for any civilian, but Kit in particular. She was too much like one of the fairytale creatures in her own stories—not that he'd actually read one, but he'd seen the covers, marveling that this woman—this flaky creature who had tried to run him down, and who showed no interest in the money he kept trying to give her, had actually created those images.

She wasn't crying. He would have expected her to be crying by now. Hell, she was homeless. She'd lost everything but that wildly impractical dress and those sexy, accident-waiting-to-happen shoes.

Funny thing about crying, he mused as the miles rolled past in silence. Kids cried when they were physically hurt—sometimes when they were scared. Adults didn't. He'd seen women endure unbelievable pain without shedding a single tear. Emotional injuries, though….

When did it change? Was it part of the rite of puberty? No more crying over ouchies now, you're an adult. Cry when your heart's breaking—curse when anything else gets broken.

Crying or not, she needed holding. He wanted to hold her, too, but he didn't dare, not now. She was so brittle it wouldn't take much to break her, and until he could get some answers, he needed her whole and functioning.

He'd figure out where they were going later.

She spoke after half an hour of silence, in answer to God only knows which question. “It just seems…I don't know. Fishy,” she said thoughtfully.

Fishy?
His mind raced back over the past half hour, trying to connect the dots. Trying to connect anything.

“Well, think about it. I report finding a body, the body disappears, and then it's found again. It has to be the same one, don't you think? I mean, Gil's Point is just too small for two bodies in as many days.”

He nodded slowly as a few dots connected.

She continued. “And then, right after all that, my house burns to the ground.” She looked at him then, her face too pale, her features too finely drawn. Shocky, but hanging in there. “You know what I think? I think someone deliberately set that fire to hurt me.”

Smart lady.
“We can't be certain if that's true. On the other hand, it doesn't hurt to think defensively until we find out a few facts.”

“You're a policeman. What would you do if you were me?”

By then they had turned off onto Highway 158, headed generally west. He was a cop; she had that much right. But even on his own turf it wasn't always possible to walk the line without stepping in something sticky. In a case like this, where he was clearly out of his jurisdiction, he was operating at a slight disadvantage. Better to work from a safe distance. If she checked in again with the local law and tried to tell her story—and knowing the way Kit's mind worked, it would involve a few embellishments—she might end up being held as a material witness. Especially if that young jerk deputy had anything to do with it. He was a little too impressed with his shiny new badge and that big .45 strapped to his porcine hip.

Carson made a mental note to run an unofficial check on the county law office. Until then, he wanted her out of range.

“Citizens have a duty,” Kit said out of the blue, and then seemed to lose her chain of thought.

“Look, you followed the unwritten rules.” He tried to sound reassuring.

“I don't know any unwritten rules.”

“That's because they're not written down anywhere.” With one hand on the wheel, he reached for a body part to comfort, found her thigh, and patted. “Rule number one, you move away from what's going down. Don't get involved. You pegged that one, right?”

“Hmm.” A sidelong glance revealed her face in the faint glow of the dashboard. She was looking only slightly more relaxed. Maybe his tactics were working.

“Okay, next you notify the proper authorities, report only what you saw or heard—no more, no less—and you do it promptly.” To the best of his knowledge, she had complied to the letter.

She drew in a shuddering breath.

“I can turn up the heat,” he suggested. It was North Carolina, not North Dakota. It was March, for Pete's sake. They were already a day or two into spring.

Suddenly she leaned forward and said, “Slow down.” They were nearing the turnoff that would take them to Highway 17. “See that service station up ahead? That's where one of the deputies lives—the newest one. I don't know his name—I don't even know what he looks like. He could've been one of the men there tonight—at the house, I mean.”

Where the house used to be, Carson corrected, but had the good sense to do it silently.

“Anyway, when I wanted to rent the house on the other
side—the little brick bungalow? The rental agent said he'd just leased it to a new deputy sheriff.”

Fortunately, traffic was light, otherwise he might get hauled over as a navigational hazard. Carson slowed down and studied the place, reluctant to stop for no real reason other than the instinctive need he felt to get her away from there. “Guy's probably still at the fire.”

“Did you see any deputies there?”

“A couple.” Neither of them, including the jerk with the attitude, had looked old enough to shave, but then, that might be his own personal bias. He didn't need the reminder that Kit was closer to their ages than to his. “Seen enough?”

“Wait, there's a light on,” she said, bracing herself on his thigh to see past him. The house in question was on the left. There was a big fig tree close to the highway that partially blocked the view. “Maybe I should just…”

The security light from the service station spilled over onto the yard. Ignoring a nagging sense of reluctance, he was about to pull into the driveway when he heard her gasp. The fingers on his thigh dug in. “Go, go go!” she whispered fiercely. “Don't stop!”

What the devil—?

After a swift glance into the rearview mirror, he veered back onto the highway. Fortunately, the only headlights in sight were a safe distance behind, but something had sure as hell spooked her.

“You want to tell me what's going on here?” As a rule he was pretty much a by-the-book man. Saved time and trouble in the long run. But ever since she'd nearly run him down, he'd been operating on instinct, and now even that was going haywire. Like trying to steer his way through an iron foundry using an old fashioned compass.

He had a feeling he knew what to blame, too. Didn't
want to know. Couldn't afford to think about it. He'd sooner rack it up to a side effect of the twenty-four-hour virus that had caught up with him in Nags Head and followed him to Gilbert's Point.

But this particular symptom had little to do with the flu and even less to do with a possible drug-related murder. It had everything to do with the woman beside him, her short, unpolished fingernails digging into the muscles of his thigh.

Did she even know she still had her hand there? She couldn't possibly know how it was affecting him—how everything about her affected him.

Hell, it didn't make sense.

He revved up to five miles above the limit, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror while he did his best to ignore the steely grip that was digging in mere inches from ground zero. When he was pretty sure he could speak calmly, he said, “You want to tell me what just happened back there?”

She removed her hand, raked it through her hair and took a deep breath, turning to face forward again. “That truck. Carson, it's the same one.”

He waited.
Details at eleven, folks.

She unclipped her seat belt, twisted around and came up on her knees to stare at the scene fast falling behind. When she braced herself with one hand on his shoulder, he reached down and angled a vent to blow on his face. He was sweating. If he'd thought a vehicle this size could safely hold two adults without either of them infringing on the other's personal space, he'd thought wrong. This woman could be at the opposite end of the damned county and she'd still manage to mess up his concentration.

And if that made any sense, he'd eat his boots. Minus catsup.

Finally she turned around and settled back into her seat. He growled, “Fasten your seat belt. Don't do that again, all right?”

Dutifully, she sat down again and clicked the buckle. He shot her a suspicious look. “You want to tell me what it was all about?”

“I told you. Weren't you even listening?”

“You didn't tell me one damned thing, you just yelled, go, go, go!”

“I did so tell you.” She sounded affronted.

Which, he reluctantly conceded, was better than sounding terrified. A whole lot better. “So tell me again, I'm a little slow on the uptake.”

“I know, you've been sick and then you got all mixed up in my—my—” She tugged at her seat belt to loosen it. “I'm sorry as I can be that I got you involved, but that truck back there—Carson, it's the same one. You know, the man who was messing around with Ladybug when I thought he was planting explosives? And I yelled at him and he ran?”

He knew about a truck. At least, he remembered hearing her disjointed account of what had happened when she'd gone to retrieve her car the first time. He never lost details, but sometimes when data came piling in too rapidly, he simply crammed it into a mental heap to sort out later.