The Private Eye (7 page)

“But why? What's so important about keeping the manor?”

Maggie gave him a startled glance. “It's their home.”

“Whose home? You mean Shirley's, Odessa's, and the
Colonel's?”

“Right. If the day ever came when the inn could no
longer pay its own way as a hotel. Aunt Agatha wanted to be sure it could still
shelter her friends.”

Josh whistled softly. “Are you telling me your aunt
left that kind of responsibility on your shoulders?”

Maggie frowned. “She didn't exactly force it on me.

She talked it over with me many times before we made
the decision. I didn't mind, really. You see, I've always thought running
Peregrine Manor would be fun. And it is. To me, it's the ideal job. I learned a
lot about inn keeping while working here during the summers. And I must say, the
manor was doing very well before the trouble started a few months ago.”

“But now you're not doing so well,” Josh suggested.

“And the brooch is gone. Probably stolen long ago by
some thief who posed as a guest in order to get access to it,”

“I don't think so,” Maggie said slowly.

“Did you aunt wear the brooch in public?”

“Certainly. Once in a while.”

Josh nodded grimly. “Then a lot of people knew she
owned it and that she didn't keep it in a safe-deposit box. Believe me, Maggie,
it's probably long gone.”

“Even if you're right, that doesn't mean my theory
about the reason behind the trouble around here is wrong,” she pointed out,
looking stubborn all of a sudden. “Someone might have decided the brooch is
lost somewhere in this house, which is very likely, and has decided to look for
it. In order to do that, he has to get the rest of us out. At least for a
while.”

Josh drummed his fingers on the bed, trying to be
patient. “Tell me something, Maggie. What are you going to do if you can't save
the manor for your aunt's friends?”

She sighed unhappily. “I don't really know. None of
them have much in the way of financial resources. I know Odessa talks about her
stock holdings, but Aunt Agatha once told me Odessa had purchased that mining
stock years ago and never seemed to get any dividends.”

Josh smiled briefly. “Which pretty much eliminates one
theory, doesn't it?”

Maggie returned his smile with a wry one of her own.

“You mean the one about the three nephews who are
furious about being left out of the will? Yes, I'm afraid so. But I haven't had
the courage to tell Odessa that.

She's so proud. Being a possessor of stock is very
important to her.”

“Well, I'll check it out-just to be thorough. If I
discover that the stock really is worthless, maybe I can find a tactful way of
telling Odessa her nephews aren't trying to terrorize her without having to
inform her that the stock is no good,” Josh suggested.

“That would be very nice of you.”

“So, what will you do if you can't find a way to keep
the manor open for those three, Maggie?” he asked again.

“I don't know,” she admitted. “All I can do is try.”

He had been right, Josh thought. A naive little lady
Don Quixote, tilting at windmills on behalf of the weak and the innocent. “It's
a waste of time, you know.”

“What is?”

“Playing hero. Never pays.”

She gave him a searching look. “How would .you know?”

“Experience,” he said, and was amazed at the sudden
harshness in his own voice. “How the hell do you think I got started in this
business in the first place?”

“Because you wanted to rescue people?”

His jaw tightened. “When I first started, the last
thing I planned to do was create a corporation like Business Intelligence and
Security. I was just a one-man operation in the beginning. I had some damn fool
idea that I could help balance the scales of justice for those who couldn't do
it on their own. Like I said, I wanted to play Sir Galahad. I wanted to charge
off to protect those who couldn't protect themselves.”

“What happened?” she asked gently.

Josh wished he had never started this conversation.

But for some reason he couldn't seem to stop it now.

“What happened was that I eventually learned that it's
damn tough to play hero because it's often impossible to tell the bad guys from
the good guys. That's what happened.”

“I don't understand.”

“Hell, Maggie, during my first five years as an
investigator I took on every sob-story case that walked through my front door.
And none of them were what they seemed.”

“Tell me,” she whispered, her eyes wide and searching.

“You want to know what being a private eye is really
like?” he asked roughly. “I’ll tell you what it's like. Fathers asked me to
find their little lost girl. I'd track down the kid and discover that she had
run away from home because she was more afraid of being abused by her father
than she was of life on the streets.”

“Oh, Josh.”

“I'd find missing wives for distraught husbands, and
the wives would tell me they had gone into hiding because their husbands
routinely beat them and threatened to kill them. They'd beg me not to tell my
clients where they were.”

“How awful…”

“And then there were the child-custody cases,” he
continued, feeling savage. “Parents wage war with each other and the poor kids
get caught in the firing line. The children serve as the battle prizes. Spoils
of war. A way for the parents to hurt each other. 1 was supposed to take the
side of whichever parent had legal custody. No one gave a damn about the kids
themselves.”

Maggie was silent.
“I think I see
what you mean. It's not quite like it is in mystery novels, is it?”

“It damn sure isn't-At least, not most of the time. I
finally got smart and decided that since I wasn't going to be able to save the
weak and the innocent from the bad guys and since I seemed to have a talent for
the business, I might as well get into the end of it that paid well. A friend
of mine and I created Business Intelligence and Security, Inc. We got some
plush offices in downtown Seattle, hired a staff and went after corporate business.
The nice thing about white-collar crime is that there isn't so much emotion
involved. And hardly anyone gets killed.”

“I suppose there is a big demand for corporate security
consultants these days,” Maggie ventured.

“Yeah, and although I never thought I'd say it in the
old days, it's cleaner work than the kind of thing I used to do. Give me a nice
computer-fraud situation or a loading-dock security problem anytime.” Josh
stopped abruptly, shocked at how much he had told her.

He knew what had gotten him started. It was seeing in
her some of the same useless, naive nobility that he himself had once had. It
had goaded him into trying to tear the rose-colored glasses from her eyes.

“You know,” Maggie said quietly, “I didn't want to say
anything, but I have been wondering exactly why you took this case. Frankly, I
was surprised when your office called and said you were on your way.”

Josh eased his shoulder into a more comfortable
position and studied his throbbing ankle. “You weren't the only one.”

“BIS was the last company I expected to get a response
from. But I had tried every small agency in the Seattle phone book. No one was
willing to come out here to Peregrine manor in exchange for a month's free room
and board. I was getting desperate, and I figured I had nothing to lose by
approaching some of the big firms.”

“I'll bet most of them laughed in your face,” Josh
responded glumly.

“Not exactly. But all I got from the rest of them were
form letters telling me they didn't handle my sort of case.”

“Your situation here is a little unusual,” Josh allowed.

Maggie nibbled on her lower lip. “So why did you take
this case. Josh?”

“Felt like a change of pace,” he said simply, shifting
again on the pillows. “Like I said. The case is unusual.”

Maggie studied him for a moment longer and then got to
her feet. “I think there was more to it than that.”

She smiled tremulously as she came over to the bed.

“You know what I think?”

He slanted her a speculative glance, wondering if she
had figured out that he was using Peregrine Manor as a place to convalesce.
“Why do you think I took this case?”

“I think that, in spite of what you say, you're still
playing hero.” Her eyes were soft as she bent over the bed to adjust the ice
pack on his ankle. “I think something in my letter appealed to your old desire
to rush to the defence of the weak and the innocent. You don't want to admit it
because you're much too macho. You're too used to hiding your real motives
behind the facade of the tough, cynical private eye who's seen it all.”

Josh shot out a hand and caught her wrist. Maggie made
a small, startled sound. Her gaze flew to his and he took some satisfaction in
seeing the dawning awareness in her bright sea-green eyes. “If you really
believe that, lady, you're setting yourself up for a major fall.

Take some advice. Don't waste your time attributing any
fancy do-gooder motives to me, I'm a businessman. Period. You'll get what you
paid for.”

“You've already told me I'm not paying the going rate.
So what, exactly, will I get?” Maggie made no attempt to withdraw her hand from
his but Josh could feel the tension radiating through her.

“I'm not sure yet.” His voice slipped into a husky
growl as he realized just how soft her skin was. The scent of her filled his
head. A new surge of arousal shot through him. Without even thinking about it,
he used his grip on her wrist to tug her closer.

Alarm and sensual awareness flared simultaneously in
her eyes. “Josh? Josh, stop it. For heaven's sake, I don't even know you.”

He smiled slightly. “But I know you.”

“No, that's not true.” But she still made no effort to
pull free. Instead, she was watching him with a fascinated look. “You don't
know anything about me.”

“I know you're small-town born and raised. You were a
librarian until recently. I know you spent your summer vacations here at
Peregrine Manor when you were growing up. I know your parents live in Arizona.
I know you've been dating a real-estate broker named O'Connor.” Josh smiled
dangerously. “Want me to continue?”

Her lips parted in astonishment. “How did you…? Wait a
minute. You grilled the Colonel and the others, didn't you?”

“I'm a private eye, remember? Digging up information is
my business.”

“You mean prying into other people's lives is your
business.”

He shrugged. “Same thing. You get used to it after a
while. There is no such thing as real privacy in the modern world. In any case,
I figured I was entitled to do a little digging where you're concerned. Your
friends were warning me off, you see. It annoyed me.”

She frowned in confusion. “Warning you off what? Me?”
She was clearly shocked.

“Right. The Colonel as good as told me not to try to
seduce you unless my intentions were honourable.”

“How embarrassing.” For the first time she started to
struggle. Her hand twisted in his grasp. “You can bet I'll have something to
say to all three of them. They mean well, but I don't appreciate people
interfering in my private life.”

Josh tightened his grip on her wrist for an instant,
not wanting to let her go. But when she struggled again, he released her. “Does
that mean you're interested in being seduced, regardless of whether or not my
intentions are honourable?”

“Don't be ridiculous.” She stepped back quickly from
the bed. “I don't know the first thing about you. Why on earth would I want anything
more than a business relationship with you?”

“Who knows? Maybe because I understand you better than
you know. I told you, I used to have a few things in common with you.”

“Well, it certainly doesn't sound like we have anything
in common now,” she snapped.

“You never know. We might be kindred souls in search of
each other.”

“That's crazy.”

“Life is crazy. Who would have guessed a week ago that
I'd be lying in this bed having a midnight conversation with a prim little
ex-librarian who reads too many mysteries?” Josh leaned over and opened the
drawer in the bedside table. He pulled out the notepad and pen he had stuck
inside earlier in the event that he awoke with a brilliant idea for the book.

Maggie watched him with deep suspicion. “What are you
doing?”

“Evening the score. Only fair that we go into this on
an equal basis.” Josh scrawled McCray's private phone number at the offices of
Business Intelligence and Security – the one that bypassed the secretary. When
he was finished, he tore off the page and handed it to Maggie. It was amazing
how many people automatically took anything that was handed to them, even if
they didn't want it. “Here.”

“What's this?” Maggie reluctantly took the page and
glanced at the phone number.