Guarding Suzannah by Norah Wilson
Chapter 6
It was after ten o’clock before everyone cleared out. An increasingly astonished Constable Lambert had taken her statement, a process expedited by the thorough notes she’d kept in her diary. Dates, times, even the results of her own investigations with the florists. Her burned-out car was towed away for forensic examination. Her neighbors had been canvassed about what they might have seen. Her driveway was mopped up. Finally—finally—she closed the door on the last investigator and she and John were alone again.
“There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?” John said as she crossed the living room.
“That depends,” she said, bending to scoop up the Day Timer diaries she’d left on the coffee table.
“Depends on what?”
She carefully fitted the diaries back in their box. “On whether or not the car turns out to have had defective wiring. If it does, I’ll look like an hysterical woman who makes diary notations every time she sees her own shadow.”
“Aaarrghhh!”
She lifted her chin. “What?”
“You are one stubborn broad. Did Lambert say anything to lead you to believe he was in any way skeptical about what you had to tell him?”
“Of course not. You were here backing me up. What did you expect him to do?”
“His job.” John ran an impatient hand around the back of his neck. “Which he’d have done with or without me being here.”
His being here.
Time to talk about that. As she’d answered the constable’s questions, a dull ache had been growing in her gut, an ache which had nothing to do with the fact someone had probably torched her car. It grew out of the knowledge that there was no longer any reason for John Quigley’s continued presence in her life.
She put the Day Timer box back in the corrugated cardboard archive box, aligning it neatly with its mates from previous years. “So,” she said, closing the box’s lid, “I guess this means you can go, huh, Detective?”
He turned to glare at her. “Go? What the hell are you talking about?”
She stiffened her back. “What do you suppose I’m talking about? Depart. Leave. Go back to your life.”
“You think I’m going to leave you alone here tonight after what happened to your car?”
“Yes, I do, actually, but I intended it in the broader sense, as well.” She stole a glance at him, only to find his expression had gone blank. Not the usual inscrutable cop face thing he did. It was just ... blank.
She dropped her gaze, rushing to fill the silence. “Come on, Detective, you should be celebrating. You’re off the hook. No more babysitting the Ice Princess. Somebody else is on it.”
“No.”
Her gaze flew back to his face. “No, what?”
“No, I’m not going anywhere. Not until this twisted fuck is rounded up.”
The strength of his objection simultaneously thrilled and frightened her. Irritated at her own ambivalence, her tone was sharper than she intended when she spoke. “For heaven’s sake, this was supposed to be an either/or thing. Either I reported the harassment or I was stuck with you as my watchdog. In case you haven’t noticed, either has come to pass, rendering or unnecessary.”
“Pack a bag.”
Had he not heard her? “Excuse me?”
“You shouldn’t stay here alone tonight.”
“I’ve addressed that, remember? The alarm system you insisted I install?”
“Much good that will do you if your torch comes back.”
She paled. “You think he’d burn my house?”
He made no reply, but she read his answer in his eyes. She shivered. “Do you think Constable Lambert shares that view? That the arsonist might come back and torch my house?”
“The idea probably crossed his mind.”
“Then why didn’t he say so?”
He rolled his shoulders. “Because he assumed any woman friend of mine would be taken care of. Which is what I’m trying to do, if you’d just cooperate. Now, about packing that bag...”
“But I’m not really your ... woman friend,” she pointed out. “So tell your buddies the truth, that it was a ruse so you could keep an eye on me. Once they stop laboring under the impression that we’re an item, they might even mention stuff like, ‘Oh, by the way, you should consider that he might come back with a can of gasoline to torch your house, possibly while you’re in it’.”
“Yeah, right.” He shoved a hand through his hair. “And who’s going to tell the rest of the world?”
“What about the rest of the world?”
“There’s no way in hell I’m going to be seen as the guy who dumped his girlfriend in her hour of need.”
“Read my lips, Quigley. I ... am ... not ... your ... girlfriend.”
“Optics, sweetheart.”
She squared her shoulders. “Then I’ll dump you.”
He snorted. “Think I’d let that happen if you were my woman?”
“I think,” she said in her iciest tone, “that it would be beyond your control.”
Amazingly, that produced a grin, that lopsided one that crinkled the lines around his eyes and made her heart stutter.
“Shows how little you know,” he said. “Besides, I thought you were concerned about preserving the Suzannah Phelps legend.”
“What does that mean?”
He shrugged. “I dunno. I just figured you wouldn’t be too hot to let ’em know you were scared to file a complaint. If I explain about our little deal, the cat’ll be out of the bag. And if you thought they weren’t too fond of you before, wait’ll they hear about your cop-as-stalker theory.”
She sucked in a breath. “You wouldn’t.”
“I’d pretty much have to, wouldn’t I, to explain away this mock courtship of ours?”
Oh, Lord, that’s just what she needed. Life was hard enough as it was. “Don’t do it.”
“Then don’t try to give me the bum’s rush.”
She glared at him, and he grinned.
“Hey, it’s all about saving face, isn’t it? I don’t want to be seen as a guy who bails in a crisis. You don’t want to be seen as ... well, whatever. Hell, I haven’t even figured that out. Needy? Vulnerable?”
Needy. Vulnerable. She heard the words he used, but what her mind heard was human, female. Is that what he thought? That she was afraid to show she was a normal woman?
Dear god, was it true?
“Pack a bag,” he repeated.
She thought about refusing. Of course, he’d probably camp out in her driveway all night if she did.
Without conscious thought, her mind leapt back to the scene in her driveway earlier tonight. The pall of smoke hanging in the still, humid air, the acrid burn of it in her nostrils and throat. The shocking sight of her beloved car, little more than a burned-out husk. The lights on the ambulance, the police cruiser, the big pumper truck blocking the street.
Her heart lurched again. Maybe she was a weak fool, but she didn’t want to stay here.
“Okay,” she conceded. “I’ll pack a bag. You can take me to my mother’s.”
He massaged his forehead as though a headache had sprung up. “Are you sure you want to drag your mother into this?”
Within the space of a heartbeat, fear snaked around her chest like a steel band, constricting her lungs. “You think he’d go after my mother?”
“I think he’s cranked it up a notch, escalated the situation. You can’t be too careful.”
She blinked, her mind racing. What were the alternatives? “So you want me to pack a bag and go where?”
“My place.”
Her heart jumped, but she willed it back under control. “Your place?” Her voice was amazingly composed, considering his suggestion. “What’s to stop this guy from following us there? What’s to stop him from torching your place as opposed to mine?”
“Not a thing. However, the east view from my living room happens to be the York Street fire station, so I shouldn’t think we need to worry too much on th
Her gaze automatically sought out that subtle armpit bulge she’d noticed so many times, before realizing that it wasn’t there tonight. She bit her lip. It sounded good. It sounded safe. Suddenly, it was so incredibly tempting to surrender control, to let him take care of her as he was offering to do.
Which was why she should refuse.
“Why?” she demanded, her voice embarrassingly harsh to her own ears.
“Why what?”
“Why do you want to do this?”
He swore, glancing away. “I told you, I don’t want to be seen as a guy who’d –”
“That’s a cop-out.” That brought his surprised gaze back to hers. “You couldn’t possibly give a flying you-know-what about the opinions of the stuffed shirts I’ve put in your path these last two weeks. And as for your cop friends, they’d throw you a party, maybe declare a new holiday, if you ‘dumped’ me as publicly as possible. So I repeat, why are you doing this? It’s not as though you care about me, for goodness sake.”
“Who says I don’t?”
Suddenly, his eyes burned with a fierce intensity that made her want to take a step back. She resisted the impulse. Barely.
“Dammit, woman, would that be so impossible to believe? Are you so caught up in this court bullshit that you can’t see what’s in front of your face?”
Her heart seemed to stop, then began leaping painfully against her ribs like a caged thing battering itself trying to escape. “What are you saying?”
He swore, glancing away again.
She waited. Five seconds, ten seconds. “John?”
“Dammit.” He lifted a hand to rub the back of his neck. “I like you, okay? I care about you. Call me a masochist.”
“Very smooth, Detective.” Somehow, the words not only got out through her constricted throat, they sounded normal, gently mocking even.
He fixed her with a glare.
Despite the fact that the words he’d just uttered complicated the situation beyond measure, despite the pleasure/terror they engendered, the decision came easily. Foolishly so, no doubt.
She smiled for the first time since they’d turned onto her street and spotted the emergency response vehicles. “I’ll just pack a bag, then, shall I?”