Into the Fire

by Margaret Daley

  That image stayed in her mind through the rest of the evening until she encountered David in the lobby as Kane went to retrieve her shawl from the coatroom.

  “Tell me you’re close to solving the murder,” she said to the detective.

  “No. I’ve checked into the information you two have given me concerning Dr. Johnson and Dr. Maples, but there isn’t enough there to point to either one.”

  “What about the connection of the two arson fires—the Johnsons’ house and my apartment.”

  “They didn’t start the same way. I’m not sure there’s a connection.” The look David gave Maggie was full of regret. “I’m sorry. There was little physical evidence and no witnesses who have come forward. I’m wading through the long list of people who weren’t happy with Henry. That’s all I’ve got to go on.”

  “I know you’re doing your best. Not all murders are solved within an hour like on TV.”

  “How about none.” David peered at Kane strolling toward them with her black shawl hanging over his arm. “Are you two leaving now?”

  “Yes,” Maggie answered while Kane draped the wrap over her shoulders.

  “I’ve had enough of large crowds to last me half a year.” Kane looked about him. “Where’s your date?”

  “What date? I came alone tonight.”

  “I thought you were going out with that elementary school teacher.”

  “She’s just a friend. Good night you two. I probably won’t be long myself.”

  As Maggie walked beside Kane toward his car in the parking lot at the side of the hotel, a feeling of being watched froze her. She peered back and saw a dark shadow at one of the windows on the second floor near the ballroom entrance. She came to a stop and pivoted. The figure ducked back.

  “What’s wrong?” Kane asked, winding his arm around her as coldness burrowed into her bones.

  “I think someone was watching us.”

  “Does that surprise you? I think we ruffled a few feathers tonight.”

  “Speaking of ruffling feathers, what did Henry do to Beth in the student union?”

  “I won’t repeat the unkind words he called Beth in front of staff and students, but she barely made it out of the building before she broke down.”

  How awful. Maggie’s heart went out to the woman. Amazing. She’d managed somehow to forgive Henry. Or, had Beth really?

  * * *

  When she had a break between seeing patients on Monday morning, Maggie punched in the number left by Mr. Alexander of a Nashville law firm. His secretary put her right through.

  “Ms. Ridgeway, I’m so glad you got in touch with me. I represent Dr. Henry Payne.”

  She stiffened. “Why do you want to talk to me?”

  “I’ve been out of the country on an extended vacation, and only recently I learned that Henry passed away.”

  “Someone killed him.”

  “Yes, I know he was murdered. Anyway, the reason I need to see you is that you’re in his will.”

  Henry Payne’s? “I don’t understand. I don’t know the man. How could I be in his will? You’ve got the wrong person.”

  “I don’t know the answer to why Henry has you in his will, but I haven’t made a mistake. You’re the right person.”

  “I don’t want anything from that man.”

  “Most of the money he has is being left to the Southside Recreational Center, but there’s one thing he wanted you to have.”

  “What?” The picture of the man she’d come to know over the past few weeks warred with the image of someone who left his money to a charity.

  “It’s a key to a safety deposit box. The contents of the box were willed to you. I was to hand you the key in person. The bank is here in Nashville.”

  Maggie sank into a chair nearby, her hand holding the phone trembling. It was too much to take in. Why her? How did Henry know her? What was in the box?

  “Can we arrange a time for you to get your inheritance?”

  No! I don’t want anything from that monster! “I…”

  What’s in the safety deposit box? What if there are more flash drives? Can I turn my back on that?

  “I can be there tomorrow afternoon say around two,” she finally said, her whole body shaking now.

  “That’s fine.”

  After Mr. Alexander gave her directions to his office, Maggie snapped her cell closed and dropped it into her lap. She stared at the beige wall in front of her as though it held answers to the questions flying around in her mind.

  But the one that overrode all the others embedded itself into her thoughts until she wanted to scream. How did Henry know me?

  * * *

  “You don’t know how relieved I am that you came with me,” Maggie said as she got off the elevator on the fifth floor of the office building in Nashville.

  “You still can’t figure out why Henry would leave you a key to a safety deposit box?” Kane held open the door for her to the Alexander and Cussler Law Firm.

  “No.”

  The receptionist immediately showed Maggie and Kane to Mr. Alexander’s office. The lawyer came around his desk and shook hands with both of them, then gestured for them to take a seat.

  When Mr. Alexander sat again, he pulled a drawer open and withdrew an envelope. “This is to a box at the First Tennessee Bank. You’re on the account as well as Henry and I.”

  “I am? Do you know what’s in it?”

  “No, but I was to see that the contents got to the proper person—you. I was added by Henry in case I couldn’t find you.”

  “But I live in his apartment.”

  The man frowned. “You do? I didn’t realize that. I did know you’d moved to Seven Oaks recently.”

  “How?” Puzzled, Maggie glanced at Kane for any insight, but all that greeted her was his neutral expression.

  “I called your mother to find out where you were since the last number Henry gave me didn’t work. He also gave me your mother’s. She told me you moved to Seven Oaks and how to get in touch with you.”

  But her adoptive mother hadn’t bothered to let her know that a lawyer was looking for her. The woman hadn’t bothered to call her once since she’d moved to Seven Oaks. A knife twisted into her heart. All she’d ever wanted was her mother’s love. “Why did Henry leave me anything? I didn’t even know him.”

  Mr. Alexander rose and handed the envelope to her. “I suggest you go to the bank and find out. I’m not privy to what’s in it, and I don’t want to postulate what it is.”

  “Mr. Alexander, does Henry Payne have any relatives that would want his personal possessions? I have them stored down in my basement.” Kane pushed to his feet at the same time Maggie did.

  “The will states that except for everything in the safety deposit box, the rest of his estate goes to Southside Recreational Center. I suppose the items belong to them.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Alexander.” Maggie stuffed the envelope into her purse.

  Out in the hallway she dropped her head, her hands clutched around the top of her bag. “This doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Are you sure you didn’t know Henry? Maybe you helped him at the hospital or some other time.”

  “No. I’ve seen his picture many times. I don’t forget faces. I’ve never seen him.”

  Kane strode the few paces to the elevator and punched the down button. “Then all we can do is go to the bank and find out what’s in that box. I noticed the address on the front of the envelope. We’ll get directions downstairs with the building receptionist.”

  Five minutes later, Maggie climbed into Kane’s car. A cold sweat blanketed her face. She swiped her hand across her forehead, but instantly more perspiration popped out on her skin. She didn’t like this one bit. Something was wrong with this whole situation.

  What if Henry discovered Vicky’s secret and had been blackmailing her birth mother? What if he had been the person who had anonymously tipped her off about Vicky Pennington? If that were the case, how could her secret remain
a secret? What if Vicky had something to do with Henry’s murder?

  Her head throbbed with her unanswered questions. When Kane parked next to the bank, she hugged the handle as though that could stop the door opening and what was to come.

  “Let’s leave,” she said, a frantic tone to her words.

  “You can’t. What if the information can lead to the murderer? You aren’t safe until he’s found.”

  He was right. She had to do this, and if the secret came out, then she would deal with the repercussions with the Lord by her side.

  Maybe this is Your will. Keeping her identity from Vicky and her siblings had been so hard on her. Maybe she was wrong not to say anything. Confusion reigned as she exited Kane’s car.

  “Let’s get this over with.” She trudged toward the building as though she were walking to her doom.

  As the woman at the bank showed her where the safety deposit box was and fit both keys into their proper slot, Maggie’s stomach roiled. When she carried the container to the table, her palms dampened until she thought the metal box would slip from her grasp.

  “Do you want me to leave?”

  Kane’s question dangled before Maggie, giving her an out if the worst was revealed—that she was Vicky’s daughter. Tired of running from the truth, she shook her head. Her hands trembled as she lifted the lid.

  She stared at the stacks of hundred-dollar bills in most of the large box with a leather pouch at the front. Picking up one bundle of cash, she flipped through it. “I’ve never seen so much money.” Then she thought of how Henry might have gotten the currency—through blackmail—and dropped the wad of bills back into the container.

  “I would estimate close to a quarter of a million dollars.”

  Blood money probably. She wanted nothing to do with it. Gingerly she grasped the worn leather pouch and opened it. The first piece of paper was a birth certificate. The state seal marked the back with raised lines.

  Slowly, her hands shaking so badly, she lost her grip on the paper once. She finally spread the sheet on the table to reveal her worst fear. In bold black letters her name was splashed across the top.

  Kane’s eyebrows slashed downward. “Who’s Mary Stanton? Why would Henry have her birth certificate?”

  “It’s Mary Margaret Stanton, and that’s me.” Her voice roughened with each word until the last of the sentence was spoken in a raw whisper.

  “You! Why would Henry…” Kane’s gaze latched onto what Maggie saw on the certificate. Both her parents’ names. “Victoria Stanton is your mother and Henry Payne is your father. Vicky Pennington? I seem to recall her talking about her father and using the name Stanton.”

  “I’m afraid so.” Maggie’s gaze remained glued to Henry’s name as though it were a neon sign on Main Street announcing she was the daughter of a man everyone hated.

  “I—I don’t know what to say.” Kane plopped into a chair near the table.

  With a violent shake of her head—as if that could rid her of the truth—she stuffed the money then the pouch into her oversized purse. “Let’s get out of here.” She sucked in a deep breath, but her lungs constricted from lack of oxygen-rich air.

  Leaving the safety deposit box on the table along with the key, she whirled around and started for the door. The room spun before her. She clutched the wall close by and nearly went to her knees.

  Shutting her eyes, she tried to calm her rapid heartbeat. But the thundering in her head continued. Although Kane stood next to her, saying something, she couldn’t make out his words.

  Suddenly her bag weighed her down, and she sank to the tile floor. She hugged the purse to her chest and forced air into her lungs. Over and over. Slowly the room quit rotating.

  She looked up at Kane hovering nearby. His stone-cold expression stole her thoughts.

  “Maggie, you’ve been lying this whole time.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Maggie rose, gripping her purse. Her eyes narrowed on Kane’s face. “I never lied to you. I knew nothing about Henry Payne. Yes, I knew Vicky was my birth mother, but it isn’t my place to spread that news around. We never once talked about the woman who gave birth to me and gave me up. So how do you think I lied to you?”

  “How about to Vicky then? Doesn’t she deserve to know who you are?” Kane’s mouth hardened into a thin line.

  “No. She gave that right up twenty-eight years ago.”

  Kane stiffened, the action bringing forth Maggie’s guilt of late that she should never have come to Seven Oaks.

  “What about her husband? He doesn’t know about me. I’m almost one hundred percent sure she never told him. Then let’s not forget Ashley and Kenny. I come marching into their lives and change everything. I won’t be responsible for that.” Who was she trying to convince—Kane or herself?

  He thrust his face into hers. “Then why did you come to Seven Oaks in the first place, if not to cause trouble?”

  His words hurt—deeply. More than she wished. After all they had shared, did he really think she had only come to cause trouble for Vicky?

  “What business is this of yours?”

  “John and Vicky are close friends. I owe John my life, and I won’t see it destroyed by anyone.”

  A thought came unbidden into her mind. “Does that include Henry? Where were you the evening he was murdered?” The need to strike out at Kane overrode all common sense.

  Everything about him conveyed anger—his stance, his look and even his breathing, which was short, shallow inhalations. “Let’s go. It’s a several-hour drive back to Seven Oaks.”

  He pivoted and exited the safety deposit room. He didn’t glance back once as she trailed him to his car. He sat behind the steering wheel drumming his fingers against it. The second she closed the vehicle’s door, he started his engine and screeched out of the parking lot.

  For the next three hours Kane didn’t say a word. He didn’t look at her either. His jawline hardened into a forbidden expression that vied with the coldness that encased her.

  When he pulled up to the apartment building and parked, he finally asked, “What are you going to do?”

  She grasped the handle, her fingernails digging into her palm. “I don’t know. Whether you want to believe it or not, this is something I hadn’t expected. I don’t want Henry as my father. He isn’t. I had a wonderful adoptive father who loved me.”

  “What about Vicky?”

  She shifted her gaze to his face. Through a sheen of tears, she glimpsed the same icy demeanor as when they headed back to Seven Oaks. The temperature in the car plunged as did her hopes that Kane would understand her pain and confusion.

  “As I told you before, none of this is up to me. It’s Vicky’s story. I would never do anything to hurt the children.”

  “You already have by coming here and living a lie. You’re their sister—part of their family—whether anyone wants it or not.”

  Maggie shoved the door open. “I can’t talk about this now.” She rushed to the porch, fumbled for her house key and quickly let herself inside as the sound of Kane’s car door shutting slammed through her.

  She couldn’t go to Edwina’s, not as distraught as she was, so she hurried up the staircase to the second floor and entered her partially redone apartment. The scent of smoke still lingered, but it wasn’t as strong. The restoration company had another week until they said they would be finished. How was she going to pretend everything was all right? All her plans were ruined. Her life was in shambles.

  She strode into her kitchen, tossed the pouch on the table as though it had burned her palms and opened a window along the back of the house. She started to turn away when she glimpsed Kane walking toward the lake. She’d needed his support, his understanding, and he hadn’t been able to give it to her. All he saw was a woman out to destroy the life John had forged for his family in Seven Oaks. And as she watched him at the edge of the water, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his shoulders slumped forward, she couldn’t blame Kane for those though
ts. If John discovered Vicky’s secret, she didn’t know if the proud man would stay with his wife.

  * * *

  Vicky is Maggie’s mother. Henry is her father.

  Kane’s head ached from trying to grapple with that news. What would this do to his friend’s family? He’d promised himself he would be there for John whenever he needed him, just as John had been there for him in the war zone.

  A light breeze from the south blew off the water, causing some ripples in its surface. What kind of ripples would the news that Vicky had a baby with Henry and Maggie was her daughter cause?

  He hunched his shoulders, the coolness in the wind heightening the cold sensation he’d experienced since Maggie had revealed her secret.

  “Maggie.” Her name escaped his lips on a sigh.

  He’d started to—care about her, beyond friendship. How could he trust her now?

  Her secret could destroy the man who saved his life, could tear apart his family.

  Lord, is this why I lived when so many didn’t, so I could be here to help John through this? Is this my purpose?

  He still didn’t know why he’d survived when others hadn’t. In his dreams—no, nightmares—he heard their screams as they’d died among the rubble of the bombed building.

  But John had found him and carried him to safety before the ceiling had collapsed. It would have finished him off, and he’d seen it from a distance—had known the other still-trapped soldiers had died.

  Shuddering, he dropped his head, staring at the shore where the water lapped against his shoes. He’d begun to trust again. He’d actually thought he could have a future with a woman. But not now. Not ever. Maggie had killed that as surely as the day Ruth had walked away.