by Julie Miller
“I’m still on duty. But I’ll take the water if it’s cold.” While Amy opened the fridge and brought a couple of bottles of water to the table, Mark washed up at the farmhouse sink. She was already sitting in a chair around the corner of the table from his when he joined her.
Amy watched him take a couple of long, cooling drinks before she spoke. “Derek Roland, Jocelyn’s boyfriend, got drunk at the reception tonight. I tried to help him out. Watched him puke. Called him a car service. Argued at his office about stealing Jocelyn’s research. Accused him of hurting her.” She rolled her bottle between her hands on top of the table, drawing his attention to the purple marks on her wrist and hand. “This hasn’t been a great night.”
When Mark saw the fresh marks of brutality on her pale skin, he caught her hand and turned it gently, inspecting the severity of the bruises. There were five of them, almost fitting the span of his own hand. “Did he do this?”
“Like I said, he was drunk.” She pulled away, perhaps sensing the anger simmering in him. She crossed her legs in her chair, sitting pretzel-style and self-contained, away from his touch, and reached for the open laptop on the table she must have been perusing before he knocked on her door. “Derek had her laptop all along. The police have been looking for it. I’m supposed to turn it in to Detective Beck in the morning.”
Mark rested his elbows on his knees and leaned toward her, glancing from Amy to the icons on the computer screen and back to Amy. “What am I missing here? Beck doesn’t suspect you again, does she?”
Amy shook her head. She pulled her hair from behind her back and twisted it into a loose braid over her shoulder. He wondered if sitting still was ever an option for this woman. “I don’t think so. But I may be the closest thing she has to a witness. I’ve done a cursory search through Joss’s files, but they’re mostly work related to her dissertation. Correspondence with her parents. A couple of applications for teaching positions at Cal Tech and Columbia University.”
“She didn’t want to stay in Kansas City?”
“She wants—wanted—to go where the interesting jobs are.”
Mark pushed up straight again. “Did her boyfriend know she planned to leave?”
She considered that. Maybe Derek had an even stronger motive for killing Jocelyn than getting caught stealing her research. “I’ll let Detective Beck know that’s a possibility.”
The same tension that had gripped him when he first realized Amy’s bruises had been put there by a man’s hand resurfaced. “Does Derek know you’re reporting all this to the police?”
“I told him I was turning over the laptop.”
His suspicion about the threat surrounding Amy grew even grimmer. “Did you have to wrestle it away from him?”
“No. I just took it off his desk. The argument happened afterward.”
Mark wanted an explanation. There were too many crimes surrounding Amy and her fragile grandmother for him not to know the facts. She might not realize it yet, but it had become his personal mission to protect her from the things he’d seen two weeks ago and again tonight in that fire. “Give me details, Red. Why did Roland manhandle you? Why the hell are you doing KCPD’s job?”
“Because I need answers. And I think I can find them faster than they can and make this all go away.” Yeah, but at what cost? Putting herself in the literal line of the next fire? “Derek told me he was the last person to see Jocelyn alive. For a while there, I thought he’d done something to her. He was so distraught tonight.”
“Could have been an act.”
She finally opened her water and took a sip. “He confessed to stealing the laptop. But I don’t think he hurt her.”
Mark traced his fingers along the marks on her wrist. “He hurt you.” It wasn’t just his training that had him on his feet and opening her freezer. He found a bag of frozen peas in the door and carried them back to the table, where he placed them on her injuries to help the bruising and swelling reduce a little bit. It wasn’t much, but it felt right to do something to ease her pain and give her some of the support she needed. He pulled his chair closer to face her straight on before he sat again. “Sounds like a reason for a serious argument. Could he be one of those possessive guys who thinks that if he can’t have the woman he desires, then no one can?”
“Their relationship wasn’t like that. At least, Joss never indicated there were any physical threats.” She paused, and it took everything in him not to pull her into his arms and hold on until all this murder and arson mess had passed. “I should probably tell you...” She looked off into the shadows of the hallway beyond the kitchen. Ah, hell. Something was really wrong. It wasn’t like the Amy Hall he knew to hesitate to share her thoughts.
“What?” He rested a hand on her knee, gently demanding her attention. “You can tell me anything, Red.”
Her hazel eyes studied every nuance of his expression, determining the sincerity of that statement before she nodded. “I have PTSD. My argument with Derek triggered a bit of a panic attack. My first instinct after getting away was to get a hold of you.”
“That’s a good instinct to have.”
“I don’t want you to think I’m crazy or anything—”
“I’m not Dale O’Brien. You feel what you feel. You do what you need to do. That doesn’t make you crazy.” He squeezed her knee through her jeans. Then, with a legitimate excuse of checking her for other injuries, he tugged on her leg, and then the other, pulling her feet across his lap. He closed one hand around the arch of her foot and ran the other up to her thigh and back to her calf, gently massaging the tension he felt in her, or maybe just creating an outlet for the tension inside him. “Why do you have post-traumatic stress?”
If it had anything to do with this Derek Roland, he was going to punch the guy. But Amy sure as hell didn’t need any more violence in her life. So, he forced himself to breathe deeply and kept rubbing her legs and feet as though he was soothing an injured animal.
She wiggled her toes in his grip and gave him a weary smile. “That feels fantastic. Those shoes I was wearing tonight about did me in.”
“Red.” He urged her to continue.
“Two years ago, my last boyfriend... It was a stupid Svengali thing that I shouldn’t have fallen for now that I look back on it—”
“Amy.” He needed her to focus, to spit it out before he lost the patience to handle whatever trauma she’d faced. And somehow, he knew she’d faced it on her own. That would never happen again. Not if he became part of her life the way he wanted to.
“When I discovered he was cheating, and I broke it off, he assaulted me.” The massage paused for a moment. Mark thought his jaw might crack because he was clenching it so hard at the thought of anyone putting cruel hands on this woman. But the battle to maintain an impassive expression was worth it when she went on. “Beat me up pretty good. Pushed me down a flight of stairs.”
Mark swore, unable to remain impassive when he imagined her lush, pale body bruised and broken. “Please tell me you reported him.”
He didn’t realize his hands had stopped moving until Amy pulled away, hugging her knees to her chest. “He served time. I got him fired from his position at the university art department. He tried to blackmail me into not telling the police or the dean’s office by keeping me from finishing my PhD. I filed charges against him from the hospital.”
“He was a professor? One of your professors? He already had the power of grades and success over you, and then he...?”
“Preston had an artistic temperament.”
Unable to go along with her attempt to lighten the conversation, Mark muttered a very choice word about what this Preston asswipe needed to have happen to him.
The tightness left Amy’s expression, her eyes widened with surprise and she smiled at his curse. “What? Captain Good Guy knows some bad words, too.”
Her smile widened, and some
of the tension in him faded away. She dropped her feet to the floor and rested her hands atop the fists that he’d clenched on each knee of his bunker pants. “Preston Worth is old news. You don’t need to rescue me from him. He doesn’t even live in Missouri anymore. He’s in Montana.”
“What is your hang-up with rescuing you? I’m not okay with someone hurting you.”
“Derek didn’t really hurt me tonight.” The bruises on her hand and wrist told another story, but he held his tongue. “But his office is at the top of a flight of stairs. Fighting with him reminded me of that last night with Preston.” She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “And so many men have hands. I don’t like most of them.”
“What?”
When she opened her eyes and tapped against his fists, he relaxed his hands and she laced her fingers with his. “I like yours, though.”
“You don’t always make sense,” he confessed. But he liked the feel of her hands tangled with his. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that. No wonder you’re gun-shy about getting involved with someone again.”
“I’m not afraid of you, Fire Man. I don’t think you’d ever hurt me.” Her gaze dropped to the clasp of their hands on his knees, and he suspected that she truly believed that. “But what would you get out of getting involved with me?”
He considered that for a moment. Sure, there was the sexual pull he felt toward Amy. And as a Taylor, he’d been raised to serve and protect others long before his firefighter training had fine-tuned that calling. He wasn’t naive enough to pretend that some of this need didn’t have to do with redemption. He’d failed his grandfather, and he wasn’t sure he could survive failing to help anyone else he cared about. That was one reason he’d been avoiding his own grandmother. “A few minutes of peace and quiet.”
For his soul. For his conscience. For his future.
Amy’s eyes widened. “Talk about not making sense. Peace and quiet? With me?” Without confessing his mistakes, it was easy for her to misinterpret his answer. “I’m not an easy relationship. I have opinions.” He arched an eyebrow in a universal Duh expression and she grinned. “I have issues. A temper. Sometimes, I freak out. And, apparently, I have an enemy.” Her breath puffed out in a sigh. “Or several.”
“You think I can’t handle all that?”
“You shouldn’t have to.”
“Isn’t that my decision to make?” He reached out to sift the end of her braid through his fingers. “Unless you tell me to go, I’m going to be here for you. You reached out to me for a reason. And I don’t think it’s because I have an interesting face and likable hands. Whatever that means.”
She caught his hand and linked their fingers again. “You also give a hell of a foot massage, and you definitely know how to kiss.”
He chuckled at the compliment and felt his cheeks warm. “I hadn’t heard that one yet.”
“You’re adorable when you do that.” She brushed her fingers across his heated skin. “In a manly man kind of a way. It humanizes you. Makes me think you need a little bit of protecting, too.”
“And yet you still won’t go out on a date with me.”
She finally pulled away, tucking her legs up against her chest on the chair again, ignoring his joke. “Letting you rescue me makes me feel like a victim. And I don’t want to feel that way ever again. Needing help—needing anyone—makes me feel like I’m dropping my guard or giving up. I’m strong because I’ve had to be. Gran needs me to be strong to take care of her, to take care of this place—to take care of myself so she doesn’t worry herself into a heart event or stroke.” He’d ask about Comfort Hall’s health issues later, but he needed to hear the end of this story before Amy changed the subject to something less personal and painful. “Tonight, on campus, though, I couldn’t seem to calm myself by doing any of the mantras or meditations my therapist taught me. I feel better, safer—centered—with you here. But I’m afraid that makes me weak.”
“You don’t think it takes a strong person to admit that they could use a little help? That’s smarts, not weakness.”
“What about you, Mark? Do you ever ask for help?” Damn it if she wasn’t turning the tables on him. “Like with whatever it is that makes you so sad? I catch glimpses of it. When you’re not trying to make me laugh and you’re not busy being Captain Good Guy and saving the day. Does your family help you with that? Or are you trying to be all strong on your own, too?”
Mark stood, paced to the kitchen archway and over to the sink, where he finished off the last of his water and searched for the recyclable bin near the back door to drop it inside. Hell. Should he admit he felt more centered being here with her, too? More normal than he’d felt in months? He’d been so worried, but touching her, holding her, talking to her—all seemed to ease that raw, self-doubting place inside him. She’d opened up to him, let him in. He’d dated other women, one for a lot longer than he’d known Amy, and he’d never felt as close to them as he did the copper-haired tomboy sitting across the room from him tonight.
He hadn’t felt like he could share the guilt he felt over Grandpa Sid’s death before. But Amy was so intuitive, so caring—so strong, despite her fears to the contrary—that he was tempted to be as honest with her as she’d been with him. But he couldn’t. He wouldn’t dump that on her, too. Although he wasn’t quite clear on the distinction between helping her and rescuing her that she took such issue with, he was damn clear on the idea that he wasn’t the one who needed to be rescued tonight.
“Struck a nerve, huh?” He could hear her getting up behind him, closing the laptop, straightening chairs. “It’s not so easy, is it? Baring your soul to someone? Trusting them with your inner truths? Admitting you can’t handle everything on your own?” An edge of sarcasm entered her tone. “I still don’t see what you’d get out of this relationship if you won’t talk to me. Seems pretty one-sided to me.”
“One problem at a time. Okay, Red?” He leaned his hips against the sink and faced her, holding on to the edge of the counter on either side of him. She stuffed the peas in the freezer door and closed it, waiting for him to continue. “I’m not ready to talk about it yet,” he admitted.
“But you will talk about it with somebody?” she pushed. “If not me, then a friend or family member? A therapist?”
Mark nodded. “I will. But tonight, we deal with the fire and figuring out who set it.”
“And keeping me safe.” The sarcasm left her tone and she smiled. “So you can get those few minutes of peace and quiet.”
Some of the tension in him eased at her understanding. “Keeping you safe is a given.” He pushed away from the counter to capture her injured hand and folded it gently into his own. “My team will be here awhile, checking for hot spots, rolling up hoses and cleaning up the debris.”
“Aren’t you supposed to help with that, too?”
“They can manage without me for a few minutes longer.” Since she seemed to be willing to let him touch her, Mark wasn’t inclined to let go. “Will you walk with me?”
They headed through the darkened house and back onto the porch. The lights from the fire trucks pointed toward the charred shell of the smoldering structure, leaving the ground between them and the house in darkness. With the omnipresent construction scaffolding casting more shadows than illumination from the porch light, the late summer night swallowed them up like a blanket.
When Mark paused at the railing to watch his crew checking for any embers that could reignite and structural issues that could collapse on the firefighters or the investigators who would be here soon, Amy leaned against his arm, resting her cheek on his shoulder.
“It’s another arson fire, isn’t it?” She sounded more resigned than surprised.
Mark nodded. “Looks that way. There were pour marks from an accelerant on the mattress.”
“At least O’Brien can’t accuse me of setting this one. I have over a
hundred witnesses who saw me on the WU campus tonight.”
“He’s more of a suspect than you are.” He pointed to the housing development across the lake. O’Brien’s trailer was still lit up, and the beat-up car of a couple of his workers was still parked beside his white truck. “He and all the men who work for him were here when we arrived. A bunch of lookie-loos. Not one of them drove over here to check on your grandmother.”
“Great neighbors, huh? Thank God for Mr. Sanders. He’s not the friendliest tenant, but he does seem to care about Gran. He alerted her to the fire.”
“Amy...” Mark turned and sat on the railing, pulling her between his legs, to keep her close and their conversation hushed, as though his words might carry to the men across the lake. “I know you saw me carry a body out of the house—”
He thought he detected a shiver. “Can you tell me who it was? Our tenants who lived there moved out almost two months ago. Did we have a squatter? A homeless guy?”
He settled his hands at her waist, offering the support he suspected she’d need. “It was another woman. Her skull was crushed, and she was set on fire.”
“Just like Jocelyn.” Definitely a shiver. He slipped his fingertips beneath the hem of her tank top and felt the chill on her skin. But her hands were braced against his biceps, keeping him from drawing her closer. “Do you know who she is?”
“We got to the fire sooner this time,” he explained. “The body wasn’t completely incinerated, but I suspect she was dead from her injuries or smoke inhalation before we ever got to her. There was a purse with her. The plastic in her wallet hadn’t melted yet, so there was a name. Autopsy will have to confirm it’s her purse, but it looks like Dale O’Brien’s assistant.”
“Lissette Peterson?”
“You knew her?”
“Not well. We met once when I went in to argue with O’Brien. She was nice. Polite, when she probably didn’t have to be.”
“The woman had to be a saint to work for him.”
Amy nodded, but her gaze moved beyond him to the lake. “The men who work for O’Brien were all there tonight, waiting for paychecks because he didn’t know how to do the books and handle payroll. I’m sure Lissette did that for him.”