Bad Intent

by Cheril Thomas

  Grace made a mental note to double her standard retainer in case the double billing rate only resulted in higher unpaid invoices.

  “Here,” Whitney said, holding out a thick envelope. “This is a copy of our contract for the show. We have six episodes finished and ready to go, but filming starts again on June 4. We have to get Heath and Felicia here as soon as possible. I’ve included basic information on Heath that you’ll need, and I added copies of the credit check and background report we ran on Felicia. That should speed things up for you.”

  Grace looked at the envelope but didn’t take it. “Did you get permission from Ms. Jones to acquire that information?”

  “You think we’d invite someone into our family without doing due diligence?” Whitney said. “The only thing we knew about her was that she worked with Heath at the car dealership. Of course, we checked her out thoroughly. But, yes, we had her permission. I also gave you a copy of her release and authorization for the reports.”

  “If you think he’s with her, Whitney, why don’t you fly down to Atlanta and see for yourself?” Grace asked.

  “She couldn’t just leave us,” Melanie said. “We’re both needed here with the children. Plus, it would look like we didn’t trust Heath when it’s Felicia we have our doubts about.”

  “Got it,” Grace said, thinking Paris and Provence had better be worth it. “Well, I can start with a call to Felicia.”

  Both women said ‘No’ just as Whitney’s cell phone buzzed. Grace didn’t have time to register the We Are Family ringtone before the intercom on her own desk phone began to blink. She excused herself and found her secretary, Lily Travers, waiting for her outside the office door.

  “I’m sorry, but Chief McNamara just called. There’s a fire at the house next to Avril’s. It’s contained, but someone is hurt. One of the children told the Chief that her mother and aunt were with you.”

  Before Grace could respond, Whitney Overton appeared in the doorway. Melanie stood behind her, clutching her sister’s arm.

  “There’s been an accident,” Whitney said. “Something awful at our house, we have to leave.”

  Grace thought she’d never seen two people less fit to drive than the quivering sisters. “Lily and I are going with you,” she said.

  Chapter Three

  Aidan Banks didn’t know how it happened. One minute he was responding to a call about a fire in the historic district, the next, he was holding a sobbing child. Then two children. Then he lost control and ended up on a sofa with a toddler in his lap, a small girl under one arm, and another child of indeterminate sex clinging to his leg.

  He remembered long unused words of comfort, which he whispered to the children, mostly so no one else would hear him. Not that he had a reputation to uphold — not a good one, anyway — but he was a police officer. If he couldn’t be front and center of the scene in the backyard, he should do something besides babysitting. Baby whispering.

  A pretty girl ran into the room, saw him, and made a beeline for the sofa. She picked up the child attached to Banks’ leg, but instead of taking over, she settled beside him.

  “I’m Hallie Overton. The oldest girl,” she said, as if that explained something. “Sawyer will be fine, thank goodness.”

  “I know,” Banks said. Did she think he’d be sitting inside with the children if there had been a real emergency to handle? He decided not to pursue that train of thought since it would only lead to reminders of his shortcomings. “Where are the parents?” he asked, nodding at the toddler on his lap.

  “I called Aunt Whitney,” Hallie said. “They’re on their way.”

  Banks wondered if she was old enough to take over responsibility for the children. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and she was very pale. She seemed calm enough, but he didn’t have confidence in his ability to read women. She might blow at any time, and he wouldn’t be surprised.

  “Do you know what happened? What caused the fire, I mean?” Hallie asked. “It’s scary how fast it spread.”

  “Well, it’s under control now,” Banks assured her. “The firefighters I talked to said it could be a mulch fire. People don’t realize how flammable that stuff is.”

  The girl looked even more frightened, but the child he was holding started to whine distracting both of them. Banks resumed whispering and bouncing his knee, just a little. More children joined them, stair-step sizes, boys and girls. All had somber faces, some with tears that eased, then stopped once they joined the sofa group. He and Hallie were soon covered with small, slightly smelly, and very wiggly bodies. Older children, too big for laps but needing comfort, settled on the floor near the sofa.

  Banks kept up a running monologue. It’s all right. You’re okay. Everything’s okay. Your parents will be here soon. When the standard child-minding protocol wore off, he switched to the only bedtime story he could remember, a version of Hansel and Gretel with Snow White and Cinderella all involved in a benevolent tale with no danger or evil adults. What his mother had lacked in imagination, she’d more than made up for in common sense.

  The scrambled fairytale worked longer than Banks would have thought possible. Still, when two frantic women burst through the front door, followed by Grace, Lily, and Mallard Bay’s Chief of Police, bedlam resumed.

  “I see we’ve uncovered your true talent,” Chief McNamara said, raising his voice to make himself heard over the wails of the smaller children and Melanie Overton.

  Banks stood and surrendered the last child he held into the outstretched arms of a woman he hoped was its mother. The smell of urine hit his nose, and he saw the big damp spot on his leg.

  McNamara followed Banks’ gaze, but only said, “Good job, Corporal.”

  Banks thought the Chief sounded sincere and decided to leave on a positive note. He almost made it to the door before being grabbed again by a small boy. One look at the little upturned face and Banks was lost. Or found, he wasn’t sure which.

  And as it turned out, Brayden Overton had quite a lot to say.

  By the time Banks got outside to the scene of the fire, the temperature had dropped a bit, and a light rain was helping the Mallard Bay Volunteer Fire Department. The far end of the garage was a smoldering ruin. The Fire Marshall’s office would ultimately get involved, but Banks knew he and Chief McNamara would handle the initial investigation. McNamara was inside interviewing the home’s occupants as best he could in the chaos. So far, Banks’ sole contribution was to get peed on.

  He considered asking if anyone had called the other parents. The house must be in use as a daycare center, although he couldn’t imagine such a thing happening in this location. An elderly woman came around the corner of the house and headed his way as if he had summoned her for an answer.

  “Anyone hurt?” Avril Oxley demanded. “I just got home, or I’d have been here sooner.”

  Banks had no doubt on that score. As the locally acknowledged village historian and busybody, Avril knew everything and everyone. Disasters, natural and otherwise, were magnets for her, and this time, she lived right next door to the action. She carried a huge black umbrella instead of a broomstick, but the witch resemblance was still there.

  “Well, what’s happened?” Avril started to walk around Banks but stopped when he shook his head.

  “An accident,” he said. “Some guy visiting the family living here got hurt. Looks like he was caught in the garage when a fire started.”

  They both looked toward the group gathered near the smoldering garage.

  “Then where is he?” Avril asked. “Everyone’s just standing around.”

  Banks could feel the righteous energy rising from her tiny frame and knew he only had a short time to diffuse it. “There’s nothing to do, really…” he hesitated, trying to decide how much to say. The Chief didn’t like it when Banks over shared.

  “Is he dead?” Avril asked.

  Banks wondered why he bothered trying to keep anything from her. Even the Chief had trouble with the nosy old woman.

&nb
sp; “Well? Is he?” she demanded.

  “No, he’ll be fine,” Banks said, then stopped abruptly when the Chief came out of the house.

  Banks remained where he was with Avril and decided to throw her under the bus if details of the fire got out while they were still on the scene. After all, anyone could have told her the injured man was a guest of the residents and that his injury wasn’t bad. Banks didn’t know anyone who could keep secrets from Avril Oxley, and he was only a lowly village cop with baby pee on his uniform.

  “Are the mothers inside?” Avril asked. “How about the girl, Hallie? I’d better go help.”

  Banks described how the children were being cared for while easing her back to her house with a promise to call if anything changed. He knew she was only pretending to be cooperative, which was fine by him because he was only pretending he’d call her. Besides, her side porch offered a clear view of the Overton property, including the ruined garage. Avril could be back in a flash if she saw something interesting.

  He hoped he was long gone by then.

  Chapter Four

  Lightning Strike Films sent a crew to care for the Overtons and film their newest drama. Melanie insisted that she and the children couldn’t breathe the acrid smoke-scented air, and within an hour, the family was packed up and on their way to the Egret Inn. Grace and Lily saw them off and returned to an unusually quiet office. Cyrus Mosley was rarely around in the afternoons, and Marjorie Battsley, Mosley’s long-suffering, and perpetually unhappy office manager, had taken the day off.

  “Kind of nice, isn’t it?” Grace said when they’d finished comparing notes on the Overtons. “Having the place to ourselves, I mean. We could try to finish with the Simpkins file while Marjorie isn’t here to tell us what we’re doing wrong.”

  Lily looked uncomfortable. “I guess Mr. Mosley didn’t mention it, but I’m leaving early. In about ten minutes, actually.”

  “No, he didn’t.” And neither did you, Grace thought. When she’d turned down Mosley’s offer of a permanent place in the firm, Lily’s disappointment had flattered her. But as Grace’s departure date grew closer, Lily’s unhappiness increased. Now, her once indispensable secretary was behaving as if Grace had already left the practice.

  She was tempted to put an out-of-office message on the phones and take the rest of the afternoon off, too, but the stack of files on her desk was a reminder of the work she had to finish in the next few weeks. There’d be time to relax in July.

  The quiet office was peaceful after the hectic morning until Grace’s cell shimmied and buzzed with calls from her fiancé, David Farquar. She sent them to voice mail. The smiling David in the photo on her contact list was not who she’d hear if she answered. They were having a long-running argument, and at the moment, Grace thought the best thing about their relationship was that he was on the other side of the Chesapeake Bay.

  Too wired with fading adrenaline, she couldn’t concentrate and flitted from one task to another, accomplishing nothing. When Lee McNamara arrived, she wanted to hug him.

  “How did you know I needed to see you?” she said. She’d have to be careful in asking about Heath Overton, but she needed all the help she could get. Plus, she was just happy to see Mac. Their friendship was one of the best things to come out of the time she’d spent in Mallard Bay.

  “I have that kind of radar,” he said as he followed her through the empty reception area to the kitchen and the coffeepot. “Where is everyone?”

  “They all, even your sister-in-law, have better things to do this afternoon than work.”

  “The day’s looking up,” he said with a grin.

  They both knew that if Marjorie had been in the office, she’d be standing between them. She made no secret of her disapproval of their friendship.

  “We missed lunch,” he said.

  “We did, indeed. It’s been a stressful day.” Grace poured a cup of coffee for McNamara and grabbed a bottle of water for herself. Lately, afternoon coffee had been leading to evening indigestion. It was one of several new and annoying signs of aging she couldn’t fight. It wasn’t fair that McNamara, in his mid-fifties and nearly twenty years older than Grace, still drank the stuff around the clock.

  “Now, about that lunch?” he asked. “Are you hungry?”

  She looked at him, leaning up against the counter, smiling at her as if he hadn’t just spent several hours with two upset mothers and a houseful of very active kids. She wanted that — the calm vibe he had. “Not very,” she said, “but I could be tempted.”

  He raised an eyebrow, making her laugh. Setting the coffee cup down, he said, “I’m sure you think this is coffee, but I hope it tasted better this morning. Let’s go. We should be able to get a porch table at Morsels, and you can regale me with the latest details of your trip. You still leaving the first of July?”

  And with those words, her happy mood vanished.

  For weeks, he’d made it clear he didn’t want her to go, and when she didn’t change her plans, he acted as if it wasn’t happening. This fake enthusiasm was new. If it was fake. He might be ready for her to leave. After all, he’d started dating again, something that had both surprised and dismayed her. She’d been so shocked by her visceral reaction to the news that she’d redoubled her efforts to wrap up her temporary job with Cyrus Mosley’s law firm. The good times, like the lunch he’d just ruined, seemed to happen less and less as the gossip mill breathlessly reported on the Police Chief’s growing social life.

  She had no right to begrudge him happiness wherever he found it, but it was hard not to with the increasingly mixed signals he sent. Her calm, kind, rock of a friend was turning into someone she needed to tiptoe around, and her life was already full of people like that.

  “Nothing new to report,” she said. “Tell me about the fire. How did it start?”

  McNamara took the change of subject in stride. “It appears a pile of mulch somehow ignited and spread to the walls of the garage. It must have gone up fast. I don’t know why people are always surprised to learn that shredded wood can be a fire hazard. Anyway, Hallie Overton, the oldest child at the house and the one left in charge of the others, said she smelled smoke and called 911. The young man who was hurt, Sawyer Renne, got there around the same time she made the call, and he ran into the garage. He said he wanted to save what he could, but was overcome by the smoke. He was too choked up to talk, but rebounded pretty quickly once help arrived.”

  “Sawyer’s the Overtons’ associate producer,” Grace said, remembering the introductions Melanie had made. She’d said ‘associate producer’ with a tone of pride. “Sounds like the fire moved fast. It was brave of him to go into a burning building.”

  “Or stupid,” McNamara said, shaking his head. “In fact, what he did made no sense. It’s an old garage at a rental house. Melanie Overton said there was nothing in it of theirs, yet he entered and stayed much longer than it would have taken him to see that the place was empty. I had questions, but the paramedics whisked him off to the hospital.”

  McNamara stopped to look at his buzzing phone, turning the screen slightly away from Grace’s line of sight, but not before she saw Ashley Greenburgh’s name flash across the screen. Rumor had it that the new veterinarian in town had done what no other woman had managed in the decade since the Chief’s wife had died. Lee McNamara was dating again.

  Grace could feel the shift in his attention and demeanor. She took his cup to the sink and washed it to give him privacy, and herself a chance to do some deep breathing.

  “Nothing that can’t wait, so let’s go,” he said as she heard the swoosh of his answering text being sent. “I’m starved, and you look like you need food and sunshine. You’re a little pale these days.”

  This time it was her phone that interrupted them. It lay on the counter between them, David’s face visible on the screen.

  “You going to answer that?” McNamara asked.

  The irony of it all was too much. She should take the call and look straigh
t at Mac while she did it, but she pushed the button to silence it instead.

  “Would it be very wrong of me to smile right now?” He was already smiling.

  “You go ahead,” she said, letting her irritation get the better of her. The kitchen alcove suddenly felt crowded, and she moved around him into the hallway. “I need to finish a few things here. Why don’t you call Ashley? Maybe she’s up for Morsels.”

  She walked the short distance to her office, not waiting for his answer. They had never discussed his new social life or the woman at the center of it. It seemed to Grace that Ashley had moved to town, set up her business, and attached herself to Mac all in one smooth move.

  “What does that mean?” he asked, following her. “We can’t have lunch because I made a joke about your fiancé?”

  Lately, Grace had noticed that when anyone referred to David that way, she had to stop herself from wincing.

  “No,” she said, drawing the word out to make sure he understood how much patience she was expending. “It means you have a girlfriend to go out with, and I have work to do.”

  Laughter was the last thing she expected from him. She couldn’t believe she’d found him charming just a few minutes before.

  “Well, okay,” he said. “I’m going, but not to see Ashley, who, since we aren’t in high school, isn’t my girlfriend. You can stay here and not take calls from David, who actually is your fiancé, something that didn’t seem to matter when you asked me to have lunch today.”

  “Are you gone, yet?” she said without turning around.

  A chuckle was his only answer.

  Just as the front door close behind him, she remembered she’d wanted to ask him about Heath Overton. It was all she could do not to scream.

  Chapter Five