by Nora Roberts
drive back to her house.
Maggie expected the men from Cliff’s crew to be there when she returned. The discreet black car at the end of her driveway, however, was unexpected. She discovered as she pulled alongside it that she wasn’t in the mood for visitors, not for neighbors calling to pay their respects or for curiosity-seekers. She wanted to be alone with the sander she’d rented from George Cooper.
As she stepped from the car, she spotted the rangy man with the salt-and-pepper hair crossing her front yard from the direction of the gully. And she recognized him.
“Miss Fitzgerald.”
“Good morning. Lieutenant Reiker, isn’t it?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
What was the accepted etiquette, Maggie wondered, when you came home and found a homicide detective on your doorstep? Maggie decided on the practical, marginally friendly approach. “Is there something I can do for you?”
“I’m going to have to ask for your cooperation, Miss Fitzgerald.” The lieutenant kept his weight on one foot, as if his hips were troubling him. “I’m sure you’d like to get on with all your landscaping plans, but we want you to hold off on the pond a while longer.”
“I see.” She was afraid she did. “Can you tell me why?”
“We’ve received the medical examiner’s preliminary report. We’ll be investigating.”
It might’ve been easier not to ask, not to know. Maggie wasn’t certain she could live with herself if she took the coward’s way out that she was obviously being offered. “Lieutenant, I’m not sure how much you’re at liberty to tell me, but I do think I have a right to know certain things. This is my property.”
“You won’t be involved to any real extent, Miss Fitzgerald. This business goes back a long way.”
“As long as my land’s part of it, I’m involved.” She caught herself worrying the strap of her bag, much as Joyce had done on her visit. She forced her hands to be still. “It’d be easier for me, Lieutenant, if I knew what was going on.”
Reiker rubbed his hand over his face. The investigation was barely under way, and he already had a bad taste in his mouth. Maybe things that’d been dead and buried for ten years should just stay buried. Some things, he decided grimly. Yes, some things.
“The medical examiner determined that the remains belonged to a Caucasian male in his early fifties.”
Maggie swallowed. That made it too real. Much too real. “How long—” she began, but had to swallow again. “How long had he been there?”
“The examiner puts it at about ten years.”
“As long as the house has been empty,” she murmured. She brought herself back, telling herself that it wasn’t personal. Logically, practically, it had nothing to do with her. “I don’t suppose they could determine how he died?”
“Shot,” Reiker said flatly, and watched the horror fill her eyes. “Appears to’ve been a thirty-gauge shotgun, probably at close range.”
“Good God.” Murder. Yet hadn’t she known it, sensed it almost from the first instant? Maggie stared out into the woods and watched two squirrels race up the trunk of a tree. How could it have happened here? “After so many years—” she began, but had to swallow yet again. “After so many years, wouldn’t it be virtually impossible to identify the—him?”
“He was identified this morning.” Reiker watched as she turned to him, pale, her eyes almost opaque. It gave him a bad feeling. He told himself it was because, like every other man in the country, he’d had a fantasy love affair with her mother twenty years before. He told himself it was because she was young enough to be his daughter. At times like this, he wished he’d chosen any other line of work.
“We found a ring, too, an old ring with a lot of fancy carving and three small diamond chips. An hour ago, Joyce Agee identified it as her father’s. William Morgan was murdered and buried in that gully.”
But that was wrong. Maggie dragged a hand through her hair and tried to think. No matter how bluntly, how practically, Reiker put it, it was wrong. “That can’t be. I was told that William Morgan had an accident—something about a car accident.”
“Ten years ago, his car went through the guardrail of the bridge crossing into West Virginia. His car was dragged out of the Potomac, but not his body. His body was never found … until a few days ago.”
Through the rail, into the water, Maggie thought numbly. Like Jerry. They hadn’t found Jerry’s body, either, not for nearly a week. She’d lived through every kind of hell during that week. As she stood, staring straight ahead, she felt as though she were two people in two separate times. “What will you do now?”
“There’ll be an official investigation. It has nothing to do with you, Miss Fitzgerald, other than we need for you to keep that section of your property clear. There’ll be a team here this afternoon to start going over it again, just in case we missed something.”
“All right. If you don’t need anything else—”
“No, ma’am.”
“I’ll be inside.”
As she walked across the lawn toward the house, she told herself that something that had happened ten years before had nothing to do with her. Ten years before, she’d been dealing with her own tragedy, the loss of her parents. Unable to resist, she looked back over her shoulder at the gully as she climbed the steps to the porch.
Joyce Agee’s father, Maggie thought with a shudder. Joyce had sold her the house without knowing what would be discovered. She thought of the pretty, tense young woman who had been grateful for a simple kindness to her mother. Compelled, Maggie went to the pad scrawled with names and numbers beside the phone. Without hesitating, she called the number for Joyce Agee. The voice that answered was soft, hardly more than a whisper. Maggie felt a stab of sympathy.
“Mrs. Agee—Joyce, this is Maggie Fitzgerald.”
“Oh … Yes, hello.”
“I don’t want to intrude.” Now what? Maggie asked herself. She had no part of this, no link other than a plot of land that had lain neglected for a decade. “I just wanted you to know that I’m terribly sorry, and if there’s anything I can do … I’d like to help.”
“Thank you, there’s nothing.” Her voice hitched, then faltered. “It’s been such a shock. We always thought—”
“Yes, I know. Please, don’t think you have to talk to me or be polite. I only called because somehow—” She broke off, passing a hand over her hair. “I don’t know. I feel as though I’ve set it all off.”
“It’s better to know the truth.” Joyce’s voice became suddenly calm. “It’s always better to know. I worry about Mother.”
“Is she all right?”
“I’m not— I’m not sure.” Maggie sensed fatigue now, rather than tears. She understood that form of grief, as well. “She’s here now. The doctor’s with her.”
“I won’t keep you, then. Joyce, I understand we hardly know each other, but I would like to help. Please let me know if I can.”
“I will. Thank you for calling.”
Maggie replaced the receiver. That accomplished nothing, she reflected. It accomplished nothing, because she didn’t know Joyce Agee. When you grieved, you needed someone you knew, the way she’d needed Jerry when her parents had been killed. Though she knew Joyce had a husband, Maggie thought of Cliff and the way he’d taken the woman’s hands, the look of concern on his face, when he’d spoken to her. He’d be there for her, Maggie mused, and wished she knew what they meant to each other.
To give her excess energy an outlet, she switched on the rented sander.
The sun was low, the sky rosy with it, when Cliff drove toward the old Morgan property. His mind was full of questions.
William Morgan murdered. He’d been shot, buried on his own property; then someone had covered the trail by sending his car into the river.
Cliff was close enough to the Morgans and to the people of Morganville to know that every other person in town might’ve wished William Morgan dead. He’d been a hard man, a cold man, with a geniu
s for making money and enemies. But could someone who Cliff knew, someone he’d talk to on the street any day of the week, have actually murdered him?
In truth, he didn’t give a damn about the old man, but he worried about Louella and Joyce—especially Joyce. He didn’t like to see her the way she’d been that afternoon, so calm, so detached, with nerves snagged at the edge. She meant more to him than any other woman he’d known, yet there seemed to be no way to help her now. That was for Stan, Cliff thought, downshifting as he came to a corner.
God knew if the police would ever come up with anything viable. He didn’t have much faith in that after ten years. That meant Joyce would have to live with knowing that her father had been murdered and that his murderer still walked free. Would she, Cliff mused, look at her neighbors and wonder?
Swearing, Cliff turned onto the lane that led to the Morgan place. There was someone else he worried about, he thought grimly, though he didn’t have the excuse of a long, close friendship with this woman.
Damned if he wanted to worry about Maggie Fitzgerald. She was a woman from another place, who liked glittery parties and opening nights. Where he’d choose solitude, she’d choose crowds. She’d want champagne; he, cold beer. She’d prefer trips to Europe; he, a quiet ride down the river. She was the last person he needed to worry about.
She’d been married to a performer who’d flamed like a comet and who’d burned out just as quickly. Her escorts had been among the princes of the celebrity world. Tuxedos, silk scarves and diamond cufflinks, he thought derisively. What the hell was she doing in the middle of a mess like this? And what the hell, he asked himself, was she doing in his life?
He pulled up behind her car and stared broodingly at her house. Maybe with all that was going on she’d decide to go back west. He’d prefer it that way. Damned if he didn’t want to believe he would. She had no business crashing into his thoughts the way she had lately. That music. He let out a long stream of curses as he remembered it. That night music. Cliff knew he wanted her the way he’d wanted no woman before. It was something he couldn’t overcome. Something he could barely control.
So why was he here? Why had he pushed his way into a meeting she hadn’t wanted? Because, he admitted, when he thought of the way it had been between them, he didn’t want to overcome it. Tonight he didn’t want control.
As he walked toward the front door, he reminded himself that he was dealing with a woman who was different from any he’d known. Approach with caution, he told himself, then knocked at the front door.
From the other side, Maggie gripped the knob with both hands and tugged. It took two tries before she opened the door, and by that time Killer was barking nonstop.
“You should have Bog take care of that,” Cliff suggested.
He bent down to ruffle the dog’s fur. Killer flopped on his back, offering his belly.
“Yeah.” She was glad to see him. Maggie told herself she would’ve been glad to see anyone, but when she looked at him, she knew it was a lie. All through the afternoon she’d waited. “I keep meaning to.”
He saw tension in the way she stood, in the way one hand still gripped the doorknob. Deliberately, he gave her a cocky smile. “So, what’s for dinner?”
She let out a quick laugh as some of the nerves escaped. “Hamburgers.”
“Hamburgers?”
“You did invite yourself,” she reminded him. “And you did say not to fuss.”
“So I did.” He gave Killer a last scratch behind the ears, then rose.
“Well, since it’s my first dinner party, I thought I’d stick with my speciality. It was either that or canned soup and cold sandwiches.”
“If that’s been your staple since you moved in, it’s no wonder you’re thin.”
Frowning, Maggie glanced down at herself. “Do you realize you make a habit of criticizing?”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like thin women.”
“That’s not the point. You can come back and complain while I cook the hamburgers.”
As they walked down the hall, Cliff noticed a few bare spots where she’d removed strips of wallpaper. Apparently she was serious about taking on the overwhelming job of redoing the house. When they passed the music room, he glanced in at her piano and wondered why. She was in the position of being able to hire a fleet of decorators and craftsmen. The job could be done in weeks, rather than the months, even years, it promised to take this way. The freshly sanded floor in the kitchen caught his eye.
“Nice job.” Automatically, he crouched down to run his fingers over the floor’s surface. The dog took this as an invitation to lick his face.
Maggie lifted a brow. “Well, thank you.”
Catching the tone, he looked up at her. He couldn’t deny that he’d been giving her a hard time from the outset. He had his reasons. The primary one as Cliff saw it now was her effect on him. “The question is,” he said, rising again, “why you’re doing it.”
“The floor needed it.” She turned to the counter to begin making patties.
“I meant why you’re doing it.”
“It’s my house.”
He wandered over to stand beside her. Again, he found himself watching her hands. “Did you sand your own floors in California?”
“No.” Annoyed, she set the patties under the broiler. “How many can you eat?”
“One’ll do. Why are you sanding floors and hanging wallpaper?”
“Because it’s my house.” Maggie grabbed a head of lettuce from the refrigerator and began to shred it for salad.
“It was your house in California, too.”
“Not the way this is.” She dropped the lettuce and faced him. Impatience, annoyance, frustration—the emotions were plainly on the surface for him to see. “Look, I don’t expect you to understand. I don’t care if you understand. This house is special. Even after everything that’s happened, it’s special.”
No, he didn’t understand, but he discovered he wanted to. “The police have contacted you, then.”
“Yes.” She began to shred lettuce with a vengeance. “That investigator, Lieutenant Reiker, was here this morning.” Her fingers dug into the cold, wet leaves. “Damn it, Cliff, I feel gruesome. I called Joyce and felt like an idiot, an intruder. There was nothing I could say.”
“Did you?” he murmured. Strange that Joyce hadn’t said anything about it, he thought. Then again, Joyce had said very little to him. “There isn’t anything for you to say.” He put his hands on her shoulders and felt the tension ripple. “This is something Joyce and her mother and the police have to deal with. It’s nothing to do with you.”
“I tell myself that,” she said quietly. “Intellectually, I know it’s true, but—” She turned, because she needed someone. Because, she admitted, she needed him. “It happened right outside. I’m involved, connected, whether I want to be or not. A man was murdered a few yards from my house. He was killed in a spot where I’d planned to put a nice quiet pond, and now—”
“And now,” Cliff said, interrupting, “it’s ten years later.”
“Why should that matter?” she demanded. “My parents were killed ten years ago— Time doesn’t make any difference.”
“That,” he countered, less gently than he’d intended, “had everything to do with you.”
With a sigh, she allowed herself the weakness of resting her head against him. “I know how Joyce is feeling now. Everywhere I look, something draws me into this.”
The more Maggie talked of Joyce, the less Cliff thought of the quiet brunette, and the more he thought of Maggie. His fingers tangled in her hair. It wasn’t desire he felt now, but an almost fierce, protective urge he’d never expected. Perhaps there was something he could do, he decided, drawing her away.
“You didn’t know William Morgan.”
“No, but—”
“I did. He was a cold, ruthless man who didn’t believe in words like compassion or generosity.” Deliberately, he set Maggie aside and tended to the meat und
er the broiler himself. “Half the town would’ve cheered ten years ago if it hadn’t been for Louella. She loved the old man. Joyce loved him, too, but both of them feared him every bit as much. The police won’t have an easy time proving who killed him, and the town won’t care. I detested him myself, for a lot of reasons.”
She didn’t like knowing that he could speak of a man’s murder so calmly, so coldly. But then, as she’d told him herself before, they really didn’t understand each other. To keep her hands busy, Maggie went back to the salad. “Joyce?” she asked casually.
He glanced at her sharply, then leaned on the counter again. “Yeah, for one. Morgan believed in discipline. Old-fashioned discipline. Joyce was like my kid sister. When I caught Morgan going at her with a belt when she was sixteen, I threatened to kill him myself.”
He said it so casually Maggie’s blood froze. He saw the doubts and the questions in her eyes when she looked at him.
“And so,” Cliff added, “as the stories go, did half the population of Morganville. No one grieved when they fished William