by Maggie Price
“Like you?” she countered. “You knew the truth about how I felt, but you had your own personal agenda where I’m concerned.”
“Stop twisting this around,” he said through his teeth. “I did what I thought was right.”
“Deceiving me was right for you.” Her bottom lip trembled. “Jay worked undercover. Do you know what he told me the unwritten cop rule is about undercover work?”
With an oath, Rory grabbed her arms. “I don’t—”
“He said you lie. And you use. And you take advantage of anything that’s offered. Well, I offered you plenty, but I won’t be doing that anymore.”
“What happened between us isn’t like that.” He gave her a light shake. For the first time in years, he felt alone on the inside. Hollow. “I care about you. I feel more for you than I have for anyone else. Anyone. Last night was about a lot more than just sex, and you know it.”
She jerked out of his hold, took a step back. Then another. “Do you honestly believe there would have been a last night if I had known you were a cop? Do you?”
“No.” She was slipping away from him. He was standing only a few feet from her, watching the distance grow by leaps and bounds. “No.”
“I didn’t just give you my body, Rory. I gave you everything. Everything,” she repeated with stinging emphasis. “This morning, it dawned on me…”
“What?” he prompted quietly when her voice hitched. “What dawned on you?”
“That I’m a fool.” Her eyes remained dry, but hurt welled in them. “Now that you’ve lied and used and taken advantage of everything that was offered you, I want you to go. Maybe Blake can put you up at Hopechest—I really don’t care. All I care about is that you get out of my life and my home.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes.”
“Ireland—”
“Now!”
Upstairs, Rory threw his clothes into his leather duffel that sat open on the bed, still rumpled from the hours he had spent with Peggy. Packing was a skill he knew well; he could do it on automatic pilot.
He’d been rejected before, he reminded himself as he grabbed his socks out of the bureau and lobbed them into the bag. His father had sent him away, time and again. After a while, it had no longer hurt. After a while, he had stopped begging to stay where he wasn’t wanted. He wouldn’t beg now. He’d be damned if he begged.
Even if the events of the morning hadn’t taken place, he would have walked away soon. Left for the lab in D.C., or wherever the hell the twists and turns of his job sent him next. No ties, no regrets.
No looking back.
The zipper rasped harshly as he closed the duffel while anger and guilt welled inside him. Placing his unsteady hands on the bed’s brass footboard, he tried to stop the pain that stabbed in his gut. He had the sick feeling he had just been shut out of the best thing that had ever happened in his life.
“No.” His jaw hardened with the word. He didn’t want to stay. Wasn’t the kind of man who stayed. He would leave the inn and its landlady, just as he had left dozens of other spots, hundreds of other people.
Hoisting his bag and evidence kit, he turned and stalked out of the room without a look back.
Forty-five minutes later, Rory followed Lummus’s black-and-white patrol car around a steep curve, and saw flashing red and blue lights. Cars and vans loomed up ahead, solemnly gathered at the scene of Charlie O’Connell’s death.
Rory counted over a dozen vehicles parked along the side of the narrow road that Lummus had accurately described as a nightmare of twists and turns. Towering redwoods crowded one side; the other was lined by a steep face of rough rock that plunged toward the ocean.
The scene looked no different from the hundreds of others Rory had worked. Cops, both uniformed and plain-clothed went about their duties. Just past the spot where Lummus parked, a jump-suited tech used a measuring wheel with a telescoping handle to take the dimensions of a set of skid marks that veered toward the cliff. Another tech crouched over a second set of marks, snapping photographs. Rory knew that, despite the skid marks left by the station wagon, it might be impossible to determine which direction the vehicle had been headed seconds before it plunged toward the sea.
He eased his car in behind Lummus’s, then climbed out. He took a minute to pull on his leather jacket against the cool bite of wind that carried the salty tang of the sea. During the drive, the rain had stopped, leaving the sky a bitter blue. Matched his mood, he decided as he retrieved his evidence kit out of the trunk, then strode toward a grim-faced Lummus. Bitter or not, Rory knew he needed to clear the air between himself and the cop so they could do their jobs.
“Look, I apologize for forcing the issue of agency cooperation with you at the inn.” As he spoke, Rory sat the kit on the blacktop, pulled out his badge case, flipped it open and anchored it into his jacket pocket. “Nothing personal.”
Lummus’s brown eyes were flat and cool. “It’s pretty obvious what’s going on between you and Peggy.”
“That’s our business.”
“I agree. You just need to know that after I’m done here, I’m heading back to Honeywell House. I plan to tell Peggy to give me a call if you show up and she doesn’t want you there. That happens, I won’t give a damn about agency cooperation. Whatever goes on between you and me will be personal.”
“I’m not going back to Honeywell House.” Rory forced away the urge to slam his fist into the nearest redwood. He had to compartmentalize his roiling emotions, focus on the job. “After I’m done here, I’m flying those water samples O’Connell had stashed in the greenhouse to the FBI’s lab in San Francisco. I want to know what the hell he was up to.”
“That’s something we agree on.” Lummus gestured toward the narrow footpath that led down to the base of the cliff. “After you, Agent Sinclair.”
Rory identified himself and gave the name of his agency to the uniformed officer compiling the crime scene log. That done, he and Lummus started down the zigzagging path.
As they edged their way along the sloping cliff, Rory became aware of the heartbeat of the sea. It hit him then how much he would miss driving daily along the coast road to the airport, listening to the thunderous crash of water slapping against rock. His jaw tightened. He would miss a hell of a lot more than just the ocean.
“There it is,” Lummus said as he cleared the path’s final zigzag.
The black station wagon lay on its side on the small spit of sand, looking like a beached whale. Its front was caved in, the hood crumpled. Rory theorized the wagon had smashed into the beach front-end first, then rolled. He glanced up. He could see only the cliff’s jagged face, then the brooding sky. Lummus had been right—if the survey crew hadn’t come along, it might have been a while before the wreck was discovered.
Rory noted the lab tech snapping photos of the wagon. He turned, looked at Lummus who had just stepped off the path onto the wet sand. “Are your lab people going to wait to go over the wagon until you get it to your impound lot?”
“That’s the plan. One of the techs sealed it after they got O’Connell’s body out. The lab guys can do a better job of dusting for prints and vacuuming in their evidence bay.”
Rory nodded as they walked. “I’ll call you from San Francisco to get an update on what they find. Right now I’m interested in the white paint on the rear bumper.” His thoughts went to the white car that Blake had spied parked beside O’Connell’s at the hay shed. “A couple of times, I pulled into the inn’s lot and parked behind the station wagon,” he continued. “I don’t remember seeing white paint on its bumper. I could be wrong—it might have been there. But I don’t think so.”
Lummus slid him a sideways look. “My guess is, if you didn’t notice it, it wasn’t there.”
Rory settled his evidence kit on one of the craggy rocks that humped out of the sand like an arthritic knuckle. He retrieved his Polaroid and walked to the rear of the station wagon. The wisps of white paint were minimal. Still, he knew the
y were enough for the lab’s sophisticated instruments to establish the exact color, year and make of the vehicle that had left them.
After snapping several photos, he turned to Lummus. “There’s not enough paint for me to take samples here. What lab does your department submit its forensic evidence to?”
“The state’s crime lab in Sacramento. We usually have to wait a hell of a long time for results.”
“Not this time. After your lab techs get the wagon into impound, have them remove the entire bumper and submit it to me.”
Lummus gave him a long look. “Submit it where? The FBI lab in San Francisco or in D.C.?”
Rory needed to stay on the west coast. It had nothing to do with the fact that Prosperino had come to mean something to him. Had nothing to do with his feelings for Peggy. He needed to believe that. He had a job to do, had promised Blake answers. That was all.
“San Francisco,” he answered. “I’ll be there until I get an ID on the contaminant in Hopechest’s water.” He glanced back at the wagon. “Make sure your lab people pull one of the headlights.”
Lummus raised a brow. “Why?”
“In older cars like this where the headlights don’t come on automatically and stay on all the time, checking the condition of a headlight can help establish time of an accident.”
“That’s a new one on me.”
“If the filament is stretched and broken, that means the headlights were on. If it’s in a tight coil, the lights were off. It’s a good bet no one would try to drive this road at night without light. You said the M.E.’s aide estimates O’Connell has been dead at least a day.”
“That’s right.”
“If the wagon’s lights were on at the time of impact, that probably means O’Connell died a couple of hours after he left the inn.”
Turning, Rory walked toward the front of the station wagon, peered through the shattered windshield. A foam cup, map and a small, thin box with “Art Kit” scrawled across its side had been tossed against the dash. Samantha’s art kit. He thought of the possibility of Peggy and Samantha having been in the wagon when it plunged off the cliff. Just the thought shattered his heart.
Fists clenched, he rose, walked back to Lummus. “Peggy shouldn’t be alone, not until we know for sure who attacked her. Not until I can prove that her station wagon isn’t here because someone thought she was behind the wheel.”
“You don’t need to worry about Peggy,” Lummus said. “I’ll take care of her.”
“Yeah.” Rory’s stomach twisted at the thought. “I figured you’d say that.”
Twelve
Two days later Rory carried a cup of steaming, bottom-of-the-pot coffee and two computer printouts to his borrowed desk in the FBI’s San Francisco headquarters. The desk was squeezed into an office that was a little more than an alcove between the trace and drug analysis labs. The alcove was windowless, dimly lit and reeked of the cigarette smoke left by a former occupant. The desk was government-issue decrepit, with flaking gray paint and handles missing from two of its drawers.
Rory didn’t care about the size, brightness or scent of the office, the condition of the desk, or that he had forgotten to eat the plastic-wrapped sandwich and bag of chips he’d bought five hours ago from a vending machine. His total concentration was centered on the printouts he had just retrieved from the lab’s gas chromatograph, a supermachine that overheats a substance to vapor and then computer-analyzes the gasses to determine chemical composition.
Over the past two days he had introduced separate samples into the chromatograph from each of the vials found in the shoe box Charlie O’Connell had hidden in the greenhouse. Each sample had flowed through various columns and chambers, undergoing a finite series of separation processes, molecular weighing, filtering and amplification. The final detection stage sent information to the chromatograph’s computer, which acted as a clearing house that recorded all data produced, and converted electrical impulses into both visual displays and hard copies.
The computer also contained a library of several thousand compounds, which enabled searches that assisted in the identification of unknown compounds.
One of the printouts Rory had settled on the desk in front of him was the final hard copy analysis on all of O’Connell’s samples. The second printout showed the results of the computer’s comparison of that final analysis to its library of known-compounds.
The second printout drew Rory’s immediate attention. He read slowly through the pages showing numerous graphs of compounds that had characteristics similar to the contaminate in Hopechest Ranch’s water. When he flipped to the last page, his heart picked up speed. The analysis had come up with an exact match.
After a moment he leaned back in his chair and rubbed his gritty eyes. He now knew the identity of the substance that had contaminated the water on Hopechest Ranch. Knew, too, that the EPA inspector had to have known what it was within days of his arrival in Prosperino.
“Bastard,” Rory said through his gritted teeth. He checked his watch, saw it was just after noon. He snatched up the phone, hoping to catch Blake before he left his office for lunch.
After six rings someone picked up on the other end. Rory winced when he heard a hard clatter, then a muffled curse.
“Yeah, what?” Blake’s voice came across the line, thick and slurred with sleep. “Hello?”
“What the hell you doing, Fallon?” Rory asked as he reached for his coffee. “Sleeping on the job?”
“Sinclair?”
“Right the first time.” Rory took a sip of coffee, then grimaced. If he fed the thick brew through the chromatograph he would probably get a hit in the nuclear range.
“This is important, right? Otherwise you wouldn’t be rousting me out of bed at midnight.”
“Midnight?” Rory narrowed his eyes. “Hell, I thought it was noon.”
“How long since you’ve gotten out of that lab?”
“I haven’t left since I got here two days ago. When I need sleep, I bunk on a couch in a vacant office.” Rory glanced around at the small, dim alcove. “It doesn’t have a window, either.”
“Trust me, it’s dark out. My office phone is programmed to ring here after hours.”
“I’ll take your word for things.” As he spoke, Rory raked a palm over his jaw. He had grabbed a couple of quick showers while he’d worked at the lab, but hadn’t wanted to waste the time it took to shave. Now the stubble on his face felt like sandpaper.
“I hired you to figure out what’s in the water,” Blake said, his voice clearing of sleep. “Killing yourself while you’re doing that isn’t part of the deal.”
“The deal’s about to close. I’ve got you an answer.”
Blake remained still for a moment, then said, “You found out what the contaminant is?”
“Yes, by using the samples from the box O’Connell stashed. I got an ID about two minutes ago. I haven’t had time yet to research the stuff—that’ll take me a couple of hours—so I can’t answer a lot of questions about it yet.”
“What is it, Rory? What the hell is it in Hopechest’s water?”
“It’s an organic compound. The chemical fingerprint shows it’s made up of dimethyl-butyl ether, DMBE for short.”
“English, Sinclair.”
“Sorry.” Rory switched his thoughts out of scientific mode. “DMBE’s some sort of gasoline additive. This stuff is new, distinctive. Most of the time when we get a hit on something like this, the computer will give us the name of the company that manufactures it. That didn’t happen with DMBE.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. Could be DMBE is still in the testing phases. Maybe more than one company is involved with the stuff. I do know that the petroleum industry is as secretive about their patents as people are about their affairs. If you aren’t forced to let out information, you don’t.”
“Joe Colton owns an oil company,” Blake said. “He can probably contact some of his connections and get the ball rolling on find
ing out what company is behind DMBE.”
“If he can, that’ll save a hell of a lot of time.” Rory paused. “As soon as I wind up things here, I’ll fly to Prosperino. Why don’t you set up a meeting for this afternoon with Colton and the mayor? Hopefully, I’ll know more by then. After that, Longstreet can inform his city council and whoever else he needs to.”
“I’ll get the meeting set.”
“It’ll save time if you go ahead and tell Colton and Longstreet that I’m with the FBI. Give them a rundown on your suspicions about O’Connell and why I posed as a private chemist.”
“Will do.” Blake let out a breath. “You said you got the ID from running the samples O’Connell hid in Peggy’s greenhouse?”
“That’s right. The samples of water I took two weeks later are what’s known as ‘weathered.’ Over time, the DMBE dissipated so those later samples contain only a finite amount compared to what O’Connell took. I would have gotten the same results on my samples, but my guess is it would have taken a couple more days.”
“That means O’Connell must have known about the DMBE weeks ago.”
“I’d say so.” Suddenly weary, Rory rubbed his fingers between his brows. Two nights with a total of five hours’ sleep had left him feeling punchy with fatigue. “While I’ve been here, I’ve found out a few more things about the esteemed EPA inspector.”
“Anything to make you think that, if the station wagon was forced off the cliff, O’Connell was the intended victim, and not Peggy?”
At the mention of her name, Rory felt his chest tighten. Since she had tossed him out of the inn, he had rigidly controlled his thoughts, kept his mind on business. He had not wanted to deal with the pain that he knew would come if he allowed Peggy to creep into his head.