“What about you?” he asked, looking at Mason.
Georgie looked up as Mason’s mouth dropped, his brow twitching.
“You’re new in her life, right?”
“Well...” Mason hesitated, then answered. “Yeah, sure, but...”
“Is there an ex-girlfriend out there who could see Ms. Gainsworth as someone to be warned off, even harmed, to make her step away from you? Leaving you free?”
“No!” Mason’s face scrunched up in denial. “God, no. There’s no one.”
“No one.” Roberts’ sight would not waver, his two words more loaded than the weapon at his side.
This time Georgie dared not look at Mason and wished she could leave the room. She didn’t want to hear Mason’s confession that he might have dated Tonie. There was a swish and Mason was kneeling before her, placing his hands over hers, those gray eyes looking up at her.
“There is no one,” he said, each word stated alone.
“Either of you think of anything?” Roberts asked, of Cassie and April.
Cassie waved a have no clue while shaking her head. April said nothing. Georgie felt the heat of Mason’s hand before it cupped her chin. When she looked down, he once more mouthed, there is no one. She wanted to smile that she believed him, but all that came out was a shaky sigh.
Then who could it be, she wondered?
Roberts closed his notebook as the black mike at his shoulder gave off a screech.
“Sir, could you come out here?” the man’s voice asked.
“Excuse me,” Roberts said to Georgie, gave a glance to Mason, and walked out with a long heavy stride.
Chapter twenty-six
For a moment no one said anything. Georgie was still unwilling to face Mason. His gray eyes were too easily the key to unlocking her soul and heart. Nick was right. She had played it safe too long and her life had become a harbor she wasn’t sure she could ever sail out of.
“Wonder what that was about?” Cassie said.
Mason’s hand was hot on Georgie’s face. When she didn’t respond, he got up and went out the door with Roberts. With a shiver, Georgie went to the thermostat and turned it up. Suddenly very thirsty, she pulled out a glass for water, started to turn on the faucet, but didn’t, and set aside the empty glass.
“So what are we missing here,” Cassie asked. “Who do you think M&M was messing with?”
“Cassie?” April warned.
“I want to know,” she insisted. “I don’t want her hurt. Who are we talking about?”
Shaking her head, Georgie swallowed. “He’s female partner, Tonie.”
“You don’t really believe there’s something going on between them, do you? I mean...”
“Cassie,” April said with a heavy breath, “Why your poking-nose has not been broken long before now is a mystery to me.”
“April, if I had known about this Tonie, I would never...”
“Don’t,” Georgie said, biting her lower lip, feeling the dig of her fingernails as she clenched a fist. “I believe Mason... or at least, I want to believe him. But this is all just so disorienting. I guess I just want to know who’s doing this, and why?”
“I think we’re about to find out,” Mason said from the door.
All three turned as Mason walked in with Roberts close behind. The two men were tall timber standing there.
“Lab lifted a partial print from one of Raggs’ dress buttons.”
Georgie looked from Mason to Roberts for verification and Roberts nodded. “There might be enough there to do a search.”
The mistake, Georgie thought, and the reason this has escalated to this point. The room was suffocating her! She turned down the thermostat, fighting back the urge to fling open all the windows and doors as she jerked off her coat. The room shifted, her feet rubbery, causing her to nearly miss the peg for her coat. A solid grip steadied her.
“Georgie?”
“I’m fine,” she heard herself say, as Cassie guided her to a chair.
“Okay. You’re fine,” Cassie said. “Take a breath and sit down. Put your head down and count back from a hundred, slowly.”
Georgie knew better than to argue. The shock of the cold damp dishtowel on her neck sent a shiver rippling through her. A paper bag was placed over her mouth and nose. She wanted to smack it away, but let Cassie have her way. It would give her time to think. Of all the people who entered her life, which one was capable of doing all this? Her wrist and fingers ached. Blinking, she saw it was Mason’s hand around hers, his knuckles white from the tight grip. She smiled, realized the bag hid it, and fought the urge to laugh.
“Now what?” Cassie wanted to know, and offered no resistance when Georgie pushed for the bag to be taken away.
“Can’t run and hide,” Georgie said, feeling the fog give way to reason.
“Why not?” Cassie asked.
“Hide where? I do have a business. I can’t put that on pause while we wait and see.”
“Emmee and Brandy can handle that.”
Georgie let her eyes roll up to stare at Cassie.
“Yeah,” Cassie agreed after a thought. “I see your point; your patrons being so fussy and all.”
“Not to mention that they’re busy with their own people. Besides, each day... no... each moment this goes on could endanger my kids, or you guys. Look what happened to Daisy and Max, April’s car. No. I want this over with, gone.”
“Hopefully the print will fix that and bring this to an end,” Roberts said, just as his shoulder-mike hailed him.
“Sir.”
“Okay, I’m coming out.” He never gave the person at the other end a chance to speak. When he turned to leave, Mason reached out to stop him, then looked back at her.
“You okay now?” Mason asked her.
“I’m fine.” Her attempt to smile failed, her lips unable to move, her body fatigued.
“You’re sure?”
“Yes,” she said, but noted the odd tone in his voice, the search in his gaze. “Why?”
He turned to Roberts. “Tell her.”
Roberts’ features hardened, clearly being put in a place he didn’t want to be, personally and professionally.
“You’ve gone this far,” Mason pressed. “George has the right to know it all.”
Roberts’ eyes darkened as they fixed on Mason, and for the first time, Georgie saw unprofessional irritation edging on anger.
“You know what?” Roberts stated flatly. “You’re too close and been careless in this whole mess.” Immediately, he caught himself, and took a deep breath, his lips pressed tightly, refusing to give in to Mason.
“Fine,” Mason said. “I’ll tell her. You can say I overheard you talking to your men. Clears you completely. But I want her to know.”
Roberts let his sight meet hers for a split second then waved a dismissing hand at Mason. “It’s your choice, your call. You could screw this whole thing up beyond fixing, if you haven’t already.” And walked out.
Mason knelt. “Remember the two black Suburbans at Jeffrey’s?”
Georgie nodded.
“What two black Suburbans?” Cassie asked, and Georgie motioned her to hold on.
“Same people came and took Raggs from our Crime Lab,” Mason said.
“What?”
“Whatever paperwork and shields they carried,” Mason said, his mouth tight as he shook his head, “got them into the lab and gave them all the authority needed to take her and anything else they wanted.”
“But why?” Georgie asked. “What for? Who are they?”
“No one knows, but they did return her with the lifted finger print, and the heads up on the matter. Evidently, they’re checking it out too. We can thank them for that. Gives us a wider search.”
Cassie’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and flipped open its lid. “Well, it’s not from Georgie’s cell phone,” she said, holding it up for all to see, then put it to her ear. “This is Doctor Blanes.” After a pause, she shook her hea
d at them and walked into the hallway, saying, “How far apart are the contractions and how long are they? Okay... right. Start for the hospital.” She glanced at her watch. “Barring traffic, fifteen-twenty minutes max.” Her phone clicked loudly as she slapped down the lid. “I need to get to the hospital,” She told them. “Have an eager beaver on the way; early by almost three weeks.”
“Don’t think they’ll let you take the BMW,” Mason said, and tossed April the keys. “Might as well take the 4Runner. I won’t be going anywhere.”
They all turned as Roberts entered. He must have heard enough of what was going on because he said, “One of the squad cars will clear the road for you.”
He avoided Mason, but met her gaze. “I’d like to leave Officer Blake with you, Ms. Gainsworth, but as you say, I have no onion paper to force you to accept him.”
Georgie’s eyebrow arched as she smiled, accepting the well-deserved rebuke, but she would not take back any of her words or the moment. She merely said, “I sometimes get a little snippy.”
“Sometimes?” Cassie said, giving Georgie a quick hug and pat on the shoulder. “Right.”
“Oh,” April said, going to open the door for Cassie, “and you think you’re better?”
Cassie headed for the door, giving April a side-glance scold. “There you go,” her voice carried in through the slowly closing door, “making me feel all warm and fuzzy.”
To Georgie’s surprise, she found the poker face Officer Roberts smiling at the closed door then turned and met her look. “Yeah, I’ve been told I can be a bit of a hard ass about following the book. I’m beginning to think they’re right.” After what Georgie could see as a resigning deep breath, Roberts tapped Mason on the shoulder. “You going to be here?”
Mason nodded.
“Good. I don’t approve of what you did, but I suppose I can’t blame you. I have to go on a call. Incident at the Steel Bridge.”
He motioned Mason to follow him out, but Georgie’s house phone rang and both men stopped. She looked up at them. Mason handed over the decision to the officer in charge.
“Can you set it on speaker?” Roberts asked.
Georgie nodded and did so. “Hello?”
“Mom?” Steven said.
“I’m fine,” she said immediately to allay his concern. “Are you okay? No one’s tried to contact you saying it’s me, have they?”
“Nope. Ryan and Paula called. Tell me you’re not alone there.”
“No. Mason’s here and they’re leaving a policeman, at least for tonight. Cassie had to go deliver a baby. Where are you?”
“Long story. Right now I’m doing my stint in the ER. Guess I’ll get the rest of the scoop from Cassie when she gets here.” She heard him suck in a breath and let out a heavy sigh. “Haven’t we had a rotten five days?”
Has it only been five days? Georgie thought.
“Mom, if you need me to come over...”
“No.” Georgie also took a heavy breath. “I’m fine, really.”
“Okay, but remember. You’re the only mom I have. Love you. Gotta go.”
There was a muted siren in the background silenced by a click. It took a moment before Georgie could bring herself to push the END button on the phone.
“Looks like you have your bases covered,” Roberts said, then once again nudged Mason to follow. “I want you to clue in Blake on the layout before I leave.”
When the door closed behind the men, Georgie looked about, sighed, went to the laundry room to get Max and Daisy’s food bowls, and stopped. The emptiness stabbed her and she looked around for something else to do. There was nothing. Without Daisy or Max, her little space was empty and vast. She went back to the kitchen. No click click of Daisy’s toenails on the linoleum, nor that light thud of Max jumping down from his chair. Blinking back the hot tears, she opened the refrigerator door. No leftover called to her. She pulled out the orange juice, but put it back, thinking of Nick and his magic cure for a hangover. She smiled and sighed. Oh, Nick, where are you?
Mason walked in the door.
When she looked up, his eyes lowered as he took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. She had the urge to take it and hang it up next to her coat on the pegs. But all she did was touch her fingertips to its collar.
“Are you hungry?” she asked.
“You don’t have to...”
She shrugged. “It gives me something to do.”
Neither spoke as she pulled out the platter of leftovers Paula had neatly, and very Martha-Stewart-like, arranged for her. Georgie smiled. Ah, Paula, how very much like your dad you are. Sam would always be with her in their kids.
“Leftover finger food from last night,” she said, and set down the platter.
“Wow,” Mason murmured as she pulled back the clinging wrap.
She waved both hands and smiled. “Oh, not my doing, believe me. This is Paula’s trade mark.”
After a few bites, Mason leaned back in the chair, took a deep breath and leaned forward, both elbows on the table and let his gaze meet hers. “Could we talk about the ax-murderer in the room.”
Georgie felt her brow jerk up.
“Well, elephant in the room seemed such a cliché,” he said.
Georgie was unable to fight the smile, and coughed lightly. “I have to tell you, ax-murderer was not the better choice.”
They both laughed and let it slide away, allowing the moment to sober.
“I want you to know you really aren’t anything like Jenny,” he finally said. “But I can’t say that your situation didn’t spark off... that thing eating at my insides; you know... not being able to be there for her.” He moved a hand to pick up another piece of Saturday’s chicken and stopped. His eyebrows raised as did his chest, then exhaled. “There’s just something here,” he said, indicating his heart, “that I can’t set aside nor deny, not to mention that I don’t want to. And that something is attached to you.”
Georgie struggled with the words she wanted to say, but they jumbled in her head with her feelings. “The thing is,” she started out, “I think I’ve been setting up a wall around my little... what does Nick call it? My little safe harbor.”
“So what do we do here?” he finally asked.
“I have no clue. I’ve not dated since Sam in high school.”
“You went out with Jeffrey. How did he get past that wall?”
Georgie leaned back, giving it some thought. “How did he do that? I never thought of it as a date, but he must have. Why didn’t I?” It was difficult to recall a night that for her meant very little. Then, that first evening with Jeffrey slowly came back to her. “We were going to work on my books for the shop, which was strange because he would never work on my accounts. Always said it was a conflict of interest. But we never made it to his office. Said he hadn’t eaten and I hadn’t either. So we went to dinner. By the time we got back, he said he’d have one of the girls in the office look into it. You can verify that. One of Instant Reply Security’s cars went by as he dropped me off at my car.”
“I don’t have to check it out,” Mason smiled. “Why would you lie about it.”
She pointed a finger at him as she considered that second night. “Funny you should say that, because that’s how I happened to join him on that second evening. He lied.” She almost laughed at her not having thought about it then, but it had been so clearly a lie. “Jeffrey said he found the problem and owed me a dinner for my troubles, but there hadn’t been any problems. Isn’t it funny I never thought I was being played. Just how dumb is that?”
“Not dumb. You trusted someone you thought was a friend. He just wanted more. I can’t blame him for that.” He took a piece of food, eyes sweeping over her face as he chewed and swallowed.
She felt the tops of her cheeks burn.
Mason’s smile widened. “I like it when you blush.”
“Oh, stop.”
The moment froze as his cell phone went off, and their eyes held. After the third ring, he
flipped it open. He didn’t show her the face, but got up and walked away from her. Tonie? She wondered. He had never moved away from her before.
Just as she looked over at him, their eyes met and he quickly turned away, breaking the tie.
“Are you sure? How about the plates?” His voice was very low, but she was able to make out the words. “Did you check them out.” There was a pause. “There’s no doubt? Oh, man. Where?” Another pause. “Damn it!” His wide shoulders dropped with a deep sigh. “Let me know if you find... you know.”
He flipped shut the lid, took a moment before he came back and sat down. He lips pursed, but those jaw muscles twitched, and Georgie felt sick.
“Please,” her voice cracked. “Not one of the kids.”
He shook his head.
“Cassie and April?”
He took hold of her hands and held on tight. “A Harley was smashed on the Steel Bridge.”
“No!” She pulled, but he refused to release her.
“It didn’t go completely over. The front wheel jammed into the railings. A witness claims a big dark car sped along side and just rammed into it. The driver was thrown into the river as the front wheel caught the railing.”
“There are thousands of Harleys,” she argued, finally jerking free. Her body shook, screams were choking her to get out.
“The plates were registered to Cantell Electronics.”
There was a sharp pain at her lips and teeth as her hand hit her mouth to stifle the scream. “But...” she tried to force the words out between trembling fingers, “Cantell must have other...”
“It was registered to Cantell, but its number was issued to Nicholas Underwood.”
She muffled her cries, her eyes pinched shut, but when Mason said, “They found a helmet in the river,” she ran from the kitchen to the place behind the couch where Nick always tossed his jacket. Staring at the crushed carpet nap, she dropped to the floor, hugged her knees, and buried her face.
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