He shook his head. "Part of the job."
"A difficult one."
"I'm fine."
"Meaning, you don't want to talk about it," she guessed. "Or at least, not with me."
He raised sandy eyebrows. "There's nothing to talk about. I'm fine."
She hesitated. He wasn't angry with her, not yet. She didn't want to make him angry. But a friend wouldn't think like that. A friend wouldn't let her fear stand in the way of offering her help.
"I used to say that a lot," she said, looking down at her hands.
"What?"
"'I'm fine.'" She forced a smile. "It ranked right up there with 'I walked into a door."'
"Jeez, Annie…" He sounded shaken.
"It's all right," she said quickly. "You don't have to talk to me. But you don't need to lie to me, either. I've heard enough lies—told them to myself, mostly."
"I am not lying to you."
Now he was mad, she thought with regret. And she hadn't helped him at all. She twisted her hands together. "I'm sorry. It's not any of my business. I'm not qualified, anyway."
"Qualified for what?" Irritation edged his tone.
"To help you with what's bothering you. For heaven's sake, look at me. I can't even deal with my own problems."
Maddox looked, and longing leapt up and grabbed his throat like a hungry dog. She was so damn pretty, pink-cheeked and earnest, her soft hair clipped back like a little girl's. But there was a bump in her nose and a ruler in her spine that reminded him she was all grown up, that made him think of her in purely adult kinds of ways. Inappropriate ways. Ways that involved white sheets and a dark room and long, uninterrupted hours to surround himself with her softness, to plunge himself in her peace…
He jerked himself back from that little fantasy. Like coming down from a bad marriage to an abusive jerk made her ripe for hard sex with a broken cop on temporary assignment.
She wasn't ready for him.
He wasn't right for her.
But she was braver and stronger than she gave herself credit for.
"You deal with your problems just fine," he told her roughly.
She slid him a disbelieving look.
"Seriously," he insisted. "It took guts to leave Rob. To get a new job. To start a new life. To make a home for your kid."
"Maddox, I work in a restaurant. My son has to go to day camp because I stole twenty thousand dollars from my best friend and I don't have any other way to pay it back."
He shrugged. "So, you found a way to meet your responsibilities."
She shook her head. A strand of fine hair slipped from her barrette and fell forward on her cheek. He wanted to touch it, just to tuck it back behind her ear. He wanted to do a lot of things to her, with her, most of them impossible. "You're making me sound too—"
"—straight? Brave? You are. You can handle a lot."
"But not you, apparently."
Was she reading his mind? He sucked in a hard breath. He'd give everything he owned to have her handling him, her hands on him. Sweat collected at the base of his spine at the images conjured by her words. He was half aroused and way out of line.
He had to get a grip. He couldn't believe they were having this discussion in a hot gym full of people, with him in uniform and her husband glaring at them from across the court.
"I don't think we should talk about this now," he said tightly.
"Yes, you've made that very clear. And I'm working on accepting that it's somehow okay for you to have access to my house and my son and the inside of my car—and my police file—but I can't be trusted to know anything about you." Her voice was stiff with hurt.
Maddox swore silently. He felt like a heel. Served him right, too, for having his brain stuck below his belt buckle.
"It's not like that. I trust you."
Annie gave him one of those "oh, right" looks women were good at. "I'm trying to be understanding about this. Polite. But if you're going to hand me some line about trust, I—"
He couldn't help it. He chuckled.
"What?" she demanded.
"Some doormat you turned out to be," he said.
She turned as red as the referee's shirt. And then her eyes sparkled. "Don't change the subject."
"Darlin', I don't even know what the subject is. Except you wanting me to talk to you, and I don't have anything to say."
She collected herself, back straight, hands together in her lap like one of his grandmother's china dolls. "I want you to know that I admire the way you handled those boys back there. Even if it was hard for you, you did a real good job. And—and if you want to talk to me about it, you can."
She had guts, Annie Barclay. Her stubborn kindness prodded him on a level he'd kept carefully shielded since the shooting. He didn't let anyone get too close to the black gulf inside him: not the press, not his colleagues, not his girlfriend or his lieutenant. Even for Annie, Maddox wasn't peering over that edge.
"Thanks for the offer. But I don't go on about what happened. To anybody. Ever. I'm—"
Her eyebrows went up. "—fine?"
"Working," he finished grimly.
His radio squawked, and that was good, that made him a competent cop responding to a call and not a loser running from the concern in her voice.
He answered. "Go ahead."
"Assistance requested on a ten-fifty-four on Old Graham a mile past Spring Forest."
His city-trained brain grappled with the unfamiliar code. "Ten-fifty-four?"
The night dispatcher, Crystal, sniffed. "Do you copy?"
What the… He grinned suddenly. "Copy. En route."
Ann watched him, her green eyes big and anxious. "Is everything all right?"
"There's a cow in the road. Guess I'll go offer it a lift in the squad car."
She smiled. "Before it hitches a ride from a passing motorist?"
"Exactly." He panned the gym once—the pickup game, the running kids, the parents on the bleachers—before his gaze returned to her face. "You okay here?"
She nodded. "Take care."
Damn. Rob was watching them. But a patrol officer always responded to a call. And a cow in the road was a traffic accident waiting to happen. "You, too."
He left, regret dogging his steps like a rookie partner.
* * *
The Spartans lost to the Comets, twenty-six to fourteen. Ann bit her lip as the young players filed past one another, slapping hands and muttering over and over, "Good game, good game."
It hadn't been a good game for Mitchell.
Her son spent most of it on the bench. His coach put him in in the final minutes, when the game was irredeemably lost, but Mitchell still had time to fumble a pass and miss a rebound. Shoulders hunched and eyes lowered, he walked the gauntlet of the opposing team.
Good game, good game.
"He played a lousy four minutes."
Ann jerked at the sound of Rob's voice.
He stood beside her, hands in his pockets, scowling as the boys straggled by. "Did you see him waving his arms around out there?"
She drew a careful breath. As long as your husband has visitation rights, the therapist had cautioned, Mitchell must forge his own relationship with his father.
She'd witnessed Rob's disappointment when Mitchell showed no sign of developing into Golden Boy Junior. But she couldn't stand by while he picked on their son. "Coach told him to keep his hands up."
Rob snorted. "Well, he looked like a damn windmill. And you… What are people going to think of my wife coming out in public dressed like that?"
She'd forgotten she was still in her gardening shorts. "I was weeding. Before the game."
"It doesn't look right."
She caught her hands creeping to her hair and forced them to her sides. "You don't need to worry, Rob. We're almost divorced. You don't have to be embarrassed by how I dress anymore."
He eyed her critically. "At least you've got nice legs."
She was relieved by his mild tone; surprised by his compl
iment. "Thank you."
"You're an attractive woman, Annie," he said, moving closer. "I didn't tell you that often enough."
The hair on the back of her neck rose in warning. "Thank you," she said again. "Well… Shall I take Mitchell home? Since I'm here, I mean?"
"No. I'll take him out for some ice cream." Rob slanted her his All-American smile. "Cheer him up."
Just for a moment, he resembled the golden college boy who put on a sleek black tux to take her to her high school prom. Who put on a morning-gray one to do the right thing in front of God, her mother and the town as she walked down the aisle, wearing white and four months pregnant. Who held her hand in the hospital and cried after he knocked her down the stairs and she lost their second baby. Regret made a lump in her throat.
"Join us?" Rob invited, watching her carefully.
She could. It would be so easy. Mitchell would like it, the ice cream and her protection. For half an hour, she could pretend they were the family she'd once dreamed of.
She swallowed. "I have to get back to my garden."
It was getting too dark to work outside, and they both knew it.
Rob's eyes hardened, but his smile never faded. "Another time, then."
She'd made so many mistakes. The least she could do was learn from them.
"I don't think so," she said quietly. "Have a good time. I'll expect Mitchell around nine."
Back straight and knees shaking, she walked out to her car, leaving her old dreams behind.
* * *
Chapter 7
«^»
Rob used to tell her he would kill her if she left him.
He hadn't yet, but Ann had suffered a sort of social death when she moved out of the big house on Stonewall Drive
. She quit more than her marriage. She left the flower committee and the garden club, the clique of wives who reapplied lipstick while their husbands clinched deals over golf, the circle of moms who gossiped and tanned while their children splashed in the clean blue water of the club pool.
She didn't miss it. She tried not to mind that women whose baby showers she'd attended avoided her eyes when she brought them menus at Wild Thymes.
"Stupid cows," Val fumed. "What do they think, that a felony conviction is something you can catch over lunch?"
Ann smiled, touched by her friend's loyalty. "I think they're more worried the divorce will rub off."
"They're jealous because you're free," newlywed Val said firmly. "They'd rather be you."
Ann rolled her eyes. "Honey, they don't want to be me. They don't even want to know me."
But something changed in the week after Rob brought Mitchell home from ice cream. Barbara Sue Evans called to invite Ann to a Pampered Chef party. Gladys Baggett stopped her in front of Silver & Lace Bridals and asked if she'd like to do the church flowers in August. Ann said "no" to the first request. She couldn't afford upscale kitchen gadgets even if she'd liked Barbara Sue. She said "yes" to the second. Everybody was on vacation in August, so her decorating the front of the church could hardly cause a schism in the congregation.
And then she telephoned Val to find out what the heck was going on.
"You tell me," Val said. "Mackenzie Ward told Mother you'd be at the club dance next Saturday."
Ann blinked, shifting the phone to her other ear as she unpacked Mitchell's lunch cooler. "Are you going?"
"I don't think so. Con's in Boston on business, and I'm not really up to an evening of committee discussions with Mother. But what about you?"
"No. Of course not. I'm not a member."
"Rob is."
"Rob is barely forking over child support. He's not paying for me to attend dances at the club."
"I suppose," Val said. "Although I can't see him taking Luella Hodges, either."
"Luella?"
"Hodges. Mother says he started seeing her—"
"You mean, sleeping with her?"
"Now you know Mother would never come right out and say that. Anyway, he took up with her after Donna from the bank left town. Didn't you hear?"
Ann threw out the foil wrappings and squishy apple from the bottom of Mitchell's cooler. She worried be wasn't eating enough fruit. "No. People don't talk to me about my husband's dates."
Val snorted. "I would have thought that was the first thing they talked to you about."
"I don't listen," Ann explained apologetically.
"Oh, Annie. You're too nice, did you know that?"
"Yes, but I'm working on it."
Maddox's rough voice stroked her memory: Some doormat you turned out to be. Sloshing a sponge around the bottom of the cooler, Ann smiled.
"Anyway, just be careful. I'm worried about what he could do," Val said.
He. Rob.
Arm collected her thoughts. "I already gave my statement to the prosecutor. I don't think there's anything he can do."
"I'm not worried about your testimony," Val said rather sharply. "I'm worried about you."
"Oh." Ann felt humbled and disconcerted as always by the proof of her friend's concern. "Well, he can't do anything about me, either. He's divorcing me. The court date's next Friday."
"Are you … okay with that?" Val asked delicately.
She had to be. She understood the blow her guilty plea had delivered to Rob's pride and reputation. After what she'd said about him, how could he not divorce her? "You know what Wednesday is, don't you?" she asked.
"Wednesday? We're closed. Fourth of July."
"Independence Day," Ann deadpanned.
After a heartbeat pause. Val laughed. "I guess you'll be fine."
"You bet," Ann said.
Sometimes, she even let herself believe it was true.
* * *
It took the state investigator listed in Rob's file four days to return Maddox's calls. Son of a bitch. Maddox hunched over the phone. This case was messy enough without some overworked State Bureau of Investigations desk jockey busting his chops.
"I've got the file in front of me," Maddox said, pushing the pages around on his desk. "I wanted an update on the physical evidence taken from the fire scene."
Detective Tyler Greene did not fall over himself answering his request. "Is this the part where you tell me this is your investigation and you know how to run it?"
Maddox leaned back in his chair. "No. This is the part where I tell you that up till now this has been somebody else's investigation and unless you help me out I'm totally screwed."
There was a short pause on the other end of the phone. A brief laugh. "I thought you said your name was Palmer."
"Maddox Palmer. The chiefs my old man."
"My condolences," Greene said.
"Is this sympathy going to get me somewhere, or do I have to tell you sad stories about my childhood?"
"Spare me." But the detective's voice had warmed about twenty degrees. "What do you need, Palmer?"
"I need to know if you have any indicators linking our suspect with the arson."
"You having trouble with your case? Or does the chief still think your suspect is just misunderstood?"
Resentment still tinged the detective's tone. His father must have really yanked his chain.
"Hey, we're like the guys on Dragnet," Maddox said easily. "We just want the facts."
"So, what have you got?"
Maddox pulled out one of the three cigarettes he'd put in his breast uniform pocket that morning and looked at it. He'd picked a hell of a time to cut down. "So far, all we can prove is aggravated assault. Both the victim and the ex-wife are willing to testify."
"What, he beat the wife, too?" Greene joked.
"As a matter of fact, be did," Maddox said flatly. "But the defense will try to throw her story out on the grounds of relevancy. We've got motive and opportunity, but the victim was unconscious when Cross set the fire. So unless your lab can turn up evidence, we may not be able to make our case for attempted murder."
"What do you want? An engraved lighter?" the detective asked with heav
y irony.
Maddox paused in the act of lighting his cigarette. "How about a matchbook?"
"Look, we've got several hundred pieces of evidence from that fire, and they're all being identified and tested. Maybe there was a matchbook. Maybe there wasn't. When we have something for you, I'll let you know."
"When?"
"Whenever the lab gets to it."
"It's been a year," Maddox said.
"Victimless arson. It doesn't have priority. You know that."
"A woman could have died in that fire."
"But she didn't."
"But the guy who set it is going up to trial in four weeks."
Greene sighed. "All right. I'll see what I can do. Holiday might slow things down, though. Lab's closed."
"That's okay. I've got a big day Wednesday myself."
"Writing traffic tickets?" the state agent ribbed.
"Worse than that," Maddox said gloomily. "I've got parade detail."
Greene laughed.
* * *
The parade was over.
The floats—4-H and Channel Five and Little Dancers Studio—were coming down in the courthouse parking lot. A couple dozen kids carrying band instruments walked back to their parents and their cars. Men with lawn chairs and women with covered dishes drifted across the street to the park where the Rotary Club was firing the grills.
For the past three hours, Maddox had dealt with lost children, lost purses, lost tempers. He had ice cream on his uniform pants and sweat in his hat band.
And he was having, he realized with a sense of shock, the best time he'd had on the job in years.
He slowed a kid on a speeding bicycle shedding red, white and blue crepe paper. The ground was already littered with crumpled cups and busted balloons. Some poor public servant had a hell of a mess to clean up tomorrow. But it wasn't his mess. Maddox felt good.
He ambled toward the dunking booth, watching girls with braided hair and boys with balloons race across the wilted grass.
And then he heard the pops, coming from the line of trees on his right, and the whole scene cracked and twirled like a broken kaleidoscope.
Running children and screams. Falling children and blood. A woman teacher on the ground, covering an eleven-year-old girl with her body, while a skinny kid too young to drive sighted down his rifle…
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