by Karen Rose
“Well, fine, if you give me the address, I’ll arrange for the furniture and anything else you want to be moved here.” She hesitated, those eyes of hers blurting uncertainty. “What else would you like me to do for you today?”
Max lifted his eyebrows. “I’ve never become chair of a department after its founder died unexpectedly. What would you recommend?”
He watched her draw a relieved breath. What kind of man had she expected him to be? It was unlikely his reputation could have preceded him this quickly. “Well, I have personnel files and the department budget for you to review”—she started ticking the items off on her fingers— “and you have to sign payroll today or the natives will revolt. I have your schedule prepared—you have your first class tomorrow morning at nine-thirty. Eli had notes prepared for the whole semester. You can use his or your own, of course. You have meetings set up with your staff beginning at one-thirty today ending at five and a dinner with Dean Whitfield at six. He’ll send a car for you. Then all the student files, of course, and—”
“Whoa, stop!” Max held up a hand in mock surrender. “First things first. Is there any way I can get some coffee? I’m still on Denver time.”
Her dimple returned. “I’ll make us some. How do you take it?”
“Cream and sugar. Lots of sugar. If you order me a coffeemaker, I’ll make it myself and not bother you with it.” He moved to sit behind the desk, taking pressure off his hip. “And Caroline?”
She turned at the door of the office and he … looked, unable to keep his eyes locked on her pretty face any longer. She was as appealing coming as she was going, he decided swiftly. Clad in a casual black skirt, she was the picture of uncontrived femininity. The color of her blue turtleneck sweater brought out the deep blue of her eyes, and gently molded what appeared to be very nice breasts. The palms of his hands itched as his eyes measured. She was the perfect size, enough to cradle in his hands, but not too large. He’d always preferred women with rounded figures. Caroline Stewart’s figure was simply perfect. The skirt hugged slim hips and fell to mid-calf where sheer stockings covered the rest of her very nice legs. Her shoes were sensible with not a single zing of flash, yet they showcased her calves to perfection. He abruptly yanked his eyes back to her face. She was watching him steadily, interest sharpening her expression by degrees. And it was interest he saw in her face. The good kind. He’d been out of the mainstream a long time, but not so long that he didn’t recognize the look of a woman aware of a man. Sincerely, honestly, wholesomely aware. Wholesome. The very word startled him as it appeared in his mind. A decision snapped into place, one he’d probably analyze to death later. But it was a new start, a second chance, and he’d begin today to honor his self-made resolution to meet life with spontaneity.
Caroline’s personnel file would be the first he’d read, her marital status the first line he’d search for. And if she wasn’t married, he would ask her out. It was as simple as that.
Caroline felt a rush of heat slide up her neck as he looked her up and down. She realized her mouth was watering and she swallowed hard as the passage of time became clear once more. She’d been standing there, staring at him for at least a minute. He’d addressed her. Although what they’d been talking about suddenly became a fuzzy memory.
“Yes?” She knew his smoky gray eyes were sizing her up and the knowing made her tremble deep inside as she wondered about his conclusions. He was a very attractive man. She bit back the frown. And he was her boss. Tricky and very dangerous waters.
“Pour yourself a cup of coffee and join me. The first thing I want to do is get to know you.”
Caroline found him twenty minutes later sitting at Eli’s desk, surrounded by stacks of Eli’s books. No, she corrected herself, feeling the pain of loss once again. Sitting at Max’s desk, surrounded by stacks of Max’s books. It was an important distinction and she would need to remember it daily.
Clearing her throat, she set the tray on the corner sideboard. “Here’s cream and sugar. I’ll let you add it yourself this time, then I’ll know for the future.”
Max’s brows drew together in the first full frown she’d seen. “I meant what I said about the coffee, Caroline. Your job is not to fetch my coffee. I’m perfectly capable of getting it myself.”
She blinked and sat down in the chair opposite his desk cradling her own cup in both hands. She had the distinct impression his desire to get his own coffee had nothing to do with secretaries’ rights and everything to do with proving the cane was not an obstacle. Either reason would be fine with her. She certainly understood the drive to prove a disability was not disabling.
With a shrug she said, “Works for me. But will you reject my cream puffs, too?”
The frown faded abruptly. “Cream puffs? From scratch?”
She hid her grin behind her coffee cup. Evidently this gorgeous man had a weakness for sweets. “On the tray. From scratch.”
Pure appreciation dominated his features as he took the first bite. “I’ll make you a deal, Caroline. I’ll bring the coffee and you bring the pastries.” He licked his fingers, the motion sending little pulses through Caroline’s body. They were similar to the pulses she’d felt the first few times she and Dana drooled over the Diet Coke Guy commercial, but these new pulses were a whole lot stronger than that. And the way his smoky eyes focused on her face … She took a gulp of coffee, wincing when it scalded her throat on the way down.
“So …” He leaned back in his chair and studied her face. “Tell me about yourself.”
Caroline shrugged again, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. “There’s not much to tell, I’m afraid. I’ve been here for almost seven years, working as the office manager and Dr. Bradford’s secretary. I do what needs to be done and work on my degree in whatever time’s left over.”
“So you’re a student, too?”
“I’m one of your students. Constitutional Monarchy. I hear you do a great Magna Carta.”
“You’ll have to tell me once you see it. ConMon is a graduate-level course.” He leaned back in his chair. “So you’re a grad student, then?”
“No, still working on my bachelor’s. ConMon was just for fun and I’m just taking it as an audit, not for credit.” She grew wistful. “I wanted to have Eli for a teacher one last time. I graduate at the end of spring quarter.”
“And then what will you do?”
Her chin tilted up a fraction of an inch. “I’ve been accepted to law school at U of I.”
His head angled slightly to one side. “University of Illinois Law School. Good for you. Will you continue working here once you’ve completed your bachelor’s?”
His simple praise made her want to blush. And she never had been able to control her tendency to blush. It was just her cross to bear. She shifted in her seat, crossing her legs, noting his eyes quietly following her every move. Mercy. “Well, our plan was for me to work part-time and Evie to pick up the slack, but Eli took care of that.” She caught her voice wavering and swallowed hard. The very notion that Eli had remembered her in his will was still enough to move her to tears. He’d given her so much over the years. And now … “He left me enough to pay for school and my expenses. So Evie will take over all my responsibilities when I graduate.”
“Evie?”
“Yes, Evie Wilson. She’s my aide now, but Eli agreed she’d be ready by the time I graduate.”
Max watched her eyes warm at the mention of her aide. There was fondness there, no doubt, but he spoke his mind nonetheless. “No offense against Dr. Bradford, but I’ll need to decide that for myself.” Then, in fascination, he watched her blue eyes flash, matched sapphires against her ivory skin. And a little temper she has, too, he thought, finding the notion rather stimulating. “I did say ‘no offense,’ Caroline.” The flash immediately quieted and she dipped her head, drawing an uneven breath.
“I’m sorry. Of course you will.” She straightened in her chair, lifting her gaze again. “So, what else do you want to know?”
Caroline controlled the urge to flinch, blinking instead. As prepared as she was, the question still threw her. She despised the need to invent a past. But it was necessary. Still. Always.
“I was born in St. Louis.” So the information on her “borrowed” birth certificate maintained. “But my parents moved around a lot while I was growing up.” It helped explain away the North Carolina twang that she’d never been able to completely annihilate.
“Your father was in the military?”
Caroline shook her head. “No, they just moved around a lot. I ended up dropping out of school before graduation.” That much was true. She’d been pregnant with Tom and so scared at the time. “So when I came to Chicago I got my GED and got a job working in a warehouse while I improved my secretarial skills at night.” It had been so hard working in a warehouse, lifting boxes weighing nearly as much as she did. Her back injury still plagued her in those days and she used a cane to get from her little apartment to the bus stop and then on to work. So many nights she’d cry herself to sleep from the pain. It was only sheer determination, Dana’s constant pushing, and the thought of her son growing up in poverty that made her practice her typing and shorthand until her back ached and her eyes burned.
“Then I met Eli, he offered me a job and I’ve been here ever since.”
Max opened her personnel file, on top of his stack. She waited until his eyes widened, knowing he’d found the mention of Tom.
“And I have a fourteen-year-old son.”
His gray eyes registered surprised interest as he did the mental calculations. “Thus the dropping out of school. You couldn’t have been more than …”
Her chin lifted. “I was sixteen when he was born.”
He held his gaze steady to her face. “And soon you’ll have your degree. I hope your son appreciates what he has in you.”
She immediately softened. “Tom is a good boy. I’m very proud of him.”
“So was Dr. Bradford, from these notes.” Max closed the file and picked up his cup. “So you’ll be a lawyer.” He winced in mock dismay. “Going to be a corporate shark?”
Caroline laughed out loud, startling a smile from his gray eyes. “Oh, no, not me. I’m going to practice family law.” She’d represent the battered women, the women whose successful husbands left them for younger women, leaving them no visible means of support. She’d represent them and she’d win.
“You’ll never be a millionaire.”
“No. But I’ll have my self-respect.”
His eyes flickered for a moment, then dropped to the next file. “So tell me about the rest of my staff. Start with Wade Grayson.”
“He helped Eli start the history department here at Carrington. He’s a U of I—”
“No, I can read all that for myself. Tell me about him.”
Caroline regarded him soberly for a long moment. “Wade’s a good man. Kind, gentle. He’d give you the shirt off his back if he knew you had a need. He’s brilliant and totally unassuming. He and his wife still live in the apartment they had when he first earned his tenure. They play canasta every week with friends they’ve had for years.”
Max made a note on the inside cover of the file.
“What did you just write?”
Max looked up, meeting her sober expression with equal reserve. “That he’s loyal.”
She nodded, pleased. “You are correct.”
He lifted his brows. “That’s why I’m the department chair.” It had the desired effect, making her laugh aloud again. She had a beautiful laugh and he wanted to hear it often. They reviewed three more professors and six grad student assistants before he reached the last file in his stack. “Now, how about Monika Shaw?”
The smile abruptly disappeared, Caroline’s face going still as a stone. Well, that was telling, Max thought. She sat there, obviously choosing her words with great care. He sat, waiting patiently, curious as to how political she could be.
“Dr. Shaw is …” She hesitated, sighed, then began again. “Dr. Shaw is very thorough.”
He waited, then frowned when she folded her hands in lap, her full lips pursed in a thin line.
“And?”
“That’s about all.”
“That can’t be all, Caroline.”
She frowned back, going rigid in her chair. “That’s all you’re going to get from me.”
“Then that says quite a lot.”
Her tight-shouldered shrug said even more. “Please, Dr. Hunter. Max,” she added when his mouth opened to correct her. “Please don’t ask me to add any more. Just like with Evie, you’ll have to make your own assessments about all of us. Me included. I don’t want to be bearin’ tales on your first day.”
He wondered if she was aware that her speech thickened when she was agitated. She practically twanged. Under other circumstances he would have found it charming, but now he could only hear her dismay. “All right.” He fought the wave of disappointment that threatened when she rose. “That’s enough for one day. When do I meet her?”
“Who?”
“Dr. Shaw.”
A myriad of emotions played across her expressive eyes. The anger and resentment he fully expected, but the self-doubt in her eyes threw him. Monika Shaw made Caroline feel inferior. It was plain to see. Somehow that made Max very angry.
“You’ll meet her at two-thirty. If you need anything else, just call.”
Sevier County, Tennessee
Monday, March 5
3:30 P.M.
Winters approached the Sevier County’s police garage slowly, every step harder than the one before. He’d been in Asheville’s garage hundreds of times, maybe thousands over the course of his fourteen-year career with the Asheville PD. But always before it had been in the line of duty. Today … He pushed open the heavy steel door, his heart rate taking an upward spike. Today he’d see the last place his son had been before he’d been … taken from him. Winters couldn’t bring himself to say the words that marked the finality of his Robbie’s fate.
The smell of oil hit him with full force. How did the mechanics manage to stay conscious in this place? Ventilation was non-existent. He took one last deep breath of semi-fresh air and made his feet move. Four cruisers sat in a row, waiting for maintenance. The rest of the place was filled with a dozen assorted vehicles, from a classy red Corvette to the mud-covered Ford he recognized the gut-wrenching instant his gaze landed on it.
The head mechanic’s name was Russ Vandalia. “
Vandalia!” he called, hoping the mechanic wasn’t here. Hoping he’d get one shot at examining the car before anybody else. He wanted evidence. He wanted clues. He wanted the bastard that had kidnapped his precious son and sent him to the bottom of Douglas Lake.
“Yeah, whaddya want?” Vandalia responded in a quiet voice, emerging from behind a car ten feet away, grime covering his wizened old face, one grizzled cheek bulging from a wad of chew. “Can I help you?” Vandalia turned to discreetly spit in an old Maxwell House can.
“I’m Detective Rob Winters, Asheville PD.”
Vandalia studied him for a long moment, then nodded. “Thought you might be showin’ up soon.” He turned without another word down the aisle between the parked cars. A few Chryslers, a minivan with the front smashed in, an assortment of Japanese cars, the fire engine red Corvette. Vandalia patted the Corvette as he passed. “Drug bust up I-40,” he commented. “I’m gonna be front row and center when they auction off this lady.” Finally he came to the dirtiest car in the garage. The license plate had been wiped clean, but Winters didn’t need to look. He knew it by heart. That license plate had been on the APB list of every force in the Carolinas and three states over. He himself still looked for it every time he was on the r
oad.
Of course he never would have seen it. Nobody would have seen it. It had obviously been at the bottom of Douglas Lake a long, long time. He stood looking at the car until Vandalia cleared his throat. “Eighty-five Tempo. It’s yours, Detective. Sevier County ran a check on the plates and the serial ID yesterday morning as soon as they fished her out. Rolled in here yesterday afternoon.”
“Did you find anything inside?” he heard himself ask.
Vandalia shrugged. “About a tonna’ mud. A boy’s backpack.”
Winters felt his throat constrict. “Mutant Ninja Turtles?” he asked hoarsely.
“Yeah.”
Winters forced back the knot in his throat that threatened to choke him to death. He’d given it to him. For his seventh birthday. Robbie had been so proud of that backpack. He remembered the way Robbie had inspected it, sober and careful. The way he straightened like a soldier when he hauled it onto his back the first time. The way he’d said, “Thank you, Pa,” respectfully, the way boys didn’t behave anymore. His boy had been special. His hands tightened into fists. “What else?”
Vandalia shifted on his feet uncomfortably. “Detective, you really shouldn’t even be down here until the primary—”
Winters advanced a single step, directing a harsh stare at Russell Vandalia’s spindly body in his grimy coveralls. “What else?” he gritted from behind clenched teeth.
Vandalia stood quietly, not moving a muscle. Winters hated him, hated the way he moved at his own damn speed, not caring about the important things going on around him. Then Vandalia shrugged again, turned once more to spit in his damn coffee can. “Your wife’s purse.”
“Her wallet?”
“Still there. Her driver’s license. No cash. No credit cards.”
She hadn’t had any credit cards. He’d never allowed it. Mary Grace couldn’t be trusted with more than twenty bucks at a time, much less a credit card. Her wallet was still there, but empty. She’d been robbed. His gut churned. His boy had been killed over twenty bucks.