Passion's Fire

by Jeanne Foguth

  He felt the hair on his nape quiver. At least she didn’t have her letter opener. “Nothing. What did she say I did?”

  Mavis straightened her already military posture. “Very little. It’s what she didn’t say that concerns me. Why is she leaving with that artist? Furthermore, why did she insist that I pretend she was staying with me incommunicado?”

  Link shook his head, partly to deny the implication behind her words, partly to clear his head. The facts as he knew them rearranged themselves and his stomach tightened into a hot, heavy ball of despair. “I don’t know what you mean.” But he did know.

  Jacqueline had said she needed time and space. Now she was leaving with Capolucho and drafting her grandmother as an accomplice to cover her, so she had weeks to disappear in. Jacqueline had never told him she loved him because she didn’t love him.

  Still, it didn’t make sense for Mavis to confront him as if Jacqueline’s leaving was his fault. The hot acid ball sent jabbing spears into his gut. He wanted to curl up in pain.

  Mavis’s hands came away from her body, revealing the miniature Celtic sword actually was in her throwing hand. She shook it at him. “I think you do know.” Link clamped his jaws together and shook his head. She switched her attention to Stone. “Why else would she act like Link was the only other person on earth?”

  “Beg pardon?” Stone said.

  “Yesterday, Jacqueline phoned me and told me she planned to hitch a ride with some artist. She made me promise not to breathe a word of it to your partner.” She turned and glared at him. Link shook his head and shrugged. Mavis’ attention returned to Stone, her posture stiff with fury. “Perhaps you can shed some light on this.”

  “What do you want to know?”

  Mavis cleared her throat. “Could you tell me why Jacqueline feels there’s a reason for her to get a good look at this imposter of hers without your partner knowing about it?”

  “Is that what she’s planning?” Stone’s surprise was evident.

  “Yes.” She straightened. “We had a lengthy phone conversation on the subject.” Mavis’ shoulders squared, as if she was trying not to look back at Link. “During the course of it, she mentioned something about a certain individual being overly protective and not allowing her to face her problems on her own. Could you elaborate on that?”

  Stone’s eyes darted to him. Link held up his hands and shrugged. Stone looked like he’d rather be wrestling a grizzly. “You talked to her. Why ask me?”

  “Because she made me swear not to speak to a certain individual.”

  Link looked at the ceiling and silently beseeched God to help him figure out the Cardew women. A sudden thought nearly took his breath away, Mavis was concerned about Jacqueline, too, and doing the best she could to understand the problem, while keeping her word. Link sat forward.

  Stone cleared his throat. “I may be out of line, but it seems to me that some people act protective when they care about someone.”

  “I hoped you’d say something like that.” There was warmth in her tone. Link wanted to join the conversation; instead, he clamped his teeth against the flood of words. Mavis settled into the visitor’s chair in front of Stone’s desk, placed the letter opener on his desk, acting as if they were the only two within miles. “My granddaughter has always thought of herself as being invincible. In some ways, that’s a good thing, in others.” She shook her head. “What disturbs me is her single-minded resolve to track down an old college acquaintance of hers. I tried to tell her that time cures everything, and though she agreed in theory, she still seems determined to deal with this person.”

  “From what I’ve heard,” Stone’s blue gaze briefly connected with his. “Jacqueline isn’t the sort that runs from problems and someone knows that, but due to past problems, this other person has been trying to contact my sister.” He frowned. Link nodded. “I think she’s on an assignment, though.”

  “Precisely my point,” Mavis said. “Which makes me wonder why she would ask – no -” She frowned. “Insist that I cover for her.” She leaned toward Stone. “Only to a certain person, while she pursues this old acquaintance, mind you.”

  Link was fed up with the game. “Mavis spit it out.”

  She turned to face him. “Oh. You’re back. I thought you’d left.” She gave him a glacial look. “I was having a private conversation with Stone.”

  “You’ve made your point; I didn’t hear anything from you. Now tell me exactly what I didn’t hear. Start with the phone conversation you had yesterday. What was she referring to as the right thing to do?” Mavis got up and took a step toward her office.

  He’d pushed it too hard.

  She turned back, grabbed the letter opener and twirled it between her fingers. “Do you always eavesdrop on our private conversations?”

  “No. Yesterday, when I got home, Jacqueline was upstairs talking to you. I didn’t think anything of it, then. Now, I’m wondering if she called you from my place so she’d have privacy or in the hope I’d overhear and stop her.”

  The letter opener stilled. “So you heard what she was telling me.”

  “I overheard half a conversation.” Mavis raised a brow. “I’d like you to clarify the subject,” Link said. The letter opener began to oscillate. “You seem to be into games today. Maybe you’d like me to WAG it and tell me if I’m warm.”

  “Wag?” Mavis asked.

  “Close to a SWAG,” Stone said. “A SWAG is a scientific wild assed guess.”

  Mavis caressed the letter opener. “What’s your wag?” Was that amusement mixed with irritation in her expression?

  “Jacqueline felt that she had to do something, personally, while I suggested that she let the proper authorities handle it. And since she didn't want to argue, she is using deception.”

  “My, but it’s warm in here.” Mavis fanned her face. This had to be the most frustrating conversation he’d ever had.

  How much had Jacqueline told Mavis? Did she know someone was impersonating her? That the person may have torched both Capolucho’s home and Envirohab? Mavis stared at him, as if willing him to speak. Mavis had always been a woman of her word. Since she’d brought up the subject, she must be more concerned about Jacqueline than keeping her promise. His frustration dissipated.

  Stone cleared his throat. “Theoretically speaking, I think it’s safe to say that we’re all on the same side.”

  “Which is?” Mavis asked without turning. “Theoretically speaking, of course.”

  Stone stared at him.

  Link cleared his throat. “You love your granddaughter.” Mavis inclined her regal head. Link took a deep breath. Link squared his shoulders and prepared for possible repercussions. “So do I.” While he expected Mavis to have a strong reaction, he hadn’t anticipated gloating.

  “I knew you two would hit it off.”

  “You did?” Stone asked.

  She had?

  “Of course,” Mavis said to Stone. “Why else did you think I asked your partner to take her along?”

  Link didn’t think matchmaking had been Mavis’ sole motivation, but before he could figure out why he felt that way, she turned toward him.

  Mavis smiled. His blood chilled. “I told you that you wouldn’t regret taking her.”

  “I think I might be,” Link muttered.

  Her pale, blue gaze pierced him. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Mavis, I said that I loved her.” Link swallowed. “I never said she returned the affection.”

  She frowned. “Jacqueline has never trifled with people’s feelings.”

  “Do her actions sound like something a person in love would do?” Link took a deep breath. “Think about it. When you were dating your husband and he told you that he loved you, wasn’t your response, ‘I love you, too?’” Mavis’ shoulders slumped. She frowned, then nodded and sat down. Link had never seen her so subdued. “And if you’d had a personal problem, wouldn’t you have shared it with him?” The deep burgundy leather chair across from his d
esk seemed to swallow Mavis. The tip of her tongue moistened her lips, but no sound came out. She nodded. “Even if you thought he was domineering?”

  Her smile was mellow. “When Rhys and I were courting, he overwhelmed me with emotions. It was difficult to tell how I felt. Maybe Jacqueline feels something similar.” Mavis cleared her throat. “I’m sure she shares your sentiments.”

  For the first time since meeting her, he thought Mavis was wrong about something. “Obviously, you eventually sorted out your feelings,” Link said.

  Mavis nodded.

  A squeak announced that Stone had taken off his glasses, put his feet on his desk, then leaned back to enjoy the entertainment.

  “Let’s assume there is a hypothetical situation wherein someone is trying to decide how they feel about another person,” Link said. “In that situation, would it be logical for one of them to completely abandon the other person? To try to make them think they were one place, doing one thing, when in fact they were somewhere else?”

  As Mavis’ shifted backward into the leather chair, her frown deepened. “I knew I wouldn’t like this conversation.”

  “That’s your answer?”

  “If I were the individual in question, I would stay until I knew how I felt.” She gave a decisive nod.

  “Exactly.” Link pantomimed firing a gun and clicked his tongue.

  “However,” Mavis continued, “in this speculative situation, let us assume there are other outside factors. Let’s say that the person somehow believes they’ve lost something very personal.”

  Stone asked, “A husband?”

  Mavis glared at him. “If it’s been your life’s work, an institution or governmental agency can be motivating.”

  “The IRS,” Link said.

  “That is also a possibility. Perhaps the person didn’t want to bog down a new relationship with governmental red tape. Perhaps someone thought she should deal with the personal problems before they soured a future relationship.”

  Link was relieved to realize Jacqueline had told her grandmother about the imposter, but stung to discover that she’d been unwilling to tell him her true plans. He leaned toward her. “In which case, once the governmental mess is untangled, the person would return and feel free to explore potential new relationships?”

  Mavis leaned forward. “That would be my hope.”

  “So, what should I do? Let her deal with the IRS and her imposter her own way, and hope she comes back to me? Or follow her and give her support?”

  “This doesn’t sound speculative any longer,” she said.

  “Forget the game,” Link said.

  “Have you been sleeping with her?” Mavis asked.

  “No, but if I can convince her to marry me, I hope to for the next fifty years or so.”

  “Good,” Mavis said.

  “Not good,” Stone said.

  “Why not?” They both demanded.

  Stone blinked. “I wasn’t referring to the relationship. I’m all for that. I was referring to Jacqueline’s decision to confront this other woman.”

  Link’s stomach felt like a bomb had gone off in it.

  “What are you talking about?” Mavis demanded.

  As if stalling for time, Stone picked up his pencil and began to twirl it. “It’s something Capolucho said last night at dinner.” He shrugged. “I’m sure it’s nothing.” Mavis tightened her grip on the miniature sword and took a step in Stone’s direction. He scrambled to his feet, his chair shooting backward to collide with the wall and dropping his pencil in his haste.

  “Out with it.” Link stood shoulder to shoulder with Mavis as he planted his hands flat on Stone’s desktop.

  Mavis shook her lethally sharp letter opener, Perspiration popped out on Stone’s forehead. “Last night,” Stone began, “I asked Capolucho if he planned to try to find his Jacqueline. He said no. Then he said that since he’d actually met the real Jacqueline and gotten a new direction for his life, he’d gotten over his obsession enough to be objective and see that his Jacqueline was nothing but a vicious, vindictive, opportunistic, selfish woman.” Mavis stared at Stone. He held up his hands. “Those were his words, not mine.”

  “Why did he use the terms vicious and vindictive?” Mavis demanded.

  “I don’t know.” Stone inched backward. “At the time, I didn’t question it. But now, I wonder if it’s a good idea for her to be alone with the woman.” Link’s sense of doom escalated. Stone rubbed an old wound just above his heart where a bullet meant to kill Ariel had struck. A quarter inch lower and it would have hit his heart. Link wondered if the old wound was bothering Stone, or if he, too, sensed danger. “Capolucho told us about his shack burning down. He confided in Ariel that he believed his Jackie had drugged him and set the fire.” Stone cleared his throat. “Ariel’s theory was that once Jacqueline, er, his Jackie found out his paintings were valuable, she tried to kill him for them.”

  “Ariel has always been paranoid,” Link said, despite the fact that he’d come to the same suspicion.

  “True,” Stone said. “But how often is she right?”

  “Too often,” Link admitted.

  “Yeah, well, I had the feeling Capolucho would have dumped the broad once he healed from the burns, except some pal of his told him about an exhibit he’d seen in L. A. where the artist’s style mimicked his. Then the guy told Capolucho the paintings were of some volcano.” Mavis sat down, and serenely folded her hands over the miniature weapon in her lap, but her hawk-like gaze never left Stone’s face. Stone kept talking, “Ray boy decided he wasn’t going to let his Jackie get away with everything, so he followed her to California. I guess when he found her, things got nasty. She managed to get a restraining order against him. He still tried to get his work back, but adhere to the letter of the law.”

  “And that’s when he somehow ended up following the real Jacqueline.” Link sat on the edge of Stone’s desk. “We couldn’t get him to talk that freely. How’d you get all that?”

  “Bits and pieces. Interpolating. He mainly opened up to Tempest and Ariel.”

  “Trust those two to make a guy talk,” Link said.

  “Link, if this imposter is as vindictive as that poor man said,” Mavis’ tone was tight and controlled, “it’s possible that the woman who stole her identity may have set more than one fire.”

  “And succeeded in killing Jacqueline’s husband,” Link voiced the theory he had spent days wondering about.

  Stone leaned forward. “What if she killed Adam, but was actually trying to murder Jacqueline?”

  “She was the one who normally checked the lab at night,” Link said, “but she’d gotten hurt.” Had that twisted ankle saved her life?

  “To think it was probably Adam’s bad luck to die because he decided to be a gentleman just once in his life. How ironic.” Link’s attention swiveled to her. Mavis grimaced. “I’ve never known such an egotistical ass. Jacqueline is great at tech writing, I think he only married her so she’d make a name for him.” The knuckles of the hand holding the letter opener turned white. “He would never let her take his name, never acknowledged her as his wife and he was the worst user I’ve ever met.”

  Link frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “Adam treated Jacqueline like an exasperating employee. Or maybe a slave. Sometimes I didn’t think he even realized he had a wife. At least I didn’t think he knew what a wife was really for.”

  “Jacqueline blames herself for Adam’s death,” Link said. “She thinks he’d still be alive if she’d checked the lab. She said the accident happened because he smoked and it wouldn’t have happened if she’d done her job because she doesn’t smoke.”

  Stone scowled in confusion.

  “She had a schedule and always stayed with it,” Mavis said.

  “Like her grandmother.” Stone eased back into his chair, but stayed alert.

  Mavis gave a regal nod. “Every evening, she’d check the lab before turning in. That day, she sprained her ankle and for th
e first time in his miserable life, Adam decided to be gallant.”

  “She told me the fire marshal said there must have been a gas leak and his cigarette ignited it,” Link elaborated. “Jacqueline feels it was her fault because she doesn’t smoke and if she’d checked the building, she’d have found the leak and everyone would have been safe.”

  “The official report stated arson/suicide.”

  Stone’s scowl deepened. “But it might have been a set up by someone else. Someone who knew her schedule. She might have been the intended victim. And it might not have had a thing to do with cigarettes.”

  Mavis nodded.

  Link forced himself not to panic. “We need Phillip’s printouts to find out where this other woman is.”

  “I’ll call Ariel and have her go next door to get them,” Stone said.

  Mavis shook her head. “Jacqueline didn’t want you to follow. She took them with her.”

  Link and Stone looked at each other. Stone found his voice first, “What do you mean ‘took them with her’? Isn’t she at your house?” Mavis bit her lower lip and shook her head. “And Capolucho isn’t at my boat?” Tears shimmered in Mavis’ eyes, as she shook her head.

  “Both that artist and Adam were supposed to have died in fire.” Link’s throat constricted.

  Stone grabbed the phone. “I’ll try to catch Windy – claim it’s a family emergency.”

  32

  Jacqueline stood in front of Valdez’s airport and waved a final farewell as Ray’s battered blue truck merged with traffic. A passenger hurrying into the small terminal jostled her. With a sigh, she shouldered her duffel bag and turned toward the entrance. Inside the building, a baby’s wails echoed over several conversations. Most people were queued in an impatient line for the next flight to Anchorage; emotions ranging from anticipation to dread marked posture and expressions. A white-haired woman bustled away from the counter, a ticket clasped in her veined hand. In one corner of the lobby, a few people huddled in a small group, which looked like a family being torn apart by the impending flight; in another corner, two others were quietly reading. She hadn’t realized Valdez’s airport would be so busy. Jacqueline scanned the departure lists, found a flight to San Francisco, and joined the line.