“Really?”
As she suspected, Warren’s interest was immediately awakened. “It’s all rather complicated.”
“Complicated? How?”
Justine shrugged. “I don’t want to discuss the fire—it upsets me. I still can’t believe anyone would do something like that deliberately.”
Warren nodded. “It’s a cold, dark world out there.”
“There doesn’t seem to be a logical reason anyone would want to hurt us. It just seems…irrational. I mean, there’s no financial gain to be had.”
“So, you think it was personal?” Warren asked.
“What else can I think?” she responded. “Whoever did this must hate me. Whoever did this must’ve been looking for a means to hurt me and my family.”
“Not you, Justine,” Warren said quickly. He glanced down at his own menu.
“Hurt Seth, then?”
“He’s the one who laid off that dishwasher, isn’t he?” Warren muttered.
She leaned toward him and placed her elbows on the table. “That’s the interesting thing about all of this, Warren. Apparently it wasn’t the young man we assumed. We have positive proof that Anson Butler wasn’t involved in the fire.”
Warren frowned. “I thought I read that his cross was found in the ashes.”
“No one ever said it was his cross.” Justine met his gaze.
“Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me I heard that somewhere.”
“You might have,” Justine agreed. “All the evidence certainly pointed to Anson.” Outwardly she remained calm, in contrast with the wild pounding of her heart. Turning to the menu again, she added, “Some other evidence has recently come to light. That’s why Sheriff Davis contacted Seth.”
“What evidence?” Warren asked sharply.
Playing her role to the hilt, Justine looked away and then sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to discuss the details, but from what I understand, it’s pretty damning.” Step by step, she was leading him on, leading him to an admission of guilt.
Alert now, Warren leaned close and lowered his voice. “You can tell me, Justine. I can be trusted.”
“Can you, Warren?” she asked softly. And then, because this was so much more painful than she’d realized it would be, she stopped and swallowed hard. Tears clogged her throat as she thought about the day of her panic attack and how Warren had seen her through it. His kindness had seemed genuine, and yet all along he’d been the one responsible for bringing this sadness and stress into her life.
As best she could, she remained calm and set her menu aside. “I’ll have the crab cakes.”
Warren nodded, but he didn’t appear willing to drop the subject. “Tell me,” he coaxed. “You’ve always been able to trust me. What information does the sheriff have?”
Justine met his gaze. “You honestly think I should tell you?”
“Ah…” He seemed taken aback by that blunt question. “Of course.”
“Really?” She had a hundred other questions she wanted to ask him. More and more she doubted she’d ever have the opportunity. This conversation might be her only chance.
By now, Warren had started to squirm.
“Warren,” she said, looking straight at him, “you should know that the new evidence points directly to you.”
He issued a harsh laugh. “This is a joke, right?”
“I wish it was.” She meant that. “The reason I asked to meet you is so I could find out why you’d do such a thing.”
His eyes widened and he scooted back his chair as if about to flee.
“If I could only ask you one question,” Justine whispered, “it would be this.” She paused, determined not to lose her composure. “Why, Warren? Why would you want to destroy the restaurant?”
He’d gone completely pale. He lowered his gaze and seemed to struggle to find the words. “Seeing you with Seth was…hard, knowing you’d chosen him over me. You were the only woman who ever understood me, the only woman who didn’t hold my sexual inadequacies over my head.” The bitterness in his voice was frightening. “I knew I had to find a way to get you back.”
“Oh, Warren.”
“Then that day six or seven months ago when I came in for lunch, I managed to convince you to have a glass of wine with me…”
Justine searched her memory. It’d been the day David Rhodes had come by to have lunch with her grandmother. He’d tried to weasel money out of Charlotte. Justine had been outraged and badly shaken by the events of that afternoon.
“You seemed so tired, so drained.”
“I was,” she agreed but didn’t explain why.
“Seth showed up and when he saw you with me he was—” Warren just shook his head.
Justine remembered that, too. There’d been tension between her and Seth, and they’d had an argument.
“He wore that smug look that told me no matter how much I loved and needed you, you were his and always would be his. Nothing,” he said, “absolutely nothing I did would bring you back to me. At that moment, I knew I had to do something.”
“But burn down the restaurant?”
“I wanted to hurt Seth, not you,” he said, pleading with her like a repentant child. “I could never hurt you.”
“But you did, Warren, you hurt us both.”
He hung his head. “I see that now. But I thought of a way to make it up to you. I’d build you another restaurant, bigger and better than the first one. I’d give you the restaurant of your dreams and then you’d see how much I loved you.”
“Warren, you don’t prove your love by hurting other people.”
He kept his eyes lowered and nodded sadly. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Seth and Sheriff Davis walked across the room and stood next to the table. Warren looked up and sighed deeply. “You talked to the dishwasher, didn’t you?” he asked without showing any signs of distress. “He was there that night. He tried to put out the fire.”
“So I understand.” Sheriff Davis removed his handcuffs from his belt. “Warren Saget, you have the right to remain silent….”
“Yes, yes, I know,” he snapped irritably. He stood then and held out his hands. Glaring at Seth, he said, “You could never love her the way I do.”
Justine stood, too, and Seth slipped his arm around her waist. “No one could possibly love my wife more than I do, Warren. I’m sorry it’s come to this.”
“I’ll deny everything,” he sneered. “I have a good attorney.”
“Ah, but we’ve got a confession right here on tape,” Justine said, raising her shirt to reveal the wire taped to her midriff. “We have your confession, Warren, and you made these statements in a public place, in which you couldn’t anticipate privacy. All the bases are covered.”
Sheriff Davis clipped on the handcuffs and with everyone in the restaurant looking on, took Warren away.
“It’s over,” Seth said as he led Justine from the room. The relief in his voice was unmistakable.
“In the end, I nearly couldn’t do it,” she said. “Even knowing what he’d done, I had trouble deceiving him.”
Seth turned to face her. “You still got what we needed, and that was a confession. It didn’t matter how you went about it—all that matters is the end result.”
It wasn’t that she loved Warren, but she pitied him and perhaps she always had.
“I can’t help feeling sorry for him,” she said as Seth opened the car door for her.
They were both silent during the drive home. “It’s sad, you know,” she said once they arrived.
“Don’t tell me you actually pity that slimeball.”
“In a way I do,” she admitted.
Seth didn’t say anything for a long moment. “In a way I do, too.” He smiled at her and together they walked into the house. “We have the whole afternoon to ourselves, don’t we?”
No one had expected Warren’s arrest to go this smoothly. “Yes,” she said.
“We’ve got an
other two hours before we have to collect Leif.”
Justine threw her arms around her husband’s neck. “Any ideas for what we could do with that time?”
Seth chuckled. “Give me a minute and I might have a suggestion.” Then, without warning, he swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
“Why, Seth Gunderson,” she said in an exaggerated Southern accent. “Just what do you have in mind?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
“I was thinking,” her husband said, a moment before his lips claimed hers, “that this would be the perfect opportunity to work on expanding the family.”
Justine agreed that was a fine suggestion, indeed.
Bobby Polgar studied the note in his hand. He wasn’t a man who understood fear, but he felt it now. Teri’s life was being threatened. His wife and James had been confronted by ruthless men. The message was clear. These men could kidnap Teri at any time and he could do nothing to protect her. The note told him he was to return to 74 Seaside Avenue and wait for further instructions.
ISBN: 978-1-4268-6550-3
6 RAINIER DRIVE
Copyright © 2006 by Debbie Macomber.
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