She dodged a mound of books and snapped on the lamp on top of her desk. She blinked at the brightness, while the sudden throb of a headache pressed against her temples. She could thank the wine. Rubbing at her brow, she looked at the books thrown at her feet.
Jake saw her glance at the floor and then look at him. The accusation on her face was unmistakable. His heart rate faltered, then galloped full tilt. “You think I did this?”
“Of course. Who else? Can you tell me that? It’s seems damned strange that you show up at my door and this happens! It took Joyce and I hours just to clean a portion of the place—your room included.” She tossed several raven strands over one shoulder. “I don’t want you here. I’ll give you enough time to pack before I call the police. It won’t take Carl long to get here.”
“That doesn’t make sense! Why would I trash my own stuff? Can you answer me that?”
“I don’t know!” She balled her hands at her sides. “I don’t know you! Or what motivates you! For all I know you could be some sick lunatic.”
Jake rose to his feet, but he wasn’t ready to leave yet. “I’m not some lunatic. How can I convince you I didn’t do this?”
“Can you give me proof?”
“Proof? You want proof?” He turned, intending to walk the length of the room, but stumbled over a book. He picked it up and leafed through the pages. Did he dare tell her? No. Once she knew, matters would escalate. More questions would be raised, more people would become involved. Someone else would get hurt or even die. He couldn’t handle that. Margot might not value her life, but he did.
“I have no alibi,” he said, his voice weary and tired as he placed the volume on an empty bookshelf beside him. “I was alone.” Palms upward, he raised his hands. “Damn it, Margot. You’ve got to believe me. I had nothing to do with this. If I’d known it was happening, I would have done something to stop it.”
“Even if you had nothing to do with what happened today—something’s going on. Why else would you make an effort to disguise yourself? The wig. The glasses. You’re hiding from someone or something. I want to know what it is. I want the truth. And I want it now. Are you running from the police?”
He ignored the panic. How could he have ever thought she’d forget her little discovery in his bedroom? What did he say? What could he say? Did he tell her the truth? He rubbed the back of his neck where the label of his turtleneck chaffed at his skin.
“Well?” She folded her arms across her middle. “I want answers. Do I have to call Carl? Because I will. Maybe he’ll get to the bottom of this. Maybe he’ll be able to find out what you’re hiding.”
When he still didn’t answer, she strode over to the desk, reached over and put her hand on the phone. Damn it! He bounded over a pile of books to get to her side and covered his gloved hand over her own. The light was shining on him, damn it, but he couldn’t let her make that call.
She tried to pull away while retaining a grip on the receiver, but he held on. “Don’t,” he breathed into her ear, unable to mask the desperation in his voice. “Don’t call the police.”
She turned as if in slow motion—her waist twisting, her neck arching sideways as she lifted her head to look at him. The light on the table hit every pore of his body. She’d know. In a second she’d see the light illuminate his features, his mouth, his teeth—
He continued to hold her hand down against the telephone, as he slammed his other hand against the lamp’s candelabra. The light skirted across the table, tipped over and crashed against the floor.
Utter blackness enveloped the den, then slowly, very slowly moonlight whispered into the room, painting a myriad of different shades of gray against the furniture and fixtures. Blessed shadows shielded him from her eyes. Only then did he let go of her hand.
She stumbled back. “Why did you do that?”
“It was an accident.” He backed away from her, tripping over another damn book with his clumsy feet. He grabbed an empty shelf along the wall to steady himself. “I can’t have you call Carl—or anyone else for that matter.”
“Then tell me,” she insisted.
He bowed his head. For too long he’d kept everything to himself. Years now. There’d been his co-workers of course, but he had yet to confide with anyone outside of Miltronics. No one else knew the details of his research, not even his sister.
He lifted his head and glanced across the distance of the room. Jaw ridged, tension radiating from her slim figure, Margot stood waiting.
“Fine,” he finally said. “I’ll tell you.”
Chapter 8
Margot stared at him across the shadowed room. “I need some light in here. You might be able to live in the dark, but I can’t.”
She wove through the debris and lit the fireplace. Flames bloomed from the ceramic logs, and a yellow glow illuminated the room and flickered across the wall and the window. Because of the fire’s reflection, Jake couldn’t see past the glass to the world outside, but anyone on the other side could easily observe Margot and himself.
He strode over and pulled the drapes from the wall anchors and brought both sides of the thick velvet material together.
“So are you going to give me some answers?”
Jake turned from the drape and saw that Margot had sunk down in a high-backed chair. Faded jeans hugged her slim hips and shapely legs, while the dark brown sweater accented her pallor. Even with the dim lighting, she looked exhausted. If he hadn’t shown up at her house, maybe she wouldn’t be going through what she was right now. No. That wasn’t necessarily true. He shouldn’t feel guilty. There were other players.
He cleared his throat. What the hell was he doing? If he spilled his guts, he’d put her in jeopardy. But at the same time, he couldn’t let her start asking questions. Then she’d be in deeper trouble. What had Malcolm said? She wouldn’t be worth one of her ‘dime store books’. Damn. How he hated that phrase and the careless, apathetic way it had been said. When it came down to it, Jake guessed supplying her with some answers was the better of two evils.
“Where do I start?”
“How about at the beginning.”
The feminine huskiness of her voice floated across the room, reminding him all too clearly of his attraction to her. He’d been battling it since that night she’d run into him—even before really. She’d felt so good in his arms. Curves in all the right places. Well, if he were any type of man, he’d fight this thing he had for her.
“I guess I’ll start with Miltronics.”
“Why am I not surprised?” Leaning forward, she rested both elbows on her knees. “Go on.”
He shifted. Getting the words out was proving more difficult than he’d anticipated. “I asked John to safeguard a disk for me. It was a duplicate of a scientific discovery we had been diligently working on for several years. We’d just completed it last month. Granted, there were a few minor glitches, but it was a relatively pure formula. I had a copy made. It was the only smart thing I did. At the time, I hadn’t been using my brain or paying attention to the people around me. I didn’t see it coming—not really. I was so damn euphoric. Our department was humming with excitement. We’d actually hit pay dirt with the hypothesis we’d reconstructed!”
His hands were damp beneath the leather gloves and the temptation to rip them off was overwhelming, but of course he didn’t. He dragged in a deep breath and saw he’d captured her rapt attention. But did he dare tell her what part he’d played? The entire scenario? Shame and self-loathing decided him against the idea. What he’d done was unforgivable.
He exhaled. “To make a long story short—a critical portion of the formula was destroyed. I’ve been trying to reconstruct it without success. The only other complete copy is the one I gave John.”
“And that disk is here, isn’t it?”
“Here or in the lab.”
She jerked to her feet and swept an arm around her. “So you decided to do a little hunting and to hell with my house!”
“No! I tol
d you I didn’t do this!”
“Then who?” She glared at him. “Can you tell me that? Can you?” Hands on her hips, she waited. She opened her mouth to say something, and then closed it. Suddenly the anger in her eyes dissolved. Surprise and understanding washed over her pale features.
“Malcolm. It’s Malcolm, isn’t it?” she asked. “It all makes so much sense now. A while back, I thought it might be him, but only for a short time, because I couldn’t come up with his motivation. He’d stopped being vindictive over a year ago. But he’s the one looking for the formula.”
“Yes.”
“And you? What about you? You want this formula too. That’s why you’re here, isn’t it? For the copy? You’ve been going through my house searching for it.” An expression of what looked like disgust flashed across her face. “Did you get what you came for?”
Even though she tried to mask it, Jake heard the hurt beneath the bitterness. It made him feel that much more of a creep. “No. It’s still missing. At least, I think it is. I don’t think Malcolm’s found it.”
“But he might have—the way he went through each room. Then again, there’s a lot of anger and frustration behind the destruction, which might mean he didn’t find it.” She hugged herself. “It has to be pretty important for Malcolm to break in and rampage through here like some crazed person. Then there’s you, secretly sneaking around, digging into places you have no business. What’s on this disk? This scientific formula?”
Jake stiffened in surprised, even though he knew she’d eventually ask that question. “I can’t tell you.” The firelight illuminated the objection in her face. “Please. Believe me. It’s for your own safety.”
“My safety?” She rubbed her arms. “Come on, Jake. You don’t expect me to believe that—”
“It’s the truth! Too many people have died because of this. The whole wing of Miltronics was completely destroyed. Twelve people were murdered. These were people I worked with on a day-to-day basis. Many of them I considered friends, not just co-workers.” And he was to blame. Because of him, they were dead. “I was the only one that got out of the building alive. Every day I’m so damned thankful I’m still breathing, and I want to keep it that way. That’s the reason for the disguise.”
“But the newspaper said the police caught the person.” Frowning, she walked around the back of her chair.
He could tell she didn’t believe him. “The real killers found the perfect scapegoat for the police. They hired a janitor who’d spent some time behind bars. They had to know his record. They do background checks on every employee. He wouldn’t be any different. What better person, than someone with a prior record for burglary and not too swift in the intelligence department? At least not enough intelligence to work with those type of explosives.”
Bitterness roughened and deepened his voice. “He was a patsy, and the police on the case, either lazy or incompetent, decided to zero in on him. Hell, who could really blame them? He’d been spotted on several occasions loitering around Miltronics after his shift. And of course, there was the evidence he’d conveniently left around his apartment.”
She placed both hands across the top the chair. “You sound like you know who did it.”
He heard the question in her voice and decided enough was enough. Margot needed to know how dangerous her ex-husband really was. After all, didn’t she have a right to protect herself? “I can’t prove anything, but I know Malcolm was involved. He might not have lit the fuse, but he was right there planning everything.”
“Malcolm? Malcolm had something to do with those deaths at Miltronics?” Her voice rose in amazement. “My, God! It explains so much! The way he came barging into the house the other day. And he has it in him. There’s a dark, almost black side to his personality. But to actually cross that line—act on it. It’s all so hard to imagine.”
“Yes, well, you better believe it. He’s more than motivated. There’s a lot of money at stake. His, and a number of other investors.” Jake stepped over several books. “I’m surprised Malcolm hasn’t talked much to you about Miltronics. I can see John keeping quiet, but I would think Malcolm would have confided in someone.”
“Oh, now I understand. You suspected me of knowing what Malcolm was doing. What with Malcolm being my ex-husband?” Hurt and reproach thickened her voice. “But now, you don’t still think I’d—”
“Of course not,” he returned quietly. “Granted, in the beginning I had my doubts. But it didn’t take long to figure out that you’re not in any way involved with Malcolm’s schemes. Plus, you are, after all, John’s sister. That says something in itself. I trusted him. He was one of few I could count on.”
“Thank you, I think.” She pulled a wisp of hair back around her ear and laughed without humor. “As to Malcolm—he’s never gone into any great detail as to the goings on at Miltronics. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t important to him. Quite the opposite in fact.”
She rubbed a palm across the back of her chair. “He was so fixated with that company. He didn’t need any children, not when Miltronics was his baby. I used to ask him about his work, but he guarded every little thing that went on there. After a while, I gave up. Then I didn’t care. Our marriage had never been a good one. It took all of one year to figure that out.”
Jake tried to tell himself he wasn’t jealous of her time with Malcolm. He tried to tell himself he wasn’t bothered that she’d had a relationship with the bastard. Maybe he’d also be able to convince himself it didn’t hurt to know Malcolm had had his hands on her or that he’d held her, done things to her that Jake had only been able to imagine.
Margot shook her head. “Johnny really hated him near the end. He never told me why, but I’d just mention Malcolm’s name, and he’d act like a scalded cat, ready to leap the walls at the least little provocation. I had no idea.”
“Yes, well. It’s just as well you didn’t. That might be why you’re still alive.”
She frowned and shook her head. “My brother—” Then she stared at him. Even with the room’s distance he felt the sudden intensity of her gaze. “Is that why Johnny’s dead? Because he knew too much?”
“Margot—” An explanation lay blocked deep in his throat. What could he tell her? The truth? And shatter her world or what little belief she had in it now? He’d never wanted her to find out.
“I’m beginning to see.”
The look of horror on her face wrenched at Jake’s gut. He attempted to close the distance between them, but she warded him off with a raised hand.
“My brother’s car accident—wasn’t an accident. He was murdered, wasn’t he?” It was more a statement than a question. The conviction, the realization was there in her face. “He was murdered all because of this formula.”
“It’s more than that. It’s not just the formula.”
“Then what?” she demanded, her voice rising in anger and disbelief. “I want to know why! I deserve to know why my brother was killed!”
She pushed at the chair with such force that it rocked forward and dropped back on all four legs.
“Margot, I can’t prove anything. Remember that. This is all conjecture.”
She frowned. “But you believe it.”
He sighed. Some things he just couldn’t lie about. “Yes.”
“But the car accident. There’s no explanation. He hadn’t been drinking. They couldn’t find anything wrong with the vehicle. He never mentioned having any enemies. Why would someone want him dead?”
“He threatened to start talking about what was going on at Miltronics if—Well, the reasons are unimportant now. The fact is—Malcolm couldn’t let John talk.”
“Malcolm? No. I don’t want to hear this.” As she stepped back, her heel caught the glossy cover of a book, and she slid sideways. Quickly, she righted herself, and turned, stumbling over the debris to the doorway.
She was running. He didn’t want her doing that, hiding, wounded and alone. He rushed after her. Before she reached the door he c
aught her by the arm and swung her around. She lunged at him. He dodged before her knuckles connected with his cheek. With both hands, he caught her wrists and hauled her into his arms.
“Don’t—” Her face a mask of anguish, Margot pushed against him, using her hips, stomach and chest, but Jake didn’t let go. Instead, he drew her closer, cradling her against his body, leaving her no leverage to break free. After a moment of struggling, she slumped against him and clutched his shoulders.
“Why?” she cried. “I don’t understand.”
Margot buried her head against the hollow between his neck and shoulder. The wild beat of her heart against his chest pounded in time with her deep sobs of despair which wracked her body. With a trembling hand, he smoothed the silken tendrils of her raven hair from her brow and just stood there, holding her. For how long? He didn’t know, and he didn’t care.
She was in shock. And who wouldn’t be if they’d just learned their brother had been murdered? His throat tightened with helplessness and shame. He was indirectly to blame for her despair. How he wanted to take away her pain. Somehow find a way to make her life easier. But he didn’t know how. Then he realized he was grasping at some fantasy.
He didn’t have the ability to help Margot. How could he? A man doomed to die can’t help the living. He can’t seek revenge and...he can’t do a damn thing.
Her breath whispered against Jake’s neck and jaw as she lifted her head. The reflection of the fire shimmered off a lone tear doggedly clinging to one cheek. With a gloved thumb, Jake brushed the drop from her skin. Even though she’d stopped crying, he didn’t want to let her go. As she eased gently from him, he reluctantly dropped his hands to his sides. She stepped away, letting cool air touch the fabric of his shirt and his heated skin.
“I need to think,” she muttered. “This is all so crazy.”
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