Against the Storm1 (21 page)

A
knock sounded at the door and Trace rose to answer it. Rowdy padded along beside him as he crossed the foyer and looked through the peephole, to find Mark Sayers standing beneath the wide, overhanging porch roof.

“I was just getting ready to call you,” Trace said. “Come on in.” He stepped back and Sayers walked into the living room, his light brown hair neatly combed, his cheap suit already rumpled.

“Listen, I heard what happened last night. Unofficial word is arson. I guess I owe you an apology. Looks like Maggie’s troubles are bigger than I thought.”

“Apology accepted. But I’m still gonna need your help.”

“Hey, I’m a cop. It’s my job to protect and serve. I don’t want to see anybody get hurt. Just tell me what you need.”

“You want a cup of coffee?”

“Love one.”

Trace led the detective into the kitchen, took down a
a mug and filled it with the steaming, dark Colombian brew.

“Thanks,” Sayers said, accepting the cup. “So what’s your take on the fire?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Trace led him over to the kitchen table and both men sat down. Rowdy returned to his place on the floor at Trace’s feet. “This guy’s a whack job, for sure. That being said, I still can’t get a handle on him. Maggie wasn’t even home last night. Her younger sister and her baby were there.”

“Jesus.”

“This creep gets past the alarm system and gets into the house, so he has to know Maggie wasn’t there. But he lights the place up, anyway. It doesn’t add up.”

“He wanted to punish her, maybe, for something he believes she’s done.”

“She hung up on him a few days ago,” Trace said. “Maybe he was mad enough to kill her sister to punish her, but in my book it just doesn’t wash.”

“You never can tell, I guess, but it woulda been a major overreaction.”

“From the notes he’s left, he’s got some kind of sick infatuation with Maggie. Killing her little sister and her infant child would hardly endear him to her.”

Sayers started frowning. He looked at Trace over the rim of his coffee mug. “You aren’t thinking this might be just a coincidence? Some lunatic firebug torches her place and the police and everyone else jump to the conclusion the stalker’s to blame?”

Trace shrugged. He hadn’t put the thought into words, but it had been lurking at the back of his mind.

“I don’t buy it,” Mark said.

“I’m not much on coincidence, either. We’ll know more after the arson guys finish their job. Tony Ramirez
is a good man. He’ll find the dots and string them together.”

“You’d installed security on her place, if I remember.”

Trace nodded. “And cameras front and back. He bypassed the alarm system as if it wasn’t there. No word yet on the cameras, but odds are he took them out.”

“You think her stalker is capable of that? You said he bugged her car, set up video surveillance inside the house.”

“Like I said, I’ll know more after I talk to Ramirez.”

Sayers rose from his chair. “Let’s meet again after. I’m not supposed to be involved in this case—so I’m not. Got it?”

“I got it. Thanks for coming by, Mark.”

Just then the bedroom door swung open and Maggie walked out. She was wearing the bathrobe he’d loaned her, red hair in a sexy tangle around her shoulders. Trace felt that punch in the gut he’d felt before.

“I hope I’m not interrupting. I didn’t know anyone else was here,” she murmured.

“Maggie, this is Detective Mark Sayers. He was just leaving.”

“I’m sorry about the fire,” Mark said. “We’re gonna catch this guy. A man like that is a danger not only to you and your family but to everyone in the community.”

“Yes, he is. And I appreciate any help you can give us.”

Trace followed Sayers to the door and closed it behind him. He was halfway back to the kitchen when a second, more frantic pounding started on his door.

“I think I’m living in Grand Central Station,” he grumbled, returning to the door, this time spotting Jason Sommerset on the porch.

“Did you hear about the fire?” Jason strode past him into the living room. “I saw it on the news this morning. Maggie’s town house burned up last night. I can’t find Maggie, or Ashley and Robbie. I’m worried sick. Do you know where they are?”

“Take it easy, kid. Both women are here and so is the baby. Everyone’s fine.”

The tension left Jason’s shoulders.

“Hello, Jason,” Maggie called out from the kitchen, wagging her fingers in his direction. Trace noticed his traitorous dog curled at her feet. “Ashley’s still sleeping. It was a very long night.”

“I was really worried,” Jason said. “I’m glad everyone’s okay.”

Just then the door down the hall swung open and Ashley wandered out into the living room, rubbing her short, messy blond curls. She was wearing the pink flowered robe she’d had on last night and was barefoot, her long legs exposed to way above the knees. She spotted Jason and froze like a deer in the headlights. “Jason…”

He strode toward her, reached out and took both her hands in his. “Are you all right? What about the baby? I was scared to death when I saw what happened on the news.”

Ashley swallowed and her eyes welled. She’d been the strong one last night. Now she crumpled. “I was so scared,” she said, and Jason pulled her into his arms.

“You should have called me. I would have come.”

“We hardly…hardly know each other.”

He tipped her chin up. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

Ashley gave him a watery smile. “I guess we are.”

“You bet we are. And I’ve already got a place figured out for you and your family to stay.”

“What?”

Jason turned to Trace. “A friend of mine is in Europe. As soon as I saw the news, I called him.” A faint smile touched his lips. “Lucky for him it wasn’t the middle of the night in France.”

“Go on,” Trace said.

“Jimmy owns a condo over in the Galleria. It’s not far from my place. I told him what happened and he said Ashley, Maggie and the baby could stay at his house until he got home. He said he’d be gone at least another four weeks.”

Trace started shaking his head. “That’s not gonna happen. Maggie’s the target. Ashley and Robbie wouldn’t be safe. Just think about what happened last night.”

Maggie came forward, her borrowed terry cloth robe trailing on the floor behind her five-foot-four-inch frame. He hid a smile. Damn, she looked delicious.

“Trace is right,” Maggie said. “Ashley needs to be as far away from me as possible.”

Jason’s clear blue gaze swung back to the younger girl. “Then you and Robbie can stay. The place has security guards 24/7. We’ll let them know what happened, make sure they keep an extra-sharp eye out for trouble.”

“Maybe she should just stay here,” Maggie said, her big green eyes going to Trace.

“I’m not the one who’s in danger,” Ashley said. “The guy wasn’t after me. He set the fire in Maggie’s studio. He was mad at her. He wanted to hurt her. I just happened to be in the way.”

“He could have killed you,” Trace said softly.

Ashley shrugged. “That’s the way crazy people are. They don’t think about the consequences.”

She had a point. And he agreed she would probably be safer somewhere away from her sister.

“I’d keep an eye on her,” Jason promised, looking at Ashley as if she already belonged to him. “If she needs anything, all she’ll have to do is call.”

Damn, the kid had it bad. Trace almost felt sorry for him. “Let’s see what the arson squad has to say. They might have information that will help us decide what to do.”

“I’m not giving up my job.” Ashley’s slender hands slammed down on her hips, making the flowered robe creep higher. Jason looked as if he were going to swallow his tongue. Man, the kid was in trouble.

“You won’t have to quit your job,” Trace promised. “We’ll work all of this out.” Somehow.

Though, at the moment, he had no idea how he was going to make that happen.

Maggie showered and put on the same wrinkled sundress she had been wearing the night before, all the clothes she had left in the world. The dress smelled like smoke and dredged up memories of flames and fear she would rather forget.

She thought of the fire and hoped the downstairs area of the town house had fared better than the upstairs, and that her sister’s clothes could be washed and cleaned. That what little Ashley owned hadn’t been destroyed by the water and smoke. But there was no way the fire department was letting them back in the house today, not with smoldering debris and hot, charred wood still making it too dangerous to go inside.

Fortunately, in the University District there were a number of clothing stores. Deciding Mrs. Epstein needed a day or two to recover, Trace called his receptionist. Annie volunteered to babysit for a couple hours, time enough for an emergency shopping trip to nearby
Rice Village. Maggie had met Annie at the office and Trace trusted her completely. Though Ashley worried about leaving the baby with someone new, Maggie was sure, once she met the lady, her concern would be assuaged.

Jason insisted on accompanying them. With their nerves still on edge after the fire, both women agreed. Of course he would have to drive Maggie’s car, since his flashy silver Porsche wasn’t big enough for all of them.

While they waited for Annie, Ashley changed into a pair of Trace’s lightweight sweatpants and an olive-drab T-shirt, then sat down in the living room next to Jason to give little Robbie his bottle.

Trace reached out and caught hold of Maggie’s hand, and she let him lead her into the kitchen. While she seated herself at the table, he poured her a mug of freshly brewed coffee, poured one for himself, then sat across from her. She couldn’t miss the concern in his face.

“What is it, Trace? You’re making me nervous.”

“It’s nothing like that. It’s just that we’ve talked about the fire, but not about your work and what losing it must mean to you. It looks like your studio is gone, your pictures all destroyed. You’ll have to start completely over. I just want you to know how sorry I am.”

Maggie reached out and caught his hand. There was something about those strong hands that always made her feel safe. And she knew how talented they could be.

“I was frantic last night…terrified for my sister and Robbie. And I was furious about what that bastard did to me and my family. But my pictures weren’t destroyed.”

Trace frowned. “I thought you kept your memory cards in the studio. They weren’t there?”

“They were there. For the past few days, I’d been making changes in my filing system. I was just about finished. The thing is, a year or so ago I decided to store all my work online. There’s a service called Photodrive. It’s a commercial file storage website designed especially for professional photographers. Once I finish a collection, I put every picture I’ve taken on the site, just in case something like this ever happened—though believe me, I never thought it actually would.”

“My company uses online storage, too. At least for some things.”

“Not everything?”

Trace chuckled. “I’m a little too paranoid for that. If you’d see some of these computer geeks at work you’d know that a guy with the right skills can get into almost anything. Hell, I’m pretty damned good myself.”

“Ah…yet another hidden talent.”

His mouth faintly curved. “I guess you could say that.” He took a sip of his coffee. “So you’re telling me you still have the original files.”

“That’s right. Everything’s on Photodrive. All I have to do is retrieve the photos I sold at the opening, get them reprinted and framed, to replace the ones that were purchased, and I’m back in business.”

His dark eyebrows drew together. “Besides you, who else knows you still have those pictures?”

“No one. Why?”

“No reason…at least nothing I can put my finger on. Just one of those funny hunches you get after you’ve been doing this as long as I have. I want you to hold off on reprinting the photos for a while. Don’t tell anyone you still have them. Your friend Faye Langston, over at the gallery, isn’t going to like it, but, hey, you had a fire, right? What can you do?”

“She isn’t expecting me to have them until next week.”

“Great. By then I’ll have talked to Tony Ramirez. He’s head of the arson investigation. I want to hear what he has to say before we make our next move.”

“All right.” She needed to get started. It took time to get the photos ready to sell, but she trusted Trace’s judgment. And it would set her back only a few more days.

“My client list is also stored on Photodrive,” Maggie said. “I’ll have to start all over sorting them, and get the new buyers’ names from Faye, but at least it wasn’t all destroyed.”

“That’s great news. In the meantime, I guess you and your sister are going shopping.”

Maggie grinned. “With Jason Sommerset acting as bodyguard.”

Trace smiled, shook his head. “The kid’s in big trouble.”

“Nice trouble, though, wouldn’t you say?”

Trace looked at her with those hot, golden-brown eyes. “I think I’m in the same kind of trouble.”

Maggie laughed. “I think maybe I am, too.”

“You realize if Ash and Robbie move to the Galleria, you’ll be staying here with me.”

Heat crept into her cheeks. “I’d probably be a lot safer.”

“You also realize you won’t be sleeping in the guest room.”

Her pulse picked up. “No?” With his Western shirt open at the throat, his skin darkly tanned, she wanted to press her mouth there, just breathe him in.

“So you may not be as safe as you think.”

She wished she could kiss him. “Maybe not. Then again, I’ve always believed in living dangerously.”

Trace’s gaze ran over her and his mouth curved in a slow, sexy smile. “Looks like I do, too.”

Trace left the women with Jason. The kid was used to the good life, but he was also an athlete who excelled at tennis, had been captain of his college swim team and had learned how to handle himself. Trace chuckled as he remembered the story Hewitt had told him, how Jason had come home from high school wanting to learn to box. His mother had cried and begged her husband to forbid it. Being the ultimate negotiator, Hewitt had convinced their son to try martial arts instead. Jason discovered he had a knack for it.