The Private Eye (9 page)

“I wanted to do this last night,” Josh muttered.

He bent his head and his mouth brushed lightly across
hers. The kiss was full of masculine invitation and tantalizing promise. Maggie
tasted coffee and an intimate warmth that made her shiver.

Josh lifted his head almost at once, breaking the
contact before she even had time to decide how to react. He watched her with
lazy, glittering eyes as she instinctively touched her lips with wondering
fingertips.

The brief embrace had been a hint of possibilities, not
a full-blown kiss, she reflected. Still, she had felt it to the soles of her
feet. Just as she had known she would.

Just as he must have known she would.

“I didn't do it last night because I figured it would
be a little too much for you. And a little too soon.” Josh slid his hands
slowly up her arms to her shoulders and then wrapped them gently around the
nape of her neck.

“You're not accustomed to making quick decisions about
people the way I am. You don't know how to look into a person's eyes and see if
you're being lied to. But me, I'm an old hand at it. I've been sorting out the
lies from the truth for so long that it's second nature.”

“You're right,” Maggie replied breathlessly. “I don't
have that skill. So, how will I know if you're telling me the truth about
yourself?”

“For starters, you can make the call to McCray,” he
said gently.

That brought Maggie down to reality with a thud, she
stepped back quickly and Josh let her go. “No, thanks. Then I'd have the added
problem of not knowing if I could trust McCray, wouldn't I?”

“Like I said, he can supply proof to back up anything
he tells you.”

Maggie smiled nervously. “Excuse me, I'd better get
started on your home-cooked breakfast. Wouldn’t want you to say I'd stiffed you
out of your fee.”

He chuckled. “Right. Word of mouth travels in my
business, same as it does in yours. You might have trouble hiring another
investigator in the future if you don't pay me.”

Odessa appeared in the doorway. “Squabbling again, are
we, children? My, my. Never saw two people strike sparks off each other the way
you two do.”

“She started it,” Josh said cheerfully.

Maggie groaned. “And here I was just beginning to think
you were man enough to take responsibility for your own actions.”

Josh sipped his coffee. “Depends on the actions.”

“Now, now, my dears, that's enough of that sort of
thing.” Odessa bustled about the kitchen, selecting grapefruits from the tray
on the counter and a knife from a drawer, “Stop teasing her. Josh.”

“Yeah, Josh.” Maggie arched her brows- “Stop teasing
me. Your threat is meaningless, anyway. You know dam well I'm hardly likely to
ever need a private investigator again in my entire life. What do I care if I
get blacklisted by your union for nonpayment of your fee?”

“You never know,” Josh murmured. “A lot of women are
using investigators these days.”

Odessa gave him a surprised glance. “Why on earth would
young women be going to private investigators?”

“To have background checks run on the men they're
dating,” Josh explained. “BIS gets requests all the time, but since we focus on
corporate security, we generally refer the potential clients to smaller
agencies.”

Maggie was startled. “You're serious, aren't you?”

“I’m always serious when it comes to business,” he
assured her.

Odessa looked thoughtful. “What kind of women go to
investigators to have their boyfriends checked out?”

“Smart women.” Josh shrugged. “One major group of
female clients are women who have established careers and are financially independent.
They're at risk of being married for their money, same as men are.

They want to make certain they're not marrying con
artists who will clean out their bank accounts and then split. Another growing
group of clients are women who want to be sure they're not dating men who are
secretly bisexual or using drugs.”

“Makes sense to me,” the Colonel remarked from the
doorway. “In the old days a young woman's parents and neighbours knew a lot
about the man she wanted to marry. They did the background checks, you might
say. But these days there's no one to protect the ladies.”

“Or they won't listen if you do try to protect them.”

Josh slid Maggie a meaningful glance. “Give a lady a
little friendly advice these days and she takes the bit in her teeth and runs
in the opposite direction.”

“Speaking of running.” Maggie set her cup down on the
counter with a loud thud. “We'd better get breakfast on the table, hadn't we,
Odessa? I'm sure Josh is eager to get started on his inquiries. Colonel, would
you like to show him around Peregrine Manor this morning? You could point out
all the places where we've had problems. He might be able to find a clue or
something.”

“Certainly,” the Colonel agreed. “Be delighted.”

“A clue.” Josh looked politely enthusiastic. “What a
good idea. Clues are very helpful in my line of work.”

“We'll just have to hope you can recognize one when you
see it, won't we?” Maggie murmured as she pulled a frying pan out of the cupboard.

“Not to worry,” Josh retorted. “I brought along my
handy-dandy official private investigators' manual. I believe there's an entire
chapter devoted to finding and recognizing clues.”

“A manual, you say? How reassuring,” Maggie measured
flour for pancakes. “Did you see it advertised on the back of a cereal box and
send away for it with a coupon?”

“Probably,” Josh said. “I eat a lot of cereal. I almost
never get real home-cooked breakfasts, you see.”

“Well, well, well. Fireworks already.” The Colonel
winked at Odessa. “Sounds like things are going to be lively around here for
the next month.”

Shirley walked into the kitchen, yawning. “You know
what my Ricky always used to say about two people who went at it right off the
bat like Josh and Maggie here?”

“No. What did Ricky 'The Wrecker’ used to say?” Josh
asked.

“He'd say they were either meant for each other or else
they would wind up throttling each other. One of the two.”

“An interesting choice,” Josh observed blandly.

MAGGIE WAS RATHER surprised to discover that during the
next few days Josh fitted himself very comfortably into the routine at
Peregrine Manor. As his injured ribs and ankle improved, he even turned out to
be surprisingly useful around the place. He was always up first and had the
coffee going by the time Maggie came downstairs. Furthermore, he seemed to be
quite handy in the home-repair department. He gave her a hand painting three of
the guest bathrooms, fixed a broken toilet seat and rehung the canopy over his
bed.

And he did not make any more passes.

“I still don't know if you're much of an investigator,
but you're certainly saving me a bundle of money that I would normally have
spent on Dwight,” Maggie told him at one point.

“Who's Dwight?”

“Dwight Wilcox is a handyman in town. He usually takes
care of the minor repairs around here for me,” she explained.

By the end of the week Maggie realized she had already
grown accustomed to Josh's presence. The intimacy of sharing the kitchen with
him in the early morning hours had become something she unconsciously looked
forward to each day.

As far as she could tell, he was dutifully making
inquiries into the incidents at Peregrine Manor. Josh spent a lot of time with
the Colonel examining the basement where many of the problems had occurred, and
he talked to Odessa and Shirley at length. He asked questions about the nephews
and about Ricky 'The Wrecker' Ring. Furthermore, he disappeared into his room
for hours on end to work on his computer-It all seemed very professional to
Maggie.

The only really annoying aspect of the situation was
that she was getting very tired of making tea and scones at three in the
afternoon.

“I wonder what he does on that thing?” Shirley asked on
Friday. She was sitting at the kitchen table along with the others. They were
all watching Maggie mix up the scone dough.

Josh had been up in his room for the past three hours
and Maggie knew he would be down any minute de “Checking out the information
he's collecting.” The Colonel looked knowledgeable. “Our man is a modem sort of
investigator, just as I've suspected. Does most of his research on a computer,
he told me. Quite bright, too. Shows a good grasp of technical matters, in
general. Understood most of the details I gave him about my experiments, for
example.”

Odessa nodded, not looking up from her knitting.

“Very easy to talk to, I'll say that much for him. I
told him all about my three atrocious nephews. He certainly seemed to
understand how nasty family can get. Said a lot of his early work in the
investigation business involved unfortunate family situations.”

Josh appeared in the doorway, minus his crutches.

Maggie glanced at him as she bent over to shove the pan
of scones into the oven. “No. Not for another fifteen minutes. Where are the
crutches?”

“I don't need them anymore. See?” Josh walked carefully
into the room. He still limped but it was obvious he was again mobile. “I'll be
all right as long as I don't try to run up and down the stairs. Boy, am I
hungry”

“Yes, it has been a whole three hours since lunch,
hasn't it?” Maggie muttered.

Josh glanced at his wristwatch and frowned. “More than
three hours. What's happening around here? Says in the brochure that teatime is
at three o'clock every afternoon. It's now 3:05.”

Maggie shot him a narrow-eyed look. “Speaking of
stairs, what would happen if you took an unfortunate tumble down a flight?”

“I'd sue,” Josh assured her. “Tea ready?”

The wall phone rang before Maggie could tell him to fix
it himself if he was in that big a hurry. She picked up the phone.

“Peregrine Manor,” she snapped.

“Maggie?” The familiar male voice on the other end of
the line held a faint, inquiring note.

Maggie relaxed and leaned back against the wall.

“Hello, Clay. Sorry, I was busy. How are you?”

“Just fine,” Clay O'Connor said in his easy, pleasant
tones. “Thought I'd check and make sure we're still on for this evening.”

“Of course. Six o'clock, right?” Automatically Maggie
glanced at the calendar beside the phone and saw where she had written “Clay - 
dinner - six” on that day's date.

“Right.” There was a slight pause. “Listen, I hear
you've got a guest staying at the manor. Thought you'd decided to close for the
winter. Change your mind?”

Maggie realized with a start that she hadn't invented a
solid cover story to explain Josh's presence to outsiders. Her gaze swung toward
Josh who was watching her intently from where he was sitting at the table.

“It was kind of unexpected. Clay.” She sought
frantically for an explanation. Clay O'Connor was a very nice man, but she
didn't want anyone outside the small household at the manor to know that she
had hired an investigator. “I'll tell you all about it this evening. See you at
six.”

“Maggie-”

“Got to run. Clay. I've got scones in the oven. Bye.”

Maggie hurriedly hung up the phone and scowled at Josh.

“Problems?” Josh inquired softly.

“We've got to think up a good reason for your being
here at the manor. Josh. I don't want the people in Peregrine Point to know
I've hired a private investigator. It might get back to whoever is causing the
trouble around here.”

“That's right,” the Colonel chimed in. “When we made
the decision to hire you, we agreed to keep your real purpose here a secret,”

Josh eyed Maggie. He looked very thoughtful. “You don't
think your friend O'Connor could keep his mouth shut?”

Maggie winced. “I'm not worried about him keeping
quiet. I'm afraid he'll laugh at me. He thinks I'm getting paranoid about the
incidents.”

“Got it.” Josh nodded. “Don't worry, I'll come up with
a good cover story by the time he arrives to pick you up this evening. Six
o'clock, wasn't it?”

“Yes.” Maggie removed the kettle from the stove and
poured boiling water into a teapot. For some reason she felt vaguely uneasy.
She realized she didn't know how to read the expression in Josh's eyes.

Josh flashed a wicked grin. “Leave everything to me. I
keep telling you you're in good hands, Maggie.”

Maggie shot him a suspicious glance. She didn't like
the sound of that. “Perhaps we'd better work on the cover story together,
Josh.”

“Forget it. This is my area of expertise.”

“But, Josh – ”

The Colonel interrupted. “Now, Maggie, he's right.
Leave all that sort of thing to our man, here. He's a professional.”

“I think the scones are done,” Josh said helpfully. “By
the way, we're almost out of jam. You'd better put it on your shopping list,
Maggie.”