Hidden Fire, Kobo (30 page)

He had to think this one through.
Logically, it was all wrong. But that assumed his and Sarah's innocence and
although he knew that to be the truth, a police investigator assumed everyone
was lying. Because they usually were.

Even though he knew this line of
investigation would be dropped eventually, how much time would be wasted? How
much further away would the real bad guys get? How much longer before the ache
in his belly wouldn't go away with a few Tums?

He returned to the table.

Eldridge stood, shook the chief's hand,
then offered his to Randy. "Nothing personal, here, Detective. I'm all for
a quick trip to the truth."

"Yes, sir."

"You want a ride back to the
station?"

"I'll take care of that," the chief
said. "Randy and I are going to talk about his upcoming vacation."

* * * * *

Sarah, Maggie on her heels, entered her
apartment and inhaled, calming herself. After what seemed like decades at the
police station, she was home.

"I wish you'd come home with me,"
Maggie said.

Sarah shook her head. "I want to be
in my own place."

"I understand. But I'm going to make
you some tea."

And make her relive everything. She
couldn't face it. Being in that interrogation room, alone for so long. Waiting.
Finally meeting with a lawyer. She'd spent enough time in a police station this
week to last her twelve lifetimes. "Maggie, I love you and I don't know
what I'd have done without you tonight, but—"

"But you want to be alone. And you
will. In half an hour after I make you some tea. Have you had dinner?"

Sarah shook her head. "I'm not
hungry."

Maggie eased Sarah's purse from her hand
and set it, along with hers, on the kitchen counter. "Go sit. I'll brew."

"I need a shower," Sarah said.
Where she could hide the tears that she wasn't going to be able to control much
longer.

"Go ahead."

Before she reached the bathroom, the
doorbell rang. Someone knocked, then rang the doorbell again. "I'll take
care of it," Maggie said.

"No, I will. It's my home."
Sarah wiped her eyes and went to the door. If it was another cop, she'd scream.
Or throw something. She stared through the peephole. For an instant, she didn't
want to make an exception for Randy. He knocked again and she reluctantly opened
the door.

"God, Sarah, how are you? I've been
going crazy." He grabbed her in his arms and carried her to the couch,
sitting her on his lap as if she were a child, clutching her to his chest, then
holding her away, studying her as if he couldn't believe she was real. He
caressed her cheek with a forefinger. "Did they do anything, anything at
all that wasn't appropriate? So help me, if they so much as looked at you
cross-eyed, I'll—"

"I'm fine, Randy. Honest. I did what
you said. I called Maggie and she called the Women's Center and got me a
lawyer. It was awful, but I'm fine. Maggie's making tea." She squirmed off
his lap and went to the kitchen. With the counter as a barrier, she studied
Randy's worried face. It was too hard to be strong when he held her, and until
she was alone, she needed to be strong.

He jumped to his feet. "Maggie. I'm
sorry. I didn't see you." He crossed to the kitchen and gave her neighbor
a hug that seemed as urgent as the one he'd given her. "Thank you."

"It's what friends do," Maggie
said. "Now, why don't you both sit and you can tell me what's been going
on." Sarah heard the unspoken,
because someone didn't want to talk on
the way home.

Sarah shifted her eyes from one to the
other. Better to do it once and get it over with. She accepted Randy's arm
around her shoulders as they walked to the couch, but she tucked herself into a
corner. She'd had enough people in her face already. He seemed to understand,
because he planted a gentle kiss on her head and sat across from her in one of
the easy chairs.

Maggie brought a teapot and three cups on
a tray and set it on the coffee table. "It'll be ready in a few minutes."
She went over to the cabinet where Sarah kept her liquor and brought both the
brandy and the Jameson. She poured some brandy into two of the cups and winged
her eyebrows at Randy.

"Irish, please."

She glugged a generous shot into the
third cup. "There you go. You can start on that while the tea brews if you
want. I've always liked the way a little good booze blends with chamomile."

Sarah deliberated for two seconds before
picking up a cup. The brandy burned her throat and made her eyes water, but she
looked forward to its effects.

Uncharacteristically, Randy left his cup
on the tray. He normally drank his liquor straight, not mixed into herbal tea.
He winced and rubbed his belly. Sarah uncurled herself and stomped to the
kitchen and poured a tall glass of milk. As an afterthought, she found a box of
vanilla wafers and carried them with her. She set the cookies on the table and
handed Randy the glass.

They didn't speak, but the touch they
exchanged when he took it from her said enough.

Randy downed half the milk, then set the
glass on a coaster. "Whenever you're ready."

As if she'd ever be. But they weren't
going away and the sooner she got through it, the sooner she could crawl into a
hole for the night.

"They had a warrant," she
began. "They were looking for any of Garrigue's pottery. They took my
computer, my files and practically turned the place upside down. They had one
for my apartment, too." She looked around, seeing everything in order. "Maybe
they haven't been here yet."

"They were here, sweetie,"
Maggie said. "Mrs. Pentecost let them in."

"Did they take anything?" she
asked.

"She said they took your computer,"
Maggie said. "She has the paperwork."

Sarah looked at the empty spot on her
desk and wondered why she hadn't noticed. Was she that upset? Well,
yes.

"But I straightened up," Maggie
continued. "I couldn't have you coming home to a mess."

Sarah's throat closed. She poured tea
into her mug atop the remaining brandy and forced a swallow. "Thank you,
Maggie."

"Like I said, it's what friends do."
Maggie looked at her patiently, but her curiosity was evident. She tipped a few
of the cookies onto the tray and took one.

"They think I'm involved in a
smuggling ring," Sarah said.

The cookie dropped from Maggie's fingers.
"You? Smuggling? They have
got
to be kidding."

"I tried to explain that,"
Randy said. "Unfortunately, off-the-wall as it seems, there was enough
evidence for them to check."

"I told everything to the lawyer,"
Sarah said. "He did whatever lawyers do and said I could come home."

"Why on earth did they think you were
smuggling? And what did they think you smuggled? Drugs?" Maggie asked.

Sarah shook her head. "Diamonds.
Hidden inside coffee mugs. Inside the pottery itself."

"Oh, my word," Maggie said. "Diamond
smuggling. Like blood diamonds? There was that movie about them."

She was too numb to care what kind of
diamonds they were. "I don't know, Maggie. I doubt it'll make much
difference."

"What do you think, Randy?"
Maggie said.

"Sarah's right. Not to condone blood
diamonds, but the smuggling charges are going to be the ones to disprove. The
feds or Interpol will follow up with where the diamonds originated. Right now,
we have to figure out who's behind this. Get Sarah out of the loop so the cops
can find the real crooks."

"You'll do that, won't you?"
Maggie said. "Can we help?"

Sarah sat up a little straighter. Maggie
was right. Crying in the shower wasn't going to solve anything. "Have you
talked to Kovak and Mike Connor?" she asked. "I brought the mug we
took from Saint Michael's to them. Nothing about the construction made sense,
but smuggling something inside the mugs never occurred to me."

Randy picked up his milk and drained the
glass. He shoved his hair off his forehead. "They're off the case."

"So, you're back on it?" Sarah
asked, hope growing inside. Not that she didn't think Kovak was a good cop, but
she
knew
Randy.

His fists clenched. His silence sent
ripples down her spine.

"Randy?" she said. "You're
not
on the case? Who is?"

"Conflict of interest," he
said, more to the floor than to her or Maggie. "County Sheriffs are taking
over."

Like the deputies who'd come and
questioned her. Torn her shop apart. Assumed she was guilty. Why? Because it
would close the case for them? A quick solve instead of the truth?

The room swam. Her face grew hot, her
hands cold. Maggie was saying something, but her voice was so far away.

Then a cup was at her lips and the fiery
taste of whisky burned her tongue.

"Swallow, Sarah." Randy's
voice. Reflexively, she obeyed. The hazel flecks in his eyes swam in her
vision. She coughed, her eyes watering.

She managed to choke out an, "I'm
all right."

He sat beside her, his big, warm hand
holding both of her small ones. "Easy does it."

"I'm fine," she said.

"You're white," Maggie said. "And
shaking. Have you eaten?"

"Maggie," Randy said gently. "Would
you mind leaving us alone?"

Maggie crossed to the couch and stroked
Sarah's hair. "Of course not. I'll let myself out," Maggie said. She
retrieved her purse and went to the door. She turned, trapping both of them
with a schoolteacher stare that would have dropped any student dead in his
tracks. "I'm counting on you, Randy, to take care of things. And Sarah, I
expect you to accept help from him and anyone else who has something to offer.
This is no time to prove you can do everything by yourself."

"Yes, ma'am," she said meekly.
She knew about running a business and managing a household but after two
sessions with the cops, she knew better than to try this on her own.

"Call if you need anything,"
Maggie said. After she left, Randy locked the deadbolt.

The worry in his eyes when he came back
to the couch frightened her more than dealing with the cops. "What's
wrong? And if you say it's nothing, you are out of here."

"It's not nothing," he said. "I'm
a suspect, too."

"You? That's more ridiculous than me."

"Right. So we're going to prove them
wrong. There's one little hitch, though."

"What kind of hitch?"

"I'm on mandatory vacation. Any and
all official police work is off-limits."

She heard the way he emphasized "official".

"That's not going to stop you, is
it?"

Randy leaned across the truck's cab and
rested his hand on Sarah's shoulder. "Wake up, sleeping beauty." She'd
insisted on showering before they left and her fresh scent had tantalized him
all the way down from Pine Hills.

She jerked awake, a bewildered expression
on her face. "Huh?" Her gaze fixed on him, then the truck.
Recognition set in. "Oh. What time is it?"

"About midnight."

"I guess I dozed off."

He tousled her hair. "Yeah, for
about three hours. We're at Grants Pass, which is as far as we're going
tonight. I need to crash."

She yawned and rubbed her eyes. "Mm-kay."

He wondered if she was going to fall back
to sleep, but she opened her door. He rounded the front of the truck and snaked
his arm around her waist as they strolled to the quaint motel's lobby. Her body
radiated warmth in the chill night air and he snugged her closer.

"How's your stomach?" she
asked.

"Fine. Thanks for the soup." He'd
eaten it more to ensure she ate something than because he'd been hungry, but it
had extinguished the fire in his belly. The lobby doors were wood, not glass
and they required that someone actually pull them open. Inside, the
registration counter was empty, but he heard a television playing from what
must have been the clerk's office. He cleared his throat, but no one appeared.

Sarah reached forward and dinged the
old-fashioned metal push bell with a firm slap. She smiled up at him. "Nice
to see something low-tech once in a while." She ambled over to a brochure
rack and started leafing through a display of area attractions.

A sleepy-looking clerk, probably barely
in his twenties, stumbled out scratching the sparse blond stubble on his jaw. "Welcome
to Grants," he mumbled. "Checking in?"

"Yes," Randy said. "Room
for two. We don't have a reservation."

"S'no prob." He reached into a
folder and pushed a card across the countertop. "Top five lines, sign at
the X. How ya' gonna pay?"

Randy slipped his credit card from his
wallet and handed it to the kid, who shoved it through a reader. "Guess
the important stuff is high-tech," he said to Sarah.