Protecting Peggy (16 page)

An ache punched into his stomach and up toward his heart. He couldn't leave her like this, not without explaining. Dammit, he needed to explain. He looked at Lummus. “Give us a minute. I want to talk to Peggy alone.”

The cop shifted his gaze across the kitchen. “Is that okay with you, Peggy?”

“Mr. Sinclair and I don't have anything to talk about.”

Rory took a step toward her. “You need to understand something. I'm not leaving until you and I talk. Alone.”

“Wrong,” Lummus countered evenly. “You'll leave when Peggy says. Otherwise, I'll advise her to sign a trespassing complaint against you.”

Rory flashed him a feral smile. “Good try, pal, but that won't work. I'm a paying guest. Legally, I've done nothing that gives my landlady the right to force me to leave.”

“You might be right.” Lummus rested a hand on the butt of his holstered automatic. “But if Peggy does sign a complaint, you and I will have to go to the courthouse and let a judge settle things.”

Without comment, Rory walked to the counter, lifted the top of the shoe box. Inside were numerous vials containing a clear liquid. Each vial bore a dated label marked “Hopechest” and the initials “CO.”

Rory turned, met Lummus's gaze. The Prosperino cop wasn't the only one who could play hardball.
“Mrs. Honeywell has discovered evidence significant to an FBI investigation.” That was a stretch, Rory conceded. After all, he had come to Prosperino on personal time, as a favor to Blake. “My investigation is classified. That means information is on a need-to-know basis. If I think you need to know what this witness has to say, Sergeant Lummus, I'll let you know
after
I take her statement. I intend to do that right now. I doubt I have to tell you what problems my agency can cause for yours if you knowingly impede a federal investigation.”

A muscle worked in Lummus's jaw as he turned to Peggy. “If you have a problem being alone with this guy, I'll stay here until he goes.”

She closed her eyes, opened them. “I'm sorry to involve you in this, Kade. To cause you problems.” She flicked Rory an icy look. “To have you threatened in my home. You don't need to stay, Kade. I can handle this.”

“If you decide you need some help, I'll be right outside.” Lummus walked to the door, pulled it open, then turned. “I'll wait in my car, Sinclair. You can follow me to the scene. I wouldn't want you to get the idea I'm impeding your investigation.”

“Fine.” Rory knew he had some fences to mend with the cop.

Peggy walked to the center island, laid the sprig on a cutting board, then looked at him. Despite the fists her hands were clenched in, they were shaking.

Knowing it was probably unwise to try to get closer, he moved to the opposite side of the island. “I'm sorry—”

“I'm sure you are, Agent Sinclair,” she interrupted, very cool, very calm. “It's obvious you never intended for me to find out that you're a cop.”

“I was planning on telling you this morning.”

“What was wrong with telling me last night?”

He shoved a hand through his hair. “Look, I know I've made a mistake. I should have told you. I just wanted… I just didn't.”

Her eyes sparked, shot green fire. “You had no right not to tell me.
No right!
”

“I know that. I know.”

Cursing himself for a fool, he turned, looked out the window at the gray drizzle. “Blake called me at the lab in D.C.,” he said quietly. “He told me about the water contamination, and said he was fed up with O'Connell's lack of results. And suspicious of him, too. Blake had spotted O'Connell having a clandestine meeting at a hay shed on Hopechest, so Blake figured the guy was up to no good. He asked me to come to Prosperino, represent myself as a private chemist so I could test the water and watch O'Connell. Blake figured the best place I could do that was to check in where O'Connell was staying.”

“I don't care how you wound up here.” Her voice didn't waver, but her hands were now clenched so hard on the edge of the island that her knuckles showed white. “All I care about is that you leave.”

“I'm not going anywhere until we settle this.”

“It's settled.”

“Like hell.” He walked around the island toward her. He couldn't not go to her. “Nothing's settled until you let me explain—”

“
You knew.
You knew how I felt about cops, but that didn't matter.”

“It did matter. I was crazy to get my hands on you. The minute you told me how your husband died, about how you'd sworn off cops, I backed away. Dammit, I spent three days avoiding you while going slowly out of my mind.”

“I
trusted
you.”

“I told you everything I could,” he shot back, his hands fisting against his thighs. “I even considered telling you I was a cop, but I couldn't take that chance.” Digging deep, he found his control again, softened his voice. Every word he spoke hurt his throat. “I had to assume that if I told you, your behavior toward me would change. I didn't know—
don't know
—what O'Connell was up to. If you suddenly started acting different toward me for no apparent reason, it might have made him suspicious. He could have started thinking you knew something about me that he needed to know. He could have hurt you trying to find out.”

“Oh, so, by lying you were
protecting
me.” With a sudden angry gesture she jerked off the band tying back her hair. Dark waves tumbled over her shoulders. “How noble of you.”

“Dammit, I didn't have a choice!” Her frigid anger helped justify his own. “Has it for once crossed your mind that O'Connell might be the man who attacked you in the greenhouse?”

Surprise dulled the anger in her eyes. “Why? Why would he do that?”

“Maybe he was already inside the greenhouse that
day, hiding the shoe box of water samples when you came in. No way could he come up with a believable explanation for being there, so he hid under one of the potting benches. If that's the case, he probably panicked when he heard my car pull in—he might have thought I would come to the greenhouse, too. The fog was as thick as soup that day. He would have known if he made it to the door he could get away without my seeing him, even if I was in the parking lot. His one chance to do that was to put you out of commission for a few minutes so he could get out of there.”

“Maybe it was him.” The quiet resignation in her voice reached Rory. “That's not the issue here. You didn't respect me enough to tell me the truth about yourself.”

“Respect has nothing to do with it. I didn't tell you because I couldn't risk O'Connell coming after you. If it was him who attacked you in the greenhouse, that gives you an idea of what he was capable of. And that's not all,” Rory continued, jerking his head in the direction of the shoe box. “You think O'Connell hid those water samples because he didn't know what was in them? It's my guess he knew early on what contaminated Hopechest's water, but he had a reason to keep that to himself. If that's the case, he could have clued in Jason Colton, given the doc facts about what those pregnant teens from Hopechest consumed. Instead, those girls are still terrified over what might happen to their babies. If I'm right, O'Connell purposely let everyone in this town suffer because he had some sort of personal agenda. You think he'd have had any qualms where you're concerned?”

“Like you?” she countered. “You knew the truth about how I felt, but you had your own personal agenda where I'm concerned.”

“Stop twisting this around,” he said through his teeth. “I did what I thought was right.”

“Deceiving me was right for
you.
” Her bottom lip trembled. “Jay worked undercover. Do you know what he told me the unwritten cop rule is about undercover work?”

With an oath, Rory grabbed her arms. “I don't—”

“He said you lie. And you use. And you take advantage of anything that's offered. Well, I offered you plenty, but I won't be doing that anymore.”

“What happened between us isn't like that.” He gave her a light shake. For the first time in years, he felt alone on the inside. Hollow. “I care about you. I feel more for you than I have for anyone else.
Anyone.
Last night was about a lot more than just sex, and you know it.”

She jerked out of his hold, took a step back. Then another. “Do you honestly believe there would have been a last night if I had known you were a cop? Do you?”

“No.” She was slipping away from him. He was standing only a few feet from her, watching the distance grow by leaps and bounds. “No.”

“I didn't just give you my body, Rory. I gave you everything.
Everything,
” she repeated with stinging emphasis. “This morning, it dawned on me…”

“What?” he prompted quietly when her voice hitched. “What dawned on you?”

“That I'm a fool.” Her eyes remained dry, but hurt
welled in them. “Now that you've lied and used and taken advantage of everything that was offered you, I want you to go. Maybe Blake can put you up at Hopechest—I really don't care. All I care about is that you get out of my life and my home.”

“Just like that?”

“Yes.”

“Ireland—”

“Now!”

 

Upstairs, Rory threw his clothes into his leather duffel that sat open on the bed, still rumpled from the hours he had spent with Peggy. Packing was a skill he knew well; he could do it on automatic pilot.

He'd been rejected before, he reminded himself as he grabbed his socks out of the bureau and lobbed them into the bag. His father had sent him away, time and again. After a while, it had no longer hurt. After a while, he had stopped begging to stay where he wasn't wanted. He wouldn't beg now. He'd be damned if he begged.

Even if the events of the morning hadn't taken place, he would have walked away soon. Left for the lab in D.C., or wherever the hell the twists and turns of his job sent him next. No ties, no regrets.

No looking back.

The zipper rasped harshly as he closed the duffel while anger and guilt welled inside him. Placing his unsteady hands on the bed's brass footboard, he tried to stop the pain that stabbed in his gut. He had the sick feeling he had just been shut out of the best thing that had ever happened in his life.

“No.” His jaw hardened with the word. He didn't want to stay. Wasn't the kind of man who stayed. He would leave the inn and its landlady, just as he had left dozens of other spots, hundreds of other people.

Hoisting his bag and evidence kit, he turned and stalked out of the room without a look back.

 

Forty-five minutes later, Rory followed Lummus's black-and-white patrol car around a steep curve, and saw flashing red and blue lights. Cars and vans loomed up ahead, solemnly gathered at the scene of Charlie O'Connell's death.

Rory counted over a dozen vehicles parked along the side of the narrow road that Lummus had accurately described as a nightmare of twists and turns. Towering redwoods crowded one side; the other was lined by a steep face of rough rock that plunged toward the ocean.

The scene looked no different from the hundreds of others Rory had worked. Cops, both uniformed and plain-clothed went about their duties. Just past the spot where Lummus parked, a jump-suited tech used a measuring wheel with a telescoping handle to take the dimensions of a set of skid marks that veered toward the cliff. Another tech crouched over a second set of marks, snapping photographs. Rory knew that, despite the skid marks left by the station wagon, it might be impossible to determine which direction the vehicle had been headed seconds before it plunged toward the sea.

He eased his car in behind Lummus's, then climbed out. He took a minute to pull on his leather jacket
against the cool bite of wind that carried the salty tang of the sea. During the drive, the rain had stopped, leaving the sky a bitter blue. Matched his mood, he decided as he retrieved his evidence kit out of the trunk, then strode toward a grim-faced Lummus. Bitter or not, Rory knew he needed to clear the air between himself and the cop so they could do their jobs.

“Look, I apologize for forcing the issue of agency cooperation with you at the inn.” As he spoke, Rory sat the kit on the blacktop, pulled out his badge case, flipped it open and anchored it into his jacket pocket. “Nothing personal.”

Lummus's brown eyes were flat and cool. “It's pretty obvious what's going on between you and Peggy.”

“That's our business.”

“I agree. You just need to know that after I'm done here, I'm heading back to Honeywell House. I plan to tell Peggy to give me a call if you show up and she doesn't want you there. That happens, I won't give a damn about agency cooperation. Whatever goes on between you and me will be personal.”

“I'm not going back to Honeywell House.” Rory forced away the urge to slam his fist into the nearest redwood. He had to compartmentalize his roiling emotions, focus on the job. “After I'm done here, I'm flying those water samples O'Connell had stashed in the greenhouse to the FBI's lab in San Francisco. I want to know what the hell he was up to.”

“That's something we agree on.” Lummus gestured toward the narrow footpath that led down to the base of the cliff. “After you, Agent Sinclair.”

Rory identified himself and gave the name of his agency to the uniformed officer compiling the crime scene log. That done, he and Lummus started down the zigzagging path.

As they edged their way along the sloping cliff, Rory became aware of the heartbeat of the sea. It hit him then how much he would miss driving daily along the coast road to the airport, listening to the thunderous crash of water slapping against rock. His jaw tightened. He would miss a hell of a lot more than just the ocean.