Worst Laid Plans (A Maddox Storm Mystery Book 1) (18 page)

There were only a couple of feet between us and I had to tilt my head all the way up to meet his gaze. “Can I ask you something?”

“Can I stop you?”

“It’s about the Rowan Circle Earl Grey tea.”

He hitched a thumb into the belt at his waist, flicking up the edge of his sweater in the process. “Ask away, although I won’t promise to answer.”

“Did you find the Rowan Circle tea in your inventory?”

Nate nodded. “And the forensic result on the cyanide was negative.”

“How big was the pack? A hundred tea bags or two fifty?”

His brow lifted. “You’ve done your homework.”

“I was curious.”

He sighed. “Two hundred and fifty.”

“So the cyanide wasn’t necessarily administered directly into the cup of tea that morning.”

“We’ve figured as much,” Nate said. “It could have been inserted into a random tea bag.”

“How long had Ms Daggon been living at Hollow House?”

“Five weeks, three days.” He frowned at me. “What are you getting at, Maddox?”

I answered with my next question. “Do you know how many cups of tea she drank a day?”

It didn’t take him long to realize what I was saying.

“Dammit.” He shook his head, his jaw clenched. “We’re looking into everyone who had access to Hollow House, but if Belinda Daggon opened that pack before she moved out of her own home, that busts the field wide open.”

I breathed in a lungful of relief that Burns and Mr Hollow were off the hook.

Nate’s troubles, on the other hand, appeared to have doubled.

“I have more people with motives than I know what to do with,” he said. “And now all of them have possible opportunity.”

“There’s something else I have to tell you.” I drained the remainder of my coffee and crumpled the cardboard cup as I peered up at him. “But first you have to promise you won’t arrest me.”

“God, Maddox.” He shoved a hand through his hair, forgot his sunglasses were perched there and almost sent them flying. “What have you done now?”

I didn’t appreciate his tone, but in all honesty, I couldn’t blame him. “Promise?”

“I’m not going to arrest you,” he groaned.

I dropped my eyes to the crumpled paper cup and strangled it with nervous fingers. “I might have gone snooping in Ms Daggon’s room after your last visit.”

“Of course you did.”

I scowled up at him. “You don’t have to sound so un-surprised.”

He just looked at me. “How did you get in? Did you break the door down?”

“I’m not a vicious animal.” I gave a haughty sniff. “I picked the lock.”

“Should I ask?”

“Probably not,” I muttered. “And I’m not saying this is relevant or that one thing has to do with the other and I’m not saying—”

“Maddox?” he cut in, and then paused, his expression softening around the edges of his earlier frustration. “Let’s just get to what you are saying, okay?”

“Okay.” I swallowed hard and related what I knew about the photograph and Mr Biggenhill’s disappearance.

Facts only.

And what my dad had told me.

All that stuff about the Three Musketeers and loan sharks and mafia executions, I kept to myself. If links were made and conclusions drawn, I wanted nothing to do with it.

“I’ll get someone on it.” Nate whipped out his cell phone. “See what we can find out about
The Lounge
.”

I watched on while he spoke into the phone, condensing my words into a few short, efficient sentences. I’d already searched high and low for any mention of
The Lounge
, but I assumed his resources stretched farther than Google.

“I’m going to need that photo,” he told me when he was done. Humor fed into his eyes. “Should I stop by the station to collect the key or can we rely on your impressive lock-picking skills?”

“You won’t need a key,” I said vaguely.

I stood and brushed down the creases in my pants.

“Then I’ll meet you back at Hollow House.”

“Actually, I walked into town so I’ll have to ride—” My words tailed into a screech. My beaded flip-flop caught on an exposed root and I tipped toward Nate, falling into his arms.

Not a fake, elegant drape of my gorgeous body all over him kind of fall. This one belonged firmly in the flat-on-my-face kind of fall category. Except his reflexes were that good, he caught me, so I landed with my palms squished between us and my cheek crunched to his chest.

“I am so, so…” I glanced up and lost the gist of my apology.

His arm had looped around my waist and the way he looked at me, as if he could look forever and never get enough, sent a flutter to my pulse. His head lowered, and I never thought to stop what was coming.

The moment his lips touched mine, my stomach dipped like a roller coaster ride. He didn’t deepen the kiss, but his hand slid up beneath my tee and his thumb feathered that sensitive spot near the base of my spine and every slant of his wide, firm mouth tugged another thread of desire through me.

No doubt about it, we had chemistry and I knew how rare that was, for me at least. The only other person that had ever made my body hum like this with a mere kiss was Joe…

Crap.

I flattened my palms to Nate’s chest and pressed.

His mouth swerved off mine, his breath ragged against my cheek.

I was rather ragged myself, but I couldn’t do this. I couldn’t stand here and kiss Nate while I compared him to my husband.

“I’m sorry.” I pressed harder and Nate’s arm fell away from around me as I took a step back. “We can’t do this.”

“You’re right, we shouldn’t.” He pushed a hand through his hair, knocking his sunglasses again. This time he brought them down to cover the hungry look in his eyes. “You’re our number one suspect and I’m the lead investigator.”

“I’m your number
one
suspect?” I gaped at him, that kiss a distant memory. “You said I wasn’t under investigation.”

“I mean on paper, Maddox. You have plausible motive, you had the opportunity and you destroyed the crime scene. But I’m not investigating you, which is why it would look even worse if this…” he waved a hand between us “…happened.”

I almost asked why he wasn’t investigating me. Did he seriously have that much confidence in his gut feelings? I didn’t though, just in case that gave him the idea to start having second thoughts.

∞∞∞

The five minute drive to Hollow House felt like an hour in the awkward silence. I was still prickling from being classified a prime suspect, even if it were only on paper.

I snuck a sideways peek at Nate through lowered lashes. He looked quite relaxed, actually, his elbow resting on the door bar, a light hand on the wheel.

It occurred to me that we’d been speaking at cross-purposes back there in the woods. Nate thought I’d stopped that kiss because of conflicting interests in his case while my conflict had been all about my estranged husband.

But I supposed that would be a moot point to bring up, since we were both in agreement. Kissing was off the table.

He pulled up alongside the porch steps and I popped the door before he’d even turned cut the engine.

“Maddox…”

“Hmm?” I sent him a terse smile as I climbed down from the truck.

He lowered his sunglasses to look me in the eye. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, sure.” My smile warmed without permission.

For goodness sake.

I slammed the car door on his charm offensive and glided up the stone steps. Okay, I scurried up the steps, but he’d never know that because I was at the top and through the door before he could slide out from behind the wheel.

Burns popped an eye open from his wicker chair at the reception desk. “Ms Storm. Ah, I see you brought a visitor,” he murmured as his gaze flickered over my shoulder, then back to me. “And one waiting in the lounge.”

“Oh?” Expecting either Jenna or my mom, I held a finger up to Nate. “I’ll just say hello, then we can go get that photo.”

I flew around the desk and skidded to an abrupt halt beneath the archway at the sight of Joe unfolding himself from a sofa. Floppy hair, expressive brown eyes crinkling at the corners, that sweater unraveling at the cuffs that I’d thought of tossing out so many times but never did because he claimed it was his lucky sweater…it was too much.

“What are you doing here?” I choked out.

The next instant, Nate was at my side.

Sensing my distress, he placed a protective hand on my arm and stepped slightly in front of me.

“I don’t think we’ve met,” he said to Joe, his voice stamped with authority. “I’m Detective Bishop.”

“Joseph McMurphy.” Joe’s pointed look went from Nate to the hand on my arm, and then to me. “Maddie’s husband.”

My spine stiffened at his possessive tone and my chin came up.

The effect was lost on Joe since Nate had already swiveled right in front me and blocked Joe’s view.

“You’re married?” he said quietly.

He’d left his sunglasses in the truck and I wished he hadn’t. I didn’t know what exactly I was seeing in his eyes, only that it wasn’t good.

Hurt?

Anger?

Betrayal?

All of the above?

“It’s complicated,” I said softly.

“No, Maddox, it really isn’t.” He looked at me a long moment, but I had no argument in me.

He was right; it really wasn’t.

I was married.

Two weeks ago, I’d even been happily married.

My emotions were a complicated mess, but the rest was cut and dried. I should never have allowed that kiss to happen.

Nate released my arm and walked out the room.

“I’ll be back in a minute,” I told Joe and went after him, down the dimly lit passage and around the back of the house to Ms Daggon’s room.

Nate reached the bedroom door, realized he’d stormed out on his master lock-picker and looked around.

“It’s open,” I called.

He peeled the yellow tape away and tried the handle. The entire assembly, naturally, came apart in his hands. Clearly not my finest work.

He pushed the door open and stepped over the debris without comment. His phone beeped and I left him to it while I went down on my knees to scrabble through Ms Daggon’s shoe box.

“We found
The Lounge
.”

Photo in hand, I shuffled about on my knees to see his eyes glued to his phone. “Where is it?”

“Where
was
it, you mean,” he said. “I just got an email from Records. We had an incident there in the late eighties, a bunch of conservative folk up Rochester way marched on the place in protest.” He read as he spoke, summarizing for me. “No lives lost, but the whole establishment burnt to the ground.”

“What were they protesting about?”

He looked at me. “
The Lounge
was a live music club in a Texas ranch themed resort about thirty miles from here on the route to Rochester. Bungalows, hot springs, entertainment, all geared toward alternative lifestyles.”

“A resort for same sex couples,” I said thoughtfully.

“Not only that.” His eyes dropped to the phone again. “Transvestites, cross-dressers… If some guy wanted to wear his wife’s stilettos out in public, the ranch would be the place to do it. For example,
The Lounge
hosted drag queen shows.”

“Well, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Never mind.” I pushed up from my knees and handed him the photo.

He gave it a cursory glance. “I doubt this has anything to do with my vic, but it could help us close a cold case. You’re thinking about the Biggenhill disappearance, right?”

“It’s just…” I sighed. “This is purely speculation, but if Mr Biggenhill felt more at home in a place like the ranch, that could be a good reason for giving up his old life completely. Except for Ms Daggon, maybe, and Principle Limly certainly since he must have visited there when Mr Biggenhill took that photo.”

“You’re sure that’s speculation and not something you’re not telling me?”

He might as well have said, ‘
another
thing you’re not telling me.’ I felt like spitting out that I wasn’t in the habit of introducing myself with the byline, ‘by the way, I’m married’ but seriously, was there any point?

“One hundred percent sure,” I told him.

“Well, then, thanks for the insight and for this.” He held the photo up. “I’ll see to it that someone informs you if we make any progress.”

With that, he turned and walked out. I guessed that was the end of our three seconds of friendship.

One man deftly dealt with, one more to go.

I suppose I should have been expecting Joe to arrive in person, since I’d been ignoring his calls, but I really hadn’t.