You Can Run... (12 page)

“No, it doesn’t.” Diana considered telling Glen about the gun that Simon had seen in Penny’s house. Then she glimpsed the toe of a white tennis shoe around the corner.
Nan was standing just out of sight at the library entrance, eavesdropping again. This wasn’t the first time Diana had caught the young woman listening to private conversations, and she knew that she should reprimand Nan, but not now. Still, she was glad she’d said nothing to Glen about the gun or the events at the hospital. She didn’t know what Nan Murphy might do with the information—probably try to sell it to a newspaper. “An arson investigator will probably check the house today,” she went on. “He’ll be able to tell us what caused the explosion.”

“I suppose so.” Glen put his arm around Diana and gazed into her eyes. “I’m just so thankful you weren’t in that house, Diana. You don’t know how much I care for you.”

Diana felt guilty, as Glen kissed her gently on the lips. His voice had deepened with emotion when he spoke of how much he cared for her. She wished only that she felt the same way about him.

“You found the SUV just parked in the driveway? No note? Nothing?”

“The keys were inside, which was a relief.” Simon smiled at Diana, who sat beside him on a couch in the library after Glen had left. “I have no idea what time Tyler Raines returned the car. I don’t know whether he left here on foot or he had a taxi waiting.”

“I’d be shocked that he didn’t even leave a note except that he also didn’t follow Willow to the hospital. He seemed so concerned about her at the site of the fire. He even went back to look for her after bringing Clarice and me here.” Diana shrugged. “I don’t understand him, and to be honest, Simon, I don’t trust him. His actions don’t make sense.”

“He seemed trustworthy to me when he was here, and I even understand him not going to the hospital with Willow—he’d already notified us, he isn’t her family, and he must have been exhausted. I don’t mean to belittle your woman’s intuition about him, though.”

“Oh, Simon!” Diana exclaimed. “You’re not going to explain my feelings by attributing them to sexist nonsense like women’s intuition.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, my dear, even if I believe in it just a tiny bit.” He grinned. “Your grandmother did have
some
influence on me. I do think sometimes, not often, intuition rather than provable data gives us the correct answer. And if you repeat that to anyone, I shall deny it with the last breath in my body!”

Diana giggled. “I promise not to repeat it, but I have to tell you, hardly a day goes by when you don’t surprise me. I don’t think anyone could ever completely know you, Simon Van Etton.”

“No one ever completely knows anyone else,” he replied, his tone growing serious. “But there is one person in this world I completely trust, Diana, and that is you.” She felt her color heighten in surprised pleasure. “That’s why when you tell me someone was in your hospital room last night, I know you’re right. Good heavens, no one is certain yet that the explosion at Penny’s was accidental. Didn’t those hospital people see the connection between the firecrackers going off and your claim that someone was hiding in your and Willow’s room at that same time?”

“Apparently not,” Diana said dourly. “They thought the firecrackers were someone’s idea of a joke, and I was an imaginative hysteric. To be fair, though, I didn’t take time to explain that we think Penny is in trouble, and that somebody might have meant her and Willow harm.”

“No, all they knew was that the little girl’s house had caught on fire. But someone setting off firecrackers on the hospital floor where a child who has just escaped a fire is staying would have seemed quite a coincidence to me even if I didn’t know the whole story.”

“Unfortunately, not everyone thinks about coincidences that are just too suspicious
not
to be real coincidences like you do, Uncle Simon. Most people weren’t interested in the
way
the firecrackers had been set,” Diana went on. “The orderly who found the firecrackers also discovered cigarette ashes in a trail on the floor beside the trash can. He explained how someone probably had pinched off the
filters of two extra-long cigarettes, fastened them together, and attached the fuse to them to delay igniting the firecrackers by six or seven minutes.

“When I heard that, I realized the time delay would have allowed someone to hurry to my and Willow’s room and hide before the firecrackers went off. In a lab coat, neither an unfamiliar man nor woman would have been noticed in that crowded corridor.”

“But you couldn’t convince anyone of this scenario.”

“I didn’t even try,” Diana said morosely. “I insisted Security search our room, but whoever had been hiding in the bathroom was gone. I know he left when I ran into the hall with Willow. The hospital personnel acted like I was an idiot. I can’t say I blame them. It does sound farfetched, especially because I couldn’t offer any reason for someone wanting to murder Willow and me. I still can’t, but I didn’t sleep the rest of the night. I sat up in a chair watching over Willow.”

Simon clasped Diana’s hand in his own strong, tanned one. “Of course you sat up watching over Willow if you sensed danger. I wouldn’t have expected anything less of you. You could have called me, you know.”

“So you could do what? Sit up with me? No, I needed you well rested today. You have to look after both Willow and Clarice.”

“Clarice doesn’t need me, dear. She’s very self-sufficient.”

“In her own home. This place is unfamiliar to her. I’m glad she’s here, though, both for her sake and for Willow’s. Even if her house were livable, I wouldn’t want to think of her sitting there looking at the heap that was Penny’s home, going over the experience time after time in her mind. Where’s Clarice now?”

“In her room, reading.” Simon couldn’t suppress his slightly proud expression. “She’s reading one of my books. I didn’t push it on her. It was lying on a table, she picked it up and flipped through it, then said it looked fascinating
and asked if I minded her reading it. If I
minded
! I was embarrassingly flattered.”

“Your books
are
fascinating,” Diana said seriously. Simon had always amazed her by his ability to write fast-paced, engrossing sagas of an ancient culture, when he couldn’t tell a simple children’s story to save his life.

Simon looked at her closely. “My dear, why don’t you lie down and rest? I can see you’re exhausted.”

“I’m worn out but not sleepy. Besides, I need to buy some clothes for Willow and go by Clarice’s to see if her clothes and medicine are salvageable. In the meantime, I should get going. The little energy I have left is definitely on the wane, and I don’t want to wait two hours for Nan to make another pot of coffee.”

Diana first bought a booster seat and had it installed in her car for Willow. She understood the child objecting to it—at five, Diana would have felt the same way about being forced to ride in a “baby seat.” Nevertheless, even if the law didn’t require the seat, Diana realized it provided safety for a young passenger.

Before she’d left the house, Diana had looked at the size of the dress the nurse had brought for Willow to wear home. She knew an experienced store clerk could help her select jeans, T-shirts, and shoes to fit the child. Clarice had insisted that if the fire had damaged her own clothing, she’d take a taxi downtown and choose a few new dresses for herself. “I can’t stand being such a burden,” she’d told Diana, who did not intend to send the woman off in a taxi for an extended shopping trip on a hot afternoon. She’d reassured Clarice for at least the fifth time that she was not a burden.

Before she would go shopping for Clarice, however, Diana needed to see if the woman’s clothes were salvageable.
The living room and kitchen areas of Clarice’s house faced Penny’s, which meant her bedroom was nearly the whole house’s length away from where the fire had damaged the living room and kitchen walls. She’d also told Diana she kept her medicine in the bathroom beside her bedroom.

After the booster seat installation, Diana drove toward the Rosewood housing development, hoping she might not have to shop for Clarice at all. She knew Willow would like anything she selected; a seventy-two-year-old woman might be more finicky, and saving time with the shopping would be a blessing. Diana desperately needed rest this evening and time tomorrow to begin developing the photographs she’d taken for the tourism board. Had she finished that annoying assignment just two days ago? She felt as if it had been weeks ago.

Diana had promised herself that she would slam a door against her memories, but as soon as she turned onto Penny’s street, a finger of horror touched her neck. In her imagination, the calm, clear afternoon turned to night, and wild, ravening flames leaped to the darkness above—higher, higher. . . .

Diana veered to the edge of the street, braked, and closed her eyes. She took three deep, bracing breaths and let her eyes drift open. She saw a clear, cornflower-blue sky, a gentle yellow sun, a few clouds looking like fluffy meringue—an unusually beautiful summer day presented like a gift to compensate for the horror of the previous night.

“So much for gifts,” Diana muttered bitterly. There weren’t enough gifts in the world to even the score.

I cannot go past Penny’s house,
Diana thought in near panic, although she’d let up on the brakes and was beginning to creep forward.
I’ll just tell Clarice the police or the fire department has declared her house isn’t safe. They refused me entrance. She can call her doctor and get a refill for her medicine. If she checks out my story or asks a neighbor to go in the house and she finds out I’m lying . . . well, it will just be the end of a beautiful friendship.

Diana’s thoughts raced until she neared the ugly, charged remains of Penny’s small home. She’d expected to see a secured site protected from curious children who would clamber around and get hurt, as well as curious adults who should know better but who’d also poke around. She had not expected to see official-looking cars pulled into the driveway and parked in front. She had not expected to see a news van and a leggy woman with every brunette hair sprayed in place interviewing a stiff-faced police officer.

And Diana certainly hadn’t expected to see Tyler Raines leaning carelessly against a police squad car, gazing at her with a smile that said he’d known she would come.

Diana whipped her car to the side of the road, jumped out, and marched up to Tyler. “What the hell are
you
doing here?” she demanded.

Tyler raised an eyebrow, smiling. “Just takin’ in the sights,” he said with an exaggerated Southern drawl. “Why? Miss me?”

An impossibly young cop standing beside Tyler glanced away, smirking. Diana felt like slapping him. She felt like slugging Tyler Raines. Instead, she let loose a barrage of words. “Where did you go last night? You found Willow, turned her over to the paramedics, and then just deserted her!”

The glint in his eyes vanished. “I didn’t desert her if I turned her over to the paramedics, now did I? I’m not a doctor. I couldn’t do anything for her. And I’m not family. My going to the hospital would have been a complete waste of time. They wouldn’t have let me stay with her.” He paused, smiling again. “But I’m sure you went to the hospital. Are you mad I wasn’t there waiting for
you
?”

Diana spluttered, “Are you crazy? Why would
I
want to see you?” The young patrol officer had completely turned
away as Tyler continued to lounge against his car, his tanned arms crossed, his sun-bleached blond hair shining in the light, and dimples forming on either side of his infuriating grin. “I’m just angry because everyone was puzzled. People at the hospital needed to ask you questions—”

“About a child I don’t know?”

“They thought you did. And you had Uncle Simon’s car—”

“You’re not going to try having me arrested for car theft, are you? It won’t work. If you didn’t notice, I returned the car.”

“I
know
you returned the car. But you never called to check on Willow. . . .”

“How is she?”

Diana gave him a scorching look. “She’s all right, which you would know if you’d waited in the emergency room until she’d been examined. She spent the night at the hospital—I stayed with her—and they released her this morning. She’s at Uncle Simon’s house. Penny is still unconscious, thank God. I even checked on the firefighter Davis who fell into the basement last night. He has two broken ribs and a broken wrist, but otherwise he’s fine. Not that
you
care.”

“You met me less than twenty-four hours ago but you know all about me,” Tyler said in an exasperated tone. “Of course I don’t give a damn about those people—not if Diana Sheridan says I don’t.”

“Well, you don’t act like you give a damn.” Diana realized she sounded silly, as if she expected him to stand outside their hospital rooms holding bouquets of flowers. She decided to counter with questions. “Who are you? What do you do in New York City?”

“I’m Tyler Raines. I thought we’d already established who I am. As for what I do—I’m an international spy.”

“Dammit, this isn’t the time for jokes. What is your occupation?”

“I don’t answer personal questions.”

“That’s personal?”

“I consider it so, yes.”

“Why do you keep turning up here?”

“I don’t ‘keep turning up here.’ I only came by about twenty minutes ago. Young Officer Patterson here can verify the time of my arrival. Officer?”

“Twenty minutes, ma’am.”

“Thank you so much for the information,” Diana returned sarcastically. She looked at Tyler. “That doesn’t answer why you’re here just like you were last night!”

Tyler cocked his head. “I ended up getting just as involved with the situation last night as you did. More—I helped the firefighters and I found the kid. I don’t think it’s unreasonable that I’d stop by this afternoon to see if anyone has discovered what was responsible for that inferno. That’s why I’m here.” He paused, his smirk fading. “Now, why don’t you try telling me the truth. Why are you so mad at me?”