Maggie rubbed her arms and paced. The sense that her life was finally moving toward closure should have given her some measure of peace, but she couldn’t find it. Instead nervousness churned the acid in her stomach. She couldn’t make it go away. She couldn’t even settle it down. Watching the clock and the relentless endless march of the second hand only reminded her that she couldn’t stop the future or change the past.
All of her life Maggie had hated waiting because it meant giving up control. Waiting had always made her feel powerless. That’s how she felt now. She had no idea what Webb Garner knew about that night or how much he’d tell Beau. Or what Beau would do then.
All she could do was hurry up and wait. Watch Russell shuffle papers. Pace, and hope the chill inside her would go away. She needed something to do, something to take her mind off waiting. When she spun around to change directions, she knocked the phone book off the edge of the desk. It hit the floor with a thud that echoed in her mind, sending her back in time.
“Maggie May, don’t come down here again!” Sarah’s voice was sharp and desperate, scaring her. Sarah took a deep breath, and tried to soften it with a smile.
But Maggie knew the smile wasn’t real.
“Go back to bed, sweetie. I broke my mama’s flower bowl is all, and it scared me. I’ll clean it up. No harm done. You go to bed. Okay? No harm done. Please?”
Nodding, Maggie retreated from the railing, but she didn’t climb back in bed. She left her door open a crack and sat beside it, listening, afraid Webb had returned. She listened a long time before she heard anything. Then finally a woman said Sarah’s name, and she sighed with relief. It was Carolyn down there. Everything would be okay. If Webb came back, at least Sarah wouldn’t be alone. Carolyn could help.
Maggie was about to shut the door, but Sarah’s voice rooted her in place. “Get out. I don’t want to see your face. You’re trash, and you always will be.” There was so much anger that when Sarah paused for breath the anger remained, hovering in the house. Carolyn tried to speak but Sarah cut her off, calling her something Maggie knew was had but didn’t understand. Something the men called her mother.
A slap rang out as hard and fast as the insult. Maggie heard it connect, heard someone stumble backward and knock over a piece of furniture that landed with a thud. Then there was silence.
Maggie closed her door and covered her ears. She didn’t want to hear any more fighting. It wasn’t supposed to he like this. She didn’t want to stay here if it was going to be like this.
Maggie held her hands over her ears for a long time, squeezing her eyes shut as she heard the sound of a chair falling again and again in her mind. Each time was a knife in her heart because now she knew that Sarah never got back up.
God, Carolyn, she was your best friend. How could you? Maggie knew the answer. Beau’s scenario of how Sarah had died was right on the money. Except that Carolyn had been the one who pushed Sarah. Carolyn had been the one to panic, not Webb.
“Are you okay?” Russell asked from behind her.
She jumped, whirled and lied—all on reflex. “Headache. It’s that blood sugar thing.”
“You need a doctor?”
“No.”
“Are you sure you’re okay?” Russell asked again and moved out of the doorway, ready to catch her if she sagged. “You look wiped.”
“I’ve got some crackers and some aspirin in my purse. That’s all I need.” She reached for her purse. “Did you want me for something?”
“I was going to walk over to the lab and pick up some reports, but I don’t think I should—”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m just going to sit here and eat my crackers. Promise.” She just wanted him to go away so she could think and sort it all out. He didn’t look convinced, so she eased into a chair, wordlessly reassuring him that she wouldn’t exert herself until he got back. The effort to smile was almost too much.
“If you’re sure you’re okay? Beau does want these reports.”
“Then go. He gets so cranky when he doesn’t get what he wants.”
Russell grinned. “So you’ve noticed.”
“Uh-huh. Go get your reports. Take your time. I’m fine.”
As soon as he disappeared into the hallway, Maggie’s smile faded and she bent over to cradle her head in her hands. For a while she just replayed the scene in her mind. She needed answers, and she found none.
Anger and hurt, betrayal and failure piled up inside Maggie until there wasn’t room for anything else. A trick of the mind assimilated all of the emotions into a need to confront Carolyn. Unlike Sarah, Maggie wanted to see Carolyn’s face. Up close. Maggie wanted to look her in the eye, wanted Carolyn to own her guilt. Carolyn had tried to destroy her, and Maggie wanted a pound of flesh.
Even as she recognized the need, a sick premonition came over her, and her mind raced into a terrifying game of “what if.”
What if Webb had given Beau enough information to piece it together? What if he was already on his way to Carolyn to confront her? What if Carolyn was waiting for him? What if Carolyn had arranged an accident for him?
She didn’t know Carolyn anymore, didn’t know what she was capable of or how her mind worked. Years in the ER unit had taught her that the only element of human nature she could count on was survival instinct. If Carolyn felt cornered by Beau, there was no telling what she’d do.
Maggie focused on the empty office around her, looking for help. Someway to contact Beau. And then she realized—it was after five o’clock. Everyone was gone, even the clerks. She’d told Russell to take his time. She didn’t know where the lab was. He said “walk over” and that probably meant it wasn’t in the building. She didn’t know when he’d get back or if she could wait that long.
The headache she’d lied about became a reality. As she anxiously watched the clock, she kept repeating, “Don’t be a hero, Beau. Don’t try to save me by talking to her first.”
In her heart, Maggie knew that’s exactly what Beau would do.
When she saw Russell’s keys sitting on top of a stack of paperwork on his desk, she took them. She had no choice. If she hit every light just right, she could get to the shop before Beau.
Afraid he was running out of time, Beau found a pay phone and dialed the office. Russell must have been sitting on the phone. It barely rung.
“Arson.”
“Russell, I want—”
“Man, I’m glad you called! I was about to beep you. Maggie St. John took a powder.”
“Dammit! I asked you to watch her!”
“I did, Beau. She had one of those blood sugar attacks. I needed to go to the lab, and she didn’t look strong enough to go to the bathroom much less all the way to the lab. What was I supposed to do? She was gone when I got back.”
“How long?”
“Not very. Maybe five minutes. She took my keys. She knows my car and my garage spot from this morning. What’s going on, Beau? You want me to call it in as stolen?”
“No, I think I know where she’s going. Don’t worry about the car. Find me an address on—” Beau switched the phone to his other ear. “—God, I can’t remember the business name. Hair salon. Shear something. Owner’s Carolyn Poag. I think she’s our torch. She’s been setting Maggie up all along to cover an old fire.”
“I’m on it.” The sound of the phone book being slapped onto a desktop came over the line. “The lab came through. We got accelerant on Bennett’s fire—hair spray. Someone poured it over the stove and floor.”
“The shoe print? Anything obvious?”
“Woman’s size seven. One of those thick-soled jobs that supports and cushions the foot.”
“Something that a nurse or a beautician might wear.”
“Right.” Russell found the salons. “Here are the shop names. Shear Cuts, Shear Indulgence—”
“That’s it. Give me the address.” Beau memorized it. “Find a car and meet me there. Don’t go in. I don’t know how tight Carolyn Poag is wrapped right now. She doesn’t need to see both of us.”
“On the way.”
“So is Maggie. One of us better make it there first.”
And Beau was closer.
Except for Carolyn’s car, the parking lot of the beauty shop was empty. Every mile of the drive Maggie had prayed she’d arrive before Beau, and now relief faded as she killed the engine and stared at the shop. Despite her fear, she’d opened the car door. Maggie needed the closure, and she didn’t think she had a chance of getting the truth unless she saw Carolyn alone first.
She couldn’t wait for Beau. This was family business, That’s why it hurt so much. That’s why she couldn’t let it go or let someone else take care of it.
No one had bothered to flip the open/closed sign to closed, so she flipped it. The shop was empty and quiet. There were no magazines changing hands, no preening customers, no combs clanking against glass bottles of disinfectant. Only silence and the smell of permanent wave solution. The day’s fading sun streamed in from behind her, but beyond the streak of light were gray shadows that gave the shop a tomblike quality.
“Carolyn?” Maggie walked past the first barber chair, until she could see the back room. The office door was closed. “Carolyn? We need to talk.”
Maggie’s heart jumped into her throat at the click of the lock, and she irrationally wanted to call a time-out. The office door opened a crack and widened so slowly, it didn’t seem humanly possible. Maggie knew the phenomenon. It happened in ER all the time. Stress created time warps, telescoping or stretching time.
When Carolyn finally stepped out of the room, she wore a smile and then faltered as she read the truth on Maggie’s face. “You remembered.”
“You knew I would.”
“I tried to get you to stay at my house that night. I knew if you went home, you’d think too much. You left me no choice but to burn the barn.” Carolyn pulled a gun from behind her back and pointed it straight at Maggie. “You weren’t supposed to come. It was supposed to be that detective. I had it all planned.”
“Then don’t worry. Beau’s not far behind.”
As she made the promise, Maggie realized he always would be close behind her, and she finally figured out what her mother had never been able to grasp. There were no guarantees in the world, and never would be. Men weren’t shining knights who grabbed you up and carried you off to a perfect world. Beau’s job wasn’t to keep her safe, but to catch her when she fell. Beau’s job was to love her. No matter what.
“You shouldn’t have remembered, Maggie,” Carolyn warned, coming closer. So close that missing her target would have been impossible. Close enough that Maggie could see the shaking hands that belied the resignation in Carolyn’s voice. “You’ve ruined everything.”
The woman in front of her was a stranger, her eyes hard and haunted. Swallowing her fear, Maggie asked, “What are you going to do with that gun?”
“I didn’t want it to be you.”
“Like you didn’t want it to be Sarah?” Maggie asked as she heard a noise at the door. She didn’t turn her head; she knew who it was, and fought the urge to run to him. “You killed her, Carolyn, and for eighteen years you let me think I did it!”
“I didn’t mean to kill her,” Carolyn said, shifting her eyes to Beau at the door and back to Maggie, talking to them both, pleading. “I thought she was dead. You have to believe that.”
“Then what about Maggie?” Beau asked softly. “Wasn’t she asleep in that house?”
Beau forced himself to focus only on Carolyn, trying to compare the woman he met earlier with the woman in front of him. How out of control was she? Was she capable of pulling that trigger? Beau had his gun out, but he wouldn’t risk the shot. He could hit Carolyn stone cold at this range. Any rookie could. But he had to worry about the reflex shot. When a gun went off, human instinct was to pull your own trigger.
Right now Carolyn’s gun pointed at Maggie.
“Were you willing to burn me up too?” Maggie asked.
“I forgot you were there.” Carolyn’s justification and apology were robbed of remorse for Maggie because the gun never wavered. “I called the fire department. See? I wasn’t trying to kill anyone.”
Maggie remembered how fast the trucks got there. The fire barely showed through the windows, yet they were already on the way. “It was too little, too late to save Sarah.”
“I panicked. I was a kid. I didn’t have any choice.” Her voice rose with each sentence. Maggie guessed she’d told herself these excuses a million times over the years. And they hadn’t worked. Even now she could hear the doubts.
“You’re not a kid anymore,” Beau told Carolyn, his voice as hard and unforgiving as the weapon in his hand. “You had a choice, and you set Maggie up. You were ready to send her to jail, ready to sacrifice her.”
“You don’t understand,” Carolyn said, recoiling from the truth.
“I do,” Maggie assured her. “You stayed in touch all those years I was in the group home, not because you cared but because you had to know if I remembered anything.”
“Maybe at first but not—”
“But nothing,” Maggie cut her off ruthlessly. “All you cared about was if I remembered the fight. If I saw you in the shadows. Well, you don’t have to worry anymore, Carolyn. You don’t have to invite me over for Christmas dinner or buy me a birthday present. It’s over. I heard Sarah call you a whore. I heard you slap her, and I heard her fall.”
“You heard an accident,” Carolyn protested, and for the first time the unearthly calm that had held her together since she came out of the office began to crack. Tears welled up, and Maggie had to steel herself against Carolyn’s pain. She couldn’t forget. She wouldn’t forget.
“You set the house on fire,” Maggie told her coldly. “That was no accident.”
“I thought she was dead. Don’t you think I cried myself to sleep for years knowing that she wasn’t?”
Maggie fought tears, too—tears of frustration and rage and bitterness. “Don’t you think I cried? You knew how it ate me up inside to think that I could have killed someone. Especially Sarah. You knew, and you kept silent all these years.”
Beau moved closer to Maggie, and said, “That kept you dependent on her.”
“That’s not true,” Carolyn argued, crying openly now as the gun wavered and snapped back to Maggie. “Stop telling her those lies. Do you think I wanted any of this to happen? She knows what I did for her. She knows. Nobody else wanted her. No one else came to see her. No one else sent her letters. No one came to her graduations. Just me. Who do you think was her family all those years? Who do you think she counts on when things get rough?”
Beau felt those hard truths strike home, knowing that they were tearing Maggie apart, and he couldn’t do anything to stop the hurt.
“And Andrea,” Carolyn added, playing her trump. “My daughter loves her.”
“Oh, my God,” Maggie whispered. “That’s why Sarah called you a whore. Webb Garner is Andrea’s father, isn’t he?”
“But don’t you see now, Maggie?” Carolyn pleaded. “Can’t you understand? I was going to go to the police after the fire. I was going to tell them everything, but then I found out I was pregnant. I had to think about the baby. My baby.”
Beau risked another step closer to Maggie, then said, “Is that how you bought his silence about that night? Did you make a deal?”
“He doesn’t know about Andrea.” Carolyn’s shoulders seem to crumple as the weight of wrongs piled up. “I never used her against him or asked for anything. If he suspected, he never did anything about it. Not even when Daddy threw me out of the trailer. If you’re old enough to get pregnant, you’re old enough to fend for yourself. That’s the Poag family motto.”
Her head came up as if to refuse any sympathy. “There was no deal. Sarah’s death was traumatic enough. I didn’t see the need to broadcast how I’d betrayed her.”
“Especially since you killed her,” Beau told her.
“What would you have had me do?” Carolyn said the words so quietly. “Confess? Go to jail? Give up my baby?”
Maggie fought it, but the first twinge of compassion blunted her anger and pricked her tears. She couldn’t forgive what Carolyn had done to her, but she knew the bond between Carolyn and Andrea. She could imagine the horror of having to choose between the child you desperately wanted and clearing your conscience with confession. Carolyn’s real family would never have helped her, would never have raised her child.
The pain and plea for understanding in Carolyn’s eyes was too much to bear. When she turned away, she sought Beau. His arms were locked, that huge gun cradled in two hands. He didn’t look at her, but Maggie had no doubt he was aware of her. Every step he took brought him closer. He was angling in front of her. She suddenly realized that Beau had made a decision. If anyone got shot, he’d take the bullet.
“And what about when Andrea was bigger?” Carolyn continued, angry as she wiped away tears. Mascara left a wide swath of black across her cheek. “Should I have done it then? Should I have confessed and condemned her to the same system that screwed up Maggie? Or don’t you know Maggie’s secret?”
Maggie braced herself, but Carolyn never got the chance to tell Beau anything because he stole her thunder.
“Save your breath. Maggie played with matches—but this isn’t about her. This is about you, about fires you set. This is about now. Your daughter’s grown. You had a choice, and you sacrificed Maggie again.”
“Andrea’s the only good thing I’ve ever had in my life,” Carolyn cried. “I couldn’t bear for her to know. Can’t you understand? I just wanted better for her, more for her than I had myself. I wanted her to go to college. How can she do that if I’m not working?” Turning to Maggie, as if she’d found an ally. “She wants to be a nurse. Did you know that?”
Maggie shook her head, and a tear slipped out as Carolyn’s misery sneaked in. The first burst of anger and betrayal was over. The second wave of emotion was sweeping through her—the aching loss of the only family she’d ever known. She could forgive and help Carolyn, or she could hold on to the hurt and grow bitter.
Beau knew about family, about thick and thin. About accepting all of a person—the good and the bad. So Maggie let go of the past and tried to make a future.
“ ‘First do no harm,’ ” she said turning to Carolyn. “That’s what Andrea’s going to learn in nursing school. It’s the rule I follow every day. If you can’t make it better, don’t make it worse. You can teach her that, Carolyn. I’m begging you—” Maggie’s voice softened to a whisper, “don’t make this worse. Don’t make Andrea spend the rest of her life without a mother.”
“She will no matter what I do. Don’t you see?” Despair owned her. “My choices are prison or dead.”
“Only one of those is serious,” Beau said quietly. “Take it from me—dead is serious. Everything else is just a minor inconvenience.”
“Prison? A minor inconvenience?”
“Seven years,” he told her. “That’s all you’ll probably do.”
“You can do seven,” Maggie told her. “We’ve both just done eighteen. What’s seven more? You’ll be out in time to rock Andrea’s babies. Give me the gun,” Maggie urged, holding out her hand. It was shaking as badly as Carolyn’s. “I’ll help. Beau’s going to help. It’s over now. We just have to deal with it. Okay?”
Tears were flooding down her cheeks, and she could barely see Beau when he took the gun from Carolyn. Carolyn’s legs buckled, and she collapsed into the chair beside her, crumpling into a ball with her head on her knees. Sobs racked her, and all Maggie could do was rub her back and repeat that it was over. That everything would be fine. And hope to God she wasn’t lying.
She heard Beau walk to the door and wave someone in. Russell appeared almost instantly and after a brief conversation with Beau, he came for Carolyn and helped her out of the chair.
Maggie’s gaze flew to Beau’s.
“Observation,” he answered. “We’re going to check her in and let the docs have a look first. I can’t take a statement with her like this. She needs some time and a lawyer. I need to talk to the prosecutor and figure out jurisdiction. Bennett’s fire is technically the only one in my authority, and she hasn’t admitted to it.”
“Andrea!” Carolyn uttered suddenly. She tried to pull herself together, struggling for words. “Please, Maggie, you have to take care of her. You have to promise. You have to promise, okay?”
“As long as it takes. That child is my niece. Forever. No matter what happens. She will always be loved. By both of us.”
Carolyn nodded, shaking with relief and emotion.
“Can I go with her?” Maggie asked.
Beau nodded. “You go with Russell. I’ll follow.”
Walking to the car, Maggie realized the flamboyant woman she’d known all her life had disappeared. Their roles were reversed, and suddenly Maggie was the stronger sister, the fulcrum of their family. She had to keep Carolyn focused on the future and not on the uncertainty of the next few hours.
At the hospital doors, Beau caught up with them, holding her back. “I think it’s best if you stay here, Maggie. Let us handle it.”
She started to protest and then realized she didn’t carry much weight at Cloister anymore. Not until Beau straightened out Bennett. Her presence might even make it worse for Carolyn. With one last squeeze of comfort, she stepped back. “Okay.”
“You wait for me,” Beau said, sounding like a just-the-facts cop. “I’ll take you back to your car.”
When they were gone, Maggie told herself not to worry. That Cloister psychiatric was the best; Carolyn was in good hands. In that way, she envied Carolyn a little bit. Doctors would tell her what to do, ask her all the right questions, and make sure she didn’t have to travel the road alone.
Maggie wasn’t so lucky. She had no idea how to fill the void in Andrea’s life, and no idea how to deal with Beau now that the crisis was over. All she knew was that she couldn’t keep running from disappointment. She couldn’t hide in her big house with all that space. Not anymore. She wasn’t that foster kid searching for an identity and a home of her own. She had those. Now, she wanted something more.
She felt someone’s gaze on her back, like twin points of intensity. Slowly she turned. Beau stood back, giving her space she didn’t need anymore.
“Russell’s handling the paperwork.”
“Then it’s over?”
Misunderstanding her, he said, “No. You’re still going to have to give a formal statement and if her attorney wants trials instead of plea bargains, you’ll have to testify.”
She froze, suddenly scared that she’d imagined everything about his feelings for her. That she had misinterpreted what he meant when he said he cared about her. That her heart had lied to her. “I mean is it over for me? Am I cleared?”
“Yeah. It’s over.”
“Then is this the part where I have to deal with you?”
“Yeah.” Beau nodded his head slowly, his expression grim. “This is the part where you deal with me. I told you to stay in the office. Why didn’t you let me handle it?”
“Because that’s what my mother would have done, and I figure if I make different choices, if I take the risk, then maybe I’ll end up with what I want.”
A couple of steps separated them. Maggie took the first one, telling herself that she’d take another if she had to. “So when I have a decision I ask myself, what would Mama have done—”
“And then you do the opposite,” Beau finished, as he took a step toward her. Beau was close enough to kiss her, but first Maggie needed to say the words. He couldn’t do it for her. He couldn’t make her sure.
Almost afraid of the answer he asked, “What would your mother do about me?”
“Run.” Maggie raised her eyes to his. “You’d scare the hell out of her just like you scare the hell out me.”
He gave up resisting the urge and threaded his fingers in her hair. When she leaned into him, Beau closed his eyes and wondered if he’d remember being inside her every time she touched him. “Why do I scare you?”
“Because you make me want forever.”
“How is that a bad thing?” he asked. He lifted her face to his. “I love you, Maggie. That goes with forever. At least it does for me.”
“How can you know that? How can you know something that important in such a short time?”
Beau kissed her worry frown gently. “Because I feel it. It wasn’t something I had to learn, Maggie. It didn’t take any time. It wasn’t a set of algebra problems I had to work out.”
“You don’t know anything about me.”
“Sure I do. I’ve met most of your family. And that didn’t scare me off. I know how you cook, how you clean, that you like dogs and like to travel.”
“I don’t—”
“Trust me. You’re going to see Ireland on pennies a day and you will love it. Even if I have to put the smile on your face myself. Darlin’, it’s not where you go, but who you’re with.”
He caught the single tear that escaped with the tip of his thumb and slid both of his hands to her face. “I know that you will bring the hospital home with you every night. That you are a pain in the butt to argue with. I know what it feels like when you’re here in my arms, and I know what it felt like when I was afraid I might lose you. I don’t need to know anything more.”
Maggie wet her lips and tried again. “I don’t even know your whole name.”
“Beauregard Elvis Grayson.”
She didn’t mean to laugh, but she did. “Who in their right mind would name a child that?”
“Mama was not in her right mind when she named me. Beauregard Elvis Grayson. My initials are B.E.G. I don’t think she was happy with my father at the time.” His eyes were warm, full of humor and inviting her to join him.
“Beau, it’s not just me. It’s a package deal. Andrea needs me, and I’m not going to let her down.”
“So she can’t use an uncle too? What did you think I wanted, Maggie? Just the good parts? I want you. Whatever comes with you. I will even try to love that dog. We can take it slow, Maggie. Forever implies that there is plenty of time. I’m not going anywhere.”
“I don’t want you to go anywhere. Not without me.”
“Baby, I’m not ever going anywhere without you again. Don’t you get it yet? You own my heart.”
“That’s only fair, I guess, since I lost mine to you. I’ve never lost it before.”
“Don’t be scared, Maggie May,” he whispered against her lips. “I’m right here. You can always find me. We’ll take it slow. We’ll just start with a kiss. A simple kiss.”
When he kissed her, Beau used his body to make all the promises she wasn’t ready to hear. When she answered with hers, he knew it was only a matter of time before he wore her down and put a ring on her finger. He could wait.
Maggie loved him. That was serious. Everything else was just a minor inconvenience.