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CHAPTER ONE BETH’S HANDS curled into fists. Immediately she relaxed them and tamped down her impatience. She looked at the serious mien of the tall, dark detective lounging on the corner of the table at which she sat and felt the sudden urge to laugh. It was all so utterly preposterous. Murder. How could anyone suspect her, Beth Maitland, of murder—even if the unfortunate victim was her ex-fiancé’s wife? She’d much rather have flirted outrageously with the handsome detective than committed murder to assuage a broken heart, had she ever had one. What she would do, however, was answer these silly, repetitive questions. “I went to the children’s garden in the courtyard of the day-care center to be certain that the bulbs planted that day were properly covered. No, we weren’t expecting a freeze,” she said flippantly, “but it is February, and as you well know, in Texas the weather is never certain. I didn’t go back to my office. I never saw Brianne. I certainly didn’t kill her.” “Yet we know
CHAPTER ONE
CHAPTER TWO BETH QUICKLY DISCOVERED that the intention of proving her innocence and actually doing it were two different things. Where did one begin? After much thought—and she’d had lots of time for that these past two days—she was convinced that she was being framed for Brianne’s murder. The question was, why? Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine what anyone could have to gain from framing her, and yet she could find no other explanation. One other thing had become clear to her: Brandon Dumont was her strongest suspect. She was saddened and angered by this. She had once had strong feelings for Brandon. At least, she had tried to make herself believe that she could have strong feelings for him. That belief had waned even before she’d discovered that he was sleeping with Brianne, and had been put to death by Brandon’s insinuation that his betrayal was somehow her—Beth’s—fault. She had dismissed her anger, telling herself that his response smacked of jealousy and was beneath her, that
CHAPTER TWO
CHAPTER THREE TY WAS COOL. He didn’t blink an eye when Beth Maitland sauntered in wearing tan suede slacks that showed off her long, slender legs and tight, round bottom. He said nothing about the matching fringed jacket that she wore over a tight, wine red knit shirt that left no doubt as to the strength of her feminine attributes. He did not compliment her suede half-boots, which matched her shirt in color, or comment upon the way she had twisted her long, lush hair into a plump, frothy roll skewered with a trio of silver-and-turquoise pins. He failed to remark that the open, turned-up collar of her shirt emphasized the creamy length of her slender neck, or that an expensive silver-and-turquoise beaded necklace called eye-catching attention to the deep crevice of her cleavage. To the casual observer, his fascination and appreciation would not have been unduly marked. Only he knew that she amazed him by looking even better than he remembered. Moreover, she possessed a quirky, natural
CHAPTER THREE
CHAPTER FOUR THE DOLL-LIKE COUPLE smiled with practiced civility and murmured patent responses. Sitting side by side on their immaculate sofa in their immaculate home, they looked like magazine cutouts, perfectly groomed, perfectly dressed, and they did everything in tandem, including smile and politely evade substantiative answers to direct questions. With some inborn sense of protocol and timing, the husband politely checked his watch twice before bringing a firm end to the interview, if the efforts of Detectives Redstone and Jester could be called such. More like a waste of time, Ty thought glumly as Jester aimed their nondescript, department-issue sedan toward the next address on their list. So it had gone for days now. The interviewees were interchangeable. The results as well. Nada. They hadn’t learned a darned thing. Brianne Dumont remained a cipher, a dead cipher, unfortunately. The answers to their questions were rote. “I really couldn’t say.” “I pay no attention to gossip and
CHAPTER FOUR
CHAPTER FIVE BETH SMILED and waved at her friend Mary Jane Potter, who was carrying dirty dishes from the large, curving counter toward the kitchen. The new waitress, Sara, had already taken their order. As usual, the place was popping with lunchtime trade. Mary Jane jerked her head toward Ty and waggled her eyebrows suggestively. Beth couldn’t help laughing. Ty was an absolute doll, a true hunk, so gorgeous he made her eyes ache. When she’d touched him in the car, it had felt as though a bolt of lightning had struck her. She shivered just thinking about it. Ty was on the phone. He’d called Paul as soon as they’d ordered and sat with his head bowed and his hand over one ear as he spoke into his cell phone. Sara delivered their coffee with a smile, tucked a wisp of long blond hair into the net pinned to the back of her head and hurried off to greet a pair of newcomers who took the counter seats just vacated by a couple of nurses from the clinic. Sara was something of an enigma, an amnes
CHAPTER FIVE
CHAPTER SIX “ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” Beth asked anxiously. It was a stupid question. She’d seen everything that had happened. Ty had tossed Eckart out on his ear, figuratively speaking, and had hardly rumpled his coat doing so. But she couldn’t help feeling anxious on his behalf. “Of course, I’m all right,” Ty answered smoothly. An instant later, he dropped his arms and stepped back. Flicking a gaze at their onlookers, he cleared his throat and adjusted the already perfect knot of his busily patterned bronze, brown and silver tie. He tucked a strand of black hair behind one ear and glanced at Michael. “So who was that guy?” “His name is Vincent Eckart,” Michael said, and Ty wrote it on the small pad he carried in his breast pocket. “What’s the deal with his wife? He seems to think you’re hiding her.” Jake Maitland stepped from behind a wall at the end of a hallway near the elevator bank and sauntered closer. “It so happens that I am,” he admitted evenly. Beth watched Ty take Jake’s measure
CHAPTER SIX
CHAPTER SEVEN NEITHER SAID A WORD on the drive across town. He kept shifting in his seat, but she didn’t think it was doubt making him so antsy. Her heart was pounding twice as hard as usual, as if her blood had thickened and had to be pushed with great force through her veins. She felt hot, sluggish in a way she couldn’t explain. When they pulled into the parking lot of an apartment complex beside the river, she was interested but not surprised. As he got out and walked around to open her car door, she sat very still, examining her doubts and fears. She didn’t find any that could overcome the compulsion she felt to follow this path to its end. On the contrary, despite the risks, she very much wanted what was going to happen. How ironic. She’d wanted to take these risks with Brandon and hadn’t been able to make herself do it. With Ty, she couldn’t seem to help herself, even though he’d made her no promises and probably wouldn’t. She hoped he realized that none had been asked for. She s
CHAPTER SEVEN
CHAPTER EIGHT VALENTINE’S DAY. It was stupid to feel slighted and disappointed because he hadn’t called or sent a gift. She hadn’t expected it. She really hadn’t. But somehow she couldn’t help feeling hurt. When Ty had dropped her off at the mansion that night, he had said nothing about calling or keeping in touch or even thinking of her. He had promised to stop Brandon from getting away with murder and framing her in the process. He had accepted her farewell kiss with warmth and ease, but he hadn’t returned it, and after he’d walked her to the door, he’d beat a hasty retreat. She hadn’t heard from him since, and though that was only to be expected under the circumstances, she missed him and felt more than a twinge of resentment. Given the bleak prospects for her romance, if such it could be called, Beth should have appreciated the family gathering arranged by her mother. It should have provided distraction and comfort. She loved it when the whole clan came together, and this year it w
CHAPTER EIGHT
CHAPTER NINE HE SHOULDN’T be doing this. Without a doubt, Ty knew he shouldn’t be standing on the doorstep of the Maitland mansion, night coming on, his heart fluttering in anticipation of seeing her again. But she had a right to know what was happening. And he did so want to see her. That didn’t change the fact, however, that he shouldn’t be here. “Next time pick up the telephone, Redstone,” he muttered even as he rang the doorbell. He listened to the resounding bong that echoed inside the great, cavernous house and was not surprised when the door opened immediately, since the watchman at the gate on the edge of the property had alerted the house to his arrival. The butler—Harold, Ty believed his name was—nodded in welcome before stepping back and swinging the door wide. “Allow me to take your coat, Detective.” It wasn’t really a request, and Ty was irritated with himself because he felt so utterly compelled to comply. Uneasy, he shrugged out of his duster-length overcoat and rocked o
CHAPTER NINE
CHAPTER TEN BETH RECEIVED several phone calls from Ty during the next days, and much of the news was good. Letitia Velasquez and her son, Frankie, revealed all in two long interviews. Brandon had indeed supplied Frankie’s phony immigration papers. Better yet, Frankie had picked them up from the bartender Gustopherson himself, and both Gustopherson and Brandon had been handsomely paid by Frankie and Letitia. Then Brandon had threatened to make an anonymous phone call to the authorities about Frankie if Letitia didn’t back up his lies concerning Beth’s supposed harassment of Brianne. Ty had enough to arrest Gustopherson and Dumont on charges of providing and trafficking in false immigration papers. It was decided, however, to keep Dumont in the dark and use the forgery charge to pressure Gustopherson to tell the truth about Dumont’s whereabouts at the time of the murder. To that end, Letitia was advised to develop a sudden desperate need to visit her sister in Houston, requiring Frankie
CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER ELEVEN “DETECTIVE JESTER.” Beth glanced behind him, hoping, expecting to see Ty, and her disappointment must have shown. “He’s not with me, ma’am,” the detective informed her bluntly. “I didn’t even tell him I was coming, and I expect there’ll be hell to pay when he finds out, but I had to have your read on something and figured Ty just might get in the way.” “I see.” She didn’t, actually, but at least Ty had not let Jester come alone. She gestured toward the leather chair placed at a slight angle before the matching couch where she sat in the library, a book on child care open at her side. “What is it that you need, Detective?” He sat, brushing back the sides of the rumpled overcoat he’d obviously not allowed Harold to take, and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “Well, it’s like this. Dumont’s been a brick wall, answers for everything, so we’re wiring Gustopherson, the bartender, and sending him in to try to get Dumont to implicate himself.” Beth’s first impulse was to laug
CHAPTER ELEVEN
CHAPTER TWELVE TY SAT on the hard plastic chair with his head in his hands, listening to the distant echo of the hospital intercom and the rapid click of heels on the shiny waxed floor. “Where is she?” Megan Maitland’s frantic voice demanded. He lifted his head, straightened and sat back in his chair, utterly exhausted. Living a nightmare, having one’s worst fears come true was tiring business. Fortunately, Jake stepped forward to deal with his mother. “They’re moving her into a room now,” he said with urgent calmness. “She’s sedated because they had to use a scope to be certain there were no tears or lesions in the esophagus. Apparently the scarf she was wearing around her neck protected her somewhat. You can see her in a few minutes.” Megan nodded, lines of worry etched between her brows. “You said Brandon did this. Where is he?” “In jail, where he belongs.” “Thank God for that, at least. But I don’t understand any of this. How did it happen?” With a cough to clear his throat, Ty con
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHAPTER THIRTEEN BETH TOLD the whole story with as little emotion and as much honesty as she could manage, beginning with the engagement and ending with the rescue. She made it very plain that Ty had done his job and done it well, investigating her for the murder and uncovering the truth in the process. When it came to the undercover operation, she noted Ty’s objections to the risk involved and also admitted that he had been right to be so concerned. In answer to Hardy’s questions, she explained the operation in detail. Dee’s queries were more insightful and much more personal. Beth found it difficult to skirt some answers, evasion being as uncomfortable as an outright lie in the face of the other woman’s discerning gaze. Nevertheless, Beth strove to keep private matters just that, ever mindful of the fact that she was speaking to Ty’s family. How successful she was, she couldn’t know, but she suspected the relationship was no secret. Naomi said nothing, merely listened with a still wa
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
CHAPTER FOURTEEN BETH SIGHED and pushed away the photocopied article on childhood aggression she’d been trying to read for the past half-hour. Her mind would not cooperate. She could think of nothing but Ty and her determination to end the relationship before she caused a split in his family. She had to wonder if Ty would allow it to come to that. No doubt he would end the relationship himself, as he’d tried to do from the beginning. She should stop refusing his calls and keeping herself away from him and get it over with. It was so very difficult, though. Every moment she ached for him. Only by forcefully reminding herself that she did this from love could she maintain her resolve. It was ironic that when Ty had alluded to the differences in their backgrounds, she had assumed he feared rejection by the Maitlands when it was really the other way around. He’d obviously known from the beginning that she could not overcome Cob’s disapproval. Perhaps it even went beyond Cob. Perhaps none o
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
CHAPTER FIFTEEN “WELL, YOU’VE done it now,” Paul said, completely dismissing his part in the previous evening’s fiasco. Ty turned over the newspaper that Paul had tossed on his desk. He’d already seen the photos and the headline. “What would you have had me do?” he demanded. “Let them run her to ground?” “You didn’t have to give them an interview,” Paul replied blandly. “I didn’t give them an interview. I answered a couple of questions.” “A couple of questions,” Paul mocked. He raised his voice to a soprano. “What’s your interest in Ms. Maitland now that the case against her has been closed?” He switched to a booming bass. “Very simply, I love her.” Once more adopting his own mien, he concluded, “Very adept, native boy. Maybe you ought to consider diplomacy for your next career.” Ty shook his head. “I kept them away from Beth, and I made my point.” “Okay,” Paul conceded wryly. “But can you imagine what the press presence around her will be like now?” Ty turned over the paper again and
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
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