Nora Roberts - Remember When

"That sounds wonderful, but I'll need another one of those rain checks." She wiggled into the dress, forgoing underwear. And erased all thoughts of snoozing from his mind.

"Then just come back to bed."

"I have to go." She chuckled, dancing out of reach when he made a grab for her. "I need to go home, catch a couple hours' sleep, change, run back into town and pick up Henry, take him home, then go back into town to the shop."

"If you stay here, you could pick up Henry on the way home and save yourself a trip."

"And provide the gossip mill with enough grist to run it until next Christmas." She was small-town enough, in the woman she'd created, to be concerned about such things. "A woman strolls out of a hotel in the morning wearing this sort of dress, eyebrows raise. Especially in the Gap."

"I'll lend you a shirt."

"I'm going." She stuffed her lingerie into her purse. "But if you'd like to have dinner with me tonight..."

"Name the time and place."

"Eight, my place. I'll cook."

"Cook?" His eyes blinked slowly, twice, then seemed to glaze. "Food?"

"No, I thought I'd cook up an insidious plot against the government. Of course food." She turned to the mirror, pulled a tiny brush out of her bulging purse and swooped it through her hair. "What do you like?"

He just stared at her. "Food?"

"I'll think of something." Satisfied she was as good as she was going to get, she dropped the brush back into the purse and crossed to him. She leaned over the bed, gave him a light kiss. "See you later."

He stayed where he was after she'd closed the door behind her. Stayed, staring at the door with the taste of her lingering on his lips.

None of it made any sense. Not what had happened between them, not what he felt for her, not who she was. Because his reading of her wasn't off. He was never this far off, and it had nothing to do with glands.

If Laine Tavish was mixed up in a multimillion-dollar heist, he'd eat his own investigator's license.

It didn't explain why William Young had come to see her. It didn't explain why he was dead. It didn't explain why her house had been ransacked.

But there were explanations, and he'd ferret them out. He was good at it. Once he had, once he'd cleared her, satisfied his client, done the job, he'd tell her everything.

She'd probably be a little upset.

Get real, Gannon, he thought, she'd be completely pissed. But he'd bring her around.

He was good at bringing people around, too.

The best way to work through the mess he'd gotten into was to proceed with logic. Logically, Jack O'Hara's daughter Elaine had severed ties with him, changed her name, adjusted her background and started a life for herself.

Everything pointed in that direction, including his own instincts.

That didn't mean Big Jack, Willy or any of their associates were unaware of her and her location. Didn't mean there wasn't occasional contact, or the attempt to contact.

And okay, her finances still struck him as dicey, but he'd work on that. A few thousand here or there to put a down payment on a house or start up a business was nothing. Not compared to a share of $28 million and change.

Willy may have tracked her down to ask her for help, a place to hide out, to deliver a message from her father. Whatever the purpose, he was dead as Moses now and couldn't be asked. And would never cash in on his share, either, Max mused.

Didn't that up the stakes considerably?

Laine didn't have anything at the house worth worrying about. There was no question of that. Even if whoever'd broken in had missed something, she wouldn't have left the house unattended for the night to play heat the sheets if she had something hidden there.

Logically, she didn't have anything. She'd been in Angel's Gap when the jewels were stolen. For Christ's sake, she'd barely finished her first decade when she was shuffled out of Big Jack's aegis and influence.

Regardless, to clear her, to cross her name off all lists, he had to cover all the bases. He had to take a good look around her shop.

The sooner he did it, the sooner they could move on. He checked the time, judged he had a good three hours before daylight.

Might as well get started.

Chapter 7

It amazed him that anyone who shared DNA with a thief would secure their own business with standard locks and a rinky-dink alarm system any twelve-year-old with a Swiss Army knife and a little imagination could circumvent.

Really, if this... thing of theirs turned into an actual relationship, he was going to have a serious sit-down with Laine about home and business security.

Maybe a store in a town of this type and size didn't require riot bars, gates or surveillance cameras, but she hadn't even bothered with security lights, in or out. As for the door, it was pathetic. If he'd been a thief who didn't worry about finesse, a couple of good kicks would've done the job.

Her current excuse for a system made the nighttime B&E embarrassingly easy. He bypassed the alarm and picked the locks on the back door in case some insomniac decided to take a predawn stroll down Market Street. And he'd walked from the hotel, taking his time, circling the block on foot. Just because something was easy didn't mean you could afford to be careless about procedure.

The town was quiet enough so he could hear the rumble of a furnace when it kicked on inside a building. And the long, mournful whistle of a freight train that rose eerily out of the silence. There were no winos, no junkies, no homeless, no hookers or street people populating the night in what would be considered downtown Angel's Gap.

You had to wonder if you were actually in America or if you'd somehow stumbled into a postcard printed up by the local chamber of commerce.

It was, Max decided, mildly creepy.

The streetlights along the steep sidewalk were old-fashioned lantern style, and every one of them glowed. All the display windows in the storefronts were sheer glass. As with Remember When, there were no gates, no security bars.

Hadn't anyone ever thrown a brick through one and helped themselves before hotfooting it away? Or kicked in a door for a quick looting party?

It just didn't seem right.

He thought of New York at three twenty-seven A.M. There'd be action, or trouble, if you were inclined for either. There'd be both pedestrian and vehicular traffic and the stores would all be chained down for the night.

So was there more crime there on a per capita basis just because it was expected?

It was an interesting theory, and he'd have to give some thought to it when he had a little downtime.

But for now, alarm and locks dispatched, he eased open the rear door of Remember When.

In and out in an hour, tops, he promised himself. Then back to the hotel to catch a little sleep. When New York opened, he'd contact his client and report that all evidence pointed to the fact that Laine Tavish was not, knowingly, involved.

That would clear him, from his point of view, to explain things to her. Once he'd done that, and talked her out of being pissed off, he'd pick her brain.

He had a feeling she'd be an excellent source in tracking Big Jack and the diamonds.

And in collecting his finder's fee.

Max shut the door quietly behind him. Reached down to switch on his penlight.

But instead of the narrow beam coming on, lights exploded inside his head.

***

He woke in dead dark with his head banging with all the gusto and violence of his young nephew slamming pot lids together. He managed to roll over to what he thought was his back. The way his head was pounding and spinning, he couldn't be sure.

He lifted a hand to check if that head was still face front and felt the warm wet running.

And that pushed temper through the pain. It was bad enough to get ambushed and knocked out, but it was a hell of another thing if he had to go to the damn ER