Cold Case Affair (7 page)

J
ett paced like a caged bear in Dr. Pat Callaghan’s waiting room. He’d brought Muirinn straight here instead of taking her to the hospital because he trusted Pat. Her specialty was obstetrics and her office was rigged for ultrasound.

She’d also taken excellent care of Troy when Jett had first brought his tiny infant son home to Safe Harbor, feeling nervous about being a new dad at the tender age of twenty-two.

The exam room door opened suddenly, and Jett spun around.

A band clamped tightly over his chest as he saw Muirinn’s wan face, the neat little plaster over the fresh stitches on her forehead, the bandage on her shoulder under her ripped shirt.

But despite her trauma, there appeared to be a subtle new determination in her stride as she exited the exam room with the doctor. Pat smiled, nodding to Jett as she picked up a clipboard and pen. “We just need to fill out some paperwork and mom and daughter are good to go.”

Daughter?

Jett’s heart stalled.

He could barely focus on the doctor’s next words. “I had your grandfather on Digoxin, Muirinn.” She filled in a form as she spoke. “It’s a generic digitalis preparation.”

“Could an overdose have possibly caused his cardiac arrest?”

Pat’s pen stilled, and she looked up. “Well, yes. But—”

“Either way the ME would have expected to find digitalis in his system, right?”

“Yes, he would. But the ME’s involvement in Gus’s case was a formality, really, because the cause of death was clear, especially given Gus’s preexisting condition—”

Muirinn interrupted. “Does it honestly make sense to you, Dr. Callaghan, that my grandfather hiked all the way out to Tolkin with his heart condition, and then climbed all the way down that shaft? I mean…” she hesitated. “Everyone keeps reminding me that he was eccentric. But I need to know, in your professional opinion, was my grandfather of sound mind these last couple of months?”

Dr. Callaghan placed a hand on Muirinn’s arm, and smiled comfortingly. “It’s always tough to lose someone, Muirinn. But I can assure you that Gus was mentally agile, if somewhat creative in thought. Plus he’d started taking daily walks on my recommendation, so he might easily have included the Tolkin property along one of his routes.”

“It’s fifteen miles from his house. I clocked it on the odometer.”

The doctor returned to filling in her form. “That’s really not far for a good hike if you take it slow, you know.” She set the clipboard down. “Your grandfather had a really good life, Muirinn. He died active, busy. Not tied to a wheelchair, not in a hospital bed. Gus wouldn’t have wanted it any other way.”

“I know.” She glanced down. “It’s just that…I guess I was wondering, given the unusual circumstances.”

“I don’t believe the circumstances were that unusual, especially knowing your grandfather. Gus had always been obsessed with that mine, almost pathologically fixated, in my opinion. Both the ME and I were satisfied, upon examining his body, that it was the heart condition that caused his death, and resulted in a small tumble. This is not unusual in cardiac arrest.”

“He was down a mine shaft.”

“And according to the police, there was absolutely no sign of foul play. He’d simply been poking around there when he collapsed.”

Muirinn shot Jett a glance.

The doctor smiled again, compassion fanning out in warm crinkles from her hazel eyes. “Now go and get some rest, Muirinn. Take care of that baby girl of yours.”

“Thank you, doctor.”

Jett swallowed against the dryness in his throat, the thought of what they could have shared eleven years ago suddenly so stark, as he led Muirinn out into the street, back to his truck.

“Did you tell the doc what happened at the mine?” he said, holding open the passenger door.

“No, I just told her I was out for a walk, and that I slipped and fell down a bank.” She hesitated. “Doesn’t it strike you as strange that Gus’s case was basically rubber-stamped by the ME?”

“No, it doesn’t.” He went around, climbed in the driver’s side and started the engine. “From Pat’s point of view, what she said makes sense, Muirinn.”

“Well, I think the ME should have done a more in-depth investigation, and done toxicology tests…something.”

“Are you saying you don’t trust Doc Callaghan and the ME now, either?”

She strapped herself in. “I’m just trying to figure out what in hell happened, Jett.”

Jett pulled out into the small main road. “Why were you asking about Gus’s medication?”

“I was wondering if he might have been poisoned. Technically, a heart attack could have been induced using Gus’s own meds, in an effort to make his death seem as if it were from natural causes.”

Jett focused on the road ahead thinking how absurd it seemed to be having this conversation at all. He was still trying to wrap his head around the fact that Muirinn had almost been killed, and that they couldn’t go to the police with this information.

One way or another the cops
were
going to find Gus’s burned-out truck at the mine, and questions were going to be asked.

This was going to come out somehow.

Bitterness leached down his throat as he thought of the historic blast, and what it had done to this town. He tried to imagine how much that bomber and his accomplice might stand to lose now, if the truth came out that they were responsible for one of the biggest mass homicides north of 60.

Who
wouldn’t
kill to keep something like that quiet?

“We need to get to the bottom of this, Muirinn,” he said quietly as he drove. “You need to show me those photographs, and Gus’s notes.”

“I don’t want to involve you, Jett,” she said with a heavy sigh.

“I can’t let you do this on your own, Muirinn. Not now.”

She sat in silence. He could sense the nervous tension rolling off her in waves.

He cursed to himself.

He didn’t want this any more than she did. What he needed was some distance between Muirinn and himself, so he could
try to figure some things out. Everything was moving too fast, and he was scared of what it might do to all of them.

But he was also the only one who could protect her right now.

The only emotional barrier he had left was the fact that Muirinn thought he was married. And the more he was forced into her proximity, the harder that secret was going to be to keep.

But, damn, he
needed
to keep it right now. It was the only way he’d be able to keep his hands off her.

They drove in tense silence along the twisting coast road, the late evening sun turning the ocean into beaten copper.

“Is it really a girl?” he said suddenly, thinking again that the child had no father.

Muirinn nodded as she placed her hands on her tummy. “I wanted it to be surprise, but after being in that shed, convinced I was going to die…” She inhaled shakily. “When Dr. Callaghan gave me an ultrasound just to check that everything was okay, she asked if I knew the sex, or if wanted to know. I said yes.”

“You happy?”

“I am. I…I’ve always wanted a daughter.”

“What about a son?” There was something in the tone of his voice that made Muirinn glance at him.

But Jett didn’t return the look, and she couldn’t read his eyes. Yet his hands had tightened on the wheel, and his neck was tense. She studied the lines of his rugged profile, his thick dark hair, his strong arms. And she loved him all over again. Age had been good to him. She wondered what might have been if she hadn’t left, if they’d raised the boy she gave away for adoption. Guilt and confusion twisted inside Muirinn like a knife.

She was suddenly overwhelmed by a desperate desire to open up, spill everything about the fact she’d had a son—
their son
—that she’d given him away. But it was all too much to
handle right now. A part of Muirinn even wondered if was better that Jett didn’t know.

He had his own family now, and she didn’t want to tamper with that.

The other part of her was afraid of how much he might truly hate her if she told him all these years later.

“Yes,” she whispered, remorse thickening her voice. “I wanted a son, too.”

He turned into her driveway, came to a stop and sat silent for a several beats, staring out the windshield. Then his gaze flashed to her, fierce suddenly. “Look, I can’t let you stay here alone, Muirinn. Not after what happened today. You need to pack a bag and stay at my place until…until we’ve figured this out.”

Fear, anxiety, attraction erupted in a dangerous cocktail inside Muirinn. She could
not
be forced into such close proximity to this married man, alone with him in his house, his wife away. “I…I don’t think that’s a good idea, Jett.” Her voice caught, turning husky as his eyes bored hotly into hers, the intense stare of a hunter. Anticipation rustled through Muirinn like a wild and lethal thing.

She swallowed. “I just can’t do it. I…cannot be with you, not in your house…I still have…”

“Still have what, Muirinn?” His voice was low, gravelly, his gaze drifting down to her lips.

“You know that I still have feelings for you, Jett,” she whispered.

His eyes darkened, and lust etched into his face. Heat arrowed through her body, her world swirling to a narrow focus, logic fleeing.

Jett raised his hand to touch her face. He wanted her. To feel her hair, her skin, her body wrapped around his. But he couldn’t
go down this road again. Not yet, not before both of them had confessed the secrets between them. He exhaled slowly, lowering his hand.

Her body sagged visibly at his rejection, and her eyes glistened sharply with hurt. The pulse in her neck was racing, the emotion in her face so raw. “Muirinn, I—”

He just couldn’t stop what came next. Cupping her jaw, Jett bent down, sliding his hand under her hair and he lowered his mouth to hers. His heart pounded as his lips met hers. There was no rational thought at all, as he felt her mouth open under his.

A small sound came from her throat as his tongue entered her mouth. She kissed him back, hard, desperate. And he felt the wetness of tears against his skin.

She hooked her arms around his neck, drawing him closer, her tongue tangling with his as she melted into him. Jett felt her pregnant body press against his, and something inside him cracked. His body burned as he kissed her harder, deeper. And they moved faster—urgent, hungry, angry, digging down deep for something neither of them seemed to be able to reach in the other.

Jett pulled back suddenly, rocked, breathing hard.

Muirinn stared at him in wide-eyed shock, chest rising and falling fast, cheeks flushed, panic flickering in her features.

Her hand covered her mouth, horror dawning in her eyes at the reality of what had just happened.

He didn’t say a word, didn’t move.
Couldn’t.

“Jett…” Tears streamed fresh down her face. She turned suddenly, flung open the door, slammed it shut, and stumbled up the stairs to her house.

M
uirinn’s hands were shaking too hard to get the key into the lock.

Jett’s truck door banged behind her. She heard his footsteps crunching on gravel, heard him coming up the stairs. She wanted to sink into the floor, be swallowed by a hole.

He stilled her hand, took the key from her and opened her front door. “I’m sorry,” he said quietly, holding the door open. “It won’t happen again. Please, just get your things, Muirinn,” he said. “I’ll wait for you downstairs.”

She clenched her jaw. “I’m not coming to your house, Jett.”

“Then I’ll stay at your place,” he said, following her into the hallway. “But it’ll be easier the other way. I have my work at home.”

She spun around to face him. “I never wanted to put you in this position, Jett. I didn’t—
don’t
—want your help.”
Just
as she hadn’t let him help her eleven years ago when she found out she was pregnant.

He let out a wry laugh. “You never did let anyone help you, Muirinn. You always wanted to do everything on your own. Let me help you now. For the baby’s sake.”

“I
can’t
,” she whispered.

“Look, I really am sorry about what just happened, and if I could find someone I trust to stay with you tonight, Muirinn, I would. And after tomorrow, if things still haven’t been sorted out, I have a good friend who will do me that favor.”

A favor.

Pain twisted.

That was the last thing on this earth she wanted from Jett. “So why don’t you get him now?” she said icily.

“He’s away until tomorrow.”

She swallowed, humiliation filling her chest. She’d led him to this—it was as much her fault as his—and now she just wanted to be alone, in her old bedroom where she could sob her heart out. And he wasn’t going to let her do that.

“Please, Jett,” she said, clenching her jaw, refusing to let him see her break down further. “Please get out of my house. Now.”

Frustration flashed into his cobalt eyes. “Someone just tried to kill you, Muirinn. I can’t leave you here alone. As soon as possible I’ll get my buddy Hamilton Brock to come stay here with you. He’s an ex-Marine and does close protection work for a private company offshore. He knows what he’s doing.”

She turned away from him, rested her forehead against the doorjamb, shoulders slumping with fatigue. She just couldn’t stay in Jett’s house with his wife away. It wasn’t right. It wasn’t helping either of them. God, this was a mess.

“Think of your child for a change, Muirinn.”

Her head whipped up. “For a
change?
”

“Yes. Someone other than yourself for a change.”

“Damn you, Rutledge,” she whispered, eyes blurring with tears she could no longer force back. “Will you get off your high horse! I didn’t
ask
you to kiss me back there! What about
your
responsibilities—to your family, to your
son?
”

His body went rigid.

She swore softly. “The best thing I ever did was leave you and this place.”

“That’s in the past, this is—”

“Oh, it might be in the past, Jett, but what just happened in that truck has
everything
to do with now.”

His jaw flexed angrily. He stuffed his hands into his pockets. “Muirinn, please, just get your things. Bring the photographs and laptop. We’ll go through it all, and we can decide where to go from there, whether there is enough to bring in an outside agency like the FBI. You can shower and change at my place.” He hesitated. “Just for tonight. At least you’ll be safe.”

Safe?

That’s the last thing she was with Jett. Her own heart had made sure of that.
He
had made sure of that. She turned, stomped up the stairs, slamming doors behind her.

So she was angry with him. Well, he was angry with himself. Jett slammed his fist against the wall.

A door banged upstairs.

He dragged both hands over his hair and cursed.
Idiot!
He should never should never have touched her. But it had just happened.

He swore again.

What else was he supposed to do now? They couldn’t go to the cops. And he didn’t know who else to trust, apart from Brock, who’d arrived in town only seven years ago and had no connections whatsoever to the Tolkin blast.

All Jett had to do was keep his hands off her for maybe forty-eight hours, max, until he could reach Brock. But the more he was with Muirinn, the more he wanted her. And the longer he tried brush the fact that he was divorced under the carpet, the more onerous the deception became, and the worse it was going to be to tell the truth.

Not to mention the truth about Troy.

Her words sifted into his mind: “
I wanted a son, too.
”

Well, she could have damn well had one if she hadn’t given him up for adoption, right? He stalked across the living room, furious with himself and his own out-of-control libido.

Gus’s silver tomcat watched Jett as he paced, its tail flicking like an irritating metronome. He scowled at the creature, then strode into the kitchen, looking at Gus’s things, anything to distract himself while he waited.

He picked up a small tin of herb tea, prepared by Mrs. Wilkie, no doubt. The label said
comfrey.
He opened the tin, shook the thin furry dried leaves, put it back, then picked up another tin. Chamomile. He set it back, stared at the foxglove bells in a copper vase on the long wooden table, the basket of vegetables in the kitchen. Mrs. Wilkie was still doing her thing, as if Gus were still here, as if nothing had changed.

But so much had changed—the echoes from a murderous blast two decades ago still rippling into the future.

Jett felt bad for the old woman. Gus had always been good to her, and he knew Lydia Wilkie was deeply fond of him.

If Muirinn was correct—if Gus
had
been murdered—Jett was going to make damn sure the bastard paid, and that an end was finally put to this case. He stalked back through the living room.

There were photos and paintings of Muirinn everywhere.
Claustrophobia reared up and came down on him with sharp teeth bared. He swung around, feeling short of breath.

And there she was.

Standing in the brick archway with her bag in hand, her ripped pants still caked with silt from the mine, her hair still matted. Gone was the feisty redhead. She looked more like a forlorn orphan.

“I need to leave a note for Mrs. Wilkie to feed the cat,” she said stiffly.

“Fine.”

She got a notepad from the hall table, her movements tense, mouth tight. She’d been crying again. God, he felt bad, putting her through the ringer after all she’d gone through today. He had no right to kiss her, and here he was telling her that she needed to think of something other than herself, while he’d acted like a selfish ass. What must she think of him?

“Muirinn…I…”

She looked up.

I’m not married. And I still love you.

He clamped his mouth shut.

She returned her attention to scribbling a note for Mrs. Wilkie, purple petals falling onto the back of her pale hand as she inserted the corner of the paper under the big copper vase on the table. She removed a key from her pocket and unlocked a drawer hidden into the side of the table. And gasped, hand flying to her mouth.

“Muirinn, what is it?”

Her eyes flared to his, panic on her face.

“It’s gone! The laptop—it’s
missing!
” She rummaged frantically. “The envelope with the photos—that’s gone, too!”

She yanked the drawer out further.

“Maybe you put the laptop somewhere else?”

“No, Jett! It was
here.
All the evidence is
gone
…” Her eyes flickered as she remembered something. “Except for these—” She fumbled to unbutton the side pocket of her cargo pants.

With a shaking hand she held out a set of crumpled black-and-whites. “I took these four photos with me to the mine so I could compare them with the area around the Sodwana shaft.”

He placed his hand over hers, stopping the shaking. “Come,” he said firmly. “I’m taking you home. We can think about this later.”

Jett handed Muirinn her bag as they entered the hallway of his house. “I’ll set up the spare room for you,” he said. “Bathroom’s that way.”

She walked slowly into the living room, bag in hand. Pale evening sunlight slatted through skylights in a high, vaulted ceiling, and windows overlooking the sea yawned up from natural wood floors—Jett’s love affair with the sky evident in the renovations he had made to his parents’ old home.

“Are you absolutely sure you didn’t put that laptop somewhere else?” he asked as he walked into his kitchen.

“Of course I’m sure.” She took in the décor as she spoke. Mounted photographs graced his living room walls—aerial shots of caribou racing across a frozen tundra below the wingtip of a plane, black-and-white images of antique airplanes, family pictures. Muirinn stalled suddenly in front of a photo of Jett and his son, Troy in the cockpit of a small plane.

Her throat closed in on itself.

Troy looked so much like his father; smoky dark lashes, ink-black hair, bright white teeth in a broad smile. But his eyes were green, and he had a slight smattering of freckles across his sun-browned cheeks.

He was around the same age her son would be now—
their
son.

The thought stung.

Slowly, she turned her attention to another photo, this one of Jett, Kim and Troy on Jett’s boat. Kim was beautiful—blond with pale blue eyes. Jett had his arms around both his wife and child. The family vignette made Muirinn flinch.

She could feel Jett watching her from the kitchen entrance, silent.

Tearing her attention away from the photos, Muirinn made her way to the bathroom, forcing herself not to look back at him.

While Muirinn was bathing, Jett warmed soup he’d made with vegetables from his garden and caribou he’d shot last August. He struggled to concentrate on the task at hand, and not think of Muirinn naked and pregnant in his bathtub, in his home.

Back in his life after all these years.

He heard her come out of the bathroom and head into the spare room. He buttered some toast and dished the soup into bowls, the sensation of her mouth, her taste, her kiss curling back into his mind as he watched the steam.

He carried the plates out and put them on the low coffee table in front of the sofa, then went to his drafting table and quickly began rolling up his blueprints. He didn’t want her to see them, didn’t want her asking about his life, his future. His big dream.

He needed to stay focused on just getting her through whatever in hell was going on—and keeping himself from getting too close.

“What are those?” she said appearing in the doorway.

He tensed. “Just some plans for a wilderness lodge I’m building farther up north.”

“Where up north?” She came closer, toweling her hair, wearing soft sweats, her scent clean, soapy.

He didn’t answer the question. “Soup’s on the table.”

Muirinn padded softly into the living room and sat on the sofa, tucking her feet under her.

She ate while Jett studied the four crumpled photos she’d given him.

“Good soup,” she said.

He glanced up. Color was returning to her cheeks. Relief washed softly through him. “Tell me again what Gus wrote in his laptop about these,” he said, positioning the photos next to each other on the coffee table.

“Those four images were among the photos allegedly removed from police evidence before the arrival of the FBI postblast team. That one—” she pointed with her spoon, “—shows bootprints outside the Sodwana headframe building. Apparently, those were left by the bomber’s accomplice.”

He looked up, catching her eyes, and the memory of their kiss shimmered between them. Her cheeks flushed and she cleared her throat, returning her attention to the photos. “And those two sets of tracks in the dark mud were apparently left by the bomber himself.”

Jett tapped a photo with his finger. “The ruler next to the prints outside the Sodwana shaft indicates that the accomplice wore a size 12 boot. I figure the print up in Gus’s attic was also a size 12.”

Muirinn set her bowl down and rubbed her arms, as if she were cold suddenly. “You think it was actually the
same
guy who broke into my house?”

“Hell knows. The ruler next to these other prints in the darker mud shows that the bomber wore a size 10 boot.” He frowned slowly as he studied the photo more closely.

“They’re odd tracks,” he said, a whisper of unspecified foreboding rustling down his spine. “It looks like the guy was dragging one foot, or something.”

She nodded, watching him intently.

“What else did Gus say about these prints, Muirinn?”

“That’s all. His notes just ended in midstream.”

“Did he have a theory about
who
might have left these tracks?”

“No.”

“So Gus figured—with Ike Potter’s help—that an accomplice stood guard while the bomber went down to the 800 level, then walked about three miles underground to D-shaft where he planted the bomb?”

“It appears that way.”

“And you think Gus went out to the mine to check out this theory?

“Except I don’t believe Gus actually intended to go underground,” said Muirinn. “He just wouldn’t have done that.”

Jett sat back. “That’s one helluva trek underground.”

“Which means the bomber must have been in good physical shape, right?” she said, pushing a strand of damp hair back from the bandage on her forehead.

Jett caught the scent of her shampoo.

“Or very determined.” He got up suddenly, walked to the windows. He stood with his back to her, hands thrust deep in his pockets as he stared out over the ocean.

“That part of Tolkin had also been shut down due to low yield at least four years prior to the blast,” he said quietly, trying to imagine the scenario. “Only a guy who’d worked that part of the mine before it was shut would even begin to know where to go in those abandoned tunnels, alone.”