Maternal Instinct (31 page)

What if neither of them had the courage to say it first? What if neither of them ever did? Could their marriage fail, because they were both emotional cowards?

But—oh God—what if she said, "I love you," and saw him withdraw? Or, worse yet, saw pity?

No. She couldn't do it. Not until he gave her some small reason to think he felt the same.

If he ever did.

"Thanks for seeing me, Ms
.
Peirson
," Hugh said courteously. "I hope I didn't interrupt your dinner."

He could see into the dining room of the small ranch house, where dirty dishes sat untouched with a half-eaten casserole still in the center of the table, and a high chair was still splattered with pureed peas, if he was any judge of color.

The young woman gave a quick, nervous smile. "Oh, no, we were done, thank you. I still have to clean up, but—" she sat, spine straight, barely touching the chair, as if she'd leap up at the slightest excuse "—my husband works the night shift at Olympic
Seafoods
. He, um, he had to go to work. And my oldest is watching over the baby."

He made his smile sympathetic. "Meals are a challenge with one that age, aren't they?"

"Do you have one?" she asked with relief, as if he had suddenly become human.

"My wife's pregnant." Bemusedly, he recognized the warm pride in his voice. "But I have five nieces and nephews."

"Oh! Well, congratulations." She fidgeted.

"This doesn't look like a good time for you to quit your job," Hugh remarked.

She grimaced. "Well, financially it never is. But I just couldn't go back. I couldn't! And Ron understands, fortunately. We're hoping I can stay home for a few months, at least. It helps not to have daycare costs."

"Which must be a mint, with two kids."

He was shocked by what she told him it did cost. Damn, was that what he and Nell would have to pay? No wonder John had been so grateful for their mother's help!

Gradually Hugh worked the conversation back around to Greater Northwest Insurance, the personalities in the office, feuds she'd been aware of, affairs and gossip.

She was more open than she'd been the first time he and Nell had talked to her, probably because she had quit her job and no longer felt she owed loyalty to the company or her co-workers. Yes, she had heard that Margaret Bissell and Jerome Ryman had had something going; she thought it had started before his divorce and might have been part of the cause of it, a tidbit Hugh filed away with interest.

He talked her through the day of the massacre, watching her body language show the growing terror despite the time that separated her from the horror. She'd been the one to take the first call from a coffee-break friend downstairs who had said in a tremulous voice, "I hear gunshots. They're just down the hall. I don't know whether to run or hide or … I'm so scared, Denise!"

Shuddering, she whispered, "I don't know if she hid. But he found her. She's dead." One racking sob escaped before she pressed her fingers to her mouth. "I'm so sorry!" she exclaimed, rocking.

"No, I'm sorry to have to make you relive this again. Are you okay? Can you tell me what happened next?"

With a visible, heroic effort she swallowed, lifted her head and said with only the faintest tremor in her voice, "I went to the first door—
Wen
Gresch's
—and told
Wen
and Margaret, who was in there talking to him. I don't know then—I guess Margaret went to get Dermot. Dermot Eaton? You've talked to him, I guess. The next thing I knew, everyone was gathering out in the hall and arguing about whether the phone calls we'd gotten were a hoax, or what." Faint bitterness sounded in her voice. "If somebody important had called Dermot or Jerome or Margaret, we might have evacuated or at least done
something.
But Rochelle was just a clerk, and no one knew her, so they didn't want to believe her." Her voice slid toward enmity. "Especially Jerome."

"I'm not sure people ever want to believe something like this can happen in their own workplace," Hugh said. "They wanted not to believe it."

Her hands gripped each other so hard, her knuckles were white. "Maybe.
I
didn't want to believe it, but I was scared."

She described the moment the elevator had dinged, how every head had turned to see the light above the closed doors showing that it was rising toward their floor. "We just … scattered."

She had fled to the file room down the hall, where she had known she could squeeze into an under-the-window cabinet. "I think someone else was in there, too." She bit her lip. "I hoped it was the temp. I felt terrible that I hadn't even thought of her! She wouldn't know where to hide, the way the rest of us did. It was only her first day!"

Temp?
As she rambled, her guilt still apparent, Hugh hid his excitement. Why the hell had nobody mentioned the presence of another person? But he knew the answer: she was invisible. Secretaries, clerical help and receptionists tended to be that at the best of times; one nobody knew, whose name they might not even have heard, was easily forgotten.

"A temp," he said, voice measured, calm. "Do you recall her name?"

Denise
Peirson
thought, but finally shook her head. "You haven't talked to her?"

"Nobody has mentioned her. I knew the other receptionist was out that day. Was this temp replacing her?"

"Yes. We always used the same agency for replacement personnel." She knew their name. "They'll have a record."

"What did she look like?"

Her description rang a faint bell in his memory. Hugh saw a young woman, not more than nineteen or twenty, he'd guessed, frozen with fear in a metal cabinet in… Hell. He couldn't remember whose office. He or Nell had automatically reassured her and sent her running out with the others.

He, too, had forgotten her. He had asked all the right questions, he'd thought, eliciting information on who was in the building. He'd talked to two clients and one wife who had been on the fifth floor at the unlucky time. But he'd never asked, "Did you have any temp workers?"

Stupid, stupid, stupid,
he thought.

"You've been a big help," he told Denise
Peirson
. "At least you've given me someone fresh to grill."

She smiled weakly at his sally and showed him to the door. The last thing she said was, "I will never forget that day, as long as I live. I will never feel completely safe again."

"But it will fade," he said quietly. "And you'll find you and your children
are
safe, most of the time."

Driving away, he looked in his side mirror at her small, slightly shabby house with a browning lawn, and wished he could do something for her.

Hope had awakened his hunter's instinct, and he drove home regretting the hours he had to wait to call the temp agency and learn the name of the one other person who had been on the fifth floor of the Joplin Building that day, and who had never answered a single question about what she saw.

Chapter 14

«
^
»

T
he next morning
, Nell sat behind the counter of the Evidence Room, eyeing a plate of doughnuts someone had been so unkind as to leave. Sugar, glazed, filled and cake. All present, all tempting. And she was suddenly
so
hungry! She dreaded her weigh-in at her monthly checkup. But maybe not enough to keep her from having just one…

Her hand snaked out toward the plate.

"Nell!" Her husband stopped at the counter. "What are you doing here?"

She pretended she'd been tapping the scarred countertop in sheer boredom. "Filling in. My fate in life. Sergeant Blaine has the flu."

Hugh contemplated the doughnuts. "He probably overindulged."

"They look so good!" she wailed.

His dark eyebrows rose. "So eat one."

"I'll get fat!"

"I'll love you anyway," he said, with apparent seriousness.

Her heart did a loop even as she tried to lasso it and pull it down to earth. He didn't mean it, she lectured herself. It was the kind of thing even friends said at such a moment.
Even if your whole face was burned, I'd love you anyway.

"The
doctor'll
chew me out. At my checkup."

"They weigh you?" he asked incredulously. "Is it their business how much you weigh?"

How like a man to be so naive. "Unfortunately, yes," she informed him. "They judge how well the baby is growing. It's important not too gain too much, for my own health, but for the baby's sake I shouldn't starve myself and gain too little."

"Ah." He was studying her stomach. "And you're, um, doing okay so far?"

She nodded, took a deep breath and did something impulsive. "Do you want to come with me next time? You can hear the baby's heartbeat."

His eyes met hers, his expression so hopeful he looked momentarily boyish. "I can? Do you want me to come?"

"You're welcome."
Don't chicken out.
"I'd like it if you could come."

"Name the time." He reached across the counter and squeezed her hand. "Do we take a Lamaze class or something?"

"If you want to be there."

His thumb caressed her palm. "You couldn't keep me away."

"Oh." She felt light-headed. Had his eyes always been so blue, so intense? If only the counter weren't so wide. He might kiss her…

"Listen," he said suddenly. "You were asleep last night, and with Kim at breakfast this morning I didn't get a chance to tell you. I found out the missing receptionist was replaced that day by a temp." He described her, and she nodded slowly, her brief disappointment at the change of subject incinerated by a spark of excitement.

"I think I do remember her." Honesty made her add, "Maybe. Faces from all three floors have run together in my memory."

"Do you want to come with me to talk to her? Maybe I can convince Captain Fisher to let you."

"Please!" Nell begged. Shoulders slumping like a disappointed child's, she said, "He'll say no. I know he will."

"Nothing ventured…" He flashed her a grin that still made her heart pitter-pat and vanished down the hall.

With newfound resolve, Nell pushed the doughnuts away.

Hugh reappeared fifteen minutes later with a young officer in tow. This time his grin was frankly triumphant. "
Harkness
has volunteered to eat doughnuts and watch the clock tick."

Skinny and wet behind the ears,
Harkness
laughed weakly. "Yeah, I'll bet it's a thrill a minute here."

"Haven't had any business yet this morning," Nell told him cheerfully. "But you can hope."

A moment later, she was free. She walked decorously down the hall with Hugh, waiting until they'd entered the parking garage before she crowed, "You did it!" Dancing a couple of steps, she asked, "How? What did you
say?"

Hugh grabbed her hand. "I groveled. No, actually, I appealed to his essential fairness. You were in on the beginning, and you ought to be in on the end. I also suggested that this Irene Macy might be more comfortable talking to me if a woman officer was present."

Giving way to impulse a second time in one morning, Nell stood on tiptoe and kissed him on his cheek. "Thank you."

Hugh stopped, gripped her shoulders, and kissed her mouth. "You're welcome," he said when he lifted his head, his voice gravelly.

Her heart was apparently using a trampoline again, but she decided to enjoy the giddy feeling rather than sternly bringing herself down to earth.

It almost felt like old times in the squad car. Before. She thought of it in capital letters. Before she and Hugh had known the consequences of that night, changing everything. Before they'd become husband and wife, ending forever all possibility of being partners on the job.

"Working with you wasn't as bad as I thought it would be," she said aloud.

Hugh, engrossed in backing the car out, shot her a startled look.