The Man For Maggie
Frances Housden
Maggie Kovacs was the most enchanting woman Detective Max Strachan had ever met. She was also the most eccentric. Or was she? Max soon realized that the nighttime visions Maggie claimed she saw supplied him with details that only the police– and a cunning serial killer– could possibly know….A no-nonsense lawman like Max was the last person Maggie would have imagined turning to for support, let alone romance. Incredibly, the skeptical sergeant might just be the man of her dreams. But could he possibly save her from what she saw in them?
“You okay? You went white as a sheet. I thought you were going to pass out,”
Max said gruffly, bending his mouth to Maggie’s ear as he gathered her closer.
Tiny balloons burst in her brain, letting all her common sense escape and float away. She could definitely get used to this, a man who’d be there when she needed him. Maggie let herself lean back into his strength. Gave temptation its head for a second and luxuriated in the male scent of him, the solid bulk of his chest that could almost make her believe she could rely on him.
If only for a second…
Dear Reader,
It’s the beginning of a new year, and Intimate Moments is ready to kick things off with six more fabulously exciting novels. Readers have been clamoring for Linda Turner to create each new installment of her wonderful miniseries THOSE MARRYING McBRIDES! In Never Been Kissed she honors those wishes with the deeply satisfying tale of virginal nurse Janey McBride and Dr. Reilly Jones, who’s just the man to teach her how wonderful love can be when you share it with the right man.
A YEAR OF LOVING DANGEROUSLY continues to keep readers on the edge of their seats with The Spy Who Loved Him, bestselling author Merline Lovelace’s foray into the dangerous jungles of Central America, where the loving is as steamy as the air. And you won’t want to miss My Secret Valentine, the enthralling conclusion to our in-line 36 HOURS spin-off. As always, Marilyn Pappano delivers a page-turner you won’t be able to resist. Ruth Langan begins a new trilogy, THE SULLIVAN SISTERS, with Awakening Alex, sure to be another bestseller. Lyn Stone’s second book for the line, Live-In Lover, is sure to make you her fan. Finally, welcome brand-new New Zealand sensation Frances Housden. In The Man for Maggie she makes a memorable debut, one that will have you crossing your fingers that her next book will be out soon.
Enjoy! And come back next month, when the excitement continues here in Silhouette Intimate Moments.
Yours,
Leslie J. Wainger
Executive Senior Editor
The Man for Maggie
Frances Housden
www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)
FRANCES HOUSDEN
has always been a voracious reader but never thought of being a writer until a teacher gave her the encouragement she needed to put pen to paper. As a result, Frances was a finalist for the 1998 Clendon Award and won the award in 1999, which led to the sale of her first book for Silhouette, The Man for Maggie. Frances also teaches a continuing education course of her own in romance writing at the University of Auckland.
Frances’s marriage to a navy man took her from her birthplace in Scotland to New Zealand. Now he’s a land-lubber and most of the traveling they do is together. They live on a ten-acre bush block in the heart of Auckland’s Wine District. She has two large sons, two tiny grandsons and a wheaten terrier named Siobhan. Thanks to one teacher’s dedication, Frances now gets to write about the kind of men a woman would travel to the ends of the earth for.
For my mentor, Enisa Hasic, my critique partners, Jean,
Judy, Judith and Rowena, and for Joanne Graves,
who never minds me bending her ear over the phone for
hours, while I listen to myself talk out my plots.
And in memory of Margie Rameka, who always believed
I’d succeed one day.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Epilogue
Chapter 1
“I won’t tell him! You can’t make me.”
Maggie Kovacs heard the quaver in her voice above the soft rumble of conversation flowing around them. She heard feeble. She heard fear. And it annoyed the hell out of her, when what she really wanted was to bang the wineglass in her fist on the table. She would have too, if she hadn’t known every last person in the bar, ninety percent of them male, would turn around to see who was losing it.
Jo looked at her over the rim of her beer glass, took another swallow and put it down. “The choice is yours, Maggie. No one’s forcing your hand.”
Choice! She had none.
All she had were delaying tactics, as she hoped against hope the police would do their job and her problem would go away. No such luck. Life became intolerable when you regarded all your friends with a jaundiced eye, wondering who…? She’d never thought the day would come when she thanked God for having no family to call her own, but thank Him she did.
Maggie let her gaze drift past Jo between the crowded tables to where the fire crackled. The old fireplace was widemouthed and loaded with logs, someone’s attempt at cozying up the old pub. Anyone could see the bar was a relic from New Zealand’s early closing era. There weren’t many left in the inner city, and this pub, like most of the modernized ones, sported more paint than a K Road whore looking for business. But the bar owed its popularity to convenience. It was practically next door to Auckland Central, the city’s main police station.
Wood smoke sputtered from the logs every time the door opened, joining tainted air already tangy from damp wool steaming in the heat. With each breath the scents filled her mouth.
She tasted winter. The dead season.
Quickly, she gulped down some wine to rid herself of a taste turned bitter, and glanced at the clock over the fireplace. Hard to believe she’d been here less than half an hour. There was a clock ticking in the back of her mind, not unlike that one, and it had been getting louder and louder in the last week until she’d panicked this morning and rung Jo.
The evening hadn’t gone the way Maggie had planned, and her friend had caught the brunt of her failure. Hopes of Jo easing the stress jangling her nerves had died the moment her friend turned the tables and put the onus back on Maggie. And who could blame her? Not many people cared for spooky stuff. Not even Maggie, and she was its source.
It was her own fault for not realizing Jo might have changed. In three years, her dark eyes had grown wary and a tight, repressed line had replaced her smile. Her face and chin, once soft and youthful had grown finer, as if someone had drawn them with a harder pencil.
From across the bar Maggie had watched Jo arrive, taken in the forever irrepressible mass of dark brown curls hanging over the collar of Jo’s leather jacket, and been fooled. But cops had always been able to fool Maggie—she should have remembered. There were some who could cozen you into telling all your secrets, then laugh behind your back and blab them to the world.
Was Jo, too, calculating the changes and taking a guess at their meaning? How had they turned out such opposites, when as girls they’d been so alike? Had all their years in identical school uniforms hidden their true selves? Leaving time to solve the mystery.
Jo drained the last half-inch in her glass, then set it down with an exasperated click. “If you didn’t want my advice, why’d you bother to look me up?”
“Come off it, Jo. You know why. I’ve never been able to talk to anyone but you about it. Where else would I go?”
“You managed it once—”
“Yeah.” Maggie placed her arms on the table, her elbow accidentally hitting her wineglass. She heard it skitter across the laminated top, but if a crash came she blanked it out as unimportant. “And only just lived to tell the tale. Look what happened!” Look what they did to me! “I won’t let it happen again!” I can’t.
“Is this a private argument or can anyone join in?”
Maggie looked up, startled by the deep resonant voice. Immediately, she went into denial. “We weren’t arguing.” Out of the corner of her eye she saw Jo smile at the new arrival. Someone special?
“Max, I didn’t think you’d be here this evening.” Delight rang in Jo’s voice. “I thought you were pulling an all-nighter. Come and join us.”
So this was Max. Detective Sergeant Max Strachan, to be precise. Jo’s boss. The man she’d been pressing Maggie to speak to.
“Never spilled a drop. Neat trick. You’ll have to show me how to do it.” A large hand, slim fingered with blunt tips, set the glass it had caught back on the table. All she could see was his hand with its sprinkling of dark hair as the lights behind him captured all but his silhouette, making his features invisible.
“It’s not something you can learn overnight. I’ve had years of practice,” Maggie said, watching him hook the leg of a chair from the table next to theirs with a large, black-shod foot.
She flinched as the chair scraped across the tiled floor and he pulled it up to their table. His gabardine-covered thigh, cold from the night air, brushed against her nylon-clad knees as he sat down between her and Jo. At the same time a searing heat from the hard-muscled flesh molding the soft cloth made her ache to pull away. But that would be too obvious.
Wide shoulders blocked the rest of the bar from view as he settled into his chair, giving Maggie the uneasy feeling of being trapped. He could easily be six-five. Built like a brick outhouse. A man who would make male offenders shake in their shoes and female ones want to get down and slobber over his size twelves. A man to avoid. And as soon as she could, Maggie aimed to do just that.
“This is my friend Maggie Kovacs. Maggie, Max Strachan.”
Max held out his hand. Automatically she placed hers in it and felt her own swallowed up by a mass of contained strength. Since he was impossible to ignore, she let her reluctant gaze travel over him. A scar ran from his left eyebrow to his hairline, and a streak of silver made his dark hair, as dark as hers, look jet-black. Was there irony in the way the silver striation turned his already handsome face, with its black winged brows and aesthetically high cheekbones, into a prototypical pirate? In the midst of all that perfection, the slight bend in the bridge of his nose should have been a reminder that the man was a cop who had more than likely done battle before. It wasn’t. Cops were supposed to be good guys, but Maggie usually took them as she found them; her last experience had colored most of them charcoal-gray. But in Max’s case she’d rather remain in ignorance.
His eyes paid Maggie the compliment she’d given him—a detailed inspection. She swallowed at his intense look as their gazes collided. His eyes were truly blue. The truest blue she’d ever seen, ringed by long sooty lashes any woman would envy. True blue eyes that searched and sought out her deep hidden secrets. Maggie blinked in self-defense. He was the last man she wanted to share secrets with. Especially the one she’d just added to the list—the mind-blowing attraction he stirred, like a sleeping volcano wakening. Max smiled, just a slight curve of his chiseled lips, but enough to make her insides quake.
“Margaret Kovacs.” Her name rolled off his tongue one syllable at a time, as though he savored each nuance with teeth and tongue before letting it go.
Someone had let loose a whole load of geese in the graveyard. How else could she account for the shivers running down her spine?
Maggie gauged his thoughts. Was he trying to place her name, flicking through the filing system in his brain for where he’d heard it before? “Maggie,” she corrected. “I prefer Maggie.” By repeating her name, she hoped to nudge him off the track his mind had started down.
“Maggie it is. And what brings you to this neck of the woods, Maggie? We don’t usually see ladies like you in here.”
“I wanted to catch up with Jo. It’s been a while,” she said and flashed him a scathing look. He’d had to state the obvious. It hadn’t taken a detective to recognize her as the most overdressed person in the bar. Or did she mean underdressed? The only person in a miniskirt in this place where jeans and casual gear were the uniform of the day.
Even her hairstyle set her apart, with its precision cut. She’d let her stylist crop it ruthlessly to the shape of her head, leaving a shiny black length of hair to swirl across the tops of her ears and eyebrows. “It’s a crime to hide that bone structure, my dear. Your cheekbones are to die for,” was Stefan’s cri de coeur.
Maggie took a deep breath. At twenty-eight she should be past the age of letting people like Max get to her. But at least she hadn’t let it show how much his comments had bothered her.
“Almost three years,” confirmed Jo. “I couldn’t even make it back to Maggie’s father’s funeral, and that must have been a year ago, when I was in Gisborne.”
“Fifteen months.”
“A year this past March. That would have been Frank Kovacs?”
Maggie caught the gleam of recognition in his eyes, the slight tensing of his hand around his glass, and knew the seed of speculation had been sown. This was exactly the situation she’d wanted to avoid. “Yes. Did you know him?”
“I’ve heard of him.”
I’ll just bet you have.
Suddenly she just wanted out of there, wanted to run away from eyes that saw too much. Too easily.
She’d come to talk to Jo on a wave of courage, and the longer she stayed the more it ebbed. She’d already had her fifteen minutes of fame, and taking a chance on thirty might just push her over the top.
Max drained his glass. “Can I buy you both a drink?” He looked at their glasses, Jo’s empty one and the half glass of red wine of Maggie’s that he’d caught and replaced. “Not your usual vintage, I imagine? Maybe I can do better?”
That was all the confirmation Maggie needed. Max remembered her story and wasn’t too subtle about letting her know. “I doubt it.” She took another sip as if to prove him wrong.
Jo pushed her glass toward Max. “Thanks, I’ll have my usual,” she said, giving him another of the smiles she’d been rationing, as if the undercurrents in the conversation were passing her by. Maggie knew Jo wasn’t that dumb. Jo was sending a few signals of her own, and Maggie got the impression they were all for her benefit. Showing her the lay of the land. One minute Jo was practically pushing her to meet the guy, the next Maggie could see a sign in bold writing: Hands Off.
Maggie took another look at the clock with its small brass pendulum swinging back and forth. No chance of time slowing for her.
“Would you look at the time? I have to go.” She stood up and slid her arms into the camel-colored, cashmere coat she’d left hanging over the back of her chair. She turned her collar up till it framed her face, ready for the biting wind that had sprung up as the sun set. “Jo, give me a call when you’ve got the time. You’ve got my numbers. Nice to meet you, Sergeant Strachan.”
Max stood up and Jo followed his example. “Do you have to?” she asked.
Maggie slung the strap of her bag over her shoulder. “Yeah, I have to. Bye now.” She left them with an inane wiggle of her fingers, which showed the panic in her mind. Unable to get away quickly enough, she aimed for the door with the distinct feeling that Max’s eyes were boring into her back. With every step she took the door seemed farther and farther away.
A finely turned ankle.
Now, where the hell had that come from? It was one of those long-forgotten expressions lurking in the recesses of Max’s mind, but it fitted the pair of sheer, black-nylon covered ankles to a tee. The ones playing hide and seek with his libido through the long slit in the back of Maggie’s coat. Each glimpse made his breath catch softly, miniature versions of the drawn-out hitch in his breathing when he’d first spied her across the room beside Jo. He’d never been an ankle man, until now, but he’d always been a quick study.
Max watched her walk away, head high, shoulders straight, as if she didn’t give a damn. Each movement, from the tilt of her head and the slippery sheen of her black hair sliding over her upturned collar, to the firm click of her slender-heeled shoes on the tiles, were lies. A demonstration of body language lying through its teeth.
He knew it.
She knew it.
It wasn’t what had been said earlier. It was the denial that they’d had anything to say. The subtext had been deafening from the moment he’d seen her slender body surge across the table toward Jo. Passion and energy etched every line. Sparks bursting from that energy had lit a fuse inside him, and he’d known straight off it was too late to douse it. Max prayed the fuse was a long one, and a slow burner. He’d need all the time he could get to garner his defenses. From the moment he’d heard her name—maybe even before, when lust had driven him across the room, and Jo’s presence had eased the inevitability of their meeting—he’d known this was one situation that could blow up in his face.
The double glass doors, with their dull, fingerprint-yellow brass handles, swung on their hinges after her exit. But relief didn’t come as quickly as the doors shuddered to a halt. Max turned back to Jo and picked up her empty glass from the table. “Same again, you said?” He didn’t wait for her nod or the question shaping her eyebrows. He needed a moment to himself and his thoughts, and he’d get them at the bar while he ordered Jo a beer and himself a whiskey. A double.
Maggie Kovacs. Her father had been the one whose plane had crashed, but she’d been the one who’d hit the headlines.
He remembered the sergeant on the case, if you could call it a case—more like a retrieval job for the police divers, with a mop-up by the air-accident inspector.
Until Maggie had reached the scene.
To hear Sergeant Gorman tell it, she’d been out of her tree. Gorman was a bluff, red-faced character who looked as if he’d be more at home on top of a tractor than riding in a cop car. Still, it took all types. The man was retired now, and Max reasoned he’d only been handed the Kovacs case to get him out from behind his desk. The rest had been a bonus. The guy was probably still raising a few laughs at Maggie’s expense.
Maggie.
Sometimes prejudice got in the way of reality. Where were the hoop earrings and spangled head scarf? The “cross my palm with silver, mister?” Maggie didn’t look anything like the advertisements with their 0900 numbers littering the tabloids and women’s magazines. Madam Zelda and the likes, who’d read your fortune from cards, or your future from the vibes singing down the phone line, and charge you $3.95 a minute for the privilege. For a while there he’d almost let them get away with annihilating his future. They’d certainly robbed him of a fortune—and his marriage. It was something he’d never forgive or forget. Like the day he’d opened the final demand from the phone company, and felt the bottom drop out of his world.
He downed his first whiskey while they poured Jo’s beer, and was into his second before he reached the table. The heat entered his stomach and had spread to his veins by the time he sat down. He caught Jo’s glance and knew she’d be speculating about the second drink. Usually he nursed one glassful till the ice melted and the whiskey was as hot inside the glass as when it hit his tonsils.
“So…” he sighed. “Good-looking woman, Maggie. Catching up on old times, were you?” He tossed back another mouthful of the desperate man’s anesthetic and waited for Jo’s reply. The bombshell wasn’t unexpected; he just wasn’t ready for it to go off this soon.
“She came to see me about a murder. Three of them, to be precise.”
“Cut the crap, Jo. Next you’re going to tell me she dreamed them!”
“She’s psychic.”
“Then you’re going to tell me you believe in all this mumbo jumbo.” Max took another swallow. The effects of the anesthetic were wearing off quickly. He’d known Jo for five years now. Worked with her on and off for three of them. She was a good cop, with a quick, keen mind. She never flinched, even when things were at their hairiest. But believing in this psychic twaddle had to be a female thing.
“For heaven’s sake! This is a new age, Max. Sooner or later you’ll have to give in and open your mind to the possibilities. Hell, I like my job too much to put it on the block, but I’ve known Maggie all my life. You I’ve only known long enough to learn how hard you can dig in your heels.”
“I’m not interested in a rundown on her dreams. I’m not a shrink. Tell her to try the yellow pages.” He’d had enough on his plate with three unsolved murders in as many months. Not even a fool could deny they were connected, and he was no fool. Which was a good reason for staying away from anything that smacked of paranormal. Now if only he could convince his libido of the same thing where Maggie was concerned, he might be a damn sight nearer to suppressing the urge to get up and follow her out the door.
“Well, don’t get your Jockeys in a twist. It just so happens she doesn’t want to speak to you, either.” An edge of satisfaction colored Jo’s voice as she tossed the ball back at him.
“So what was this tonight? A social call, or is she after a little more publicity to keep the punters rolling in?” At the base of his skull a pain throbbed, and he wondered who he was really trying to hurt—Jo, Maggie or himself? “You thinking of flagging the police and taking up marketing, Jo?” The steel in his voice would have made a wiser woman back off. Not Jo.
“Okay, Max. Let it all hang out, spill your guts,” she retorted.
Jo’s breasts heaved under her blue chambray shirt and spread the zipper edging of her leather jacket farther apart. Boy, she was angry with him! Max had never seen her this mad before. How much would it take to make her blow her stack? There was a calm, calculating part of his brain that thought maybe this was a good thing. Cruel, but good. Good for him.
He’d been thinking for a while now that maybe Jo was getting too fond of him. And he wasn’t the only one to notice, judging by a few of the comments written on the men’s room walls. The only thing to cut that out would be to make the place unisex.
At one stage he’d toyed with the idea of getting her a sideways promotion out of Central. A word in the right ear was all it would take. But was it fair to nix a good cop’s career, just because she thought the sun shone on his sorry behind?
“I knew who she was the moment you said her name,” Max growled. “Maggie’s reputation precedes her. If you’d been here fifteen months ago you’d know to keep away from her, unless you actually want your credibility as a cop to go down the drain.” He swallowed the last mouthful in his glass. Who was he trying to remind, Jo or himself? His divorce was six months old, and the only relationships he’d had in the last two and a half years had been the types that pass in the night. A quick tumble in the sheets and a few more weeks relief were all he got out of them. One look at Maggie and he could tell that wouldn’t be enough.
“Just because I haven’t seen her in three years doesn’t mean we haven’t been in touch. I can read, and not just the rubbish Gorman let slip and the media blew all out of proportion. Maggie wrote me about it, about the crank calls and the lies. I was trying to persuade her to tell you about the dreams when you arrived.”
“Good one! You’d send her to me when you know my opinion of these fakers.”
“I thought if you saw her face-to-face—”
“It takes more than a pretty face to bowl me over.”
“Tell me about it. I know it never worked for me.”
“Don’t let’s get into that, Jo. You’re a friend. Friends last longer than lovers.” He hoped Jo would take the words as they were meant and not as a put-down. It was the first time either of them had openly acknowledged her infatuation.
Jo shrugged and laughed ruefully. “Can’t blame a girl for trying. But we’re getting off the subject. I’m worried about Maggie. She sounded desperate. Didn’t you notice how edgy she was? Once you arrived she couldn’t wait to get away.”
“I thought it was my lethal personality she couldn’t stand.”
“Well… She doesn’t like cops, but her manners are usually better than that.”
“You’re a cop.”
“Yeah, but we were at boarding school together and we both come from the same background. It makes a difference.”
“I didn’t know your family made wine.”
“I was talking about Dalmatia. Both our families came from there originally. In some ways Maggie’s father hadn’t changed much from the old folks who first settled there. He had a closed mind on some things.” Jo tilted her head to one side, her expression serious as she looked him up and down. “Remind you of anyone? Frank Kovacs forbade her to talk about her dreams. Not that he didn’t love her—he adored her. It was the only thing he was ever strict over. Said he only did it to protect her. Seems he had to die to prove himself right.”
Max watched Jo swallow, lick her lips, then swallow another mouthful of beer. He could tell she wasn’t finished, so he waited and said nothing.
“I know these dreams do come true. But I can’t help her this time. I haven’t enough clout, but you do. And I’m guessing from the way Maggie’s acting, she’s going to have to give in and pay you a visit.” Jo leaned across the table and gripped his sleeved arm just above the wrist. By the strength of her fingers, he guessed her desperation was as strong as Maggie’s. “I need you to believe she got nothing from me. Nothing, yet she knows everything, down to the red scarves.”
Max felt his stomach clench and acid rise. Heartburn.
Could he believe Jo? The possibility posed too many questions he didn’t want answered. He’d rather keep Maggie in a box marked This One Makes You Hard Just by Being in the Same Room. He’d rather plan strategies to get her into his bed. To start figuring out the way her mind worked would draw him in too deep, and no amount of paddling would keep him near the surface. Not unless it was the pale olive, satin skin covering Maggie’s surface from head to toe.
There had to be another explanation. Damned if he could think what it might be, though. To give credence to what he’d just heard meant admitting he’d been wrong about a whole lot of other things, including his wife and his marriage, and he wasn’t ready for that just yet…or ever.
“There must have been a leak. Check the newspapers—we might have missed something. If someone on the case has a loose mouth, your job is to find out who. And I need answers by this time tomorrow. Heaven help us if this gets out,” Max muttered, knowing that, so far, heaven was the only place they hadn’t gone for help. That sounded too much like the area he was trying to avoid.
“So, you believe there could be a leak? And you’re satisfied it’s not me?”
“No, I’m not. You’d better work your little butt off and find me someone, or there’s only one conclusion I can make.”
“Great! I give you a gift from the gods and now you’re going to make me pay for it.”
A blast of raucous laughter had them both turning toward the bar. Max recognized the bulk of their team, milling around the barman, singing out their orders. “C’mon, Jo. You might as well start right now.”
“Why do I have to be the spy?” she complained, getting to her feet.
“You won’t be alone. I’ll stick around for a while. Check first for anyone who might have worked with Gorman. Maybe you’re not the only cop Maggie knows. If it’ll help, I’ll shout the next round. The guys needed some downtime to relax and work some of the frustration out of their systems, so I gave them tonight off.”
Max stood up and, as he did so, caught sight of a scarf under his feet. He reached down and picked up the scrap of silk, patterned like a leopard in black, tan and gold. “This yours?” he asked.
“No, it’s Maggie’s.” Jo held out her hand. “I’ll take it.”
Max rolled the long strip of silk around his fingers and released Maggie’s scent. It filled his head like a haunting refrain he couldn’t shake. “Would she have gone back up north tonight?”
“No. She wouldn’t drink and drive, and I know she walked here from the apartment Frank had in the Viaduct Quay tower. She’ll probably stay the night there.”
“In that case I’ll hang on to it.” Max pushed the ball of silk into his pocket. “From what you told me, chances are I’ll see her before you do.”
In fact, he would bet on it.
Chapter 2
Maggie’s body glowed pink, blooming from the aftereffects of a hot shower and brisk rubdown with a thick towel. Her comb slid off the long, creamy slice of marble below the huge mirror and into her palm. Holding the comb firmly enough to mark her skin, she slicked her wet hair back without once looking at her reflection. Her father’s dark green silk robe hung on the back of the door and she slipped into it, hiding her nakedness.
A hint of Frank’s favorite cologne still lingered in the soft folds after all these months, the fragrance teasing at her memory as she wrapped the robe’s generous width around her. Doubling it over at the front, she crossed her arms tightly against her breasts, trying to remember the last time her father had held her—and failing.
So long…so long ago since the dreams began and the hugs had stopped. Puberty at least. But then, maybe all fathers began distancing themselves from their daughters at that age, and everything else was in her imagination. The way the dreams were, according to Frank Kovacs. Her father had had a way of saying things, like an edict from on high, and Maggie had known not to argue when he used a certain tone of voice.
Stubborn, arrogant man.
If only he’d believed in her.
Maggie’s lips quivered and she pushed the thoughts away before they undid all the good the shower had achieved. Just give her one dreamless night and she’d be okay. Thoughts of Max Strachan were banned as well. Thoughts like the ones that had made her stumble out of the shower, grab the towel and attempt to erase the graphic visions with rough friction.
The water had been hot, so hot—not as soft as the tank water at home, but with more pressure—and she’d luxuriated in the difference, letting the needle-sharp jets tingle against her skin, tilting her head back to let the water pour over the tightness in her throat, then split into three streams as it coursed around her breasts. She could put up with the smell of chlorine just for the way the spray sent her blood zinging through every particle of her skin till she felt as hot inside as out.
Then she’d glanced down while she’d soaped her breasts.
And seen Max’s hands.
His broad palms cupped her breasts from the sides and his fingers created patterns of tanned and pale skin across the full mounds. Max used the contained strength she’d felt earlier to conjure the silkiest of caresses from pure, latent power. His touch, gentle yet hot as fire, seared through to her soul as the water careened over the growth of dark hair, plastering it to taut, lean sinew and bone until it spilled off his wrists. Here was a vision that could shatter her fragile control, and as her nipples tightened into sharp points and stabbed into his palms, she squeezed her eyes shut and still couldn’t blank it out.
Damn, she was losing it.
Maggie hitched the belt of the robe around her waist and tightened it. Pulling hard on the ends until she could hardly breathe, she formed a bow with short jerky movements of her hands. Who was having the last laugh now? She could hear her father’s voice echo in her mind.
“Too much imagination.”
Thick carpet soaked up his footsteps, and heavily embossed, light blue wallpaper, hung with reproduction artwork, ate up all other sound, obliterating his presence. As he reached the terra-cotta door, which emphasized the similar-colored pattern on the dark blue carpet, a swift glance over his shoulder confirmed he was on his own. One more strike against the up-market apartment tower. If anyone was going to creep up on Max, he wanted to hear him coming. Sure, the tenants had probably paid a bundle to achieve this high-tech impression of peace and solitude, although if he lived ten stories up, his number one priority would be knowing no one had come along and kicked the rest of the building out from under him.
He reached out and rang the bell to the left of the solid wood door. A peephole had been set dead center in the thick plank bisecting the door. He eyed it for a moment, just a moment, and considered sticking his thumb over the aperture, then changed his mind. At thirty-four he was past playing those kinds of games.
Maggie would let him in—she had to. There was an awareness, an attraction. It had shimmered between them like a living, breathing thing no smelly, clamorous pub could pollute. He’d felt it, and he would swear she had, too—he wouldn’t have risked calling on her otherwise.
From his first sight of her on the other side of the bar, tension had begun to claw at his gut. Even learning her name and knowing her history hadn’t dulled the sharp edges of neediness he’d felt at the touch of her hand. And unless he mistook his instincts, it had driven her away. Among other things. But she would recognize what it had cost him to come here tonight. He was certain of that.
Max rang the bell again and stood close to the door, his hands braced on either side of the frame, waiting, wondering what he’d do if she wasn’t inside. Although she should have been expecting him. He’d shown his ID to the security guard at the desk when he’d asked for her on the way through, and if the guy had been doing his job he would have told her the police were on the way up.
Max could feel her watching him. He sensed her presence on the other side of the door as surely as if she’d reached out and touched him. That was all it took. His groin tightened and all the blood in his brain rushed down to his crotch. Max closed his eyes and swallowed, fighting for control.
A few more minutes and Maggie would have been sound asleep. She’d curled up on one of the sofas with the robe wrapped around her knees and her feet tucked under it. While the fire flickered gaseous flames up the chimney, she’d dozed lightly, with the TV droning softly, turned to a program guaranteed to cure the worst of insomniacs. It had taken her ten seconds to come to. Longer till the second ring confirmed the noise wasn’t coming from the TV.
A shiver splashed with excitement and muddied by apprehension flowed through her as she looked into the viewer’s fish-eye lens.
She knew him.
It made no difference that he was standing so close to the door only the lower half of his face was visible. She recognized the dark green shirt and loosely knotted, matching tie under the jacket of small, muted-green checks he’d worn earlier. Recognized the movement in the strong throat as he swallowed, and most of all she recognized the hard, square-cut jaw. Nothing had changed in the last few hours except the deepening shadow of a relentless growth of beard.
Maggie’s pulse quickened and the nerves on the surface of her skin vibrated the way a piano wire does when a fingernail scratches it from end to end.
It didn’t stop her asking, “Who’s there?”
“The police.”
“How can I tell? Hold your ID up to the security viewer.”
“For Pete’s sake, Maggie! Stop fooling around. You know it’s me, Max. Sergeant Strachan. Your memory can’t be that short.” His exasperation showed in the explosive bursts of language, harsh at first, then softening, cajoling. “Please, Maggie, open the door and let me in. I need to speak to you.”
She hesitated long enough to elicit another plea.
“Maggie, you know we have to talk.”
She could only guess why he’d turned up at her door at ten o’clock at night, and neither conclusion brought any comfort. But it appeared to be business as usual, otherwise he would have said “Max here” instead of “the police,” and the only way to discover if her suspicions were right was to let the man talk. “I don’t know what you think we have to say to one another, but you can come in—just for a few minutes,” she said, qualifying her previous statement as she undid the chain and clicked open the locks.
She stepped back, swinging the door so its full width separated them instead of mere inches. “Come in,” she said, increasing the distance between them by another step.
Nothing had changed.
Whatever effect he had on her imagination, Max Strachan up close and personal sent it off the graph. He walked past her into the apartment and her heart lurched, starting a fast, syncopated beat as she watched his wide shoulders fill up the archway that separated the foyer from the main living area.
The soft brilliance of table lamps and wall sconces blinded Max after the muted lighting in the corridor. Here, cream and pale gold melded on squishy cushioned sofas, carpets and curtains. What wood there was in the room had been limed to fade unobtrusively against walls the color of thick, rich cream straight from the milking shed. In contrast, his and Maggie’s reflections drifted over a night-dark sea and sky. And behind the sheen of glass, the scene shifted and changed as car headlights traveled the Harbour Bridge and merged with the carpet of small, unwinking stars on the North Shore.
It made his own small apartment seem dead. Like comparing poor-boy minimalist with rich-man lush. For the first time that night Max questioned the urge that had chased him all the way down Hobson Street and around Viaduct Quay.
“Well, Maggie. No one can say you haven’t got style.”
“My father had style, or rather his designer did, but it’s not mine. On a sunny day it’s like living in a white-out. I hardly use this place. In fact, this is the first time I’ve stayed here since my father…”
“Crashed his plane?”
“Yes, round about then.” For a split second he thought her face would crumple, but she ducked her head, hiding her expression, before he could be sure. When she did return his gaze her shoulders had squared and a fraction of a smile shaped her full lips. “Would you care for a drink?”
Max nodded, marveling at her self-control. She’d got it down pat, compared to her behavior the day Frank Kovacs’s plane had taken a nosedive into the sea.
“Good, I could use one myself, but I hate to drink alone.”
So his visit wasn’t to be limited to a few minutes, after all. Max took that as a sign of encouragement.
Maggie padded around him on bare feet. Swathed all in green, with her hair straight back and her face natural and free of makeup, she might be mistaken by some for a woodland sprite. Not by him. He liked the play of light on the silky robe, changing its color from light into dark over the curve of her lush little butt, as it swayed to a rhythm all its own.
Maggie didn’t have a stitch on under that thing. Max tugged at his tie, loosening it some more. He needed something to kill the heat spreading from his loins. He needed Maggie, or at a pinch, air.
Opening one door of a long, hand-carved sideboard on the far wall, Maggie hunkered down to look into the wine rack. The robe pooled on the carpet and bloused around her middle. “What do you prefer, red or white wine?”
“Whichever you pick’s fine by me. You’re the expert,” Max replied, following her, drawn by a need to be closer. He leaned one elbow on top of the sideboard as she pulled one bottle after another from the rack and examined the labels. Her clean, fresh scent wafting up to him was more intoxicating than anything she could find in the wine rack. Now if only they could bottle Maggie Kovacs…
Someone ought to shut him away for staring down the gaping neckline of her robe. He wouldn’t mind for a minute as long as they locked Maggie up with him. She had the most perfect breasts he had seen in all his life. Mounds of smooth olive satin—not too big, not too small—hand-size and tipped with sweet, tight, treacle-brown nipples that had him craving for a taste. Man! If he caught anyone else trying this—
What had gotten into him? Possessiveness? Get a hold of yourself, Max!
“This is an excellent one, a six-year-old shiraz. I think you’ll enjoy it.”
“Looks good to me,” he said, fastening his jacket as he straightened, to prevent Maggie from getting an eyeful of the bulge distorting his zipper. As she got to her knees, Max held out his hand, and she drifted up to him until he couldn’t tell who needed steadying, her or him. Her night-dark gaze held his till her eyelids fluttered and severed visual contact, though her hand still seared his palm.
“There are glasses in the other cupboard. Can you get two out while I open this?” Did her voice sound as shaky as it felt? Having Max this close made her limbs feel like Jell-O. There was just so much of him, and all of it male. If she licked her lips she would probably taste testosterone.
Maggie lifted the gold wine steward’s knife and wondered that it didn’t melt in the heat of her hand. Her stomach clenched and her hips bucked slightly. If only she could rid herself of the picture she’d created in the shower, of Max’s hands on her breasts. It seemed her brain and her hormones were at odds. So far she felt brainless and out for the count, with three rounds to go. No wonder she’d asked him to stay for a drink, when all she’d meant to do was have a little conversation and show him the door.
She gripped the bottle like a lifeline. With the knife open, she ran the razor-sharp edge around the cap. Two clicks in quick succession told her Max had placed the wineglasses near her elbow. She flicked the seal up, catching it between her thumb and the knife, and began to peel it back, revealing the cork. The buzzing in her ears started about two seconds before the stars came out in front of her eyes, and the bottle tilted, sliding on its edge across the tray. Somewhere on the edge of her peripheral vision lay a sight she wanted to deny.
“Whoa, there!” Max’s arms came around her, catching the bottle with one hand and relieving her limp fingers of the knife with the other.
In the midst of all the heat radiating from Max’s body, Maggie shivered. He’d returned the bottle and knife to the sideboard, and he supported her with his strong, tightly muscled arms, pulling her shoulders back against his hard chest.
“You okay?” he asked gruffly, bending his mouth to her ear as he gathered her closer. “You went white as a sheet. I thought you were going to pass out.”
Tiny balloons burst in her brain, letting all her common sense escape and float away. Oh, she thought. She could get used to this, someone who’d be there when she needed him. Maggie let herself lean back into his strength. Gave temptation its head for a second and luxuriated in the male scents, the solid bulk of his chest that could almost make her believe she could rely on him. If just for a second.
The pressure of his steely hardness against her hip felt like a rod to her back the same moment the thought No wonder Jo is keen on this guy, crossed her mind.
Jo! Her best friend!
What was she doing?
Moving in on her best friend’s man!
Maggie clutched the edge of the sideboard with both hands.
An old Mae West joke raised its feeble head, but Maggie was absolutely certain he wasn’t packing a gun. Which only went to show how jittery she was, a case of jangling nerves with a bit of mild hysteria thrown in for good measure. “I guess I stood up too quick, but I’m all right now,” she said to excuse her behavior. Forgiving herself for being carried away by the nearness of Jo’s man would take a bit longer. No matter how much Maggie was tempted, only hurt could result from ignoring the signals her friend had been putting out at the pub.
As for Max’s part in the incident, he was a man. She’d heard it was a mechanical reaction.
A heavy sigh tore from his throat and he stepped away from her. “Yeah, you look better, more color in your cheeks. Though for both our sakes it’d be best if you got dressed and I took care of the wine. When I first arrived, I suspected you might be naked under that robe, but now…”
Maggie turned to face him, her hands crossed defensively on her chest. She felt a flash fire of color race from her cheeks to the roots of her hair. Max reached out and stroked her skin where the cuff slid back from her wrist, setting her heart pounding erratically.
“Now I’m positive,” he said, trailing one finger—only one—against the shadowy blue veins where her pulse did bumps and grinds from this simplest of contacts.
“Maybe you should just go.”
“No. I’m not done here. But don’t worry. All I want for now is to talk. You go get some clothes on. We can sit over there with a sofa apiece and the table between us. What could be safer?”
By the time Maggie came back, Max wasn’t so sure he’d put the right handle on the situation. Dressed in the black miniskirt and high-necked sweater she’d worn earlier, she sat down opposite him, and Max decided she’d proved the less-is-more theory in reverse. Covered in black from the toes of her tights to the turtleneck collar under her chin, Maggie settled against the deep cushions of the sofa with her knees glued primly together and swung to one side so her toes just touched the floor. The contrast of dark wool with honey-gold skin, and her protective position, made her look fragile. Compared with him, she was. Probably only five-ten to his six-five.
Yeah, getting Maggie to put some clothes on had only added to his problem. Her sweater clung to every curve, but more than her curves affected him, though he couldn’t put a name to exactly what. Basically, in his eyes, Maggie Kovacs was sexy as hell.
The oversoft sofa cushions looked good as he sank down into them, but his overactive libido made getting comfortable a lost cause. He watched Maggie raise the glass of red wine to her lips, saw the dewy film it left behind, knowing if he kissed her she’d taste of wild blackberries and sunshine, and her lips would feel as soft, full and earthy as the wine they sipped.
Maggie took another mouthful then lifted her brows while she asked, “What was it you wanted to talk about?”
Max blinked and tried to bring his mind back to the present. Rescue came in the form of Maggie’s silk scarf. He dug into his pocket and pulled it out, letting the opaque leopard-skin print coil sinuously onto the glass table separating them. “This for starters. You dropped it on the floor at the pub.”
“You should have given it to Jo. She’d have taken care of it.”
“Yeah, so she said, but I wanted to do it myself.”
“So, what’s so important it dragged you up here at this time of night?”
“Can’t you guess?”
“I’m not a mind read—” Maggie stopped midsentence, and his eyes mocked her slip of the tongue. Her first guess had been correct. “Jo blabbed, didn’t she? Well, I’m sorry, Max, you’ve had a wasted journey. No matter what Jo told you, I have no intention of discussing it with you. I’ve learned my lesson!” Boy, had she learned it. Gorman had left her wrung out and hung up to dry.
“That’s not why I’m here. In fact, I refused to listen to Jo and I have no interest in any dreams you might have had, past, present or future. I don’t believe in that garbage.” The air between them parted like the Red Sea as he thrust his wineglass onto the table. Bottle in one hand, glass in the other, he filled it with wine, then remembered his manners. “Would you like a refill?”
Strike one! It looked like she’d been second-guessing, after all. Saying nothing, she held out her glass and let him top it up. Looking him straight in the eye, she said, “I get it—you’ve come to warn me off.”
“Wrong! You’ll get no warning.”
“Come off it, Max. You know, and now I know. You want me to keep away from Jo. Hell, it’s not catching. I won’t contaminate your lady friend.”
“My lady friend?”
“You and Jo.” Maggie held up her hand and crossed the first two fingers. “You’re a couple. A blind man could see it. She lit up as soon as you came in to the bar. But don’t worry, she wouldn’t help me. Actually, she tried to palm me off onto you, but I told her no way.” Maggie knew she shouldn’t tease him, but she’d had just enough wine on an empty stomach to make the attempt. He looked so serious, so grim with his jaw clenched tight. “I knew you wouldn’t want to hear about my dreams.” She leaned forward, concealing her true intent with a lazy droop of her eyelids, and tilted her head to one side. “Maybe I really am a mind reader. Would you care to cross my palm with silver?”
Hearing his thoughts from the pub echo back at him knocked Max for six. He stared at the strong lines dissecting the hand challenging him, and garnered his wits. Coincidences did happen. They happened every day. He had no problem with that. No one could look into your mind and extract a thought. His gaze shifted from hand to eye, and he knew without a doubt Maggie was enjoying herself at his expense.
“I don’t think I’ll waste my money, because if you can’t see there’s no more than a working relationship between Jo and me, you aren’t much good. I’m her superior at work, and I can’t help it if she likes me—a lot. But I don’t mix business and pleasure. Which is another reason for not listening to tales of your nightlife.” Max tilted half a glass of wine down in one swallow. Hell! He’d sounded like an egotistical jerk. “I think she’s mixing pity with attraction because of the way my marriage ended.”
“How long ago was that?”
“A bit over two years.”
“Then I think Jo’s gone way past feeling sorry for you.”
Max sighed out loud. “All right. She may care more for me than I do her. We’ve talked about it and hopefully sorted it out, because I don’t want to lose her as a friend or a colleague. As for your friendship with her, if it doesn’t impinge on police business, then it’s none of mine. I believe you two go back a long way.”
“It feels like a lifetime. Maybe we don’t see each other as much as we used to, but when we get back together it’s as if nothing’s changed. I would hate anything to hurt that.” Maggie watched him through narrowed eyes, but even that couldn’t diminish his size or his presence. Her friendship with Jo was precious to her. All the while they’d boarded at Saint Mary’s Convent School, Jo had been her rock—strong, stubborn, immovable and on Maggie’s team. And she had an uneasy feeling Max could be the catalyst that could blow their friendship apart. No way; it was unthinkable. Jo was all she had left.
“You can trust me, Maggie. I won’t let that happen.”
There was nothing Maggie would like better than to be able to trust Max. But she couldn’t. She’d long since decided cops were born with an instinct to catch people at their most vulnerable and use it against them. That’s what had happened on the day she’d watched the divers search for the remains of her father’s plane. A day when she’d been at her lowest ebb. Even now she couldn’t remember which hurt most, her father’s death and the fact that it could have been prevented or what came after. The memory of the way her father had scoffed at her warning made her shudder. Life had been good to Frank Kovacs, given him all he’d ever needed or wanted. Nothing could touch him. He’d thought himself invincible, and had died trying to prove it.
Max knew it was too much to expect Maggie to simply acquiesce, too much to expect her to trust a stranger—trust him. They were at the beginning of a journey that could be rough, full of twists and turns and occasional dead ends. But chances were, if Maggie was half as strong as he thought, they’d both go the distance. The silence stretched between them until Max could wait no longer and broke it by clearing his throat. “How about you? Are you in a relationship?”
Maggie’s laugh had a fragile edginess that set it half a note off-key. “Who, me? You must be joking. I’m too busy for a relationship. I have a winery to run, and don’t tell anyone, but I’m feeling my way here. I’ve hired a new wine maker, and if he doesn’t come through for us we could lose a lot of our markets. Don’t get me wrong. He’s good. I just don’t know if he’s got the flair Dad had. We’ll start releasing his first vintage in October and I’m organizing a wine fest for Labour Weekend. I just hope it’s a success. This is a new concept for us. I always wanted Dad to run one, but he said our wines sold themselves. I can’t count on that anymore, so I’m working on promoting it whenever I can.” She cut off her words in midstream, pushed at her hair and rolled her eyes in embarrassment. “Oh, boy! Will you listen to me?” She excused herself with a shrug. “For the last year the winery has been my life.”
“Join the club. This would be maybe the third night off I’ve had in three months.”
“And you’re wasting it on business?”
“No…pleasure.”
“So, you’re saying this isn’t business?”
“It isn’t business.”
“Then why are you here?”
“For starters, your scarf. Secondly, I wanted to get to know you and I seized on the scarf as an excuse. But I’d have come without it. I couldn’t keep away.”
“I don’t believe I’m hearing this.”
“Well, hear this,” he said bluntly, as he got to his feet and walked around to Maggie’s side of the table. He took the glass from her hand and set it down, then pulled her to her feet so she wouldn’t feel intimidated by his height. Her eyes had gone black and opaque as if she were dazed. He’d forgotten she had no shoes on, and he towered over her. So he slipped an arm around her and pulled her up onto her toes. He felt himself tremble and abandoned all reason. Maggie Kovaks was David to his Goliath and he would die if he couldn’t taste her lips. “I want you, Maggie.”
Her hands pushed against his chest and he heard her breath quicken. “Don’t be frightened, Maggie. I don’t mean here and now, but someday, you and I are going to get together. When the time is right, it will happen.” He tilted her chin up and felt a tremor run through her, mimicking the ones weakening his body with desire. “Like this,” he said, and feathered his lips over hers. “And this.” Max slanted his mouth across Maggie’s, tasting wild blackberries, tasting sunshine.
Her hand slipped around his collar as he caught a sigh from her lips and breathed it in. The kiss deepened as she opened for him and his tongue searched out the dark, sweet cave of her mouth, savoring every nuance and flavor. Knowing this might be all he had of her for quite a while, he memorized the subtle textures of satin and pearls to keep him going during the sexual drought ahead of him.
Maggie’s hand fisted in his hair as he felt her tongue seek his out. When she stepped onto his shoes, pressing closer, his hand cupped her hips, plastering them together from knee to shoulder. Hunger, hot and dark, slashed through him as her breasts cushioned his chest and he ground his hard, aching need against the softness of her belly, giving passion its rein.
Max didn’t want to stop. He had to stop. Now—before he threw her on the floor and took her there and then, like an uncontrollable animal. A groan of pain ripped from him as he put his hands on her shoulders and pushed her away while he had the strength. The look in Maggie’s eyes almost broke his resolution as he set her back a step, leaving his hands as their only link.
He brushed his thumb over the full redness of a bottom lip that looked thoroughly kissed. “Seems the feeling is mutual.” Max heard her small gasp of shock as realization hit. “I ought to go while I’m still able.”
“Oh, no, you don’t!” Maggie felt like spitting tacks. So, he was right. The feeling was mutual. She’d been caught up every bit as much as Max, so much so that she hadn’t wanted to break the contact, the kiss. And it riled her that he’d been able to…to push her aside. It rankled that it could never happen again. He was wrong for her, wrong in every way. She’d lived the first part of her life with a man who hadn’t believed in her, and had no intention of getting caught up with another. One who called the part of her that should have been special “garbage!”
“This ends the moment you walk out that door,” she declared.
“You mean you want me to stay?”
“No, dammit! I mean this is it. Over! Kaput! I won’t hurt my best friend and I’ve no intention of having an affair with a man who reminds me of my father.”
“Don’t try to tell me you kissed your father like that. I won’t believe you.”
Maggie almost spat in disgust. “What I’m getting at is that my father never believed me, either. If he had, he’d be alive today and you wouldn’t even be in the picture. You’ve got too many counts against you, Max. I’ve already suffered at the hands of the police and now I’m gun-shy. I need a man who isn’t frightened of the unknown, one who can open his mind to the possibilities.”
“I never said I didn’t believe in fate.”
A rueful note wove its way into Maggie’s laughter. He was a beautiful man, and she bet he stripped off well. She’d already felt the lean strength of his arms and would like nothing better than to rest her head on the hard bulk of his chest at the end of a day when things had gotten too tough. She was tired of shouldering everything alone. Strength was good, but she wanted more, she wanted a man who would listen—listen and empathize—without cringing.
“I’ll bet before you met me, when Sergeant Gorman was slinging his mouth off to the tabloids, you thought I was weird.”
“Truth to tell, I probably thought a lot worse. I would have been separated about a year by then, and there was a lot of stuff I didn’t like about women, and so-called psychics would have topped the list.”
His words hit Maggie like a slap in the face, wiping out her last scrap of hope, a scrap she hadn’t even realized she’d been saving.
“Humph, that sounded pretty harsh. It wasn’t meant as a put-down—honest, Maggie.” He reached out, needing to touch her, but before he could caress her cheek, she stepped back.
“I thank heaven I’ll never have to experience your version of a put-down, as I doubt we’ll ever meet again. I think it’s time you went now. Don’t you?” Turning on her heel, she walked away, hoping Max would follow her. He was too big to throw out.
He followed in her footsteps, then slipped in front of her before she reached the archway. “Look, Maggie, the way I see it, you’ve got a history and I’ve got a history and we haven’t got time to go into them tonight. But what’s between us could be bigger than all of that, if only you’ll give it a chance.”
“And I think we used up all our chances long before we met. Everything we have going for us is on the debit side, and I can’t stand being in the red.” She moved around Max and headed for the door before he could attempt to change her mind.
Maggie gripped the handle tightly, ready to close the door the instant he walked through it. She supported herself with the doorknob and raised her heels from the floor. It wasn’t fair; Max’s height put all the advantage on his side.
“I want to hear you lock this door behind me,” he said, moving closer. “I don’t trust that security guard. He’s probably asleep behind his desk.”
She tilted her chin, refusing to be cowed. “Don’t worry, I’m going to make sure you can’t get back in.”
Max laughed and took her stubborn chin between his finger and thumb, then gave her a kiss meant to curl the toes she was standing on. When he lifted his mouth it was with reluctance, and as he straightened he could swear Maggie was swaying on her feet.
It didn’t stop her trying for the last word. “So, goodbye.”
“Wrong, Maggie. I’ll never kiss you goodbye. Only hello.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it.”
“I won’t. I’m not a betting man. So I’m going to count on it.”
Maggie leaned her back against the door after she’d locked it and a rap of Max’s fingers on the outside told her he was on his way.
Why did life have to be so complicated? She had enough problems without Max adding more. Despite his confidence, Maggie knew things could only get worse.
Without Max’s presence the apartment closed in on her and the air grew thick with memories of past apparitions. She shivered as she thought about going to bed. The last thing she wanted was to cushion her sleep and dream.
Chapter 3
The baby was fussing again. For almost a week now, it had kept Maggie awake. Fussing and fretting, fussing and fretting, driving Maggie mad as it brought her maternal instincts screaming to the surface. Instincts she could do nothing to quash, as the source of her dilemma hid in the center of her mind where no human hand could find it. There were no ear-plugs or sleeping pills to fix what ailed her.
A baby fist reached inside her and twisted her gut, more tightly than any man’s could, with its demands for succor. She wanted, needed to find it, to comfort it and relieve herself of the torture her nights brought.
Maggie slammed her fist into the pillow, displacing the feathers. Hands above her head, she twisted and turned while attempting to cover her ears with the soft, insulating sound barrier.
There was no hiding from herself.
“Go away! Go to sleep and leave me alone…leave me alone.”
She didn’t want to cry. It was exhaustion, not self-pity, that spilled tears from her eyes. She tried unsuccessfully to focus on Max, anything but the plaintive cries in her head. Max wasn’t the answer. How dare he or any damn cop think she’d wished this on herself?
Pulling the pillow off her head, she slapped it a few more times and threw herself on top of its downy softness. She lay partly on her stomach, twisting sideways as she brought her knees up to ease the ache pulling at her insides. It was 11:02 p.m. by the bedside clock when the baby stopped crying and Maggie fell asleep.
And began to dream.
He stepped back from the bed to admire his handiwork and frowned. Under the heels of her shoes the duvet wrinkled slovenly. With care he slipped the shoes off, set them neatly at the side of the bed, then smoothed out the creases.
He sighed, thinking, I’ll bring my camera next time. Definitely. A ripple of pleasure caressed his senses. The way the red scarf picked up the flecks in her suit, she could almost have dressed for the occasion. Even the bedcovers, sprigged with roses, added to the overall effect. She had good taste. They made a beautiful picture. He’d arranged it just right. Madonna with child.
And the baby! So good, so angelic. No more crying now it had found its mother. The effort it had taken to tuck the babe against its mother’s breast had been worthwhile. Luckily she was a full-busted woman, ample. The child would never have to go without again.
He walked to the door. His surgical gloves snapped as he rolled them tighter across his knuckles. He touched the light switch, then hesitated. He couldn’t bear to turn the light out. One more look, just one, and then he would go.
He smiled the smile of an artist who knows when to paint the last brushstroke. So perfect. To leave them in the dark would be a crime.
Quietly, he slipped out of the house into the night. As he vaulted the back fence his head spun with pictures of blond hair arranged across a pillow scattered with rosebuds.
And two pairs of matching blue eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling.
Maggie parked her car in the civic car park and walked up the slope of Mayoral Drive. Auckland Central rose six stories above her. A patchwork of earth-colored scoria blocks some volcano had spewed up millions of years ago formed the basement wall. It opened halfway along its length, a gaping black maw indiscriminately swallowing cop cars, cops and prisoners alike. Dim, hollow, a place where slamming metal doors and screaming sirens echoed in air heavy with disinfectant, vomit, fear and defeat.
Maggie took the last few paces at a run, turning into Cook Street and up the steps to the entrance as if the devil nipped at her heels. Time, precious time didn’t allow for a meeting on neutral ground and had driven her to this place against her will. On the top step she paused, her heart in her throat. Hadn’t she vowed never to cross this threshold again? And here she was doing just that.
Conscience drove a hard bargain. Hers had been up and running from the moment she’d opened her eyes. Three women dead. Three too many. A single thought, blinding in its simplicity, had forced her out of bed, into the shower, and sent her in search of paper and pencil.
Maybe it’s not too late.
This, the first dream of death she’d had in Auckland, had been clearer, more edgy in its intensity. Pathetically, she shied away from the word murder. It was too out there, too in her face. The word death was easier to swallow, if it stopped her wanting to run to the nearest bathroom and throw up. And if living the dream slammed her with a knockout punch, the flashes, images, caught her off guard, winding her with short, sharp jabs to the solar plexus. What could be worse? Nothing—except maybe the ridicule she knew waited on the other side of the door.
She’d been directed to the fifth floor. Reception was empty, though a light, electronic hum issued from a double-doored office. Her muscles tightened, screaming with tension. Maybe she should barge in and sing out, “Can anyone tell me where to find Sergeant Strachan?”
Impatience gave in to need. Fists clenched, teeth clamped over her bottom lip, she stepped toward the office.
Maybe it’s not too late!
A huge, tawny-haired man dressed in uniform blues preempted her decision. Doors swinging in his wake, he asked, “Need any help?”
He had a look of authority, of reliability, and a badge with the legend Sergeant McQuaid sitting squarely on his massive chest. A cop she could trust, thought Maggie, taking in his attractive, craggy features. If only he was the one she had come to see. “Yes, could you show me to Sergeant Strachan’s office?”
“Sure thing.” Warm, teasing hazel eyes gave her a quick, speculative once-over. “Follow me,” he said as he walked on, keeping her pinned with his inquisitive gaze.
Since he hadn’t asked her name, she didn’t have to suffer a swift change in his attitude. Taking two steps to his one, she kept pace with him, keeping close to the wall; the sergeant’s shoulders needed all the space they could get.
They passed two interview rooms before they reached the corner office. Knocking once, Sergeant McQuaid opened the door. With her view blocked by his bulk, Maggie listened for Max’s voice with her nerves prickling her skin like an invasion of ants.
Maybe it’s not too late!
Max looked up as Rowan McQuaid invaded his privacy. “What’s up?” Although McQuaid was slightly younger than Max, they’d been in the same year at Trentham Police College. Jamie Thurlo, the other member of their trio, had been a helicopter jockey when he signed on and now rode the skies in a blue-and-white beauty. Their friendship had survived the years and been tempered by them. The young hotheads were long gone. Rowan, the more methodical member of the group, had stuck to the route where the donkey work lay, the papers and reports that Max hated. Like the ones littering his desk. After eight agonizing hours of constant arousal, while his mind reran in a constant loop every second spent with Maggie, he’d woken up feeling as if half his brain had shut down while the rest worked at half speed.
“Visitor for you, Max.”
Secretly glad of the interruption, he grumbled, “This better be important. I’m busy.” Anything was better than reading each line three times over without taking it in. The hell with it. He needed something, someone, to take his mind off Maggie. “All right, show them in.”
“I’m sure you’ll want to see this one,” Rowan said, grinning, and he moved out of the way, giving Max his first glimpse of his visitor.
“Maggie!” Max was halfway out of his chair before she’d stepped into the room. He caught the conjecture in Rowan’s glance as he rounded his desk. “Maggie,” he said, “this is a friend of mine, Rowan McQuaid.” He watched her offer her hand as he finished, “Rowan, meet Maggie Kovacs.” But her eyes were on him.
Max took in Rowan’s recoil without surprise. The trouble with friends close enough to know your whole life history, preferences, prejudices and the kind of breakfast cereal you ate was they took a personal interest in what you were doing and with whom. They stood up with you at your wedding and cried with you over your divorce, and because of the last two, this meeting with Maggie wouldn’t make any sense to Rowan.
Max cut off the question forming in Rowan’s eyes with a meaningful glare and a nod that said he should leave.
“I’ll leave you to it then.” Rowan started to turn away, speaking over his shoulder as he left. “Good luck, and don’t sweat it, mate. I won’t tell a soul.”
Max brushed past Maggie and closed the door, shutting out his friend and the rest of Auckland Central. He’d no idea why she had come, but he wasn’t sharing. A pulse throbbed in his temple as fantasies born in the dead of night flooded his memory. At the mere sight of her, his palms itched to touch and the fire in his groin as her scent filled his head warned him to keep his distance if he was to maintain control.
“Take a seat, Maggie.”
“I won’t, thanks.” Turning her back on him, she walked over to the corner window and stood looking down.
“If all you came for was the view, there’s a better one from your apartment.” Drawn by the vulnerable picture she made, Max followed, but instead of dropping a kiss in the unguarded hollow at her nape to appease his craving, he turned her to face him. All his good intentions crashed and burned the moment he searched her eyes. They shone darkly, sparkling with unshed tears that made his breath catch. “What are you doing here, Maggie?”
“Maybe it’s not too late!” Emotion made her voice crack as she uttered the words chasing through her brain in a monotonous litany. “It doesn’t have to be.”
“Too late for what? C’mon, give me a clue, babe. I need more.” His hands tightened on her shoulders.
Dammit, he needed Maggie!
It had happened so swiftly, this blinding need for the one woman who should be anathema to him. Steady boy, steady. Max drew a deep, calming breath and compounded his dilemma with her womanly scent. The perfume she favored blended subtly with her own secret essence. It had lingered on his hands and driven him crazy replaying the pleasure derived from touching her. Tasting her. Crushing her against—
He had to stop punishing himself. He couldn’t.
Her warm camel coat, the same one she’d worn last night, seemed to melt away beneath his palms as her tight muscles communicated with him. Could Maggie feel him through it? Feel the heat generated by the burning ache in his groin? Hell! No wonder. Being close to her was playing with fire. And he knew it. Sliding his palms from her shoulders to her hands, he pulled her away from the window before he could set her on the ledge and take her there, for all the world to see. He forced the words “Let’s sit over here,” past the stricture in his throat, and settled Maggie in a chair, pulling the other one close. “What’s got you so upset? Are you still worried about Jo?”
“No, not her!” She felt Max’s hands caress hers as if he would rub her cares away. How would he react when she told him her reason for searching him out? He looked tired, and a strange longing to hug him tightly shoved her other emotions aside. Not that she wanted to mother him. How could she? He was so big, so handsome. And the rakish silver blaze in his hair curled on his forehead and fought with the tenderness in his eyes.
Any second now, all that would change. Preventing it was beyond her control.
She wished this small section of time and space could be set aside for herself and Max. Wished everything standing between them to the farthest ends of the earth. And knew there wasn’t a snowball’s chance in hell of it happening.
What would Max think if she told him she didn’t want him to make her dreams come true? She wanted him to make them go away!
But all this heart searching could only delay the inevitable. Time he faced up to who she was, even if it drove him away.
Pulling her hands back, she reversed their positions, holding his long fingers and taking courage from their strength. “Max, I had another dream last night.”
His withdrawal was more spiritual than tangible. The heat drained from his hands. She gripped tighter. His eyes iced over, still true blue, but cold, icy cold, and although she’d expected his reaction, it still hurt.
“Sure you did, baby. So did I. You were there, hot as hell and pure, freaking magic.” Max’s lips curled without showing his teeth and his gaze stripped every stitch from her body.
Maggie had known it was coming, so she didn’t flinch away, didn’t try to retreat or shield herself. Nor would she essay an apology for who she was—especially to Max.
“Dammit, Max! This isn’t about me, or us. It’s about some poor woman who’s going be killed, who may already be dead. I pray she isn’t. But I can’t fix this on my own. You have to help me before it’s too late.” She let go of his hands. His skin was red where she’d gripped them. She got to her feet. Max stood, too, and then sat on the edge of his desk, sweeping the silver strand of hair back from the harsh red of his scar.
“You have no idea, Maggie. None at all. I’m the last person to ask for help. I’m a nonbeliever from way back.” His lips stretched in a grimace. “Hell, Maggie, I still want you, don’t want to lose you, but all this psychic nonsense will be the death of any relationship before it’s had a chance.”
“We never had a chance, never will. Not if you can’t at least try to believe. You make me feel, make me wish.” The fist she wanted to pound him with hit the arm of his chair. “Even without Jo’s wanting you, we never had a future. All we ever had was the possibility of a quick affair….” I could have settled for that. Maggie sighed and pushed her hands up under her collar. The touch of cashmere against her face felt good in a room where all warmth had been depleted. She straightened and looked Max straight in the eye, her decision made. She would go home. “We haven’t a hope in hell if you can’t even bring yourself to listen.”
“Lady, I wish to hell you’d never shown up today! I warned you last night: failure guaranteed. I already lost a marriage to all this psychic garbage. I won’t get mixed up in it again. No way! Never!”
“I didn’t expect to win, but I knew I had to try.” Maggie retrieved her purse, and as she stood, undid the clasp and took out a folded paper. “You see, I was damned if I did and she’s dead if I didn’t!” She tossed the paper on his desk. “I know you won’t make use of this, but hang on to it. I think you’ll be surprised at the likeness.” Maggie’s ironic laugh came out as a sob. “I even surprised myself.”
Max watched her walk away, amazed that for all the anger between them, he still had the same gut-wrenching reaction to the view of her slim ankles showing through the slit in the back of her coat. He closed the door, sat behind his desk with his elbows braced on it. “Jerk,” he muttered, cursing his inability to embrace the concept that would give him Maggie. The folded paper glared at him, challenging him to pick it up. He reached over and unfolded it.
The notepaper was Maggie’s father’s. Frank Kovacs, Kereru Hill Winery, Pigeon Hill. Max’s gaze skimmed the header to study the head-and-shoulders pencil drawing of a woman.
He didn’t recognize her.
The bow tied at her neck was another story. He knew for a fact it was red, tied with precision, each loop and tail the exact length of the one opposite.
It was scary the way Maggie had caught the eyes. And notwithstanding the simplicity of the medium, a cold chill slithered up his spine at the complete lack of life in them.
She’d got halfway to the civic car park before he caught her.
“Well, Sergeant, come to finish the job you did on me?” Her bold question was at odds with her grim expression.
An urge to rub away the hurt he’d caused stirred his hands. But only turning inside out and remodeling himself could achieve his aim to redeem himself in her eyes. Deep within him a wish flickered like a candle on one of the birthday cakes his mother used to bake when he was young, but even he could see it wouldn’t take much to blow out the flame.
“We need to talk. Let me buy you a cup of coffee.”
“I gave us a chance to talk not five minutes ago—I’ve changed my mind now.”
“Don’t be like that, Maggie. I’m not saying that you’re right and I’m wrong. I just want to discuss the possibilities.” He caught hold of her sleeve, wary of actually touching her skin. Of what it would do to him. “I’ve got the drawing with me,” he said persuasively. “We can go to the Blues Café in the Aotea Center. It should be quiet this time of day.”
“All right, but don’t think I intend spending the whole day in Auckland. I have work to do.”
“See, I told you, practically empty,” Max said, lowering his voice to prevent it bouncing off the hard surfaces of marble floors and avant-garde chandeliers. “Let’s sit by the window.”
Thickly padded tub chairs softened the starkness of the rest of the room. But the only warmth Max felt came from the body heat Maggie generated under all that cashmere. A part of him hoped she’d slip her coat off, the rest wanted to hide her lush curves from everyone but him. Dragging his mind back from under her coat, he asked, “This spot do?”
“Yes, fine…okay, I don’t mind.” She listened to herself agree every which way and do it twice over. Boy, Max was in for a shock if he thought her compliance normal.
“What will you have? Cappuccino?”
“Latté, please,” she said as Max headed for the counter. Decaf was her usual brew, but she needed a caffeine jolt. She’d begun the morning on an energy high that now fizzled from lack of sleep. Or maybe she had a touch of the Mary, Mary’s, letting contrariness be her guide in spite of his change of heart.
Or maybe she was just plain scared.
All along there’d been a small niggle working away at the back of her thoughts until it dug a hole big enough to climb out. But she wouldn’t voice it just yet. Time enough to hit him with it when he discovered this wasn’t just a case of her imagination playing up. Blast, she didn’t want to be proved right. But the odds ran against her being wrong. No, she wouldn’t mention her suspicions to Max yet; one small step at a time. That way when Max threw his doubts in her face she wouldn’t run into them.
“Any leads on the Khyber Pass Killer, Sergeant?”
Startled, Max spun around and spilled froth over the side of the cup, saucer and his fingers. Damn! Couldn’t he get a minute’s peace? A sinking feeling gripped him as he recognized Babcox, crime reporter with the Tribune. A man with the fierce animalistic tenacity of the weasel he resembled, all ginger hair, sharp features and canines. Young and eager, Babcox made up in effrontery for what he lacked in years and inches. Like the way he’d slapped the name the Khyber Pass Killer on the man they were after. A name that stuck once the other papers ran with it, though only the first victim, a young prostitute, had lived in Khyber Pass Road.
Apart from the killer, all three had only one thing in common. The police team’s latest clue, unearthed after the last murder. Certain aspects of the case needed to be kept secret, and if Max had his way Babcox would be the last to know.
And that was only one of his problems.
What he needed was a reasonable explanation of why Maggie Kovacs knew details that had Detective Inspector Henare threatening a stint in the Chathams for anyone who spilled his guts to the media.
Max turned his back on him. “No comment.”
“Come on, Strachan. Things must be progressing well if you can afford to take a coffee break in the middle of the morning.”
One glance at the waitress told Max she was agog with speculation. “Here,” he said, pushing the cup and its saucer full of milk toward her, “can you fix this for me?” Then he softened his demand with, “Thanks,” when she took it away. That done, he told Babcox, “You know all statements have to come through Detective Inspector Henare’s office. Call him.”
Max felt the reporter back off mentally if not physically. It took a brave man to approach Mike Henare. He wasn’t any taller than Max’s six-five, yet the inspector could make two of him, and the Maori half of his ancestry lent a fearsome cast to his features that intimidated felons and scared the crap out of journos. It was a skill Max hadn’t mastered, one that needed cultivating, seeing that Babcox still took up space beside him.
“Why bother with the ringmaster when I can get it from the horse’s mouth? Doesn’t it worry you that women can’t sleep at night without wondering who’s going to be next?”
Max glowered at him and swallowed a curse as he heard the waitress set the coffee down on the counter behind him. The nerve of this guy! Hell, it was his embroidering of the facts that kept women awake at night. “Take it up with Henare.”
“Who’s the babe? Any connection with the case?”
Damn! Max didn’t want this jerk sniffing around Maggie. “Give me a break, mate, I do have a private life.” Maggie’d be sure to clam up if she caught on to Babcox’s line of work.
“Can’t say as I blame you. Wouldn’t mind a piece of that myself.”
Max stiffened and his hands fisted as he fought back the urge to plant them in Babcox’s filthy mouth. His nostrils flared with loathing as he sucked in a breath and held it.
With a nod of his head he drew Babcox’s attention to a poster advertising MacBeth. “If it’s more bloody murder you’re after, try backstage. You’ll learn more there than you’ll get out of me.”
“Yeah, real funny, Sergeant. But at least they know who did it.” The reporter put a couple of paces between himself and Max, then added, “Never let it be said I couldn’t take a hint. I’ll be seeing you, Strachan.”
“Not if I can help it. Listen good, Babcox, keep out of my face or I’ll get you banned from media releases.”
Max set Maggie’s coffee down in front of her. “Here you are. I hope it’s not cold. I got held up. Did you want something to eat with it? I didn’t think to ask if you were hungry.”
“No problem, coffee’s fine. Who was your friend?”
“Friend’s the wrong word for a lowlife you wouldn’t wanna be caught dead near,” answered Max, and realized his mistake as he saw Maggie’s expression tighten. He took the tub chair beside her, keeping his back to the window so he could see the whole room. He didn’t trust that guy one inch. “Anyway, he’s gone and the air’s fresher for it.”
“I suppose in your line of work you meet more people you dislike than not.”
“That just about sums it up.”
Maggie didn’t reply; instead she tore open three of the small packs of sugar and tipped them one after the other into her coffee. Caffeine was what she needed but a little sweetness wouldn’t go amiss.
“Maggie Kovacs! It is you.”
Suddenly Maggie found herself smothered in a soft, pillowy chest and a designer fragrance.
“I could hardly believe my eyes, it’s been so long.”
Once she’d been released and could breathe again, Maggie recognized Carla Dunsmuir. “Carla, how are—?”
“Oh, my dear! I’m so pleased to see that at last you’ve come out to play. And is this the man who’s rescued you? Your father would be so pleased.” Ever flamboyant, Carla gushed over both of them in warm, scented waves, eyes flashing and hands keeping time with her mouth.
The direction of Carla’s thoughts was all too obvious. She rushed on, not waiting for introductions. All Maggie could do was let her run her course. Nothing and no one ever stopped Carla once she’d hit her stride.
“I haven’t seen you since Frank’s funeral. So sad, so sad, but it’s thanks to him that I’m here today.” She smiled gently. “You know what they say about ill winds.”
“I do?” What was the woman talking about? Here because of Frank? Maggie needed help keeping up with her. She needed coffee.
Max stood with his hand on the chair next to him. “Care to join us?” he asked, hoping like hell the woman would say no, yet interested in spite of himself in what she had to say on the subject of Maggie’s father.
“No, thanks. I’m just passing through. That’s what I meant, Maggie. I needed something to do. I was lonely without Frank—you know what I mean. You must miss him more than me. Such a beautiful man.”
For a moment Carla’s face crumpled and Maggie braced herself, but thankfully she carried on with her explanation.
“So I ended up getting involved with the opera company and now I’m on the board. We’re doing a short season of Turandot,” she said, as if she personally would appear on-stage. “It starts tonight with a gala opening,” Carla chiruped, her hands fluttering and chest quivering in excitement. “So much to do, so little time.”
“I’m happy for you. Very happy.” Maggie felt positive Max must have realized by now that Carla had been her father’s lover.
“Such a tragedy.” Carla looked over at Max, sighing gustily. “I’m sure Maggie’s told you all about it.” Max nodded, but still she carried on. “So unexpected, too. I mean, these things always are, but it’s just that Frank was always so careful, checking everything before we took off. I often went with him, you know, but not that day. He refused to take me….” Carla trailed off, then looked at Maggie apologetically. “You mustn’t think he didn’t believe in you—I’m certain he did. It was just that being the sort of man he was, he wouldn’t let it rule his life.”
Max reached under the table and took the hand he knew Maggie had clenched in her lap. He undid her fingers and wrapped his own around them, rubbing the back of her hand against his thigh. Blasted woman! Why wouldn’t she leave? Would nothing go his way this morning?
“Anyway, Frank saved my life, but I never understood how it happened. I mean the plane was only six hours past its last fifty-hour check.” Carla looked at the jeweled watch circling her plump wrist. “Heavens, I must run!” She leaned forward and planted a kiss in the air near Maggie’s cheek. “Look after yourself, dear, and remember,” she said with a wink, “don’t let life grind you down!”
“Phew! I’m exhausted. How about you?” Max asked as he watched Carla’s departing figure disappear into the auditorium.
Maggie felt drained, which wasn’t unusual after a meeting with the woman. She shook her head. “It’s all right, I’m used to her.” She laughed out loud at a joke she’d thought long dead. “I never understood her and my father. I mean, their personalities were so different it was like combining candy floss with a lit match, yet I’m sure he loved her. In fact, I always thought he would marry her one day, but they never even got engaged.”
“They say opposites attract. Look at us.” Max dropped the statement into the conversation, reminding her their relationship wasn’t all-business. Truth be known, he’d rather it was pleasure that had brought them to this stage, where Maggie was easy with him holding her hand, and trusting enough to let him warm it against his thigh. He looked at the lush redness of her mouth and wondered how long he would have to wait to taste it again.
But anytime now he would have to get back to the folded paper, and the drawing burning a hole in his pocket.
“At least my father and Carla had some common ground, like opera, flying and wine.” There were questions in Maggie’s eyes, thousands of them floating around in the dark brown depths.
Max didn’t know the answers. He wished he did. All he could do was work his way through them and pray for a miracle. For one clue to jump up and hit him in the eye.
“I like wine, but as for the rest…” Max shrugged. “…I can’t tell Turandot from a tarot card. But tell me, what really did happen to your father?”
“I believe he was murdered!”
Chapter 4
Maggie blinked. Max hadn’t disappeared, which surprised her as much as the words she’d uttered. I believe he was murdered. She’d hardly dared think it before, never mind give breath to such an outrageous idea. A few moments with Carla, a woman as irrepressible and gregarious as she was generous, and suddenly Maggie had deviated from her rules. Rules that kept her safe from people like Gorman.
Now Max really would think she was nuts.
And maybe he wouldn’t be far from wrong. She probably came from a whole line of nutcases. Look at her father. A rational man would have at least taken some heed or precautions after she’d warned him. The surprise, in what was rapidly becoming a day of them, was that he had listened, and saved Carla from certain death, if not himself. Dumb! Maggie would never understand men.
“There was no mention of murder in the notes, from either you or anyone else who was—”
“Notes!” She gasped at this revelation, “You checked up on me?”
“Did you expect anything less? I’m a cop, Maggie. I take no one at face value, even with a face as beautiful as yours.”
“Is that supposed to make me feel better? That you think I have a beautiful face? A shop window dummy is beautiful, but there’s nothing inside.” She quivered with anger and stared at the frothy latté in her cup. No wonder he hadn’t wanted to listen. Gorman had done it again.
Courage don’t fail me now!
She set her cup into the saucer with a clatter and searched blindly for her purse. “Sorry I wasted your time. But don’t worry, I’m out of here. Me and my beautiful face.” She lashed out at him in her disappointment. She’d expected the moon and been handed a false coin.
Hurt tears distorted an image of the woman from her dream. I tried. I really did try!
Max’s fingers circled her wrist as she pushed up from her seat. “Maggie, don’t go! Stay. Please.” His voice exerted the same light pressure as his hand. “Take it from me, nothing in Gorman’s notes made me think any less of you.”
“What does it matter?” She shook off his hand and slung her purse over her shoulder, determined to leave.
“What do you want from me? Blood?” Max blocked her way and the world shrank to the width of his massive chest and shoulders.
She fixed her gaze on his chin. Any higher and his blue eyes might be her undoing. True blue as they say, she couldn’t bear to see them lie. Teeth clenched, she muttered, “That would do for starters, then you might try relying on your own judgment instead of that mouth of Gorman’s!”
Blast! Forcing her eyes wide hadn’t held back the liquid frustration in them. Now a tear hit her cheek, and to cap it off, she probably had a drip at her nose. Typical—it never rained but it poured. Maggie dug in her pocket and drew out a tissue.
Drowning was too good for him, unless he could do it in that tear. That’s all it took: a little salt water and he felt like a jerk. The rest of the coffee bar patrons probably thought so, too. Max and Maggie had drawn a small audience, and the waitress seemed ready to get on the phone and call the cops. She’d scream police brutality if he showed her his badge.
Maggie’s tears gouged a scar inside him deeper than the bullet had done when it seared his forehead. “Hey. Why don’t you sit down, blow your nose and tell me about Frank?” He swiftly scanned the coffee bar. “People think we’re fighting.” The brusque heartiness of his words didn’t have the desired effect.
Discomfort was written all over Max, and a newer, more tender emotion crushed her resolve. This huge man handled the worst the criminal element threw at him, but a crying woman cut him off at the knees.
“They’d be right then, wouldn’t they?” Her question spilled out, wrapped in a mixture of sobs and pent-up laughter. Then Max’s arm came around her shoulders, and the feel of him, firm and strong, holding her, stole the rest of her resolution.
“C’mon, honey, let’s go outside where we can find some fresh air and privacy.” Quickly! Before he pulled her into his arms and kissed her senseless. Wouldn’t that give everyone something to stare at?
Wide steps flowed onto Aotea Square, and at their base he steered Maggie toward a convenient alcove. A curve designed for elegance would keep them private and would shelter them from the wind. He’d sweated it out back there, thought that Maggie would turn and run. But she’d capitulated, and he didn’t know who was happier—the cop or the man. His baser, more selfish, hormone-driven instincts howled at the thought of losing something they’d decided was theirs by right.
Maggie.
Base, because even while he offered comfort, dried her eyes and soothed her with gentling sweeps of his hands, those same hands wanted to rip open her coat and push her against the wall. He wanted her to feel his pain. Pain that wouldn’t subside until he’d had her, until he’d felt her hot wet flesh surround his needy hardness and welcome his seed—and still it wouldn’t be enough. He’d want her, again and again and again….
Who was he kidding? He needed her. Needed her to make him feel alive.
Whatever it took!
But the cop had his own agenda. The kind that pricked up its ears at the mere mention of murder. However implausible.
Max felt her breasts swell and subside against his chest as a sigh travelled through her. He restrained himself from increasing the contact. From gluing them together from breast to thigh. “Feeling better now?” he asked, pushing his Maggie-moistened handkerchief back in his pocket.
With another sigh, she murmured, “You must…think…I’m nuts.”
“Not really. Slightly kooky maybe.” That was better; he’d raised a smile big enough to play havoc with his good intentions. Much as he lusted after the feel of Maggie in his arms, it was time to get back to business. “Listen, Gorman never wrote that you’d warned Frank not to fly, and there was no mention of dreams in his report. Nothing. He saved all that—” Max bit back the word garbage. “He saved it to humiliate you in the media. I’d never treat you that way.” His finger tilted her chin toward him. “Look at me, Maggie. Know this. Anything you say to me is completely off the record. I’m no more crazy about journos than you are.”
Maggie didn’t answer. Instead, she stared at him and through him, as if she could see forever. A worm of apprehension crawled up his spine. His hands dove for his pockets and his feet wouldn’t stop fidgeting. He had an urge to shut his eyes and hide his thoughts of Maggie, way back in his mind. It showed that his natural skepticism could only stand so much. What the situation wanted was lightening, before the tension between them snapped like cheap elastic and he was the one who got stung. With a couple of quick swipes of his finger across his chest, he said, “Cross my heart and hope to die.”
Bad move!
What he hadn’t said—might never say—had screwed him up.
“That was pretty facile even for a cop.” Maggie shrugged inside her coat as if she might shed him like water. No such luck. She’d started this and her impulse might have washed out any credibility she had left.
Reluctantly, she laid her thoughts out in front of him. “Five months before my father died, another Creighton aircraft, the same model as his, crashed in the Pacific somewhere near Hawaii. The accident report on that plane said it had been caused by a fuel leak in the engine. The sensors malfunctioned, so the fire extinguishers didn’t come on.
“As soon as the report came out, Dad had his plane checked from nose to tail. Knowing my father, I’d bet that engine was clean enough to eat off.” Max frowned down at her, but she insisted, “Dad wasn’t stupid, just stubborn. He didn’t take risks.” Max had to believe her, even though all she had to go on was intuition. She had to convince him.
“I was wondering about what Carla said. How it was only six hours past a fifty-hour check. Is that the one she meant?”
“Yeah, it would have been more only we’d had a lot of building done at the vineyard and then Dad took a holiday in Australia.”
“From the account I read this morning, your father’s plane went up in flames. Am I right?”
“The scenarios were identical, though the air-accident inspectors tried to make out that the fuel line fractured near the intake. Yet the engineer swore the fuel line was new and the extinguishers should have controlled the fire, from the amount of leakage there was. I believed him. He wouldn’t have short-changed my father—not a valuable customer like him. If he’d been shoddy in his work, Frank Kovacs…” she tilted her chin at Max as she said her father’s name “…wouldn’t have kept going back. Dad expected the best and he usually got it. That’s why he laughed when I told him about the dream, the warning. He didn’t need it. All the angles had already been covered and he thought nothing could go wrong. Now I find he wasn’t as confident as he made out, otherwise he would have taken Carla with him.”
“Why didn’t you tell someone?” he asked, then shook his head. He already knew Maggie’s answer. He didn’t need to be a mind reader for that.
“Just who do you think would have listened, after the number Gorman did on me?” She hung her head, and her voice when she spoke again was gruff and teary. “Besides, I had no proof. Nothing to give anyone except that it was too much of a coincidence. Too easy. You can see it, can’t you? The ditching of the other plane made it the perfect setup for anyone who wanted to harm Dad.”
Max was no great believer in coincidence. More often than not some manipulation was involved. “What about enemies?”
Maggie lifted her head a little, looking at him from under her lashes. There was a softness in her eyes he’d never noticed before. They reflected hope and displayed a vulnerability he hadn’t expected, just because he’d taken a little interest in her theory.
“He had none, that I know of. But then, nobody gives away all their secrets. And Dad played his hand pretty close to his chest.” Unconsciously, she grabbed Max’s lapel, as if hanging on to the shred of hope he’d given her.
Max knew he was going to let her down.
He felt a sudden compulsion to kick ass. Gorman’s in particular. For the sake of a laugh Gorman had let a case go begging, left it incomplete. Max laid his own success as a cop on his instinct for sniffing out things that weren’t quite as they appeared. He’d caught a scent as Maggie spoke, a faint one. What good would it do to inform her there was a chance she could be right? Fifteen months down the track they were looking at a trail that was cold as ice and had been trampled so heavily it would be unrecognizable.
Much as he’d love to help Maggie out by digging into the particulars of her father’s death, he had more immediate problems. Like the woman in the drawing. Did she exist? If so, who was she? And was she alive?
It was Maggie who’d said, “Maybe it’s not too late.” Well, he’d have to see about that. An idea clicked into his mind as quickly as fingers snapping. Damned if he hadn’t come up with a way to knock off two birds with one stone!
“Any minute now,” said Jo, swiveling around to face Maggie. “It’s just coming up, next street on the right.”
She’d picked them up at Aotea Square in an unmarked police car. Speculation was rife in Jo’s eyes. They’d narrowed when Max and Maggie strolled up together, but she’d made no comment. She’d just handed over the driving to Max and taken the seat beside him.
“Where are we? I don’t recognize the area.” The inner city suburb they drove through boasted a plethora of older houses, mostly standing in large gardens untrammeled by the recent rush to subdivide and squeeze in another house. The area looked like old money and the professions.
“It’s just off Mountain Road. Haven’t you been this way before?” Max asked, in an offhand manner at variance with the glitter in his eyes through the driver’s mirror.
“I once went to a hospital there.”
Max signaled, took a right and slowed down at the second building on the left. “This one?” He nodded toward the large squat villa, glowing in a mixture of pastels that aped the latest trends.
To Maggie it looked like a blowsy old tart had stopped by to chat up the regimental lines of hedges and flower beds standing at attention in front of it.
“No, I meant the—” Maggie broke off the instant an overwhelming feeling of dread filled her. She touched her face as if that would ward off giddiness. It felt bloodless, as if it didn’t belong to her, but it wasn’t as cold as her hands. “The Mater Hospital. I went to visit a friend there years ago.” She looked at Jo. “What is this place?”
“It’s a maternity home,” answered Jo.
Max flashed Jo a sideways glance with “keep quiet” written all over it. What was his problem? Was this some kind of test? Maggie could tell him he was wasting his time. She couldn’t kick start her abilities on a whim. All she had were her dreams.
Only the dreams!
“So, you don’t recognize the place, huh?” he asked, sliding the car into a parking spot facing a flower bed in front of the building.
Her earlier relief at escaping the interrogation she’d expected before Jo picked them up died swiftly. This was a test! “This is one that arranges adoptions, right? No! I’ve never been here. I think I might have remembered.”
Jo gave Max a look that should have made his hair curl. “This is all his idea. I could have told him it wouldn’t pan out.”
“Quit arguing, you two! It won’t solve anything. Maggie, you remember what you said to me this morning? ‘Maybe it’s not too late.’ Well, this might be the place to find out just how late it is. So far, this hospital is the only link to all three murders. The victims each left a baby here for adoption at varying times. Four months ago this place had a break-in. The office was ransacked. One month later we had us a victim.
“So far we can’t tie anyone to it. We’re looking at people who’ve been refused a child or a father whose child might have been adopted without him knowing. Frankly, we’re floundering, and ideas aren’t coming thick or fast. Some sicko has these women in his sights and is sticking to his own twisted agenda. The trouble is the killings are too stylized and don’t follow any of the patterns we’ve been taught to look for in serial killers. There’s been no escalation in the violence, no mutilation.”
“Can’t you give the women who come here protection, or warn them?”
“There are too many, and not enough cops. Issuing a warning could start a panic, and because of the privacy act, the hospital isn’t keen on giving us any more names than we need. Some people wouldn’t be too happy about everyone knowing their business. What we’re gonna do now is show the picture you sketched around to the staff. See if anyone recognizes her.”
“But—”
“No worries, just sit tight. Jo and I will see to it all. C’mon, Jo. The sooner we’re in, the sooner we’re done.”
Maggie hadn’t expected an invitation. What could she do? She watched them exit the front seats and Jo walk around the car to join Max. They made a handsome couple, both tall, dark, attractive. Two sides of a triangle, with Maggie making up the third. Not the best shape for relationships to be in, no matter how Max made her feel. The confidence in his touch, as if he had no doubts; the way his mouth had covered hers; the taste of him… For once she really wished she could see into the future.
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