From Megan Maitland’s Diary

Dear Diary,

Sometimes it seems that crisis follows crisis for this family. I shouldn’t complain. I’m so proud of my children, and I’m delighted that at least some of them seem to be finding love. But the Maitland troubles don’t seem to be over yet….

I still can’t believe it. My little Beth is being accused of murder. How could anyone think that bright, carefree, loving Beth would commit such an act? My maternal instincts tell me to exert every ounce of Maitland influence to protect her, but Beth feels that this would make her look more guilty than the circumstances already do. She believes her innocence is the only protection she needs. And she seems to think that the two detectives assigned to her case are fair, competent and open-minded.

What a night it’s been. I’m sure the police will soon see they have the wrong suspect. Nobody can truly believe our Beth guilty of such a crime.

This, too, will pass. It must.

Dear Reader,

There’s never a dull moment at Maitland Maternity! This unique and now world-renowned clinic was founded twenty-five years ago by Megan Maitland, widow of William Maitland, of the prominent Austin, Texas, Maitlands. Megan is also matriarch of an impressive family of seven children, many of whom are active participants in the everyday miracles that bring children into the world.

When our series began, the family was stunned by the unexpected arrival of an unidentified baby at the clinic—unidentified, except for the claim that the child is a Maitland. Who are the parents of this child? Is the claim legitimate? Will the media’s tenacious grip on this news damage the clinic’s reputation? Suddenly rumors and counterclaims abound. Women claiming to be the child’s mother materialize out of the woodwork! How will Megan get at the truth? And how will the media circus affect the lives and loves of the Maitland children—Abby, the head of gynecology, Ellie, the hospital administrator, her twin sister, Beth, who runs the day-care center, Mitchell, the fertility specialist, R.J., the vice president of operations, even Anna, who has nothing to do with the clinic, and Jake, the black sheep of the family?

Please join us each month over the next year as the mystery of the Maitland baby unravels, bit by enticing bit, and book by captivating book!

Marsha Zinberg,

Senior Editor and Editorial Coordinator, Special Projects

The Detective’s Dilemma
Arlene James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

Arlene James has been writing for twenty-one years and considers herself truly blessed. Not only has she been able to pursue a career she loves, but she was also able to enjoy the luxury of being home with her children as they grew. Now that her kids are happily married, she’s approaching her writing with new ardor.

Arlene’s marriage, always a source of inspiration, also seems to be getting better as time goes by. She and her husband grew up, met and married in Oklahoma—years after attending the same school unaware of each other’s existence. She was a young widow, and he was smooth enough to convince her to marry him after their first date! Is it any wonder she writes romance?

I’m a most fortunate mother. I have two truly wonderful sons, and now I have two truly wonderful daughters-in-law. Both are bright and beautiful (inside and out), women who actually deserve such fine men. I thank God and my husband for such dear sons. I thank my sons and their in-laws for such dear daughters.

So this is for Ross and Monica, and Joseph and Heather. You have made me very proud. Again.

I love you all. Mom.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

BETH’S HANDS curled into fists. Immediately she relaxed them and tamped down her impatience. She looked at the serious mien of the tall, dark detective lounging on the corner of the table at which she sat and felt the sudden urge to laugh. It was all so utterly preposterous. Murder. How could anyone suspect her, Beth Maitland, of murder—even if the unfortunate victim was her ex-fiancé’s wife? She’d much rather have flirted outrageously with the handsome detective than committed murder to assuage a broken heart, had she ever had one. What she would do, however, was answer these silly, repetitive questions.

“I went to the children’s garden in the courtyard of the day-care center to be certain that the bulbs planted that day were properly covered. No, we weren’t expecting a freeze,” she said flippantly, “but it is February, and as you well know, in Texas the weather is never certain. I didn’t go back to my office. I never saw Brianne. I certainly didn’t kill her.”

“Yet we know she was going to see you,” the detective persisted, looming close enough for Beth to catch a whiff of the sandalwood in his cologne.

Despite his stern, almost menacing demeanor, he was a devastatingly attractive man. Standing at least a couple inches over six feet and whipcord lean beneath a well-tailored suit of black sharkskin, Ty Redstone was definitely of Native American descent. Ink black hair, swept straight back and chopped bluntly at the nape, had been tucked behind his perfectly formed ears, calling attention to his squarely sculpted jaws and chin. His cheekbones were high and prominent, with slight hollows beneath, his lips wide and mobile. A long, thin nose and straight, slightly jutting brows lent a hawkish appearance to his almond-shaped brown-black eyes. A high, wide forehead bespoke intelligence, and his coppery skin was as smooth as a child’s, with the exception of a pair of tiny crow’s feet, one at the outer corner of each eye. Had he not been convinced that she had murdered Brianne Dumont by strangling the night before, Beth could have formed quite an amazing crush on the man. As it was, she could merely sigh and repeat what she’d been saying for the past two hours.

“I didn’t see her. I had no idea she was even in the building.”

“But her husband says—”

“I don’t care what Brandon says,” Beth snapped, momentarily losing her composure, “I didn’t see her!” She constantly wavered between humor at the ridiculousness of being accused of murder and anger at the seriousness of it.

Her attorney, a handsome, middle-aged man named Hugh Blake, intervened. “My client has answered this question repeatedly. Either move on, Detective, or we will.”

“It’s all right,” Beth answered him, drawing another deep breath. “I’ve said it before. I’ll say it again. I did not ask Brianne to meet me at the Maitland Maternity day-care center or anywhere else. If Brandon says I did, then he’s lying or mistaken.”

“You weren’t jealous of her for breaking up your romance with Brandon Dumont?”

“No.”

“And there was no feud between the two of you?”

“Not as far as I was concerned,” Beth insisted. Leaning forward, she placed a hand flat on the ugly gray table near the corner where Detective Redstone sat. “I know I told my friend Katie Carrington that it was Brandon who ended our engagement and I pretended to be upset,” she said, “but that was a lie. Brandon asked me to say that he was the one who wanted out, and I didn’t see then what harm it could do.” She sat back, waving a hand dismissively. “I just wanted it over with. Even before I found out Brandon was fooling around with Brianne, I knew the engagement was a mistake. Brianne was just the excuse I needed to end it. I didn’t kill her. I had no reason to. Heck, I was glad she wound up with Brandon. Better her than me.”

“Your story just doesn’t check out, Miss Maitland,” Redstone’s partner, Paul Jester, said bluntly. Sprawled casually in a stiff chair at the end of the rectangular table, he seemed the more easygoing of the two, with his pale blond flattop, pink apple cheeks, blunt nose and plump lips. He looked comfortably rumpled in khakis, sport shirt with open collar and tweed jacket with baggy elbows, a true contrast to Redstone’s dark good looks and tailored clothing.

Jester shifted forward, both elbows propped on the tabletop, and went on, repeating facts already established. “Mrs. Dumont checked into the Maitland Maternity Clinic at five forty-five, noting in the guard’s reception book that she had an appointment with you. At precisely six-fifteen, you check out, just at the moment the security guard on the desk is changing, so no notice is taken of the fact that Mrs. Dumont is still inside. At six-twenty the cleaning lady finds the body in your office and sounds the alarm.” He sat back, spreading his hands. “Now what are we supposed to believe?”

Beth shook her head. “Make what you must of it, Detective. I’m telling you that I had nothing to do with the murder. I always check out precisely at six-fifteen. The registry will verify that.”

Redstone leaned down, getting right in her face. She noticed that one of his small white teeth was chipped, the one left of center on the bottom, and shivered with sensual awareness—of a man who suspected her of murder, yet!

“Mr. Dumont swears that you set up the appointment with his wife via the telephone that very afternoon,” he said.

She shook her head. “I didn’t.”

“He says, in fact, that you’ve been harassing his wife since the day of their marriage.”

She looked Redstone straight in the eye. “I don’t know why he’s saying these things, but they aren’t true.”

“And,” the detective went on relentlessly, “you yourself told Ms. Carrington that he, not you, ended the relationship.”

“My client has explained that repeatedly,” Blake said. “This protracted interview is beginning to border on harassment, gentlemen.”

“Look, Ms. Maitland,” Paul Jester said soothingly, ignoring the attorney. “It happens. We know how it is. Your fiancé dumped you for another woman. You called her into your office after hours to tell her exactly what you thought of her. She got smart, hit a nerve. Before you realized what you were doing, you picked up something and wrapped it around her throat….”

Beth was shaking her head, her eyes blazing angrily. “No, no, no. It wasn’t like that. I never touched her. I never even laid eyes on her. I certainly didn’t kill her.”

“That’s enough,” the attorney asserted. “You have my client’s statement. Nothing has changed in the last two hours or more.”

Jester sighed and shot a look at his partner, who got up off the corner of the desk and paced toward the door. Halting, his back to Beth, Redstone brought his hands to his waist and bowed his head. After a moment, he looked over his shoulder, studying her unapologetically, one hand covering the lower part of his face.

“I didn’t kill her,” Beth said to him, sensing that he was the one she had to convince. “As God is my witness, I never even saw her. I wasn’t jealous. I don’t know why Brandon is lying. All I know is, I didn’t kill her.”

The door opened, and Megan Maitland, Beth’s mother, stuck her head inside the room. “How long is this going on?” she demanded. Her white hair had been swept into a neat French twist high on the back of her head, adding to the air of authority that always surrounded her. “Haven’t you badgered my daughter enough?”

Attorney Blake, a good friend of her mother’s, stood. “I think we’re finished here,” he announced firmly.

“I should hope so,” Megan said. “We have a press conference scheduled in less than an hour, and I want my daughter there with me.”

Beth frowned at the notion of the press conference awaiting them at Maitland Maternity. The press had been rabid wherever the Maitlands were concerned. First, a baby had been abandoned on the clinic’s doorstep with a note that claimed he was a Maitland. Then Connor O’Hara, a Maitland cousin no one had ever seen before, showed up, followed by his girlfriend, Janelle, who claimed to be the baby’s mother. And all while Maitland Maternity Clinic was planning its twenty-fifth-anniversary gala. Now a murder had been committed in Beth’s office at the clinic day care—and Beth was the prime suspect. She’d rather thumb her nose at the press pack than give them anything, but even a press conference was preferable to being booked for murder. She stared at Ty Redstone, trying to decide if he was going to arrest her. Finally, he nodded.

“You can go for now, Ms. Maitland, but don’t leave town, and be prepared to make yourself available to us on short notice.”

Blake clamped a hand around Beth’s upper arm, helping her to her feet. He held out her jacket for her. “Good day, gentlemen,” she said, looking at Ty Redstone. “Wish I could say it had been a pleasure.” With that she walked out the interrogation room door and straight into her mother’s waiting arms. The appalling events of the past several hours had drained her, so she allowed her mother to rock her gently from side to side while Hugh Blake quietly praised her for her aplomb and assured Megan that he would pressure the police to find the murderer quickly. Megan thanked him for his help. Beth lifted her head, and together the three of them walked out of the downtown Austin police station.

TY CLOSED THE DOOR on the sight of Beth Maitland standing huddled within her mother’s embrace. After years of this work, he was relatively unaffected by such displays, but something about these Maitland women got to a man. Every one he’d met so far was a real beauty, including the mother, who had to be sixty if she was a day. But then these rich types could afford whatever mysterious beauty treatments kept them looking so young and lovely. Not, he had to admit to himself, that beauty treatments of any sort could make a woman’s legs as long and slender as Beth Maitland’s, or nip her waist in so narrowly that he could span it with his two hands. He dismissed such thoughts, turning to his partner and the matter at hand.

“So what do you think?”

Paul leaned back, balancing his chair on two legs, locking his hands together behind his head and propping his crossed ankles on the table. “I don’t know. Seems like a pretty airtight case on the surface.”

“No kidding.” Ty ticked off the incriminating evidence. “She has the motive and the means. The timing is perfect. The body was found in her office. And the dead woman just happens to be the new wife of her recent and former fiancé. Add to that the statement of said former fiancé—now the widower—that she set up the appointment via telephone, and what you have—”

Ty looked at Paul, and Paul looked at Ty. Together they said, “Too easy.”

Bowing his head, Ty clapped a hand to the back of his neck. “I’m always spooked when they’re too easy.”

“The old hound is smelling a fix,” Paul said blithely. It was a break-room joke that Ty Redstone could smell a frame a mile away despite a steady wind—and for good reason.

“Suppose you break it down for me,” he said, ignoring Paul’s attempt at humor.

Paul rocked forward and pulled his legs down from the table. He extracted a small notebook from his coat pocket, unclipped a pen from it and flipped it open, preparing to demolish their airtight case. “Okay. First of all, strangling is a man’s MO. Even with a garrote, it takes strength over time to get the job done, and an unbound victim of the same approximate size can put up a pretty fierce struggle.”

Ty nodded. “Women usually conk their victims over the head, shoot ’em full of holes or slowly poison them to death. They don’t strangle them with a thin, flexible weapon. What do you think it was, by the way?”

Paul shrugged. “Some sort of cord would be my guess. Too thin for a belt or rope.”

“Right,” Ty said, “so a woman doesn’t usually strangle her victims.” He lifted a cautioning finger. “But we both know that means nothing. Under the right circumstances, anything goes.”

“Granted,” Paul said, “but if she really does check out at six-fifteen every night and we can prove it, then it’s an established pattern that anyone who knows her could use to frame her.”

“We need the logbooks for at least a year,” Ty said, beginning to pace the room as Paul took notes. “We’d better pull the phone records for Maitland Maternity Clinic and the residence.” He snapped his fingers. “Check to see if Beth Maitland has a cell phone, too. If she’s been harassing the happy couple, we’ll find some sign of it.”

Paul scribbled it all down. “Got it.”

Ty paced the narrow confines of the interrogation room. “What do you think happened to the murder weapon?”

Paul shrugged. “Nearest trash bin, probably.”

“We searched with a fine-tooth comb,” Ty reminded him.

“She must have taken it with her. I kept expecting you to ask about it.”

Ty shook his head. “If she hasn’t gotten rid of it, I don’t want her to rethink and do it now.”

“You figure she still has it?”

“Maybe. Anyway, we won’t have a decent idea what Brianne Dumont was strangled with until forensics has done their bit. No sense trying to look for it until we do. Make a note to ask forensics for an early determination,” Ty instructed. Paul dutifully made the note. “Okay, back to the breakdown.”

“One big consideration,” Paul said, “is that we only have Dumont’s word for it that the Maitland dame set up the appointment with the victim.”

“Or that she harassed her,” Ty said, picking up the thread of the argument. “And since Dumont was seeing Ms. Maitland until fairly recently, we can assume that he’s spent a good deal of time around the maternity clinic and the day-care center.”

“Which means he could probably get himself in and out without being seen,” Paul concluded. “There’s a working theory. He baits the trap by telling his wife that Beth’s asked to see her.”

Ty stopped pacing and brought both hands to his hips. “I have to wonder why she would go for that, meeting the other woman on her own turf, especially if the other woman was displaying threatening behavior.”

Paul shrugged. “Maybe she wanted to apologize—Maitland, I mean.”

“Or maybe there was no harassment,” Ty said, theorizing, “so the Dumont woman had no reason not to make the meeting.”

“Makes sense,” Paul concluded before returning to his theory. “On the other hand, he could’ve killed her, dumped the body in the office and fabricated the meeting to allay suspicion.”

Ty shook his head. “Too tricky, even without a blood trail.” He came to a halt and brought his hands to his waist. “We have to do some reconnoitering.”

“Until we discover a hole in the dike,” Paul agreed. “Then we pull the plug and let the truth flood away the lies.”

“You sound as if you’re convinced we’ll find that hole,” Ty said.

“Yeah, maybe. There’s something that’s been bothering me from the get go on this one.”

“Oh?”

Paul nodded. “It’s like this. The woman is rich and beautiful.”

And she has a freewheeling sexuality that fairly sings to a man, Ty thought but didn’t say. He knew that Paul, being happily married, wouldn’t say it, either, which was not to infer that he hadn’t noticed. Ty showed his agreement with Paul’s assessment by nodding.

“A woman like that’s got to be beating ’em off with a stick,” Paul went on prosaically. “What’s she want with a cold fish like Dumont? Any guy who would break up with Beth Maitland and marry another woman within forty-eight hours, well, he’s not the love of anybody’s life, if you ask me.”

“Definitely not the sort you’d kill over,” Ty agreed. “Now, all we’ve got to do is prove it.” And hope we don’t make the case against Beth Maitland in the process, he told himself, surprised at the sentiment.

Paul nodded thoughtfully and scratched his ear with the tip of his pen, leaving a bright blue mark. Ty smiled. Paul Jester was a good detective, a fine father and husband, an excellent friend, but he was always doing goofy stuff like marking himself up with those damned ballpoint pens he carried. Ty cleared his throat against a chuckle and added a query to the list.

“We’d better do some digging into Dumont’s background as well as Beth Maitland’s, just to cover our butts.”

“And don’t forget our victim,” Paul said, writing.

“Good point. Now I’ll tell you something about this case.”

“What’s that?” Paul asked, looking up. Ty knew that, given his ancestry, the guys around the office fancied him something of a shaman with his predictions and hunches, but he knew himself to be a purely logical man who made good deductions—not that he was averse to cloaking his expertise in a thin veneer of Crow mysticism. In this business, a man needed every edge he could get, and Ty was rightfully proud of his rich Native American heritage.

“I’ll tell you right now,” he pronounced sagely, “that this thing is going to come down to a face-off between Brandon Dumont and Beth Maitland. I, for one, think we’ll only hear the truth when we get the two of them in the same room together at the right time. Meanwhile…” He let the statement hang there, but Jester was quick to finish it.

“Meanwhile,” he said resignedly, getting to his feet, “we’ve got a lot of work to do.”

Ty waited as his partner shoved his chair under the table and walked around it. Then he turned to the door.

“You’ve got ink on your ear,” he said as they went out together, just loud enough for the other guys in the ward-room to hear. Paul was still scrubbing at the offending mark long after the laughter had died down.

“YOU DID WELL, BETH,” Hugh Blake told her. “I don’t want you to be discouraged. The police are a long way from concluding their investigation, so there’s a chance the real murderer will come to light. If they do charge you, I promise you we’ll fight them on every front. Just stick to the truth and try to relax. All right?”

She nodded and thanked him for his help, then allowed her mother to usher her into the limo. Beth sighed, letting her head fall back on the warm leather upholstery. It wasn’t particularly cold, but Beth pulled her fitted brown corduroy jacket closed.

“My poor darling,” Megan said, sliding onto the seat next to her and laying a comforting hand on her knee. “How could anyone suspect one of my children of something so heinous? Especially you! Everyone knows you wouldn’t hurt a flea. You’re much too fun-loving and playful.”

“I don’t think fun-loving and playful preclude murder in the eyes of the law, Mother,” Beth suggested with a wan smile.

Megan shuddered. “I still can’t believe they suspect you. It’s just ludicrous, and they’ll see that. They will.”

Beth tried for another smile and was saved the effort when the chauffeur slid the divider window open. “Back to the clinic, Mrs. Maitland—Ms. Maitland?”

“Oh…yes, thank you,” Beth replied for the two of them. “I’m a little distracted today. Sorry.”

“No problem,” the driver assured her, sliding the window closed. An instant later, the vehicle shifted into gear and swung easily across the parking lot. Beth lifted her head. Enough self-pity. Time to face this mess head-on.

“I’m worried how this is going to affect the clinic and day-care center,” she said bluntly, and Megan immediately rushed to defuse her concerns.

“Don’t be silly. Everyone knows this is nonsense. As Hugh says, it’ll all blow over soon and—”

“Mom,” Beth interrupted firmly, “the press has crucified us over the paternity of a babe left on our doorstep. You can’t believe they’ll ignore an accusation of murder.”

“No one has accused you of anything!” Megan cried. “You’ve been questioned. We all have. That’s all it is or will be.”

“Let’s face facts, Mother,” Beth said gently. “I’m suspected of murdering my ex-fiancé’s new wife in my office. The press is going to play this only one way.”

“Let them,” Megan insisted sternly. “Everyone who knows you will realize how absurd their implications are.”

“But those who don’t know me will wonder,” Beth pointed out, “and that could hurt the clinic. Just when we’re ready to lay one scandal to rest, another pops up. At the very least, the twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration will suffer.”

“Not at all,” Megan assured her. “Most of the invitations have already been accepted. After today’s announcement that the parents of our darling Chase have come forward, the rest will come around. You’ll see.”

All Beth could see at the moment was that she wasn’t going to be able to shake her mother’s staunch belief in the victory of truth and the ultimate invulnerability of her family. But then, she didn’t really want to. Unfortunately, all she could do was pray that nothing and no one else did it for her, and that was exactly what she did for the remainder of the trip to the clinic.

Traffic was worse than usual. The limo crawled or stood still more often than not, so they were almost late for their own press conference. They had time to run through the clinic to the back hall. The other members of the family were waiting for them, and they gathered around as soon as Beth drew near, offering hugs and asking questions.

“Are you all right?” Ellie, Beth’s twin, immediately demanded. Identical to Beth except for the shorter hair and lighter lipstick, Ellie seemed to have found a new confidence since her marriage to Sloan Cassidy. Not wanting to subject the family to any more publicity, the two of them had secretly eloped over the New Year, much to everyone’s delight. Beth smiled and nodded to reassure her sister. Ellie’s tailored, sleek business attire and short, neat hair contrasted sharply with her own, eclectic ensemble of broomstick skirt, boots, cropped sweater and corduroy jacket. Ellie, to Beth’s mind, was the intelligent one, the professional one, not that Beth would have traded places with her. She loved working with children. Ellie’s career choice as Maitland Maternity’s administrator seemed deadly dull and unnecessarily stressful, but Beth couldn’t help feeling that Ellie secretly garnered more respect than she did as the director of the day-care center. That belief, however, did not color her great love for—and pride in—her sister.

“What happened at the police station?” her brother R.J. wanted to know.

Mitchell was right beside him. “Those idiots didn’t charge you, did they?” he asked.

Beth shook her head. “No.”

“Of course they didn’t,” her older sister, Abby, insisted. “Who in his right mind would suspect our Beth of murder?”

“You might be surprised,” Jake said, holding himself, as usual, at a little distance from his siblings. He had whispered to her as she was leaving for her interview with the police detectives that, if push came to shove, he had a few connections who might help them get at the truth, but Beth knew that she wouldn’t ask him to pull any hidden strings for her unless she saw no other hope. Jake was much too protective of his shadowy life, and she didn’t want to jeopardize that privacy.

“This will have to wait,” Megan instructed calmly. “We have a press conference to conduct. We’re going out there and present a united front to that mob of jackals. We have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of or worried about. Remember that, all of you.”

Anna, who usually skipped these occasions since she, like their brother Jake, had no professional connection to Maitland Maternity, stepped up to link her arm with Beth’s. Ellie took the other arm. Abby stood next to their mother, with R.J. and Mitchell flanking them, and Jake brought up the rear. Megan lifted her chin, as regal as any queen, then she put out her hand, shoving open the door and leading them all onto the railed landing that lent itself so perfectly to this sort of thing.

Flashes went off. Cameras started rolling. There was a general jostling of bodies as reporters surged closer, jockeying for position, microphones swaying over their heads. Megan stepped to the microphone mounted on the railing and lifted both arms in a gesture of welcome.

“Thank you for coming.” Immediately she was bombarded with questions.

“Mrs. Maitland, have the baby’s parents been identified?”

“Who has been charged with the murder at the clinic?”

Chelsea Markum, cool and professionally commanding with her vibrant auburn hair and beauty-queen looks, elbowed her way to the front and demanded, “Is Jake Maitland involved with some terrorist organization? And who is this mystery woman he’s brought into your midst? Does it have anything to do with the murder?”

Jake muttered something best unheard and edged away from the lights. Megan laughed. “My goodness, Chelsea, what an active imagination you have.” She ignored Chelsea’s pout and waved down the remainder of the questions. “I’m here to announce that the parents of the infant child left on this very doorstep at our last meeting have, indeed, come forward.”

“Who’s the father?” someone called.

“The father is a distant relative who desires to remain nameless,” Megan went on calmly. “He and the child’s mother are working to put their lives back together and provide a loving home for their son. Surely you realize that this was an act of desperation on the mother’s part. Now that the father is aware of the child’s existence, the couple are working through their differences. Please, I beg you, allow them the privacy necessary to accomplish this.”

“Are you saying that none of your sons fathered this mystery child?” someone asked.

Megan seemed to pause, then said in a strong, clear voice, “None of the fine young men you see standing here with me today had anything to do with that child’s conception. Now, that’s all I’m going to say.”

“But what about the murder?” Chelsea Markum demanded, having recovered from her set down. “Can Maitland Maternity survive this new crisis?”

Beth stiffened, but Megan shook her head. “The tragedy that occurred here last night has nothing whatsoever to do with Maitland Maternity.”

“Isn’t it true that the dead woman caused the breakup of your daughter Beth’s engagement?”

Pointing to another reporter instead of acknowledging Chelsea Markum, Megan tried to ignore the question, but Beth knew it was hopeless. She stepped next to her mother and leaned toward the microphone.

“No, that isn’t true,” she said evenly.

“But the police suspect you, don’t they?”

“You’ll have to ask them that,” Beth said dismissively.

“In fact,” Megan said, once more taking control, “these questions really ought to be directed at the police. I believe the detectives working this case are one Ty Redstone and Paul Jester. Why don’t you ask them these things?”

Beth chuckled inwardly. Poor Redstone and Jester! Her mother had effectively sicced the press on them. She wondered if Ty Redstone would blame her for it, then purposefully pushed thoughts of the attractive detective from her mind. She had more important matters to address—and the perfect forum in which to do it. Once she’d made a public statement, her mother could not gainsay her, and Beth was utterly convinced that this was for the best.

“I have something else to say,” she announced over the buzz of questions flying at them. She shot her mother an apologetic glance. She hated to do this, but she knew that she must. The reporters grew surprisingly quiet. She could see pens poised over handheld notebooks, microphones straining forward to catch her every word. She didn’t make them wait. “For the record, I have no idea who killed Brianne Dumont or why. It certainly was not me. However, my family and I are grieved by this tragedy and want to see the person responsible brought to justice. Given the circumstances, I can understand that some might link me with the crime even though I had no part in it, and that being the case, I am taking a leave of absence from my position as head of Maitland Maternity day-care center until this mystery is solved and the guilty party is found.”

The murmurings this time came from behind her, from her family, but she’d made the decision, and she knew it was right. She knew what she had to do. Cooperating with the authorities was fine, as far as it went; trusting them to exonerate her was something else again. She was not going to sit idly by waiting for someone to rescue her. Her chin went up in a gesture so reminiscent of her mother that her siblings smiled.

Megan took firm control of the situation once more and brought the press conference to a swift conclusion. The final questions came, as usual, from Chelsea Markum, who shouted at Beth and Jake as the family returned to the relative privacy of the clinic. It was only as she prepared to break the news of her leave of absence to her staff that Beth realized life as she knew it had drastically changed, perhaps forever.

CHAPTER TWO

BETH QUICKLY DISCOVERED that the intention of proving her innocence and actually doing it were two different things. Where did one begin? After much thought—and she’d had lots of time for that these past two days—she was convinced that she was being framed for Brianne’s murder. The question was, why? Try as she might, she couldn’t imagine what anyone could have to gain from framing her, and yet she could find no other explanation. One other thing had become clear to her: Brandon Dumont was her strongest suspect.

She was saddened and angered by this. She had once had strong feelings for Brandon. At least, she had tried to make herself believe that she could have strong feelings for him. That belief had waned even before she’d discovered that he was sleeping with Brianne, and had been put to death by Brandon’s insinuation that his betrayal was somehow her—Beth’s—fault.

She had dismissed her anger, telling herself that his response smacked of jealousy and was beneath her, that it was best to put the whole relationship behind her. She had dismissed Brandon’s avowal that she would regret breaking their engagement and tried to lessen his anger by agreeing to tell everyone that he had instigated the breakup himself. Given the tales he was telling about her supposed harassment of Brianne, she had to wonder if that was part of the setup. Why else would he lie to the police? Or had Brianne, for some absurd reason, convinced him that the harassment was taking place?

She was brooding about it all in the mansion nursery, watching a sleeping Chase from the comfort of a well-placed rocking chair, when Megan entered and brushed a kiss on the top of her head before tiptoeing to the crib to worship little Chase with her eyes. Knowing her mother would want to talk, Beth got up and moved toward the door. Megan turned on the baby monitor and followed.

“I’m so glad you kept him at home with you today,” she said softly when the nursery door was closed behind them. “The press was all over the place.”

Beth sighed. “Truthfully, it was selfishness on my part. I needed something to do, and he’s such a sweet baby.”

“Won’t you come back to the day-care center?” Megan asked quickly, but Beth shook her head.

“I can’t, Mom, not now. It’s just not fair to the employees and patients, not to mention the children.”

“If this is about the twenty-fifth-anniversary celebration,” Megan argued, “we’re in good shape there. Most of the invitations were accepted before this happened. Even those who had previously sent regrets have decided they can come, after all, and the acceptances are still trickling in. Honestly, sweetheart, no one suspects you of having anything to do with that poor woman’s murder.”

“Please, Mother, let’s not argue. My mind’s made up.”

Megan sighed. “You always were strong-willed. But if your mind’s made up…”

“It’s the best thing. Now, tell me, how was your day?”

Megan looped an arm around Beth’s shoulders as they strolled side by side down the hall. “It’s better now. I’m looking forward to a long hot bath and a quiet dinner, frankly.” She grimaced and came to a halt. “I forgot. I asked you to invite Janelle and Connor to dine with us this evening. Oh, well. They aren’t really company. They’re family, aren’t they.”

Beth faced her mother across the hallway. “They may be family, but they aren’t coming to dinner because I never got a chance to invite them. Janelle didn’t show up for her visitation today.”

“That’s odd.” Megan’s brow wrinkled. “There was no one at the guest house when I stopped by after lunch, either.” Megan had come home for lunch to see Chase and had visited the guest house on her way to the clinic. Beth couldn’t help feeling that something didn’t add up properly with Janelle and Connor, and it bothered her that her mother didn’t seem to share her concern.

“I thought Janelle was anxious to spend time with the baby,” she said pointedly.

Megan bit her lip. “So did I, but perhaps she and Connor just need some time alone together. They haven’t been reunited very long, you know.”

“Seems to me they’d want their child with them,” Beth said.

With a wave of her hand, Megan dismissed the observation. “Soon enough all the formalities will be met and we’ll have to give baby Chase up to his parents’ care.”

“Maybe so, but if he were my child, he’d have been here just long enough for the DNA tests. They’re simple procedures, after all.”

“It’s like I said,” Megan insisted, not quite meeting Beth’s gaze, “Connor and Janelle need some time to work things out between them.” Beth sensed that her mother was more troubled than she wanted to admit, and finally Megan confirmed it. “Maybe I’d better go over there later, be sure everything’s all right.”

An excellent idea, Beth thought. “You have your bath,” she told her mother. “Then we’ll have a quiet dinner and walk over to the guest house together.”

Megan smiled and laid her forehead against Beth’s. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

“Uh-huh, but it’s always nice to hear.”

Suddenly Megan grew serious, cupping Beth’s face in both her hands. “I worry about you, darling.”

“I’m fine, Mom.” It was true. She hadn’t murdered Brianne, and she wasn’t going to let anyone frame her for a murder she hadn’t committed. It helped that she had the Maitland influence and money behind her—and Jake’s connections, too—but her real strength was the truth. She kissed her mother’s smooth cheek. “You’re the one with too much on her plate right now.”

Megan sighed, but then her chin went up again. “It’ll all work out,” she vowed, and Beth, at that moment, did not doubt that her mother was right.

JANELLE ANSWERED the door in her bathrobe. “Megan, Beth, how sweet of you to drop by.”

To Beth’s ears, her words sounded just the opposite. “We haven’t interrupted anything, have we?”

Janelle gave her a brittle smile. “Of course not.”

“We just wanted to check on you, dear,” Megan said, striding past Janelle into the tiny foyer of the guest house. The sapphire blue wool of her cape swirled and fluttered as Megan removed it. Beth caught the flash of irritation on Janelle’s lovely face and smiled. Apparently Janelle was feeling somewhat proprietorial about her lodging, but it would never occur to Megan to wait for an invitation into her own guest house, and Janelle ought to realize that by now. A smile smoothed the flash of irritation as Janelle followed Megan, leaving Beth to close the door.

“Well, I’m glad you did,” Janelle was saying. “I was feeling a little lonely, actually.”

Megan and Janelle were settling onto the comfy couch in the small living area when Beth wandered into the room. She couldn’t say why she disliked Janelle. Oh, she’d tried to like her, for Megan’s sake if nothing else, but something about Janelle rubbed Beth the wrong way. The small house felt overheated after the coolness of the clear February night, and Beth pushed her waist-length orange jacket off her shoulders, draping it over the chair that stood to the side of the small entry.

“When you’re lonely you can always visit your son,” she said, to see Janelle’s reaction. “You knew Chase would be at the house with me today. I expected to see you there.”

Janelle seemed shocked, but then she blinked her big eyes until they teared. “I know. It’s just that it’s so hard to see him when I know I can’t take him home with me.”

“Seems to me you could fix that easily enough,” Beth pointed out.

“For your information, I’ve sent for the necessary paperwork,” Janelle informed her coldly. She was all warmth and smiles when she turned to Megan, though. “That’s what Child Welfare wants, isn’t it? A birth certificate?”

“I think that would work nicely,” Megan said. “I’ll speak to them to be sure.”

Knowing that her mother relished having the baby in the house, Beth refrained from pointing out that the DNA testing would be quicker, and Megan deftly changed the subject.

“I stopped by earlier to check on you, but you were out.”

Janelle waved a hand. “Oh, that. Connor took me to lunch, then I had some shopping to do. I brought so few things with me, you know.”

“I knew it was something like that,” Megan said. “Did you have a good day, get everything you need?”

“Yes, thank you.”

“Forgive me for interrupting,” Beth said unrepentantly, “but where exactly did you have to send for that birth certificate?”

“What looked like panic flickered across Janelle’s face, but then she smiled, one hand fluffing her hair nonchalantly. “Why do you ask?”

“Just wondering.”

“New Mexico,” Janelle said.

“New Mexico!” Megan exclaimed.

“I wound up in Taos after Connor and I parted,” Janelle explained haltingly, “just wandering around, looking for someplace to settle.”

Megan made some reply, but Beth wasn’t listening, her attention claimed by a noise from the back of the house. She could have sworn that someone was moving around in the bedroom.

“Is someone else here?” she asked sharply, barely aware that she had interrupted Janelle’s complaints.

“What?” Janelle asked loudly. Megan lifted a slightly censorial eyebrow at Beth, and she immediately apologized.

“Sorry. I thought I heard something.”

“You don’t think we have a prowler, do you?” Janelle said loudly, a hand pressed to her chest.

It was all Beth could do not to roll her eyes. What she thought was that Connor was hiding in the bedroom, and she couldn’t imagine why he would feel the need. “No, of course not,” she said.

Janelle heaved a dramatic sigh. “Oh, thank goodness. It’s so quiet here at the back of the property.”

“We’re very safe,” Megan assured her. “The whole compound is walled, and we have an excellent security system. I hired the guards and had everything tested and upgraded after we brought Chase home and the press interest mushroomed.”

“How good you are,” Janelle said, almost purring. “I sensed that about you, you know, before I brought my little babe here.”

She made it sound as if she’d left the baby in Megan’s arms instead of dumping him on the clinic doorstep, Beth thought irritably. She couldn’t help wondering why her mother was buying this act so completely, and she disliked watching Janelle’s patently false gushing.

“Do you mind if I get a drink of water?” she muttered, already moving into the foyer.

“Of course not. You just help yourself,” Janelle answered with exaggerated politeness.

Beth strode through the foyer and the dining nook, with its ice cream parlor table and matching pair of blue-striped chairs, past the short counter and into the kitchen with its bright white cabinets and cobalt blue countertops. She opened a cabinet door and took down a drinking glass, then filled it with water from the tap. Leaning a hip against the counter, she sipped the cool, sweet water and tried to figure out why Janelle irritated her so much.

Something occurred to her, and she drained the last of the water in one long gulp, then placed the empty glass in the sink. She strolled back the way she’d come and was about to step into the foyer when the sound of her mother’s voice reached her, and she automatically paused. Only belatedly did she realize why. Secrets. The tone of her mother’s voice was the one she used when discussing secrets. What secrets could her mother have to discuss with Janelle, of all people?

“No doubts,” her mother was saying. “But no one else understands about Connor. How could they?”

What was this about Connor? She cocked her head, ready to catch every word, then it occurred to her that she was eavesdropping. Purposefully, she moved into the room. “I was just thinking,” she said to Janelle, “I’m sure Child Welfare would send for the birth certificate for you. They could probably get it electronically.”

Janelle stared at her with her mouth open. Megan immediately seized on the notion. “You know, that’s right.”

“Uh, yes,” Janelle said, blinking rapidly. “Yes. Except, um, I—I’m not sure the birth has been recorded yet.” She flapped a hand ineffectually. “I didn’t have the baby in Taos, actually. It’s so expensive there.” She glanced uncertainly at Megan. “I moved to a little town north of there. I—I only saw the doctor a few times, and I never did understand anything he said, his accent was so thick.”

“Was he Mexican, then?” Megan asked.

“I think so.”

“Of course. Well, New Mexico isn’t the end of the world,” Megan said soothingly. “The papers will come, and until they do, Chase will just have to stay where he is.”

“But you can always visit,” Beth pointed out, “as often as you want.” Which so far hadn’t been very often, she mused.

Janelle fluttered her eyelashes and smiled gratefully. “You’re all just wonderful,” she sighed, and Beth wanted to strangle her. She almost laughed, considering that’s what the police thought she’d done to Brianne Dumont. But Brianne had never engendered any dislike in her, not the way Janelle did, and even Janelle was as safe with her as Chase in his crib. Now, if she could just convince Ty Redstone and Paul Jester of that…

JANELLE CLOSED THE DOOR behind her unwanted visitors and folded her arms, fuming. That damned Beth. She could handle Megan. The woman was so besotted with her grandson and so anxious to believe that Petey was her long-lost son Connor that she’d do almost anything Janelle wanted. But Beth was a problem—and another problem was not what they needed just now, not after who she’d seen at the Austin Eats Diner that day. All that crap about New Mexico and sending off for the birth papers ought to buy her some time—time to come up with something else. First things first, though.

“You can’t keep ignoring the kid,” her dolt of a husband pointed out, appearing in the doorway of the bedroom.

“I know that, you idiot! But that’s not our biggest problem at the moment.”

She began to pace. Damn, she’d thought for sure that she’d killed that bitch Lacy the day she’d dumped the kid. If the diner hadn’t been so crowded at lunchtime and she hadn’t been wearing sunglasses and a scarf, her face might have triggered Lacy’s memory. With the amnesia gone, Lacy would remember that she was Chase’s mother, not to mention the small fact that Janelle had tried to kill her with a blow on the head.

“What did you say they were calling her?”

“Who?”

Rage surged through her. The man looked like a movie star, but he was as dumb as a stump. If not for her, he’d still be working a two-bit construction job in Las Vegas, but what a damned nuisance he’d become! Was it too much to ask that he have enough intelligence to follow a conversation? She picked up a brass bookend and hurled it at him.

“Lacy Clark, you overgrown booby! Who else?”

He dodged the bookend and waited to see if she’d pitch the other even as he muttered, “Oh, her.”

“Yeah, her,” Janelle said, sneering, “the woman who gave birth to our Maitland meal ticket.” She drove a hand through her long, dark hair. “Damn! I knew it. I knew she wasn’t dead. Blast her! Why couldn’t she have just died in that alley?”

“At least she doesn’t remember anything,” Petey said hopefully. “You heard that woman at the diner say she has amnesia. She can’t tell about you trying to take the baby or hitting her if she can’t remember.”

Janelle turned a hard look on Petey. “And what if she gets her memory back?” she demanded. “We can’t trust she won’t. We have to shut her up permanently. We don’t have any other choice. If that Goody Two-shoes gets her memory back, we’re through here. We lose everything. We have to make certain that doesn’t happen.”

Petey studied her warily. “What are you thinking?”

“We’re going to finish the job,” Janelle said coldly. “Lacy Clark should have died in that alley. The only way to fix this is to finish what I started that day.”

“You’re saying we have to kill her.”

“It’s her own fault,” Janelle declared. “If she’d just given me the baby like I’d planned, instead of changing her mind at the last moment, we’d be safe. Now one of us has to make sure she never remembers.”

Petey grimaced. “Me, you mean.”

“Can you think of another way?” Janelle asked coaxingly. “Darling, I’ve already tried and failed. I’ve done all the planning and setting up. God, I invested months in that woman, winning her trust, convincing her the real Connor didn’t want her or the brat. I’m just not strong enough to do this one last part. And we’re so close to getting our share of the Maitland millions.”

With a sigh, Petey lifted a hand to the back of his neck. “I’ll take care of it,” he said simply, and for the first time since lunch, Janelle relaxed somewhat. This husband of hers did have his uses, and if she managed him right, she could have everything she deserved and wanted. She swayed across the room, pulling loose the sash at her waist.

“When?” she pressed. “How?”

Petey shrugged and eyed the lissome, naked body she displayed for him. “Soon. I’ll figure something out.”

“No one can ever connect us with her murder,” Janelle purred, reaching out to place a hand on his chest.

“They won’t,” Petey promised, leaning toward her.

“They’d better not,” she growled, grabbing him by the hair and pulling his mouth down to hers.

Her husband liked to play it rough once in a while, and she was willing to give him what he wanted often enough to keep him in line, especially since he worked so hard to give her what she wanted—and just now she wanted Lacy Clark dead.

TY PUT HIS HEAD DOWN and determinedly ran the gauntlet, his strides long and sure as he said, “No comment,” throwing the words left and right. He shoved through the heavy glass door of the Austin Police Headquarters building, leaving the reporters to the mercy of a windy February afternoon. As he hurried toward the elevator, he nodded to various officers in and out of uniform, clerks, secretaries, attorneys and at least one judge racing for the private entrance with a police escort following in her wake. The elevator opened and Ty stepped aside to allow several others to get out. Finally, he slipped inside and stabbed the correct floor button with an index finger. He held his breath as the doors slid closed, leaving him mercifully alone.

Putting his head back, he sighed in relief. What a day! Press dogging his every step, superiors ringing him up on his private cell phone to demand explanations, interviews that turned into Beth Maitland testimonials. If he hadn’t already been inclined to think the woman innocent, he’d have greatly resented all the heavy-handed support that was coming her way. The same, however, could not be said for Brandon Dumont.

The picture coming together of the poor widower was of an image-conscious, somewhat shady, self-important social climber who routinely inflated his background and his income. He had a reputation as something of a ladies’ man, and several of the ladies reported being carefully cultivated, only to be thrown over when a more socially prominent candidate appeared. Beth Maitland would have been the social pinnacle of Dumont’s romantic pursuits, while the woman he’d married had been utterly devoid of social consequence. As far as Ty could tell, the murdered woman had been nothing more than an attractive accountant in Dumont’s office, a step above a bookkeeper, until Dumont had married her. If it had been a love match, it had been a volatile one, since at least two people in a restaurant had heard them arguing recently, though neither could say about what.

The elevator came to a halt and the doors slid open. Ty stepped out at a swift stride that carried him across the hall and into the squad room. It was warm, too warm, and he slung off his lightweight, black leather overcoat as he navigated the corridors between cubicles to his, which he shared with his partner. Paul Jester sat at the desk facing Ty’s, talking on the telephone. He glanced up as Ty hung his coat on the hanger he kept there for that very purpose. Paul quickly got off the phone and rocked back in his creaky chair to prop his feet on the corner of his desk, smiling like the proverbial cat that had eaten the canary.

“Our friend Dumont has been indulging in a little high-stakes day trading,” Paul revealed gleefully. “That’s the next thing to gambling, and he’s playing with borrowed money. Looks like he’s in over his head and trying desperately to get out. The Feds are asking questions about his business, and three investors in the last six months have filed complaints and disputes with him over his handling of their funds. Plus, the wife had a small life insurance policy, and she changed the beneficiary just two days before her death.”

Interesting information. “Dumont is the beneficiary, of course,” Ty surmised.

“Yep.”

“Who was the original?”

“Her brother.”

“He lives in California, right?”

“Right. It’s a small policy, thirty thousand, but Dumont’s already filed the claim.”

Ty rubbed his hands together, pulled out his chair and sat. As motives went, it wasn’t much, but instinct was whispering that they were on the right trail. He was determined to be thorough, though. He had recognized in himself a disturbing tendency to want to believe Beth Maitland. Something about that woman got to him on a very elemental level. Whipping out his notebook, he prepared to report what he had learned. “Our boy Dumont is coming up dirtier and dirtier.”

“And the Maitland woman is looking shinier and shinier.”

At that, Ty looked up alertly. “Who says?”

Paul flipped him a letter stapled to a memo form. Ty did a double take at the seal stamped into the corner of the expensive stationery. He whistled through his teeth. “From the governor’s wife?”

“The First Lady of Texas is pleased to offer herself as a character witness for Ms. Beth Maitland, whose generous contributions to the child-care community of our state cannot be overstated,” Paul recited.

“How does this outpouring of support strike you?” Ty asked, scanning the letter, which was addressed to the district attorney and had been copied to the mayor, the chief of police and the division.

“The family probably instigated it,” Paul said, “but that doesn’t mean it isn’t sincere.”

Ty laid the letter aside and nodded. “That’s my take, too.” He went on to tell Paul what he’d learned that day. Paul listened attentively, occasionally quirking an eyebrow or tossing out an astute observation. When Ty was done, Paul took his feet from the corner of his desk and leaned forward.

“Okay, so what’s our next step?”

“We poke holes in Dumont’s story so the truth can leak out,” Ty said.

“You’re sure that’s the way the wind blows?”

Ty considered a moment, stilling himself emotionally and mentally in order to access the small voice that whispered through his soul. A picture of Beth Maitland sprang instantly to mind, her long, thick, coffee-brown hair frothing past her shoulders in layers of wavy curls. He saw the vibrant blue of her eyes, the elegant line of her nose, the slender oval of her face with its delicately pointed chin and wide, expressive mouth. Her perfect peaches-and-cream complexion invoked thoughts of warm, pale silk. He felt the definite urge to smile, as if an unexpected shaft of sunlight had broken through a gray and gloomy sky. That woman couldn’t have killed anyone, and no one in his right mind would believe she had. Had Dumont set her up? His blood boiled at the very notion.

“Well?” Paul prodded.

Ty shook away the image and the emotions it evoked, aware that his small voice had developed a healthy libido. She was an extremely attractive woman, Beth Maitland, and he’d felt definite vibes around her. Something told him that she was as strongly attracted to him as he was to her, not that he could let that matter. She was an official suspect in a high-profile murder. He happened to think that she was innocent. “Let’s get Dumont and Beth Maitland in here for another interview, together this time,” he decided.

Paul rocked back in his chair, asking nonchalantly, “And which one do you want me to call?”

As casually as he could manage, Ty answered, “Doesn’t matter. Dumont, I guess.”

Paul winked and grinned. “Knew you’d say that.”

Ty kept his face expressionless. “Yeah? Then why’d you ask?”

“Just to hear you admit that you want to speak to Beth Maitland yourself.”

Ty snorted rudely. “I admit no such thing, and just because the woman is attractive doesn’t mean she’s my type, Jester.”

“Why isn’t she your type? Besides the obvious, that she’s a suspect.”

“She’s rich,” Ty answered succinctly.

“That doesn’t make her like that chick your mom told me about,” Paul argued, “the one from college who—”

“I know the one you’re talking about!” Ty snapped, thinking he’d have to have a careful word with his mother. It was unlike her to discuss his personal business even with his closest friends. “What did my mother tell you about her, anyway?”

Paul shrugged. “Just that she was from a prominent Houston family who didn’t like the idea of their little debutante hooking up with a Native American.”

A dirt-poor redskin, her daddy had called him, a breech-clout gigolo without so much as his own tom-tom to his name. The insult still burned rancorously in his gut whenever he thought about it. He was very, very proud of his heritage. At the time, however, his erstwhile girlfriend’s tearful wailing that her daddy was going to revoke her credit cards if she didn’t stop seeing him had seemed the worse insult. He’d been stupid enough to think that, because she’d hopped into his bed every chance she got, she’d loved him. He’d found out rather graphically how he’d stacked up against her plastic money and her society friends. It had been a brutal reality check, and one he wouldn’t need again, but Paul didn’t have to know that.

“She was nothing, that girl,” Ty said evenly, “just a little passing infatuation. My mother shouldn’t read so much into things.”

“Your mother is a very wise woman,” Paul responded.

“Well, her wisdom sometimes gets a little tangled up when it comes to her children,” Ty remarked. “But if you tell her I said such a thing, I’ll have to cut your nose off.”

“Crow punishment for betrayal,” Paul exclaimed delightedly. He loved hearing about the old lore and traditions.

Ty chuckled. “Maybe I’ll have to strip the skin off the soles of your feet and stake them to a fire-ant hill. Punishment for trespassing in private territory.”

Paul frowned, and Ty could almost see the wheels turning behind his eyes. “You made that up!” he finally declared. “The People never did any such thing.”

“Who said it was Crow punishment?” Ty teased. “It’s just my personal remedy for nosy partners.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, have I ever told you my remedy for smart-aleck Indians?”

“Indian is an incorrect and unacceptable label,” Ty said, deadpan.

“So sue me, native boy,” Paul retorted, reaching into his desk drawer for a rubber band, which he shot from between his fingers. Ty dodged the harmless missile and pulled out his drawer to get at his weapons stash.

The serviceable gray-carpeted floor around their abutted desks was littered with red and green rubber bands, and the mood had lightened considerably by the time Ty finally looked up Beth Maitland’s telephone number and made that call. The play had done nothing, however, to prevent the slow thickening of his blood that occurred when her light, musical voice brought back to mind her sexy image. He reminded himself that Beth Maitland was not a woman in whom he should feel the slightest interest. Now all he had to do was silence that whisper in his soul, the one that brought a vision of her to the mind’s eye and promised that here was fire to melt the ice of his heart.

CHAPTER THREE

TY WAS COOL. He didn’t blink an eye when Beth Maitland sauntered in wearing tan suede slacks that showed off her long, slender legs and tight, round bottom. He said nothing about the matching fringed jacket that she wore over a tight, wine red knit shirt that left no doubt as to the strength of her feminine attributes. He did not compliment her suede half-boots, which matched her shirt in color, or comment upon the way she had twisted her long, lush hair into a plump, frothy roll skewered with a trio of silver-and-turquoise pins. He failed to remark that the open, turned-up collar of her shirt emphasized the creamy length of her slender neck, or that an expensive silver-and-turquoise beaded necklace called eye-catching attention to the deep crevice of her cleavage. To the casual observer, his fascination and appreciation would not have been unduly marked. Only he knew that she amazed him by looking even better than he remembered. Moreover, she possessed a quirky, natural style that was wholly her own, and being a man of a certain personal style himself, Ty could only applaud. Silently, of course.

He got to his feet and greeted her impersonally. “Ms. Maitland, thank you for coming.”

She nodded and glanced past him to Brandon Dumont, her eyes going wide then clouding with confusion as she took in the small, dark woman next to him. Ty brushed back the sides of his suit coat and parked his hands at his waist, watching the byplay. Looking bored, Dumont pinched the crease of his navy slacks where one knee crossed the other. The Mexican woman next to him bowed her head and did not look up again, as if avoiding Beth Maitland’s gaze. Beth tilted her head to one side, questioning Ty with her eyes. He smiled reassuringly, realized what he was doing and quickly blanked his face.

“You know Mr. Dumont,” he said, “and my partner, Paul Jester.” Paul was standing on the other side of the table, and he nodded at Beth. Ty went on. “You may also know Ms. Letitia Velasquez, Mr. Dumont’s housekeeper.”

Beth fixed the woman with a curious gaze. “Yes. Hello, Letitia. It’s nice to see you again.”

The housekeeper lifted a trembling smile in acknowledgment of the greeting, then quickly bowed her head again. Dumont frowned at the housekeeper but in no way acknowledged Beth Maitland. Paul pulled out the chair next to him at the table, leaving the end seat for Ty and keeping Dumont and the housekeeper on the opposite side. Beth walked around to the chair and gracefully lowered herself into the seat, smiling at Paul as he pushed the chair beneath her. She slipped the strap of a small, hand-tooled leather purse from her shoulder and placed the purse on the table in front of her. She looked across the table directly at Brandon Dumont.

“Hello, Brandon. How are you?”

“As well as can be expected,” he said tonelessly without looking at her.

Beth glanced at Ty, then turned her gaze on the housekeeper. “Letitia,” she said gently, “how is Frankie?”

Letitia Velasquez slowly lifted her head. “He is worried, Ms. Maitland,” she answered just above a whisper.

Brandon Dumont suddenly jerked his head up and looked at Ty, demanding testily, “Can we get on with it, please?”

Ty froze the man with a cold, hard glare and watched with satisfaction as the color drained from his already pale face. Dumont reminded Ty of a banked fish, pale and slimy, but he supposed that he was attractive enough, with his soft good looks, trendy spiked haircut and expensive clothes. Ty suspected that his medium brown hair had been artfully highlighted and that the shocking blue of his eyes was achieved via colored contact lenses. The artifice disgusted Ty. He had no respect for this man, but he attempted to submerge that emotion in the determination to do his duty. He turned his gaze to Beth Maitland.

Calmly, Beth linked her hands and rested them atop her purse. She was the one Ty addressed. “Are we expecting your attorney?”

“No,” she said. “He’s in court today, but I’m perfectly willing to carry on without him.”

Ty knew that he ought to be glad about that. Lawyers tended to gum up the works. But he didn’t much like the idea of her being here on her own, not with Dumont dropping unexpected witnesses on them.

“Are you sure about that?” he asked. “Because we can reschedule.”

Her generous mouth curved softly as she smiled at him, genuine blue eyes warm enough to speed up his heartbeat. Definite vibes. “It’s all right,” she said. “I want to get this over with. Besides, what do I have to fear? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

Dumont made a sound in the back of his throat, but when Ty looked at him, he was studying his fingernails. Ty pulled out his chair and straddled it.

“Okay.” He flipped open the file folder he had placed on the table in front of his seat earlier, extracted a pen from his inside coat pocket and clicked the point down. “I had intended to go over your individual statements with you, Ms. Maitland and Mr. Dumont. See if we can’t clear up some of the discrepancies. But the presence of Ms. Velasquez has changed the agenda.”

“How so?” Beth asked, clearly puzzled.

Ty glanced at Paul, wondering if his partner disliked this unexpected twist as much as he did, and chose his words carefully. “Ms. Maitland, during our last interview, you denied harassing Mr. Dumont and his wife, the deceased, did you not?”

Beth blinked. “Yes, I did. I do.”

“You never called the Dumonts on the telephone to complain that they had ruined your life by getting married?”

“No, never.”

“You didn’t go to the Dumont home, demanding to speak with Brianne Dumont and making a scene?”

“Of course not!”

Ty glanced at Paul, who quickly spoke. “Ms. Velasquez says you did.”

Beth’s mouth fell open and her eyes went wide. She turned an incredulous gaze down the table. “Letitia?”

The housekeeper raised her head, tears streaming down her cheeks. “I’m sorry, Ms. Maitland. I say only what I must. I’m so sorry.”

“No need to apologize, Letitia,” Brandon Dumont said flatly. “Ms. Maitland knows what she’s done.”

“I know I did not harass or kill Brianne!” Beth exclaimed. “And you know it, too, Brandon Dumont!”

“Do I?” he replied coolly. “You were always fond of telling me what I knew and what I meant. Perhaps if you hadn’t been, I wouldn’t have left you for Brianne.”

Ty saw that she was trembling, but when she turned her blue gaze on him, he realized that the emotion racking her body was pure anger. “He’s lying! I broke up with him. He asked me to say that it was the other way around.”

“And you never harassed the Dumonts?” Ty asked.

“Never!”

“But Ms. Velasquez swears that you did,” Paul said.

Beth turned to the small woman huddled next to Dumont. “Letitia,” she pleaded, “please don’t do this. Please tell them the truth.”

“That’s exactly what she’s doing,” Dumont snapped.

The housekeeper broke into sobs. “I only say what I must,” she repeated. “I only say what I must!”

“Can’t you tell the poor woman is devastated to have to do this?” Dumont went on. He smiled maliciously at Beth and added, “She always did prefer you, you know.”

Letitia Velasquez buried her face in her hands and sobbed brokenly.

“There, there,” Dumont said, with the same inflection he’d use with a pesky fly.

Beth closed her eyes and said softly, “It’s all right, Letitia. Whatever’s going on, it’ll be all right somehow.”

“I don’t want to say it!” Ms. Velasquez sobbed.

“You don’t owe her any apologies or explanations!” Dumont growled at the woman. “You know what’s at stake.”

“That sounds like a veiled threat, Mr. Dumont,” Ty said mildly.

“Don’t be absurd,” Dumont retorted. “I only meant that if Letitia does not do the right thing, a murder will go unpunished.”

“Oh, no,” Ty said. “We’ll get to the bottom of this one. Never doubt it.”

“I should think you’ve seen the bottom—as you put it—already,” Dumont rejoined smoothly, but never once during the entire exchange did he look Ty in the eye.

“Some might think that,” Ty replied noncommittally, but he’d suddenly had all of Brandon Dumont that he could stomach for one day—and he wasn’t quite ready to give up on his original game plan just yet. He still might get some important personal questions answered if he played this right. He stashed his pen, flipped the folder closed and got to his feet, sweeping the folder up in his hand. “Paul, why don’t you take Ms. Velasquez downstairs? Give her a minute to collect herself before the stenographer takes her statement.”

Paul was already on his feet and moving around the end of the table to Letitia Velasquez’s chair. “Come with me, ma’am.”

The little housekeeper cast a worried look at Brandon Dumont, then got stoically to her feet, wiping tears from her face with one hand, her old-fashioned patent-leather purse clutched in the other. She glanced guiltily at Beth, then turned her head away and swiftly followed Paul from the room. Beth was glaring daggers at Dumont, who seemed amused. Ty gestured with his free hand toward the room beyond the door at his back.

“I’m going to grab a cup of coffee, then we’ll get down to brass tacks. Can I bring anything for you two?”

Beth shook her head mutely. Dumont curled his lip in an expression of disdain, as if to imply that simple coffee was beneath him, and said sharply, “No, thank you.”

Ty slipped out of the room, pulling the door almost closed. Catching the eye of one of his co-workers, he pantomimed drinking, then pressed his palms together in supplication and jerked his head at the interrogation room door. An understanding nod and quick movement in the direction of the coffeepot parked in an out-of-the-way corner was his answer. Ty stepped to one side of the door, put his back to the wall and waited.

Beth was the first one to speak. “Why are you doing this, Brandon?”

The smugness of Dumont’s voice made Ty want to slap the cuffs on him. “Why, whatever do you mean, Beth dear?”

“Cut it out, Brandon. We both know you’re trying to frame me for Brianne’s murder.”

“Trying to frame you?” Dumont echoed, slight emphasis on the first word. “Tsk, tsk, Beth, why don’t you just accept your punishment like a good little Maitland and be done with it? Your family will get you off with minimal time, say ten or twenty years, which you’ll probably serve in some walled country club. You know, it’s positively unfair what the rich can get away with.”

Beth seemed to ignore his taunts. “It’s because I broke up with you, isn’t it. Is your pride that monstrous? Is this my punishment for not loving you, Brandon?”

“Yet you agreed to marry me,” he told her quickly.

“Yes,” she answered slowly. “I wanted to be in love with you. I wanted you to be everything that you seemed then. But the image didn’t hold, Brandon, and do you know why? It’s that desperation in you, that grasping, frantic desperation. Eventually it seeps through the cool, handsome veneer and makes the other person feel…used, a means to an end.”

“Used?” Dumont snarled. “You amused yourself with me, then tossed me aside like so much trash.”

Ty’s ears pricked, and he straightened away from the wall. So Beth Maitland had ended the relationship, just as she claimed. He had felt inclined to believe her before; now he knew she was telling the truth. Too bad what he’d just heard wouldn’t be admissible in court. His co-worker approached with the cup of coffee, and Ty signaled him to silence before he drew near enough to place the cup in Ty’s hand. Ty mouthed, “Thanks,” and turned his ear to the door as the other detective tiptoed away.

“I guess I should have ignored the fact that you cheated on me with Brianne,” Beth was saying.

“That was your own fault, and you know it,” Dumont argued. “A man has to have satisfaction.”

Ty had heard enough. Any more and he risked his case. Eavesdropping without a court order was a tricky business when it came to gathering evidence. He opened the door and walked in. Dumont shifted gears as smoothly as butter melted, saying to Beth in an aggrieved tone, “I loved Brianne. I adored her. I couldn’t help myself. But I’m sorry that I cheated on you, especially if that’s why you killed her.”

Beth rolled her eyes. She looked at Ty and said calmly, “I didn’t kill Brianne Dumont, and he damned well knows it.”

“All I know is that my wife was found dead—in your office—after you threatened her.”

“Threatened her?” Ty repeated sharply, plunking down the file folder and placing the coffee next to it. He brought his hands to his hips and stared down the table at Dumont. “You never mentioned anything about threats before.”

Dumont stiffened. “Well, what do you think all that harassment was about?” he demanded. “She wasn’t just amusing herself!” He gestured at Beth.

“The way she amused herself with you?” Ty asked flatly, and Dumont visibly paled. “Suppose you explain that to me.”

Dumont straightened in his chair. “Y-you were listening!”

“That’s right. Now, let’s hear it, Dumont. Which was it? Was she so crushed when you dumped her for another woman that she was moved to murder, or was she playing with you? In which case, it wouldn’t make much sense for her to harass and murder your wife, would it?”

Dumont swallowed. Then he seemed to realize that he had been rattled, and his face mottled with rage. “You don’t understand these Maitlands!” he exclaimed. “They think they own the damned world and everything in it.” He flung a hand at Beth. “She wasn’t in love with me, but she wasn’t through with me yet. She didn’t want me to be with anyone else until she said so. I crossed her, and she got back at me.”

It was a completely self-serving explanation, but Ty had nothing with which to counter it. Yet. He waved a hand at Brandon Dumont. “Anything else you want to tell me?”

Dumont subsided into his studied nonchalance. “Not at the moment.”

“I’ll call you if I need you,” Ty told him dismissively. Dumont glanced around the room, as if expecting to find someone or something else to keep him there. Realizing that he was being told to go, he got to his feet. “I’ll show you where to meet Ms. Velasquez,” Ty said.

Dumont lifted his chin and tugged at the bottom of his tweedy designer suit coat. “I, um, promised the poor woman I’d be at hand to support her,” he said suggestively.

“That won’t be necessary,” Ty replied. “Detective Jester is taking care of her. Follow me, and I’ll show you where you can wait.” He turned toward the door. Dumont followed reluctantly, skirting the table and dragging his feet into the ward room. Ty walked him to the elevator, giving him much more explicit instructions than necessary on how to reach the public waiting area. He wanted to give Beth a chance to pull herself together, to think. A rattled suspect often said or did something to incriminate herself. Ty didn’t want that. But what he did want from Beth Maitland was best left unacknowledged for both their sakes.

BETH PULLED a deep breath and put her head back. She had known, of course, but somehow it was still a shock to have it confirmed. Not that he had said anything particularly incriminating. No, Brandon was much too smart for that. He was, in fact, much smarter than she had given him credit for being. Well, she wouldn’t make that mistake again. Neither would she be tamely led to the slaughter as dictated by his massive arrogance. Brandon Dumont was not going to get away with framing her for his wife’s murder.

Ty Redstone entered the room, stopping just inside the door to study her with that blank, inscrutable expression of his. She wondered if it was part of his Native American heritage or a result of his police training. Probably some of both. It didn’t completely obscure the powerful personal awareness of her that she sensed in him, or the surge of satisfaction that she felt as a result of it. Perhaps she sensed it because it was mutual. Ty Redstone was a devastatingly attractive man, sexually compelling. He reached behind him and pulled the door closed, and suddenly she felt at a distinct disadvantage. Impulsively, she shot to her feet, anxious to make him believe in her innocence.

“Save it,” he said, beating her to it, “I’m not trying to prove that you murdered Brianne Dumont, because I’m not convinced you did. I’m just trying to get at the truth.” He brushed back the sides of his suit coat and tucked his hands onto the slopes of his narrow hips.

Beth felt her knees wobble and stiffened them. “You believe me?” she asked incredulously.

He smiled self-deprecatingly. “Let’s just say I have a nose for a frame-up and a very open mind.”

Relief percolated inside her, making her feel suddenly giddy. “You believe that Brandon’s framing me?”

Ty Redstone bowed his head, his inky hair sliding in thick, sleek clumps behind his ears. “Problem is, I can’t prove it,” he said matter-of-factly, stepping to the end of the table. “Yet.” Beth didn’t know she was going to do it until her arms were around his neck and she was leaning into him across the blunt corner of the table.

“Thank you! Oh, thank you! You don’t know what a relief it is to—” She realized abruptly that he was standing with both arms raised, palms facing outward, the very antithesis of an embrace, while she wrapped herself around him. She realized, too, that his heart was slamming every bit as rapidly as her own. He was trying to keep his distance—and not completely succeeding.

Clearing his throat, he gingerly brought his hands to hers, gently disengaging her arms as he pushed her away.

“Sorry,” she mumbled, very aware that he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, he was focusing on the folder that he had laid on the end of the table.

“Sure. No biggie.”

“I suppose that sort of thing happens all the time,” she said, hearing the husky tenor of her voice.

“Uh, no, actually. That’s, uh, that’s a first.”

She was oddly pleased. “Really?”

He nodded and flipped open the folder. A hand drifted up to rub at the corner of one eye. “I’m usually considered kind of, oh, unapproachable.”

“Unapproachable?” she echoed disbelievingly. “You?” He slid her a look around the tip of his finger. She sensed a challenge in it, a watchfulness, a measuring calculation. She shook her head. “Uh-uh. No, that’s not how I’d describe you at all.”

“No? And how would you describe me?”

Beth knew she was being audacious and didn’t care. “Personable. Sexy. Drop-dead gorgeous.”

His mouth dropped open. Then he coolly folded his arms and swept his gaze over her, up and down and up again. She was breathless by the time he said, “Not even my friends would describe me as personable.” Amusement laced his tone. “I like my privacy too well for that.”

“Do you?” Beth said, swaying close again. “I can understand that.”

His dark eyes were focused intensely on hers, so compelling that she sensed, rather than saw, his smile. Then abruptly he pulled back again. “I bet you can. Hardly a day goes by that I don’t find the name Maitland somewhere in my daily newspaper.”

She wrinkled her nose, disappointed. “You get used to it after a while. Sort of.”

He shook his head and broke the eye contact. “Not me. The press are all over this one, and it’s driving me nuts.”

She winced and rushed to apologize. “Look, I’m sorry about that. She really didn’t do it on purpose, you know. They were going on and on about it, and she just sort of threw it out there.”

His smooth, copper brow furrowed. “What are you talking about?”

“My mother. She gave your names to the press, yours and Detective Jester’s.”

Ty chuckled. “Ms. Maitland, the press has had my name and number for years. Your mother may have saved some newshound an extra phone call to find out who was handling the investigation, but that’s all. Trust me on this.”

Beth laughed. “Oh, I’m so glad. I was afraid we’d caused you all kinds of trouble.”

“You have,” he said flatly.

“Oh.” Properly chastised—or at least pretending to be—she bowed her head, looking at him from beneath her brows.

“But not on purpose,” he admitted. “I know that. Comes with the Maitland territory, I guess.”

“I’m afraid it does,” she answered unapologetically.

He nodded and straightened, bringing his hands to his hips once more. “Listen,” he said after a moment of intense silence, “I don’t want you to worry. We’ll get to the truth.”

“I’m not worried, I’m angry,” she declared feelingly. “At first I just couldn’t believe Brandon would do this to me, that he’d go this far. Now…” She looked at Ty openly, needing an answer. “He killed her, didn’t he? He killed her to frame me.”

Ty shook his head. “Ms. Maitland, we have no proof of that.”

“Beth,” she corrected automatically.

“What?”

“Call me Beth. There are a number of Ms. Maitlands. I’m Beth.”

He shook his head again and picked up his thought. “We have no proof that Brandon Dumont killed his wife, and you’re not to go around telling people that he did—or even that I suspect him of framing you for the murder. That will only alert him to the focus of our investigation and give him a chance to more deeply bury his trail. Do you understand, Ms. Maitland?”

“Beth,” she repeated, and he sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose with one hand.

“Do you understand what I just told you, Beth?”

Pleased, she answered him primly. “Yes, I do, Ty.” She leaned forward slightly. “I may call you Ty, may I not?”

His lips twitched with what could have been a smile. “I suppose so.”

The light of interest fairly smoldered in his eyes, but he was working hard to suppress it. She didn’t want him to suppress it. She wanted just the opposite. Placing both hands on the tabletop, she leaned closer still. “Now who’s unapproachable?” she teased huskily. “I don’t think you’re unapproachable. I think you’re a blasted magnet.”

A slow grin spread across his face, and he leaned down, bringing his nose close to hers and flanking her hands with his. “And I suppose there’s iron beneath that sweet, feminine exterior of yours.”

“Must be,” she murmured, feeling breathless, as if he might be about to kiss her. When his gaze dropped to her mouth, she felt a surge of exultation and tilted her head. Suddenly the door opened, and Paul Jester breezed in.

Ty jerked back from her as if she’d suddenly developed an offending odor. She glared at Jester and barely restrained herself from stamping her foot. Jester sent a surprised look between the two of them and quickly closed the door.

“Uh… I, uh, I got the Velasquez statement.”

“Yeah, thanks,” Ty said smoothly. He tapped his lower lip with his forefinger and turned to face his partner, face totally expressionless.

Beth could only marvel. He did that so well, covered so smoothly. It was like a mask that he could produce at will. She, on the other hand, was all too transparent, blatant even. She wondered what he thought of that.

“What do you think?” Ty asked Paul, ignoring her.

Paul glanced at Beth and carefully hedged. “About Velasquez? Uh, we’ll have to check out a few things.”

“You can speak freely, Detective Jester,” Beth said, folding her arms. She glanced at Ty at the same time Jester did and added, “I’ve been given to understand that I’m no longer an actual suspect.”

Jester lifted both eyebrows at Ty. “Yeah?”

For the first time, Ty appeared a tad flustered. He licked his lips, then said, “Let’s say…not the chief suspect.”

Jester split another gauging look between them, accepted the obvious and shrugged. “I didn’t get much out of her,” he said baldly. “She just kept saying that Ms. Maitland called often, sounded mad and stopped by sometimes to shout at everyone. She couldn’t remember dates, and she kept apologizing, saying she didn’t want to hurt Ms. Maitland but couldn’t help it.” He looked at Beth. “She begged me to help you, says she knows you’re a good woman.” He addressed Ty. “I can’t help feeling that he’s got something on her.”

Ty looked at Beth. “What about that? You know any reason Ms. Velasquez could be coerced to give testimony against you?”

“It could have to do with Frankie,” Beth suggested.

“Her son?” Jester clarified.

“Yes. I know Brandon helped him enter the country once after he’d been deported. I don’t know how Brandon worked it. I just know that Letitia was weeping and thanking him one day. Her English was all jumbled together with Spanish, but it was all about Frankie. I know that.”

“Okay. That’s where we’ll start then,” Ty said.

“Maybe I should go with you,” Beth suggested quickly. “My Spanish is pretty good, and—”

“No.” It was a flat refusal, no room for compromise, and it hit her as patently unfair. It was her neck in the noose, after all.

“But—”

“No,” he repeated. “Officially, you’re still a suspect. I can’t let you tag along on an investigation. Jester will take care of the Velasquez question.”

“What about you?” she demanded.

He slid his hands into his pants pockets. “I want to take a look at Brianne Dumont’s background.”

“She had some socially prominent friends,” Beth pointed out quickly. “I could—”

“No!” Ty reiterated strongly.

Beth felt like a little girl being scolded for requesting a cookie. She shot to her feet, arguing, “They won’t tell you anything. They’ll speak more readily to someone they know.”

“What does that mean?”

“Just that I know these people. I know how their minds work. They’ll talk to me.”

“But not me,” he said, “because I’m not one of the club.”

“They’ll talk to me because they know me,” she argued.

“You’re one of their own, you mean!” he accused, jerking his hands from his pockets to snap up the folder on the table.

Paul made a sound that told Beth she’d overstepped, but she wasn’t sure how exactly. She glanced in his direction, then back to Ty. “Well, yes, if you want to put it that way.”

A flash of temper lit those midnight eyes. The mask slipped away, revealing his disdain. “I may not get my name into the society pages, but I know what I’m doing.”

“I didn’t mean it that way. You’re misreading me completely.”

“Leave the detective work to the professionals, Ms. Maitland,” he snapped. “Social standing doesn’t figure into this in any way.”

“I never said it did.”

“No, but you meant it,” he told her, striding toward the door. He threw it open and slid a scathing look over one shoulder. “I know exactly what you said and exactly what you meant. Now, if you’ll excuse us, we have work to do.”

He was throwing her out. She considered, for a moment, digging in her heels, but a glance at Paul Jester told her that he wouldn’t recommend it. Another time then. Coolly, she snatched her purse and lifted her chin.

“I trust you’ll keep me informed, at least,” she said regally, sweeping toward the door.

“We’ll be in touch,” was the cool reply.

She meant to walk out without a backward glance, but she couldn’t do it, not after what had almost happened in this room only moments earlier. At the last second she stopped and turned, seeking his gaze with her own.

“Ty?” she said softly, imploringly.

For an instant, that icy disdain seemed to melt a little, but then he swept back the sides of his coat and parked his hands on his hips in a gesture of sheer implacability. “Go home, Ms. Maitland,” he ordered, “and let us do our jobs.”

Angrily, she whirled, fleeing a deep disappointment. But he was more than just wrong if he thought she was going to sit on her hands and wait for him to slowly dig up what she could uncover in a twinkle. It wasn’t the only thing about which Ty Redstone was wrong, but it was the one in which she was going to rub his handsome nose.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE DOLL-LIKE COUPLE smiled with practiced civility and murmured patent responses. Sitting side by side on their immaculate sofa in their immaculate home, they looked like magazine cutouts, perfectly groomed, perfectly dressed, and they did everything in tandem, including smile and politely evade substantiative answers to direct questions. With some inborn sense of protocol and timing, the husband politely checked his watch twice before bringing a firm end to the interview, if the efforts of Detectives Redstone and Jester could be called such.

More like a waste of time, Ty thought glumly as Jester aimed their nondescript, department-issue sedan toward the next address on their list. So it had gone for days now. The interviewees were interchangeable. The results as well. Nada. They hadn’t learned a darned thing. Brianne Dumont remained a cipher, a dead cipher, unfortunately. The answers to their questions were rote.

“I really couldn’t say.”

“I pay no attention to gossip and rumors.”

“One doesn’t like to pry into the private lives of others, you know.”

“We were friends, but casual acquaintances more than intimates.”

Brianne Dumont might have been a cardboard cutout for all the attention her “friends” seemed to have paid her. Undoubtedly she’d moved on the very fringes of the upper echelon of Austin society, but if she’d had another circle of intimate associates, they hadn’t been discovered yet. Her co-workers might have been more forthcoming than her so-called friends, but the late Mrs. Dumont had held herself aloof, letting them all know that they were beneath her consideration socially. Those listed in her personal address book and calendar were saying the same thing, albeit very politely, about her. The gist of it seemed to be, “She was around a lot, but we didn’t really know her and didn’t care to.”

As much as he hated to admit it, even to himself, Ty sensed that they were getting the royal runaround, just as Beth Maitland had predicted. What he wouldn’t give for one lousy scum sucker in the mix. That sort always had something to fear from law enforcement and so could be pressured, shaken, fouled up. These society types had money, prestige and respectability to fall back upon; they wouldn’t allow themselves to be intimidated by mere civil servants.

“Who’s next?” Paul asked, after flashing his badge and guiding the sedan expertly through the guard gate of one of the city’s more exclusive neighborhoods.

Ty checked his itinerary. “Name’s Giselle Womack. According to Dumont, she and Brianne were roommates for a short while after college until Giselle married.”

“Womack,” Paul said thoughtfully. “Hmm. Wouldn’t be any connection to Womack Industries, would there?”

Ty sighed. “Oh, yeah.”

“All this money in the world,” Paul said, shaking his head. “You’d think a little of it would fall on us, wouldn’t you?”

“Speak for yourself,” Ty said. “I don’t much like what money does to people.”

“Most of us don’t have that prejudice,” Paul quipped. “Personally, I’d like to see what a little of it could do to me.” He slowed the sedan and turned it off the broad, tree-lined street onto the pebbled circular drive of a large Italianate house in cream stucco and white marble.

Paul whistled. Ty groaned. “Does the term ‘exercise in futility’ mean anything to you?”

His partner ignored that and nodded at a flashy yellow convertible parked in front of the door. “Suppose Mrs. Womack has company?”

“Shouldn’t think so,” Ty answered, opening his car door. “She knows we’re coming.”

Paul got out and walked around the front of the car. “Seems to me there’d be room in that four-car garage back there for family cars.”

“Guess we’ll see,” Ty replied, his footsteps carrying him toward the front door. He pushed the bell and rolled his shoulders, adjusting the weight of his gun and the placement of the shoulder holster. The door opened, and a sullen, gray-haired maid in a beige uniform greeted them.

“Are you the police?”

“Detectives Jester and Redstone, ma’am.”

“They’re waiting on you. This way.”

They? Ty glanced at Paul, then over his shoulder at the flashy yellow convertible with its clean white top. If Mrs. Womack had called her attorney in to hold her hand, that was one flamboyant advocate. He stepped into the opulent, tiled entry and followed the maid, Jester behind him. They were shown into a sunny solar room at the back of the house crammed with so many plants that the bamboo furnishings were all but hidden. Ty heard rushed whispers and giggling, but wasn’t sure from where until the maid pushed back the frond of a particularly impressive potted palm and addressed someone Ty couldn’t quite see, announcing baldly, “They’re here.”

She turned to Ty and Jester, letting the palm frond fall into place. “Ya’ll want some coffee or something?”

“No, thank you.”

She nodded sharply and plodded off. Ty traded glances with Paul before he stepped around the potted palm—and looked straight into the smiling face of Beth Maitland. She set aside a cup and saucer and bounced off the short sofa where she was sitting next to a plastic-looking blonde. Her wide smile beamed with perfect white teeth. “Ty!” she exclaimed, holding out her hand as if greeting an old friend.

Exasperation warred with anger and no small amount of sheer delight. The woman took his breath away, and he was going to give her a tongue-lashing as soon as he got her out of here.

“Giselle,” she gushed, “I want you to meet Ty Redstone and Paul Jester.” She flipped a little wave at the woman sitting with crossed bare legs beside her. “Giselle Womack. That’s Mrs. Harold Womack,” Beth confided, amusement twinkling in her eyes as if they shared a private joke.

Ty tried to keep a straight face as he nodded at the young woman preening in her seat on the narrow sofa, but the picture of Harold Womack that sprang to mind made that difficult. Ty had done a little research on his interview subjects and had found more info on Harold Womack than most. One thing he’d come across was a newspaper photo taken at a charity golf tournament. He could see it now— Harold Womack, a full head shorter than the other men in the photo, bald as glass, sixty if he was a day, his belly hanging over his belt, a cigar clamped between his teeth as he prepared to swing a club at the ball on the ground. Ty had wondered at the time if the man could even see the ball for his belly. Now he wondered if old Harold hadn’t bought himself a cute little trophy wife to help him hold age at bay.

Giselle Womack hadn’t yet seen thirty, but her smooth face bore the signs of bad cosmetic surgery, a blunt, slightly scooped nose, the prominent jut of a too rounded chin, lips that looked as though they’d been stung by a peculiarly accurate bee. Her hair was a little too blond and big to be real, and unlike Beth’s full, firm bust, Giselle’s proudly displayed breasts looked hard and unnatural on her bony frame. Only the ostentatious diamonds glittering on the hand she held aloft for Ty’s greeting seemed genuine. He wondered if he was supposed to shake that hand or kiss it. He settled for a quick press and a slight nod.

“I’ve heard so much about you, Ty,” Giselle said breathily, fanning her shoulders to call attention to the cleavage displayed by the little knit dress she was wearing. At least, it would have been a dress on a ten-year-old; on her it was a long shirt two sizes too small. He forced a slight smile and glanced daggers at Beth from the corners of his eyes. Heard about him, had she? He could only guess what Beth Maitland had told her. Paul slid his hands into his pants pockets and rocked on his heels, indicating with a slight clearing of his throat that he was perfectly aware he was being left out of the welcome. Battling exasperation, Ty managed a polite reply.

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Womack.”

Mrs. Womack waved her diamonds and said, “Oh, honey, call me Giselle. We’re not formal here. Are we, Beth?”

Beth folded her long legs and took her seat. “Not at all,” she confirmed, and lifted a hand toward the chairs placed at either end of the rectangular glass table standing before the couch. Ty picked the chair closest to Beth, leaving Paul to cross in front of the table and gingerly take the chair next to Giselle Womack. Paul nodded affably and was pointedly ignored. He shot an amused look at Ty and settled back, prepared to be invisible.

Giselle leaned forward, allowing Ty yet another view of her cleavage, and said, “I think it’s wonderful how you’re helping Beth.”

Helping Beth. As if he was a paid assistant. Ty ground his back teeth. “We’re investigating the murder of Brianne Dumont.”

“I’m dying to know,” Giselle said, gushing. “Was she or wasn’t she?”

Ty lifted both eyebrows. “I beg your pardon?”

“Hasn’t anyone else told you?” Giselle fairly crowed. “I just knew someone would spill the beans.”

By now Ty realized he wasn’t going to get a straight answer from the blonde; she was too busy congratulating herself on being the one to manage the revelation. He turned to Beth Maitland. “Was she or wasn’t she what?”

“Pregnant,” Beth answered bluntly, a light dancing in those sky-blue eyes. “Brianne claimed that she was pregnant.”

Claimed was the right word. Ty had seen the coroner’s report. Brianne Dumont had not been pregnant at the time of her death—had never been pregnant—but he kept that bit of information to himself.

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