Innocent Hostage (8 page)
Head down, she shoved the dishes into the dishwasher, then turned around to grab her bag and escape.
And there he was. Standing right at her elbow.
She jumped back.
“Uh, sorry to startle you. I was wondering—”
“Yes?”
“Well, I was wondering if you had any ideas about where Tania might…” He stopped. He’d probably seen the pissed-off expression on her face. She’d had Tania Kerr right up to the back teeth.
“No. That’s not what I meant to say.” He paused and looked as if the words were being dragged out of him. “I want to apologize for…for”—he swallowed—“the ungracious thing I said to Doc Hargreaves. You
are
my friend, just as much as you’re Kit’s friend. How could we not be friends? You’ve helped us twice now, and you’re a very nice person. It’s just that the police rumor mill—” Running out of steam, he forked his fingers through his hair, then staggered back a step. “Weak as a kitten,” he muttered, leaning against the counter.
“You should be in bed,” Ingrid said. Even as the words left her mouth she felt a slow heat burn its way over her face and down her neck. What a buck stupid thing to say! Just for a second his eyes had flashed grey fire from beneath hooded lids. She shot from majorly embarrassed to smug in five seconds. “Enjoy the ride,” she told herself. “You won’t get another one.”
“I need to find out who attacked me and why. And somehow I have to find bloody Tania,” he muttered. “Until she’s found, I’m the main suspect. Well…in Detective Moffat’s eyes I am.”
“The man’s a dork,” Ingrid said. “I mean, anyone can see…” She trailed off. Let’s not go there, Ingrid. Stop while you’re ahead.
“If I didn’t have Kit I could do some sleuthing on my own—Kit!”
They rushed into the living room.
Kit was stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep.
Ingrid closed her eyes in relief and Breck grinned at her. Lord, he was so sweet when he gave that sexy, quirky smile. Well, perhaps ‘sweet’ wasn’t quite the right word for a toughened cop like Breck Marchant, but there was softness in his eyes when he looked at his son, and that was sweet to see.
He sat down heavily in an armchair beside the sofa.
“Does the wound throb?” she asked. Well, duh. Of course it hurt.
“Not really, but I couldn’t take on a bunch of assassins at the moment.” He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes, frowning slightly. She wanted to go to him and smooth the frown away, but of course she wouldn’t do any such thing. Anyway, what was this nurturing thing that had suddenly attacked her? She cleared her throat and he opened his eyes again.
“What did you mean when you said you’d do some sleuthing on your own if you had the opportunity? What sort of sleuthing?” she asked.
“I’d like to get into the Kerr house now it’s no longer a crime scene. I want to know what secrets Tania is hiding that got us into this mess.”
Oh, yeah. Tania had many secrets. This straightforward guy sitting here in front of Ingrid wouldn’t have the hope of a snowflake in hell of figuring out what Tania was all about. Sure, he was a good cop and was supposed to know all about clues, but even though he’d been married to her for more than three years, Ingrid doubted Breck understood just how complex Tania was and what she was capable of. Ingrid did. She’d had experience of Tania’s vindictive side.
With Breck Marchant, what you saw was what you got. And that was a damned good thing. Drama queens like Tania caused mayhem wherever they went. They wrecked lives and got away with it. Breck Marchant was the other side of the coin, honest and trustworthy.
But there wasn’t anything Ingrid could do to help him.
She looked at Kit, murmuring in his sleep as he settled into a more comfortable position on the lumpy sofa, his hand curled beneath his chin, and then her eyes swiveled back to Breck Marchant. His head was propped against the chair back and he closed his eyes as he chewed over how to go about investigating the puzzle his life had suddenly become.
Tania had tossed these two guys aside as if they were toys she’d tired of. Tania was the stupidest woman on the planet.
Kit was a sweet kid, and how he’d survived life with Marty and Tania relatively unscathed was a miracle. It was also a testament to Breck Marchant’s influence, whether he knew it or not.
Ingrid smiled. Breck was half-asleep, his head lolling to one side, his hands relaxed and loose in his lap. The wolf and his cub, asleep, Ingrid thought fancifully. And how Breck Marchant would hate her to see this side of him.
Suddenly, he jerked awake and continued their conversation. “If someone should see me at the Kerrs’ place, I can use the pretext of collecting the rest of Kit’s belongings,” he said.
Ingrid nodded. “Do you need a look-out for this sortie?” she asked before she could stuff the words back in her mouth.
One side of his mouth quirked. “Sortie? You’re very military all of a sudden, Ingrid.”
“Well, what do you call it?”
“A damn stupid idea but I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Okay. Can I help with this damn-stupid-idea-but-you’re-going-to-do-it-anyway?”
He chuckled. “You are not at all like you look, Ms. Rowland. You’re an adventurer at heart.” Then he sobered. “There’s no way I can let you become involved. If I’m caught I can easily talk my way out of it, but I’d hate to have to explain what you’re doing there.”
So what did he think she looked like? She was dying to know. She cleared her throat. “Are you telling me to butt out?” Her question lacked bite. He was probably right. “Okay. But perhaps I can give you some ideas of where to look. At college Tania had lots of little heart-to-heart chats with me. On her own terms of course. I figured she was buttering me up to help her with assignments and stuff.”
Breck grinned. “No flies on you, Ms. Rowland. Did you help her out?”
“No,” Ingrid said tersely. “I don’t like being played. I have enough of that with my parents.” Then she thought of the consequences of her refusal to oblige Tania and the resultant fallout.
“You too, huh? Parents can be the very devil. That’s why I’m determined to do my best for Kit.” He stood up. “And I’d better get the boy to bed. Tell you what, I’ll ask Jace if she’ll mind Kit for an extra hour or so tomorrow, and after work I’ll call in at your place. I’d appreciate your telling me everything you know about Tania.”
“Here’s my address.” She scribbled it on one of her cards.
After casting a quick look around the parking lot, he handed her into her car as if she were made of spun glass. But as he bent down to say goodbye he staggered and had to grasp the luggage rack on the Fiesta’s roof to hold himself up.
“Go to bed,” she told him, this time without blushing furiously.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She grinned and drove away.
He looked at her, opened his mouth and shut it again. She had changed out of her school clothes into a tight pair of jeans that hugged every curve. Small she might be, but she had curves. Oh, boy, did she have curves.
To get his eyes off the curves he glanced around her apartment. Like his, it was furnished by A-Mart and second-hand shops. But she had plants everywhere and on one wall the setting sun caught the highlights in an old oil painting of a violent storm at sea. He stepped closer to peer at it. It looked valuable, but what would he know?
“My grandfather left that to me,” she said from behind him. “My father’s father.”
He spun around and almost plastered himself against those curves. Bad idea. Well, excellent idea, but he hadn’t come here for that. Ingrid was a special lady, no doubt about that, but he had his hands full with Kit and his job and he wasn’t looking for…for…temptation. Besides, he doubted she even liked him, let alone thought about him that way. She seemed to have something against cops.
“Uh, so what ideas did you have about Tania?” he asked, desperately.
Her shoulders rose and fell as if she’d sighed. “I wrote a list of things to look for. Hope it helps.” She turned and bent over a low table in a corner of the room.
He didn’t avert his eyes. He couldn’t touch but he could look, couldn’t he? His hands curled a little as if shaping themselves to cup her backside.
“Here.”
He was so damned busy salivating he didn’t realize she was handing him a piece of paper. Heat burned up his neck and into his face. The princess was a bit red in the face too. But she didn’t stand back when he took the paper out of her fingers. In fact, he could have sworn she was issuing an invitation to look as long as he wanted.
Nah. For sure he had it all wrong. Why would a pretty, intelligent woman with her background be interested in slumming it with him? He glued his eyes to the list.
“What does this mean—look for any documentation pertaining to Bobby?” he asked, frowning. What did the kid, Bobby, have to do with Tania’s disappearance?
“She once hinted to me that Bob mightn’t be Marty’s son.”
“Holy shit! She sure likes to live dangerously. But that might just be one of her tales. He looks enough like Marty, I guess, although I’ve only seen the boy a couple of times.”
Ingrid tilted her head, thinking. He was amused to see her twist a strand of silver-blonde hair around her finger. She looked all of ten years old. Then his eyes dropped lower. Nope. Not ten years old.
“Yes, hard to tell. Did you see what I wrote about her favorite hidey-hole?”
Breck nodded. “She used to hide things in the laundry cupboards when we were married too.”
“You knew?”
“What can I say?” He spread his hands and grinned. “I’m a cop.”
She didn’t smile. Instead, she stared at him as if searching his face for something she did not find.
Sorry, Ms. Rowland. Many people have found me wanting. Guess you’re just another. Sure, I knew she hid papers in the laundry cupboard. And when I found out what those papers were, I discovered just how evil Tania could be. We had the most almighty row and that was the beginning of the end.
“And?”
He shook his head. “I dealt with it.” He looked at the list again. “Who is Angela?”
“I don’t know her surname. Tania was friendly with her when we were training; in fact, from a distance they looked rather similar. I suspected they were cousins. But we were in different classes so Tania never introduced her to me. If you want, I’ll look her up in the registered teachers’ handbook. But if you haven’t dug up anything on her, then I guess they didn’t keep in touch.”
“No class photos?”
“No. Not for preschool training. Anyway, it’s worth a try to see what I can find.”
“Of course it is.”
“Don’t patronize me! You didn’t know about Bobby or Angela and you were
married
to her.” Hands on her hips, she stood four square, her chin in the air.
Oh, hell. He hadn’t meant to sound condescending. He’d been distracted because like a thunderbolt he’d suddenly realized he was much more interested in spending time with Ingrid Rowland than looking for Tania. This silver-hot attraction wasn’t good. It could get him into all sorts of trouble. He wasn’t in her league, and he was never one to play above his weight. If he didn’t get out of here, she’d see his tongue slurping the floor.
Perhaps if he kissed her, he would get over this pointless yearning. She would slap his face, or their kiss would be less than world-shaking, and then they would go their separate ways. Be the same as they had before. Acquaintances.
Ah, what a pathetic excuse that was. He was lonely, that’s all. Lonely for someone to share all the ups and downs with. And Ingrid rang all his bells. That sexy little backside in those tight jeans and that silver hair that hung down her back like a translucent waterfall turned him on like a halogen globe.
And he was going to leave right now before he got into trouble.
He took a step towards her. Then another.
Then somehow she was in his arms, tucked tight against his chest. She didn’t resist. Not for a second. He held her warmth and savored it. “Ingrid, I-I’m not sure if we—”
She stood on tip-toe and raised her face to his.
He lost it. Completely. He covered her face with soft kisses and then jumped straight in. God, those pliant lips were heavenly. And addictive. Her arms tightened around his waist and his pulse leapt, drumming up a demand he struggled to crush. Don’t startle her, Marchant; she’s not the sort of woman you devour. Slow-dance into it.
And there he was. Standing right at her elbow.
She jumped back.
“Uh, sorry to startle you. I was wondering—”
“Yes?”
“Well, I was wondering if you had any ideas about where Tania might…” He stopped. He’d probably seen the pissed-off expression on her face. She’d had Tania Kerr right up to the back teeth.
“No. That’s not what I meant to say.” He paused and looked as if the words were being dragged out of him. “I want to apologize for…for”—he swallowed—“the ungracious thing I said to Doc Hargreaves. You
are
my friend, just as much as you’re Kit’s friend. How could we not be friends? You’ve helped us twice now, and you’re a very nice person. It’s just that the police rumor mill—” Running out of steam, he forked his fingers through his hair, then staggered back a step. “Weak as a kitten,” he muttered, leaning against the counter.
“You should be in bed,” Ingrid said. Even as the words left her mouth she felt a slow heat burn its way over her face and down her neck. What a buck stupid thing to say! Just for a second his eyes had flashed grey fire from beneath hooded lids. She shot from majorly embarrassed to smug in five seconds. “Enjoy the ride,” she told herself. “You won’t get another one.”
“I need to find out who attacked me and why. And somehow I have to find bloody Tania,” he muttered. “Until she’s found, I’m the main suspect. Well…in Detective Moffat’s eyes I am.”
“The man’s a dork,” Ingrid said. “I mean, anyone can see…” She trailed off. Let’s not go there, Ingrid. Stop while you’re ahead.
“If I didn’t have Kit I could do some sleuthing on my own—Kit!”
They rushed into the living room.
Kit was stretched out on the sofa, fast asleep.
Ingrid closed her eyes in relief and Breck grinned at her. Lord, he was so sweet when he gave that sexy, quirky smile. Well, perhaps ‘sweet’ wasn’t quite the right word for a toughened cop like Breck Marchant, but there was softness in his eyes when he looked at his son, and that was sweet to see.
He sat down heavily in an armchair beside the sofa.
“Does the wound throb?” she asked. Well, duh. Of course it hurt.
“Not really, but I couldn’t take on a bunch of assassins at the moment.” He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes, frowning slightly. She wanted to go to him and smooth the frown away, but of course she wouldn’t do any such thing. Anyway, what was this nurturing thing that had suddenly attacked her? She cleared her throat and he opened his eyes again.
“What did you mean when you said you’d do some sleuthing on your own if you had the opportunity? What sort of sleuthing?” she asked.
“I’d like to get into the Kerr house now it’s no longer a crime scene. I want to know what secrets Tania is hiding that got us into this mess.”
Oh, yeah. Tania had many secrets. This straightforward guy sitting here in front of Ingrid wouldn’t have the hope of a snowflake in hell of figuring out what Tania was all about. Sure, he was a good cop and was supposed to know all about clues, but even though he’d been married to her for more than three years, Ingrid doubted Breck understood just how complex Tania was and what she was capable of. Ingrid did. She’d had experience of Tania’s vindictive side.
With Breck Marchant, what you saw was what you got. And that was a damned good thing. Drama queens like Tania caused mayhem wherever they went. They wrecked lives and got away with it. Breck Marchant was the other side of the coin, honest and trustworthy.
But there wasn’t anything Ingrid could do to help him.
She looked at Kit, murmuring in his sleep as he settled into a more comfortable position on the lumpy sofa, his hand curled beneath his chin, and then her eyes swiveled back to Breck Marchant. His head was propped against the chair back and he closed his eyes as he chewed over how to go about investigating the puzzle his life had suddenly become.
Tania had tossed these two guys aside as if they were toys she’d tired of. Tania was the stupidest woman on the planet.
Kit was a sweet kid, and how he’d survived life with Marty and Tania relatively unscathed was a miracle. It was also a testament to Breck Marchant’s influence, whether he knew it or not.
Ingrid smiled. Breck was half-asleep, his head lolling to one side, his hands relaxed and loose in his lap. The wolf and his cub, asleep, Ingrid thought fancifully. And how Breck Marchant would hate her to see this side of him.
Suddenly, he jerked awake and continued their conversation. “If someone should see me at the Kerrs’ place, I can use the pretext of collecting the rest of Kit’s belongings,” he said.
Ingrid nodded. “Do you need a look-out for this sortie?” she asked before she could stuff the words back in her mouth.
One side of his mouth quirked. “Sortie? You’re very military all of a sudden, Ingrid.”
“Well, what do you call it?”
“A damn stupid idea but I’m going to do it anyway.”
“Okay. Can I help with this damn-stupid-idea-but-you’re-going-to-do-it-anyway?”
He chuckled. “You are not at all like you look, Ms. Rowland. You’re an adventurer at heart.” Then he sobered. “There’s no way I can let you become involved. If I’m caught I can easily talk my way out of it, but I’d hate to have to explain what you’re doing there.”
So what did he think she looked like? She was dying to know. She cleared her throat. “Are you telling me to butt out?” Her question lacked bite. He was probably right. “Okay. But perhaps I can give you some ideas of where to look. At college Tania had lots of little heart-to-heart chats with me. On her own terms of course. I figured she was buttering me up to help her with assignments and stuff.”
Breck grinned. “No flies on you, Ms. Rowland. Did you help her out?”
“No,” Ingrid said tersely. “I don’t like being played. I have enough of that with my parents.” Then she thought of the consequences of her refusal to oblige Tania and the resultant fallout.
“You too, huh? Parents can be the very devil. That’s why I’m determined to do my best for Kit.” He stood up. “And I’d better get the boy to bed. Tell you what, I’ll ask Jace if she’ll mind Kit for an extra hour or so tomorrow, and after work I’ll call in at your place. I’d appreciate your telling me everything you know about Tania.”
“Here’s my address.” She scribbled it on one of her cards.
After casting a quick look around the parking lot, he handed her into her car as if she were made of spun glass. But as he bent down to say goodbye he staggered and had to grasp the luggage rack on the Fiesta’s roof to hold himself up.
“Go to bed,” she told him, this time without blushing furiously.
“Yes, ma’am.”
She grinned and drove away.
Chapter Eight
She lived more frugally than he did. This wasn’t a very salubrious neighborhood; in fact, he’d call it a damned dangerous place to live. Auckland didn’t have as much crime as many large cities around the world did, but this suburb was renowned for middle-of-the-night police call-outs. He’d been here a time or three. He wondered what her parents thought about where she lived.
“It’s unlocked. Come in!” she called.
Unlocked? What was she thinking?
He barged in. “Jesus, Ingrid! You shouldn’t leave your door unlocked like that.”
He looked at her, opened his mouth and shut it again. She had changed out of her school clothes into a tight pair of jeans that hugged every curve. Small she might be, but she had curves. Oh, boy, did she have curves.
To get his eyes off the curves he glanced around her apartment. Like his, it was furnished by A-Mart and second-hand shops. But she had plants everywhere and on one wall the setting sun caught the highlights in an old oil painting of a violent storm at sea. He stepped closer to peer at it. It looked valuable, but what would he know?
“My grandfather left that to me,” she said from behind him. “My father’s father.”
He spun around and almost plastered himself against those curves. Bad idea. Well, excellent idea, but he hadn’t come here for that. Ingrid was a special lady, no doubt about that, but he had his hands full with Kit and his job and he wasn’t looking for…for…temptation. Besides, he doubted she even liked him, let alone thought about him that way. She seemed to have something against cops.
“Uh, so what ideas did you have about Tania?” he asked, desperately.
Her shoulders rose and fell as if she’d sighed. “I wrote a list of things to look for. Hope it helps.” She turned and bent over a low table in a corner of the room.
He didn’t avert his eyes. He couldn’t touch but he could look, couldn’t he? His hands curled a little as if shaping themselves to cup her backside.
“Here.”
He was so damned busy salivating he didn’t realize she was handing him a piece of paper. Heat burned up his neck and into his face. The princess was a bit red in the face too. But she didn’t stand back when he took the paper out of her fingers. In fact, he could have sworn she was issuing an invitation to look as long as he wanted.
Nah. For sure he had it all wrong. Why would a pretty, intelligent woman with her background be interested in slumming it with him? He glued his eyes to the list.
“What does this mean—look for any documentation pertaining to Bobby?” he asked, frowning. What did the kid, Bobby, have to do with Tania’s disappearance?
“She once hinted to me that Bob mightn’t be Marty’s son.”
“Holy shit! She sure likes to live dangerously. But that might just be one of her tales. He looks enough like Marty, I guess, although I’ve only seen the boy a couple of times.”
Ingrid tilted her head, thinking. He was amused to see her twist a strand of silver-blonde hair around her finger. She looked all of ten years old. Then his eyes dropped lower. Nope. Not ten years old.
“Yes, hard to tell. Did you see what I wrote about her favorite hidey-hole?”
Breck nodded. “She used to hide things in the laundry cupboards when we were married too.”
“You knew?”
“What can I say?” He spread his hands and grinned. “I’m a cop.”
She didn’t smile. Instead, she stared at him as if searching his face for something she did not find.
Sorry, Ms. Rowland. Many people have found me wanting. Guess you’re just another. Sure, I knew she hid papers in the laundry cupboard. And when I found out what those papers were, I discovered just how evil Tania could be. We had the most almighty row and that was the beginning of the end.
“And?”
He shook his head. “I dealt with it.” He looked at the list again. “Who is Angela?”
“I don’t know her surname. Tania was friendly with her when we were training; in fact, from a distance they looked rather similar. I suspected they were cousins. But we were in different classes so Tania never introduced her to me. If you want, I’ll look her up in the registered teachers’ handbook. But if you haven’t dug up anything on her, then I guess they didn’t keep in touch.”
“No class photos?”
“No. Not for preschool training. Anyway, it’s worth a try to see what I can find.”
“Of course it is.”
“Don’t patronize me! You didn’t know about Bobby or Angela and you were
married
to her.” Hands on her hips, she stood four square, her chin in the air.
Oh, hell. He hadn’t meant to sound condescending. He’d been distracted because like a thunderbolt he’d suddenly realized he was much more interested in spending time with Ingrid Rowland than looking for Tania. This silver-hot attraction wasn’t good. It could get him into all sorts of trouble. He wasn’t in her league, and he was never one to play above his weight. If he didn’t get out of here, she’d see his tongue slurping the floor.
Perhaps if he kissed her, he would get over this pointless yearning. She would slap his face, or their kiss would be less than world-shaking, and then they would go their separate ways. Be the same as they had before. Acquaintances.
Ah, what a pathetic excuse that was. He was lonely, that’s all. Lonely for someone to share all the ups and downs with. And Ingrid rang all his bells. That sexy little backside in those tight jeans and that silver hair that hung down her back like a translucent waterfall turned him on like a halogen globe.
And he was going to leave right now before he got into trouble.
He took a step towards her. Then another.
Then somehow she was in his arms, tucked tight against his chest. She didn’t resist. Not for a second. He held her warmth and savored it. “Ingrid, I-I’m not sure if we—”
She stood on tip-toe and raised her face to his.
He lost it. Completely. He covered her face with soft kisses and then jumped straight in. God, those pliant lips were heavenly. And addictive. Her arms tightened around his waist and his pulse leapt, drumming up a demand he struggled to crush. Don’t startle her, Marchant; she’s not the sort of woman you devour. Slow-dance into it.
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