Chapter 14 #2
"Right, kablooey. The point is you were being careful. Overly so, in my opinion." She opened her mouth to protest, but he cut her off with the wave of his hand. "I'm saying that I don't believe anything you did caused the explosion. It just doesn't make sense."
She frowned, letting his words sink in. "But I still?—"
"Look, when we left the gallery to go eat, you shut everything down. I remember because I was hungry and you were intent on checking everything twice."
She went over the details in her mind, trying to focus on her actions. She remembered crating The Promise . Michael had helped. And then she'd finished the paperwork, except the manifest. And then she'd— "Oh my God. I turned them off. Michael, I turned off the space heaters."
"Exactly." The smile reflected in his lapis gaze warmed her insides, making her feel like she was the most amazing woman on the planet.
"So I didn't…" She hesitated, unable to finish the sentence.
He shook his head, still smiling. "No. You didn't."
She exhaled, the rest of what he was saying sinking in. "You don't think this was an accident."
"Frankly, I don't see how. At the very least, someone had to turn those heaters back on."
The bite of pancake in her mouth suddenly lost its flavor. She swallowed. "And at the very worst?"
"Someone set the fire deliberately."
"But why?"
"I haven't worked that out yet." He frowned. "But I will."
She leaned forward, her mind spinning. "You think Nick did it, don't you?"
"I don't know anything for sure, but I think it's a little too coincidental that we saw him five minutes before the explosion and then again right afterward."
Cara shook her head. "That can't be right. Nick can be pushy and even obnoxious, but he'd never hurt me. I mean he…" She cut herself off, wrinkling her nose, smiling in embarrassment.
"Wants you?" Michael raised his eyebrows, his mouth curling into a grin. "Can't say that I blame him."
Cara's body clenched deep inside, responding primordially to some signal she hadn't even realized he'd sent. She'd never known a man who was so…well, manly. His expression sobered and she came back to reality with a crash.
"Did he know about the space heaters?" he asked.
"Yes, he did. He was always ragging on me about it. Said I was just asking for trouble. But that still doesn't give him a reason to burn down the gallery."
"No, but I'd be willing to bet a bundle it had something to do with your paintings."
" The Promise ?"
"Yeah." He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "I heard him, Cara, he wanted those paintings badly enough to threaten you."
"I told you, I don't think he would have hurt me. Besides he wanted the paintings. That's hardly motivation to destroy them." She winced, the pain of losing her artwork almost physical. "Why would he do something like that?"
"Maybe because you wouldn't sell them to him. I don't know." Michael shoved his chair back and stood, leaning forward, hands braced on the table, his face hardened with anger. "Truth is, there's only one person who can give us the answer."
"Nick."
"Right. So, I'd say it's time we pay him a little visit." He narrowed his eyes, the anger solidifying into granite composure. "Do you have any guns?"
She tried to tell herself there was something good in all this.
Michael was still here, his thoughts of returning put on a back burner. He'd made it perfectly clear that he wasn't going anywhere until he was certain she was safe.
But that was merely postponing the inevitable.
She sighed, sneaking a quick look at the tense man sitting beside her.
His crash course in driving after the fire may have made him confident in his skills, but considering the grinding noises under the hood, she was somewhat less enthusiastic.
The engine was not responding well to his less than gentle manipulation of the gear stick.
What in the world had she been thinking when she'd allowed him to drive?
The steel butt of a revolver jutted out of his jeans. Her grandfather's. She glanced behind her at the rifle carefully bracketed to her Jeep. It was like riding in a damned arsenal. And she was riding shotgun, literally.
"Turn here." She pointed to an intersection and Michael swung the Jeep sharply to the left without benefit of braking first. The Jeep squealed in protest, but made the turn with all four wheels on the ground.
She sucked in a breath, relieved that they were still upright. "This is it."
He braked, the resulting impact enough to have thrown her through the windshield if she hadn't been wearing a seatbelt.
For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.
And hers was instantaneous. She was driving them home.
No amount of testosterone driven enthusiasm was worth risking her life for.
Michael reached for the rifle. "You stay here."
"I most certainly will not. It's my gallery that got incinerated and I want to be there when you find out what happened."
His eyes narrowed, his face turning stubborn. "I don't want you anywhere near him."
She frowned, feeling mutinous. "Look, I'll be perfectly safe. I'll have you and your guns with me." She gave him her most beguiling look, stopping just short of batting her eyes.
His lips quirked upwards, not a full-fledged smile, but she knew she'd won. "Come on." He swung down from the Jeep, not waiting to see if she followed.
Nick's house was one of those pretentiously pseudo-Victorian structures, built to look old with all the modern conveniences. The porch creaked as she stepped on it, a counterpoint to Michael's staccato hammering on the door.
"Vargas, open the damn door."
Cara reached his side and placed a restraining hand on his elbow. The fury in his face almost made her step back a pace. She'd been right in her previous estimations. This was not a man to mess around with.
"I don't think anyone is home," she offered quietly.
Her words sank in and he stopped pounding.
The whole thing was kind of anti-climatic. Not that she was complaining. She hadn't really been looking forward to a showdown with Nick.
Michael looked calmer and she dared a question. "He's not here. Now what?"
He reached for the brass doorknob. "We go in."
The house was immaculate. Not surprising really. Vargas was the type to be finicky. The hallway ran the length of the house with closed doors indicating various rooms opening off the entry. A large staircase sprang from the back of the hall.
Michael stepped into the house, careful to keep Cara behind him. The lady had guts, but he was determined to keep her safe even if it meant locking her in the closet. He smiled at the picture the thought inspired. Hell, maybe he'd just lock himself in there with her.
He opened a door, and peeked into a parlor. It reeked of some sort of floral scent. He wrinkled his nose and quickly closed the door.
"We shouldn't be doing this," she hissed from beside him.
"Doing what?"
"Breaking and entering."
"We didn't break a thing. The door was open."
"Well, we're entering."
"So we are." He couldn't suppress the laughter in his voice. "Any idea where Nick might keep his secrets?"
"There's a study back this way." She darted around him to lead the way.
He placed a restraining hand on her shoulder. "Hang on, sweetheart. I know you're anxious to find out what's going on, but I think I'd better go first."
She shot a resentful look at him, but stopped, allowing him to pass her. "It's the door on the right."
He opened the door and stepped inside, moving to the center of the room, so that she could follow. The room was no different than the rest of the house. It looked more like a museum than a place somebody lived.
There was a large, ornate desk straddling the wall in front of the room's only window.
On one side there was a large fireplace with two armchairs on either side.
The opposite wall was dominated by books.
Rows and rows of books. They covered the wall completely, except for an elaborately carved alcove in the center, used effectively to showcase a large urn.
"It looks the same as it always does."
"And how is that?" he couldn't resist asking.
"Like an army of maids is standing in the corner waiting to clean up each speck of dust before it even has time to land."
He smiled, picturing white capped women armed with brushes and brooms. "You take the bookcase and I'll take the desk."
"What are we looking for?"
He blew out a breath. "I haven't the faintest idea. Something odd or out of place. Something unusual. Something that will tie Vargas to the fire."
She nodded and began to examine the books.
He sat in the chair behind the desk and pulled open a drawer.
Pads of paper and odd looking instruments he assumed were for writing, filled the little compartments of a oblong box.
Nothing out of the ordinary here. At least not for someone who lived in the twenty-first century.
He pulled open another drawer and found files, but the contents had nothing to do with Cara or the paintings. Damn. He slammed the drawer shut and was reaching for another when he heard an odd scraping noise.
He looked up in time to see Cara, urn lid in hand, disappearing into a gaping hole where the alcove had been. He jumped up, almost tripping over the leg of the desk in his hurry to reach her.
The mechanism clicked shut and the wall was filled with nothing but books.
No alcove, no Cara. Heart pounding, he skidded to a stop, his eyes searching the shelves for some sign of the missing indentation.
There was nothing to indicate the wall had ever been any different. Just rows and rows of books.
Cara was gone.