Body Search (10 page)

And then she was gone, into the darkness, leaving him in the flames.

There was a shattering crash from the front of the house, and the whole structure trembled. Dale could swear the tiles beneath his feet swayed. Or maybe it was the smoke getting to him. With Tansy safely away, it was suddenly harder to breathe. The heat didn’t seem so bad anymore. In fact, he thought it might be nice to sit on the floor for a moment before he attempted the climb down. He was tired. So tired.

His knees buckled.

“Don’t you dare, Dale Metcalf,” Tansy yelled through the open window. Damn her, she was still in the tree!

He struggled to his feet, wheezing. “Tansy, get down from there right now!”

“Just as soon as you get out here with me,” she countered. Her eyes were wide and scared. Her mouth worked when another crash sounded from the front of the house and a few of the nearest branches burst into flame. “Come on. Just like you told me. One foot on the gutter, the other on the branch. Come on, I’ll catch you.”

The simple knowledge that she wasn’t leaving without him was enough to propel Dale across the room and out the window.

Where he discovered the gutter was gone.

“Just jump and grab!” Tansy screamed. “There’s no time. Jump and grab!”

Flames detonated through the bathroom door with a sound like a nuclear explosion, and Dale jumped. He caught a midsized branch with one hand, a knot
hole with a toe. He teetered for a moment, flailed with his free arm.

And felt a delicate hand close over his wrist.

“I’ve got you,” she yelled. “Hang on!”

Together, they worked their way down the tree that had provided him an escape from the dreary boredom of homework so many nights in the distant past, when he’d gone down to the water, watched the stars and dreamed of being a lobster captain like his father. And his uncle.

“Are you okay? Damn, your pa’s house burnt down!” A lobsterman in a firefighter’s hat pulled them away from the house just as the tanker truck began spraying seawater across the hellish inferno. “There’s nobody else inside, is there?”

“No,” Dale replied between coughs, bracing Tansy as she clung. But he thought,
Not unless the bastard who torched the place is still in there.

“Did you leave the bathroom window open?” Tansy asked, her voice rough and raw.

He shook his head. “No. And I heard footsteps.” Needing the contact and the reassurance, even though he didn’t deserve it after dragging her to this awful place, Dale hugged Tansy and breathed in the smoke that clung to her hair. He felt her arms creep around his waist and closed his eyes.

He had to get her out of here. She’d be safe on the mainland.

“Dale! Tansy! Are you okay?” Hazel arrived at a dead run with a portable first-aid kit slung over her
shoulder. Behind her, the island’s entire population gathered in shifting, murmuring knots of people.

Hazel reached for them, her eyes going to the house, which was engulfed in flames. “God! What happened?”

At the stark terror in her expression, Dale felt something shift in his chest. He’d been gone for a long time, but some connections seemed to have survived whether he wanted them to or not.

“We made it out,” he assured her. He rubbed a hand along Tansy’s arm and repeated, “We got out.”

He glanced back at the house. It hurt to look at it, both because the yellow flames had burned through and were shooting brightly into the sky, and because it just
hurt,
somewhere deep inside him. The old house had withstood his parents’ deaths and his escape from Lobster Island, but it hadn’t survived his return. Or an arsonist who didn’t want him back.

But who? And why? Was it because of the outbreak, or because of past history?

Tansy shivered and he tightened his arms around her, drawing as much comfort as he gave. He could have been killed.
She
could have been killed. And she was worth two of him.

“I’m sorry I got you into this,” he murmured into her hair, wishing he had the guts to take the risk that caring brought. But he didn’t. Instead, he promised, “We’ll get you off the island tomorrow.”

“The hell you will!” She jabbed an elbow into his ribs and spun to face him. “I’m not leaving here with
out you. Got that, Metcalf? I didn’t desert you in Tehru, and I’m not going to leave you now.”

Worry shifted to anger born of fear. She had to leave. He couldn’t be responsible for what would happen if she stayed.

“There’s a big difference between the two situations, Tansy.” He kept his voice calm, knowing coldness would annoy her more than a shout. “We were lovers in Tehru. Don’t think that just because I kissed you in there, it means I want you back. Don’t you get it? I don’t want you here.”

The lie stuck between his teeth, so much more difficult than the casual falsities that had defined his life for so long now. It was different because
this
was different.

This was Tansy.

Temper hissed from her lips, but before she could reply, Hazel stepped in. “Well, you two seem unharmed, at the very least. I’ll be getting back to the motel then. Eddie isn’t doing well. His kidneys are struggling.”

To Dale, the reminder was a colder dose of reality than the salty spray coming from the tanker truck. There were sick people on the island, and it was his job to keep them alive and figure out what was making them sick. He could do it alone. He
had
to do it alone. So he nodded. “We’ll come with you. We’ve slept long enough.”

He’d keep Tansy close to his side until the plane came to take her away. Anyone who wanted to get to her would have to go through him first.

“Nonsense.” Walter Churchill stepped from the shadows, making Dale wonder how long he’d been there. “You’ll both come home with me. You should have stayed at my house in the first place. Your parents’ house was drier than a pile of kindling and the wiring was older than me. It was an accident waiting to happen.”

Dale shrugged, but didn’t mention the footsteps he’d heard. That information would stay between him and Tansy. For now. As soon as she was gone, the investigation could begin in earnest.

“Churchill is right,” Hazel agreed. “You’re both exhausted, and probably in shock. Go clean yourselves up and sleep at the mansion. I’ll see you in the morning.” She shooed them in the direction of Churchill’s dark SUV, which was parked beside the now empty tanker truck. “We’ll trade shifts then.”

Tansy balked. “But if Eddie needs us—”

“Eddie needs a miracle,” Hazel replied flatly. “He’s not clearing the toxin out of his system. If he doesn’t wake up in the next twelve hours or so, I don’t think he’s going to make it.”

Dale flinched. He’d thought the same, but hearing it out loud made it real. “There has to be
something
we can do,” he grated, aware of a fragmentary thought that hovered just out of reach. Something about another island? He wasn’t sure. But the memory smelled like rum and baked desserts.

That, or the smoke had gotten to him.

“Come on,” Tansy whispered, tugging at his arm.
“She’s right. Let’s go with Churchill and get some sleep.”

But still he hung back. It wasn’t that he wanted to stay and watch his boyhood home smolder. It wasn’t that he really felt his presence mattered to Eddie one way or the other. It was…

The thought fled and Dale ground his teeth in frustration. He wasn’t sure what it was. Tansy was right. He needed some downtime, or he’d be no use to her or the patients. “Okay. We’ll crash at Walter’s.”

Besides, he needed to talk to Churchill about the plane. He wanted it here fast, and he wanted Tansy on it.

As the black SUV backed down the vehicle-choked driveway, there was a splintering crash from the burning house. Dale turned back in time to see the tree list sideways and fall. Roots silhouetted against a bloodred pile of coals, the old friend that had saved his life died a fiery death and lay still.

He turned his face away and heard Churchill murmur, “Drive on, Frankie.”

Yes,
thought Dale.
Drive on and keep driving. Maybe we can reach the mainland by morning.

At least there, Tansy would be safe.

Chapter Six

In Churchill’s guest quarters an hour later, Tansy should have felt pampered and relaxed as she floated in the waist-deep bath. The water was scented with rose oil, a hundred tiny jets feathered across her body and a new robe lay neatly folded beside a pile of thick towels. But she was tense and teary. Her throat stung, her eyes hurt…

And someone had tried to kill her and Dale.

What the hell had they gotten themselves into? She was beginning to think she should have swum home the moment she discovered Dale’s history on Lobster Island.

“Yeah, right.” She scrubbed at a soot stain on her arm, avoiding the raw, burned patch beside it. “Like you’d leave him here alone. Face it, you’re hopeless when it comes to Dale Metcalf.”

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop on your conversation with…yourself.”

She swallowed a gasp and twisted toward the sound of his voice, lifting her hands to shield her
bare breasts. “Damn it, Dale! What are you doing here?”

He was leaning against the elaborately carved doorframe, wearing a masculine robe that gaped open at the chest and thigh. His smoke-reddened eyes were intent, though the emotions behind them were cloaked. “I thought I’d use the bath, but it seems otherwise occupied.”

The water, which had been comfortably warm moments before, suddenly sizzled around her. How many times had they played out this same scene in the past? Bathrooms had always been a favorite play place for them. It was symbolic, she supposed, an antithesis of the filth, sickness and desperation of their normal assignments. In this way, they came to each other clean. Or at least they used to.

She swallowed hard, found her voice and willed it to stay steady when she said, “I’m sure you have a bath in your own guest suite. I recall Walter saying it was down the hall.”

“Not anymore. I told him we’d share.”

She shot to her feet. “What?” Ignoring his raised eyebrows and her nudity, she climbed out of the bath and stalked over to her robe, yanked it on. “What do you mean, you told him we’d share? What happened to ‘I don’t want you here’? Damn it, Dale. What sort of a game are you playing?”

He didn’t move, but his eyes flared, reminding her that she didn’t know Dale Metcalf as well as she’d once thought. Didn’t know what he was capable of.

The idea was a little thrilling and more than a bit frightening.

But why was he insisting they stay together? Before, it had seemed that he couldn’t get away from her fast enough.

Tansy walked over to him and poked him in the chest. Her finger speared through the loosened flaps of his robe and glanced off hard flesh, right above the lobster tattoo. She ignored the low buzz of her blood and demanded, “Why the sudden need for togetherness? What do you know that I don’t?”

He caught her hand and held it hard, and the warmth of his skin reminded her of their earlier kiss. “Someone tried to kill us tonight. I don’t know who it was, or why. Until I do, I’m not letting you out of my sight. Got it?”

Though the harsh possessiveness of his tone called to something deep within her, Tansy held herself away from temptation and fired back, “We’re perfectly safe here. Didn’t you see the security system? And the…” The look in his eye stalled her. “You don’t think Walter has anything to do with this, do you? What possible reason would he have to want us dead? He was your parents’ friend!”

Dale shook his head and cursed. “No. I don’t think it’s Churchill. I don’t know what to think, if you want the honest truth. But I know I’m tired and I won’t sleep unless I know you’re safe, so be a pal, okay, Tansy? Let me stay here.”

Be a pal.
The words were sexless, and because of
it, they stung. Tansy grimaced. “A pal, sure. We’ll just share a bed, nothing to it. We’re both grown-ups, right?”

Grown-ups and ex-lovers. But if he could ignore the pull of the past, and the brief, desperate flare they’d felt during the fire, so could she. Besides, he was right. They were in danger, and better off together than apart.

There was a short daybed beside the airy window, and enough blankets and fluffy pillows to make a nest four times the size of their pallet in Tehru. But by unspoken accord, they walked to the big bed together. The clothes Mickey had lent them were smoky and torn beyond repair. Churchill had promised replacements in the morning. Until then, it was robes or nothing.

They both kept their robes on.

“You still sleep on the left?” he asked politely.

Tansy smothered a snort. “Dale, it’s only been three months. You think I’ve changed that much?” She slid beneath the covers and stayed close to the left edge of the springy mattress.

He turned out the last light and she felt the bed dip beneath his weight. “I don’t know,” he answered, finally. “It seems like a lot longer. I guess I figured that maybe you’d found another…arrangement you liked better.”

He was right. The months had felt like years, for many reasons. Tears crowded Tansy’s eyes when she replied, “No, Dale. No other arrangements. Nothing’s changed.”

He didn’t answer for so long she thought he’d fallen asleep. Then he sighed and said, “Yeah. Nothing’s changed.” The mattress swayed as he rolled over, facing away from her. “Try to get some rest, okay? In the morning, we’ll figure out how to get you home.”

Too tired to argue about it, Tansy merely murmured, “’Night,” and closed her eyes. Though she was still shaky from the fire, and her throat hurt like hell, she drifted off quickly, warmed by the man at her back and the stealthy feeling of safety that snuck up on her when she was in that vulnerable place between asleep and awake.

SHE DREAMED OF TEHRU, of the bombs and the screams, and of the love that she’d found there, in the ugliest place on earth. Strange, that she’d found something so beautiful amid so much awfulness. She dreamed of the weekend she and Dale had taken for themselves later that year, on the way home from yet another disaster area.