Point of Attraction (32 page)

Georgie looked from Mason to Roberts
for verification and Roberts nodded. “There might be enough there
to do a search.”

The
mistake
, Georgie thought, and the reason
this has escalated to this point. The room was suffocating her! She
turned down the thermostat, fighting back the urge to fling open
all the windows and doors as she jerked off her coat. The room
shifted, her feet rubbery, causing her to nearly miss the peg for
her coat. A solid grip steadied her.

“Georgie?”

“I’m fine,” she heard herself say, as
Cassie guided her to a chair.

“Okay. You’re fine,” Cassie said. “Take
a breath and sit down. Put your head down and count back from a
hundred, slowly.”

Georgie knew better than to argue. The
shock of the cold damp dishtowel on her neck sent a shiver rippling
through her. A paper bag was placed over her mouth and nose. She
wanted to smack it away, but let Cassie have her way. It would give
her time to think. Of all the people who entered her life, which
one was capable of doing all this? Her wrist and fingers ached.
Blinking, she saw it was Mason’s hand around hers, his knuckles
white from the tight grip. She smiled, realized the bag hid it, and
fought the urge to laugh.

“Now what?” Cassie wanted to know, and
offered no resistance when Georgie pushed for the bag to be taken
away.

“Can’t run and hide,” Georgie said,
feeling the fog give way to reason.

“Why not?” Cassie asked.

“Hide where? I do have a
business. I can’t put that on pause while we
wait and see
.”

“Emmee and Brandy can handle
that.”

Georgie let her eyes roll up to stare
at Cassie.

“Yeah,” Cassie agreed after a thought.
“I see your point; your patrons being so fussy and all.”

“Not to mention that they’re busy with
their own people. Besides, each day... no... each moment this goes
on could endanger my kids, or you guys. Look what happened to Daisy
and Max, April’s car. No. I want this over with, gone.”

“Hopefully the print will fix that and
bring this to an end,” Roberts said, just as his shoulder-mike
hailed him.

“Sir.”

“Okay, I’m coming out.” He never gave
the person at the other end a chance to speak. When he turned to
leave, Mason reached out to stop him, then looked back at
her.

“You okay now?” Mason asked
her.

“I’m fine.” Her attempt to smile
failed, her lips unable to move, her body fatigued.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes,” she said, but noted the odd tone
in his voice, the search in his gaze. “Why?”

He turned to Roberts. “Tell
her.”

Roberts’ features hardened, clearly
being put in a place he didn’t want to be, personally and
professionally.

“You’ve gone this far,” Mason pressed.
“George has the right to know it all.”

Roberts’ eyes darkened as they fixed on
Mason, and for the first time, Georgie saw unprofessional
irritation edging on anger.

“You know what?” Roberts stated flatly.
“You’re too close and been careless in this whole mess.”
Immediately, he caught himself, and took a deep breath, his lips
pressed tightly, refusing to give in to Mason.

“Fine,” Mason said. “I’ll tell her. You
can say I overheard you talking to your men. Clears you completely.
But I want her to know.”

Roberts let his sight meet hers for a
split second then waved a dismissing hand at Mason. “It’s your
choice, your call. You could screw this whole thing up beyond
fixing, if you haven’t already.” And walked out.

Mason knelt. “Remember the two black
Suburbans at Jeffrey’s?”

Georgie nodded.

“What two black Suburbans?” Cassie
asked, and Georgie motioned her to hold on.

“Same people came
and
took
Raggs
from our Crime Lab,” Mason said.

“What?”

“Whatever paperwork and shields they
carried,” Mason said, his mouth tight as he shook his head, “got
them into the lab and gave them all the authority needed to take
her and anything else they wanted.”

“But why?” Georgie asked. “What for?
Who are they?”

“No one knows, but they did return her
with the lifted finger print, and the heads up on the matter.
Evidently, they’re checking it out too. We can thank them for that.
Gives us a wider search.”

Cassie’s cell phone rang. She pulled it
from her pocket and flipped open its lid. “Well, it’s not from
Georgie’s cell phone,” she said, holding it up for all to see, then
put it to her ear. “This is Doctor Blanes.” After a pause, she
shook her head at them and walked into the hallway, saying, “How
far apart are the contractions and how long are they? Okay...
right. Start for the hospital.” She glanced at her watch. “Barring
traffic, fifteen-twenty minutes max.” Her phone clicked loudly as
she slapped down the lid. “I need to get to the hospital,” She told
them. “Have an eager beaver on the way; early by almost three
weeks.”

“Don’t think they’ll let you take the
BMW,” Mason said, and tossed April the keys. “Might as well take
the 4Runner. I won’t be going anywhere.”

They all turned as Roberts entered. He
must have heard enough of what was going on because he said, “One
of the squad cars will clear the road for you.”

He avoided Mason, but met
her gaze. “I’d like to leave Officer Blake with you, Ms.
Gainsworth, but as you say, I have no
onion
paper to force you to accept
him.”

Georgie’s eyebrow arched as she smiled,
accepting the well-deserved rebuke, but she would not take back any
of her words or the moment. She merely said, “I sometimes get a
little snippy.”

“Sometimes?” Cassie said, giving
Georgie a quick hug and pat on the shoulder. “Right.”

“Oh,” April said, going to open the
door for Cassie, “and you think you’re better?”

Cassie headed for the door, giving
April a side-glance scold. “There you go,” her voice carried in
through the slowly closing door, “making me feel all warm and
fuzzy.”

To Georgie’s surprise, she found the
poker face Officer Roberts smiling at the closed door then turned
and met her look. “Yeah, I’ve been told I can be a bit of a hard
ass about following the book. I’m beginning to think they’re
right.” After what Georgie could see as a resigning deep breath,
Roberts tapped Mason on the shoulder. “You going to be
here?”

Mason nodded.

“Good. I don’t approve of what you did,
but I suppose I can’t blame you. I have to go on a call. Incident
at the Steel Bridge.”

He motioned Mason to follow him out,
but Georgie’s house phone rang and both men stopped. She looked up
at them. Mason handed over the decision to the officer in
charge.

“Can you set it on speaker?” Roberts
asked.

Georgie nodded and did so.
“Hello?”

“Mom?” Steven said.

“I’m fine,” she said immediately to
allay his concern. “Are you okay? No one’s tried to contact you
saying it’s me, have they?”

“Nope. Ryan and Paula called. Tell me
you’re not alone there.”

“No. Mason’s here and they’re leaving a
policeman, at least for tonight. Cassie had to go deliver a baby.
Where are you?”

“Long story. Right now I’m doing my
stint in the ER. Guess I’ll get the rest of the scoop from Cassie
when she gets here.” She heard him suck in a breath and let out a
heavy sigh. “Haven’t we had a rotten five days?”

Has it only been five days? Georgie
thought.

“Mom, if you need me to come
over...”

“No.” Georgie also took a heavy breath.
“I’m fine, really.”

“Okay, but remember. You’re the only
mom I have. Love you. Gotta go.”

There was a muted siren in the
background silenced by a click. It took a moment before Georgie
could bring herself to push the END button on the phone.

“Looks like you have your bases
covered,” Roberts said, then once again nudged Mason to follow. “I
want you to clue in Blake on the layout before I leave.”

When the door closed behind
the men, Georgie looked about, sighed, went to the laundry room to
get Max and Daisy’s food bowls, and stopped. The emptiness stabbed
her and she looked around for something else to do. There was
nothing. Without Daisy or Max, her little space was empty and vast.
She went back to the kitchen. No click click of Daisy’s toenails on
the linoleum, nor that light thud of Max jumping down from his
chair. Blinking back the hot tears, she opened the refrigerator
door. No leftover called to her. She pulled out the orange juice,
but put it back, thinking of Nick and his magic cure for a
hangover. She smiled and sighed.
Oh, Nick,
where are you
?

Mason walked in the door.

When she looked up, his eyes lowered as
he took off his jacket and hung it over the back of the chair. She
had the urge to take it and hang it up next to her coat on the
pegs. But all she did was touch her fingertips to its
collar.

“Are you hungry?” she asked.

“You don’t have to...”

She shrugged. “It gives me something to
do.”

Neither spoke as she pulled out the
platter of leftovers Paula had neatly, and very
Martha-Stewart-like, arranged for her. Georgie smiled. Ah, Paula,
how very much like your dad you are. Sam would always be with her
in their kids.

“Leftover finger food from last night,”
she said, and set down the platter.

“Wow,” Mason murmured as she pulled
back the clinging wrap.

She waved both hands and smiled. “Oh,
not my doing, believe me. This is Paula’s trade mark.”

After a few bites, Mason leaned back in
the chair, took a deep breath and leaned forward, both elbows on
the table and let his gaze meet hers. “Could we talk about the
ax-murderer in the room.”

Georgie felt her brow jerk
up.

“Well,
elephant in the room
seemed such a
cliché,” he said.

Georgie was unable to fight
the smile, and coughed lightly. “I have to tell you,
ax-murderer
was not the
better choice.”

They both laughed and let it slide
away, allowing the moment to sober.

“I want you to know you
really aren’t anything like Jenny,” he finally said. “But I can’t
say that your situation didn’t spark off... that
thing
eating at my
insides; you know... not being able to be there for her.” He moved
a hand to pick up another piece of Saturday’s chicken and stopped.
His eyebrows raised as did his chest, then exhaled. “There’s just
something here,” he said, indicating his heart, “that I can’t set
aside nor deny, not to mention that I don’t want to. And that
something is attached to you.”

Georgie struggled with the words she
wanted to say, but they jumbled in her head with her feelings. “The
thing is,” she started out, “I think I’ve been setting up a wall
around my little... what does Nick call it? My little safe
harbor.”

“So what do we do here?” he finally
asked.

“I have no clue. I’ve not dated since
Sam in high school.”

“You went out with Jeffrey. How did he
get past that wall?”

Georgie leaned back, giving
it some thought. “How
did
he do that? I never thought of it as a date, but
he must have. Why didn’t I?” It was difficult to recall a night
that for her meant very little. Then, that first evening with
Jeffrey slowly came back to her. “We were going to work on my books
for the shop, which was strange because he would never work on my
accounts. Always said it was a conflict of interest. But we never
made it to his office. Said he hadn’t eaten and I hadn’t either. So
we went to dinner. By the time we got back, he said he’d have one
of the girls in the office look into it. You can verify that. One
of Instant Reply Security’s cars went by as he dropped me off at my
car.”

“I don’t have to check it out,” Mason
smiled. “Why would you lie about it.”

She pointed a finger at him as she
considered that second night. “Funny you should say that, because
that’s how I happened to join him on that second evening. He lied.”
She almost laughed at her not having thought about it then, but it
had been so clearly a lie. “Jeffrey said he found the problem and
owed me a dinner for my troubles, but there hadn’t been any
problems. Isn’t it funny I never thought I was being played. Just
how dumb is that?”

“Not dumb. You trusted someone you
thought was a friend. He just wanted more. I can’t blame him for
that.” He took a piece of food, eyes sweeping over her face as he
chewed and swallowed.

She felt the tops of her cheeks
burn.

Mason’s smile widened. “I like it when
you blush.”

“Oh, stop.”

The moment froze as his cell phone went
off, and their eyes held. After the third ring, he flipped it open.
He didn’t show her the face, but got up and walked away from her.
Tonie? She wondered. He had never moved away from her
before.