The Private Eye (12 page)

“I don't…I can't… Josh, I feel so strange. What are you
doing to me?”

He heard the confusion and excitement in her voice and
realized with amazement that Maggie didn't recognize her own impending climax.
It dawned on him that Maggie was going to learn the passionate power of her own
body at his hands – and a glorious exultation roared through him. He felt
simultaneously humble and magnificently proud. He could give her something
almost as wonderful as what she was giving him.

“Don't fight it, sweetheart. It's going to be so good.
You're going to go up in flames. Tighten yourself, Maggie. Yes, that's it,
harder, harder. Yes.” He stroked her gently, finding the small, engorged nub of
feminine sensation with his thumb.

He knew it was happening even before she did. It was
unmistakable. Her whole body suddenly clenched and tiny, shivering ripples quivered
around his invading finger. Josh almost lost his own self-control at that.

“Josh.”

She was going to cry out. Josh sensed it and as much as
he yearned to hear the sweet sound of her release, he knew he had to protect
her privacy. The parlour was directly under the Colonel's bedroom.

Josh captured Maggie's mouth with his own, swallowing
the soft, joyous sounds. He held her while she convulsed beneath him and took
as much pleasure in the release as Maggie herself did. It was an odd sensation
to be so enthralled by a woman's passion that he could forgo his own without
resentment. All Josh wanted in that moment was for Maggie to be happy and to
know that he was the one who had made her so.

Maggie eventually collapsed into a soft, warm heap
beneath Josh and for a long time he was content to just lie there on top of
her, savouring the scent and reel of her. The minutes slipped past.

Maggie shifted slightly at last. “Josh?” she whispered.

“Mmm?”

“Josh, that was… quite wonderful.”

He grinned to himself in the darkness. “Yeah, it was.
Never seen anything like it.”

She laughed softly. “You're teasing me.”

“No, I'm deadly serious-It was wonderful.” He finally
raised his head and kissed the tip of her nose.

“Oh, dear. I didn't realize. I wasn't thinking. I mean,
you didn't – ” She broke off as he silenced her by kissing her mouth.

“No, I didn't. But that's okay, too,” he assured her.
“When it happens for me, I want to be deep inside you, Maggie. And it's a
little too soon for that. You need time to get to know me better. I want you to
be sure of me, sweetheart.”

She shook her head in wonder. “You're playing the noble
hero again, aren't you?”

He frowned. “I've told you, I gave that role up a long
time ago.”

“I don't believe you.” She traced the line of his nose
with a soft fingertip.

Josh opened his mouth to tell her not to get the wrong
idea about him, but something stopped him. A tiny sound from somewhere in the
house. A sound that was not quite normal.

“Josh? What is it?” Maggie looked up at him. “Is
something wrong?”

“Hush.” He touched her mouth with his fingers, silently
warning her. When he knew she had gotten the message, he sat up slowly on the
sofa.

The sound came softly down the front hall – a small,
muted click that could have been metal on metal. Maggie sat up beside Josh, fumbling
with the buttons of her dress. He could feel her watching him and knew she
wanted to ask questions. But she obviously knew when to follow instructions.
She kept silent.

Josh touched her shoulder and put his mouth to her ear.
“Stay here. Don't move.”

She nodded and then put her lips next to his ear. “Call
police?”

“No. Not yet. But be ready.” He stood and moved to the
door of the parlour. He listened intently, straining to hear the soft clinking
sound before he stepped out into the hall. He caught it echoing faintly and
knew for certain, now, that it was coming from the basement.

Josh limped forward and silently cursed the weakness of
his still-healing left foot. He went quietly down the darkened hall, his bare
feet making no sound on the carpet. When he reached the door that opened on the
basement stairs he hesitated once more.

Silence
.

Josh unlocked the door and opened it. The hinges made
only the faintest whisper of sound. The stairs to the basement descended into
an inky darkness. If there was anyone down there, Josh thought, he had the eyes
of a cat.

But his instincts told him the basement was empty.

Josh waited another moment and then decided to chance
the light. He flattened himself against the wall and crouched low. There was no
need to make a target out of himself, just in case someone was hiding among the
wine bins and filing cabinets. He reached up over his head to flip the light
switch.

The lights came on and Josh swept the large room below
in a single glance. The basement was empty. He straightened slowly. “Maggie?”
he called softly over his shoulder.

“Right here.” She hurried barefoot down the hall. “Is
everything all right?”

“Yeah, I think so, I was sure I heard something,
though. I'm going to go on down and take a closer look.” He started down the
stairs, using the handrail to take the weight off his bad foot. Maggie floated
along behind him like a nervous little ghost.

The cold draft that swept the room caught Josh's
attention first. He glanced toward the two narrow, ground-level windows near
the basement ceiling. One of them was open.

“Hell.” He reached the bottom step and crossed the
concrete floor, He sensed Maggie following him with her gaze.

“Josh, that window should be locked. We always keep it
locked.”

“It was locked,” Josh told her quietly. “I checked it
earlier, myself. But the latch is not much more than a toy. Easy to pry open
from the outside. Hell, maybe it fell open on its own. It's old.”

He contemplated the window for a moment longer and then
studied the arrangement of filing cabinets and boxes stacked beneath it. An
ancient blanket had been placed on top of the metal cabinets. There were some
bits of dirt scattered on it. Josh touched them with his fingers.

“What have you found?” Maggie came close. “Dirt?”

Josh nodded slowly. “If there was someone in here, he
came and went through that window. Could have used these boxes and cabinets to
climb down and back up again.”

Maggie considered that. “It's a very narrow window.
Josh.”

“It's big enough for a slender man to crawl through.”

“Or a woman.” Maggie looked around the cold basement.
She crossed her arms and hugged herself. A shadow flitted across her face,
giving her a vulnerable look. “Josh, do you think someone was actually in
here?”

“I think, it's a real strong possibility,” he said
quietly.

“But what would he want? There's nothing of any great
value here, except for the manor's wine supply. But it's safely locked up in
that wire cage over there.”

Maggie nodded toward the wine-storage area on the other
side of the room.

“The wine might be enough of a temptation to draw a
prowler,” Josh remarked thoughtfully. “Teenagers, maybe.”

But Maggie's eyes were narrowing as a more sinister
thought apparently struck her. “You know what I think?”

“Uh, no, Maggie.
What do you
think?”

“I think someone climbed in here to search for Aunt
Agatha's emerald brooch.”

Josh let that pass. The last thing he wanted to do
tonight was shoot holes in Maggie's theory. He'd already shot holes in everyone
else’s. “What do you say we take a look around and see if any of the cabinets
look like they've been jimmied open.”

“Right.” Maggie started determinedly toward the bank of
file cabinets the Colonel used to house his research data and the reports on
his experiments.

She stopped short with a soft shriek. “Oh, my God,
Josh! Look! There's water pouring out of that pipe. If it gets into the
cabinets it will ruin the Colonel's papers.”

Josh looked up from a stack of boxes he was studying
and frowned. Sure enough, a steady stream of water was leaking from a joint in
the pipes that ran overhead. The volume of water increased even as he watched.

“Hand me that wrench hanging on the wall,” he ordered
as he lunged across the room, cursing his awkward, broken stride. “Damn it, not
that one, the other one. The big one. Yeah, that's it.”

Josh reached the file cabinets, planted his hands on
top of two of them and hoisted himself up until he was standing amid the
clutter on the metal surface. His shoulder twinged painfully but he ignored it.

Water was starting to pool and flow over the side of
the filing cabinets-The cabinets, which were already groaning under the weight
of the Colonel's accumulation of paperwork, trembled at this additional
punishment. Josh could only pray they wouldn't collapse beneath him.

“Here, Josh.” Maggie thrust the wrench up at him.
“Hurry. The Colonel will be brokenhearted if all of his papers are destroyed.”

“You think I don't know that?” Josh fitted the wrench
to the pipe joint and applied steady pressure. The flow of water diminished
quickly. Josh gave the joint a few more turns, tightening it securely until the
leak stopped.

When he had finished, he handed the wrench back to
Maggie and slowly eased himself down to the floor. Maggie picked up some old
cloths and began mopping up the water on top of the cabinets.

For a moment neither of them spoke. Hands on his hips.
Josh stared up at the pipe and thought about the faint sound of metal on metal
that had brought him down here.

“Someone was definitely in here. Josh.” Maggie tossed
the wet rags onto the floor. “Someone climbed into this basement and deliberately
loosened the pipe joint.”

“Looks like it,” Josh agreed, still contemplating the
pipe.

“If we hadn't discovered the water corning out of that
pipe tonight, the entire basement would have been flooded by morning. It would
have been a disaster.”

“Yeah. It would have been a mess, all right.” Tonight's
incident put a whole new perspective on this cushy, piece-of-cake case. It was
now dear to Josh that the things that had been happening at Peregrine Manor
could no longer be written off as due to overactive imagination.

“What are you thinking?” Maggie asked uneasily.

“That the problems you've had might be the work of a
vandal. Maybe some local sicko who gets his kicks causing this kind of trouble.
Or a kid who's bent on doing mischief just for the hell of it.”

Maggie chewed on her lower lip. “The sheriff did
suggest that possibility when I called him after the first couple of
incidents,” she admitted. “He said to be sure I locked everything up securely
at night. I haven't bothered calling him again, But, Josh, it's not just wanton
vandalism. I know it isn't.”

Josh glanced at her and saw the anxiety in her eyes.

He sighed. “You still think this has something to do
with your Aunt Agatha's emerald brooch? Maggie, I don't want to quash your theory,
but it doesn't make sense that a prowler would try to flood the basement while
he searched for a valuable piece of Jewellery.”

Maggie frowned. “It does look like he was trying to
destroy the Colonel's papers, doesn't it? Do you suppose there might be
something to his theory, after all?”

“No,” Josh said flatly. “I don't,”

Maggie drummed her fingers on a file cabinet. “It's
possible someone thinks he can create it and is after the formula.”

“Damn it, Maggie…”

“Okay, okay. It's highly unlikely.”

“Highly unlikely.”

“But not impossible,” she said coaxingly.

He gave her a wry glance and realized for the first
time that in her haste to rebutton her dress, she had put the top button
through the wrong hole. The dress was skewed across her breasts. The edge of
her lacy bra peeped out at him. He found the sight incredibly endearing.

“All right,” Josh replied gently. “I'll concede it is
not completely beyond the realm of possibility that some other screwy inventor
thinks the Colonel is on to something and wants to see how the experiments are
progressing or wants to destroy them. But, to be brutally frank, I'm still
ranking that theory very low on my list.”

She nodded. “Fair enough. In exchange, I'll agree to
consider your vandalism theory.”

“It's a deal,” he murmured. There was a short, suddenly
charged silence as the conversation on possibilities and theories came to an
end. The expression in Maggie's eyes started to change.

Josh recognized the exact instant when it occurred to
her that they were still alone together and the night wasn't over. Uneasiness
and a deep, feminine shyness shimmered in her sea-green eyes.

The moment was lost and Josh knew it. He reminded
himself that he had never intended to take things any further tonight, anyway,
no matter how tempted. He smiled with what he hoped was reassurance. “Why don't
you go on upstairs to bed, Maggie? I'll relock the window. Tomorrow I'll rig up
something to keep it from being opened from the outside. We can talk about this
in the morning.”