Too Hot to Handle (14 page)

“How do you think I found you?”

When Jack stood there, his brow furrowed, she repeated, “Please.”

She could understand why he didn’t want her company at a crime scene. Taking her along was a bad idea. It would mean answering awkward questions, and it could get him in trouble. Real trouble.

Part of her wanted to run away. Fleeing the city—maybe the state—not just to get away from the arsonist but also to get away from Jack. After so long apart, suddenly they were together. In every possible way. It was overwhelming.

But staying with Jack was the only way she’d feel safe.

“Please don’t leave me.”

It wasn’t that he cared that Honey had rejected him so many years earlier, turning what had seemed like a beautiful possibility into a knock-down, drag-out war. It wasn’t even that he cared that Honey had caved to his mother’s threats. Amelia was famous for taking down even the strongest opponent. An out-of-her depth teenager would have been a piece of cake.

The only thing he cared about was spending more time with Honey, exploring the growing closeness between them.

He held open his door until Honey finally got out a minute later. He grabbed her arm and marched her quickly past the long line of reporters. A local anchorwoman in a tight red suit turned in their direction, trying to decide whether they were worthy of her time before going back to watching the plumes of smoke still lingering around Logan’s palatial manse.

Six bedrooms, eight bathrooms, and a formal ballroom, all wrapped up in a tidy four thousand square feet. Small compared to the eight-thousand-square-foot pied-à-terre a movie star had built down the block a year earlier.

Jack lifted the crime scene tape, pushing Honey across into Logan’s front yard. Her body stiffened. Her legs slowed.

“Come on,” he growled.

“I’m just looking around.”

“Why? You must have seen it when you dropped Logan’s car off.”

“That was before.” She dug her teeth into her bottom lip. Sharp. Petulant. Her head shook, red-gold curls streaming down her back. “Things are different now.”

“Not really.”

The house had suffered some damage in the fire, but most of it was smoke or water related. The flames themselves had been caught early, dealt with quickly.

The fire might have been set by the same arsonist who’d attacked Honey’s house, but if so, he’d done a much less thorough job.

He dropped Honey’s arm when they entered the police perimeter, ducking underneath a strand of yellow crime scene tape. “I want you to stay here.” One of the sheriff’s officers was passing out snacks. “Grab some coffee. Eat a donut.”

“Ogden!” Captain Michaels’s greeting rang across the large area.

Jack shoved his hands in his pockets and walked over to talk to his boss.

“I know you’ve got the day off, but really…” The big Irish cop grinned. “What are you doing bringing a woman to a crime scene?”

“I was with her when you called.”

“Your current fling?”

“She’s not a fling.”

Jack didn’t know what Honey was exactly. She wasn’t his girlfriend or his wife, and she definitely wasn’t a fling. If he had to sum up their relationship in one word, he’d say it was “complicated.”

One word wasn’t enough. A hundred words wouldn’t be enough, or a thousand. All he knew was that he could spend the rest of his life studying her every move, and he still wouldn’t be able to figure her out. Of course, he was beginning to wonder if he should even try. Maybe he’d jumped the gun thinking they should move in together. There were still a lot of things he didn’t know about Honey.

Maybe they should take things slow. Dinner on Friday night and movies on Tuesday.

“Don’t talk about her like that.”

“They’re all flings with you, Jack.” The captain’s blond hair was flying in every direction. His suit looked like it had been slept in. “You should give me a call when you’re ready to settle down. I’ll have Shirley arrange a dinner, invite over some of her friends. My wife’s not much of a cook, but she’s a hell of a matchmaker. Of course, that’ll mean cutting back on your hours. Respectable women don’t put up with that crap.”

The captain was crude, but he wasn’t wrong. Jack worked sixty hours a week. Even when he was off the clock, he never really stopped working. The lifestyle didn’t leave a lot of time for relationships.

He turned slowly, surveying the scene. Maybe he couldn’t give Honey what she needed, but he could make sure she was safe.

“Why don’t you tell me what’s going on?”

Logan stood on his front stoop in a dark silk dressing gown with his hands shoved deep in his pockets and his hair gleaming like a freshly minted ten-cent piece.

Another man stood at his side. Slightly younger, wearing a designer suit and a disgruntled expression. Clay Parsons. The heir apparent. Distinguished, wealthy—although not wealthy enough to catch Jessica’s attention—and powerful.

“You see that idiot?” The captain indicated Parsons, his voice thick with rage. “That moron called the governor—at least his secretary—and now nobody will go near Burrows. Can’t get any damn questions answered.”

“What about you?” Jack asked.

“Me?” The captain shrugged. “I’m not getting within ten feet of that guy. Not without bulletproof armor. Political bastards, all too concerned about their own careers.”

Jack’s suit might not have been made out of Kevlar, but it had been custom tailored, the cloth imported from Italy at great expense. In a city like Los Angeles, money was power, and a good suit could command attention from across a city block. “Parsons is a jackass.”

“I couldn’t agree more. You say that to his face, and you’re suspended. Five days at least. Turns out I’m a political bastard, too.” The captain let out a hoarse laugh. “Of course, if you knock the guy out, there might be a commendation in it for you.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Michaels might imagine he was a political, but he always came back to solid ground after a few minutes.

From where Jack stood less than a hundred feet away from Logan, he could tell that the older man’s eyes were half shut, like he didn’t have a care in the world. Ignoring the police officers streaming in and out his door, he clearly wasn’t afraid of what they might find inside.

Maybe there was nothing to find.

No. Jack bit back a grin. There was always something to find. Maybe that was the kind of thinking that made him a cynical bastard, but it also made him a good cop. “You’re looking in the wrong place.”

“Uh-huh.” The captain’s eyes narrowed. “Where should I be looking?”

“The outbuildings, the garage, the pool house, the—”

“This is no time to be a blushing schoolgirl, detective. If you know something, tell me. What exactly am I looking for?”

“A car. A baby blue Volvo Sport. It was stolen last week.”

Captain Michaels frowned, disgruntled. “There was no police report.”

“He used private retrieval.”

“A detective? Private investigator type? Someone we can talk to?”

Jack had never lied to his commanding officer, had never withheld information, but he couldn’t talk about Honey. Not without putting her at risk.

Michaels was a good man and a good cop, but he’d think Honey was responsible for the arson—that she’d set fire to her own house to cover her tracks. It was a reasonable assumption. If Jack didn’t know her so well, he might be inclined to think that way himself.

Setting fire to her own house, moving into a new neighborhood—it would be a way to start over. For Honey, it might be her only chance at a fresh start. But he’d seen the look on her face as she stood in her backyard, stained with the smoke and ash from her home. The pain in her eyes had been real.

His jaw clenched slightly, biting back a full account. The captain trusted him to tell the truth, to report everything he knew in a clear, concise manner.

But Jack couldn’t see that pain in Honey’s eyes again. Not because of something he’d said.

“I don’t know.” He sucked in a deep breath, trying to settle his stomach. “Let’s get this over with.”

Shoulders back, legs straight, deep breaths. Don’t let them see you flinch.
That was the advice his mother had given him on his first day of elementary school. She’d repeated the advice before he ran for student body president in high school and a few minutes prior to his college interview.
Shoulders back, legs straight, deep breaths. Don’t let them see you flinch.

“You.” Clay frowned, watching Jack approach. “I know you, don’t I? You’re someone.”

“Not much of someone.”

Logan sniffed. “Amelia Ogden’s boy, right? Jack Ogden. Glad to see they finally called out someone with a brain. You going to get things done?”

“I’m here to ask you a few questions.” Logan leaned forward on the balls of his feet. “I understand the fire wasn’t the only trouble you’ve had recently. Someone stole your car? A blue Volvo?”

“Humph.” Logan’s eyes narrowed. He crossed his arms. “Neighborhood gossip. You hear that from your mother, boy?”

His mother. That stung.

Fine. If Logan wanted to play rough, it was about time Jack threw a real punch. Something he knew would land.

“If Mr. Parsons could excuse us.”

“Anything you want to say to Logan, you can say in front of me.” Clay Parsons drew himself up to his full height, still a few inches shorter than Jack. “I’m his lawyer. His family—”

“Get lost,” Logan ordered.

Parsons’s face colored a bright red, and his mouth fell open. He couldn’t have been more surprised if the older man had physically attacked him.

“Go on, Parsons, you’ve had enough excitement for today. I’m sure I can handle Amelia Ogden’s boy all by myself.”

Jack could taste blood. He’d bitten his lip.

Logan Burrows was a jerk, a real bastard who’d managed to drag Honey into his world and put her life in danger, but he wasn’t an idiot. The man was smart, capable, and a master negotiator. As a businessman, he’d been feared and reviled in boardrooms across the country, and he hadn’t grown soft in his old age.

Jack waited until they were alone on the front stoop before he took a deep breath and continued. “Mr. Burrows—”

“Call me Logan.”

“Logan, someone doesn’t like you very much.” A few soft words, some conciliatory remarks, and Logan would come around. All witnesses eventually came around, no matter how disgruntled they were to start with.

“I’m a real estate developer. If people like me, I’m not doing my job right.”

“Sure, but there’s a difference between picketing your latest project and setting your house on fire.”

“Is there? I hadn’t noticed.”

Okay, clearly things weren’t going the way that Jack had hoped. He took a deep breath and tried to start over again. “You were at home when the fire started. That must have been terrifying. How are you doing? How’s your housekeeper?”

“I haven’t had a housekeeper in ten years. I have a girl who cleans once a week.” The old man’s eyes were a pale blue, filmy white around the edges. Every breath he took was slow, ragged, and audible. But Jack would be foolish to underestimate him. Logan’s lips twisted into a thin smile. “Is there something you actually want to talk about? Because if it’s just going to be this touchy-feely nonsense, I have better things to do.”

Jack’s nostrils flared. He turned slowly, staring into the crowd, searching until he found exactly what he was looking for. A gleaming head of red-gold hair, curling and dancing in the light.

“I want to talk about Honey Moore.”

“I don’t know her,” Logan said. But his breath came faster, and Jack took note of his tense shoulders, his stiff jaw. A million tiny micro expressions, each one signaling a shift in Burrows’s mood.