One Summer’s Knight

Chapter 4

The policeman put his hand on her elbow, at the same time gesturing with the other to someone she couldn’t see. “Uh-huh. Okay, ma’am. You want to tell me your name, please?”

“‘Yes. I’m Mrs. Robey. Summer. And this is my house.”

It was hardly true; the ugly little trailer would never be anyone’s house, ever again. Where it had stood was a blackened skeleton, a sodden, stinking, smoking gash in the landscape surrounded by yellow police ribbon. The stench of destruction was overpowering; she wanted to gag.

“May I please… I need to sit down.”

And then she was in the back of a patrol car, and someone-a policeman-was offering her something in a small paper cup. Water. She took it and drank without tasting, then murmured, “Thank you.”

A soft voice, thick and Southern, said, “Ma’am, I’m gonna need to ask you some questions, okay? You feel up to it, or you wanna take another minute?”

She shook her head. “No, that’s okay, I’m fine.” She focused her eyes on the policeman’s face, observing that he was young, black, and didn’t look like he was enjoying himself much.

The reason for that became clear a moment later when he cleared his throat, shifted his feet and said, “Ma’am-can you tell me if there was anybody that might’ve been…uh, in the building?” He coughed and made it simpler. “Was…anybody home?”

Summer stared at him. Bile rose in her throat She swallowed and said hurriedly, “No. No, there’s only me and my children-they’re over there, in the car. I just picked them up from day camp.” She stopped, then added as if it might be of importance, “We stopped for tacos.”

The young policeman drew himself up, looking considerably happier at that news. “Yes, ma’am, well, that’s good. I’m sure glad to hear it.” He coughed, then frowned again. “Your, uh, neighbors said they thought you folks had some pets?”

“Yes.” Funny, how she seemed not to be feeling this. As though she were in a plastic bubble, and the policeman’s words just bounced off without touching her. “They were at a friend’s house. I was away over the weekend.”

There was the soft hiss of an exhalation. “Well, ma’am, sounds like you were real lucky.” Summer looked at the officer, who gazed back at her with shadows in his eyes, the shadows, maybe, of memories of other disasters and people who hadn’t been as lucky. “Sorry for your loss,” he said in a more formal tone.

“Thank you,” said Summer. She looked down at the paper cup, which she had crumpled in her hand. “Is there anything else you need right now? I’d like to get back to my children.”

“Oh-sure.” He stood back away from the open door to make room for her, then reconsidered. “Uh…listen, do you have someplace to go? Somebody you can call? Any kinfolk in the area?” Summer shook her head. “What about friends?”

Friends. She thought about it. She’d been here almost a year, and who did she know? Well enough to ask for a favor of this magnitude? The answer was, with the possible exception of the Motts: nobody.

The Motts. Summer’s mind filled with the image of Debbie Mott’s plump, self-satisfied face, and her stomach recoiled. Never, she thought, in a million years. “We’ll be okay,” she said softly. “I guess we’ll probably go to a motel.” Her mouth formed the words, but her brain didn’t comprehend their meaning. Not their real meaning. She was safely encased in that nice little plastic bubble of shock.

The policeman nodded and took something out of his uniform pocket-a card. He handed it to her and said kindly, “Okay, then, I’ll let you get on back to your kids. Ma’am, this here’s the address and phone number of the local Red Cross. You go on down there and show them the police report-we’ ll see you have a copy-and they’ll fix you up with whatever you need, okay?”

Summer nodded. The Red Cross. Reality tried to push its way into her bubble along with that name. It’s true. I’m a victim. She pushed the thought ruthlessly, angrily away.

“Just one more thing.” The policeman ducked down so that his head and shoulders filled the car door’s opening. “You got any reason you can think of why somebody might want to do this?”

“Do this?” Summer stared at him. In her cocooned state, understanding came slowly. “Do you mean…it wasn’t…the fire didn’t…just happen?” Trailers burned all the time-she heard about them often on the news.

The policeman’s face was impassive. “We won’t know that for sure, ma’am, not until the investigators finish their job. But right now I have to say, it does look suspicious.”

She desperately needed a breath, but something cold and heavy was occupying the space where her lungs should have been. She shook her head and choked out the word “No.”

Apparently taking that as her answer to his original question, the officer straightened once more, at the same time reaching in his breast pocket again, this time for his notebook. “Well, okay, then. We’re just gonna need for you to leave us a number, someplace where we can get ahold of you. Work number’d be fine.”

“Uh, sure. I work for Dr. Jerry Mott-you know, the mobile vet? I guess you can reach me there. If not, he’ll know how to get in touch with me.” She gave him the number and watched him jot it carefully down in his notebook before returning it to his pocket. She cleared her throat. “Can I go now?”

“Sure.” He stepped back, offering her his hand. She ignored it, instead levering herself out of the patrol car under her own power. Except that she felt it wasn’t really her own power, but something outside herself, some unseen puppet master manipulating the nerves, tendons and muscles that operated her body, made it stand erect and begin walking down the sloping, grass-furred driveway. Told it to step carefully around the bare patches where the water from the fire hoses had turned the red clay to sticky, slippery muck. Surely it must have been some other guidance system-automatic pilot?-that told her to stop at the bottom of the driveway and open the mailbox and look inside, just as she did every day when she came home from work. Her own consciousness was still encased in its soft, safe place.

She walked back up the road to where she’d parked the green Oldsmobile, her feet finding their way on the uneven verge while she shuffled through the day’s mail: mostly junk, maybe a couple of bills, a plain envelope with Mrs. Robey printed on it, several catalogs…her mind registered none of it. Just ahead on the opposite side of the road, her children’s faces hung in the car windows like two pale, not-quite-full moons. And there was another car parked behind the Olds now, a tan sedan that for some reason seemed vaguely familiar. A tan sedan…

“You got any reason you can think of why somebody might want to do this?”

Something clicked on in her brain, shattering her bubble and restoring full power and function. She looked down at the pile of mail in her hands, then shuffled rapidly through it until she came to the plain envelope with her name printed on it. Something about it felt wrong. It just felt wrong. She slid trembling fingers under the flap and lifted it, drew out the single sheet of paper, folded in thirds. She stared at it, her mind registering the sound of a car door slamming as the stack of mail slipped from her nerveless hands and hit the ground with a soft, slithery thud. Catalogs and envelopes fanned out unnoticed across her feet. She unfolded the paper and stared at the words printed there in block letters, hand-printed letters that matched her name on the envelope.

SORRY WE MISSED YOU NEXT TIME WE’LL BE SURE AND STOP BY WHEN YOU AND THE KIDDIES ARE HOME.

She felt cold. She wanted to throw up.

“Mrs. Robey?”

Her head came up slowly and she gazed into the melancholy brown eyes of the man from the FBI. She remembered his name: Special Agent Jake Redfield.

“May I?” He reached toward her cautiously, as if he feared either she or the objects she held in her hands might explode if mishandled. She surrendered them, both the note and the envelope it had come in, and watched with silent revulsion as, touching them gingerly only on their edges, he first read them, then tucked them away in an inside pocket of his suit jacket. Taking her elbow in a firm grip, he said tersely, “Get your kids. I think it’s a good idea if all three of you come with us.”

Summer made a small, sucking sound, her mouth and throat felt sticky, as if from long disuse. “My car-I can’t just-”

“Agent Poole here’ll bring it.” Redfield made a gesture toward the car, in response to which a stocky, middle-aged man with what was left of his gray hair cut in a 1950s-style buzz emerged from the passenger side and slammed the door behind him He came toward them with a purposeful stride, at the same time sweeping his surroundings with narrow-eyed glances the way Summer had seen make-believe cops do on TV shows. Redfield, too, kept looking around him and making small, fidgety adjustments to his clothing, as if he was preparing for the possibility of some sort of action. And in the process, revealing the presence of a holster nestled in the small of his back. The sight of that gun cleared the fog from Summer’s mind like windshield wipers in a drizzle.

“I don’t want my children frightened,” she said in a low, growling voice she hardly recognized as her own. “They’re going to be upset enough as it is.”

“Gotcha.” Redfield shrugged, and his jacket settled once more into lean and innocent lines.

He released her elbow and reached around her to pull open the Oldsmobile’s rear door. The two children shrank away from the opening like wild creatures retreating into their burrows. Before Summer could move to intervene, the FBI man was squatting down to peer into the car and saying in a voice he probably imagined to be cajoling, “Hey, kids, how’d you like to come for a ride with me?”

“Oh, great,” Summer muttered as two pairs of blue eyes widened in alarm. She knew exactly what was going to happen next. Now, children, what do you say if a stranger asks you to go for a ride with him? You just…say…

“No!” shrieked Helen, shaking her head wildly. “No, no, no, no!”

Agent Redfield threw Summer a beseeching look over his shoulder. Arms folded, she glared back at him. His brows drew together, and he turned back to the children with what he probably imagined was a reassuring smile. It made Summer think of Snidely Whiplash. “Look, kids, it’s okay-your mom’s coming, too.”

“Mom?” David said on a rising note of alarm, his eyes zooming in on Summer’s. Her little champion.

“You sure do have a way with children,” she said under her breath as she elbowed the FBI man aside and gathered her daughter into her arms just in time to head off a full-blown case of hysterics. Behind her she could hear Agent Poole snickering, and Agent Redfield’s muttered response, “Hey, just because you’ve got kids…”

“Honey,” Summer crooned, “it’s okay. Helen, David, this is Mr. Redfield. He’s uh…” The FBI? Why did that sound so sinister, so unexplainable? She couldn’t say it. “He’s a policeman. He needs us to go with him so he can ask me some questions, okay?”

“What kinda questions?” Helen demanded to know, still sullen and suspicious.

“Well, honey, it’s about our…house I’m afraid…”

“Is our house burned up?” David asked, scrambling after her as she backed out of the stuffy car with Helen’s arms in a stranglehold around her neck.

“Yes,” said Summer on a long exhalation. “I’m afraid so.”

“Is everything burned? Everything?” Her son’s eyes searched hers, liquid with hopelessness.

“Yes, honey. I’m sorry.” She put her arm around his shoulders and pulled him against her side. Her throat felt parched… charred. Honey, I’m so sorry…Mr. Bunny, after nine years only tattered blue remnants, but I know how much that blanket meant to you. And all your books, your games… Gone.

“It’s a good thing Beatle and Cleo and Peggy Sue are at Jason’s house, huh, Mom?” said Helen. “Or they’d be burned up, too.”

Summer gulped a breath as if it were a drink of water. “Yes, sweetheart, it’s a very good thing.” She was conscious of the two men, one on either side of her, hemming her in. Protecting her, she realized. But she felt crowded, suffocated. Suddenly she wanted, more than anything in the world, to be alone. Just to be alone. So she could think about this. So she could realize this. So she could go ahead and be frightened. So she could cry, if she wanted to.

“Mom? Where will we sleep?”

Summer gave David’s shoulders a squeeze. “You let me worry about that, okay?”

“Mrs. Robey,…” Agent Redfield was watching her with his dark, sorrowful eyes, the set of his shoulders telegraphing urgency. He jerked his head toward the tan sedan.

“Yes.” Summer set Helen’s feet on the ground and gave both children a gentle push. “Go on, now-go get into Mr. Redfield’s car.”

“How come we aren’t going in our car?” David asked.

Our car? Funny how the old car didn’t seem so ugly and decrepit now that it was the only thing they had left in the world. She turned to look at it, and even smiled a little at the expression on Agent Poole’s perspiring face as he squeezed himself in behind the wheel.

“Why aren’t we going in our car? Well, because…” Inspiration struck. “Because, Mr. Redfield’s car has air-conditioning!” She gave the FBI man a look of triumph

He acknowledged it with a shrug but no smile-she wondered if he was even capable of it-and went walking back to the sedan, leaving Summer to collect her purse and the children’s backpacks from the Olds and follow.

As she was settling into the passenger seat of the tan sedan, the last remaining fire truck pulled away and went roaring off down the street, leaving them with an unobstructed view of what had once been their home. Silence filled the car. Even Helen was speechless. It was as if a curtain had risen, Summer thought, on a stage set for a play called Devastation. Who could have done such a pointless, heartless thing? And why?

Agent Redfield started the car and made a U-turn in the middle of the street. “Mrs. Robey…”

But Summer had twisted around in her seat to stare back at the blackened ruin, the singed trees and sodden grass, the sagging yellow tape. What does this have to do with Hal? What do they want from me? Her stomach constricted with a hopeless, helpless rage.

“Mrs. Robey,” Jake Redfield repeated, speaking in an undertone as he glanced sideways at her, “I’m sorry about this, I truly am. But I hope you understand now what I meant when I said these people mean business.”

No, Summer thought suddenly, not helpless. Not anymore.

“Maybe you might want to rethink-”

“Re…think…” she murmured, absently frowning. Because a name had just come into her mind, lighting it up like neon. Riley Grogan.

“-how you feel about cooperating with us…”

She turned to him, her breath catching, stopping him there. “Excuse me, Special Agent Redfield,” she continued in a cold, quiet voice, a confident voice, without a trace of a tremor in it. “May I use your cellular phone, please? I would like to call my lawyer.”

The page had come at an opportune time for Riley. He’d been attending a black-tie reception at one of Charleston’s best and ntziest art galleries, the occasion the opening of a show by an artist who had recently begun making a name for himself with his abstract representations of social injustice rendered on bits and pieces gleaned from old sharecropper’s cabins. As Charlestonians had a way of turning such minor commercial enterprises into major events in both the world of art and in Low Country society, the show had attracted media attention from as far away as Boston and New York City.

Normally, Riley preferred to skip openings, unless he happened to actually like the artist, but in this case the gallery owner was a client of his, and it would have been awkward to refuse. So, since Riley made it a practice never to put himself in awkward situations, he’d resigned himself to the evening and had taken the necessary steps to increase the probability that he might even enjoy it.

But the truth was, he’d found the artist’s work disturbing in ways he didn’t care to examine too closely. And the strident and overblown praise for the artist issuing in a constant stream from his date, who happened to be the art critic for Southern Styles Magazine as well as a former Miss Louisiana, irritated him. He thought it vaguely inappropriate, just off the mark, somehow. In fact, as the evening wore on he’d been finding it more and more difficult to appreciate Miss Louisiana’s auburn hair, sparkling green eyes and brilliant smile, which, he’d once thought, along with certain other physical attributes, gave her a startling resemblance to the young Maureen O’Hara. As a consequence, the vibrations from the beeper he wore inside the waistband of his trousers-so as not to spoil the lines of his dinner jacket-had not been an entirely unwelcome interruption.

Summertime had come early to the Low Country, and although darkness had fallen by the time Riley left the gallery in Charleston, the temperature had not. The night smelled of flowers and dust, car exhaust and imminent rain, with a fitful breeze that now and then coughed up, like reminders of a bad meal, odors of the sea and the marshes-the tang of sawgrass and saltwater, with touches of mud and decaying shellfish. It was the kind of evening that even under normal circumstances could stir in Riley a vague and restless disquiet; tonight, coupled with the evocative mood of the show he’d just left, it seemed to have awakened memories that winked on and off in his consciousness like fireflies in the dusk. He drove to Augusta through air as thick and soft as cream, watching lightning flicker across the mountains far to the northwest and listening to Bach on his stereo to keep the memories at bay.

He did allow his mind to dwell some on Summer Robey, though not on what it was about her and her problems that had him making what promised to be at least a four-hour round-trip drive on a muggy Monday evening when he could have been enjoying a candlelit postreception supper-at the very least-with the voluptuous former Miss Louisiana Generally, he did not believe in wasting mental energy on fruitless speculation, and his client had given him very little information. She had told him only that she was once again in the custody of the FBI and therefore, in keeping with his instructions, was contacting him immediately and saying nothing to anyone.

“Protective custody, Mrs. Robey,” he’d heard an exasperated-sounding male voice say in the background. “This is for your own safety…”

When Riley had inquired as to what had happened that she was in need of the FBI’s protection, her voice had gone quiet, hard as glass and just as fragile. “They burned my house, Mr. Grogan. My house.” Needless to say, he had understood that she didn’t mean the FBI

“Stay where you are, I’m on my way,” Riley had told her, and rung off with the soft burr of her barely audible “Thank you” in his ears. It was that sound he thought about. Along with the image of her mouth forming the words, it kept returning to his mind in spite of all his efforts to quell it, like a phrase of music, a tiresome bit of song.

The government building that housed the FBI’s small Augusta field office was closed up tight at that hour. At the front entrance Riley identified himself and stated his business through an intercom, and after a short wait he was buzzed into a cubicle where he confronted a directory mounted on one side wall. Momentarily derailed, he was about to select someone at random when the elevator doors to his right suddenly slid open. He muttered a sardonic “Thank you” as he stepped on.

The doors whisked shut and, after a brief ride to an indeterminable floor, opened again on a large, well-lit room crowded with desks, windowed cubicles and computer terminals. It appeared to be empty of people, except for a tall man with dark hair, a shadowed jaw and the patient, sorrowful look of martyrs and bloodhounds. He gave Riley’s tux a silent and cynical once-over, shook his hand and said, “Mr. Grogan? Special Agent Redfield. Come with me, please?”

He led Riley through the maze of desks and down a short hallway, tiptoeing, for some reason, past a couple of rest rooms, and paused before a door at the far end, one hand on the doorknob and a finger to his lips. Riley quelled a flare of impatience and nodded. The FBI agent turned the knob and pushed the door partway open. Riley stepped silently past him and into the room.

It was a typical off-duty room, perhaps a bit more generously outfitted than some, crowded with refrigerator and microwave, sink and coffeemaker, a table cluttered with newspapers and crossword puzzle pads, several chairs. There was a large sofa along one wall, and a TV set perched on a bookcase with shelves occupied by a VCR and an assortment of reading material that ranged from a Bible to National Geographic.

On one end of the sofa, Summer Robey sat slumped awkwardly sideways with her head pillowed on one arm. The other arm was draped protectively over the body of a small child-a girl, Riley guessed-who lay with her head in her mother’s lap. Both were asleep, jaws slack, mouths slightly open, snoring softly. At the other end of the sofa, a boy lay in a tight fetal curl, his cheek uncomfortably pillowed on a backpack. His mouth was open, too, and there was a small, round wet spot on the fabric of the backpack beneath its corner. Even asleep, Riley noticed, the child’s forehead was creased in a worried frown.

He backed soundlessly out of the room and pulled the door closed before turning to Agent Redfield and remarking in an acid tone, “You couldn’t have taken them to a hotel?” He felt indefinably shaken; somehow he’d forgotten about the children. Lord, of course there were children; she’d mentioned them several times. It wasn’t like him to forget a detail like that.

Redfield said dolefully, “Yeah, well…it seems there’s just one…slight…complication.”

Riley frowned. “Complication?”

A grimace gave Agent Redfield’s lips an upward tilt, almost like a smile; he rubbed at the back of his neck. “Seems she has some…other baggage.”

“Baggage?”

“Pets.”

“Pets.” Riley said the word as if it were a foreign language.

“Yeah. Lucky for them, they were at a friend’s house-I guess they’d been out of town over the weekend, some family thing-so they weren’t involved in the fire. Anyway, she-well, the kids, actually-they insisted we had to go and get them before we did anything else.”

“They insisted?” Riley repeated in an incredulous tone.

“You have no idea,” Redfield said dryly, “how persuasive they can be. Believe me. It was a whole lot easier to go than not” He looked, Riley thought, like a man who’d recently survived an unnerving experience.

“Humph,” he said without sympathy. “These… friends couldn’t have kept the, uh, pets for another few days? What kind of pets are we talking about? Cat? Dog? Goldfish?”

Redfield straightened with a laconic gesture for Riley to follow him. “I guess the best way is to show you… Oh, I think they would have, if they’d been asked,” he said, answering Riley’s first question as they walked. “I kinda got the feeling they weren’t on very good terms-some sort of altercation among the kids, apparently. Anyway, she-Mrs. Robey-she didn’t feel like she could impose.”

No, thought Riley, she wouldn’t That damned pride. He couldn’t decide whether he admired it or not, at least not in a client, but he did understand it He understood it very well.

“Anyway,” Redfield continued, “I figure no hotel in the world’s gonna want to take this bunch. Here-see for yourself.” He halted in front of one of the rest room doors but didn’t open it-took a step backward, in fact, as if he expected a bomb might go off any minute.

Riley gave him a look of annoyance and the door a push.

“Get out!” a woman’s voice shrieked as a dog began to bark ferociously. “Get out, get out, get out!”

What the hell? At the first words, Riley had jumped back as if he’d bounced off a rubber wall. He threw the FBI man a cold and murderous glance. “Your idea of a joke?”

Redfield wasn’t smiling. He shrugged. “No joke. Go ahead-just go on in.”

Riley gave him a long, considering stare; he was not in the habit of being made the fool. Beyond the door all seemed quiet now, almost eerily so-no human voices or barking dog, no hurried flushing sounds or running water. He pushed on the door…then pushed it wider.

A woman’s voice-a different one, he’d have sworn-muttered evilly, “Go to hell.” That was followed by a jubilant “No wa-a-ay!” as the high-pitched barking began with renewed frenzy.

“Oh, good Lord,” Riley said under his breath.

In the middle of the tile floor sat three pet carrying cases, the kind made of plastic with a steel-mesh door at one end. In one, the ugliest cat Riley had ever seen in his life sat and stared at the world with pure, unadulterated malevolence; from another, a very tiny Chihuahua with huge, bulging eyes was voicing a strong desire to tear anything that came within range of its minute jaws limb from limb-or at least, toe from foot. The third carrier was covered with a blue cloth, and apparently it was from here that the voices had issued. Because one was at that very moment muttering, “Stupid…dog,” employing an adjective Riley would never have used, at least not around children.

He backed out of the room, bringing the door gently to a close, then stood and stared at it for a moment. “Well,” he said. And after a moment, “You people don’t have a safe house of some kind?”

Redfield shook his head. “Nothing appropriate for the…you know.” His head jerked toward the room they’d just left.

Riley said nothing. Turning on his heel, he strode down the hallway to the big room with all the desks in it. He chose one that wasn’t buried in computers and paperwork, leaned his backside against it, folded his arms and waited for the FBI man, who was right behind him.

“Agent Redfield,” he said in a soft, even tone, “before I let my client know I’m here, I do have one or two questions for you, if you don’t mind.”

“I’ll do my best to answer ’em for you,” Jake Redfield said in a voice just as calm, just as quiet, as he leaned his rear against the desk across the aisle from Riley and folded his arms on his chest in an exact duplicate of his posture.

And then for a few moments there was silence while the two men took each other’s measure, like a couple of dogs meeting in an alley, Riley thought, figuring out which one was going to be top dog.

Funny thing was, he had an idea they weren’t really all that much different, he and this man from the FBI. Sure, the guy was obviously at the end of a long day that promised to get longer yet, and looked it-baggy-eyed and unshaven and as if he’d slept in his clothes-while Riley appeared calm, cool and immaculate in a dinner jacket and black tie. Appeared being the key word-and he just hoped the facade was going to be thick enough to stand up to the fact that at the moment he felt as off balance and ill-equipped as a man trying to tiptoe through a cow pasture in patent-leather shoes. But under their two very different skins, he’d be willing to bet, there lay the same junkyard-dog toughness, a few of the same ideals and principles, and maybe even something else, something Riley would never put a name to or let anybody see. He was pretty sure Jake Redfield didn’t, either.

“You mind telling me,” Riley said, “just exactly what is the FBI’s interest in my client?”

“We consider her an important witness in an ongoing investigation,” Redfield answered promptly. “I thought we made that clear to her.” His eyebrows lifted. “You mind telling me what it was that would make her feel like she had to call in her lawyer?”

Riley let his lip curl with just a touch of sarcasm. “Maybe you scared her? Maybe your methods were a touch heavyhanded, considering who you were dealing with? That is a nice lady in there. Seems to me, if you want cooperation from nice people, it generally works best to ask nicely.”

Redfield snorted. He rubbed at the back of his neck and muttered, “We’re not who she needs to be scared of.”

“Ah, yes. My client mentioned you think this involves a gambling syndicate?”

“Gambling, among other things-yes. One of the biggest left in the country. I’ve-we’ve been trying to nail the lid shut on these people for a long time.” The FBI agent’s face had a dark and tense look, as if his jaw were clenched and his blood pressure rising. After a moment Riley saw him take a deep breath and give his head a quick shake, as if it were a selfcontrol regimen he practiced frequently. “Never quite been able to manage it. Can’t quite get anything-or anybody-that’ll stick through the whole system of due process, if you know what I mean.” He threw Riley a resentful look. Plainly, the agent thought that lawyers should have been required to wear a special security pass stamped Enemy.

“I can certainly sympathize,” said Riley evenly, not bothenng to point out that he wasn’t a criminal defense attorney and therefore had little if not nothing to do with the government’s failure in their quest to stamp out organized crime. “But what does this have to do with my client?”

“We want her husband,” Redfield said softly, his eyes like long, dark thoughts. “Hal Robey. We think she can help us.”

Riley made a disgusted noise. “My client has no idea where her ex-husband is. When he disappeared he left her and the kids flat broke, did you know that? If she knew where he was, don’t you suppose she’d be after him herself?”

Redfield shrugged. “Maybe…maybe not. All I know is, the syndicate we’re interested in wants Hal Robey, and they have come after his wife in a very serious way. To me, that says they must have some good reason to think she can give them what they want. Since we also want Hal Robey, and would very much like to find him before the bad guys do, we have to pay attention to that. You follow me? We have no choice but to look very hard at Mrs. Robey. The difference between us and them is that we don’t burn down people’s houses and threaten to hurt their children to get what we want.”

There was a hard, unhappy silence. Then Riley straightened and said quietly, “I believe I will see my client now.”

There had been a year in Summer’s childhood when the winter rains came early and stayed on into May in the California deserts and mountain foothills. They hadn’t known about El Niño then; old-tuners called it the year of the Hundred-Year Flood. For a while, California was in its glory. The desert bloomed with carpets of wildflowers, some that appeared only once or twice in a lifetime, and poppies and brush grew thick and lush on the slopes. And then in June the rains ceased and the Santa Ana winds blew down the canyons, and the vegetation became tinder. And the fire season began.

As the hills and forests and subdivisions of Southern California burned and firefighters and equipment poured in from all over the country to help wage the unwinnable war, base camps sprang up near those communities in the most desperate states of seige That year, one such tent city had been located in Summer’s hometown, because of its proximity both to an airfield large enough to accommodate the water bombers, and a reservoir that would be their source of water.

At the height of the holocaust, Summer’s daddy, Pop Waskowitz, the town’s chief of police, had taken his children to visit the camp. While Evie had run around taking pictures and home movies for a school social studies project, and Mirabella had fussed and fumed over what she considered to be rampant inefficiency and disorganized chaos, Summer had stared in silent sorrow at the firefighters coming in from the line. Too exhausted to eat, they would fall asleep where they hit the ground, sometimes with their heads pillowed on knapsacks, hard hats or bare ground. Their smoke-blackened faces and red-rimmed eyes had haunted Summer’s nightmares for weeks afterward.

She was dreaming of those faces again. Of young faces crusty with soot and eyes aged and hollow from staring into hell itself. But…for some reason the faces were David’s-all of them. No, some of the faces were Helen’s, too. And when she tried to touch them, the blackened faces-her children’s faces-crumpled and disintegrated and turned to ashes, each and every one. Crying, she kept trying to reach out to them, trying to touch them, one after the other, until there were none left. Yet…she could still hear their voices! She could hear them calling her…

“Mommy! Wake up! Mom, a man’s here. Wake…up.”

Summer opened her eyes and immediately thought she must still be dreaming. How else could she account for this surreal dissolve from the nightmare horror of her children’s burned and blackened faces to the vision of masculine beauty that stood before her now? An angel, perhaps? But…in evening dress?

But of course it was not a dream. And if Cinderella, down on her knees in the fireplace, dressed in her tatters and rags and up to her elbows in ashes and soot, were to suddenly look up and find the Prince standing there in all his royal splendor, she could not have been more dazzled than Summer was when that fact became apparent to her. Or more humiliated.

“Oh, gosh-I must have dozed off,” she mumbled, struggling to shift Helen off her lap with one hand so she could sit up, wiping at her cheeks with the other. Had she been crying? Snoring? Her mouth and throat were dry. She cleared her throat and at the same time tried desperately to stifle a yawn. “Mr. Grogan-thank you so much for coming. I-”

“Why are you wearing that?” Helen asked from her battle station at Summer’s side, up on her knees with her arms folded and her chin jutting out, and the expression on her porcelain face one more of suspicion than awe.

“Helen-”

Riley Grogan said, with none of the adjustments to tone and manner adults usually employ when addressing small children, “I was at a party. I didn’t have time to go home and change.” He regarded his inquisitor through half-closed eyes while she considered that, her head tilted at a judicial angle.

“I’m sony,” Summer said in a low voice.

“Don’t be” Somehow his voice managed to be both crisp and comforting. He glanced toward the far end of the couch, where David was frowning and twitching, clinging to his troubled sleep. “If you’d like to get your things together, I’ll get you out of here now.”

Hope and gladness carried Summer to her feet before she remembered. Her shoulders slumped as she turned one to Riley Grogan, averting her face so he wouldn’t see the defeat and worry she knew must be written there. “That’s nice of you to offer, but I don’t know where we’d go. I’m told the Red Cross will provide us with shelter-I’ll check into it tomorrow-but I don’t know if they’ll take the animals. The hotels-”

“You just let me worry about that” He leaned down to give David’s shoulder a shake. “Come on, young man-rise and shine. Time to go.” Not yet fully awake, David rolled himself into a sitting position, still clutching the backpack to his chest and blinking slowly, like a fledgeling owl.

“Time to go where?” Helen demanded as she hopped off the couch.

“I’d be interested in the answer to that question, myself,” Jake Redfield said quietly from the doorway. “We still have some questions we need to ask Mrs. Robey.”

“My client won’t be answering any more questions tonight,” Riley Grogan said, taking Summer’s elbow in a firm grip and ushering her toward the door. As Helen wedged herself between Riley and her mother, and David slid bonelessly off the couch to shuffle along in their wake, Summer’s eyes anxiously followed the FBI man, wondering how he would respond to her lawyer’s implacable declaration.

For one moment it did look as if Agent Redfield might try and stop them. “I’m gonna need to know where you’re taking my witness,” he said in a belligerent tone, but his face said he already knew it was a lost cause.

As they met in the doorway, Riley paused, and Summer saw the two men exchange a long, measuring stare. And she knew with a sudden primitive awareness that the silent struggle had much less to do with her and her current predicament than their words might suggest. More, perhaps, to do with the thunder of hoofbeats and the clang of antlers echoing on a cold autumn morning. That awareness stirred along her skin and her pulse quickened.

“Is my client under arrest?” her lawyer softly asked, and the FBI man made a sibilant noise of disgust. “In that case, where my client goes is none of the government’s business.”

Redfield stood his ground a moment longer, then turned his head away. “At least let me know where I can get ahold of her.”

“You can reach her through me.” Riley drew a card from his jacket pocket and offered it to the other man in a motion both controlled and graceful. “Right now I’m taking Mrs. Robey and her children someplace where they will be safe and can rest undisturbed. Give it a couple of days and then call my office. If I think Mrs. Robey is up to it, she’ll be available to answer your questions at that time. Now-Mrs. Robey? Shall we go?”

Still caught up in the primal spell of it herself, Summer allowed herself to be towed along for several steps before the realization kicked in that she was being treated exactly as if she were the spoils of that recent masculine power struggle. She halted, more like a balky child than a reluctant bride, and pulled her arm free of Riley Grogan’s grasp. She was obscurely pleased when he stopped and looked back at her in utter astonishment, as if an inanimate object had suddenly acquired legs and voice.

“Excuse me,” she said, “but I would like to know. Where, exactly, are you taking us?”

Riley stepped back and leaned down so that his face was close to hers. “Can we talk about this later? Like…outside?”

It was very quiet in the hallway. On the edges of her vision Summer was intensely aware of her children’s wide-eyed, listening stares, and beyond them, Jake Redfield, alert and interested, his face looking as if it might even smile. She inhaled through her nose, struggling to take in air that had suddenly become thick and warm as fur. “No,” she said, through lips that barely moved, “now…please.”

The silence held for perhaps three suspenseful seconds more. Then Summer felt the breeze of a silent exhalation, and once more the pressure of Riley’s fingers on her elbow. He said to the three interested spectators, with mocking courtesy, “Would y’all please excuse us?” as he drew her with him into the empty rest room and closed the door.

She felt light-headed, her ears were ringing. Afraid to give herself time to think about why that should be so, Summer launched into what she knew was a pointless protest, delivered in harsh whispers. “I’m not about to let you just haul us off without knowing where it is you’re taking us.” I will still have some control over my life I must.

For a long, tense moment he gazed at her, his eyes dark and thoughtful. Then, as if he understood, he suddenly nodded. That astonished her so much that she felt as if the bands that were holding her together inside had just snapped, leaving everything loose and trembly.

“Mrs Robey, you know the situation better than I do. Not only do you have children and animals with particular needs, but there’s the security aspect to be considered. Someone has tried to do you harm. They may do so again.”

“Yes,” Summer whispered, and swallowed. “That’s why I can’t go to my family. Please understand, I can’t take this-my trouble-home to them.”

Again he nodded as if he truly understood. “Which is why I believe I have the only solution. I’m taking you home with me.”

“Home-with you? No.” Instinctive reaction forced the word from Summer’s lips. She repeated it in a whisper, her breath gone. “No. Absolutely not. I can’t-won’t let you do this.”

Pride. Riley’s temper flickered and flared like heat lightning, and he had to turn his back on his client for a moment to let the breezes of reason cool it down. He understood the woman, but that didn’t make dealing with her any easier. In some ways, it may even have made it harder.

He turned to her again, his eyes sliding downward past her face, the dangerous shoals of terrified eyes and a too vulnerable mouth, as he reached for her hands. No-nonsense hands. A doctor’s hands. A mother’s hands. He held them for a moment, feeling their strength, their gentleness, their competence. Then he let them go and slipped his hands to her wrists. A woman’s wrists. He felt their fragility.

“Tell me something,” he said softly. “If you were to break these, what would you do?” She made a small, surprised sound. “No, really-if you were to break both of your arms, say, in a fall, what would you do? Would you hire someone to feed you, dress you, brush your teeth for you? Would you ask a friend?” She shook her head in silent denial and tried to pull her hands away. He held them tighter. “No-better yet, what if you had an illness, a life-threatening illness? Would you consult a doctor?” He knew she was staring at him now, angry but unresisting. Bracing himself, he met the pride and fury and challenge in her eyes with all the strength of his own will. Knowing they were two of a kind. But I’m the stronger, Summer Robey. You may not want to accept it, but it’s true. I’m stronger because I’ve already been through my crucible. And yours is just beginning.

“Say you consulted a doctor. What if he told you you needed rest, treatment, tests-would you take his advice? Would you do what your doctor said? Or would you say, ‘Oh, no, thank you, but I can’t let you do that’?” He’d quoted the last in a feminine falsetto, and almost…almost thought he caught the glimmer of a smile.

If so, she banished it with an in-drawn breath and said flatly, “It’s not the same thing.”

Riley shook his head and lifted her captured wrists so that their eyes waged silent war between them. “Oh, no, Mrs. Robey, it is the same thing. You have a life-threatening situation here, and I’m the doctor who’s going to get you through it. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to relinquish control and put yourself in the doctor’s hands.”

“But…should I do that?” Her wrists jerked in his grasp. “What if he’s wrong? Doctors don’t have all the answers.”

“No, they don’t.” Without realizing it, he’d pulled her hands close to his chest. Now he found himself stroking the quivering tendons in her wrists with the tips of his fingers. His voice emerged unexpectedly thickened. “No, they don’t. But there comes a time when you have to decide whether you trust your doctor or not If you don’t, and you want to live, then you’d better find one you can trust. You follow me? So this is the time. Make up your mind now, Summer Robey. Do you trust me?”