“You need to be home for the reading of the will,” he said, ticking the points off on his fingers. “Second, your friends are worried. Third, you’re a murder suspect.”
She went pale, and staggered as if she’d been shoved from behind. “I’m a…a what?”
“Murder suspect.” For some reason, the vindictive relish he’d felt when hearing that news dimmed in the face of her reaction. She looked as if she’d been punched.
“But I would never…You know I wouldn’t…couldn’t…”
“It doesn’t matter what I know or what I think. It’s about what the police think. I managed to find out some things. They have your hair and blood at the crime scene, or so I’ve been told.” He crossed his arms over his chest. “I’m not saying I believe you or them, but I do know you need to come back. Whatever trouble there is, you’ve got other matters to attend to.”
“What other matters?”
“Not my business to tell you, but Todd left you something in his will.” He frowned to think of all she was going to inherit. He really didn’t think she was capable of putting a bullet in Todd, but he didn’t like her, or trust her either.
“What?” She strode toward him, standing in front of him, her own arms crossed. “What could he possibly leave me? He long ago paid any debt to me, which I never thought he owed in the first place, by the way. You know I never expected anything from him.”
“You took it, though,” he snapped.
“I offered to pay him back, every time I saw him,” she fired back. “I’ve saved a lot of money, thinking that one day he’d take me up on it.”
“Not Todd.” That thought broke his anger. It was stupid to blame Torie. Todd did what he wanted to do. Paul knew it, but Torie was a handy target for his grief.
“No.” She shook her head, turned to look at the sea. He followed her gaze and they both watched a V of pelicans skim the wave tops and disappear around the spit of land toward town. “But thanks to him, I have a great retirement fund.”
Paul nearly told her she wouldn’t need it.
“Come on, let’s get out of this wind.” He took her elbow and steered her toward the parking lot. His car was the only one there, so she must have walked. She waited unspeaking, as he shook the sand out of his cuffs. She kept a cautious distance between them as they walked to the car.
“Get in.” He held open the door, but she shook her head.
“I’ll walk. It’s about a block. I’m all sandy.” She pointed to a bed-and-breakfast facing the street with blue shutters and a Canadian flag flapping in the breeze below the North Carolina flag. “I’m staying at the inn.”
“It’s a rental,” he indicated the car. “It’ll manage some sand.”
“No.”
His blood pressure spiked as she turned and left. He had to forcibly stop himself from grinding his teeth.
He let her get a bit of a start as he brushed more sand off his clothes, then got the car turned toward the hotel. He needed time to compose himself. She still got under his skin every time. The years hadn’t dimmed his response to her. He still wanted her.
The difference was now he knew better than to come anywhere near her.
Especially now when he was, for all intents and purposes, her lawyer.
Oh, and there was that murder suspect thing. The sarcastic thought got him past his anger, and with a sigh, he parked the car. He had to stop thinking of her as anything but a client in trouble at this point. He had to divorce himself from the Torie with whom he had a past, think of her as someone else.
Pacing the porch he cleared his mind, tried to see her in a different way, to separate her from Todd, from college, grad school, and from his life. Clean slate. It took him a few moments, but he managed to adjust his attitude, at least a little bit, by the time he walked in.
Remember, she’s a client. Remember, she’s a client. Clients pay the bills. Clients are good, ergo, Torie is good.
The image which leapt to mind about Torie being good had nothing to do with virtue and everything to do with vice.
“Stop it,” he muttered to himself as he opened the door. “Remember, she’s a client.”
She’d waited for him in the lobby, and they mounted the generous main steps to a lovely sitting area. A fire burned in the fireplace, taking the chill off the room.
“Torie?”
“In a minute. You want coffee?”
“Yeah, that’d be good.” He leaned on the mantel as she poured from a thermal carafe, added two sugars, and handed it to him. “You remember how I take it?”
Torie looked at him, surprised. “Yeah, that’s one of the crazy things about me. I forget a lot of things, and like anyone, there’s things I’d prefer to forget that I can’t, but I always remember phone numbers and how people take their coffee or tea.” She sipped from her mug. “Go figure.”
He tamped down a snarky comment and went for bland. “Handy if you want to go into politics or catering, I guess.”
She laughed. “There’s a thought, if I ever want to give up engineering. Problem is I’m a horrible cook.”
“Good businesswoman, though, from what I hear.”
Her face was a study in surprise. “Thank you, I guess. Who’d you hear that from?”
“From Todd, of course, and from some clients who use our services and also use your firm, and from the Chamber folks.”
“The Chamber of Commerce guys? Alex and Tom?”
“Yeah, you get saddled with a lot of the public relations, I take it.”
She grimaced, and he had to smile. He’d forgotten how mobile her face was, how quickly she could go from looking like a calm society debutante to making a goofy face. She’d entertained Todd to no end with the impressions she could do.
Thinking about it made his heart clench. His best friend was dead, and he was standing alone in a room with the woman suspected of murdering him.
“How quickly can you pack?” he asked, trying to keep his thoughts out of his voice.
Torie looked at him, her eyes sad. She set the cup down. “I won’t be long. Make yourself at home.”
Spinning on her heel, she left the room. Because the house was so quiet, he heard the rattle of the door opening and closing. Muffled and distant, he heard the unmistakable sound of her blowing her nose.
Crap. He hadn’t meant to make her cry.
Or maybe he had. God. She’d already driven him to drink on more than one occasion. Maybe he needed therapy.
The only trace of tears he could see when she came out, though, was in her refreshed makeup and slightly reddened nose.
“Okay. Let’s go.” She hefted a briefcase onto her shoulder.
“Just like that?”
She looked exasperated. “You want me to hurry, then you ask me how I can be ready so quickly? Which is it, Paul? What, do you want me to give you another reason to dislike me by being slow?”
“No, not at all.” He sighed. “I don’t dislike you, Torie. You know that.”
“Oh, sure,” she scoffed. “I know that by the way you avoid me, make such friendly remarks when you do see me, and generally speak ill of me to all and sundry.”
“I do not,” he protested, stung, as he picked up her rolling bag.
“Um hmm.” Her muttered rejoinder was as mocking as any biting words. She excused herself at the bottom of the stairs to locate the innkeepers and check out. She efficiently settled her bill and joined him in the lobby. He loaded her bag into her rental car for her, and they drove separately to the Wilmington airport.
“I don’t know when the next flight out is. I’ll be on it and back in Philly as soon as I can.”
“I booked you on the same flight as mine.”
A mutinous look crossed her face, but she didn’t speak. It was interesting to watch the feelings skate across her mobile features. Irritation, anger, hurt, and finally resignation.
“Fine.”