On Fire(35)

"You look like you could use a whole pot of coffee."

"I'll be along."

"You're sure?"

She nodded.

"Tell the rest of the crowd Sig's okay, will you? Then send them home.

Henry's ready to fire me as it is." She breathed in.

"Forget Straker. It won't matter what you tell him. He's going to do what he's going to do."

"He's always been that way," her mother said.

After they left, Riley moved next to her sister and tried to let the  relief she knew she should be feeling register. Her mind was all set:

Sig was okay. She hadn't died. She hadn't lost her babies.

Intellectually, Riley could grasp those basic facts.

But the rest of her was still in battle mode. She was tense and shaken,  her guard up. This was her sister, and she'd nearly lost her tonight.  She remembered Sig after the Encounter, the mix of horror and relief as  she'd faced her father-in-law's death and the accusations over Emile's  culpability.

Her mother was right, Riley thought. She was guilty as charged. She  never should have come up here with Sig, despite the fact that her  sister had a mind of her own and preferred to make her own decisions.

"Jesus."

She spun around. Matt was frozen in the doorway, white-faced. He stared  at his wife. Riley shot over to him, put a palm on his chest.

"Don't you dare go berserk on her. Do you understand? If you do, I swear  I'll get the sheriff in here and have him haul you off."

His very blue eyes settled on Riley in confusion. The fury of earlier in  the evening was gone. "Riley-my God, what happened? I saw Abigail.

She said Sig's okay, you two were in Emile's cottage when it caught fire."

"We had to bail out the loft window. It was rougher on Sig than me."

He tried to take another step toward her bed, but Riley still had her palm on his chest and moved with him. He looked at her.

"What? For God's sake, I'm not a maniac. Sig and I have our problems, but she's my wife."

"And she's my sister. If you do anything to upset her. Granger, you'll  have me to answer to. I don't care if I'm a foot shorter and a gazillion  dollars poorer. I will strike you down. No matter what.

Understood? " '" Riley, what the hell are you talking about? I know  you've had a shock, but"-He stopped. He went still, his gaze riveted on  his wife. Riley held her breath, waiting. If possible, he turned even  paler. The fine lines at the corners of his eyes stood out, his mouth  was drawn, and she saw touches of gray in the stubble of beard on his  patrician jaw.

She let her hand drop away. He moved forward, slowly, and as much as  Riley knew this wasn't any of her business, she couldn't leave. Her  brother-in law had behaved miserably, even bizarrely, for the better  part of a year. A man was dead, two fires unexplained. She couldn't rely  on Matt's good sense, his love of her sister. She had to make sure he  didn't do anything stupid.

"Sig." He spoke in a croaking whisper, placed a hand gently on her swollen abdomen.

"Jesus, Sig."

Riley shrank back to the door. She felt like a voyeur.

"You really didn't know?"

He shook his head, not taking his eyes off his wife.

"She hasn't told anyone. She didn't even tell me, but I figured it out. She went to great lengths to keep you from finding out."                       
       
           



       

"Why?"

He really didn't get it. Riley decided this wasn't the time to point out what a jackass he'd been for months on end.

"Would it have changed anything?"

"I love Sig. I'd die for her."

"Yeah, well, tonight she almost died for you."

It was a damned, stupid, inconsiderate thing to say, but it had been a  hell of a night and Riley instantly forgave herself. Matt, however,  wasn't in a similar frame of mind. He shot her a black look.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means," Straker said behind her, "that sucking in a couple of lung  fulls of smoke didn't do anything for her big mouth. Come on, Granger.

You and I need to talk. "

"I want to stay with my wife."

Riley gritted her teeth. As if Matt had any damned right. And who was Straker to barge in and take over?

She could feel her knees starting to shake again. She wanted to slap  them both. She was indignant, furious. Yet some part of her warned her  she was done in, getting more unreasonable by the minute, that stress  and fear and all the damned smoke she'd sucked in were making her  irrational.

"They've got a room for her," Straker said.

"Let them get her settled."

Reluctantly, Matt nodded. He leaned over and kissed Sig gently, touched  her hair, her stomach once more. And he went quietly, without a parting  glance at Riley.

Straker hung back a moment and thrust a finger at her.

"You. Sit down before you collapse. I'll be back."

He left. She pulled up a chair to her sister's bed and plopped down, and  not because Straker had told her to. Another minute on her feet and  she'd collapse and end up on an IV herself.

Sig opened an eye.

"He's gone?"

"Sig!"

She propped herself up on one elbow, no color in her elegant, angular face.

"Bastard. I hope he feels as rotten as he sounded."

"Sig, you scared him half to death." "Then it was almost worth having to jump out that damned window.

God, my ankle's killing me. Did you push me off the roof? "

"Not really."

She fell back against her pillow, managed a feeble smile.

"He hasn't touched me in months. When I felt his hand on my stomach...!  was ready to forgive him everything." Her eyes closed; she was deathly  pale.

"Go tell him I hate him, will you?"

"Sure, Sig. Before or after I tell him you love him?"

"Turncoat."

"Well, at least you don't have the burden of keeping your pregnancy a secret anymore. Now everyone knows."

"Lucky me."

A nurse ran Riley out, but not before Sig warned her to watch herself.

"We cut it close tonight. Too close."

Riley nodded.

"I know."

Straker thrust a cardboard cup of coffee at Matt Granger.

"You look like hell."

"I imagine so."

He sipped the coffee, Straker suspected, more because he knew he needed  the caffeine than out of any real taste for it. They were outside the  emergency room. Richard St. Joe had already managed to get Granger's  sister and stepmother and Henry Armistead to go home. Mara had gone up  to see Sig. God only knew where Riley was. She might stay put and wait  for him. She might not. He couldn't predict.

"It's not easy to love a St. Joe," Granger said. Even stretched to the  limits, he had a patrician air to him, a private-school bearing.

He wasn't a regular guy, but he wasn't a jerk, either.

"Thanks for your help. I thought Riley'd eat me alive. Sig...

Jesus."

"Hell of a way to learn you're going to be a father."

Granger blew on his coffee.

"I never wanted the two of them involved in this business. That's why I  got some distance. I should have known better, especially when Sam"

-He broke off, fatigue and worry, probably even embarrassment, obviously clawing at him.

"It would be Riley who found him."

"Look, Granger, they're not the only ones out of their element. So are you." Straker gave it to him straight.

"You need to back off and leave this mess to the pros."

The clear blue eyes turned cold. "What makes you think I've done anything?"

He seemed genuinely mystified. Straker said, "Sam Cassain came to you  for help. Money. He wanted to bring up the Encounter, at least the  engine. You financed him."                       
       
           



       

"If I did, it's not against the law."

"If you did, it got Cassain killed, and now Emile's missing."

Granger held his head up, almost haughtily.

"Are you suggesting I had anything to do with Sam's death? That I killed him?"

"No. He probably used you for his own ends. I think you've got your  finger in the dike, and you're hoping you and your world don't drown  before you have a chance to figure things out." Straker paused, gave him  a chance to digest what he was saying. "Tonight you almost lost  everything."

"And you suggest I do what? Leave it to you to bring Emile in? Leave it  to Sheriff Dorrman? Emile's a madman. He's past caring about anyone  except himself. Who the hell do you think set that fire tonight? Me?  No." He threw his coffee into a bush. He was deadly calm, rational,  certain.

"It was Emile." "Did Cassain come to see you last week?" Straker asked.

"Did he bring up the Encounter's engine? Did he get his proof against Emile?"

Granger had turned him off. He started down the walk toward the parking  lot. He was a proud man, rich as sin, fighting shadows and demons and  determined to slay them all before they could reach those he loved. But  they already had, only he still couldn't stop. Straker understood.