“Is that Bobby?” Teri asked. She noticed that the big guy was walking away.
James nodded.
“Give me the phone,” she said, and James complied. “Bobby?”
“Did they hurt you?”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Teri said. “What’s all this about? Did they threaten you?” She was tempted to race after the big guy and give him a kick he wouldn’t forget. How dare he frighten Bobby this way! “You don’t have anything to worry about,” she assured her husband. “I can take care of myself.”
Bobby didn’t respond.
“Give me James,” he said a moment later.
Teri handed the cell phone back to his driver. The two spoke for a few minutes and then James closed the phone. He offered her a tentative smile. “Nothing’s going to happen,” he announced, his voice trembling.
“Did those gorillas threaten Bobby?” she demanded.
“No,” James said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead. “They threatened you.”
“Me?” she cried. “I’d like to see them try.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” James said in the same shaky voice. “Trust me, you wouldn’t.”
The outrage was building in her. “Who are they?” she demanded. The first thing she intended to do was inform the sheriff and have them arrested for—she didn’t know what but she’d find out. Uttering threats? Blackmail? They were clearly guilty of something.
“I don’t know exactly who they are.” James seemed on the verge of collapse.
Teri took him back inside the shop and into the break room, which had emptied. Jane and Rachel cast her quizzical looks, but she ignored them both.
“That was just to let Bobby know they could get to you anytime they wanted,” James told her.
If this was supposed to frighten Teri, it didn’t. Perhaps she was being foolish, but she really could take care of herself. Bobby had enough on his mind without worrying about her.
As soon as James was seated, Teri poured him a glass of cold water, which he drank in giant gulps.
“All right,” she said angrily. “How much money did they want?”
James stared at her. “They weren’t after money.”
She frowned. What was the point of this charade if it wasn’t money?
“They want Bobby to throw a chess match,” James explained.
That was when Teri started to laugh. “They don’t know, do they?” she said.
“Don’t know what?” James asked.
Teri shook her head. “Don’t they realize how much my husband hates to lose?”
Forty-Six
Justine had arranged to meet Warren Saget at D.D.’s On the Cove. Even now, several days after the shocking revelations, she had difficulty believing he’d set the fire. It tore her up to think he could hurt her like this, and yet in a strange way, it all made sense.
Warren already had a table and was waiting for her when she arrived. He stood as she entered the room and held out a chair for her. This meeting hadn’t been her idea, but she’d agreed to it, although neither Sheriff Davis nor Seth fully understood what they were asking of her.
“I can’t tell you how happy it made me to get your phone call this morning,” Warren said the moment she was seated.
In an effort to hide her uneasiness, Justine reached for the linen napkin and smoothed it across her lap. “I appreciate your willingness to have lunch at the last minute like this.”
“Could I refuse you anything?” Warren asked gallantly. His gaze was warm and appreciative. “I want to be your knight in shining armor—you know that.”
“I do,” she said, and in a flash she understood what had led this man to do the things he’d done. Later, she’d discuss her insight with Seth, but right now she had a role to play.
“What can I do for you?” Warren asked.
Justine mentally reviewed the tips Sheriff Davis had given her to guide the conversation. “I talked with an architect about building the Victorian Tea Room,” she began.
“Fabulous. You do want me to look over the plans, don’t you, and give you a construction bid?”
“That would be wonderful.” She pretended to glance at the menu. “By the way, Seth met with the insurance people this morning, and there’s been an interesting development in the case.”
“Really?”
As she suspected, Warren’s interest was immediately awakened. “It’s all rather complicated.”
“Complicated? How?”
Justine shrugged. “I don’t want to discuss the fire—it upsets me. I still can’t believe anyone would do something like that deliberately.”
Warren nodded. “It’s a cold, dark world out there.”
“There doesn’t seem to be a logical reason anyone would want to hurt us. It just seems…irrational. I mean, there’s no financial gain to be had.”
“So, you think it was personal?” Warren asked.
“What else can I think?” she responded. “Whoever did this must hate me. Whoever did this must’ve been looking for a means to hurt me and my family.”
“Not you, Justine,” Warren said quickly. He glanced down at his own menu.
“Hurt Seth, then?”
“He’s the one who laid off that dishwasher, isn’t he?” Warren muttered.
She leaned toward him and placed her elbows on the table. “That’s the interesting thing about all of this, Warren. Apparently it wasn’t the young man we assumed. We have positive proof that Anson Butler wasn’t involved in the fire.”
Warren frowned. “I thought I read that his cross was found in the ashes.”
“No one ever said it was his cross.” Justine met his gaze.
“Perhaps I’m wrong, but it seems to me I heard that somewhere.”
“You might have,” Justine agreed. “All the evidence certainly pointed to Anson.” Outwardly she remained calm, in contrast with the wild pounding of her heart. Turning to the menu again, she added, “Some other evidence has recently come to light. That’s why Sheriff Davis contacted Seth.”
“What evidence?” Warren asked sharply.
Playing her role to the hilt, Justine looked away and then sighed. “Unfortunately, I’m not at liberty to discuss the details, but from what I understand, it’s pretty damning.” Step by step, she was leading him on, leading him to an admission of guilt.
Alert now, Warren leaned close and lowered his voice. “You can tell me, Justine. I can be trusted.”
“Can you, Warren?” she asked softly. And then, because this was so much more painful than she’d realized it would be, she stopped and swallowed hard. Tears clogged her throat as she thought about the day of her panic attack and how Warren had seen her through it. His kindness had seemed genuine, and yet all along he’d been the one responsible for bringing this sadness and stress into her life.
As best she could, she remained calm and set her menu aside. “I’ll have the crab cakes.”
Warren nodded, but he didn’t appear willing to drop the subject. “Tell me,” he coaxed. “You’ve always been able to trust me. What information does the sheriff have?”
Justine met his gaze. “You honestly think I should tell you?”
“Ah…” He seemed taken aback by that blunt question. “Of course.”
“Really?” She had a hundred other questions she wanted to ask him. More and more she doubted she’d ever have the opportunity. This conversation might be her only chance.
By now, Warren had started to squirm.
“Warren,” she said, looking straight at him, “you should know that the new evidence points directly to you.”
He issued a harsh laugh. “This is a joke, right?”
“I wish it was.” She meant that. “The reason I asked to meet you is so I could find out why you’d do such a thing.”
His eyes widened and he scooted back his chair as if about to flee.
“If I could only ask you one question,” Justine whispered, “it would be this.” She paused, determined not to lose her composu
re. “Why, Warren? Why would you want to destroy the restaurant?”
He’d gone completely pale. He lowered his gaze and seemed to struggle to find the words. “Seeing you with Seth was…hard, knowing you’d chosen him over me. You were the only woman who ever understood me, the only woman who didn’t hold my sexual inadequacies over my head.” The bitterness in his voice was frightening. “I knew I had to find a way to get you back.”
“Oh, Warren.”
“Then that day six or seven months ago when I came in for lunch, I managed to convince you to have a glass of wine with me…”
Justine searched her memory. It’d been the day David Rhodes had come by to have lunch with her grandmother. He’d tried to weasel money out of Charlotte. Justine had been outraged and badly shaken by the events of that afternoon.
“You seemed so tired, so drained.”
“I was,” she agreed but didn’t explain why.
“Seth showed up and when he saw you with me he was—” Warren just shook his head.
Justine remembered that, too. There’d been tension between her and Seth, and they’d had an argument.
“He wore that smug look that told me no matter how much I loved and needed you, you were his and always would be his. Nothing,” he said, “absolutely nothing I did would bring you back to me. At that moment, I knew I had to do something.”
“But burn down the restaurant?”
“I wanted to hurt Seth, not you,” he said, pleading with her like a repentant child. “I could never hurt you.”
“But you did, Warren, you hurt us both.”
He hung his head. “I see that now. But I thought of a way to make it up to you. I’d build you another restaurant, bigger and better than the first one. I’d give you the restaurant of your dreams and then you’d see how much I loved you.”
“Warren, you don’t prove your love by hurting other people.”
He kept his eyes lowered and nodded sadly. “I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Seth and Sheriff Davis walked across the room and stood next to the table. Warren looked up and sighed deeply. “You talked to the dishwasher, didn’t you?” he asked without showing any signs of distress. “He was there that night. He tried to put out the fire.”
“So I understand.” Sheriff Davis removed his handcuffs from his belt. “Warren Saget, you have the right to remain silent….”
“Yes, yes, I know,” he snapped irritably. He stood then and held out his hands. Glaring at Seth, he said, “You could never love her the way I do.”
Justine stood, too, and Seth slipped his arm around her waist. “No one could possibly love my wife more than I do, Warren. I’m sorry it’s come to this.”
“I’ll deny everything,” he sneered. “I have a good attorney.”
“Ah, but we’ve got a confession right here on tape,” Justine said, raising her shirt to reveal the wire taped to her midriff. “We have your confession, Warren, and you made these statements in a public place, in which you couldn’t anticipate privacy. All the bases are covered.”
Sheriff Davis clipped on the handcuffs and with everyone in the restaurant looking on, took Warren away.
“It’s over,” Seth said as he led Justine from the room. The relief in his voice was unmistakable.
“In the end, I nearly couldn’t do it,” she said. “Even knowing what he’d done, I had trouble deceiving him.”
Seth turned to face her. “You still got what we needed, and that was a confession. It didn’t matter how you went about it—all that matters is the end result.”
It wasn’t that she loved Warren, but she pitied him and perhaps she always had.
“I can’t help feeling sorry for him,” she said as Seth opened the car door for her.
They were both silent during the drive home. “It’s sad, you know,” she said once they arrived.
“Don’t tell me you actually pity that slimeball.”
“In a way I do,” she admitted.
Seth didn’t say anything for a long moment. “In a way I do, too.” He smiled at her and together they walked into the house. “We have the whole afternoon to ourselves, don’t we?”
No one had expected Warren’s arrest to go this smoothly. “Yes,” she said.
“We’ve got another two hours before we have to collect Leif.”
Justine threw her arms around her husband’s neck. “Any ideas for what we could do with that time?”
Seth chuckled. “Give me a minute and I might have a suggestion.” Then, without warning, he swept her into his arms and carried her into the bedroom.
“Why, Seth Gunderson,” she said in an exaggerated Southern accent. “Just what do you have in mind?” She fluttered her eyelashes at him.
“I was thinking,” her husband said, a moment before his lips claimed hers, “that this would be the perfect opportunity to work on expanding the family.”
Justine agreed that was a fine suggestion, indeed.
Bobby Polgar studied the note in his hand. He wasn’t a man who understood fear, but he felt it now. Teri’s life was being threatened. His wife and James had been confronted by ruthless men. The message was clear. These men could kidnap Teri at any time and he could do nothing to protect her. The note told him he was to return to 74 Seaside Avenue and wait for further instructions.
ISBN: 978-1-5525-4828-8
DEBBIE MACOMBER’S CEDAR COVE SERIES
Copyright © 2006 by Debbie Macomber.
All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including xerography, photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher, MIRA Books, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
MIRA and the Star Colophon are trademarks used under license and registered in Australia, New Zealand, Philippines, United States Patent and Trademark Office and in other countries.
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About the Author
Debbie Macomber, author of The Shop on Blossom Street, A Good Yarn, Susannah’s Garden and the Cedar Cove series, has become a leading voice in women’s fiction worldwide. There are more than 60 million copies of her books in print and her work has appeared on every major bestseller list, including those of the New York Times, USA Today and Publishers Weekly. She is a multiple award winner. Most recently, her novel 44 Cranberry Point won the 2005 Quill Award for romance.
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