he wasn’t going to be able to. Petra had asked for him. He’d made her a promise. And whether Tamara knew it or not, she was a part of it.
“She told you her name was Petra?” Tamara’s voice was barely audible. “You’re sure?”
“I’m sure,” he said steadily, taking in the rigidity of her posture, the bleakness in those blue eyes now holding his gaze. “Does it make a difference?”
“Claudia’s father died when she was a baby so she never knew him, but she used to say she would name her own child after him when she became a mother,” she rasped. “Peter if she had a son. Petra if her child was a daughter.”
“Then that clinches—” he began, but she cut him off, her voice still low.
“Let me tell you a story, McQueen. It’s about two little girls who’d both lost family and who were both lonely. Except then they met each other, and it was like getting a part of their families back again.”
She smiled crookedly at him. “When they were ten years old, one of them snuck an embroidery needle out of her mom’s sewing box and they gathered up enough nerve to prick their palms with it. It was something they’d read about.” She shrugged. “They clasped their hands together and took a blood oath, promising to be sisters until death. Dumb, huh?”
She was a world away from the tough, helmeted figure who’d bulldozed him out of that room today, Stone thought, watching her. Who was the real Tamara King—the firefighter who put her life on the line everyday without thinking twice about it, or the woman standing only inches away from him, her eyes haunted, her whole body so tense that it seemed as if she was in danger of breaking apart right in front of his eyes?
Maybe she was both. She went on, her tone devoid of emotion.
“Even after we grew up, I knew that no matter what else happened in our lives we would always be able to count on each other. I was wrong. She betrayed me with the man I loved, and I never saw or heard from either of them again.”
Her voice was a fraying thread. “So tell me, McQueen—if she was dying, if she was out of her mind with worry for the child she was going to be leaving behind—why would she come back to me?”
She shook her head decisively. “She wouldn’t. Don’t you see? It wasn’t Claudia. Claudia didn’t come to Boston looking for my help. She didn’t die in that rooming house today, worried and frightened and hoping for my forgiveness.”
Her eyes, blue and glittering, were fixed on his. Stone took a step toward her, feeling all at once too big and too clumsy. “I wish I could tell you different, but I can’t.”
Awkwardly he reached out for her, but even as his hands clasped her shoulders she stiffened and struck them away.
“You have to tell me different!” The harsh whisper seemed torn from her throat. “No matter what happened between us, I don’t think I could bear it if I thought that was how it ended for her!”
“She died in her sleep, overcome by the smoke. She would have died hoping the bond between the two of you still held. She would have been right,” he added huskily.
This time when his hands went to her shoulders she did nothing. The brilliance overlaying her gaze wavered and became a shimmer, but he knew with sudden certainty that she wasn’t going to allow herself to cry.
“I think I knew it was her as soon as I saw the child, but I wouldn’t let myself believe it.” Her voice cracked. “Do you want to hear why, McQueen?”
I think I already know, honey, he thought, sudden self-loathing sweeping over him. What was it he’d so recklessly accused her of only half an hour ago—that she wanted to look into the destruction? That she thought she might see her own face staring back?
Tamara King had already stared into the heart of darkness. She’d already recognized it in herself. The knowledge was tearing her apart.
“Why couldn’t you let yourself believe it?” he asked tonelessly.
“Because I hadn’t forgiven her,” she whispered, her eyes wide with pain. “And if there hadn’t been a fire and she’d phoned today asking to see me, I would have turned her down. What kind of a monster does that make me?”
“It doesn’t make you a monster.” He tightened his grip on her. “It makes you a human being, dammit. And you wouldn’t have turned her down…not if you’d known you were her last hope.”
“It would be nice to think that.” She shrugged. “I’ll never know for sure, will I?”
Her eyes held his for a final moment. Then she squared her shoulders, stepping out of his embrace as she did.
And that’s the end of show and tell, boys and girls, Stone thought disconcertedly, feeling as if she’d placed a firm palm on his chest and physically pushed him away. Pack up your feelings and lock them away real tight, so no one gets a chance to see them again. She was already regretting that she’d revealed herself. She was already a little angry he hadn’t stopped her.
“Sorry. I had no right to dump all my emotional baggage on you like that,” she said flatly. “What we should get straight is how we’re going to answer any questions Petra has about her mom’s death. I’m with Lieutenant Boyleston on this one, McQueen. I can’t see how you came to the conclusion it was arson, and I don’t want Petra to start believing that. I think it’s best to tell her it was just a terrible accident, without bringing in your theories or mine.”
“Your theory being what?” Funny, Stone thought. He’d been taken aback when he’d seen the flash of dubiousness in Chandra’s glance as she’d promised to pass on his suspicions to the investigative team. But Tamara’s offhand dismissal of his assessment touched a fuse inside him. “She fell asleep with a cigarette in her hand?”
“It happens, tragically.” She shot him a glance. “Claudia did smoke, McQueen—only occasionally, and only when she was stressed, but judging from what was going on in her life lately I’d say stress had to be present. It all fits.”
“Yeah, it fits.” He bit off the words. “And that worries me even more. That means the torch watched her long enough to know her habits.”
She arched her brows. “Let’s face it, McQueen, it doesn’t really matter what you or I think. I’m just a jakey, like you used to be, and neither one of us is qualified to give an opinion. We’ll leave it up to the experts.” Her gaze clouded. “Whatever their final verdict, it won’t bring her back.”
“Nothing can do that,” he agreed tersely. “You don’t know who I am, do you? Who I was,” he corrected, watching her. At her blankly inquiring look he shook his head. “Of course you don’t. I must have been just before your time. I started out as a firefighter, honey, but I didn’t end up as one—and that’s why I’ll back my assessment of that fire against a dozen of your so-called experts.”
“You were an arson investigator?” There was enough disbelief in her tone that despite himself he winced.
Okay, so maybe he couldn’t blame her for taking him at face value. And at face value, he guessed he looked pretty much like what he’d become—a man who’d washed his hands of the world, a man the world had forgotten, too. When she’d come across him in that rooming house it must have seemed to her that he’d fit right in.
