“But you’ve got nerves of steel.”
“Maybe not steel.”
Maggie watched him, her eyes unreadable behind the sunglasses. “For the record, you don’t scare me, either.”
He put his glass down on the table, sat up on the edge of the lounge chair, reached out, and used both hands to remove her sunglasses. There was no laughter in her eyes. She was intent. Serious. Determined.
“What is that supposed to mean?” he said.
“It means I trust you.”
“That’s good,” he said. “That’s very nice.”
“Nice?”
“As far as it goes. I was hoping for more.”
She touched his hand. “How much more?”
He gripped her fingers. “I love you, Maggie. I know it’s too early to say that. You need time. But I’m hoping—dreaming—that maybe you might be able to fall in love with me one of these days.”
Her eyes glowed. “You’re too late.”
“Too late?”
“I’m already there,” she said. “I started falling in love with you the day I hired you.”
“Maggie.”
He got to his feet and pulled her up off the lounge chair. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her there in the warm, golden light of the California sun. When she responded, he knew he was no longer caught in a dream. Maggie was real. Love was real.
After a while he set her gently away from him and willed her to understand what he was about to say.
“Just so you know, I asked Raina Kirk to make some more phone calls,” he said.
Maggie watched him, her eyes shadowed with curiosity and concern.
“Why?” she said.
He told her.
Chapter 50
Maggie was still floating on a tide of joy later that evening when she and Sam joined Raina Kirk and Luther Pell in Pell’s private booth at the Paradise Club. The day had been perfect, and the night was proving to be even better.
The table, located on the mezzanine, overlooked the main floor of the club. The glamorous scene was cloaked in intimate shadows. The mirror ball above the dance floor showered the couples in drops of jeweled light. The orchestra played a torch song.
Maggie was enjoying her pink lady cocktail and listening to Luther Pell discuss the possibility of doing some business with Sage Investigations when Raina delivered her bombshell.
“I made the phone calls you requested, Sam,” Raina said. “Your hunch was right. There is no record of Lillian Dewhurst boarding the ocean liner she was supposed to have sailed on or any other ship that sailed the week she left Adelina Beach. I haven’t been able to locate her, but I’m quite certain she isn’t in the South Pacific.”
Maggie stilled, horrified. “Dear heaven. Dolores Guilfoyle murdered her, too.”
“I don’t think so,” Sam said.
Chapter 51
Lillian opened the door of the beach house, a sad, knowing smile edging her mouth. “I wondered when you two would show up. I’ve been trying to work up the courage to call you, Maggie. Come in.”
