by Lori Ryan
Collin stuck a thumb in his mouth—something he knew drove her nuts since he was now six years old—and said what she thought was the word “videos” around the appendage.
“Okay, I’ll take him,” she said calmly, a little proud of herself for staying cool and not catering to Collin to try to get the tantrum to end sooner. There was a time when she couldn’t resist trying to soothe him, which was probably why he was still acting this way. They both had some growing to do.
Kitten danced and spun on his small feet when she opened the crate door and then jump/walked his way to the back door. The dog didn’t really have a walk mode or a run mode. He had his jump/walk where he focused half his energy on trying to jump around your legs and half on moving forward. His other mode was leap mode where he jumped like a mini deer through the grass. It was pretty damned adorable.
“Come on, baby,” she said, “out you go.”
The dog himself couldn’t really be described as cute. They hadn’t named him kitten because he was soft and furry and pretty. He was likely some kind of cross between a Border Terrier and a Yorkie or Silkie. The mix sounded like it would be cute, but the rough hair of the Border Terrier mixed with the softer hair of the Yorkie or Silkie meant he had some tufts of hair that slicked down and other tufts of hair that stood up on end. The resulting dog looked like a half-drowned kitten. Hence the name.
Merritt watched as Kitten sniffed in the yard and did his business. Collin was still screaming behind her. She looked at her tablet screen and saw the results of the property search she’d initiated back at the scene of the fire.
Sure enough, the house was a rental, owned by someone else. Merritt pulled up the details and cross checked with a search of the White Pages—yes, they still existed online.
Mrs. Jaylen Johnson currently resided in an assisted living center ten minutes away from where Merritt and Collin were renting their house.
Merritt looked down at Collin. If he ended this tantrum any time soon, maybe she could see if her neighbor could watch him while she ran over to interview the homeowner. They’d gotten to know each other and the older woman had said she was willing to help Merritt if she needed it.
Unless, of course, the whole neighborhood was listening to this and no one within a ten-block radius would babysit for her now.
It seemed likely.
Chapter Four
Eric’s mood lifted slightly when they entered the bullpen. He had been able to straighten out his mother’s housing bill on the drive over and confirm with the nurse on duty that they had only been calling about the bill. His mother was fine and he was happy to ignore the judgmental tone the woman used. He didn’t care what they thought of the fact he didn’t visit his mother.
He and John got back to the department just in time to see Nate Ryder discover Eric’s latest outfit for the stress ball. The blue gel ball had started as a way for Nate to keep his hands busy and was now a source of entertainment for the whole division.
Nate was another detective in the Major Crimes Unit. Eric had resisted the temptation to defile the stress ball for as long as he could when Nate first started carrying it around a year or so back. Eventually, though, he’d given in and snatched the ball when Nate was out on a call.
At first, he only hid the ball, letting Nate find it in strange places like the refrigerator or the men’s showers. Eventually, he started dressing it up. One day, it had worn dark-rimmed glasses to look like Gabe Calder of the Major Crimes Unit, only it was also wearing pink lipstick and a dress. Another day, he’d put it into a tiny glittery top and hot pink miniskirt.
Today, he’d made it a little Tina Turner wig that stuck straight up and had painted a big red smile and made up eyes on its face.
Of course, Nate was a lot harder to rile these days. He had started dating a forensic scientist recently and walked around with a goofy-ass smile on his face most days.
Nate tugged at the tuft of hair and glared at Eric. “Did you glue it on, asshole?”
Eric only grinned in response. He had.
Nate lobbed the ball at Eric, who caught it one-handed but tossed it off to John right away. The Turner outfit wouldn’t last long with the guys continuing to use it as a stress ball, but he didn’t care. He already had another outfit for it lined up. And he’d never tell Nate, but he had three new lookalike stress balls waiting in his bottom drawer. He knew it was only a matter of time before his abuse destroyed this one. John threw the ball to Mason as Eric took a seat at his desk.
He pulled up his computer screen and started to scroll through emails as Harry and Gabe walked over to the group. Harry was short for Delaney Harrison, a tough-as-nails detective who had the kind of looks that stopped men in their tracks. They often put those looks to work with witnesses and suspects alike, even though they respected her mind and her importance on the team.
Her partner, Gabe, was one of the unit who’d recently fallen in love. He’d met the woman he was now living with when she was his only witness on a murder case. Not exactly something the department endorsed, but Gabe hadn’t cared. To hear him tell it, he’d fallen in love with the woman at first sight.
Eric looked around. It occurred to him that he was surrounded by lovesick fools. There was a time when most of the unit was like him. They understood the best thing for most cops was to avoid hoping for a relationship. To be realistic about what they could and couldn’t expect from the opposite sex. Or from the same sex, if that’s the way they swung. But most of them knew better than to hope for that happily-ever-after the rest of the world was always looking for.
Until recently. There had to be something in the water. Eric put down the water bottle he’d just picked up and made a mental note to grab a soda on the way out of the building.
“Forensics find anything new at today’s fire?” Gabe asked.
John shook his head. “Not so far, other than the fact this home is lived in. Same MO as the others. Fire began in a closet. Our guy spread lighter fluid around as he left the building to make sure the fire spread.”
Lighter fluid could be bought in any number of stores. Grocery, big box, hell, even a sporting goods store. Unless someone bought it by the case and paid for it with a credit card, it was an easy untraceable way to start a fire. And getting it to the scene was no big deal. You could pour it into one of those metal water bottles people carried with them everywhere nowadays and no one would know you were carrying a quart of accelerant.
“No one saw him coming or going?” Harry asked, lines appearing between her brows as she frowned. “We heard the call come in. That neighborhood seems like the type to have a neighborhood watch.”
Eric shook his head. “No little old lady watching the neighborhood with binoculars. At least not that the uniforms had found before we left. We’ll do another round of canvasing, but it seems like the neighborhood is pretty empty. Nice neighborhood but not wealthy enough for anyone to be home during the day. Two people working in most households, I’m guessing.” He didn’t have to say that it was also not the kind of place they’d find cameras.
“Merritt McKenna was there,” John said. “She made the connection to the other fires right away.”
Eric purposefully didn’t look up from his computer.
“No one reads print newspapers anymore,” Harry offered.
Eric looked up at that. “Her articles are posted online, too, and she’s gotten a lot more comments on them recently. It wouldn’t surprise me if people start to notice, especially now that we have a fire in an occupied home in a decent neighborhood.”
He saw his mistake right away. John was grinning at him as he jumped on it.
“Watching her online?”
Eric snorted and turned away, focusing his attention back to his emails as he mumbled about his partner gossiping. His team was turning into a bunch of pansies.
Eric opened an email he hoped would have the details of the owner of the house in it. Bingo. “Owner of our newest arson is a Mrs. Jaylen Johnson. Lives over in
the assisted living home on West 5th.”
John still wore a smirk as he grabbed the keys to their unit and followed Eric out of the building. He waited until they were in the car and on the road before pushing it.
“So, seriously, you gonna tell me what has your panties in such a bunch over this reporter? You never have this kind of reaction to other reporters, no matter how bad they got over a story.”
Eric ground down on his teeth. At this rate, he’d need dentures when this was over. How many times had he accused John of having his panties in a bunch? He should have known it would come around to bite him in the ass one of these days.
“You slept with her, didn’t you?” John asked when Eric didn’t answer.
Well, fuck.
“Why do you guys always assume I slept with everyone in a skirt around here?” Eric griped.
John only laughed.
His partner was right. Eric earned the reputation, fair and square. In fact, there was a time he’d liked it. Lately, it irked him.
Maybe because he hadn’t earned it lately. When was the last time he went to a bar and picked up a stranger?
He knew the answer. Knew damned well it was Merritt. She was the last woman he’d slept with and didn’t that just suck?
“She didn’t tell me who she was.”
John nodded as he slapped the turn signal and changed lanes. “And that pisses you off.”
It was a statement not a question. They both knew honesty was tantamount to all in Eric’s world. When he’d seen Merritt standing in the press group two days after they’d hooked up at the bar—a bar that was a known cop hangout—he’d seen red. When he confronted her, she swore she wasn’t trying to trick him or set him up as a source but he didn’t buy it.
Everyone knew that bar was where cops went and she’d made a beeline for him when she came in the door. At the time, he had gotten off on that. What an ass he was. He should have grown out of the badge bunny stage years ago.
Eric’s phone buzzed, saving him from the lecture he could see his partner was gearing up for.
Eric was really in the reaping what he’d sown stage of life. He’d always been the guy on the force trying to make sure all the other guys talked about their feelings. That shit was coming back to haunt him now, and it sucked.
He looked at the screen and pulled up a document one of the tech guys had sent over.
“Looks like two of the properties where our arsonist has struck have the same realtor associated with them. The guy had a listing to sell two of the houses before they were abandoned. It’s a slim connection but it’s all we’ve found so far.”
John nodded as he pulled into the parking lot of the assisted living home. The place was small but looked well-kept and neat. A two-story building with red brick, black shutters, and shrubs planted along the front of the building on either side of the white double doored entry. The paint of the shutters and doors looked like it might be new, or at least recent. The lawn hadn’t turned brown in the Colorado sun so they were watering it regularly. That would change if the threatened water restrictions went into place. They were headed into drought territory.
They were crossing the parking lot when Eric saw it. He recognized the dent on the back corner and the little dinosaur family of two on the back windshield.
Merritt McKenna’s little Nissan was parked in the lot outside.
Chapter Five
“I smell it on you, Willie. What have you been doing?”
He turned at the sound of his mother’s question, surprised to find her in the room with him. He hadn’t thought she was there.
“Answer me, Willie,” she said in response to his silence.
He hated the name. It was a baby name. Not his name now. Not anymore.
“Nothing mom. It’s nothing.” He lifted the watering can and watered the last of the plants. He had this idea that if he kept life going around her as much as possible, she might come back to him, so he did his best to keep her plants alive.
“I smell smoke. That smell doesn’t leave you if you’ve been through what I’ve been through. You remember it forever.”
He nodded, a jerky movement. She didn’t understand. The fire scared her. Always had. She couldn’t control it the way he could. That made her afraid. But he controlled it for her. He had been there to protect her from it.
“You have to stay away from fire, Will. I can’t go through that again.”
“Yes, mom,” he said, nodding more smoothly now. She wasn’t ready to learn his secret. She wasn’t ready to see how he could control it. When she was ready, he would teach her and then she’d be even more proud of him than she had been that day.
Chapter Six
Eric had to hold back the urge to storm through the little building, shouting for Merritt. He couldn’t believe she’d beat them here and was inside talking to their witness before them. The words when would this woman learn her place went through his head before he heard what he’d thought and checked himself. What the hell was happening to him? He was turning into an asshole with thoughts like that.
When the woman from the front desk showed them to Mrs. Johnson’s room, they saw the door was ajar and found Merritt and Mrs. Johnson on the couch. Merritt was handing the woman a tissue and patting her back.
“Hank and I were only in that house for five years. We raised our babies back home in Georgia, but he hand-crafted all the built-in shelves and put in a little eating nook. What do they call that? A Breakfast nook? Hand carved that table by himself after he retired. It just didn’t seem right to sell it but I couldn’t afford to leave it settin’ empty after I moved in here,” Mrs. Johnson was saying.
Eric forced a calm and professional tone to his voice as he interrupted. “Mrs. Johnson. I’m detective Eric Cantu and this is my partner, John Sevier. We’d like to talk to you about the fire at your house this morning.” He resisted the urge to glare at Merritt even though it should have been he and John breaking the news about the house fire to her.
He knew from the information he’d pulled up that Jaylen Johnson was seventy-three. Her skin didn’t show nearly the number of wrinkles he would expect for a woman that age. It was smooth and dark, with the kind of lines around the mouth and eyes that said she had laughed often in her life. Her hair was short and gray, her hands showing the effects of arthritis in the large knuckles.
Merritt moved to stand, but Mrs. Johnson put up her hand. “Can my friend stay?”
Eric felt like his face might freeze and fall off his damned head. His captain’s orders hadn’t included letting the reporter sit in on their interviews. “No, I’m afraid we can’t allow that.”
Not that he wouldn’t have let any other friend of the woman’s stay had it been someone else comforting her when they arrived. But there was no way in hell he was letting the reporter sit in on his interview.
He could feel John’s amusement beside him even though he knew his partner was too professional to let it show. John was enjoying this all just a little too much. They needed to have a talk.
“I’ll just wait out in the rec room, Mrs. Johnson.”
Merritt met his gaze with a look of, what? Protective warning. What did she think he was going to do? Beat the woman for information about her house?
He stepped to the door to watch and see that Merritt walked back down the hall. When she got to the end of the hall, she turned and gave him a wave that clearly said, “see, this is me walking away, just like I said I would.”
John was already sitting by Mrs. Johnson, starting the interview, so Eric stayed near the door. He listened as John explained that they didn’t know much yet, but that they were working to discover who had set her place on fire.
“That nice reporter said no one was hurt?” Mrs. Johnson looked from John to Eric and back again. “The people renting the place have two young boys. I liked knowing there were kids in it again.”
Eric wondered where her Hank was and knew he was probably dead, if he wasn’t here with her in the
home. The way she spoke as though the two of them had been a pair rather than two independent people made him think they were married a long time and if Hank could be there with her, he would.
He wondered if they’d been the type who lived with rose colored glasses, each thinking the other was honest. Or maybe they’d been the kind of couple who knew about each other’s faults but didn’t care about them. There was always the slim possibility they fell into the small category of people who truly had an honest, faithful, and loving marriage together. He didn’t dwell long on that.
John began taking Mrs. Johnson through their questions, asking about insurance and caretakers for the property.
Eric slipped out of the room and went down the hall to find the rec room where Merritt said she’d wait. Two turns following signs with little arrows led him to the room. It was filled with small groupings of overstuffed chairs whose fabric was threadbare but looked clean. There were a few card tables and coffee tables, all inhabited with what appeared to be the residents of the home. Walkers and canes were regular fixtures in the place and Eric saw that several of the residents sat in wheelchairs instead of in the room’s permanent furnishings.
Merritt was scrolling through her phone, looking harried as though juggling numerous tasks and he wondered if she had cracked something else in his case. Who knew, maybe she had another lead she was anxious to track down.
He felt the anger in him that he’d experienced when he first saw her in the press pool. Not only had she tried to sucker him into a relationship without being up front about who and what she was, she was now one step ahead of them, getting in the way of their investigation.
He crossed the room in two strides, bending over the chair she sat in. “If you’re hunting up another way to get in the way of this investigation, you can forget about it. We were told to share information with you when it’s appropriate. Emphasis on the appropriate, lady. What you’re doing is out of line.”