Fire Setters: A Shane Investigations: A gripping crime thriller filled with heart-melting romance and mystery

by Debra Erfert

  “You have a very responsible partner. Liz got the Leavitts’ number from your cell when she was at the hospital tonight.” He lowered his voice when he said, “Liz was very torn up after seeing what was left of your apartment.”

  “Did she tell you what it looked like?”

  “How about we discuss it tomorrow,” Alex suggested. He didn’t want her to have the destroyed images in her head before she went to sleep.

  “Okay,” Candice whispered. “Good idea.” She pointed to a small road before the garages. “Turn right here and follow the road around the back.”

  “I have the next three days off,” Alex said, taking the turn down the narrow paved road. “I can stay with you and help out any way you want.”

  “After you do your chores,” she said. “I wouldn’t want your horse to feel neglected or hungry because of me.”

  “Don’t worry about Beau. All my horses will be fed and happy before I come over,” Alex said quietly. “Holy cow! That’s a guest house?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “It has a double car garage. I mean, it looks like a regular house,” he said, pulling in front of the garage. The motion of the truck tripped the automatic sensors and turned on several exterior lights, flooding the dark, landscaped grounds.

  “Grandfather would have clients from all over the world come and stay while he worked on their building plans, and he wanted them to feel at home. It has everything a house has, including a washer and dryer and a fabulous walk-in shower, which I am going to make use of as soon as I step through the door,” she said, sniffing her jacket sleeve. Abruptly changing the subject while taking out the guesthouse’s key from her purse, “Alex, I want to go into the department tomorrow and check on the status of the bullets.”

  “We can call Detective Donovan and ask him.” Alex took the key ring out of her hand before he got out and walked around to her door. “You should probably rest up tomorrow. Take a break and let your fingers heal.”

  “I’d rather do it myself,” Candice mumbled as he took her backpack from her hand. After Alex unlocked the front door, Candice flipped on the light switch inside the doorway. “Here, put that on the breakfast bar. I need to check my computer. I hit Devin Metz pretty hard.”

  Alex set the backpack on the smooth granite countertop and unzipped the main compartment. “Hard enough to raise a lump on the side of his head.” He took out her laptop and set it on the counter before lifting the lid. The screen immediately lit.

  “The screen isn’t broken. Everything looks good.” Candice sat on the barstool and moved the computer in front of her. “The charge is at fifty percent, and I lost the power cord in the fire. I’ll need to get a new one tomorrow.”

  “That’s little price to pay,” Alex said, standing behind her with his hands on her shoulders.

  “Especially since this has all my files in it. My evidence is on its hard drive.” Candice blew out a tired-sounding breath.

  Alex slid his arms around her, embracing her. “You need to sleep for a while, sweetheart. We can pick this up again in the morning.”

  “If my new home doesn’t catch on fire between now and then,” Candice whispered harshly.

  Alex turned her around, wrapping his arms around tightly around her back. “I thought I’d lost you,” he fervently whispered.

  “You almost did, but when you went back inside that inferno . . . Candice gasped in a deep, shuddering breath, “I thought I lost you. When you didn’t come back out immediately, I thought you’d been overcome by smoke and . . .” Alex held her tighter. “My heart was breaking.”

  “I love you, Candice,” he said, kissing his way to her lips.

  Chapter 18

  CANDICE CURLED UP on the soft couch, drinking a delicious hot mug of Swiss Miss, and watching the local news. Sleeping had become too difficult when all she could think about was her apartment fire, and then her thoughts wandered to the Leavitts’ fire—and the young boys who started it. They all had to be connected—she was sure of it—including the shot that wounded her. It would be too much of a coincidence for them to be completely unconnected, and since Joslyn’s stalker ex-boyfriend was arrested on attempted murder charges, Candice would concentrate fully on the arsons. Specifically, finding Zane.

  She slurped a little hot chocolate and turned up the TV’s volume. There was a high-speed car chase last night that ended with a crash, and the bad guy, who had given his all when he tried to run from the scene, didn’t make it very far with a police helicopter and three news choppers hovering overhead. That had happened sometime after her apartment burned down. The news had captured that as well.

  The good-looking reporter interviewed Mrs. Shuman’s son at the scene. He must’ve come to pick her up. He praised Alex for saving his mother but blamed the building, basically Candice, for it burning so fast. All the wood and no sprinklers made it a death trap. She thought he was right. She should’ve retrofitted it with sprinklers when she built her office a few years ago. There was an explosion that sent the firefighters moving back some, and she knew that her precious VW bug in the garage had contributed to the fire. Her V-dub was gone, and it only had 178,000 miles on it.

  Candice drained her cup and took it to the kitchen to rinse it out. She needed to get dressed, but she really didn’t want to wear the same clothes she had on yesterday. The suit would either have to go to the dry cleaners or the trash. Candice gazed out the window over the sink at the main house. Hanging in her old closet were all the clothes and shoes she couldn’t fit into her apartment closet. Her size hadn’t changed at all since then. It would be necessary for her to take the trek through the big house. She also had a flat iron in the bathroom, something the guest house didn’t have. Her hair dried overnight, but it was tremendously curly—a look she tried very hard to avoid. She remembered her mother kept her hair short and attractively curly. It worked for her, but Candice had fought against it, like she did everything, it seemed.

  Candice also wanted to get at the reports she’d printed out in Patrick’s office. Something had been nagging at the back of her mind ever since Joshua told her he’d been approached by Zane at the skate park. The two boys were hired, essentially, by the same boy to torch the Leavitts’ home. How did he know those particular boys would be willing to do it? Where did he first talk to them? Had they done other “jobs” for him before? If so, what were they? What did Zane get out of it? Candice was extremely interested in that information. She’d love to talk to the kids again, but she doubted that would ever happen.

  There was something else she was curious about. The fires that had happened in the six-month time period she had reports for seemed, well, she didn’t know exactly what it was. She needed to find out what bothered her so much about them. Grandfather had maps of Phoenix rolled up in his studio. While they were obviously out of date by ten years, they still might be usable until she could buy a new one. She wanted to mark the location for each of those arson reports to see if anything jumped out at her.

  First things first. She had to sneak into the main house and get some clothes. Candice threw on a bathrobe and an obliging pair of slippers, and then walked up the brick pathway toward the kitchen door, but she didn’t make it there before a man intercepted her with a determined look on his face.

  “Hold it!” he said very seriously, holding out one of his hands to make his point, and just as he asked, “Who are you—” his eyes drifted down to her bandaged fingers. “Oh, Ms. Shane?” He sounded flustered as he stared at her so hard she almost felt it. Her hair had to be wild, along with her bruised forehead and tiny cuts and Band-Aids. She wanted to crawl under the nearest rock and hide. But then the young man smiled. “Ms. Shane, I’m sorry for stopping you. Everything has been quiet tonight.” He glanced toward the house and asked, “May I walk with you?”

  “Thank you, but you don’t need to. I know my way,” Candice told him as she continued on.

  “It’s okay. It’s part of my job to keep you safe,” he said. “My name is
Jeremy Bartholomew, ma’am. I’m scheduled until noon today, so if there’s anything you need, just let me know. Or Sherman. He’s a good guy, too,” he added quickly.

  “I’m sure he is,” Candice said, jingling her keys in her hand. “Thank you, Mr. Bartholomew.”

  “Call me Jeremy, Ms. Shane, please,” he said. “Here, let me.” He gently retrieved the keys from her fingers. What? Nobody thought she could open a lock by herself? “I’ve been with the agency for three years while going to night classes at ASU,” Jeremy said as he unlocked the deadbolt. “If there’s anything else, ma’am . . .” He returned the keys to her. “I’ll be here until noon,” he repeated before heading back the way they had come.

  Candice slipped into the kitchen as noiselessly as she could and made it as far as the family room before being discovered.

  “Candice,” Meagan said, coming out of the library. She had a book in her hand. Candice knew it was very difficult for a person not to find something to read. Meagan rushed to her and gave a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry about your apartment.” She held Candice’s injured hand. “Did this happen last night?”

  “Yes, but it looks worse than it really is.” Candice motioned up the stairs. “I came to get some clothes and a flat iron for my hair.”

  Meagan’s brows rose. “You didn’t curl your hair?”

  “No, no, I didn’t,” Candice said, moving toward the stairs.

  “Wow,” she whispered. “I had no idea you had naturally curly hair. I don’t know why you’d want to take it out.” Meagan fluffed her own blonde hair a little higher. “Have you eaten breakfast, Candice?”

  “No, but I did have some hot cocoa.”

  Meagan waved off her admission with a flick of her hand. “When you come back down, I’ll have scrambled eggs for you,” she said, heading off through the family room. “Do you want bacon?”

  Candice smiled. “Who doesn’t?”

  ~*~

  Standing in the middle of her full-sized walk-in closet, Candice looked around at all the clothes she left behind when she moved out. She only took what she felt she’d needed at the time. Now she was glad she hadn’t expanded the size of her apartment’s closet during the renovation, then she would’ve lost all of her clothes.

  It took a while to wriggle on the pair of blue jeans she’d decided to wear, but it was fairly easy to slip on the cobalt blue silk shirt she chose. The socks were easy to pull on, but Candice couldn’t figure out how to tie the laces of her running shoes. She’d have to ask Meagan to do it for her.

  When she turned on the bathroom light, she saw her reflection in the mirror with a new outlook. Yes, the curls were wild, but they didn’t look as bad as she’d first thought. After applying a little out-of-date makeup, Candice felt ready to get to work—after a good breakfast.

  Downstairs, she found not only Meagan in the kitchen but Kyle holding his baby son, along with his daughter at the table with Joshua helping his sister dish eggs onto her plate. When the boy saw Candice, his eyes popped open wider.

  “Candice,” Joshua asked, “what are you doing here?”

  Candice gazed at his mother and shrugged her shoulders.

  “What happened to your hand?” he asked when she didn’t answer him. She’d heard his voice rise in pitch with his second question.

  “Calm down, Joshua,” Kyle quietly said. “Ms. Shane had a little trouble.”

  If Kyle wasn’t going to tell his stepson the truth, Candice would. “My apartment was torched last night, Joshua.” She sat down next to him. “I think I made somebody mad with my little investigation. But I have to tell you something: if they think they’ve scared me off—” she leaned over and very carefully said— “they’ve messed with the wrong woman. Now, pass the eggs, please.”

  “You’re hurt,” Joshua said. “Are you burned?”

  “Yes, I am,” she answered, taking the big spoon and ladling out some eggs onto her plate. “And it hurt like mad.”

  “So, you slept in your old room?” he asked as he passed her the plate of bacon.

  “No, I stayed in the guesthouse out back, but my only clothes are still in my closet upstairs. If you could do something for me this morning, Joshua, I’d appreciate it.”

  “What?” he asked as he ate a bite of bacon.

  “I’d like the clothes and stuff I took out of the closet taken out to the guesthouse and placed neatly in the closet of the master bedroom. Would you be willing to do that for me?”

  Joshua smiled brightly. “Sure, I would. And until your hand is better, you just tell me if you want me to do anything else, too. Okay?”

  Candice glanced at his parents’ faces and saw somewhat of a stunned look flash over their eyes.

  “Well, Joshua, this is a pretty big place—”

  “Yeah, it’s like a mansion or something,” he said, interrupting.

  “And it takes a lot to take care of it, also. For instance, I believe the library is in need of a thorough cleaning. I remember when I was your age I had that as one of my chores once a month. Grandfather would give me polish for the wood and soft cloths to dust each of the books. Then I’d have to vacuum the carpet before he’d say I was done.”

  Candice grinned and said, “Sometimes it would take me all day because I’d stop to read the books instead of dusting them.” She lifted her fork and took a bite of eggs. “Of course, then there’s the banister. It needs a good polishing, too. I hated to do that when I was a kid, but it had to be done, and I was the only one around with a small enough hand to slip in between the balusters. If you should choose to accept these assignments, the necessary cleaning items are in the tall closet in the laundry room.”

  Breakfast was filled with conversation about growing up in a very large house with no siblings, and the absence of any pets, not even a dog like Joshua had. Meagan wanted her to move back into her old room so she could take care of her, and she was tempted, but she’d been on her own for a very long time. She’d never had a roommate, so living in a house, no matter how large, might not be a good fit. Although she did accept the offer of her great cooking for her meals, and if she didn’t want to sit down with them, then Meagan would have Joshua bring it over to her at the guesthouse. Before Candice left the breakfast table, she asked Joshua if he’d tie her shoes. He quickly knelt down and carefully tied each shoe like it was a competition and he’d be graded on his work.

  The maps in Grandfather’s studio were easy to find. He had been a very organized man and had everything labeled. After she found a large Phoenix map, some colorful pushpins in his desk drawer, and a roll of tape from his drawing table, she went back to the guesthouse to continue her investigation—and have another cup of cocoa.

  Candice nodded to Jeremy Bartholomew when he peeked from around the garage at the noise she was making. She was glad to see he was so attentive, not to her, but to anything going on. Knowing he was there had given Candice just a little more comfort.

  There was a nice long wall behind the dining table that would be perfect for what she had in mind. She had to take the paintings down that were hanging there first. The smaller ones were easy to do using one hand and the palm of the other, but the bigger painting would be more of a struggle—until she had an extra set of hands helping her.

  “Thank you, Joshua,” she said as they set the painting on the floor against the wall.

  “What’re you doing?” he asked. “Did you get tired of these pictures?”

  “No, of course not,” Candice said with a grin. “These were painted by a very talented woman named Parker Lane. She’s local and amazing. She runs an art supply store in Tempe.”

  “You paint?” Joshua asked. He picked up one of the smaller paintings.

  Candice chuckled. “Not if my life depended on it, but I saw one of her paintings on eBay, so I hunted her down and bought the two small ones and had her paint the larger one. I have seven more in the main house, and three more in my apart . . .” She exhaled. “I guess they’re burned up.”

 
; Joshua touched Candice’s elbow. “I’m sorry.” He picked up one of the smaller paintings. “If you love them so much, why did you take these down?”

  “Reasonable question.” Candice walked to the breakfast bar and picked up the rolled up map. “I need to hang this big map of Phoenix up on this wall.” She stared at the boy and had a thought. It might be a way to give him some therapy and she’d get the extra set of hands she needed. “Would you like to help me?”

  “Sure,” Joshua answered. “I said I would, remember?”

  Candice looked over at the end of the table at the stack of her clothes. He’d started on his first assignment. Good boy! “Okay, great.” She took the map, unrolled it over the other end of the table and found the top. Then she looked at the tape and tried to imagine how to actually use it with only one set of fingers.

  “I’m glad you’re here, Joshua.” She handed him the tape, and then she took the map and held it against the wall. He was able to figure out the rest. Together, they had the huge map securely hanging within a few minutes.

  “Now,” Candice said as she dug out the reports from her backpack, “I need you to understand something, Joshua. Something that’s very important.” She sat the thick stack of papers down on the table and stared into his curious light blue eyes. “I have some very sensitive information in my possession, information that you cannot under any conditions tell anybody else about.”

  “Classified information, like in James Bond?” Joshua asked eagerly.

  “Yes, exactly like that,” she responded as she dumped the little plastic box of pushpins on the table. “So, if you are going to work with me, you have to swear not to talk about anyone, any names, you happen to recognize during the course of our job. Do you swear?”

  “I swear!” Joshua said. He sounded so earnest, Candice had to dampen the smile that threatened to spread on her lips.

  “Okay, let’s get started.” Candice started to separate the different colors of pushpins into groups. Joshua jumped right in without asking, and within a few seconds, they had five piles. “I’ll read the address of the fire and say what kind of fire it was, as in . . .” She picked up the first report. “This one is a trash bin fire on El Camino Del Sol, the fifteen thousand block, so we need to place a pin there . . . Let’s see, what color?” She studied the five colors, but before she could decide, Joshua gave her his priceless input.