Borrowing Trouble

by Stacy Finz

  He’d tell Nate tomorrow. Breyer had waited long enough, probably figuring that Brady was still recovering from the Roger Buck ordeal. The only thing he regretted was not hitting that bastard harder. Every time Brady thought about Sloane walking into her apartment with Buck lying in wait, it made his stomach knot.

  He got off the bed, went into the kitchen, and got a few ingredients out of the refrigerator. Breaking a couple of eggs into a bowl, he started an omelet. He wasn’t the least bit hungry but he needed something to do. Something to keep busy.

  The night dragged on, with him jumping up every hour or so to look for Sloane’s SUV. Around nine he saw her headlights come down the driveway and felt a combination of relief and anxiety. He needed to tell her he was leaving. Not tonight, but soon. He at least owed her a face-to-face goodbye. The hardest part was that he loved her—he wasn’t so emotionally stunted that he didn’t know what that felt like—and if he were a settling-down kind of guy she’d be the one. But he wasn’t.

  He slept badly and was happy to finally see daylight filter through his blinds so he could stop tossing and turning and get up. This morning he planned to make bacon-and-egg soufflés for the inn’s guests. It took a little longer than most of his breakfast dishes, but he had the time.

  After a quick shower he got dressed and arrived at the inn before the day shift. Andy sat slumped over with his head cradled on the front desk, sleeping.

  “Hey, wake up.” Brady gave him a little shove. “Not too professional there, buddy.” Why the hell hadn’t Nate fired the guy?

  He continued to the kitchen and gathered up his ingredients, starting on the soufflés. While he was at it, he might as well make the coffee cake Nate liked so much, and got started on that too. Lina popped her head in.

  “What are you doing here so early?”

  He looked up from the flour canister. “It’s not that early. Want coffee?”

  “Yes!”

  Brady poured in the beans, filled the water reservoir in the grind-and-brew, and flipped the switch. “You send Andy home?”

  “Not yet.” She looked at her watch and smiled evilly. “He’s got fifteen more minutes on the clock.”

  Brady chuckled, then took a few seconds to look at her. She glowed like a woman who was in love. “You and Griffin working out?”

  She lit up like the Las Vegas strip. “We’re good.”

  He tilted his head sideways and grinned. “What, did you run off and elope?”

  “No. We’re being very mature. I’ve got school and he’s got his businesses, so we’re staying super chill. When I’m in Nugget I’ll stay with him at the Heights, and he’ll stay with me some of the time in Reno.”

  “The Heights?” Brady lifted his brows.

  “That’s what Nate calls it.”

  Yeah, that would be Nate. “Sounds . . . mature.” The coffee was finished brewing and he poured them each a cup.

  Sam came in a few minutes later and Brady poured her one too.

  “You’re early,” she said to Brady, and turned to Lina. “Look how cute you look.”

  “Thanks, you too.” Lina looked at her watch again. “I guess it’s time to let Andy go home.” She hopped off the stool and took her coffee with her.

  As soon as Lina was out of earshot, Sam said, “She and Griffin are officially an item.”

  “So I heard.”

  “Rhys doesn’t like her sleeping over at his house.”

  “Nope, I suspect he doesn’t. But my guess is he partook in plenty of sleepovers when he was her age.”

  “I bet you’re right.” Sam let out a laugh. “So how are you doing, Brady? I understand that the cop you clobbered is losing his job. Thank God. Rhys is trying to get a bunch of them fired.”

  “Yep,” was all he said.

  She watched him for a little while as he spread out a number of ramekins for his soufflés. “Please tell me you’re taking the job.”

  Brady exhaled. “I’m sorry, Sam, but it’s not for me.”

  Her face fell. “If it’s the money, Nate will give you more. He’d kill me if he knew I told you that. But I want you to take the position so badly. You’re so great to work with—and fun. Richard is as far from fun as a nuclear holocaust. Come on, why don’t you want to do it?”

  “I’m leaving, Sam.”

  “What?” Her expression turned shocked. “The Lumber Baron? Nugget? What about Sloane? You two are so great together. Everyone thinks so.”

  Brady’s phone rang and for once he was happy for the interruption. “I’ve got to take this,” he said and looked at the caller ID. He really did have to take it. “Hello, Detective.”

  “You sitting down? Sandra Lockhart is dead. Yuma PD just called. She’s been in the morgue this whole time. They just got around to linking her to our missing person.”

  Brady staggered to the stool Lina had left empty and sat down. “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “Without a doubt, unless the DNA tests lied.”

  “This is gonna sound horrible, but can I see a picture?” Brady was having trouble grasping that she was really dead.

  “Won’t do you any good. She was burnt beyond recognition.”

  “Burnt?”

  “Investigators believe she was trying to set a house on fire and got caught in the flames. An arson team is still looking at it, though.”

  Brady remembered Aidan’s off-the-cuff remark on the gas stations. “Whose house?”

  “A former boyfriend. Apparently she thought he was home when she climbed up on his roof, poured a five-gallon mixture of gasoline and diesel down the chimney, and tossed in a propane lighter rigged with a zip tie to keep it lit. She was scrambling down the ladder when pressure from the fire blew the roof off. Luckily, her intended target was working late. But the guy had a friend staying in the house . . . she probably mistook him for the ex. The friend smelled smoke and got out before the explosion. The owner came home to find what was left of his house teeming with firefighters. Turns out her car was parked only a few blocks away. They found something like nine gas cans in her trunk.”

  Brady got a sick feeling. “Was she coming for me next?”

  “That’s the working theory. But who knows? The broad was crazy. The good news: You have your life back, amigo. Go ahead and live it.”

  Brady hung up and put his phone away, stunned.

  “That was about your stalker, wasn’t it?”

  He’d forgotten that Sam was still there. “Yeah. She’s dead, burned to death in a fire.”

  The soufflés. He got up and went back to his batter.

  “Brady, I think you should sit down.” She hovered over him. “I can do that.”

  “I’ve got it.” He poured the mixture into the individual ramekins and finished buttering the pans for the coffee cake.

  “Wouldn’t you like to go over to the police station and tell Sloane?”

  “After breakfast.” He was having enough trouble digesting the information. Sandra was dead. He hadn’t wanted her to die, but knowing that his nightmare was over, that he was free . . .

  When the last guest finished breakfast, Brady went home. He needed some time alone to think his life through and get used to the idea that he no longer had to hide. Or compulsively watch his back. Flipping open his laptop, he went on Facebook. Never again would he have to see himself with Sandra in Photoshopped pictures or read posts about their fabricated vacations—or worry about her coming to Nugget to burn his house down.

  He still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that she died while trying to kill an ex-lover. On a whim, he picked up his phone and called Frank Klein. The last time he’d talked to him was to give notice at Pig and Tangelo.

  “Frank, it’s Brady Benson.”

  “Jesus Christ, I’ve been looking for you for months. What, you go to Nepal to find yourself or something?”

  “Nope. I’ve been living in this small town in the Sierra Nevada, cooking for a beautiful bed and breakfast.” Brady could actually divulge tha
t information now. Damn, it felt good.

  “You changed your number. I didn’t recognize the area code. Any chance you can come back? My chef, a prima donna who couldn’t cook his way out of a hospital commissary, left. I have Paulie running the place.”

  “Seriously?” Brady laughed. Paulie used to be his sous chef. Nice kid, but nowhere ready for prime time. “I’ll have to think about it.” He was actually considering heading for Portland. Good restaurant scene there.

  “Brady, I’ll make you a partner in Pig and Tangelo. Fifty-fifty split.” The restaurant must be in real trouble.

  “I’ll think about it, Frank. Hey, it was good talking to you.”

  He’d just pocketed the phone when Sloane’s police rig came down the driveway. Through the window he saw her get out of the driver’s seat. He walked out on the porch.

  “I heard the news,” she said, and climbed the stairs.

  “Yeah. Wild, huh?”

  “Could we sit for a second?”

  He sat on the swing and patted the space next to him. She took the rocker instead.

  “Sam said you were pretty shaken up after getting the call. She got the impression from your side of the conversation that Sandra may have been coming for you too.”

  “It seems clear that it was like what Aidan said. She was looking for gas stations to buy her accelerant. Beatty, Tonopah, Carson City. Next stop Nugget. I keep thinking, what if you’d been sleeping with me when she set the place on fire?”

  “But she didn’t, Brady. She never even made it to the Nevada border.”

  He put his face in his hands. From the minute Rinek had called and he’d realized Sandra’s grand scheme, the horrific thought of Sloane being in the duplex while Sandra set it ablaze looped through his head.

  “I’m leaving in two weeks,” he blurted, planning to give notice as soon as he got back to the inn for the afternoon service.

  Sloane tensed. “For good?”

  “Who’s to say? But I thought I’d check out Portland. The van’s been packed since I got here, so I guess I never meant to stay.”

  “I thought you liked it here, that it reminded you of home?”

  “I do and it does. But it’s time to go. Look at my history, Sloane. I never stay in one place too long.”

  She got up and crouched down in front of him. Her eyes were wet and she quickly tried to wipe them with the back of her hand. “You’ve been through a lot these past few days. Buck. Sandra. Take a few days off and go away. Give yourself time to think.”

  He stood, holding his hand out to help her up. When they were facing each other he said, “I’m sorry, Sloane. I never said it, but I do love you. I just can’t give you what you want. The house, the kids . . . just not in my DNA.”

  “I understand,” she said, but it came out like a croak. “No hard feelings.”

  He wiped her tears with his hand. “Ah, Sloane, I can’t stand to see you cry.”

  “I’m gonna go now.” She backed up. “Take care of yourself, Brady.”

  She practically ran to her truck, started the engine and took off. He continued to stand on the porch while a couple of blackbirds, perched on a sugar pine branch, chuckled at each other. Or maybe they were chuckling at him for being a fool.

  Sloane went back to the station, parked, and sat long enough to compose herself. One look in her rearview mirror and she knew there was no way to get rid of the puffy eyes. The bell over the door in the station rang as she walked in, and Connie looked up from her computer.

  “The Fagans are en route. They booked a room at the Lumber Baron.”

  Sloane threw up her arms. “We don’t even know for sure that it’s their son. The DNA tests could take weeks, even months.”

  Connie hitched her shoulders. “They’re probably on a plane by now. What happened to your face? You look like you got hit by the ugly stick.”

  “Allergies. I get ’em in March.”

  “You want a Zyrtec?”

  “Nah, they make me sleepy.” Sloane started for her desk to check the progress of the case. She at least wanted to have something to tell the Fagans when they got here.

  “McBride, you got a second?” Rhys stood over her.

  “Sure.” She followed him into his office, where he shut the door and signaled for her to take a seat. “Everything okay?”

  “Buck got his walking papers today and two other detectives were moved out of robbery-homicide. They won’t be fired, not enough evidence that they were in on the harassment. But the department knows it has a problem on its hands and is trying to break up the group and make enough people’s lives miserable so that they’ll quit. They’re worried about a lawsuit.”

  “I never said anything about suing.”

  “I may have mentioned it.” Rhys wore a grin the size of Texas. “Between that and pressures of a federal investigation, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. Buck’s getting his pension. But if he so much as sends you a birthday card, LAPD will pull it. I don’t like that he’s getting it after what he put you through. Still, the threat of cutting him off is a nice insurance policy that he’ll leave you alone.”

  “Thank you, Rhys, for doing everything you did. I’m happy to have this behind me.”

  Rhys leaned back in his chair. “You could probably go anywhere you want now. With all your good press—the Today show, 48 Hours, the newspaper clippings—Officer Sloane McBride is a hot property. During our first interview you told me that you went into law enforcement because you wanted to make a difference. You’ve made a difference here. The pilot program and the child-ID-kit fair made a big impact on this town. Probably bigger than you’ll ever know. And the John Doe case you’re about to solve . . . well, I don’t have to tell you what that kind of closure means to a grieving family. Just ask Emily Mathews McCreedy what it’s like to never know.”

  He pulled forward. “The thing is, Sloane, it’s difficult to make a dent in the big city. In a town the size of Nugget a little bit goes a long way. We need you here.”

  “Thank you, Chief.” Tears sprung to her eyes. If she didn’t get out of his office soon, Sloane would start bawling all over him. “I appreciate it.”

  “No pressure.” And there it was again. That damn Texas-sized grin.

  Sloane went back to her desk. What she really wanted to do was go to the bathroom, lock herself in, and cry her eyes out. Through the window she could see Brady parking his van in front of the Lumber Baron. If she continued to watch him, she’d start blubbering in the middle of the police station. Instead, she buried herself in her email. Someone from the DNA lab at the DOJ’s Bureau of Forensic Services wrote to say that they were working on the analysis. But Sloane wasn’t given a time frame for when the results would be in. Likely there was a long line ahead of her. She hoped the Fagans hadn’t gotten on a plane for nothing.

  Her kids came after school, anxious to hear if there’d been a conclusive match between John Doe and Kevin Fagan. She explained that it might take a while, depending on how backed up the lab was. She put them to work passing out Neighborhood Watch fliers. At some point she’d like to get them badges or vests, something similar to what the Scouts wore, to make them feel official.

  By six o’clock she realized that she was just going through the motions and went home. Brady’s van was gone. She figured he was out, celebrating his newfound freedom. On second thought, Brady wasn’t the type to rejoice in Sandra’s death, even if she had made his life a living hell. More than likely he’d gone out after work for a bite. The next two weeks would be excruciating living next door to him, knowing that he was leaving.

  She went inside her apartment and rummaged through the refrigerator for something to make for dinner. Aidan had left a message, but Sloane didn’t have the energy to call him back. She was angry with him anyway. He and Brady were cut from the same cloth—men who couldn’t commit. Channel surfing, she tried to immerse herself in a TV show but couldn’t find a program to hold her attention for long. As far as she could te
ll, Brady still wasn’t home. Not that she listened or watched for him.

  Since Jake was on call tonight, Sloane decided to pop a couple of Advil PMs and call it an early night. She woke up groggy the next morning, padded into the kitchen to make a pot of coffee, and noticed that Brady’s van was still gone. Either he’d come and left or he’d stayed out all night. She made a mental note to make sure that he showed up for work today. Perhaps he’d taken her advice and put in for a vacation.

  Sloane showered, dressed, and slurped down a cup of coffee. On her way out, she slyly peeked through Brady’s window to see if she could tell whether he’d been home. Everything looked the same. But then again, it always did in that sparsely furnished apartment of his. She supposed not accumulating a lot of stuff made it easy for him to leave.

  She made the short drive to work, trying to put him out of her head, and parked in her usual space in front of the police station. Across the square, Brady’s van was also in its usual spot. There went her theory about him taking time off.

  “Hey, some guy keeps calling you,” Connie said, shoving a handful of Post-its at Sloane as she walked into the station house. “Says it’s urgent.”

  Sloane glanced down at the messages and didn’t recognize the name or the number. The area code was San Francisco, though. “Have the Fagans come in yet?”

  “Not yet.”

  She supposed she could stroll over to the inn and greet them. The problem with that was she’d likely bump into Brady. Instead, she plopped down at her desk and called back Urgent Guy.

  “Zattrell Liquor,” a man answered, and Sloane checked to make sure she’d dialed correctly.

  “I’m looking for Steve Bucci.”

  “Speaking. You that lady cop?”

  “I’m Officer McBride. What can I do for you?”

  “I know the guy you made that sculpture of, the one on the morning show. The kid used to do odd jobs for me, not quite right in the head.”

  “Do you remember his name, Mr. Bucci?”

  “Of course I do. Kevin Fagan.”