Fierce Pride

by Phoebe Conn

  He used his cell phone to summon the fire department. The station was so close, they immediately heard the sound of sirens in the distance. “There really is a fire extinguisher in the kitchen.” He turned back toward the open doorway, and Libby grabbed his arm.

  “No! Don’t go back in. That’s how people get killed. You’re staying right here.”

  Awakened by the alarm, Manuel came running from his garage apartment, and Santos told him to park the cars on the street. “If the fire spreads, I’m not losing the Hispano-Suiza.”

  Libby was more worried about the beautiful artwork in the house. The spectacular paintings were too heavy for her to carry out on her own, and on crutches, Santos couldn’t help her.

  Within minutes of having been called, the firefighters pulled up in front of the house and jumped down from their huge red trucks. They wore the familiar black protective gear with yellow stripes on their coats, but rather than the hats she was used to seeing on firefighters, they wore helmets. Santos directed them to the smoky back hall, where flames glowed from the elevator shaft. He and Libby kept out of their way outside as they dragged in heavy hoses and using foam, attacked from the first and second floors to swiftly extinguish the blaze.

  Neighbors gathered in front of their homes to watch, but while Victoria had often been on the beach, Libby saw no sign of her tonight. When the firefighters pulled back toward their trucks, the crowd cheered and went back to their beds. No one came up to talk with Santos, which struck Libby as odd, but perhaps his neighbors respected his privacy more than the tabloids did. She hadn’t seen anyone with a camera, but that didn’t mean someone hadn’t taken pictures.

  Two men from the security company arrived in a gray SUV. Dressed in black with heavy combat boots, they resembled a black ops force rather than a home security team. Santos spoke with them at length while Libby could only imagine the gist of their conversation. She did, however, admire Santos’s confidence. He wore only shorts and was barefoot, but his expression and tone of voice were calm and self-assured, as though he typically conducted business in nothing more than jogging shorts.

  When the security men left, Santos sighed unhappily. “They insisted there’s no sign of a break-in on their monitors. They also blamed me for installing a smoke detector only in the kitchen, and a fire upstairs didn’t trigger it. My father must have thought the kitchen was the only room where a fire was likely to occur. They’ll send someone out tomorrow to install smoke alarms throughout the house and recheck their system.”

  Libby bit her lip rather than complain that a home with their expensive art collection should have had multiple smoke detectors, and his father should also have been concerned about the safety of the residents. She hadn’t looked for detectors when she had arrived, but she’d had a whole lot more on her mind. Now it seemed like a near tragic oversight.

  The fire captain walked over to speak with Santos, and Libby again had to wait for him to translate. He questioned the captain at length and took her hand when he turned toward her. “The fire started in a trashcan in the elevator. Clearly arson. Even if the security company doesn’t show a breach of the system, it must have been tampered with to allow someone to enter and set the fire.”

  Chilled by the thought, Libby rubbed her arms, and he hugged her close. “Could they have gotten in while we were at the bullfights, hidden and waited for us to go to sleep?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “I hope not, but the house was empty long enough for someone to disable the alarm and break in. We rode the elevator up when we went to bed, and there was no flaming trashcan in there then.”

  Badly frightened, Libby wrapped her arms around him. “Someone’s after you, Santos. It’s not protesters wanting to make a point with any matador. You’re the target.”

  The lights they’d turned on as they’d run from the house were still on, so the fire hadn’t disrupted their power. “Let’s make some coffee and have more cake,” he suggested. “We can worry about who did this in the morning. The fire department will have an arson investigator here.”

  Libby drew back. “What if whoever did this is still in the house?”

  Santos waved to the fire captain. “Because this was arson, will you please search the house for suspects before you go?”

  The captain called for a couple of men and went inside while Libby and Santos waited, huddled in each other’s arms. The night had started out so well, but now terror slid down her spine and shot all the way to her bright pink toenails.

  Once the house had been declared safe to enter and empty of suspects, Libby chose tea rather than coffee. She made it sweet and tried not to dribble down her chin when she sipped and look as badly shaken as she felt. She doubted anything would shake a man with the balls to be a matador, and Santos had impressed her with his level head tonight.

  “What if the security system wasn’t tampered with but just turned off? Who knows the code?” she asked.

  They’d given Manuel a piece of wedding cake to take back to his apartment, and they sat in the dining room. Santos licked frosting off his fork. “Is it Cirilda you’re wondering about?”

  “She and Alfonso disappeared before any of us woke up Sunday morning. Or did they give you a private apology?”

  He laughed. “Hell no. She knows the code, but she wouldn’t set fire to the house and risk damaging anything here. She’s far too mercenary for that. But we should have a list of who has the code for the arson inspector. It would also take someone who knew how to pick a lock.”

  “I’ll get some paper.” She hurried into the den for supplies and returned to her chair ready to write. She folded the paper to make two columns. “Let’s start with family. Who besides Cirilda knows the code?”

  “I changed it after Carmen was hospitalized, but we have people coming and going here all the time. Maggie knows it and has a key, so Rafael probably knows the code too. The twins know and Fox, but they don’t have keys. I’m usually the last one home at night, so I set it, and Tomas has a key and turns it off in the morning.”

  She wrote the family names in the first column. “What about other employees?”

  “Tomas, Manuel and Mrs. Lopez have keys and know the code; that’s it. I don’t share it with the boys who work in the kitchen or the maids.”

  “Tomas is always here when food deliveries are made?”

  “Yes, he checks the list to make certain we aren’t charged for something we didn’t order or shorted on what we did. He keeps an excellent set of books, records his recipes, and keeps track of party dates, who attended and what he served.”

  “He is a treasure, isn’t he?”

  He reached for her hand. “So are you, but if you’re afraid to stay here and want to fly home, I’ll help you arrange it.”

  She sat back in her chair. “Go home and miss all this fun? No, I’m staying until the fall semester starts. We have a deal, remember?”

  “Yes, but we didn’t expect a threat to your life. You were worried about your family being in danger when they were with me, but we didn’t anticipate anything like this.”

  “Yes, I remember. Was that only last week? Every day poses one risk or another. That’s just the way life is.” They’d opened the windows to clear out the smell of smoke, and she was still too excited to feel cold. “Do you suppose the elevator is totaled?”

  “I don’t know. It may just need new paneling, but I don’t think I can hop up the stairs as easily as I hopped down.”

  “No, but you could sit and bump your butt upstairs one step at a time.”

  His eyes widened in mock horror. “I wouldn’t want anyone to even suspect I’d done that. The den sofa is large enough for us both, and there are pillows and blankets in the bathroom cupboard. We’ll be all right until morning down here. Or at least I will be if you’d rather be upstairs.”

  He fiddled with cake crumbs, and she easily read what he truly wanted. She reached for his hand. “I’ll stay with you. It’s where all the excitement is.”

 
“I’m not sure I should thank you for that.”

  “Yes, you should.” It took them a while to get as comfortable on the sofa as they’d been in his bed, but she couldn’t sleep. She kept thinking of the awful eyeless drawing he’d received and wondered if there was no sane reason someone was out to harm him, but merely a most disturbed individual’s revenge for an imagined wrong.

  Tomas nearly became hysterical when he arrived Monday morning and found the mess the firefighters had left. “I always carry out the trash in the evening. There is never so much as a used paper towel left in the kitchen.”

  “I know, Tomas. Please don’t upset yourself over this,” Santos said. “Whoever lit the fire brought the flammable materials with him, or her.”

  Mrs. Lopez was livid. “How could anyone wish to destroy such a magnificent home?”

  “The house wasn’t the target,” Santos assured them. He’d not been able to sleep any better than Libby, and they’d both gotten up at dawn. He’d showered downstairs, and she’d brought him clean clothes. They’d been seated in the dining room, drinking coffee, when the chef and housekeeper arrived. “I hope we can catch whoever lit the fire before they cause any more damage.”

  Mrs. Lopez stretched to her full five-foot height. “Will we have the police tramping through the house today?”

  “The arson investigator from the fire department should be here soon, along with the security company to check their system. I need to inform our insurance agent and have someone come from the elevator company. The elevator needs whatever repairs necessary so I can get upstairs without making too great a spectacle of myself. The whole household needs it.”

  “I’ll help you,” Tomas offered. “You can lean on me and hop up the stairs.”

  The chef was five feet ten with a wiry build, and Santos wouldn’t even risk asking him to support his weight when they’d be sure to trip, fall and end up in a pile of broken bones. “Thank you, but I want you to concentrate on the kitchen. I’ll call on Manuel if I need help moving around the house.”

  Libby had the list they’d made the night before, and he picked it up as though he needed a reminder. “I trust you both, but could anyone have seen you disarm the alarm as you came into the house?”

  “Absolutely not,” Mrs. Lopez exclaimed. “When I come in first, no one’s with me, unless…” She paused a moment. “Sometimes Manuel is working in the yard, but he knows the code, doesn’t he?”

  “Yes, he does. What about you, Tomas? Has Julian or Adolfo seen you punch in the code?”

  “No, they come in an hour after I arrive.”

  “Well, someone found a way to gain entry, and we need to find out how today. Please make us something with plenty of protein for breakfast, Tomas. We’ll need all our strength.”

  “Of course, right away.” He hurried into the kitchen.

  “Mrs. Lopez, don’t have the girls clean around the elevator until the arson inspector and insurance adjuster are finished and say they may.”

  “Yes, sir.” She handed Santos a tabloid. “Have you seen this? It looks as though someone photographed the wedding from a boat.”

  Libby leaned close to study the photo. “It’s a poor angle from the water, and with the dim light at sunset, Maggie and Rafael are barely recognizable.”

  “True, but look at the background,” Santos pointed out. “Anyone who didn’t know where the Aragon house is located will be able to walk down the beach and find it easily. This is from yesterday. I didn’t look at the newsstands when I went to the airport, but we could also have been in other papers.”

  “Rafael asked my father not to sell his photos, but clearly this isn’t one of his,” Libby murmured. “Someone might have taken photos of the fire last night.”

  “Probably.” He chucked the paper on the table. “I don’t even have to face a bull to land in the tabloids. When Adolfo arrives, I’ll ask Tomas to send him for today’s papers.”

  Tomas brought them tall glasses of cranberry juice. “Would you like for me to add something to these?”

  “On another morning, perhaps, but I’m in enough trouble without adding liquor to the mix. Libby?”

  “No, thank you, I’m fine with straight juice.” She took a sip and waited until Tomas had returned to the kitchen to speak. “Do you think we’ll have time to visit Orlando Ortiz today?”

  Santos leaned back in his chair and covered a wide yawn. “No, I might be able to work him into the afternoon, but I’d not be at my best. The cologne photo shoot is tomorrow, so I’ll call Ortiz later and make an appointment for Wednesday. I’ll let him wonder why I want to see him.”

  There was so much going on there that morning, Libby had pulled on her jeans and yellow sweater rather than jogging clothes. “Do you want me to just stay out of your way today?”

  “You won’t be in the way. Maybe you ought to call your folks and see if they made it home safely.”

  “Barcelona is seven hours ahead of the time in Minneapolis, so I’ll have to wait, but I’m not telling them about the fire.”

  “That’s undoubtedly wise. Think of something that’s true.”

  She flashed a disarming smile. “What I remember from yesterday doesn’t fit under a PG rating.”

  “But it’s true. Make them do the talking. Maybe they had a particularly interesting flight home.”

  “Let’s hope.” She hadn’t bothered with braiding her hair and wore it up in a ponytail. She adjusted the elastic band and lowered her voice. “We may not have time to schedule a workout. Do you ever take naps?” Her sultry tone offered more than refreshing sleep.

  “I’m going to make a point of it today, if I can get upstairs.”

  Her smile turned seductive. “There’s a lock on the den door.”

  He checked his watch, but there wasn’t time before everyone he expected to arrive showed up at his door. “I love your concept of exercise.”

  She leaned forward and licked her lips. “I tailor the program to the individual.”

  He looked down at the table and remembered all too vividly how they’d used it last night. He could almost taste her and took a drink of juice to clear his mind. “By the time you leave, I won’t be able to walk into a room here and not think of your routines.”

  “I believe variety is the key to an effective workout program, don’t you?”

  “Definitely, but I’m also fond of the old standards.”

  “I’ll work them in.” She sat back as Tomas served their plates with avocado omelets, fried potatoes and crisply fried bacon. “Thank you so much, Tomas. I’m so hungry I may ask for seconds.”

  “I’d be happy to prepare whatever you wish.”

  The chef’s smile widened, and Santos nodded to send him back to the kitchen. Refusing to be jealous, he blamed the lack of sleep for the painful sense of dismay twisting his gut. “Do you want to call the guy who went to New York?”

  “Hmm?” She kept chewing and swallowed. “What made you think of him? I never do.”

  He shrugged and ate his breakfast. Libby was so damn obvious about how much she enjoyed being with him, and he couldn’t stand the thought of the other men she’d known. He wouldn’t even try to recall more women’s names than he’d given Javier Cazares, but he’d never forget Libby.

  Josue Vargas, the arson inspector, arrived soon after they’d eaten breakfast. He was remarkably thin, and a large hatchet-like nose overshadowed his pinched features. He looked down it as he queried Santos. “You have no security system?”

  “I do, but it failed last night.”

  He shot a quick glance toward Libby. “Did you forget to arm it?”

  “I saw him do it before we went upstairs in the elevator,” Libby interjected. “Whoever set the fire must have disarmed it when they broke in.”

  “I’ll make a thorough inspection,” the man promised. “You needn’t follow me around. I find it distracting.”

  “I understand,” Santos replied. “The elevator repairman should be here soon. Will you clear
it for repair?”

  “After I’ve taken sufficient photographs. I’m taking the wastebasket and its contents with me. I’ll survey the house and let you know if there’s any evidence of a break-in.”

  “Please do.” Santos sank down on the sofa in the living room. “I’m going to stay here. Will you please see if Adolfo is back with the papers?”

  She’d taken only two steps toward the door when Adolfo appeared with his arms full. She moved behind the sofa to look over Santos’s shoulder. Several of the tabloids had photos of the fire, but they were taken from the beach side, and she and Santos weren’t in them.

  Santos skimmed through the papers. “Here’s one where we’re in front. The consensus is we barely escaped death in the flames.”

  “Have there been any other suspicious fires nearby?” she asked.

  “There’s no mention of a serial arsonist. I’ll ask Inspector Vargas before he leaves.”

  She whispered, “He gives me the creeps. There was a famous case in California where an arson inspector set fires he’d later investigate.”

  He turned to look up at her. “A lot of strange things happen in California, don’t they?”

  “Some say so, but it’s a large state, so naturally more occurs there.”

  He rested his head against the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. She caught herself before she touched his hair and withdrew her hand. He was just so damn appealing. She loved men, but she didn’t hang on them the way some girls did.

  She’d never spent the night with a boyfriend either. She’d always bolt before dawn, and not because she worried about how she’d look in the morning. She just didn’t need to remain close after sex and liked waking up alone in her own bed. She hadn’t even thought about leaving Santos’s bed last night. The smoke reached his room before it would have reached hers, so it was a good thing she’d stayed. He might have been overcome with smoke before the first hint of it reached her room. She rubbed her arms, but a chilling shiver remained.