Explosive Forces

by D. D. Ayres

  Noah smiled as he watched Harley sneak up on a flock of mourning doves arrayed on the lawn and then charge, scattering them into flight with panicky wingbeats. Harley never caught one. Noah suspected it was because he had no idea what to do with one if he did. Harley didn’t see the birds as food. That was a good thing.

  Noah smiled as a gray bird fluttered to the ground near him. “Good morning, dove.” That’s what his son Andy called the birds: Good Morning Doves. He never corrected the boy.

  The thought of Andy pinched off his smile. He didn’t like one bit having to send his son and parents out of town because of trouble he had brought, however involuntarily, on the family.

  He’d talked with his father on the drive over to the dog park. They’d arrived at Padre Island the night before and settled in. In fact, his father was up preparing for the first day of fishing, while Andy slept in. His father told him to stop worrying. Andy was safe. He needed to handle his business and find the bastard who wanted him dead.

  That was his dad, a man who knew how to motivate with soft words.

  Noah felt a sensation like his heart being squeezed. He loved his parents, and Andy was his world.

  He felt guilty each time he had to ask his folks to perform duties that were really his responsibility as a parent. But his job required him to be places and do things, sometimes with five minutes’ notice. He was a single parent, no matter how much he tried to spread himself out to cover that gap in his son’s life. But he wouldn’t change things if he could.

  Out of all the regrets in his life, and there were a few, he had one solid victory on his side. He hadn’t tried to hold on when his ex-wife, Jillian, walked out on them the day before Andy turned three months old.

  Andy didn’t remember his mother. Noah hadn’t tried to preserve her memory for his son. His parents weren’t happy with that decision, in the beginning. But what could he say to his child? Love and revere your mother’s memory though she made me buy custody of you and then never bothered to contact us again?

  He wouldn’t put that burden on a young child.

  When Andy was older, and asked, he would tell his son as much of the truth as he understood it. Phrases like “borderline personality disorder with abandonment issues” had no place in a preschooler’s vocabulary.

  He wasn’t certain this was the right way to handle things. Maybe his own leftover anger and disappointment and sense of failure affected his decision. But there was one thing he did believe with conviction. His first and most important job as a father was to protect and nurture his child. To his final breath.

  As Harley came sprinting back his way, Noah gave the hand sign for “stop.” Harley braked so hard, momentum sent his rear end swinging around to meet his front. But the dog dug in his claws and quickly righted himself and sat.

  Noah fed Harley a treat, then sent him off with “Release!” Harley shot away, this time toward the abandoned Agility section.

  As he followed his dog, the phone he’d borrowed from his sister rang. He’d given the number to the arson department, in case he was needed.

  “You left incriminating evidence,” Merle Durvan began without preamble. “We’ve matched a set of your left-hand fingerprints to those lifted from the wall above the electrical socket where we found the WeMo. You braced yourself on the wall to plug it in.”

  Noah frowned. “If I were committing arson, I wouldn’t leave prints any rookie investigator would look for.”

  “Looking at it as a suicide attempt, I’m prepared to accept that you weren’t concerned about leaving evidence.”

  Noah tamped down a spurt of anger. “You’ve decided I did this.”

  “I’m not paid to have an opinion. Just collect evidence and put it together into a probable cause to press charges.”

  “You coming to arrest me?”

  “I’ve been handed the means to arrest you.” Durvan paused. “I just can’t shake the suspicion that someone is leading me down the garden path.”

  Noah let out the breath he’d been holding. Durvan still had doubts. “Stay suspicious. The man who set me up can’t have executed the perfect crime. He screwed up somewhere. He just didn’t expect me to live to tell you the truth. He’s got to be sweating bullets over the fact you might uncover something.”

  “You know something, Glover? Anything that points in another direction?”

  “No. But I got some questions I need to put to a few people.”

  “The hell you will. Stay away from anyone you were with that night. Tampering with witnesses will definitely land your ass in jail. I have one piece of news, for what it’s worth. There was GHB in your blood. Doesn’t change my focus. So, until I finish my investigation, don’t set a toe outside the city limits or I’ll have you arrested for attempted flight from prosecution.”

  Noah didn’t need to hang up. Duran was gone.

  Tampering with witnesses.

  Noah wiped a hand over his mouth. He’d done a lot more than tamper with Carly last night. He’d probably compromised the key witness. Which was why he’d left her bed in a rush.

  Not his finest hour.

  It had taken him all of a minute of afterglow, the second time, to realize just how big a mistake he’d made in going with her to her apartment.

  She, who had been gently caressing his chest, had caught up with his thinking about ten seconds later.

  She’d raised her head up off his shoulder and her hands stilled, forefingers no longer circling his nipples. Then with a graceful swing of her leg she dismounted from him. He’d never felt more naked.

  Not bothering to cover herself, she’d folded her arms and stood before him. “If that’s regret creeping up on you, forget it. I got what I asked for. I won’t be trying to jack up your life. I have enough problems. Nothing’s flawless, right?”

  For a moment he’d kept his mouth shut. What he could see of her in the light reflected from the city looked damned perfect.

  But she was right. He couldn’t afford to get distracted any more than he’d already been tonight. But that was the damnable thing. Carly didn’t feel like a distraction. She was a whole other superhighway of possibility into territory he couldn’t begin to explore until his life looked some kind of sane again.

  He’d raked a hand through his hair, groping for the right words. “I’m not sure how to say this. You saved my life. The least I could have done to repay you was to stay out of your life, certainly out of…”

  “Me?”

  He’d felt the back of his neck burn. “Okay. Yeah.”

  She’d watched him, her eyes shining in the dim light. “I invited you here. I didn’t force you.”

  “No. I came damn willing. I just should have listened to my better instincts.”

  “Why didn’t you?” Yep, talking with Carly was like drinking whiskey straight from the bottle.

  What could he say? All my honorable intentions went up in flame when you kissed me? That sounded like a loser line.

  He’d cracked a smile. “I wanted you. Have since the moment we met. Hell. Every time I look at you I get a hard-on. I know that sounds lame. But that kind of thing doesn’t happen to me.”

  “No. I get it.” She brushed a handful of springy curls back from her brow and then reached for her sweater. “I’ve felt the same way since Friday night.” She pulled it over her head on one fluid motion. “Damned if I know why.”

  He could have told her. They’d shared a traumatic experience together and survived. Nothing like a near-death experience to make a person want to reassert the most fundamental life-affirming survival instincts. That would include sex.

  But it didn’t explain what he was feeling now, hours later, standing in a dog park with the sun in his eyes. Being with and in Carly had set off a five-alarm fire in his belly that lay banked there even after climax. He hadn’t only succumbed to the moment, he’d let down his guard with her. That was something he hadn’t done with any woman since his divorce.

  Noah shoved that thought away. Th
en and now. He knew the difference. He needed to be practical. Think practical. To do that, he needed to keep out of range of Carly’s emotional gravitational field.

  She hadn’t tried to stop him leaving. She hadn’t said a word that made him feel worse than he already did. She’d simply watched him as though his every move was important.

  He’d finished dressing before he turned to her that final time. “You will probably be called as a witness against me, if the case goes to trial. If the authorities learn about us, this, it could jeopardize your testimony.”

  Her lips twisted. “You’re good, but I wasn’t going to take out an ad.”

  Ouch. Guess that put him in his place. “All I’m saying is, tonight was just about us. It doesn’t change things. Tell the truth as you see it.”

  “I always do. I don’t think you started that fire.”

  “That’s not what you said when you came to my hospital room this morning.”

  She stared at him, her big dark eyes holding emotions he couldn’t tease out. “A man doesn’t make love the way you just did if he’s given up on life.”

  Noah laughed at the remembrance, the bright bark of laughter so at odds with the near silence of the Sunday morning that Harley paused at the apex of the A-frame to glance back at him.

  His final words to Carly had been, “When I beat this, I’ll look you up.”

  She’d smiled, finally. “You do that.”

  Now, here he was in a dog park, no closer than he was twenty-four hours ago to finding out who wanted him dead. Andy and his parents, and maybe even Carly, were depending on him to extricate himself from this mess. He needed to stop thinking like a victim and start thinking like the investigator he was.

  Every crime needed opportunity and motive. For now, motive was the simple desire to murder Noah Glover. More, it was the desire to make that murder look like suicide. To ruin his reputation in the manner in which he was to die. That’s what the suicide note had been about. To make his failure public. As if he was at the end of his rope, or felt trapped, or ashamed. But there was nothing in his life so terrible that friends and family would understand his suicide. Or, was there something he was missing?

  He frowned as he processed that idea. The desire to make his death look like a suicide limited the number of ways the murder could take place. Choosing arson as the method of death was an unnecessary complication with far more risks than simple murder. He could have been killed in a hit and run. Shot. Poisoned. Instead, he’d been roofied. Then picked up sometime later when his adversary knew he could control him, and their environment.

  “Son of a B!” That meant the man knew him well enough to get close to him to deliver the drug. That had to have been at the bar.

  The person was known to him. Was familiar enough with Noah’s habits to quickly get inside his natural caution as a law enforcement officer when approached. Not a stranger, nor even a man he’d previously arrested. The perpetrator must be a friend, or at least a regular acquaintance.

  He pulled out a note pad and began making notes. Once a cop, always a cop. It was a mindset. It ruled the way an officer entered a building, approached a store, chose a seat in a restaurant, and orientated him or herself in the world.

  And his nemesis had even gotten past Harley.

  He glanced at his dog, who had come running back and now eyed him with bright eyes and a lolling tongue.

  He smiled and reached for a treat. “I wish you could talk.”

  Harley barked on cue and received his reward.

  He grinned. “On the other hand, all you’d probably say is ‘Time to eat? Time to eat? Squirrel! Uh, time to eat?’”

  He leaned down to scratch both sides of Harley’s head behind the ears. His furry companion might be a taste bud surrounded by fur, but Harley was also, like all dogs, a believer in pack. Noah was his pack leader. Noah’s son was pack. So, to a lesser degree, were Noah’s parents. But the pack ended there. Harley would defend Noah against an aggressor, even if the person was well known to him. He and his dad had learned that early on during a particularly heated basketball game of twenty-one. While tussling for the ball, his dad had thrown an elbow that caught Noah in the ribs and sent him to the driveway pavement. Harley had almost taken a hefty bite of out his father before Noah realized what the dog was about to do, and called him off. After that, they played basketball only after Harley was put safely inside.

  No, no hostile person could have gotten close to him with Harley there. That confirmed that he had greeted the man in a way that Harley had accepted his presence without question.

  Noah looked at Harley, hard. “Who did we pick up that night?”

  Harley licked his hand.

  “Yeah, a better question would be, will you recognize our enemy when you see him again?” Saying that aloud gave Noah an idea. He should retrace his steps that night, as far as he could remember them.

  He wished he had his truck back. But it had been impounded for evidence gathering. That was a reminder, much like Durvan’s curt call, that the clock was ticking on his freedom. Once forensics came back with that evidence against him, Durvan had all but said he would be arrested. Bail would depend on whether or not the judge could be persuaded that he wasn’t a flight risk. No, he had to act before his freedom depended on the outcome between some assistant district attorney and some cheap-o defender—because he could not afford better.

  Another thought struck him. He must have been in his truck when his attacker approached. If he’d been accosted before he reached his truck, Harley wouldn’t have been at the fire. The attacker wanted his truck. Had he wanted Harley, too?

  The idea of Harley dying because of some perceived hate against his handler made heat pulse behind Noah’s eyes. Harley was trained to find explosives, as dangerous a job as any a K9 did. Because Harley, like any dog, wasn’t aware of the danger inherent in his job. It was up to his handler to make certain his K9 did that job with as many security controls in place as the handler could manage. There were even situations where a handler could refuse to subject his K9 to danger if the conditions looked dicey.

  Secrecy wasn’t all that easy in the real world. Someone must have seen something. Perhaps they just didn’t realize the importance of it. Moreover, there should be footage from the security cameras that nearly all businesses had.

  Of course, he’d have to be careful about trying to obtain a look at such footage. As Durvan warned him, talking to people he’d been with the night of the fire would be seen an as attempt to tamper with witnesses. He’d have to come at it another way. What that way was, he had no idea. Right now, he and Harley had a job to do.

  Carly. What was he going to do about her? Nothing, yet.

  He whistled for Harley, who shot toward the exit like a furry cannon ball.

  For four and a half years, he’d had no life other than his son, his job, and Harley. That had seemed enough. Until last night.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “We’re almost done here. Just a few more questions.”

  Carly made a production of glancing at the clock above the fireplace before looking back at her unexpected guest. Investigator Durvan had made that statement the first time ten minutes earlier. “I hope so, Mr. Durvan. I’m meeting my aunt at church in twenty minutes.”

  “Yes. You mentioned that before.” Durvan looked down at the computer tablet on which he’d been making notes and scrolled up and down, as though needing to reread every word.

  After years of enduring couture fittings, Carly was a pro at not fidgeting when she was bored. But she was losing her patience with the man who’d interrupted her Sunday morning. They’d already discussed why she’d been at her store after hours. How she’d gone to investigate strange noises next door and found an unconscious man and a dog. That she’d called 911 immediately, before the fire began. Now she’d repeated it all. Why was he was still sitting on her sofa as if she had all the time in the world to entertain him?

  “You’re certain you never met Noah Gl
over before the night of the fire? Casually. Perhaps at a social function? Maybe, at a night spot?”

  “I’m not much for going out. My life is pretty busy since I’ve returned home. To be perfectly honest, Inspector Durvan, we didn’t even meet on the night of the fire.” She saw his eyes widen ever so slightly and smiled. “We met the morning after the fire, in his hospital room.”

  “Really? Why would you go there?”

  Carly thought about telling the truth, but remembered in time her promise to Jarius not to reveal how she’d learned about the suspected suicide attempt. “I had his dog.”

  “I see.” Though his expression didn’t change, this was new knowledge to him. She’d bet on it because he made a note. “Why didn’t you turn the animal over to a police officer at the scene?”

  “It didn’t occur to me. Things were pretty intense. Mr. Glover was rushed to the hospital before I realized I was left holding his dog. Maybe it doesn’t make real sense thinking about it today. But, after I’d saved both their lives, I felt responsible for the dog until he could be returned to his owner.”

  “How did you know where to find Mr. Glover?”

  “I overheard one of the EMTs say where they were taking him.”

  Those shrewd gray eyes held hers. “How did you know Mr. Glover’s name?”

  “I didn’t.” Carly looked him straight in the eye.

  “I met Mr. Glover’s sister in the hallway.”

  He looked surprised, again. “You know her?”

  “No. She was coming out of a patient’s room and I heard her say something about a fire. So, I approached her and I explained that I might have been in the same fire, if it was the one on Magnolia. Turns out she already knew about a woman saving her brother. She threw her arms around me and thanked me for saving him.”

  “I see.” Durvan typed another note, using his thumbs. “Did you leave the dog with her?”

  “No, she told me to go on in and introduce myself. That’s when I met Mr. Glover.” Better not to add in all his glory.