by Julie Miller
Amos removed the toothpick that he’d been chewing from the side of his mouth and tapped his chest. “And Special Agent. You need to try harder if you want us to believe you’ve gone legit.”
Meade pointed to the smoking wreckage of the garage. “Can I help it if the competition doesn’t want me to succeed?”
“You’re claiming this was a setup?” Cole challenged.
“I have enemies, Detective. My uncle Jericho was an influential man—not everyone agreed with the way he ran his business. I’ve learned from the mistakes he made and I’m doing well for myself. But some people can hold a grudge for a long time.” He pulled back the edge of his leather glove to check the time, as if he was calculating how much longer he’d allow this conversation to last. “You, perhaps. How is your lovely wife, by the way?”
“I’m here to do my job, Meade.” Cole clearly had no intention of letting Chad Meade bait him into an argument about the last time Cole and his wife, Tori, had investigated the Meade crime family. “You’ve got a casualty here. One of your employees, Enrique Maldonado. He was trapped in the fire. He didn’t make it.”
“I heard. That’s too bad.”
Matt’s hand balled into a fist at the lack of sympathy, or even empathy, for the life that had been lost.
Cole nodded. “Yeah, it’s too bad he had his hands taped together and was probably unconscious when the fire started and had no chance of surviving.”
Chad Meade met Cole’s hard, unblinking blue eyes and finally smiled before looking away. Since members of Chad’s family had once tried to kill Cole’s wife, there was certainly no love lost between them. “I know nothing about that, Detective Taylor. But I assure you, the company takes care of its employees and their families. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to talk to my insurance people and do a little PR spin with the press.” He gestured to the burned-out shell of the garage. “Historic landmark destroyed. It breaks the locals’ hearts.”
Cole shoved his hands into his leather jacket, probably hiding the fists he’d made, too. “We’ll be investigating this fire for arson. Maybe you think we can’t get you for murder, but even a case of insurance fraud will put you back in prison.”
“I’m just the investor who owns the property. An entrepreneur. What would I know about setting a fire like this?” He wiggled his gloved fingers in the air. “I don’t even smoke anymore.” He turned and waved to a brunette reporter who waved back and invited him to speak on camera. “Gentlemen. If you’ll excuse me, I have to go.”
Amos followed a few steps behind him. “We have more questions for you, Meade.”
“I’m certain you do.” Despite his perfect, capped-tooth smile, Meade’s tone was laced with a threat now. “I’m not in the business anymore, gentlemen. And your investigation borders on harassment.”
Cole was one cool customer, throwing Meade’s excuse right back at him. “If you’re not in the business, then you’ve got nothing to hide.”
Chad Meade smoothed his tie inside his suit jacket before reaching into the chest pocket of his coat. “But I do have work to do, calls to make. A family to express my condolences to.” He held out a business card. “If you want to speak to me again, contact my lawyer.”
Amos snagged the card and stuffed it into the back pocket of his jeans as Meade strolled away. “That man is one smug SOB. He does know we’ve built a paper trail on him, doesn’t he? That we can track his import and export shipment schedules to match up with trafficking in and out of KCI and the river port? What we need is witness corroboration. Several witnesses would be better.”
Cole shook his head. “Now that Maldonado’s gone, we’ll be starting from scratch again, trying to convince someone to turn on Meade.” His expression was grim as he looked to the blackened shell of the Art Deco building. “But if this is the result of turning on him...”
Matt listened to their case against Chad Meade, and a few inexplicable observations about this fire began to make sense. “Can I show you something?” The three men went to the body lying in the back of the ME’s van. Cole and Amos flashed the badges hanging around their necks and vouched for Matt as a witness. With permission from the medical examiner, Niall Watson, who remained to observe their interactions with the body, the three men climbed in beside the gurney. Dr. Watson issued them all sterile gloves and proceeded to unzip the body bag.
“Can you identify the victim?” Dr. Watson asked, adjusting his glasses on the bridge of his nose. “I found no ID on him. No wallet, no phone.”
“It’s Enrique Maldonado,” Amos confirmed. “May I?” Amos pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt and slid it beneath the top of the victim’s boot. Once he’d pried it far enough from the victim’s leg, he reached inside and pulled out a set of dog tags on a thin chain. He dropped the tags into a bag the ME held open before sealing and labeling it. “Perps don’t usually check the boot for anything but hidden weapons. Those will confirm his ID. Maldonado was working undercover for me out of NCIS. We believe Meade has his hand in moving illegal arms in and out of the country by hiding them in those expensive cars he imports and exports. Enrique was our inside man who followed the trail here to Kansas City.” Amos’s light-colored eyes narrowed as he looked down at the body. “He was a good man. He wasn’t even a field agent, but we gave him the job because he’s so good with engines and cars. No one would question his expertise.”
Cole rested a hand on Amos’s shoulder. “Sorry about your man, Amos.”
“He was a good Marine.” The dark-haired agent closed his eyes completely for a moment, inhaled a deep breath, then opened his eyes, ready to work again. “He’s been feeding us intel for months now. We still don’t know if Meade is running this operation, or if he’s a middleman and we still have to identify who he’s reporting to.”
Cole studied the victim’s battered face for a moment before looking away. “Burning his car wasn’t persuasion enough to keep Maldonado from meeting with us. Was his cover blown and Meade found out he was a cop? Or is this the going payback for anyone talking to the police now?”
Matt had an idea about that. “If Maldonado was working for you, that could explain what I found.” He lifted the stiff left arm from the gurney and pulled back the stained, torn sleeve. “I thought you might want to see this.” Dr. Watson snapped a photograph of Maldonado’s forearm, and the letters and number that had literally been scratched into his skin.
N4 Jeff C FB
Cole pulled out his phone and took a picture of the code. “You think he did this? Or was it done to him?”
Matt laid the arm down and picked up the victim’s right hand to show them the bloody nails. “With everything on fire around him, and nothing to write with, he carved this himself.” Cole and the ME both snapped pictures of the hand, as well. “I think he jumped because he wanted to make sure you got his message. I can’t be certain what it means, but it looks like he was trying to preserve the writing in case his clothes caught on fire and the body burned.”
“N4. Enforcer,” Amos translated. “Jeff C? Jefferson City? Meade’s hired himself a new enforcer from Jefferson City. Probably an ex-con who just got out of prison there.”
Ex-con? Like Corie’s ex?
“Is that why the call from your attorney’s office upset you?”
“My ex hurt a lot of people.”
The back of Matt’s neck prickled with awareness. He glanced outside the ME’s van at his crewmates finishing their cleanup and joking with each other now that the danger at this scene had passed. He stepped to the edge of the van to look at the gathering of reporters and cameras closing in around Chad Meade. But he wasn’t sure what his instincts were trying to tell him.
“What’s the FB?” Cole asked.
Matt glanced back to see Amos scraping some goo off the bottom of the dead man’s boot. “Looks like petroleum jelly.” He showed it to the ME, who opened a jar for him to scrape
the substance into.
What details was Matt missing here? “May I?”
He brought the jar to his nose to sniff the contents. Oh no. Hell no.
“You ever seen anything like that?” Cole asked.
Matt had. His blood sped through his veins like a freight train.
Corie said her ex started fires.
“Kenny stayed in Jefferson City after he was released from prison.”
That’s why the hairs on the back of his neck were standing out straight. He handed the jar back to the ME, who capped it as evidence. “Get another sample of that to my dad, chief arson investigator at KCFD.” Matt jumped from the back of the van to the ground. “You need me for anything else, Cole? There’s a phone call I need to make.” The sooner the crew cleared the scene and he wrote up his preliminary report, the sooner he could get to Pearl’s Diner and to Corie and Evan. But all that would wait if he couldn’t hear her voice and know that she was okay.
“Go.” His uncle shooed him on his way. “I’ll contact Gideon about the potential arson. Thanks for your help tonight. I’ll keep you in the loop if we find out anything about the fire itself.”
Matt was backing away, even as he was unbuckling his turnout coat and reaching inside his BDUs to pull out his cell phone. He nodded toward the victim Niall Watson was zipping back inside the body bag. “FB. Firebug. Check out the name Kenny Norwell. Find out if he’s got any connection to Chad Meade. And send me Norwell’s picture if you can get it.”
“Done.” Cole called after him, “Who’s Norwell?”
“Someone I hope is still in Jefferson City.”
Chapter Ten
“Answer your phone!” Matt growled the order at the cell phone he’d anchored to his dashboard.
When Corie’s voice mail started up again with its pleasant but impersonal greeting, he punched the disconnect button. He’d already left three messages, apologizing for running late, asking her to call him, telling her he had some information he wanted to share in person, trying not to sound completely desperate to know that she was okay.
He’d had to settle for a single text.
Hey, Matt. We’re slammed tonight. Call you back when things lighten up.
At least if she was super busy, she wasn’t alone. And he couldn’t imagine any universe where she didn’t make sure Evan was safe, as well. They were probably fine, and he was too exhausted by the day and his anticipation at seeing her beautiful smile again to be able to filter out the negative thoughts.
He forced himself to take a deep breath and slow to a stop for the red light at the next intersection.
He had no proof that her ex-husband was in Kansas City, breaking into her apartment, setting small fires around their building and killing undercover agents. Uncle Cole had texted him a copy of Kenneth Norwell’s mugshot. A man could change his looks a lot in six years—grow a beard, shave his head or dye his hair or let it grow long. Still, Matt had memorized the image and had wearied his brain trying to recall if he’d seen anyone like that around Corie and Evan. If he’d seen anyone like that in the crowds of lookie-loos at any of the area’s recent suspicious fires. But he’d been focused on doing his job—putting out the flames, not spotting the man who may have started them.
Cole had also shared that Norwell’s residence was in Jefferson City. His parole officer confirmed that Norwell had been at every check-in since his release. Still, Jeff City was only a two-and-a-half-hour drive from KC. Close enough to get to Kansas City to set a fire and get back in time for his required daily meetings. But did that put him in the city long enough to play games with Corie’s sense of security? Did that give him time to drive to St. Louis to torch an attorney’s office to find her new name and address in the first place?
Someone was conducting a harassment campaign against Corie and her son. Someone wanted her to be unsettled and afraid, possibly to distract her enough to drop her guard so she wouldn’t see the big threat coming—and maybe just because some sicko got off on gaslighting her and seeing her afraid. And there was no denying that someone had started those fires at their building with a flammable goo that bore a remarkable resemblance to the accelerant used to burn down Chad Meade’s pricey automotive repair place.
It could all be a tragic coincidence. Or it could be that Corie’s violent past had come back to haunt her in the worst of ways.
Matt drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, counting down the seconds until the light turned green and the car ahead of him pulled out. He had a portable siren and flashing lights in his truck he could turn on to cut through traffic faster, but the only justifiable emergency was the worst-case scenario playing through his head and twisting at his heart. And as far as he knew, that hadn’t happened yet.
Plus, Corie and Evan weren’t the only citizens he was responsible for here. An arsonist in Kansas City? An uptick in the number of fire calls KCFD had answered in the past month—everything from the woman this morning who had accidentally ignited a pile of laundry when she tried to light her water heater to the gut job at Meade’s automotive shop this evening—were cause for concern that no one should be ignoring. Not every fire was arson, but every fire was dangerous—and a potential killer, even if you hadn’t been bound up and left for dead in the middle of one.
Unfortunately, it was a single-digit Friday night during the long haul of January, and the bars and eateries around the City Market were open and doing a booming business. There were dozens of patrons hurrying along the sidewalks, getting in and out of cars and buses and cabs, and hundreds more were already inside, staying warm while they flirted and partied and filled their bellies with food and drink. Every one of them could be at risk if Kenny Norwell was in town, setting fires for whoever paid him the right price.
Matt tapped on the accelerator as the light changed. “Don’t project the worst.”
But the tension cording the back of his neck warned him that the worst was yet to happen.
He turned the corner and spotted the familiar neon sign and bright light from the interior spilling through the big glass windows of Pearl’s Diner at the far end of the block. But he was too far away to see inside, to spot Corie’s bouncing ponytail or Evan’s shaggy brown hair. Parking was going to be a bear around here, and he vowed then and there to pull into the first available parking space he came across that would fit his big truck, and then he’d run the rest of the way to the diner. He’d told Corie he’d get off by eight or nine, and it was half past ten. In the past, he hadn’t minded the responsibilities he enjoyed as a lieutenant at Firehouse 13. But tonight, every frozen hose, every incident report that needed at least a preliminary summary, every offer of support and camaraderie from his crewmates over that last rough call had taken precious time away from getting to Corie and Evan. Even the twenty minutes he’d stopped to shower the smells of soot and death off him and change into jeans and a sweater had taken too long.
Now he was circling the block for a second time, seriously rethinking turning on his flashing lights and double parking outside the diner’s front door, all because he wasn’t good at putting his thoughts into words. He wasn’t sure he could express his fears about Norwell finding a way to track down Corie and Evan’s new names and showing up on their doorstep again without Matt sounding like he was barking out orders and scaring her.
Especially if this turned out to be nothing. Maybe the fires were accidents. Maybe Chad Meade had killed Agent Rand’s man himself. And maybe this gut-deep edginess had less to do with arson fires and more to do with the feelings he had for Corie that were bottled up inside him.
His phone rang on the dash. When he saw the name on the screen, it didn’t ring a second time.
Matt pushed the button to answer the call. “Corie.”
Not Corie. He heard noises in the background, some garbled talking, the clink of dishes and silverware, a couple of raised voices, but nothing he could make out.
“Matt?” Evan’s voice sounded small and nasally. Was he crying? “Is it okay if I call you?”
“Sure, bud.” Matt’s heart lurched in his chest. Was something wrong? Was that why Corie hadn’t called him back? He ratcheted down the tension that threatened to leak into his voice. “Are you okay? What are you doing on your mom’s phone?”
“Mom needs help.”
“What’s wrong?”
He heard a big sniffle, and then Evan’s voice grew stronger. “The customers are being mean to her.” Customers. Plural. So probably not Norwell. Surely Evan would recognize his own father. But then, he would only have been one or two when Norwell went to prison. Corie would know him, though. Would she let on to Evan that it was his father? Maybe her ex wasn’t even in town, and the fires at their building were just a coincidence that overlapped Uncle Cole’s investigation into Chad Meade’s resurgence in organized crime and arms smuggling, and whatever was going on at the diner had nothing to do with the information he’d learned this evening.
Maybe someone had been rude about their service or had stiffed Corie on her tip. Maybe the kid took umbrage with that. Matt knew he would. But he kept his tone even and reassuring. “Not everybody is nice, Ev.”
“They broke my dragon.”
The night turned red behind Matt’s eyes, and he bit down on the urge to curse where Evan could hear him. That plastic dragon was just a toy. But that toy clearly had emotional value to Evan. Heck, the kid literally swore by that dragon. Breaking it would damage more than the toy. It was a security blanket for Corie’s son who’d grown up without a father. And damn it, it was Evan’s.
“Some bullies aren’t nice at all.”
“The man with the beard said he was going to eat some of my bricks, but I think he hid them in his gross beard or his mashed potatoes. You can’t eat plastic bricks. Mom’s trying to make him give them back.”
Hence the raised voices. “Is he hurting your mom?”
“I don’t think so. But they’re loud.”