Dark Burning: Dark Falls, CO Romantic Thriller Book 6

by Lori Ryan

  Next to her, he saw a dark-haired man he didn’t know but he immediately disliked by the look of him. The man’s face said he was in charge and that was all wrong since Captain Scanlon was in charge at any scene she was at. Even more wrong, everything about the man said he was a controlling fuck who didn’t care what other people thought.

  Polished shoes, too tight business suit, and manicured hands. Seriously, the man’s nails were shining like he had clear nail polish on them or some shit. Who does that?

  Eric glanced behind the pair and saw Merritt McKenna waiting off to one side behind them like she expected to be called forward any moment. What the hell was this?

  His captain spoke. “Detective Cantu, Detective Sevier, this is Bill Lincoln. He’s with the mayor’s office, but he’ll be with us —”

  “For the foreseeable future.” Lincoln spoke over the captain and in his head Eric nicknamed the man Jackwagon. It fit.

  Eric ground his teeth together knowing full well his captain wouldn’t appreciate it if he tried to come to her rescue.

  The asshole kept speaking. “We’re going to be working on the department’s image and that means we’re going to be working with the press.”

  Eric stuck his hell no look on his face.

  Because hell no.

  He wasn’t doing it. Whatever it was, it wasn’t going to involve him. It wasn’t that they didn’t work with the press. In fact, they did. Most of the time. Just not now, and not with this reporter. His reporter.

  There was only the slightest narrowing of Captain Scanlon’s eyes, but it was enough. Eric cursed six ways from Sunday in his head, but he pasted a smile on his face. He respected his captain. Liked her, even.

  And with all their department had been through lately, she had stood by them and defended them against all that had been thrown at them.

  “Ma’am,” he said, knowing full well he was going to hate whatever came out of her mouth.

  Captain Scanlon tilted toward Merritt. “Detectives, I’ve just explained to Ms. McKenna that the Dark Falls PD would like to make sure she gets what she needs to cover the arson investigation as we hunt down the person who’s starting these fires.”

  Eric fought to keep his face straight and could see John doing the same next to him. The underlying message was clear in the cap’s words and the fact that they had some asswipe from the mayor’s office standing with them.

  The captain had just been told by higher-ups that the police department needed to play nice with the press.

  When you had techs in your lab falsifying evidence to make a quick buck and a serial killer in your Major Crimes unit, damage control became a way of life. And apparently, damage control has just been stepped up.

  In the past, Eric had been one of the go-to people in the unit for dealing with the press. He could smile and charm them and never minded playing the part. Until now.

  With Merritt, he didn’t have it in him.

  “Captain, this might not be the best—”

  Scanlon’s dark brows rose and her face spelled don’t fuck with me loud and clear.

  “Do we have a problem here, Captain?” Lincoln asked, his tone a little too crisp and a sneer on his face that screamed he hoped they did. Eric could see what was happening. This asshole was gunning for the captain.

  The captain would be the one to pay for it if they did have a problem.

  Eric snapped his mouth shut and slid his gaze sideways to meet Merritt’s eyes. She was entirely too entertained by this.

  “What exactly should this cooperation entail, Captain?” Eric ground out.

  “Ma’am,” his partner added for him. John was better at this than Eric was. Or maybe it was that love thing. Nowadays, not much fazed John.

  So Eric could have been a little more gracious. He probably also should have acknowledged Lincoln’s presence a little more, but he wasn’t in the mood.

  “Let’s start by giving Ms. McKenna an update on what we know so far.” The captain turned to Merritt. “With the proviso, of course, that there will be certain information we cannot share.”

  Lincoln stiffened but the captain spoke over him this time.

  “You understand,” she said to Merritt, but the message was probably intended for Jackwagon.

  It was a directive and Merritt nodded her head in response.

  Captain Scanlon smiled now. “But, the detectives will be happy to update you on the case and Detective Cantu will personally see to it that you have his contact information. And he’ll answer your calls.”

  The last was said to Eric and it was an order.

  Chapter Two

  Merritt McKenna couldn’t help but hear her mother’s voice in her head. Payback’s a bear—that was how her mother and sisters said it, anyway. Merritt usually used the more colorful version herself. Her language could use a little cleanup.

  She had been left standing with her colleagues trying to shove down the embarrassment when Eric growled at her. Hopefully, her colleagues would assume his response was because she was with the press, not because he had a grudge against her. A very personal grudge.

  Why had she been at the front of the gaggle? Why had she tried to be the loudest to call out, the first to shout out a question? Why hadn’t she just let one of the other journalists ask the question?

  Because that wasn’t at all her style, that’s why. Merritt had never been one to sit quietly by and wait her turn.

  And because she needed to be tenacious in her reporting right now. Her career had taken a hit when she and her son Collin had moved from Arvada to Dark Falls. She was starting over at a new paper with a new boss and new colleagues. She needed to prove herself.

  Still, the move had been the right one.

  She needed space from her family and Dark Falls was the right distance. Close enough to visit and have their support in an emergency. Close enough for Collin to see his grandparents and be close to his cousins. Far enough for her to feel like she was standing on her own two feet. Far enough that she no longer had a constant reminder that she wasn’t quite what they’d hoped for. That she hadn’t quite managed to meet expectations.

  She’d been about to walk away when Captain Scanlon from the Major Crimes division approached and pulled her aside. She’d seen Scanlon at pressers before, and of course asked her questions from the crowd, but the two hadn’t talked directly until now.

  One minute the captain was explaining that the department appreciated her coverage of the arsons and wanted to work with her moving forward, and the next Merritt was following the woman and a man she didn’t recognize across the lawn to where Eric Cantu and his partner stood.

  She couldn’t keep the grin off her face. Eric had been an ass to her from the minute he found out she was a reporter. Watching him wrestle with the order from his captain to make nice with the press was making her morning and then some.

  Merritt wasn’t entirely sure she’d be given free rein to write what she wanted, but the captain hadn’t made her promise to show the department in a good light or anything like that. Why not see what she could get out of the relationship before she said no?

  She watched as the captain and the man she’d just learned was from the mayor’s office walked away, leaving her standing with Eric and his partner.

  Merritt should have controlled the grin that spread across her face. Should have, but didn’t.

  She held her recorder up and repeated her question from moments earlier. “Detective Cantu, can you tell me if this is the same person who started the other fires?”

  He growled again and she had to press her lips between her teeth to keep from giggling. Not that she giggled. She was a grown woman, dammit. But if there was ever a time for a giggle, this was it.

  Instead, she let the smile cross her face again and cleared her throat.

  Eric’s partner looked as amused as she was and she noticed he didn’t offer an answer in Eric’s place.

  Eric seemed to unhinge his jaw with some effort. “It would appea
r so at this time.”

  She didn’t acknowledge the fact he was hedging his bets. She would wager it was killing him not to say they couldn’t comment on an ongoing case.

  She had a feeling he wouldn’t tell her if they had any suspects, so she went with another question for now. “Have you found anything to connect the scenes together? This one is different, isn’t it?”

  She was on the verge of starting to babble. She knew it. She could feel the run-on sentences burbling up inside her. It took all she had not to launch into a babblefest of an explanation as to how any idiot could see that this crime scene was different from the others. It was lived in, close to other houses. It wasn’t falling down. The arsonist would have had to break in. At least, she assumed he had.

  “Did he break and enter or did he have access to the house somehow?” she blurted before she could stop herself. To hell with it. She’d been given access, she was going to take advantage of it.

  The fact of the matter was, Eric Cantu made her nervous as hell. He had from the minute she’d walked into the bar on her first night in town. He had drawn her eye as she entered, one foot on the bar rail, a beer lazily dangling from his hand as he graced those around him with a smile.

  And then he turned his eyes on her and she stopped breathing right there in the middle of the bar. The man had dark brown eyes that were almost black and that five o’clock shadow thing that could seem staged but didn’t on him. His nose was too big. It should have made him look awful, but it didn’t. It made him look good enough to lick. She had done a little of that, as a matter of fact.

  So, yeah, he’d made her nervous but she hadn’t let it stop her then, and she wouldn’t let it stop her now.

  In front of her, his face twisted at her question and she could see him wrestling with how much he had to tell her and what he could hold back.

  His partner coughed but she got the distinct impression he was covering a laugh.

  It probably should have offended her that Eric was struggling so much. She’d seen him turn on the charm with the press before. He’d been sent down to give a statement and answer questions a time or two. He would produce that megawatt smile and go all southern boy “yes ma’am” and “no sir” and “I’m happy to help and share everything I can” even when he was hardly giving them anything they didn’t already know. All the while, not answering a thing he didn’t want to, but somehow making them feel like he’d shared all with them.

  As far as she knew he wasn’t southern. As far as she knew, he’d grown up around here, but that didn’t stop him from affecting the southern boy thing just the same.

  Not with her, though. With the exception of that first night, she’d get no charm from this man.

  “There are similarities and we’re chasing those down now,” was all he said in response to her question. He ignored the part about breaking and entering. She repeated it.

  “Yes,” he said. “He entered the home through the back door after breaking a pane in the glass.”

  “Any suspects yet? No one’s been hurt in these fires yet, but it seems like the fire bug is getting closer to hurting someone. Someone could have easily been home when he struck.”

  She saw his flinch even though he hid it well.

  “I think we’re finished here.” He turned on his heel, but Merritt called out after him.

  “You didn’t give me your contact info, detective. I believe your captain said—”

  He stormed back, startling her with the sudden speed and the way he stepped close, almost too close, to her. It did things to her, made her body remember the way he’d touched her. Things she would much prefer her body forget.

  He held her gaze for a minute, anger in his eyes as they locked her in place.

  She firmed her spine, holding the position. It hadn’t been her suggestion that he give her his information. Just like it hadn’t been her suggestion that they go home together the night they met. Or that they hop in bed with little to no information about each other, including the fact she was a reporter.

  She opened her mouth to speak again, but he stopped her, his hand holding up a white business card between them.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter Three

  Merritt started a hot spot on her phone and pulled out her tablet. She brought up property records for Dark Falls, entering the address of the house she’d just left. She knew a lot of reporters would assume the people watching their home burn were the owners, but she’d learned a long time ago to check every tiny detail. The pebble you overturned could turn out to have something under it that was just as valuable as what you might find under a boulder.

  Her phone rang and a glance at the screen had her heart flipping.

  Collin’s school. She answered right away, bracing for bad news. It was always bad news when her six-year-old’s school called nowadays.

  The principal’s voice was no surprise. “Ms. McKenna, it’s Mrs. Willows. We’ve had an incident.”

  Merritt closed her eyes. The woman was being kind in not saying another incident.

  “Do you need me to come down?” Merritt looked at her watch. She could skip lunch, run by the school, and still have time to chase down some kind of lead for her story. She needed something other than the bare minimum essentials before her deadline.

  “I think that would be best. Collin bit one of the other students.”

  Okay, so this was the kind of “incident” that meant Collin would be taking the rest of the day off with her.

  She knew kids bit from time to time, but honestly, she’d thought that ended before kindergarten. Wasn’t that a pre-k thing? What did she know? She only had the one child and most of the time he seemed to make up his own rules and timelines as he went along.

  A lot like his mother, that one.

  A small voice said her sisters would know, but Merritt wasn’t making that call. Kendall and Kerry had memorized every child rearing handbook on the market before their kids were born. They could likely rattle off all the milestones of a six-year old and let her know with painful precision just how off track she’d let Collin get.

  It took twenty minutes in traffic to get to Collin’s school and another forty minutes to get to their house outside of the city. Merritt had a feeling not a whole lot of what she and the principal had said to Collin about his behavior was getting through.

  “Shoes off, mister” she said as Collin raced in the front door. She would have to work from home for the afternoon and hope her boss didn’t mind. As a reporter, she was often out of the office for the full day anyway, but in this case, she’d be tied to home, for the most part.

  Collin ran for the kitchen and Merritt didn’t have to look to know he was headed for his tablet.

  “No tablet and no television!” She called the words out, despite knowing there would be a tantrum.

  The wailing started right away.

  Her phone buzzed as Collin threw himself to the floor with the “but why mom?” refrain she knew she’d hear for the next hour.

  His tantrums seemed to be getting longer and louder.

  Merritt took a deep slow breath and looked at her phone, reminding herself she wasn’t supposed to engage when he was pitching a fit. At least, that’s what all the manuals and her best friend said. She owed Gabby a call. It had been too long since they’d had a chance to really talk.

  Her boss, Paul Barlow, had texted. Need you to cover the ketchup column for tomorrow. Jason is chasing a big lead.

  Merritt buried a sigh. The ketchup column was the office shorthand for the Catching Up Around Town column that appeared each Wednesday in Dark Falls Daily’s print and online editions. It was something the reporters all shared on a rotating schedule, but she’d noticed Jason Wilson was “chasing a lead” more often than not when it was his turn.

  Since it was a Tuesday, that meant she needed to get the copy for the column into the office tonight, along with her own report on the fires so they could be formatted. If she was lucky, she could ge
t her boss to put her write-up about the fire into the print and online editions. He wasn’t as convinced as she was that it was newsworthy yet, so each time she had submitted a piece on it, it was a struggle to get Paul to take it.

  She texted a quick okay to him and then grabbed her tablet to see if she’d gotten the results of the property search back. In her mind, she scanned her to-do list. She’d need to skip running out to pick up her dry cleaning which meant another day of recycled suits, and dinner would need to be takeout or something simple. She had a feeling Collin would love waffles or cereal for dinner. She didn’t hate the idea herself.

  Waffles with butter and syrup sounded great.

  She sent another text to Jason to see if he’d collected any information for the ketchup column and one to her favorite research assistant in the research pool at the office. If Sabrina was available, she could hopefully work her magic—pun intended—and dredge up a few tidbits for Merritt to stick into the column.

  Collin was currently sliding his body across the floor so he could do his crying and kicking thing at her feet instead of in the kitchen.

  How did single moms with more than one kid do it? She felt like she was drowning with just the one.

  Merritt looked down at him. “I hear Kitten whining. He needs to go out to potty. Do you want to take him or should I?”

  The deal had been that Collin would be responsible for the small terrier mix when they adopted him from the pound, but he didn’t seem to be in shape for pottying the dog at the moment. It wasn’t fair to the dog to make him wait out the tantrum. Merritt could hear soft whines coming from the small dog crate in the bedroom where they kept Kitten when they were out.

  She hadn’t been on board with crating the dog when the shelter staff recommended it, but that had changed when she lost three shoes (all from different pairs, of course) and a set of window blinds to the tiny shark teeth in the first week. Now, she mollified herself by giving the dog a few good chew bones every time he had to be crated and called it good.