by Lisa Harris
“Well, I definitely got a good look. I won’t forget him anytime soon.”
“You think you’d recognize him if you saw a photo?”
The image of the man surfaced in her mind, the same way it did in her dreams. Light-brown, wide-set eyes. Blonde-brown hair, cut close, no sideburns. A short, pudgy nose and thick brows that nearly touched. ‘Yeah, I’d definitely recognize him,” she said.
He looked pleased. “Okay, then. I’ll call Jason—my brother—and let you know what he says.”
She leaned against the counter the same way he was and cocked her head. “So, your brother’s a lawyer. You didn’t mention that before.”
“Well,” he said, casually running a hand through his wavy hair. “I’m full of secrets.”
“Mmmm. Clearly.”
Quiet seconds followed as they held each other’s gaze. Each beat of Quinn’s heart seemed to pound louder in her ears until, mortified at the thought, she wondered if he might actually be able to hear it—
“So, um, I’ve got to be up pretty early for the morning crowd,” he said, awkwardly pounding a fist lightly on the counter, then sidestepping toward the foyer, “so I should probably be going. But,” he pointed at her as he went, “I’m going to hold you to that dinner you promised.”
“I’ll buy groceries and everything,” she replied, following him. He spun to face her, pedaling backward toward the door until he grasped its handle. “Lock up after me. Turn on the alarm, okay?”
She nodded, then throwing caution aside blurted, “What are you doing tomorrow afternoon?”
His nose crinkled curiously. “Uh, working at The Shed. Like every Monday.”
“Could you take a couple of hours off? Around three?”
“Why?”
“There’s something I’d like to show you.”
“You’re not going to tell me?”
She fixed her face in a smirk, closing her eyelids halfway. “Guess I’m full of secrets too.”
“Yes. Yes, you are,” he said, his expression ripe with appreciation. He turned the handle and swung the door open, revealing an ever-darkening sky ushering in the approaching night. “Swing by and pick me up.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Good night, Miss Bello,” he said.
“Good night,” she echoed as he pulled the door closed behind him, leaving her to lean against it, asking herself what in the world she was doing.
Chapter Twenty
Because of the nature of the rental property business, Sundays and Mondays were the days that Quinn and Terri usually took off. On Sundays they used a message service to keep the phones running and receive alerts about any pressing issues tenants might have. But since most people considered Monday a workday, on that day Bello Realty employed a part-time receptionist in the office. They tended to cycle through a fair number of individuals provided by the temp agency. Presently, Kristin, a young woman in her early 20s, had held the job for the last eight weeks. She had done well, and Terri and Quinn both hoped she would stick around for a while, as retraining was always a headache.
On this Monday, Quinn decided to forego her normal routine and use the morning to catch up on some lingering paperwork and emails. With everything that happened on Saturday, starting with her visit to the sheriff’s department, and then seeing Lena at the Hope Community Center, she had fallen a little behind. All the craziness was unsettling enough. She didn’t want to lose her grip on the office too. Her plan was to spend a few hours there, get caught up and maybe even a little ahead of the game, so by the time she met Ian, she would feel productive and more in control. Who didn’t feel better with a clear desk and inbox?
But at nine o’clock, all such hopes went out the window when she pulled into the parking lot of the Seaglass Cove Business Complex and saw a Wilson County Sheriff’s Department patrol car parked directly in front of Unit #1D—home to Bello Realty.
“What’s going on?” Quinn asked as she barreled into the small lobby of Bello Realty. The room held a curved receptionist desk and four chairs around a black marble coffee table that displayed magazines, including the Big Bend Travel Guide, as well as a local real estate periodical listing properties for sale.
Kristin sat behind the reception desk, her eyes wide as a short man dressed in a beige suit turned away from her to face Quinn.
“Thank goodness you’re here!” Kristin gushed, her breath heavy. “I was just about to call you.”
“Is everything all right?” Quinn asked, her gaze targeted on the man. He had a ruddy complexion, pinched eyes and a severe crew cut. He held a black leather portfolio at his side.
“You’re Quinn Bello?” he asked, his voice clipped.
“Yes, that’s me. What’s happened?” Her brain spun with a dozen awful scenarios.
Have Mom and Dad been hurt on their trip? Did something worse happen to Annalise’s car, or—oh, no—to Annalise? Or Ian—no, they wouldn’t contact me about that—
He flipped his wallet open, displaying a badge, then slipped it back inside his jacket. “I’m Investigator Mason Fisk of the Wilson County Sheriff’s Department. I’m here about a fire that happened last night. Bello Realty owns 423 Piney Grove Lane, correct?”
Quinn’s heart plummeted. Yes, they owned it. It had been a source of a lot of trouble in recent weeks.
“Yes, that’s ours. You’re telling me there’s been a fire there?”
Thank goodness it’s vacant right now. Maybe being unable to rent it was a blessing in disguise.
“No, not there,” Investigator Fisk answered, shifting his weight. “Next door, at 421 Piney Grove.”
Now Quinn’s heart really tumbled. 421 Piney Grove was the reason she hadn’t been able to lease 423 to anyone in the two months she had been there. The street was just a block from the beach and 423 was a lovely four-bedroom with a pool in the back and a view of the Gulf from the third floor. But the permanent residents of 421, the Kempers, who bought the place just six months earlier, had allowed the condition of their property to nose-dive, letting it wallow in a state of neglect. The grass was several inches high, the hedges untrimmed and wild, and mildew had begun spreading on the siding. Add to that three enormous dogs who attacked the chain-link fence viciously anytime anyone at 423 was in that backyard, and it had become impossible for Bello Realty to rent the 423 house. Her parents’ repeated requests—and now hers—to the Kempers to correct the problems had gone unheeded, and while she had more than once desperately hoped, even prayed, that they would move, she wouldn’t wish a fire on anyone.
“Are they all right? Was anyone hurt?” She remembered that the Kempers were in their late forties with no children at home, thank goodness.
“No. The alarm woke them. But the place is charred to a crisp. It’ll have to be demolished, I’m sure.”
“That’s awful,” Quinn replied, and she meant it. Friction aside, she was wondering whether she should offer the Kempers the use of the 423 property until they could make other arrangements, when Investigator Fisk interrupted her train of thought.
“You’ve been having a dispute with the Kempers, is that correct?”
“A dispute? Well, I don’t know if I’d call it a dispute. Ever since they moved in they’ve just let their property fall apart. And with those unruly dogs, it’s been nearly impossible to rent our property. No one wants to take a vacation and look at or hear that. We’ve been asking them to clean it up for a while now, mow, maybe bring the dogs in sometimes—”
“The Kempers say you’ve been sending aggressive emails. Threatening them.”
“What?” Her center hardened. She didn’t like where this was going. It was the last two days on repeat.
Am I about to be blamed for something else?
“That’s ridiculous,” she said bitingly, her voice rising a half-step. “I haven’t sent any threatening emails. My parents handled the issue before I took over, and since then I’ve sent reasonable, justified requests, asking the Kempers to make a few corrections t
o put the property back into the condition it was in before they bought it. I haven’t sent them anything remotely like a threat.”
“The Kempers have identified you as the only person they could think of with a grudge against them.”
“A grudge…wait, are you telling me this fire was arson?”
“We believe so, ma’am. And according to the Kempers, you’ve not only got a motive to do it, but you essentially threatened as much in your last emails.”
Adrenaline and confusion raced through Quinn as she absorbed what he was insinuating. “You think I burned down their house? With them in it?” Her heart skipped a beat. Then another. She tried to ignore it.
“Are you maintaining that you didn’t send a threatening email?”
“Yes, that’s exactly what I’m maintaining!” Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a glimpse of Kristin, looking even more like a deer in the headlights than before. It occurred to her that she couldn’t see Kristin’s hands, prompting Quinn to wonder whether the twenty-something was recording the whole thing on her cell phone, somewhere out of sight below the desk. She wasn’t sure if that was a good or bad thing, and registered that she needed to keep her cool, just in case.
“Do you mind showing me your email account right now? We might be able to clear this up, shine a light on what’s going on.”
Quinn’s mind began whirling at breakneck speed, evaluating the situation. She didn’t have to show him anything. He didn’t have a warrant. Her computer and email account were private. He was asking, but she didn’t have to agree to his request.
Or she could just say yes, especially since she knew there was nothing in her account that would remotely qualify as a threat against the Kempers. But as an attorney she also knew it was almost always better to make law enforcement jump through the proper hoops to avoid any sort of confusion or unwarranted invasion of privacy.
The Kempers must have been able to produce the threatening emails for him. Otherwise he wouldn’t be here now, trying to verify that they existed on Quinn’s account as well, eliminating the possibility that someone else sent them. Of course, he would eventually serve a warrant on the email provider seeking those records, but finding them this morning on Quinn’s computer was a much quicker way to do that. The problem was that once she showed him there weren’t any such emails on her computer, that wouldn’t be the end of it. He would likely still collect the computer as evidence to have it searched for deleted data.
The reality was that she could say no and insist on a warrant, but that would just drag things out. And there was always the possibility that if she said no, he would force the issue anyway by declaring that “exigent circumstances” existed, meaning that unless he acted immediately she would have the means and opportunity to delete any evidence of incriminating emails. In this case, expediency and appearing to be cooperative seemed the best route. Possibly having her computer confiscated wouldn’t be convenient, but maybe she could learn something from him in the course of their interaction that would help her convince him to not handle it that way.
Praying she wasn’t making a mistake, she pressed her shoulders back. “I’m assuming the alleged emails are supposed to have come from my work email account?”
He glanced at his phone. “[email protected].”
“Yeah, that’s my work email. I can show you that. But I don’t know what good it will do. If I had sent the emails, which I didn’t, I could have just deleted them. You should just request the records from my email provider.”
“True. But I’ll check the deleted files on the computer while I’m here and go from there. Unless, you’d rather I get a warrant. But I’ll have to stay here while we wait for it and detain you. Just to protect the evidence.”
Quinn sighed exasperatedly. “No. Let’s just get this over with,” she said as she stepped past him, heading for the short hallway leading to her office.
Investigator Fisk sat in the soft, white leather chair behind Quinn’s glass-topped desk, while she stood behind him, eyeing the screen of her desktop PC over his shoulder. He had asked if he could be the one to actually operate the computer, which Quinn knew was to prevent her from tampering with anything.
It only took seconds for Fisk to navigate to the mail application and open it. He enlarged the resulting window which listed an inbox, sent box, outbox, spam and trash box for the account “[email protected].” He typed “[email protected]” in the search box, which Quinn recognized as the Kempers’ email address, then punched the “Enter” key.
The window refreshed, pulling up a list of all emails to and from Quinn and the Kempers. As Quinn expected there were about a dozen of them, with the earliest dated two months ago, right around when she took over the company. What she hadn’t expected were the two emails listed as the most recent ones: one sent by her to the Kempers two days ago—on Saturday—and one sent yesterday.
A sweat broke over Quinn. She hadn’t sent any emails to the Kempers on Saturday or Sunday. In fact, the last email she had sent to them had gone out more than a week earlier. Without a word to Quinn, Investigator Fisk clicked, opening both of the suspect emails.
The first from Saturday read:
Mr. and Mrs. Kemper,
* * *
Despite our attempts to get you to rectify conditions at your residence, you have completely ignored us. I can’t allow the property at 423 to sit unrented in perpetuity because you refuse to clean up your squalor and control those unruly dogs. You are forcing my hand. You should take me seriously. If you know who I am and what I am capable of, then you know I am not bluffing. If you do not reply immediately with plans to correct the situation I will have no choice but to take serious action. You are undermining me and my success in this company. I will not stand for it or allow you to ruin my business. I will not allow this to go on. This is your last warning.
* * *
Sincerely,
Quinn Bello
The next one, sent on Sunday, read:
Mr. and Mrs. Kemper,
* * *
As it has been over 24 hours and I have received no reply from you, I take it that you are refusing to act to correct the issues on your property which are so drastically affecting the value and appeal of our property at 423. You have left me no option. You have no one to blame but yourselves. I am tired of being pushed around and ignored. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.
Sunday’s email was unsigned.
Quinn shivered as the import of these emails sank in. She should have known better. She should have insisted on a warrant. And a lawyer. She should not have tried to advise herself. The old adage was definitely true: He who represents himself has a fool for a client.
And what a fool she’d been.
Chapter Twenty-One
Quinn held her head in her hands, elbows propped on the metal table in the same interview room at the Sheriff’s Department she had been in with Shane less than twenty-four hours earlier. Only now, Investigator Fisk sat across from her, with a stack of paper and binder before him as he stared her down. She dug the tips of her fingers into her forehead, willing away the murderous headache that had overtaken her half an hour ago. It didn’t help. Giving up, she ran the hand over her thick hair, today hanging loose to her shoulders. She expelled a huff and blinked before determinedly meeting Fisk’s stare.
“I don’t know any other way to say it,” she said. “ I didn’t write those emails. Someone else did. Someone broke into the office, or somehow hacked my account and sent them as if they were me.”
“Why would anybody do that?”
“That is a great question, Investigator. One of many I’ve been asking for days now! Why would there be a dead body on my floor? Why would somebody be following me around town? Why would they vandalize my neighbor’s car and pin it on me by stashing the evidence in my trash? Don’t you see a pattern here?”
“I do, but not the pattern you want me to see.”
Quinn bit back a growl. Same song, secon
d verse. “You’ve been talking to Shane Cody.”
“Deputy Cody has filled me in on things, but he’s not the only one connecting the dots the same way.” Fisk tapped the stack of papers. “These emails show a deliberate intention to do something harmful to the Kempers. Arson would fit the bill. It would definitely remove the Kempers from the 421 property.”
Quinn couldn’t stifle the laugh that escaped her throat. “Are you being serious right now? Do you think it will be any easier to rent out our property now that it’s beside a burned-out shell or the eventual construction site that’ll replace it? Arson solves nothing for me.”
“But if the Kempers move away and don’t come back, the dogs will be gone and there’ll be a bright, shiny house next door. Maybe that’s what you were counting on.”
“If that was my plan do you think I’d leave those emails on my computer? Why wouldn’t I erase them?”
He leaned forward, the table edge pressing into his midsection. “Maybe you’re not thinking straight.” He eyed her with the same accusatory gleam that had shone from Shane’s eyes the night before. “You do have a history of acting irrationally, exhibiting paranoia, putting others at risk, drinking—”
“Good grief! What do I have to do to convince you people that I’m not on anything!”
“There’s no need to start yelling, Ms. Bello. You’re going to want to calm down.”
She sniffed a loud breath in through her nose, held it briefly, then blew it out through a tiny circle she made with her lips. Taking stock of her posture, she also dropped her shoulders from where they were jammed up by her ears. He’s right. I’ve got to keep my cool if there’s any hope of convincing them I’m not some tightly-wound maniac that goes off and does something crazy whenever I get angry.
