Fire Setters: A Shane Investigations: A gripping crime thriller filled with heart-melting romance and mystery

by Debra Erfert

  “Monday!” Candice yanked her hand away from him. “I might be dead by then.”

  “What does she mean, Sergeant Delaney?” Captain Gleason asked, moving closer to Alex but keeping his eyes on Candice.

  Patrick answered him. “She was shot at through her kitchen window last night. One bullet grazed the back of her shoulder and then went into a cabinet door. Two more bullets came through. but Officer Delaney was with her and able to get her out of the way before they hit her. We have the doors in our lab.”

  “What is the status of the other shooting victims?” Chief Patterson asked.

  “They were fatal,” Patrick said.

  “They will still be dead on Monday. Detective, get Ms. Shane’s case moved up. If that lab gives you any lip, call me and I’ll come down and talk with them personally. Understand?”

  “Yes, sir!” Patrick turned and took out his cell phone as he walked away from the small crowd.

  “Ms. Shane,” Captain Gleason said, stepping next to her. “Candice, if you ever change your mind about being a PI and decide to do something a little less dangerous—like being a police officer, I’ll personally take your application and walk it through HR.” He then reached out and laid a gentle hand on her good shoulder. With a lowered voice, he said, “I started out my career twenty-five years ago in San Diego, and I knew your folks. They were good people. I was really hoping Professor Lane could persuade you into following their footsteps and wearing a badge, too.”

  No way. “How . . .” Candice couldn’t get the question how he knew one of her ASU professors out of her mouth, much less formulate it in her brain.

  “I moved to Phoenix shortly before the, uh, the incident where your parents were killed, and I’ve been keeping tabs on you since your grandparents picked you up when you were a kid,” the captain said quietly. “I don’t think I’m the only one, either. And I don’t know if you remember, but I’m the one who found you that time at the bus station when you ran away.”

  Candice gasped so loudly, she sounded like she was drowning, as memories came flooding back to her. “Oh, blast it. I do remember you, but back then you had hair.” Gleason laughed, but she was totally serious.

  “We got used to the calls from your grandfather that year. If I remember correctly, you ran away nine times,” he added.

  “No.” She immediately denied his accounting. “It couldn’t have been than many.”

  Alex took her hand again. “You ran away?” When she guiltily nodded her head, he said, “So that’s how you knew how to find Joshua last night.”

  “You found Joshua Leavitt?” Chief Patterson asked.

  “She did,” Alex said, a little louder than she thought was necessary.

  “I guess you being a PI isn’t a waste of time after all,” Patterson said. “We had the whole city out looking for that young man, and all it took was another runaway to find him.”

  Candice looked around at all the faces watching her, listening to her life’s story, and saw Patrick quietly taking in everything that was said. “I think it’s time to go on that search warrant, don’t you, detective?”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Patrick said. “I have the signed warrants in my pocket, and my car is parked over there.” He pointed down the parking lot. “Officer Delaney can get your things from my office for you and then we can go as soon as you’re medically cleared,” he suggested with a smile.

  Alex gripped her hand a little tighter. “We’ll meet you at the first house, Detective Donovan.”

  Patrick’s eyes briefly dipped to Alex’s hand, taking in the miniscule gesture, but his facial expression didn’t change an iota. “If you insist.”

  Chapter 15

  ALEX REACHED OVER his truck’s center console and lifted Candice’s hand, holding it tenderly. “What have you been doing for the past five years?”

  Candice laid her iPad on her knee, breaking her concentration on her report to the Leavitts. She needed only the results of the search warrants before she’d print it out and personally hand it to Meagan and Kyle and explain anything they might not understand. Her contact at the phone company should be emailing her about Kyle’s cell call. Two days of work. She’d need to refund some of their deposit. Maybe all of it.

  “Well, after graduation, I interned with Gil Roscoe for a year. After I earned my private investigator’s license, I went through the civilian courses at the FBI Academy. I took any cases Uncle Homer assigned to me. Most of them were easy enough a high school kid could do them, but after a couple of years, Homer finally understood that I was smart enough to put clues together and that I could take care of myself.” She smiled at the memory. “He admitted he was afraid for my safety until he finally came to one of my Taekwondo advancement ceremonies and saw how I took on the instructors. I’ve solved every case he’s thrown at me.”

  “You said you were mugged?” Alex asked tenderly. “What happened?”

  Candice blew out a tense sigh. “I’d just come out of the bank, and I was paying more attention to a text I was writing than to a guy who was lurking near my Jeep. I’d just opened my door when he shoved me inside. I hit my head on the door jamb. It stunned me long enough the jerk was able to grab my purse and run off.” She chuckled. “I wonder if being stupid is a requirement for being a criminal. The bank had security cameras covering the parking lot, and they splashed the guy’s picture on TV, offering a reward.”

  “I think I remember that case,” Alex muttered. “There was a reward of a thousand dollars for information leading to the capture of the guy. Did you offer that?”

  “Yes, and after the late night news spotlighting the robbery, three calls came into the police department. It seemed the jerk partied with several friends that evening. The drunker he became, the more he flashed around more money than they believed he could afford. When they saw his face on TV, they ratted him out. Besides that one little mugging, I haven’t had so much as a scratch. That is, before the Leavitts’ case.” Candice eased her shoulders back a little, feeling the ache in her muscles.

  “And you’ve gone to solving tough cases, including Officer Eddington’s search for her birth parents.” Alex squeezed her hand. “And solved a twenty-five-year-old missing person’s report.” He grunted. “I always knew you had a brilliant mind.”

  Candice playfully wriggled their hands. “I guess I’m not so smart. You’re the most wonderful man I know, and yet I let you go because of a dark, perfectly reasonable fear. That had to be the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

  “But we’re back together now, and I don’t plan on letting you go again,” Alex replied with a catch in his voice.

  Candice leaned closer to him, her brows pinching together. “I’m not saying that I’m comfortable with you being a cop, but I think I understand life doesn’t come with a guarantee.”

  Alex slowly nodded his head. “Detective Heber is retiring next month, and the department is testing for his position. What would you think if I put in for it?”

  “A detective? Would you be happy with that job?” Candice asked.

  “Isn’t that what I’ve been doing with you?” he replied.

  “Well, yes, it is, but—”

  Alex smiled wide enough, his dimples emerged. “Then it’s settled.”

  “Are you doing this just for me?” Candice asked. The idea of Alex being a detective gave her some amount of relief, but she also wanted him to be happy. He could grow to resent her because she made him change, and she couldn’t stand that thought. And he might not be able to live with it later.

  He shook his head. “It’s not just for you. I was thinking last night before I fell asleep about what kind of life I could offer a wife, a family, if I continued working the night shifts. I may have weekends off this year, but the sergeants rotate. Next year I’ll be working weekends. What kind of father would I be, missing out on important events? No, I’m doing this for a bigger reason than just to get you to marry me.”

  Candice caught her breath. Did he just propos
e? Or was he just thinking out loud? If he did ask, she wasn’t sure how she felt about it. “What, then?”

  Alex slowed the truck to take the turn onto the Leavitts’ street. Patrick’s car was already parked at the Medinas’ curb. Candice could see a woman sitting in the passenger seat.

  “Eventually, I want to advance into a captain’s position. Maybe be a chief of police someday.”

  “Oh!” Candice could see having a husband who ran a whole department would be an asset.

  Alex pulled up behind Patrick’s car and killed the engine. By that time, Patrick and the woman began walking to the sidewalk.

  “I see Detective Lopez is with your detective.”

  “Alex, please stop calling him that.”

  Alex leaned over and gave her a quick kiss on her lips. “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again,” he said with an impish grin.

  “Why is there another detective with Patrick?” Candice asked.

  Alex pocketed his keys, but before he climbed out of the truck, he said, “Detective Lopez is a Spanish speaker.”

  “But so am I,” Candice said defensively. “And so are you.”

  Alex hurried around the front of the truck to Candice’s door and opened it. “Even so, having another pair of eyes and hands doing the search will make it go quicker.”

  “I suppose.” Candice lifted her backpack onto her good shoulder and walked toward the detectives.

  “Ms. Shane,” Patrick motioned to the woman, “this is Detective Lopez.”

  “Nice to meet you, detective,” Candice said with a quick nod of her head.

  “Ms. Shane,” Lopez said before turning her dark brown eyes to Alex and smiling. “Sergeant Delaney.”

  “Hello, detective.” Alex glanced at Candice, probably to see if she’d notice the way Lopez smiled so sweetly at him. It was strangely reminiscent of the way the clerk at Beachwood Security looked when she mentioned Daryl’s name. Yeah, she noticed.

  “Let’s get this over with,” Patrick said, taking the lead up the driveway. The old car was still parked there, but the new bikes that had been leaning against side of the house were missing.

  Detective Lopez knocked on the door and waited for several moments for the door to open. Mrs. Medina seemed a little more tired than yesterday. Candice wondered if she knew what was coming. When she didn’t look surprised to see Alex or Candice while she listened to the detective tell her about the search warrant, Candice figured she had her answer.

  Mrs. Medina invited them inside as politely as she had yesterday. Candice knew she wasn’t allowed to do any of the searching; after all, she was just a civilian. But Alex was an officer, who, she noticed, had his badge clipped to his belt.

  The mother led them to the back bedroom where the eldest son slept then left them alone. Her melancholy expression made Candice sad, but as badly as she felt for her, she knew it was for the best that her child got the help he needed.

  As each cop began their search, Candice stood in the middle of the room and observed each of them. She felt a little nauseous. A real breakfast might’ve helped, but she felt time slipping by too quickly. While Detective Lopez searched the sparse closet, Patrick dug underneath the bed. There were two large plastic boxes filled with toys. Alex knelt beside him and looked through one of them. He gently moved around the broken plastic dinosaurs, the Transformers, loose marbles, and Lego pieces. They were free prizes from McDonalds, Burger King, and Jack in the Box littering the edges, things that never got played with more than once in the restaurant, and maybe in the car on the way home.

  Candice didn’t touch anything, but she could look at the top of Lito’s dresser. It was bare except for a cigar-type box with a tiny lock hanging from the teeny latch.

  “I found lighters,” Lopez said quietly. She held out two plastic Bic lighters. “They were in his jacket pocket.”

  “So did we,” Patrick said. He and Alex held up one and two, respectively.

  “Did you find keys?” Candice asked. All three answered at once.

  “No.”

  “Could someone look inside this box, please?” Candice begged. She was just this side of busting that pathetic excuse for a lock. It was ridiculous, like it could keep out a mouse if it wanted to get inside. Alex moved next to her and grabbed the box in one hand and took the ridiculously tiny lock in his fingers of his other hand. One yank and it fell apart. When he opened the lid, they found the Leavitts’ keys, or at least she assumed they belonged to their destroyed home.

  “Look what Candice found,” Alex said, lifting the box toward the detectives. “Three house keys. One could belong to the back door, one from the garage door, and the other that Zane gave the boys to get inside.”

  “That would be about right,” Patrick said.

  “Let’s keep looking,” Lopez suggested.

  “What for?” Patrick asked. “We found what we needed.”

  She ignored his dismissal and opened the top dresser drawer. “It’s called a search warrant for a reason, detective. We wouldn’t be doing our jobs if we stopped now.”

  Candice stayed near the female detective and watched her shuffle through his underwear and socks along with candy wrappers and wadded up class papers. In the next drawer, under folded T-shirts, she found a progress report that he must not have wanted his mother to see. Besides a broken pencil and more empty candy wrappers, it was clean.

  The third drawer was golden, literally. It held a few more pairs of khaki pants that must’ve been his favorite color, and in each of those pants were two or three lighters in their pockets. But what shocked them into silence was that the bottom of the drawer was lined with cash, as well as seven more house keys.

  Patrick asked, “What is it?” as he moved next to Alex. It didn’t take him but a moment to understand why he needed to keep searching. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” Alex agreed. “It looks like Lito has been a busy little boy.”

  “I’ll go ask his mother if he might have gotten his money for his birthday or Christmas, or for help cleaning the front yard, or something,” Lopez whispered. “I’ll be back in a few.”

  “I wonder how much there is?” Candice asked.

  “Just adding the twenties that are on top, that’s . . . three hundred eighty dollars,” Alex said quietly. “And there are several layers under them.”

  “Oh, man,” Patrick whispered.

  “I’m fairly sure he wasn’t given this for his birthday,” Candice said.

  “Or for Christmas,” Alex told them.

  “But he might’ve earned it,” Candice added. She gazed into Patrick’s sullen face. She only said something that he must’ve been thinking. He reached back into the evidence kit he brought in and took out a large plastic baggie, the kind that would hold one gallon of food with a zipper slide across the top. He then wrote his name, date, and a number on the panel. By the time, Detective Lopez had come back into the bedroom with a pained expression in her dark eyes.

  “She didn’t know about the money, did she,” Candice said to the woman. It wasn’t a question.

  “No. And she told me he won the bike and game from a store, just like his buddy Bobby.”

  “That’s a pretty lame excuse,” Candice said.

  “What do you expect from a ten-year-old?” Alex asked.

  “I don’t know,” Candice whispered as she pressed her hand to her stomach.

  “Are you okay?” Alex asked softly.

  Candice nodded, but she should’ve shaken her head. Her stomach was in a knot. This whole thing was making her sick. Detective Lopez began to take out the keys, lighters, and cash. Each got individual evidence bags, but the money would need to be counted first. Patrick took pictures while Lopez slowly, methodically counted every bill, as Candice backed away and left the room—left the house.

  She couldn’t stand the sight of what was happening. Her chest began to hurt, or maybe it was her heart. It was a mixture of sadness and rage. What she thought might happen during the search was coming true, and
she couldn’t handle it. What kind of private investigator was she, anyway, letting her emotions get in the way? Gil Roscoe never did. He always kept his cool. But would even he be unmoved, knowing little boys would kill for money?

  The November air was suddenly chilly against her skin, and she pulled the jacket a little tighter around her shoulders while she thought about the two boys who could deliberately start a fire and not care about the family sleeping inside. And what did they do it for? Money? Games? A bike? They were things that wouldn’t make a difference to them in the long run, but the loss of integrity and ability to know right from wrong, those things would affect the rest of their lives.

  The more she thought about the kid who led them deeper into their crimes, the angrier she became. Candice wanted to find that Zane kid and—and . . . she didn’t know who was worse, the stupid guy who took her hostage at the police station and thought he could get away with it, or the big kid who pushed little kids around and then paid them to keep quiet. He had to know at some point the truth would come out. Well, she was that someone to bring his little circle of fire setters down.

  Candice turned around, pulling her jacket tighter, and bumped into Alex.

  “Whoa there,” he said, clutching her arms before she tripped and fell. “Are you okay?”

  She found her balance, but he kept a firm grip on her. “I’m . . . angry!”

  “I thought you might be getting sick.” Alex moved his arms around her back and held her.

  “I am! I’m sick of all this.” She leaned into his strength and took a deep breath, inhaling his intoxicating aftershave. “I thought I was prepared, you know? But when it was only conjecture, it was easy to talk about.”

  “Now we can see it’s true, at least most of what we think is true,” Alex said.

  “I need to find who Zane is and connect him to this,” Candice said, balling her hands into fists. “I wish I had more time on Patrick’s computer.”

  “I found your backpack on the hallway floor. You forgot to zip it all the way closed.” Alex lowered his voice. “I saw all the reports you slipped out of the department. You know you weren’t supposed to do that.”