by Debra Erfert
“I know. Please don’t say anything,” Candice begged. “I need to study those reports and I couldn’t do it from Patrick’s office.”
“Don’t worry,” Alex whispered before he kissed her forehead. “I’ll keep your secret.”
“Could you do something else for me?”
“What?”
“After we get through with Bobby’s house,” she quietly asked, “please take me home.” He lifted her chin with his knuckle and gazed into her eyes. She could see him trying to figure out why she wanted to ditch him so soon.
“You aren’t feeling good, are you?”
“I just need a good nap and then I need to do some serious studying of those borrowed reports. And I need to go to Grandfather’s place and give Meagan their report. I also need to do some surveillance for my client’s stalker, too.” She tenderly ran her hand along Alex’s strong jaw. “As much as I’d like to spend every minute of the day with you, sweetheart, I know that’s just not possible and still give my clients what they need.”
“I understand,” Alex whispered. “But I still want to see you tonight, if only for dinner. I want to know that you’re okay.”
Candice leaned into his embrace and breathed deeply. He smelled so good. “That’s fine with me. What time?”
“I’m out of briefing at five. I can try to be over there shortly after that.”
~*~
“Mrs. Westinghouse isn’t here,” a young woman said from behind the metal screen door. A little girl peeked out from behind her.
“We have a search warrant,” Patrick said, showing the folded paper. “She doesn’t need to be here, but I suggest you call her so she can come home. We need to talk to her and her husband.”
“Mr. Westinghouse doesn’t live here anymore,” the young woman said. She looked Candice over but didn’t inquire as to why she was with them. Of course, the police were all dressed in plain clothes, like Candice, but they showed their detective IDs, unlike her. She had a feeling if she whipped out her PI ID, she’d be asked to step outside, and quick!
It was apparent that Bobby’s family had a lot more money than Lito’s. His house was only three doors down, but the furnishings were more expensive and fairly new, with elaborate decorative touches in every corner and art on the walls. The appearance of the nanny told Candice the mother didn’t want or need to keep her younger child in daycare. Although the young woman seemed apprehensive about taking four strangers through the house, she cooperated, both leading them to Bobby’s room and calling Mrs. Westinghouse at the same time. She was on her cell phone talking with the mother faster than Candice could dial her favorite Chinese takeout.
Bobby’s bedroom was situated at the back of the house. Unlike Lito’s bare room, Bobby’s was filled with furniture and many more toys, including a flat screen TV positioned on a cabinet along with an X-Box. The wall next to the TV was lined with games and DVDs. Was it overcompensation for no father living at home? Or was this the usual way they spoiled him even before he left?
“This is going to take more time to search through,” Lopez said with a sigh. “I’ll take the closet.”
Candice stood in the middle of the room again, watching. Patrick knelt by the bed and pulled out the built-in drawers. He shuffled through the clothes stuffed inside. Candice mentally urged him to slow down and check more thoroughly, but she stayed quiet. Alex started with the drawers at the opposite end of the bed and worked methodically. It almost looked like he was folding the clothes as he went along. She liked his attitude. He also found six lighters before he finished the second drawer. Lopez found ten lighters in different sweaters and jacket pockets hanging up. When she placed a shoe box on the bed next to the pile of lighters, she had all of their attention as she took off the lid.
“Money,” Alex groaned. “It looks like he has as much as Lito had.”
“Maybe more,” Lopez said. “Mr. Medina’s total was just over twenty-one hundred dollars.” She dumped the contents of the box on the bed and began to count. Patrick used his phone to take pictures of her counting the bills and fanning each stack of hundred dollars to make photographing the evidence easier. Candice’s heart continued to sink.
“Two thousand six hundred and eighty dollars,” Lopez said quietly after she stood up straight. “It is more.”
“He’s been at it longer?” Candice suggested. “But you didn’t find any keys here.”
“No,” Alex said. “We’re not done yet.”
“No yet,” Lopez repeated. She took a plastic bag out of the evidence kit and began to place the bundled bills inside. It took several bags before she finished. Patrick wrote his name, date, and case number on each bag while the other detectives continued to search.
Mrs. Westinghouse burst into the room.
“What gives you the right to invade my son’s privacy?” she demanded, stomping straight to Candice.
“A search warrant signed by Judge John Kravitz, that’s what,” Candice told her.
The agitated woman was a professional of some kind. She wore a business suit not too dissimilar to Candice’s, maybe a bank clerk or secretary—a very angry secretary.
“Estelle said you believe my son committed some crime.” She crossed her arms over her chest and lifted her chin. “I don’t believe it!”
Before any of the detectives could respond, Candice pointed to the bed where the four large baggies of bills were wrapped and sealed. “So where did he get all that money?”
The woman did a poor job of hiding her surprise. “Where did you find that?” she asked, her voice just as loud as before.
“In the closet, Mrs. Westinghouse. I’m Detective Lopez, and I found a shoebox with this money in it hidden on the floor in the back.”
“Do you know how he got it?” Candice asked her, watching her face for signs of deception.
“He must have . . . been saving it. Or his father gave it to him.”
“But you don’t really know?” Candice probed harder. Candice gazed around the room at all the expensive items, feeling that knot in her stomach tighten. “Did you personally buy him that X-box, Mrs. Westinghouse? It cost over seven hundred dollars. The games range from forty-five to ninety dollars a piece, and your son has quite a collection.”
When her eyes returned to Candice’s, she asked with a softer voice, “Just what do you think my son has done?”
Candice said four words that she knew the mother already heard too many times, words that would convince her they were there for the right reason, words that would break her heart.
“He lit a fire,” Candice said softly.
The mother’s subtle gasp preceded tears that filled her eyes.
Chapter 16
CANDICE FELL ASLEEP at her desk. All she did was lean back in her chair to wait for the reports to print, and the white noise of the machine lulled her into unconsciousness, if only for a moment. When she sat up straight, her heart skipped a beat. The clock on the laptop read 4:15 and she still hadn’t taken a needed nap, not including the micro-sleeping.
She took the two reports from the tray and put them in individual folders before slipping them into her backpack and closing her computer. She’d called Meagan and told her she’d come over after dinner to give them her report and the printout of Kyle’s cell record, showing he’d answered in Payson. Then she’d texted Liz to go to Grandfather’s to check on their new security guards before coming into work. She figured her intern would appreciate seeing Daryl again.
Candice wandered into her bedroom and fell on the bed without taking off her boots. The cozy throw she pulled over her body felt warm and soft and . . .
An annoying high-pitched noise invaded the dream she was having. It didn’t belong. Candice opened her eyes to a dark room, realizing she had been asleep for a while. When she smelled a sickening familiar odor, her heart thudded hard. “The smoke alarm!” She threw back the cover and stumbled off the bed. It was then she noticed the complete lack of light, of any kind. The red illumination o
f the nightstand clock was even missing. She dug into her pocket for her cell phone and quickly turned on the built-in flashlight. It lit up the room. The beam lit up a light haze drifting near the ceiling, but it wasn’t enough to set off the smoke alarm in her room.
“My electricity is off,” Candice whispered aloud. She willed herself not to panic. She ran from the bedroom. A quick scan of her flashlight proved her living area wasn’t in flames. “My office!” She darted through the door and found the flames dancing on the other side of the glass door. The steps leading up to her apartment were engulfed. That wood-and-glass door wouldn’t keep the flames out for much longer. She grabbed her backpack from the floor and stuffed her laptop into it before she swung it over one shoulder, pausing only for a moment to look around at everything else being illuminated with the cell’s bright light, things that were going to be destroyed in the next few minutes—and it was breaking her heart. In a short while, the books that took her years to get, her equipment that she had to bribe professors for—her precious vintage desk—would soon be ashes.
She stomped her foot in a fit of anger before running back into her apartment, making sure she closed the heavy door behind her. It would give the fire department a little extra time to save something of her apartment once they got here.
The smoke was getting heavier—the air more difficult to breathe. Candice grabbed her purse and stuffed it inside her backpack before lifting it onto her shoulder. On her way through the kitchen toward the backdoor, she called 911.
“Phoenix police fire, what is your emergency?” a woman’s voice said quickly.
“My apartment is on fire,” Candice said as she turned the deadbolt with her thumb and forefinger. She noticed the scorching heat against her skin the same time the door burst open, knocking her backward and dropping her phone. She stumbled and fell. The roar of the flames invaded her home, sounding like a vicious animal. The back stairs were engulfed. The heat of heavy black smoke poured inside, surrounding her as she rolled over and started to crawl away, back to the dining room while she coughed with every strangulated breath. She needed to escape out the closest window.
She continued to crawl past the shelves with her precious vinyl record collection and stereo to the window that faced the street. With a shaky hand, she pushed the lock and then slid the window up. With a single angry punch, she knocked the screen to the ground. She could still think clearly enough to know a drop onto her head from the second story would kill her. Standing up was dangerous. The smoke had continued to get deeper, heavier, hotter. She dropped her backpack on the floor and held onto the window frame as she put one leg over the sill, briefly straddling it. She shifted her hands lower so she could swing out, but as she hung on for a moment, she felt hands around her waist, lifting her away from the window.
“Alex?” Candice tried to say, but she couldn’t get anything more than a croak out. She continued to cough as he set her down on the patrol SUV’s roof. Her legs wouldn’t hold her. She collapsed next to the flashing red-and-blue light bar as she watched him disappear through the window. Candice wanted to scream at him for going inside, but taking in a deep enough breath to even talk was impossible. But then he leaned out the window and dropped her backpack near her knees before he swung down next to her. He was coughing, but not nearly as much as Candice. He picked up the pack and walked down the hood before jumping to the ground. After he threw the pack inside the truck’s backseat, Alex reached up and slid Candice off the roof and gently placed her in the backseat next to her pack before getting behind the wheel and speeding to the street.
Candice was safe. She was safe because of Alex. He’d put himself in danger because of her.
He pulled to a stop at the curb before getting her out of the back and taking her in his arms. What he didn’t expect was Candice to hit him as hard as she could right in the bulletproof vest chest plate. It was made of half-inch steel and the only person she hurt was herself, but she was so angry when she did it, he was knocked back a half-step, whether from the concussion or from surprise.
Candice continued to hit him in the vest, her eyes watering like crazy, and wheezed, “Don’t ever—” she coughed— “go back—” she coughed again— “into a burning—” she coughed some more and blinked rapidly to clear up her vision— “building for—” she dragged in a deeper breath—“for things! Things can be—” After another seizure of coughing, she yelled— “Things can be replaced! Do you understand?” She took in another agonizing breath. “You can’t be replaced!”
He grabbed her and held her tight to his chest, possibly to comfort her, or it could’ve been just to get her to stop beating him while emergency trucks rolled up along the street.
“Candice,” Alex said gravelly into her hair, “I saw flames from three blocks away. Your back stairs were totally on fire by the time I got here. I could hear the alarms going off and saw the flames shooting out the windows of your lobby. I got your neighbor out before I figured out how to get to you, but you found a way on your own.”
“Alex—” her throat felt raw— “I was asleep, and when I woke up in the dark, my power was off.”
“Your electricity?” he said sharply.
“I—I think someone turned it off at the box,” Candice said in a painful whisper, burying her face against his neck. “This was arson.”
“I figured that with the way it happened on opposite sides of the building,” he ground out. He coughed and suddenly grasped her wrist. Not the one she beat him with, but the one she held to her chest. “What happened to your hand?”
Candice shook her head, ready to say nothing was wrong with her hand, but the red blisters on her finger and thumb made it undeniable.
“Candice, you’ve been burned,” he whispered. “I didn’t get to you soon enough.”
“It’s not that bad. Really.”
It must’ve not been a good enough answer because he let go of her wrist, lifted her legs and carried her over to the rescue unit. It wasn’t even at a full stop yet. When the doors opened, Candice recognized the gray hair of the man riding shotgun, and he obviously knew the residence his unit was sent to for the second night in a row. His face wasn’t a happy one when he looked between the fire and her.
“Candice,” Edward said, reaching for her, “what happened?”
“She’s burned,” Alex told him before she could say hello.
“It’s not that bad, Edward. Second degree, at worst,” she said, holding out her hand. When she coughed, again, he frowned.
“Bring her into the back,” he told Alex.
Edward led the way. Candice could see all the fire trucks pull up and down the street, but she deliberately kept her eyes away from her home being incinerated. She didn’t want to capture the image in her mind, but her chest felt like it was caving in from anguish. The throbbing of her fingers had nothing on the pain in her heart as she lost everything she’d built over the past five years. Poor Mrs. Shuman had been living in the same apartment for the past . . well, since before Candice was born. Her whole life was inside those walls. The pictures of her children, the decades of knitting that covered every chair, every surface, and now because of Candice, her life’s record was going up in flames.
“Inside,” Edward said, climbing up first. Instead of letting her get inside on her own, Alex climbed up the high steps with her in his arms. He only released her when he set her down on the gurney, but he stayed close. Another medic followed them inside with another two standing at the door, watching them. Candice would’ve rather had them pulling hoses and fighting the fire, at least trying to save something.
“Now, let me see your hand,” Edward said as he gently opened her fingers. “Hmm, you’re right. These aren’t too bad. Second degree. What did you touch?”
“My backdoor’s deadbolt.” He looked up at her with his gray brows pinched over worried hazel eyes. After he put an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth, he lifted the end of the gurney up higher and had her lie down. He then took another o
xygen tank out from a cabinet and handed it to Alex and said, “Use it. Set it on six liters. You’re congested, too. By the way, you’re both going to the hospital,” he said as a matter of fact. “Now tell me why there would be a fire outside your back door?” he asked as he gently reacquired her hand.
“Someone poured accelerant down the wooden steps and lit it up.” Candice glanced at Alex and amended, “I assume. Otherwise I don’t see how they could have burned so quickly. Oh, and my electricity was cut off, too. Fortunately for me, I kept good batteries in my smoke detectors. But even if they hadn’t worked,” she said softly, sounding something like a female evil lord with the mask over her mouth, “I had Sergeant Delaney come to rescue me.”
“I found her climbing out of her window. The fire got in through the back door,” Alex said, holding her good hand. “But her office is also on fire.”
“That’s on the opposite side of the building,” Edward said. “That’s arson, all right.”
“I agree,” a tenor’s voice said from the doorway.
“Patrick,” Candice wheezed. “I expected you sooner.”
“Hey, I was at home eating. I do have a life, you know.” Patrick climbed up inside and sat next to Alex. “What happened?”
“Isn’t it obvious, Detective Donovan?” Alex asked sharply, removing his oxygen mask. “She got somebody angry with her investigation and they tried to kill her again. This time there were two women in that building who could’ve burned to death.”
“Alex,” Candice whispered urgently, “I’m all right. Please, calm down.”
“Candice, these are second degree burns. You were moments away from being consumed by that fire. If your smoke alarms hadn’t worked—” He stopped his rant when he saw real tears filling her eyes. “Oh, Candice! I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he said.
His apology didn’t stop the tears, or the shakes she’d suddenly developed as Candice realized that she had dodged a most horrible death. When Edward spread one blanket over her, and then another, and her shivering still didn’t ease, he took out his stethoscope and listened to her heart. His brows lowered. Her heart pounded so hard against her ribs, she felt it in her throat. Dizziness spun her brain around. Candice knew what Edward was going to say next.
