“I only want to tell everything once,” she told him tightly. “I’ll do that when we get in front of the sheriff.”
Kalvin nodded and grazed the backs of his fingers down her cheek.
Blaze saw her cringe at the touch, but then her head was leaning into it as her true emotions took over.
“After that, we’ll come back here so we can talk like we should’ve done last night,” Kalvin told her softly. He dropped his hand as he angled his body so he could squeeze between them and the frame of the doorway and disappeared into his bedroom.
Faith turned her head, her gaze following him until he was gone. When she looked back at Blaze, what he saw in her eyes turned his blood to ice. She didn’t intend to come back here. No matter the outcome of their visit to the sheriff’s department, she planned on leaving as soon as she got the chance.
* * * *
“My full name is Delilah Faith Cassidy.” Too jittery to sit, she placed the cool tiled floor behind the two visitor’s chairs in front of Sheriff John Cabelly’s desk inside his private office. Blaze sat in one of the chairs, his body turned slightly so he could see her. Kalvin stood by the wall facing her, one shoulder leaning against it, his feet crossed at the ankles, and his arms folded over his chest. “I was the sole proprietor of Delilah’s Designs before someone burned it to the ground.”
The sheriff sat behind his desk. She could feel him studying her every movement with a keenly trained eye. Blaze had told her the man had been a Navy SEAL before he’d taken the job as sheriff on the island. From the looks of him, she could believe it. With his strong build, white-blond hair and light blue eyes, he reminded her of the blond hero of the cover of the book she’d bought, but had never started, at Pleasured Minds her second day on the island.
“What and where was Delilah’s Designs?” the sheriff asked.
She shot Kalvin a puzzled look.
“I didn’t tell him about the envelope I found last night.”
Delilah saw John glance at Kalvin, one brow raised and a flash of warning in his eyes. Kalvin could get in trouble for withholding information from the sheriff, couldn’t he? Damn, he must have really wanted to get laid last night.
You know that’s not why he did it.
She pushed the thought aside, not really sure what to think about him anymore, and answered the sheriff. “I’m a jewelry designer. I make handcrafted necklaces, bracelets, anklets, earrings, watches…” She lifted a shoulder. “Whatever kind of jewelry sparks in my imagination. Delilah’s Designs is the store I opened almost two years ago in Chicago where I live. Lived,” she corrected, because she really didn’t live there anymore. She couldn’t really say she lived anywhere anymore.
“When did it catch fire?” A pad was on the sheriff’s desk with notes scribbled across it in handwriting worse than any doctor’s. He picked up the pen that lay on top of the notepad and touched the tip to the paper, ready to write.
She gave him the exact date. It wasn’t hard to remember. It was a day that would be etched in her mind forever. Her pacing carried her to the wall. She pivoted on her bare heel and paced back. “The night of the fire, I closed the store at eight and stayed behind to do some paperwork. I locked up when I left, that was a little after nine, and was almost home when Ashley called and asked me if I had remembered to grab the cracked turquoise necklace I was supposed to drop at the Post Office on my way in the next morning.”
“Cracked turquoise necklace?”
She glanced at Blaze and nearly giggled at the expression on his handsome face. “It’s not really cracked. It’s a type of bead.” She looked back at the sheriff and went on. “Anyway, I hadn’t remembered it and I had promised the customer I would mail it out first thing the next morning. The store was on fire by the time I got back to it.”
The sheriff nodded, scribbled down some notes, and looked up at her from beneath his lashes. “Who is Ashley?”
“Ashley Valentine. She’s my best friend and employee.” And she was probably going frantic right about now. Shit, she hadn’t even thought about Ashley since she’d hung up from their call yesterday afternoon. She’d promised to call her before midnight. Not that she could call her now since the phone she’d bought had been torched with everything else in her suite last night.
“Go on,” the sheriff prompted.
“Almost the same thing happened a little over a week later. Except that time, it was my house. I got home one night in a rush, changed clothes, and headed out to a dinner party. I wasn’t gone more than a few minutes when I got the call from the alarm company telling me that the fire alarm had gone off at my address.”
“I’ll pull up the reports on both of these fires.” The sheriff put down his pen, leaned back in his chair, and laced his fingers over his toned stomach. “What can you tell me about them now?”
Delilah took a deep breath and let it out slow. “The fire investigator ruled both fires as arson. Witnesses saw me leaving both places mere minutes before the fires started, but no one saw anyone going in or out between the times I left and the times the fires started. There weren’t any signs of a break-in at either place and acetone was used to set both fires.”
The sheriff looked at Kalvin questioningly. “Acetone?”
“A common ingredient found in nail polish removers and various cleaners,” Kalvin explained. “It’s highly flammable, colorless, and volatile in the right amounts.”
“Here’s the kicker I didn’t know about until I heard you and Blaze talking this morning.” Delilah turned to Kalvin. “You said something about the Montana police looking for me, too. I’m guessing that means the authorities are reopening the case on the fire that killed my parents. That fire was ruled accidental. The fire investigator said my mother was doing her nails and must have spilled the nail polish remover. She liked candles and always kept one lit by the bed until just before she went to sleep.”
“She knocked over the bottle or maybe knocked the candle into the bottle, the liquid splashed onto the bed, the flame ignited the acetone, and the fire spread.” Blaze shook his head, his brows drawing together as he seemed to consider the scenario he’d just laid out.
“It’s plausible.” Kalvin dipped his head, rubbed the back of his neck, and then looked at her. “Were your parents disabled?”
“No. They were both in perfect health. Why?”
“A fire like that, if it started the way you’re saying the investigator thought, wouldn’t have been bad enough that they couldn’t get away from it. Your mother would’ve had to purposely pour the nail polish remover all over the bed, herself, and your father before lighting it and, even then, I can’t see either of them suffering more than third-degree burns.”
Delilah gathered her hair in her hand, pulled it over one shoulder, and turned her back to him. She reached back with her free hand and tugged the neckline of her shirt down to expose the scar between her shoulder blades. “Remember you asked me how I got this? It happened in that fire.” She let go of her hair as she turned to face him. “I was asleep in my bedroom at the top of the stairs. Their room was around the corner and down a short hall. I woke up choking on the smoke. I knew the house was on fire. I crawled out of my room to go to them. I knew they had to still be in the house. When I turned the corner to go down that hallway, all I saw was a wall of flames. I turned to go back and heard a whoosh behind me. That’s when someone started shouting. I saw a firefighter running toward me with his hands out like he was going to grab me. I tried to go to him and I heard this loud crack. Then something hit me between my shoulders. All I remember after that was the worst pain I’d ever felt in my life. Then I passed out.”
“There was more accelerant in that hallway,” Blaze said. “That’s the only thing that would’ve caused it to spread like that.”
“And the fire investigator ruled it an accident?” The sheriff’s tone rang with suspicion and disbelief.
Delilah nodded. “Pull up the report, Sheriff. You’ll read exactly what I just told you.�
�� She moved to the unoccupied chair and braced the weight of her upper body on the back of it. “I know how all of this sounds, Sheriff. I know how it looks. I was the only one who survived that fire and I was the only one seen leaving both fires in Chicago minutes before they started.” She closed her eyes as she briefly bowed her head. “I left my suite last night minutes before that fire started, too.” She lifted her head and pinned the sheriff with a steady glare. “But I swear to you, I did not start any of those fires. I don’t know who did. I don’t know why they did it. I only know that someone apparently wants me to suffer really, really bad and I think they’re working up to killing me.”
“All the evidence points to you and only you,” Kalvin said. “That’s why you ran.”
“I’m being framed. No one would believe me. Not the officer assigned to the case. Not the fire investigator.” Not even you. She didn’t say it, but she held his gaze and saw by the look in his eyes that he knew she’d thought it. “Not even after the note that was found shoved under the door of Ashley’s apartment or when my car was found torched at the rest stop after I left Chicago.”
“What did the note say?” the sheriff asked.
“‘I’ll get you next time.’ That’s why I think they’ve decided they want to kill me now.”
“And you left Chicago right after you found the note?” Blaze asked.
“The very next day.”
“He followed you,” Kalvin commented.
Delilah couldn’t tell if he was starting to believe her or merely going along with the conversation. “I tried to throw him off track and I thought I had. I abandoned my car at northbound rest stop in Missouri and hitchhiked south. The car was found torched. He’s found me. I don’t know how, but he’s here.”
“When I start requesting copies of these reports, the Chicago officials are going to find you, too,” the sheriff cautioned. “You need to be prepared for that.”
“There’s got to be some way we can protect her, John,” Blaze said. “If nobody in Chicago believes her, it’s gonna be up to us to figure out who’s doin’ this shit to her.”
“Oh, I’m betting someone in Chicago believes her.” The sheriff leaned forward, propped his elbows on the top of his desk, and steepled his fingers. “I’d put my money on the officer assigned to the case. Otherwise, with the amount of evidence he’s got, the witness testimony, and all of that, without any other leads to go on, he would’ve already filed charges against her by now.”
“If he does believe me, he’s sure got a funny way of showing it,” Delilah muttered.
“Some men do, darlin’,” Blaze drawled.
Delilah looked at him, but he wasn’t looking at her. Instead, his gaze was locked meaningfully with Kalvin’s.
“Have a seat, Delilah.” The sheriff tipped his chin at the empty visitor’s chair. “Or do you prefer Faith?”
Hearing herself being called Delilah suddenly sounded strange. When the hell had that happened? She’d been Delilah all her life. She’d wanted Kalvin and Blaze to call her Delilah last night. She felt Blaze looking at her and the words he’d spoken that morning reverberated in her memory.
We’re gonna keep callin’ her Faith, ’cause that’s who she is to us.
“I guess I’m Faith now,” she told the sheriff. As she rounded the chair and sat, she didn’t miss the way the corners of Blaze’s lips kicked up in a pleased smile.
“I don’t know you, but I know Blaze and Kalvin. Because I have a lot of respect for both of them, I’m giving you the benefit of the doubt. You may not have started those fires, but someone did and apparently that someone is now on my island. I want to know the names of anyone you may have had a run in with, pissed off, or harmed somehow in the last decade.”
Delilah gaped at him. “Decade?” She hadn’t been able to think of anyone who would be so angry with her that they would want to ruin her life when she’d been questioned again and again by the Chicago police, but even they hadn’t asked her to think back that far.
“If the Chicago authorities are right and the fire that killed your parents is connected to the most recent fires, I would say around that time is when it all started.”
* * * *
“It’s kind of ironic how our first real fire on the island turns out to be arson just days after our meeting about sending you back to the mainland to finish your arson investigation training, huh?”
Kalvin shot Wally Nichols a noncommittal look as he kneeled at the side of the bed in suite three fourteen. He studied the burn patterns left by the fire, the way the flames had climbed off the bed and made their way across the floor in a zig-zagging path to the door.
“Who do you think did this?”
“Believe me, Chief,” Kalvin said absently, not looking up. “If I had a clue, they would be taking up residence at the island jail already.”
“I like you, Fitzpatrick. You’re a hell of a firefighter and a damn good investigator, too.”
Kalvin gave Nichols a quick grin. “I like you, too. You’re a hell of a firefighter and a damn good chief.” He held the man’s gaze long enough to see the indecision settling in his dark eyes. He knew when the man had more on his mind than what he was saying. “Why don’t you stop trying to butter me up and say what you’re really wanting to say?”
“All right,” Nichols said slowly. “I know you’ve been seeing this woman. Normally, that wouldn’t be any of my business.”
Kalvin rested an elbow on his thigh as he gave the chief his full attention. “But you think it is now?”
“It is if you let a certain appendage do the thinking for you instead of your head on this.” Nicholas raked a hand over his thinning, graying hair and puffed out a hard breath. “I’m not as trained to investigate fires as you are even without your official certificate, but from where I’m standing, I can’t see how anyone could’ve gotten in here and started this fire except her.”
“She didn’t do this, Chief, and my dick isn’t what’s telling me that.” It was his heart, even if his head kept trying to tell him something different. “The answer to who did and how they pulled it off is here somewhere. You’ve given me the job to find it and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.”
“The grapevine is growing strong with gossip about that poor girl. People are saying she’s suspected of starting three other fires in Chicago.”
“Two. It was two fires in Chicago,” Kalvin corrected the man as he straightened, walked to the ready kit he’d brought in with him, and pulled out a few evidence bags. He was returning to the edge of the bed when the chief’s words sank in. “Wait a minute. How do people know about that?” No one on the island was supposed to know who Faith really was or where she’d come from, let alone about the fires in Chicago.
Nichols lifted a shoulder. “I don’t know, son, but the word is spreading like wildfire. The islanders are behind her. Everyone that’s met her likes her and doesn’t believe for a second she’s the type of person who could do such a thing.” He tsked. “Still, people talk, you know? What about someone on the cleaning staff? Has the sheriff questioned them about their whereabouts at the time of the fire?”
Kalvin blinked as the chief took the conversation full circle. “He has, along with every other member of the resort staff and most of the guests. One of the guests on this floor remembered seeing a tall, blond-haired man stop outside the door to this suite, try his key card, and then continue down the hall when it didn’t work. The sheriff found a man fitting the description in room three-twenty-four who admitted he’s forgotten his suite number a few times and thought he was staying in three-fourteen before he remembered the right suite.”
“Forgetful bastard,” Nichols muttered on a laugh. “I hope he’s not married. He probably catches hell over his wife’s birthday and their anniversary if he can’t even remember a suite number. I know Norman and I damn sure would if we ever forget Margret’s birthday or our anniversary.”
Kalvin chuckled as he carefully collected scrapings of wh
at remained of the bedspread and carpet. He’d already taken photos of the scene, documenting everything for further study later. “Margret would never let either of you live that one down.”
Margret Nichols was a spitfire and a master at keeping her men in line.
Kalvin moved to the door and scraped bits of the charred frame into an evidence bag. “I think the higher ups on the island like yourself and the sheriff need to have another long talk with Marcus and Kenneth Winters about putting surveillance cameras in the resort. If we’d had them in the hallways, we might have caught the arsonist on camera.”
The chief made a raspberry sound with his lips. “We’ll give it a shot at the next island council meeting, but I don’t see it happening. The Winters are too concerned with visitor’s privacy and all that.”
“We’ve had various forms of trouble on this island from day one and I doubt we’ve seen the end of it. They beefed up security at the dock after Lara’s stalker made it onto the island. Not that it helped when that Coast Guard’s father came after Kimberly. Still, a little security here at the resort might give the visitors a piece of mind, especially after this.”
“Like I said, I’ll bring it up again at the next meeting.”
Kalvin held up the evidence bags, gave them a glance, and then moved his gaze slowly around the room. “I think I’ve got all I can get out of here,” he said, more to himself than the chief. “I’ll send these samples to the lab on the mainland. They will be able to tell us what kind of accelerant was used.”
And if that accelerant is acetone like it has been in every other fire Faith has been involved in. Damn it, he wanted to believe her. Every fiber in his being knew the woman he’d fallen for couldn’t be an arsonist, but damned if he could convince his head to ignore the mounting evidence against her.
“She was really with you and Blaze when this fire started?”
Kalvin forced himself not to bristle at the inflection of disbelief in the chief’s tone. “The three of us were standing on the sidewalk outside Starry Skies. We had reservations for dinner.” He leveled a steady glare on the chief. “I might be more than half gone over the woman already, but I wouldn’t lie for her, not about something like this.”
Safe and Burning with Ecstasy [The Heroes of Silver Island 3] (Siren Publishing Ménage Everlasting) Page 13
