A Firefighter in the Family. Trish Milburn
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He wasn’t sure that wouldn’t have been better. At least he didn’t have any guilt wrapped up in his feelings toward them.
“Anything you want to share in case your Nancy Drew shows up at the pier asking questions?”
Zac shook his head. “There’s nothing to know. Oldham wanted to buy me out, I said no, that was the end of it.”
Adam stared at him for a moment, as if maybe he didn’t believe him. Well, that was Adam’s problem, not his. He was damned tired of explaining himself, especially to people who were supposed to be his friends.
RANDI WALKED out of her hotel room’s bathroom toweling the excess water from her long hair. After a full day of sniffing rubble and accompanying her while she interviewed witnesses, Thor lay stretched out on one of the beds watching the Eukanuba Dog Show on Animal Planet.
“Checking out the babes, huh?”
Thor licked his chops as a female husky strutted her stuff.
“You’re so predictable. It’s always the blue-eyed girls.”
Randi slipped into white cargo pants and an orange tee, thankful to be out of smoky clothes. She propped her pillows behind her against the headboard and pulled out her case notebook.
She scanned through the list of names and didn’t scratch any off, not even eighty-year-old Penelope “Busybody” Jones. Randi couldn’t imagine the woman who looked like Barbara Bush’s twin doddering across Sea Oat Road with a can of gasoline and a box of matches in the middle of the night, but she’d seen stranger things happen.
She leaned back and thought about Zac’s reaction to her questioning. Red-flag city. Her eyes drifted closed as she pictured his tight facial expressions, his tense body language. His finely toned body. She swallowed.
Even though his status as a potential suspect gave her the distance she needed from him, she couldn’t believe he was really guilty. But he didn’t have to know that. The mere thought of someone she’d once cared about, a fellow firefighter, being the culprit sickened her. But he wasn’t a firefighter anymore, was he? Why? After all, he’d once sacrificed friendship and the possibility of something more for the job.
Her cell phone rang, and she answered while making notes for the next morning’s itinerary.
“How’d it go today?” Steve asked.
Did her boss ever take a day off? “I should be asking you the same question. How’s the happy couple?”
“On their way to Cozumel. What have you found out?”
Randy shook her head. If there was one thing that could be said for Steve Preston, it was that he was dedicated to the job. If the entire state of Florida caught fire simultaneously, he’d find a way to have a working knowledge of every single case to which his investigators were assigned.
“Thor’s keeping his reputation intact. I sent a sample off to the lab, but it smelled like gasoline.”
“Suspects?”
“Well, the consensus is that the builder is a jerk and the condo project unpopular. The suspect list is turning into a cast of thousands.”
As soon as she hung up a few minutes later, her cell rang again. “Hello?”
“Hey, sis. Where ya staying?” Eric asked.
“The Coral Inn on Gulf.”
“I see the state is putting you up in the fancy places.”
“Ha-ha.” How good it felt to talk to him. The full impact of how much she missed him and the rest of her family made her suck in a shaky breath.
“Want some dinner?”
“You buying?”
“You’re the one with the cushy state job.”
Randi rolled her eyes. “Yeah, I’m making so much money I don’t know what to do with it all.”
“Okay, I’ll spring. Pick you up in ten.”
Randi slipped on a pair of white canvas mules, an oddity in her collection of dirty boots and athletic shoes. Even her running shoes were scuffed and smelly from her morning jogs.
When Eric pulled into the parking lot, Thor leaped into the bed of the black Dodge Ram without being told. Randi slid into the passenger seat.
“Hey, you clean up decent,” Eric said.
Randi sniffed the air. “You, too. I don’t smell you quite so much anymore.”
Eric punched her lightly in the arm, like he’d done as a kid. It caused a pang in her chest, and she wished things were that simple and carefree again.
“So, where we going?”
Eric didn’t answer, but he turned east, away from most of the town’s restaurants. Toward home.
Anger and anxiety made her muscles tighten. She stared hard at Eric’s profile, but he refused to look her way. “Damn it. You ambushed me.”
“Come on,” he pleaded. “It’s not like I’m dragging you to prison or the gates of hell.”
“No, just the land of thinly veiled hostility.”
“It’s not that bad, and you know it.”
“I don’t know it. You just refuse to see what’s right in front of your nose. Now turn around.”
“No.”
Randi looked at her brother in stunned surprise.
“Carol will have my hide,” Eric said, sheepish.
If there existed someone more determined than Eric to rebuild the burned bridges in the Cooke family, it was her sister-in-law Carol, Will’s wife. The irony never failed to strike Randi. If Will was strong and determined and sometimes bullheaded, Carol was every bit his equal but somehow managed to be a sweet person at the same time.
“That’s freaking fantastic.” Randi crossed her arms and watched the shops of downtown Horizon Beach zip by as Eric drove toward their parents’ house on the outskirts of town. She hated having control of a situation taken from her.
“Give it a rest. You’re here at Thanksgiving and Christmas. What difference does the day make?”
“I have time to prepare for the holidays.”
“So now you have to ‘prepare’ to see your family?”
“When half that family still holds a grudge against me, yes.” Not that there wasn’t cause. Still, it hurt.
“Randi, it’s time to move on.”
She turned toward her brother and pierced him with the stare that put fear into the hearts of otherwise heartless arsonists. “Did you happen to hear Will this morning? Did you notice I wasn’t exactly the person he most wanted to see?”
“He was tired. We were up all night.”
“Fatigue doesn’t put that look in a man’s eyes.”
Eric didn’t argue further, and Randi was sorry. She needed the outlet to vent steam. Honestly, she’d love to reconnect with her family, to experience the intense love and camaraderie they’d once enjoyed. But no longer could she hang out with her brothers and father and talk shop. It hurt that they didn’t seem to want to, either, but she couldn’t blame them.
When Eric parked in front of their parents’ two-story on Sand Dune Drive, Randi let out a long, anxiety-filled breath. The number of vehicles in the driveway and on the side of the street struck her as odd. “Why is everyone here?”
“It’s an engagement party. Karl finally asked Shellie.”
Despite her roiling emotions, Randi smiled. At least she was home for a happy occasion.