Dangerous Alterations (16 page)

What kind of person suspected someone so caring and so sweet of nefarious things? What kind of person ignored the goodness that had been demonstrated to them time and time again in favor of suspecting something so despicable?

“Me,” she whispered as she dropped the lip gloss onto her dresser and closed her eyes, grateful that she hadn’t shared her worries with the chief. At least, in that sense, she’d done something right.

A familiar sound broke through her woolgathering and forced her into the present. Grabbing the phone from her nightstand, she flipped it open.

“Hello?”

“Why didn’t you call last night?”

She backed against her bed and sat down, her thoughts racing for something that sounded better than the brutal truth. Especially when that truth was so glaringly false. “I guess I just crashed the moment my head hit the pillow. With the drive to and from the cabin, the worry about the library, my unexpected visit from you and Chief Dallas, well, I guess I was more tired than I realized.”

His smile was audible through the phone. “I understand, though I missed hearing your voice. Did you at least sleep well?”

Tori sidestepped the question. “The talk with the chief went fine. He asked questions about my history with Jeff and he seemed to really listen. I don’t think I’m on his radar.”

“Is there anyone who is?”

“Not from what I can tell,” she answered honestly. “He wants me to give it some thought, see if I can come up with anyone Jeff might have wronged along the way.”

“From what I’ve heard, sounds like finding someone he
didn’t
wrong might be the harder job.”

She closed her eyes at the bitterness in his voice, her mind replaying her sleepless night and the nagging questions that had tossed her between fear and guilt with each passing hour.

“Can we talk about something else?” she finally asked. “Please?”

The warmth that was synonymous with Milo Wentworth returned in her ear. “Oh. Yeah. I’m sorry. So … are you going to head back up to the cabin today? Get in a little more time with Margaret Louise and the crew?”

A smile played at the corners of her mouth. She had to admit, the notion of delving back into the oasis her friends provided was more than a little tempting. Especially after the night she’d had.

“I want to talk to Chief Granderson first and see how things fared at the library. Maybe even get inside and look around.”

“Do you want me to drive back up after my session today? I could go through the building with you if he’ll even let us.”

She leaned back against her pillow. “I couldn’t ask you to make that drive again. It’s too much.”

“No it’s not. It’s mostly interstate the whole way and it goes fast. Trust me. We could give everything a once-over and then go out to eat.”

As tempting as it was to take him up on it, to spend an evening together that didn’t include a crisis, she had to decline. The conference would be over for good soon enough. Besides, she owed it to Margaret Louise to return to the cabin and finish up the weekend with the circle. She said as much to Milo.

“Okay.” He released a playful sigh in her ear. “I’ll wait until this conference is over to see you. But once it is, we have a date, okay?”

She laughed. “Okay.” Glancing at the clock on her nightstand, she sat up. “Milo? Don’t you have a class in a few minutes?”

A second of silence was followed by a rustling in her ear. “Oh. Wow. Yeah. I’ve gotta go. Talk to you later?”

“I’ll talk to you later.” She shut the phone inside her hand only to open it once again, scrolling through her personal directory in rapid fashion. When she reached Georgina’s name, she pressed the green button. Her call was answered on the first ring.

“Good morning, Victoria.”

“I take it I didn’t wake you?”

She could hear the mayor smile. “Why do you say that?”

“Because you once told me that you’re blind as a bat in the morning. Seems to me you wouldn’t be able to read my name on your phone’s tiny screen if you just woke up.”

“That’s why I have a different ring for everyone—my secretary, Chief Dallas, Chief Granderson, my accountant, even people I don’t know.”

Intrigued, Tori pushed off the bed and wandered over to the window, the early morning sun heating her room enough to kick off the air-conditioning she’d set at seventy-eight. “What do you have for Chief Dallas?”

“The theme song from
Hawaii Five-O.
”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed.

“And Chief Granderson?”

“ ‘Great Balls of Fire.’”

“ ‘Great Balls of’—wait, how come I didn’t know this about you before now?”

“I didn’t realize I could do it until my cousin came to town earlier this summer with her grandson, Bradley,” Georgina explained. “You’d be amazed what kids these days can do with technology.”

“What about your accountant?”

“ ‘Add It Up’ by some group with a crazy name.”

Tori nibbled her lower lip inward against the urge to snort. “The Violent Femmes?”

“Yes, that’s it. It was Bradley’s suggestion.” Georgina stretched, loudly. “Shall we head back to the cabin this morning?”

“Wait. Not so fast,” Tori protested. “What’s mine?”

“Your what, Victoria?”

“The ring that let you know it was me calling just now.”

“Oh. That.”

She waited, only to be out-silenced on the other end.

“Georgina? Are you still there?”

“Yes, I’m still here.”

“What’s my ring?”

“I prefer not to answer that.”

She turned from the window and walked to the center of the room. “Okay. But why?”

A long, drawn out sigh filled her ear, as if her question was akin to a promise of torture. “If I tell you, I’ll have to tell everyone else in the circle. And some of my callers may not be—well, let’s just say they may not be amused with my selections.”

“You do realize I’m a librarian, yes, Georgina?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Which means I’m curious by nature.”

“Then we shall be glad you’re not a cat, Victoria, because my lips are sealed.”

This time, it was her turn to sigh. “We can’t make a deal? My silence in exchange for some answers?”

“No.”

“Are you sure because I promise I won’t—”

“No.”

“Well, alrighty then.” Looking around, she grabbed an empty laundry bag with her free hand and headed toward the front hallway. The smoke-filled clothes she’d stripped from her body the night before were right where she’d left them, the familiar campfire smell from her youth permeating the air around them. “Have you heard from Fred Granderson yet?”

“I’m meeting him at the site in thirty minutes.”

She reached down, stuffed the clothes into the bag, and carried them out to the car. “May I meet you there?”

“Of course. And when we’re done, we’ll head back up to the cabin for the rest of the weekend.”

Tori took a deep breath and allowed her thoughts to return to the cabin in the woods—a place that had seemed like heaven on earth until talk turned to Jeff …

“Margaret Louise is making Mexican tonight.”

Jeff.

Maybe her friends could help her come up with possibilities for the chief. Or help get her mind off the whole business completely …

“Your bag is still in my trunk. And maybe now Dixie might consider coming up with us since she won’t be able to work.”

Dixie.

The word was like a slap across the face, the sensation bringing her back to the one-sided conversation taking place in her ear. “Can we just wait and see what Fred has to say? I don’t want to head back to the cabin only to ruin everyone else’s weekend by being in a dour mood.”

“Alright. But, even if the news is less than ideal, I think the time away will be good for you. You’ve been under such stress these past few weeks.”

She shut the trunk and leaned against the car, lifting her face to the sun’s rays. Georgina was right. Between the business with Jeff’s arrival in town and the shock of his death, she’d been living on a form of autopilot the past week. The fire at the library just ensured she’d be running the same way even longer. So, really, what harm could twenty-four hours away do?

“Okay. I’m in,” she conceded. “But after we hear what Fred has to say about the library.”

She could hear Georgina’s smile through the phone. “Good. Margaret Louise will be pleased as punch.”

“I’ll meet you in front of the library in”—she pulled the phone from her ear and consulted the clock in the bottom right corner—“in twenty minutes, then?”

“That’ll be fine. Oh, and Victoria?”

Crossing around the front of her car, she pulled the driver’s side door open. “Yes?”

“Will it be okay with you if I actually call Dixie and invite her to come along? I think the change will do her good, too.”

Tori leaned her forehead against the steering wheel and said a mental prayer for patience even as her stomach churned at the memory of the phone call that had brought her and Georgina running. “Yes … yes, of course it’s okay.”

Tori slid the car into park and leaned against the seat back, the lingering scent of fire seeping its way through the open window. The unspoken hope she’d almost fooled herself into believing was gone, the victim of a yellow-taped reality.

She’d seen the Do Not Cross tape before—on TV shows, in newspapers, even in Sweet Briar. But strung around the trees and encompassing her beloved library because of a fire? Not in her wildest dreams. Or her worst nightmares.

Georgina tapped on her partially opened window. “Are you ready, Victoria?”

“I guess.” She stepped from the car and followed Georgina toward the burly man standing sentry beside the library’s back door. “Is Fred meeting us here?”

“He is. In fact … here he is now.” Georgina adjusted her trademark straw hat atop her head and waved at the dark-haired fire chief as he emerged from the building. “Good morning, Fred, thanks for meeting us so early.”

Fred Granderson waved the sentry from his post then extended his hand in Georgina’s direction, nodding at Tori as he did. “My pleasure, Mayor. Are you ladies ready to get a look at the damage we sustained?”

She swallowed back the lump that appeared at the mention of the word
damage
. “You mean we’re going to go inside?”

Again he nodded. “We can’t go into your office, but we can tour everything else.” A quick whistle brought the return of the sentry and a pair of hard hats. Fred handed one to Georgina and the other to Tori. “Put these on as a precaution and let’s get to it.”

They fell into step behind the chief as he pulled the employee door open and disappeared inside. Tori took a deep breath and followed, the campfire smell that had clung to her clothes the night before magnified a hundredfold inside the building.

“So what do we know so far?” Georgina asked as she picked her way down the hallway, sidestepping puddles and debris. “Do we know how it started?”

“We do. Though we’ve called in an arson investigator to take a closer look.”

Tori froze. “An
arson
investigator?”

“Come with me.” Fred led the way down the hallway, stopping outside the door of Tori’s office. He gestured inside. “Take a look.”

Tori sucked in her breath at the sight of the charred-out remains of what, just twenty-four hours earlier, had been her office. Hers and Nina’s.

Her metal desk still stood, but it was merely a shell of its former existence, her pencil holder and papers gone. Nina’s desk shared the same fate. The small sitting area she’d created was gone—the cushions she’d sat on with everyone from Lulu and Margaret Louise to Leona and various board members, gone.

“The fire started right there.”

Tori followed Fred’s finger as it directionalized her field of vision toward the tiny table in the southern corner of the room.

“How do you know?” Georgina asked.

“Do you see the V pattern on the wall? Right there around the base of the table?”

Sure enough, the darkest charring in the room was found in the area of the table—the table that had played host to the coffeepot Dixie had commandeered from the library’s basement.

Georgina and Tori nodded in unison.

“The other indicator we have for the place of origin is that lamp over there.” Fred shifted his finger to the right, leading their attention toward the charred lamp atop Nina’s desk. “Do you see the bulb? The way it’s bent toward the table? In the heat of a fire, those bulbs tend to melt a bit and bend toward the area of the heat source.”

“So it truly was the coffeepot?” She heard the raspiness in her voice but could do little to stop it. Seeing the damage up close was nothing short of depressing.

“It was.” Fred tucked his arm underneath Tori’s elbow and guided her toward the main room. “Whether that coffeepot got a little help in starting the fire, though, is where the arson investigator will come in.”

“Help?” she echoed.

Georgina stopped mid-step. “What do you mean
help
?”

Fred looked from Georgina to Tori and back again as a hood seemed to drop in front of his eyes. “It appears as if there was something in the outlet. Something that shouldn’t have been there.”

“But how?” Tori reached for her hair only to smack her fingertips into her hard hat. “I—I use that outlet all the time.”

“That’s what we’re hoping to find out.” Fred turned his complete focus on her. “Have you had any electrical work done in here recently?”

“No.”

“Any workers of any kind in your office in the past few days?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure.”

Fred prodded them forward once again. “Well, let’s just wait and see what the investigator comes back with before we get into this any deeper, shall we?”