Home Free (23 page)

I hung up and shoved the cell phone in my
purse. I had come to the back corner of the building, and there was
a window there that hadn’t blown out, but the outside was covered
with dust from the gravel yard, and I couldn’t see in. I poked
around in my purse for a tissue and came out with a card instead. I
looked at it. It was the invitation Brian had left yesterday. I
pulled the phone out again and dialed Mikey.

“Missed me already?”

“Hey, do you have plans tonight?” I asked,
rubbing a clear circle on the window with my fist.

“What?”

“I have an idea for pushing Brian. Pick me up
at six. Wear a suit.”

“A suit?”

I forgot I was in Minter. “It’s a political
fundraiser. I think it’s fancy.”

I gave him directions and peered in the
window. I assumed it was Jenkins’ office, with a desk and telephone
and some filing cabinets, and it appeared to be relatively
unscathed, save for a thick layer of oily soot over everything. I
didn’t see how that was going to help me. I turned and surveyed the
rest of the area. The window faced the gravel yard parking lot.
Around the corner, there was another door that opened directly from
Jenkins’ private office to an asphalt strip leading to the actual
body shop, which consisted of two large aluminum buildings with two
roll-up doors each. The back office door was intact, locked but not
padlocked. There were a few car carcasses abandoned in the lot, but
I couldn’t see inside the bays. A pebble worked its way into my
left shoe, and I shifted my foot to a more comfortable position. I
sighed and went back around the front and got in the car and drove
towards the police station. I didn’t know what I’d thought I would
find, but I was pretty sure I hadn’t found it.

I parked on the street in front of Courthouse
Park, locked the car and went in search of Jimmy C. Just then, he
sauntered down the steps from the court building. We met at a bench
and sat down.

“So, I take it there’s new information.” I
noticed him looking at my hand, and I brushed the dirt off of
it.

He nodded, and I could tell I wasn’t going to
like his news. “Chambers had been living with and abusing a woman
Danny used to know. An old girlfriend.”

I was holding my breath, my teeth clenched.
I’d gone down the same road, of course, but I knew it was a dead
end and I couldn’t believe the cops would buy into it. “And?”

“Jealousy, rage over the abuse, who knows?”
He shrugged. “Danny’s mom’s a battered wife, so he has issues. He’s
a fireman, they like to be heroes. You name it.”

“That’s crap.” Firemen didn’t go around
shooting people to be heroes.

He shrugged. He didn’t care if it was crap if
it got him an arrest, I thought.

I went on, in my most sarcastic tone. “Let’s
see, Danny had a motive and the opportunity and the means,
according to this scenario. So why don’t you just arrest him? He
could have gotten the chemicals from someone other than my brother,
and his own brother was busy getting loaded with the Clampers.
Sounds pretty open and shut to me.”

“I still think it was Junior. But the
connection between Danny and Chambers strengthens our case against
Danny, and I’m hoping to use that to get to his brother. We’re
getting pressure to make an arrest, and people have been convicted
on less evidence than we have on Danny. And you sure as hell didn’t
hear any of this from me, understand?”

“What about the fire at Sherry Henderson’s
house last night?”

Jimmy C’s eyebrows shot up. He clearly hadn’t
expected me to know about that, and just as clearly hadn’t been
planning to tell me himself. “What are you doing, Alex? You
promised me you wouldn’t get involved, you just wanted to know what
was happening for your own peace of mind.”

“Well, that’s when I thought the Minter
Police Department gave a damn about justice. Now that I know it
doesn’t, I’m not leaving the investigation up to you guys.”

“That’s not fair. We are investigating every
lead. You’re angry because none of them clears your brother. Tell
me how you know about Sherry’s house. It wasn’t in the paper.”

I sighed. “I’m friends with Sherry’s
neighbor. She mentioned it to me. I stopped by the house this
morning and the firemen said it was faulty wiring. That’s bullshit.
Whoever was trying to keep Lonnie quiet was also trying to keep
Sherry quiet. I don’t know what they wanted them to be quiet about,
though. Do you?”

Jimmy C shook his head. “What I do know is
that Junior Salazar delivered a bouquet of flowers to Sherry
Henderson’s hospital room this morning.”

“WHAT?” That was the second vase in Sherry’s
room. What the hell was wrong with me? I suspected my own brother,
but I didn’t even doubt a guy I hardly knew. Who just happened to
be a convicted murderer. Maybe I did have a brain tumor.

“When we got the fire call on the scanner
last night, I assigned a car to tail Salazar. He was home at the
time of the fire, didn’t leave the house till six this morning. He
went to the market, got a big vase of flowers, and drove to the
hospital. My unit radioed for orders. I told him to let Salazar go
into Sherry’s room, then go in after him. But Junior didn’t go in.
He left the vase and the card at the second floor nurses’ station,
then left and drove to the gravel yard.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means he spotted the tail.”

“Or it could mean he just wanted to leave
flowers and not disturb Sherry since it was so early and she’d
obviously had a rough night.” I didn’t want to believe I’d been
wrong about Mikey. I liked him. And I’d had a really bad feeling
about Brian at the hospital this morning.

“And how exactly did Junior know she’d had a
rough night?”

Shit. Because Danny had called him? Or
because he’d been there? “Maybe he has a scanner.”

Jimmy C harrumphed. “Junior or Danny or both
had something going on with Chambers and his woman, and I’m going
to find out what it was. Maybe your brother was in the wrong place
at the wrong time, or maybe you don’t know him as well as you think
you do. I’m going to find that out, too. But now you need to keep
your promise and stay out of this.”

I was wondering how well I did know my
brother, only not the brother Jimmy C was referring to. I thanked
him and hobbled to my car, trying to rearrange the pebble as I
walked. The morning had been a bust, and I was grouchy and hot and
hungry and my foot hurt. I drove home thinking cranky thoughts
about small town cops.

When I turned onto Shasta, I slowed to a
crawl. A block up, at my house, the behemoth truck was gone,
replaced by a little red Mustang. I sucked in some air and drove
on, pulling in next to the sportscar. At least my car didn’t look
like a toy next to it.

Danny sat on the front steps, watching me,
and I thought maybe the day was looking up.

“Hey,” he said, legs sprawled along the
steps. Lucifer meandered over, pushed his head into Danny’s thigh
and did a little somersault, ending in a purring ball.

“Hey.” I sat down next to them.

He gave a sniff in my direction. “Why do you
smell like smoke?”

I didn’t smell it, but leave it to a fireman
to notice. I figured telling the fire captain I’d spent the morning
poking around arson sites wouldn’t go over that well, so discretion
being the better part of valor and all that, I lied. I was getting
better at it. “It was a daring rescue attempt this morning.
Unfortunately, the toast couldn’t be saved.”

“Uh-hunh. You didn’t elope with Murphy after
we went to the batting cage the other day, did you?”

My momentary victory over Ginger Jorgenson
this morning came back to haunt me already. “Let me think... Uh,
no, I’m pretty sure I went to my parents’ for a barbecue.”

“Just checking.”

“So. About Sherry’s fire.”

He nodded. “Electrical fire. Her electrical
system wasn’t up to code. Big surprise. So it was potentially
hazardous, but there’s not enough of anything left to tell if the
fire was spontaneous or deliberate.”

“Shit.”

“Yep.”

“Both of our brothers went to the hospital
this morning. Mikey said you told him about the fire. Did you?”

“Yeah. You tell Brian?”

“Hunh-uh.”

He stroked the cat and spoke quietly. “I have
a meeting with a lawyer this afternoon.”

“You talked to Jimmy C?”

He nodded, his eyes tired. “This is a fucking
nightmare.”

I stood up and stepped over him and put the
key in the lock. I opened the door and turned back. “You want to
come inside? It’s too hot out here for me.”

Danny followed me into the living room,
shutting the door behind us. I was hopping on my right foot, trying
to get my left sneaker off as I walked. I yanked it loose, and the
pebble flew out, and I sat down hard on the chair. He sat across
from me on the couch and hoisted his legs up, resting his boots on
the coffee table. He had on a pale blue polo shirt, and his hair
looked like he’d run his fingers through the curls after showering
and left it like that. I kind of wanted to do that myself right
now.

Danny and I were lounging by my parents’
pool, enjoying the late August day. Kevin was working an early
shift at the motorcycle shop because their championship game was
later that evening. Which was the same reason Danny gave for not
wanting to fool around with me. Something about needing strength in
his legs, blah blah blah. He splashed water at me with his foot,
and I retaliated by turning the garden hose on him.

He jumped up and chased me, screaming, around
the pool. He caught me by the arms and threw the hose to the side,
then held me out, dangling me over the pool. I clutched at him and
struggled to keep a grip on the deck with my toes. Tears ran down
my cheeks from laughing so hard, and Danny’s mouth and eyes were
grinning.

“Don’t throw me in!” I pleaded. I didn’t want
my hair and makeup ruined.

He held me there for a second longer,
thinking, then slowly pulled me back. “You’re right, you don’t
deserve to be let off that easy,” he teased, his grin turning
mischievous. “You deserve to be punished.”

“Tell me what you’re going to do!”

“You’ll see. Tell your mom you’re staying at
Pauline’s tonight.” He kissed me, deep and sexy, and continued, his
voice rough, “I’m going to get even with you, Lex, even if it takes
all night.”

Now that’s my kind of punishment, I
thought.

Danny and Kevin’s team won, and there was a
lot of whooping and hollering at the end. My mom had come to see
the game, and I wandered over and told her I was spending the night
at Pauline’s. She reminded me I had work the next day before she
left to congratulate my brother. Pauline had hooked up with her
umpire again, and I told her I’d get a ride home, then went to wait
in the Mustang while Danny finished the round of high-fives and
back slapping.

When we got to his house, we tiptoed around
the back and snuck in through his bedroom window in case his folks
were still up. Danny climbed through first, then turned back and
lifted me inside. We stood there for a second, then he smiled.

“I gotta take a shower.” He started to leave
the bedroom, then glanced back at me with the slow smile. “Don’t
start without me.”

I kicked off my flip-flops and peeled out of
my jeans, t-shirt and bra. I found a clean baseball jersey hanging
in the closet and pulled it over my head. Luckily, it was white
with red pinstripes, so it matched my red string bikinis. I flipped
off the overhead light and turned on the dim lamp on the nightstand
and arranged myself in what I hoped was a flattering pose on the
bed.

Danny came back after the fastest shower in
history, wearing nothing but a towel and a horny grin. I reached
for the towel, and he slapped my hand away playfully.

“Hunh-uh. You’re being punished, remember?
Now just relax.” He slid my bikinis down in one swift motion and
bent his head to my stomach, his mouth moving lower with each kiss,
his tongue making relaxation a distant memory, and then a little
lower still, and a little slower and -

“Dude! Come on, let’s party!” The bedroom
door banged open. “Damn, now that’s what I call a party. Jesus
Christ, is that my
sister
?”

Danny flung a blanket over me and shoved
Kevin out the door and slammed it shut in a single movement, but
not soon enough to avoid giving us all nightmares for weeks. He
winked and adjusted his towel.

“Don’t move.” He followed Kevin into the
hall.

Like hell, I thought. I flew out of the bed
and looked around for my underwear. They weren’t to be found, so I
yanked on my jeans and stuffed my feet in my flip-flops and was
halfway out the window when Danny hooked his finger through my belt
loop to stop me.

“Where are you going?” he breathed into the
back of my neck, in that husky, gravelly voice of his. He pressed
little kisses under my ear and pulled me back into the room,
turning me around to face him.

“I have to go home so my father can kill me.
It wouldn’t be polite for him to kill me here, and make a mess for
your mom to clean up.”

He slid his hands under my shirt, along my
belly and upwards, and I hadn’t found my bra either, and I felt my
breath catch, and I thought, well, if I’m going to die
anyway...

“Your brother’s not going to say anything.”
He touched my throat with his tongue and then kissed the same
spot.

“Are you sure?” I no longer had any clue what
we were talking about.

“Mmmm-hmmm. Darn, looks like I’m going to
have to start all over.”

If I’d known when I woke the next morning
that the first day I greeted from the warmth of Danny’s arms was
also destined to be the last, I wouldn’t have been nearly so
cheery. But it wasn’t till two days later, when Rose came into the
ice cream store to get a gallon of Rocky Road, that I found out
he’d gone to Michigan, three weeks early, “to get settled in.”