Seeing Red (7 page)

Summer didn’t know how to respond to that. The last thing she wanted to do was cause her mom more pain. Leaving would help both of them, but leaving was what had caused this distance in the first place, and besides, she’d promised not to go. She might be confused, lonely, hurting…but she still had her word.

“I know Joe suspects arson,” Camille said. “But there was nothing in that warehouse that couldn’t be replaced. There’s no one else on any of the papers except Tina and me. No one but us would gain from an insurance payoff.”

“It doesn’t have to be insurance fraud. Maybe you made someone mad. A boyfriend?”

Camille adamantly shook her head. “No.”

“The vagrant?”

“No. He’s a very nice man. Just homeless. He’s very careful.”

“Another family member then? Diana? Madeline? Just kidding,” she said when Camille eyed her acerbically. “I’m just thinking a little juvy hall wouldn’t hurt their attitude.”

Camille actually let out a laugh. Socks came into the room and wound himself around her ankles. She scooped him up and buried her face in his neck. “It’s not arson.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Summer said slowly, not wanting to argue.

Camille closed her eyes. “And at least this time, thank God, no one—”

She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. Because they both knew.

At least this time, no one had died.

F
or three days, Joe worked around the clock. He had inspections, plan development meetings at town hall, fires to investigate and reports to write, and now he sat at dinner with Cindy, nodding as she talked about her day, forcing himself to sit straight up for fear he’d fall asleep and land face-first into his meal.

The fact was, he’d wanted to stay home, maybe barbeque, definitely rest his weary body. But Cindy had wanted to take advantage of his rare night off, so here they sat, at an expensive steak house with a waiter hovering and Joe with a headache brewing.

“It’s a great neighborhood to raise kids,” Cindy was saying while he cut into his steak and unintentionally tuned her out. He figured if he could just get to bed early, he’d wake up refreshed and get to his reports. Yeah, that was it. He’d—

“Joe? Are you listening to me?”

He would be if she’d just rest her tongue for even a second. The thought made him feel like a jerk. It wasn’t her fault he was exhausted, heading into a coma. “I’m sorry.” He tried to put his mind back into her one-sided conversation, but while he watched her lips move, thoughts of work invaded.

The city was trying to rush him through one of the inspections for a large commercial complex, and yet the plans hadn’t matched the actual work done. Now he had several city officials riding his ass for slowing them down. And then there were several fires disturbing him, not the least of which was the Creative Interiors warehouse fire.

They’d released the scene two days ago. There’d been no other evidence found to go with the gasoline and boot print, except for a half-burned cigarette butt. They’d not put out an official ruling but the general consensus between MAST and the insurance company was that it would probably be undisclosed accidental fire—

“Babe, please. You’re not even
pretending
to hear me now.”

Caught off guard, he blinked at Cindy. “I’m sorry,” he said again, and scooped up a bite of baked potato, instructing himself to tune in. “I really am. Can you say that again?”

She reached over and squeezed his hand. “You’re going to make me think I’m boring.”

“I’m just tired.”

“Which is my point. My La Jolla town house is bigger than your place, which goes without saying since you live on a sailboat in a marina in Mission Bay.”

Uh oh.

She shot him a smile. “And I have plenty of extra closet space for you.”

Joe tossed back his entire glass of water and thought
please don’t do this now.

But Cindy turned out to be a lousy mind reader. “I mean I really do understand the allure of living on the water, but it’s just not big enough for both of us…”

“Cindy—”

“And I have to admit, I have a secret fantasy about having a house in the suburbs. Something simple, with a nice yard for the kids.” She let out a bubbly laugh while he stared at her. “And a white picket fence. It’s got to have one of those.”

The succulent steak he’d eaten caught in his throat.

“I know it’s silly,” she said. “But you know I grew up in Manhattan, in a third floor walk-up. No yard, no place to call my own. Nothing like my dream house.”

Joe had grown up in her so-called dream house, but he’d only found nightmares there. A white picket fence was on his
Never Have
list.

“Our kids will love it.”

Kids. He nearly choked. He didn’t know the first thing about raising a kid, and with his father’s blood running through his veins, that was just as well.

“Joe? You’re looking pale. Like you’ve seen a ghost.”

Yeah, the ghost of his future. “Cindy,” he said again, gently now, because he was going to hurt her and he hadn’t meant to ever do that.

Her smile faded. “Is this about moving in together?”

“We’ve only been dating a little over a month—”

“Two months.
Two
months, Joe. And that’s plenty of time.”

“Maybe if we’d been seeing each other regularly.”

“Your job doesn’t let you do anything regularly.”

“That’s true. And because of it, out of those two months we’ve really only been together a handful of times.”

She stared at him for a long, long moment. “I see. You’re not ready. I should have known, you’ve never even told me about you. You’ve never really opened up.”

The same old refrain. Kenny would be happy to hear it. “I’m sorry, Cindy. I’m…” He spread his hands helplessly. “Just not ready.”

“Okay.” She folded her hands and paused, looking incredibly hurt. “Will you ever be?”

Don’t. God, don’t.
“Cindy—”

His pager went off and he had no idea if it was relief that washed through him, or shame that he needed the out. He glanced down at the display, saw the emergency code, and grimaced as he set down his fork. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re always sorry.”

Yes. Yes he was. He was just one sorry son of a bitch.

“Don’t listen to it,” she begged him. “Don’t leave now.”

“You know I have to.” He stood and opened his wallet, taking out the money to cover their meals while she just stared at him, boring holes into his body with her resentment. With a sigh, he bent over her and brushed his mouth over her temple. “I really am sorry,” he murmured.

“Please just answer me.” Her voice trembled and he felt like the lowest bottom-feeder as she grabbed his wrist. “Will you ever be ready for this? For me?”

They were in a restaurant, surrounded by a crowd. He didn’t want to do this to her, not now, not here. But she wouldn’t let go of him.

“Do you even want that white picket fence, Joe? Just tell me that.”

He swiped the pad of his thumb over the tear that had slipped down her cheek. “No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”

At that, she pulled away from his touch. “Good-bye, Joe.”

And then she walked away before he could.

The emergency page was a fire. It always was. By the time Joe arrived at the single-story residential structure, the damage had been done. Flames leapt fifty feet into the black, opaque sky. More sirens sounded in the distance. A backup engine arriving to help protect the houses on either side. There were two ambulances there already, but Joe could tell from the screams as he got out of his truck, someone wasn’t going to make it to the hospital.

His stomach sank.

The on-site fire captain, Jake Rawlins, was an old, close friend. He came over to Joe while still yelling commands to his squad through his radio. “Carter and Martinez, pull back from the east side! Too hot!
Too hot
!” He watched as the truck engineer obeyed his orders, pulling the ladder away from the house, protecting the two firefighters on the end of it. Long streams of water from the hoses on the ground hit the hot flames.

“What do you have?” Joe asked.

“Hottest on the east side. Kitchen.”

“Who was inside?”

“A woman and her three young children. One didn’t make it out.”

“Christ.” Joe could still hear the mother screaming, hoarser now with her inconsolable grief.

“The father’s MIA,” Rawlins said. “They’re in the middle of a nasty divorce. He was spotted outside the kitchen window about three hours ago. The cops were called but when they got here, he was gone. They’re looking for him now.”

Joe knew all about asshole fathers. Too much. With a heavy sigh, he began taking notes. It was another half hour before the firefighters beat the flames down. During that time, Joe took pictures of the fire, the surrounding houses, the people watching. Later he’d study them all for clues but for now he just worked to record everything. He interviewed the witnesses, and all the neighbors.

Kenny showed up and joined the fray. “I got called out in the middle of an incredibly hot first date. And you?”

“Cindy’s pissed.”

“Shocker.”

“She told me to keep walking.”

“She’ll want you back.”

“No.” Joe shook his head. “Not this time. It’s not going to work out.”

“Yet another shocker. Let me guess. You got the ‘you don’t open up to me’ complaint.”

“Actually, she was willing to overlook that if I moved in with her.”

“And you said ‘oh goodie, where’s my key,’ right?”

“You’re funny.” He tossed Kenny a flashlight and they went into the house. As always, the work distracted Joe, he lost himself in it.

The kitchen had been hit hard. The countertops, floor, ceiling, and walls were down to blackened studs, and yet right across the room, the Formica and steel table and chairs stood perfectly in place, though the plastic coverings on the chairs had melted, and the cushions had burned.

Joe spent the first few minutes taking more pictures, recording the scene to preserve it for their report. Then he began to investigate for evidence of the origin/cause. He went through everything with a fine-tooth comb before his attention was caught beneath the sink. Before tonight there’d been a cupboard there, but now only the shell remained. As he moved closer, a sudden, piercing, heart-wrenching scream filled the air outside. Lifting his head, he met Kenny’s eyes from across the room.

“They found the kid’s remains,” his partner said quietly, his eyes shiny with emotion.

Joe let out a long, shaky breath and nodded. “Look.” He pointed with a gloved finger to the charred remains of a rag, balled up beneath the sink. Shining his flashlight for better illumination, he slowly pulled out the rag. The stench of paint thinner had his nostrils flaring. “Bingo,” he said softly.

“Maybe the mother had been removing her fingernail polish,” Kenny said, coming closer, playing devil’s advocate, as was their routine.

“Maybe.” Joe flashed the beam of light on the gallon-sized container of paint thinner, hidden behind the plumbing. It was charred on the outside, but opened and tipped over. “Because using a full gallon of paint thinner is so much easier than a small bottle of fingernail polish remover.”

The woman kept on screaming, the sounds ripping a hole in Joe’s chest. He flashed his beam of light on the carefully placed childproof lock on the inside wall of the cabinet, which would have kept her kids out. He took in everything else beneath the sink, all child-safe products such as a bottle of bubbles and kiddie soap.

Not another chemical, not so much as a cleaning agent, nothing. No, he would not buy that she’d have hoisted a heavy can to remove her fingernail polish. And he didn’t buy she’d have kept it under the sink either. Joe thought of the missing father and his gut twisted with memories of his own cruel father. He met Kenny’s gaze with his own grim one. “We’ve got some good evidence here.”

Which, with the mother’s heartbreaking sobs in the distance, brought no satisfaction at all.

The building for the new Creative Interiors II sat on a square of other shops and galleries in the center of Ocean Beach. It was a Tudor-style cottage, two story, with wide-open rooms, and windows with views of the Pacific Ocean only a street away. Perfect party house, and Summer knew tonight there’d be quite a gathering. It was the opening bash, and if there was one thing Camille and Tina could do and do well, that was throw a party.

Just the idea of it, with tons of people sequestered in close quarters, gave her a tight feeling in her chest.

She tried not to think about it as she worked with Stella and Greg to hang streamers and fill balloons with helium. Stella was a soft-spoken, petite blonde, adorable and sweet, and completely unassuming. Gregg was even more quiet, if that was possible. Summer often wondered if the two of them ever got boisterous or wild. Camille said she’d seem them at parties and after hours socializing, and that they did, but Summer couldn’t picture it.

She stopped decorating to look out the windows at the sunset. But off in the distance, in the purple sky, rose a long plume of dark smoke.

A fire.

Everything within her gripped in sympathy, in horror, and she wondered who the flames were affecting. Wondered, too, if Joe was there, with his quiet intense eyes, trying to find the cause.

“Miss being outside?”

She turned and looked at Bill. He and Tina had gotten married after her first one had failed, and they’d been together for fourteen years. He wasn’t crazy about the furnishings business, always grumbling about how much time it took Tina away from him, but he’d never failed to be there when his support was required.

Like tonight. He hated crowds, and here he was in his suit and tie. A wrinkled ill-fitting suit and tie, but he’d tried. He wasn’t quite as tall as she, and was used to being towered over by the women in his life. He had a mop of wild gray hair that always made her think of Albert Einstein, a poet’s sorrow-filled blue eyes, and the stained, callused hands of a ceramic artist.

And a big glass of what was undoubtedly spiked punch in his hand.

“Yes, I’m missing being outside,” she said with a smile for the first person in O.B. who hadn’t looked at her with wariness, frustration, or open hostility. She wondered if he still took Prozac like water to even out his moods. Or maybe he really was fond of her. “I miss it a lot.”

“How’s your mom?”

“Unnerved by the fire.”

He sighed, sending his hair into movement like wild cotton in the wind. Gray cotton. “An unfortunate coincidence, that was.” He looked around at the interior of the new shop, at the fresh, bright paint he’d put on the walls himself, and all the beachy stock within them. One entire wall was devoted to his handmade lighthouses. “Nice, huh?” he asked.

“It’s great.”

“Yeah. Great.”

But they both sighed unhappily. “With all the free food and drink around on every surface, no one’ll ever want to leave,” he grumbled. “This thing’ll go all night.”

“The trick is to get out of here before the crowd shows up,” she said.

Just the thought made her feel better, until she remembered Camille had picked her up and brought her here. At the time it’d seemed like a good idea, a way to spend an extra few minutes together, but now she realized the folly of that. She was stuck without a ride.

Bill looked at his watch. “If you’re going to escape, you’d better hurry. People are going to arrive.”

Too late. A couple walked in, followed by a handful of others. Then Diana and Madeline called her over to help finish the balloons and put out the boat-shaped party favors.