Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“A frozen yogurt?” Summer laughed, and it was the belly laugh Joe remembered.
He found himself smiling at her as he handed over the strawberry yogurt cone he’d just bought her.
They’d walked past the pier and out onto the beach.
The early evening sun beat down on their heads, the sand blazing beneath their feet.
A nice breeze washed over them with every wave that hit the shore, the sound and light spray both soothing and calming.
Around them were a variety of surfers, raucous young couples, and tourists.
Summer, in her crepe camisole top and skirt and easy grin, looked right at home, unless one knew her and could see past the slightly shaky smile.
She was still hurting. Even so, she dug into her dessert with typical gusto, then twirled around on the sand like a kid, her feet splashing in the water, making her skirt cling to her calves.
“You’re right,” she said, coming to a stop and facing him. “This definitely hits the spot.”
Oh, yeah, it did, he thought as he slurped his own chocolate shake down his throat and watched her begin to shed her tension like an unwanted coat. God, for the ability to do that.
“Trade,” she said, and before he could blink, she thrust her cone at him and took his shake—an old habit. She slurped at his dessert for a moment. “Not nearly as healthy as mine, but good,” she said and switched back, happily resuming her cone. “Joe?”
“Hmm?”
“I have a confession.” She licked her lip to get every last drop, also an old habit, though it hadn’t used to make him hard.
“A confession?” he asked, his gaze locked on her wet tongue as it darted back into her mouth.
“Uh-huh. And I’ll tell you what it is if you give me a secret back.”
“You first,” he said warily.
Her eyes held his prisoner. She spoke very solemnly. “I missed the beach.”
He stared at her. “That’s it? Your big confession? You missed the beach?”
“Yes.” Another torturous lick of her cone. “Now you.”
“Oh, no. That’s not good enough.”
She took yet another slow, noisy lick of her yogurt, which made his eyes cross. “Okay, I’ll give you another,” she said. “Ready?”
Expecting another statement like “I missed the beach,” he relaxed. Even smiled. “Hit me.”
“I missed you. More than I missed the beach.”
He went still, then forced a smile. “Yeah, I noticed how much you missed me. All those letters cluttering up my mailbox.”
She dug her bare toes into the sand. Her crystal toe ring sparkled. “I wanted to write you. I must have started a hundred letters. Last year when I came home for Christmas, I even looked you up. I drove by your place. I didn’t expect it to be a sailboat in Mission Bay. It’s lovely.”
“I take care of it for the owner, who’s a fire chief in Los Angeles. Why didn’t you stop and see me?”
“Nope, that’s enough of me. Your turn now. A secret, Joe.”
He stared out at the five-footers and gave her his deepest, darkest one. “I lied when I said I never thought about you.”
She smiled, warm and bright, as if he’d just given her a gift.
“Want to know the truth about why I never came to see you?” she asked. “I was afraid.”
“Of me?”
“Afraid we’d never find our way back to the way things were.” She lifted her head and pierced him with those jade eyes he’d never been able to resist. “Can we?” she whispered.
“I never look back.” He took another sip of his shake, then handed it to her. “Trade.”
She did but held on to his wrist before he turned away. “Joe.”
She wanted a better answer, and he wasn’t sure if he was ready to share it. But he’d never been able to hold back with her. “I never look back because there’s not much for me there.” Except you. “I live for the here and now, Red. It’s good. It works for me.”
“Like last night. Last night worked for you.”
“Last night was…”
“Good,” she said softly.
More than, he thought, and since she’d wanted a confession, he offered a doozy. “One night wasn’t enough for me.”
Her smile slowly faded. “No?”
Hell, no. But then again, he’d known it wouldn’t be. “I can’t do this as casual as you’re looking for, and survive it.”
She nodded and splayed her toes in the sand for a moment. She still smelled like smoke. There was a cut visible on her ankle. Damn it.
“Red.”
“I know. You don’t want to go back. You don’t want to go forward. I know.”
He sighed and opened his mouth. “Maybe we could start over from a new place. In the here and now.”
Her head whipped up. “Really?”
He was insane. A glutton for punishment. “As friends.”
Her eyes went bright with emotion and before he knew what she meant to do, she leaned in, pressing her mouth to his jaw in a kiss he was certain she thought was sweet but fired his engines like no simple little peck ever should.
“So,” she said. “Friend. What do you do in the here and now for fun? I know you run.”
He shuddered and made her laugh. “I don’t run for fun, but for necessity. There’s a huge difference.”
Her gaze ran over his body. “It works.”
“No.” He waggled a finger in her face. “None of that.”
“None of what?”
“That look.”
“What, I’m just standing here,” she said innocently, lifting her hands.
“Yeah, you’re just standing there. Looking at me like I’m a ten-course meal and you’re starving. Stop it.”
“Why?”
He shifted uncomfortably.
“Why, Joe?”
“It makes me hot.” You make me hot.
Her smile was slow, pure sin. “It’s supposed to.”
“Okay, clearly we need rules for this.” He scrubbed his hands over his face. “Lots of rules.”
“What, like friend rules?”
“Yeah. No funny looks. No—”
“Kissing?” she asked. “How about kissing?”
“Definitely no kissing. I can’t handle it, Red. I mean it. I can start over. I can be your friend. I can do anything you want except fall for you again and watch you walk away when it’s time.”
She sipped from his shake.
“Red?”
“I hear you,” she said softly.
He hoped that was true.
Joe and Kenny met to exchange interview information. They sat in Kenny’s office over fast food, their files spread out in front of them.
They were taking a good, hard look at Braden. “He’s relatively new at Creative Interiors,” Joe said. “No one really knows him.”
“We’d better run him through the system,” Kenny said, making notes. “And then go talk to him.”
“And I think it’s time we take harder looks at some of the others as well. Stella and Gregg. Did you know they’d failed at their own shop?”
Kenny looked up. “How long ago?”
“Fifteen years. According to Summer, this came from Stella, and Gregg wasn’t happy about her telling the story.”
Kenny let out a low whistle and began writing again. “Interesting.”
“Very. And then there’s Ally.”
“From Ally’s Treasures.”
“Red mentioned seeing her a lot lately.” Joe read his notes. “She was at the opening party, and seen driving by the next morning as well. She has a definite grudge, though given she’s as successful as she is, it doesn’t make much sense.”
“If we’re talking grudges…have you noticed any grudges against any one particular employee?”
“You’re talking about Red.” Joe’s stomach clenched. “And how they all seem a bit wary of her.”
“Yes.”
“That’s the past reaching out to bite her on the ass.”
“Relevant here?” Kenny asked.
“I want to say no,” Joe said slowly. “But…”
“Never say never.”
“At least not in this business.” Wearily Joe pushed to his feet. “Let’s go scour the site again.”
As the sun set, Joe and Kenny showed their badges to the patrol officer and entered the Creative Interior II fire site.
They’d already taken all the pictures they needed of the still wet, charred building. They’d investigated the point of origin. Now they needed to finish the tedious task of going through each room to see if there were any more clues or evidence.
They split up. Kenny worked the front room and Joe took the employee break room where Summer had ended up trapped.
The actual fire destruction there had been minimal, mostly just smoke and water damage, but he went through it meticulously, including the purple beanbag that gave him more than a few bad flashbacks.
He climbed the stairs as Summer must have done, stood where she’d said she’d stood when her phone had gone off.
Camille had called her. If no one else but Joe thought that was strange, he wouldn’t back away from it.
Camille and Summer were circling their way around their mother-daughter relationship.
By Summer’s own words, Camille hadn’t yet made a real stand there.
Any progress, any contact, had been made by Summer herself.
And yet Camille had called at a most interesting time…
“You done down there?” Kenny called.
“Yeah. You find anything?”
“Nothing. But I have more questions.”
“Me too.”
They moved outside, working their way around the perimeter of the building, searching for anything out of place.
The parking lot was concrete. The dumpster sat on a dirt pad off the concrete lot, and there in the dirt lay a cigarette butt.
They stared at it, then Joe let out a breath and pointed just ahead.
In the dirt in front of the dumpster was half a boot print with diagonal tread.
Just like the one at the warehouse fire.
Standing there, heart thumping, Joe squatted down, opened his kit, and pulled out his accelerant meter.
It registered.
Kenny swore softly.
“Yeah.” Whoever had been wearing this boot had stepped in something flammable, and Joe would be willing to bet it’d match the warehouse print, right down to the trace of gasoline in it, tying the two fires together.
Which meant that without a doubt, the warehouse fire had not been an accident at all.
Nor had this one.
At home, Joe fell on his bed and crashed. He slept like the living dead until near dawn, when the dreams came.
Creative Interiors II was on fire, flames leaping into the night, burning so hot he couldn’t get close. He stood back, watching in horror as the firefighters pulled Summer through the window.
Only suddenly it wasn’t Summer surrounded by the flames, but him.
His skin prickled with the heat. Sweat poured into his eyes.
And then in a blink, the fire was gone and he was climbing into Summer’s window.
He stood by her bed, bruised and battered from his father’s fists, breathing too harshly, tears that he refused to shed burning in his throat as he stared down at the only person in the world who’d ever given a shit about him.
She didn’t sit up and hug him. She didn’t hand him her extra pillow and cover him with the throw cover on the foot of her bed.
Nothing.
“Red,” he whispered.
She didn’t move.
“Red?” Reaching out, he nudged her shoulder, then turned her over.
She began to scream, writhing in agony as she burned, just as if she were that kid in that horrific house fire the other night, melting into the sheets—
With a gasp he sat straight up in bed.
His own bed.
And he was no longer a kid.
And neither was Summer.
Drenched in sweat and shaking like a leaf, he picked up his phone before he had his thoughts together.
“’Lo,” came Summer’s sleepy voice.
“Hey.”
“Joe?” She went from sleeping to alert, as always reading him better than he could read himself. “You okay?”
“Sure.” He lay back, his legs still trembling. He knew why he’d dreamed badly. It was his suspicions about the two fires. It was that she could have died. It was the bonedeep, gnawing fear. Fear for her. “Just checking on you.”
She was quiet a moment. “You had a bad dream.”
“No, I—”
“You did.” Her voice was soft and warm and wrapped around him like a blanket. “I’m sorry.”
“I’m fine,” he said.
“Uh-huh. And I don’t have panic attacks.” She snorted. “We’re pathetic, you know that? I’m coming over. I’ll bring something good and fattening.”
“Don’t even think about it.” He let out a low laugh though, feeling better already. “Seriously, don’t.”
“But—”
“Have a good day, Red.”
“Joe. Are you sure?”
Oh, yeah. If she came over this early, looking rumpled and sexy, he’d never be able to resist. “Very.”
“You going to work?”
“Yeah.” Work was, and always had been, his only salvation.