Andrew wore a short-sleeved polo shirt and a pair of khaki dress shorts. His legs stuck out from beneath an antique table that served as his desk. He’d started working here months ago, shortly after a former receptionist had placed a hex on future replacements. Thankfully, he’d only been subjected to one hospital visit as a result before I’d fixed the matter.
All had been fine since then. Except for the fact that Andrew, who was in his early twenties, still wasn’t very good at his job. Sam overlooked that because what Andrew didn’t know was made up for by his enthusiasm.
A thick lock of hair dangled on his forehead as he looked up at me with wide eyes. “Hey, Lucy.”
“Interesting reading you have there,” I said. Sun streamed in the front windows, highlighting the burnt orange walls, making them look like the glow cast from a campfire.
Or maybe I just had fire on my mind.
“Aren’t you usually a Dennis Lehane, Robert Parker kind of guy?” I added, noticing the boxes of files stacked near the door. They’d been busy packing up here, too.
“Research,” he said.
“Into what?” As soon as the words left my mouth, I wished I could reel them back in. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know.
His already flush cheeks brightened to a fierce red. “I have a new girlfriend. I don’t want to screw it up.” He coughed. “I’m not the most…experienced guy. Don’t let that get around, okay?”
I smiled. “Your secret’s safe with me. But are you really looking for tips from a romance novel?”
“Where better?” he asked.
He had a bit of a point. “Just remember—that book is fiction. Every relationship is different. And a lot of hard work.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said dismissively. His eyes were gleaming like he’d already gleaned many juicy pointers.
“Is your new girlfriend anyone I know?”
“I’m not sure. I met her at the Porcupine. She works there.”
“Who? No!” I held up my hand. “Let me guess.” My mind spun through the options, finally landing on one girl in particular I could see him with. “Annabelle.”
He shook his head. “Nope. She’s nice and all, but your dad said I should really ask out Grace. Since your dad scares me, I thought it was best just to do what he said even though I hadn’t really thought Grace was my type. Amazingly, we hit it off right away. I guess there is a reason your dad is called The King of Love.”
A big reason. If Dad had a hand in this match, it was sure to last. Andrew didn’t have to worry so much about the relationship working out. My father wouldn’t have gotten involved if Andrew and Grace’s auras hadn’t matched. Theirs was a relationship destined to stand the test of time.
And suddenly I groaned inwardly, realizing I’d shot myself in my foot where Jeremy Cross was concerned. If my father was leaving town, he wouldn’t be able to help me identify Jeremy’s aura color. I was going to have to get my brother Cutter involved.
“Grace is a sweetheart,” I said. Shy, bookish, and a bit socially awkward, she was a hard worker who had an infectious smile.
He nodded and put the book face-down on his desk. “Are you here to see Sean?”
“Is he back?”
“Not yet. Sam’s in his office. Forewarned, though. He’s in a foul mood.”
I could only imagine.
“I guess I would be, too,” Andrew said, picking up his book again, “if there was an arsonist stalking me.”
He and I both. While I was up here, I might as well see if Sam had learned anything from the police. “Thanks. I’ll go back.”
Sam’s office door was wide open. A tall floor fan oscillated, stirring the hot air, but not really cooling it. His back was to me as he stared out the window. I tapped on the doorjamb and he spun around. It looked like he’d aged a good ten years since I’d seen him a couple of hours ago.
He shoved a hand through his short brown hair and said, “Sorry. Didn’t hear you come in.”
There were boxes in here, too, and I noticed that except for one folder and his laptop, his desk was clear. The gun resting on his hip took me aback for a moment. In all the time I’d known Sam, I’d never seen him with a weapon.
Leaning against the doorframe, beads of sweat slid down my back. I didn’t beat around the bush. “What did the police say? Do they think the arsonist is targeting you?”
“Yeah.”
Shit, as Em had so eloquently said.
“They want me to lie low, keep aware of my surroundings, that sort of thing.” The hand he rested atop the back of his leather desk chair squeezed so hard I thought he might puncture a hole in the material. “They also asked me to compile a list of everywhere I’ve lived and worked in and around the city.”
“That’s quite a list,” I said.
He let out a pained breath. “I can’t remember them all. How can I warn the people in those houses now when I can’t remember?”
Like Sean, he’d been a foster child, bouncing in and out of the system. Both he and Sean had been living on the streets when they met.
“I’m sure the police can access your records. They’ll take care of it.”
Angst flashed in his blue eyes “That’s what they said.”
“You don’t believe them?”
“I just want to make sure.”
I understood—he didn’t want anyone to suffer on his account.
I said, “Did the police talk to you about suspects? Have there been any eyewitness reports?”
“Too many suspects to name. Every spouse I caught cheating. Every con-artist I’ve helped put behind bars. Sometimes,” he said with the barest hint of a smile, “I wish I’d stayed in the military. At least then I knew who my enemies were. Most of the time.”
He’d served eight years in the Army Rangers before leaving the military. He’d come back to Massachusetts, met his wife Lizzie, and started his PI firm not too long after that. Their twin girls were five, and were his pride and joy. I couldn’t even imagine the amount of stress he was under right now—not only trying to figure out who was behind the fires, but the worry of keeping his family safe.
I thought about what Em had said—about these fires being cause by someone in his very distant past. “Did you ever consider…” I trailed off, not sure how to approach this conversation. Both he and Sean hated talking about their lives before the Donahue family adopted them. It was almost as if those children had never existed; that their lives hadn’t begun until those adoption papers had been signed.
But we all knew that wasn’t true.
They still carried the ghosts of that time around with them. And now it was impossible to ignore that one of those ghosts might have a serious grudge.
“What?” he asked.
“I was with Em earlier, and she mentioned something…” His office walls were painted a deep taupe, and I couldn’t help but focus on the spot on the wall where a copy of his PI license had hung. He’d come so far from being a street kid.
“Lucy,” he said impatiently. “Just say it already.”
“It’s just that some of the targets of these fires, like the high school and your grandparents’ house, kind of hint that whoever has it in for you…”
He rolled his eyes at that.
“…might be someone who knew you from that time.” I bit my lip, then added, “Or before.”
The death grip on the chair continued.
“That it could be someone who’s jealous of what you’ve become. Your success.” I watched him carefully for a reaction, but Sam had one of the best poker faces around.
Finally, he said, “I don’t know. It seems far-fetched. That was a long time ago.”
“It makes sense,” I said firmly.
“Maybe.” He shrugged, brushing me off.
I didn’t argue. I could see by the set of his jaw that I wouldn’t get anywhere. “Where are you staying tonight?”
“With Sean.”
I hated when my father was right. “There, uh, is a slight pr
oblem with that.”
“What?”
“Sean kind of doesn’t have a home anymore.” I explained about my dad.
Sam actually smiled. “Oscar is a piece of work.”
That he was.
“But,” he added, somewhat somberly, “I can’t say I blame his reasoning. And if it keeps Sean safe, too, then all the better. It’s one less person for me to worry about. Did you talk to your dad yet about closing down for a few days?”
“He agreed.” I didn’t need to tell him how reluctantly it had been.
“Good.”
“You haven’t heard from Sean yet, have you?” I asked.
“No. You, either?”
I shook my head.
“He probably got caught up in reminiscing with Curt.”
Probably. I knew how much Sean missed firefighting.
“I’m going to go and finish packing. There are movers coming at four to transfer boxes to our storage unit. You’re welcome to put your things in there as well.”
“Thanks.”
I stared at him for a long moment, my heart aching. “It’s going to be okay,” I said.
He closed his eyes briefly, shook his head, then looked at me. “Lucy, I wish I could believe that were true, but…”
“What?”
“I can’t help feeling the worst is yet to come.”
Chapter Eight
Suz had gone home, practically floating because she had the rest of the week off. Though she tried to temper her excitement with hugs and well-wishes that the “bastard arsonist” was caught soon, she couldn’t keep the smile from her face or the happy glow from her eyes.
With at least six days off, no doubt she would spend most of it on a lounge chair somewhere, with a book in one hand and a cocktail in the other.
She wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth, even if instead of strings attached there were flames.
By the time we’d packed the whole office, there were over three dozen boxes and various large items like Dad’s paintings and the antique clock that needed to be moved to storage. I’d loaded the elevator three times, bringing big loads down to the vestibule on the first floor.
I could have let the movers do the job, but I was waiting for Sean, and needed busy work to keep my mind from wandering to “what ifs.” I had a very good imagination, so it was easy to picture the building going up in flames.
However, after this fourth (and last) load, the boxes would all be downstairs, and all that remained in the office would be the big items.
I knew my limits. The movers could handle the heavy stuff.
After settling Ebbie’s carrier on one of the boxes in the elevator, I wiped the sweat from my brow, and wrestled with closing the decorative exterior brass door.
The elevator was older than my father and just as fussy. It needed finesse.
For some reason, Orlinda never had a problem with this door in all the times she visited me at my office. But whenever I tried to use it, the elevator put up a fight.
And usually won.
Ebbie meowed from her carrier as I tugged.
I wasn’t sure if she was berating my efforts or giving me encouragement.
Finally with a big whoosh, the door slid to the left. The interior steel scissor door slid easily, and I let out a breath as the herky-jerky mechanics of the elevator assured me it was working.
If I hadn’t been on this elevator a hundred times, I would be scared for my life. But by now I knew its personality and didn’t mind the bumpy ride.
Thankfully, the downstairs exterior door opened easily, and I made quick (but sweaty) work of the boxes, stacking them high in the vestibule.
By the time I was done, I needed a cold drink, a shower, and possibly a nap. The two latter options weren’t on my agenda anytime soon, but the drink was immediately doable.
I grabbed Ebbie’s carrier, went outside into the hot humid day, and took a hard right. I pulled open the door to the Porcupine, and went inside, infinitely grateful that Maggie, the Porcupine’s owner, had scrounged up portable air conditioners and had them going at full blast.
It wasn’t as Arctic as I would have liked, but it was about thirty degrees cooler than upstairs and felt like the inside of a fridge after what I’d been through.
I set Ebbie’s carrier on the stool next to me at the lunch counter and set my tote bag on the floor. I was checking messages for one from Sean (none) when Raphael bustled through the swinging kitchen doors. He took one look at me and turned back around.
Usually my appearance didn’t send grown men scurrying, but I could only imagine how I looked. I could feel that my hair had frizzed, and I knew my makeup had long since melted away.
I glanced around. The restaurant had a good crowd gathered. I didn’t see Maggie anywhere and figured she was in the back, helping with the cooking. She was doing that more and more now that Raphael was working here part time. Her love was in the kitchen, and it was a relief to her that she could trust the front of the Porcupine to Raphael.
He was a trustworthy guy. One of the best I knew. Maybe, possibly, the best.
Maggie was lucky to have him. Theirs was a match I thought I’d made, but it turned out that my father had a hand in their romance as well. Still, I liked to take credit. Often.
A second later, Raphael was back. He set a tall glass of iced tea in front of me along with a tiny plate of lemons.
The man knew me well.
I squeezed a lemon. “Thank you. I’m dying of thirst.”
“You should have let the movers lug the boxes, Uva,” he said.
He’d been calling me “Uva,” Spanish for “grape,” since I was five years old and threw a tantrum that turned me as purple as a Concord grape.
In turn, I called him “Pasa,” Spanish for “raisin.” Because any good grape knew that raisins were older and older meant wiser. Much, much wiser.
“I know,” I said. “But I needed a distraction.”
He glanced at the cat carrier. “I’ll refrain from teasing about what the cat dragged in.”
I guzzled some more tea and held the cold glass to my hot cheek. Eyeing him with as much consternation as I could muster in my current state, I said, “You need to work on your definition of refraining, Pasa.”
His brown eyes glowed as he smiled. “You do look a little worse for wear.”
He was being kind. I totally looked like something the cat had dragged in.
He sniffed the air. “And you smell a bit, too.”
I knew he was right about that, also, but I wasn’t about to admit it. “To think you used to be one of my favorite people.”
Laughing, he said, “I’m still one of your favorite people. Who’s your friend?” He motioned to the carrier.
“Ebbie.” As I explained about Jeremy Cross, Raphael’s eyes grew bigger and bigger, and his smile wider and wider.
“It’s not funny,” I said, having trouble keeping a straight face. The longer I had Ebbie, the more I was finding humor in this situation.
He tried to school his features into some semblance of solemnity. “Of course not.” His lip curved. “You’ll tell me how Grendel handles this addition?”
Grendel still hadn’t completely forgiven me for bringing a golden retriever into his life a few months ago, even though that had been temporary. “He’ll be okay. I mean, look at her.” I motioned to Ebbie. “She’s a bundle of cuteness.”
“I’m sure he’ll appreciate that fact.” Raphael continued to smile.
It wasn’t a reassuring smile, either.
In truth, I was trying not to think about Grendel’s reaction. He was going to pitch a kitty hissy-fit. To keep from thinking about that, I changed the subject. “Is Maggie in the kitchen?”
“Not today.” He rubbed his thumb over an imaginary spot on the countertop and wouldn’t look me in the eye.
“Where is she?” I pried. I’m a good prier. Partly from all the investigating I did for a living, and partly because I was extremely nosy. br />
Pink tinted his olive-toned cheeks. “Shopping.”
I used a straw to stir my drink. Ice cubes clunked against the side of the glass. “Oh? What kind of shopping?”
Rubbing the imaginary spot harder, he said, “Things.”
I stopped stirring and stared at him. “What things?”
His eyes met mine, and I saw the pure happiness in their depths. “A wedding dress.”
I squealed. And not caring that the whole restaurant was staring, I leaned over the counter and flung my arms around him. “You finally asked her to marry you!”
Almost shyly, he nodded.
Tears welled in my eyes.
“Uva,” he said. “No tears.”
“But they’re happy tears.” He’d been a widower for so long now. I couldn’t be happier for him.
“Have you set a date yet?”
“Before playoff season.”
Swiping at my eyes, I laughed. Raphael was a diehard member of Red Sox Nation, while Maggie was a Yankees fan. It just went to show that opposites can attract. “Smart move.”
“Yes, though we might have to live apart during that time.”
“Or not watch the games.”
His face scrunched in horror. “To say such a thing!”
I rolled my eyes and sucked down my iced tea.
“More?” he asked, motioning to the glass.
“Please.”
While he was gone, I checked my cell phone. Still nothing from Sean. His silence was unsettling.
I tucked my phone away and checked on Ebbie. She was sitting contentedly, staring out her mesh window. “We’ll get you out of there soon,” I promised.
As soon as I talked to Sean, I would catch the ferry back to Hingham, where my car was parked in the shipyard. It was a short drive home from there.
Looking at my phone, I felt a pang. Not only because Sean hadn’t checked in, but because I was missing him. We’d grown so close that it was strange to have no contact over several hours.
I thought about Raphael’s big news, and felt a pang about that, too. One that had nothing to do with Raphael and everything to do with me.
Thanks to Cupid’s Curse, marriages in my family didn’t work out. Plain and simple.
Legend stated that it was Cupid who’d gifted my ancestors with the ability to read auras. With it, however, came a curse. Valentines were not able to see our own auras, or the auras of other Valentines.