Somewhere nearby, a dog barked, alerting all the neighborhood canines that something was amiss in the neighborhood. A chorus of barks echoed back. It reminded me of a scene in 101 Dalmatians, which made me smile, and just like that, my nerves calmed. Good. I hoped that within the hour Aiden and I would have a much better idea of what we were up against with Kira’s disappearance.
“Hey!” someone shouted from nearby. “It’s about time you showed up.”
I turned and found an angry man scowling from the other side of a short picket fence that separated his yard from Kira’s.
Aiden took off his sunglasses and said, “Pardon?”
“You’re the cops, right?” the guy asked, jerking his chin toward Aiden’s car where the lights still flashed. “I’ve been calling for days, and it’s about time they sent someone out.”
Aiden pushed open a gate and crossed the small patch of lawn, toward the fence. I followed along, hoping my crutches wouldn’t sink into the ground.
“And you are?” Aiden asked, giving the man an intense stare down.
“Morgan Creighton,” he said, straightening to try and match Aiden’s height.
I pegged him to be five feet eight or so. Matching Aiden’s height was impossible.
I’d assumed Morgan had been a woman. Color me embarrassed. Instead, he was a good-looking guy. Mid-to-late-thirties. Light skin with a sprinkle of freckles and light brown beard stubble. Brown hair, loosely styled. He wore khaki shorts, a wrinkled short-sleeve shirt, and Nike sandals. No wedding ring.
Aiden held out his hand. “Detective Lieutenant Aiden Holliday.”
Morgan’s face flushed red as a maraschino cherry and his hand stalled on the way to meet the handshake. His brown eyes widened. It was quite evident from his reaction that he knew exactly who Aiden was.
Morgan’s house was a traditional colonial, its clapboard freshly stained a slate blue. White trim popped against the color, and fieldstone accents cemented its New England charm. A beautiful collie that looked exactly like Lassie stood behind a closed screen door, letting out random barks at our interaction.
“This is a colleague of mine, Lucy Valentine,” Aiden said, introducing me.
“Hi,” I said, gripping the handles of my crutches so I wouldn’t have to shake hands.
“I don’t understand.” Morgan set his hands on his hips. “Are you here because I called? Or here because…” He seemed to struggle to finish the statement without coming right out and calling Aiden on his former relationship with Kira.
Aiden barely mollified the man by saying, “I know nothing of your calls to the local police.”
“Then why…?” Morgan asked.
“I suspect,” I said, “we’re here for the same reason you called the police in the first place. Kira’s missing.”
The man seemed to slump in relief. “Yes. Kira and Ava. I got home late Thursday night to find Kira’s dog in my backyard with a half a bag of food and some toys but no note, no explanation. Kira’s not answering calls, and I’ve been collecting her papers and mail. This isn’t like her,” he said. “And I’m worried.”
“You’re close friends?” Aiden asked, a lift to his brow.
Morgan said, “We’re close friends, yes, but not dating if that’s what you’re getting at.” He added, pointedly, “Her type is apparently six-feet, blond hair, blue eyes.”
I bit back a laugh. It appeared he was right. The description fit both Aiden and Trey Fisher.
“I waited a day,” he continued, “for her to come back then called the police to report her missing, but you wouldn’t believe the hoops you have to jump through to prove someone is actually missing and not missing because they want to be missing.” He tipped his head. “Did that make sense? I filed a report yesterday, but can’t help but feel like no one took me seriously.”
I knew all about the hoops. It bordered on ridiculous.
“No one wants to believe something’s wrong. But something is. Kira wouldn’t leave Scout with me all this time otherwise—she knows I’m allergic.”
“Scout?” I echoed.
“The dog.”
I glanced over his shoulder at the dog in the doorway. The collie pranced back and forth. Ava’s sweet voice echoed in my head. Scow, scow, scow. She’d been calling Thoreau by her dog’s name—Scout.
Morgan searched our faces. “Something is wrong, isn’t it?”
“We think so,” I said, glancing at Aiden. I didn’t know how much to tell this man.
“Kira came by my house Thursday night,” Aiden said. “She handed me Ava and left. She hasn’t been seen since.”
Color drained from Morgan’s face. He grabbed on to the fence. “I don’t understand. Why?”
“We’re trying to figure that out,” I said. “Did you know of any problems going on in her life? Had she gotten any threats? Anything of that sort?”
“I know she was going through something with Trey—Trey Fisher,” he added. “They’ve been dating for a couple of months now. They had a fight recently.”
“About what?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Kira didn’t elaborate, but I had the feeling the relationship wasn’t going to last much longer. Kira doesn’t suffer fools easily, so I’m extremely surprised she stayed with him as long as she has.”
Trey had quite the reputation.
“What about Trey’s wife?” I asked. “Any problems with her?”
I didn’t want to let go of my scorned woman theory just yet.
“Not that I know of, but I wouldn’t be surprised.”
“Did Kira break them up?” Aiden asked.
“I think Trey Fisher’s wandering eye is more to blame,” he answered.
“You don’t like Trey Fisher?” Aiden asked.
Morgan clenched his fists. “I barely know the man, but I don’t think he’s right for Kira. That’s all. She needs maturity, not an attention seeker. At least she had the foresight not to let Ava near him.”
A cloud passed in front of the sun, and I was grateful for the sudden shade. “She didn’t?” I asked.
“She has a rule about not bringing guys around unless she thinks it’s serious. Doesn’t want Ava to get attached if a relationship is short-lived. That kind of thing. As far as I know, Trey’s never spent time with Ava except maybe a minute or two in passing.”
“Did Kira bring many guys home?” I asked, because I was afraid Aiden wouldn’t go there.
“No,” Morgan said. “She’s highly selective about the men in her life. In all the time I’ve known her, no one’s lasted more than a few months.”
Well, except for him.
If I read him right, he cared for Kira as more than a friend.
I cleared my throat. “Did Kira mention anything to you about her current case?”
“Dustin McDaniel? Not much. She doesn’t like to talk about her stories before they air. She was excited by it, though. Had that look in her eye that she gets when she’s close to solving something big.”
Aiden jerked a thumb toward the house. “I’m going to look around a bit before everyone gets here.” He stalked off, walking around the house, examining the ground around the foundation.
“Gets here?” Morgan said. “Who?”
“Channel 3 ran a breaking news report on Kira’s disappearance at noon.”
Morgan closed his eyes. “Sweet Jesus. She’d hate that.”
“Why?” I asked, losing sight of Aiden as he went around the back of the house.
“Kira strived to keep her personal life separate from work. Which became harder when she started seeing Trey. She loved her job, investigating and reporting the news. She never wanted to be the news.”
“How long have you known her?” I spotted Aiden reappear on the opposite side of the house.
“As long as we’ve been neighbors. Five years now.”
“And what do you do for work?”
“I’m a food writer for an online magazine. I work from home.”
Well, that explained
why he was home during the day. “Have you noticed anyone coming and going from Kira’s in the past few days?”
“Only the usual mail and paper deliveries. Though I did wake up last night to Scout barking his head off at the window. I looked outside but didn’t see anything unusual. I can’t keep him much longer. Scout, I mean, but I don’t know what to do with him. I don’t want to bring him to the pound.”
“Kennel him?” I suggested as Aiden overturned rocks and ran his hand along the top of the doorframe. He was looking for a hidden key. It never failed to amaze me how many people hid keys in obvious places.
“He can’t,” Morgan said. “He has a delicate immune system. Gets sick too easy.”
I was such a sucker for a sob story. I reached in my tote bag for a pad of paper. “I might know someone who can help.” I jotted down the name of the vet clinic where Marisol worked. “Bring Scout here, and ask for Marisol Valerius. Tell her I sent you.”
Aiden tipped one of the flower urns, bent down, and pulled something off the bottom of the pot. He came up holding a key. I guessed taping the key to the bottom of the pot was better than simply leaving it under the pot, but still…
“This isn’t some kind of shelter, is it?” Morgan questioned.
“It’s a vet’s office.”
He frowned as though he didn’t believe me. “Okay.”
At the sound of a loud rumble, I looked down the street. A news van was headed this way. I turned back to warn Aiden just as he put the key in the lock and turned to call me over as he pushed open the door. With a fiery flash, a soul-ripping KABOOM blew me backward over the fence.
7
For a dizzying, disorienting moment, it felt as though I was mired in a strange sort of suspended animation, almost like swimming underwater. Sounds were muffled. My vision was blurry. It was hard to breathe.
In a haze of confusion, smoke, and pain, I wondered what in the hell had just happened.
As I looked around it became shockingly obvious.
Kira’s house had exploded.
Her front door, at least. What was left of the home was now engulfed in flames. Jet black smoke plumed into the sky, turning midday into midnight.
Squinting, I noticed everyone else seemed stuck in that same strange suspension as well. Then all at once, as through the movie before me un-paused, neighbors started running, shouting frantically. Pops and crackles emitted from within the house.
Choking and sputtering, I covered my nose with my arm and gasped for air. I felt a trickle of moisture sliding down the side of my face and wiped it away. My fingers came back red.
I glanced again at the house, at the shattered window—Aiden! Where was he?
Adrenaline flooded my veins as I struggled to stand. My gaze swept the area. Behind me, Morgan lay moaning and holding his head. Debris littered his perfect yard.
“Aiden!” I shouted, a guttural sound pulled from the very heart of me. I tested my balance by taking a step, two. I carefully climbed over the fence, back into Kira’s yard. Leaving my crutches on the ground, I started for the front of the house, my arm up to protect my face from the heat and flames.
“Aiden!” I cried. I stumbled forward, trying to ignore the gaping hole where Kira’s front door had once stood. Where Aiden had last stood. He wasn’t there. I whipped around, trying to figure out where the blast would have thrown him.
My eyes watered from the thick smoke. Hobbling along, I crouched low, scanning the ground. I finally saw movement near one of the trees. I quickly limped over and dropped down next to Aiden’s writhing body.
“Aiden,” I said, reaching out to touch him but ultimately pulled my hands back. I didn’t want to hurt him any more than he might already be. To look at him, he didn’t appear severely wounded. His skin was red from minor flash burns. There were a couple of scrapes on his face, his hands. All his limbs were present and accounted for. He seemed like he could get up, dust himself off, and be on his way…
But I knew blast injuries, and almost always they were internal. Internal and deadly.
Groaning, he pried open his eyes. He rasped, “What’s with you and fires these days?”
I sniffled, then laughed. “I can’t believe you’re joking at a time like this.”
He tried for a wry smile but ended up grimacing. “Who’s joking?”
Movement in my peripheral vision switched my attention from him to what was going on around us. It seemed like absolute mayhem as people rushed toward the burning house. The news crew was scurrying to set up feed. Sirens screamed in the distance, and I fought the scream rising in me.
Aiden reached out his hand, touching my arm. “I’m fine.”
I clasped his hand. “Yeah,” I agreed. “You’re the picture of health.”
A smile twitched the corners of his mouth. He struggled to get up, but couldn’t quite.
“An ambulance will be here soon.”
“Lucy, I don’t need—” he began.
I glared, silencing him. “No arguing.”
Leaning against the tree trunk, he said, “You’re bleeding.”
“Only a nick.” I didn’t know if that was true, but I didn’t have time to worry about myself.
The next twenty minutes passed in a blur of emergency services. I’d managed to collect my tote and crutches before being loaded into the same ambulance as Aiden; neighbor Morgan was in another right behind us.
As the rigs pulled away, through the back window I watched as firefighters tried in vain to save the house.
It was a lost cause.
It wasn’t the only thing. Any hopes I had of reading Kira’s scent had also gone up in smoke.
It was nearing sunset by the time I made it home from the hospital. I paid my cabbie a small ransom, refused his help to my front door, and as he drove off, I shouted, “Fuzzy navel!” (the previously agreed-upon safety code phrase) to let the security team know I was friend not foe. The last thing I needed today was to be tackled by heavily-armed security forces.
Earlier I’d called Sean from the emergency room to assure him I was mostly fine. I had some bruising and minor cuts and scrapes. I’d convinced him to stay home and watch Ava so Em could go to the hospital to be with Aiden. Sean had reluctantly agreed. A frazzled Em planned to stay by Aiden’s side. He was going to have to stay the night, much to his dismay. He wanted out. His body, however, wasn’t cooperating. At last check, he’d been diagnosed with minor burns, two broken ribs, and was about to get scanned for more internal injuries.
Em promised to call with an update later.
Sean wasn’t going to be pleased that I’d taken a taxi home, but the thought of calling my mum or dad or Raphael to come back to the hospital after they’d just left… And then having to chit-chat about the explosion for the forty-five minute drive back here had been enough for me to break out in a cold sweat.
The cab fare had been worth every penny.
A cool sea breeze whipped loose strands of hair against my face as I adjusted my tote bag and turned to crutch into the house. The front door opened and Thoreau bounded out, quickly followed by Rufus, an energetic golden retriever that belonged to Dovie’s boyfriend, Mac Gladstone. He filled the doorway, a broad smile on his weathered face.
I worried about his appearance here, wondering if Dovie had learned of the case.
“You’re a sight,” he said.
I stopped to let the dogs race around my legs and sniff the heck out of them. “For sore eyes?”
“Just a sight.” His smile broadened even more, and the wrinkles around his eyes multiplied. When I first met him, he had thick dark hair and a beard that reminded me of the Gorton’s fisherman. But one of the side effects of his chemo treatments for liver cancer hadn’t been losing his hair—it had been turning it a shocking white.
“Such a charmer,” I teased. The dogs darted away, off to explore the garden.
“Your grandmother is rubbing off on me.”
“Undoubtedly.” I added, “She doesn’t know about
…”
“No, no,” he said. “My lips are sealed, and you know I can keep a secret.”
I did. He’d kept a big one not long ago.
I crutched up the steps and he kissed my cheek. Under the soft glow of waning daylight it was hard to see the jaundiced tint to his skin, but I knew it was there. His cancer treatments were going well, but he was on borrowed time.
He wrinkled his nose. “You don’t smell so great, either.”
Eyeing him, I said, “I’m not sure Dovie is a good influence on you.”
He laughed. A deep belly chuckle that was usually infectious.
Only I hadn’t been kidding.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” I said as I kept an eye on the dogs as the sky slowly darkened.
“Raphael called earlier. Asked me to stop by to help babysit.”
“I thought Sean had that covered?”
Gently, he pushed open the front door. “I think I was sent over to watch both of them.”
Light spilled across Sean’s face as he snoozed on the sofa with Ebbie stretched out alongside of him. I noticed a small portable crib set up in the corner of the dining room and assumed Ava was in it—I couldn’t see beyond the bumper pad and the herd of stuffed animals standing sentry.
“Good thing you’re here,” I said.
“Nah,” Mac said. “Sean had it handled. But since I was here, he went ahead and took his pain medicine. That stuff kicks in fast. Knocked him out but good.”
I hated thinking of the pain Sean must have been in. He didn’t like taking medicine and used it only when absolutely necessary. “How long has he been out?”
“Both of them have been asleep for about half an hour.”
“Did Ava eat supper?”
“She did at that. Spaghetti. She had a little help from the dogs. And Grendel.”
I smiled. Grendel was the worst table beggar of the lot.
“You want me to stick around?” Mac asked.
Sean’s face was slack from deep sleep. He looked at peace. A rarity. His demons didn’t usually let him fully rest. “That’s okay. I’ve got it. Thanks for staying with them.”