Cavanaugh Rules (22 page)

Ethan laughed softly under his breath. She’d come around in her own time. And if she didn’t, well, he could live with that. She wasn’t the last beautiful woman he’d ever encounter.

“Third,” he answered. “Why?”

She packed up some of the tools she’d been using to collect evidence. “Well, here’s a wild thought—so I know where I’m going.”

He looked at her quizzically. “I thought I’d take you.”

“Yes, I know,” she told him. “I’d rather take myself if it’s all the same to you. Besides, there’s something I need to do first before going to the precinct.”

He made an educated guess as to what that was. “You don’t have to run this past your captain. The chief of Ds has already cleared it with him.”

She didn’t like being second-guessed. It made her feel hemmed in. “That’s all well and good, but that’s not what I need to do first.”

She still wasn’t elaborating. “You always this vague about things?” he wondered.

Her smile widened. “Keeps people guessing.”
And me safe,
she added silently. Slipping the recorder she’d been using to tape her thoughts into her case, she snapped the locks into place and picked up the case. “I’ll see you in a bit.”

He had no idea if she intended to make good on that or if she was just saying it to humor him. All he knew was that he fully intended to see her again, fire or no fire.

* * *

Dax paced back and forth before the bulletin boards in the front of the room.

“There’s
got
to be some kind of pattern here,” he insisted, staring at the three bulletin boards he’d had brought into the task force’s makeshift squad room.

Each fire had its own column with as much information as they could find listed directly beneath it. The fires had all broken out in the past six months in and around Aurora. Other than that, there was nothing uniform and no attention-grabbing similarities about them.

And yet, he had a gut feeling that there had to be. What was he missing?

“If there is,” Ortiz commented in a lackluster tone, “I can’t see it.” Rocking in his seat, Ortiz slowly sipped his extra-large container of chai tea. He drank the beverage religiously at least once a day, claiming it gave him mental clarity.

The others knew better. Especially after Ethan had pointed out that Ortiz liked to flirt with the cute dark-haired girl behind the counter who filled the detective’s order as well as his less-than-anemic imagination.

“Maybe we’re including too many fires,” Ethan speculated, gesturing at the bulletin boards with its news clippings.

“Isn’t that the point?” Youngman questioned. “These are all the fires that’ve taken place in and around Aurora in the last six months. If we don’t include all of them, we might come up with the
wrong
pattern.”

He knew he was playing devil’s advocate here, but they had to explore all the avenues before they found the one that would lead them to the right answer. To the man or men responsible for all that destruction.

“But maybe they weren’t all set by the same guy,” Ethan insisted.

“But they
were
all set.”

Ethan, Dax, Youngman and Ortiz all turned to see Kansas walking into the small, cluttered room that the task force was temporarily using to cut down on any distractions from the other detectives.

She walked as if she owned the room.

“And we won’t come up with the wrong answer,” she assured them with feeling. “If we just keep talking all this out long enough, we’re going to either find the answer, which has been right in front of us all along, or stumble across something that’ll eventually lead us to the right answer.

“But one way or the other,” Kansas concluded, “we
are
going to get to the bottom of this.”

Her eyes swept over the four detectives. There was no mistaking the confidence in her voice.

Ethan couldn’t help wondering if she meant it, or if she was just saying that for their benefit, giving them a glimpse of her own version of whistling in the dark to keep the demons at bay.

It wouldn’t be the first time that he’d encountered female bravado. Because of his sister, Greer, he’d been raised with it. He had a gut feeling that the two women were very much alike.

Chapter 6

E
than was the first to break the silence.

“My money’s still on an arsonist doing this,” he said even though he knew that the new, adjunct member of the team vehemently disagreed with this theory.

Kansas thought about holding her tongue. She was, after all, the outsider here, and arguing was not the way to become part of the team. She’d stated her point of view and should just let it go at that.

But she’d never been one to merely go with the flow. It just wasn’t part of her nature. The words seemed to come out almost of their own accord.

“Where’s the profit to be gained from burning down a church and an abused-women’s shelter that’s already pretty run-down?” she challenged.

“Real estate,” Ethan argued. “The places aren’t worth anything as they are, and there might be little or no insurance on the structures, so there’s definitely not enough money to rebuild. That would make whoever owns the property willing and maybe eager to sell.” He shrugged. “Maybe they feel that they can start somewhere else with the money they get from selling the land the property stands on.”

Kansas rolled her eyes at his explanation. “So, in your opinion, some big, bad CEO is paying someone to run around and burn down buildings in and around Aurora in order to put together a colossal shopping mall or something to that effect?”

Ethan scowled. He didn’t care for her dismissive tone. “It sounds stupid when you say it that way,” he accused.

“That’s because it
is
stupid—no matter which way you say it,” Kansas pointed out, happy that he got the point.

Dax literally got in between his cousin and the woman his father felt they needed to work with.

“Children, children, play nice,” he instructed, looking from one to the other to make sure that his words sank in. “And in the meantime,” he said, turning to another detective, “Ortiz, see if you can check with Records down at the civic center to see if anyone has put in for permits to start building anything of any consequence.”

“If Ortiz doesn’t find anything, it doesn’t mean the theory doesn’t hold up,” Ethan interjected.

Dax crossed his arms before his chest, striking a pose that said he was waiting for more. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”

“It just means that whoever it is who’s doing this hasn’t had time to properly file his intent to build whatever it is that he’s going to build,” Ethan explained. “The destroyed properties are far from desirable, so maybe he figures he has time. And the longer he takes to get to ‘step two,’ the less likely it’ll be that someone will make the connection between the arson and the motive behind it.”

Kansas supposed that O’Brien had a point. She wasn’t so married to her theory that she would stubbornly shut her eyes to exclude everything else.

“Maybe we should check out whether anyone’s bought any of the properties previously destroyed by the fires,” she suggested.

“Then you’re on board with this theory?” O’Brien asked. There was a touch of triumph in his voice that irritated her. It had her reverting to her original theory.

“No, I just want to put it to rest once and for all.” Her eyes narrowed ever so slightly as she continued. “I’d stake my job that this isn’t a fire-for-hire situation.” She could feel it in her bones, but she wasn’t about to say that out loud. She didn’t know these people well enough to allow them to laugh at her, even good-naturedly. “It’s some pyromaniac getting his high out of watching everyone scramble, trying to keep the fire from destroying another piece of real estate. Another person’s hopes and dreams.”

Dax was still open to all possibilities until something started to gel. “Okay, why don’t you and Youngman go check it out,” he instructed her. “Begin with the first fire on the list and work your way up.”

But Youngman shook his head. “No can do, Dax. I’ve got that dental appointment to go to. Doc says it’s going to take the better part of two hours to do the root canal.” He cupped his right cheek to underscore his situation. “I’d cancel, but I already did that once, and this thing is just
killing
me.”

Dax nodded. Youngman had already told him about the appointment this morning. Things were getting so hectic, he’d just forgotten. “Go. Get it seen to.” Without missing a beat, Dax turned to his cousin. “Take his place, Ethan.”

“In the dental chair?” Ethan asked hopefully.

“Very funny. You, her, go,” Dax said, nodding toward the door. “See what you can come up with that might get your theory to float.”

“An anchor comes to mind,” Kansas muttered under her breath.

Grabbing his jacket and slipping it on, Ethan shot her an annoyed look. He was going to enjoy putting her in her place. And then, once the shrew was tamed, other possibilities might open up, he mused.

“I’ll drive,” he announced as they left the squad room. He punched the Down button for the elevator.

The statement was met with a careless shrug. “If it’s that important to you, I wouldn’t dream of fighting with you about it,” she murmured.

The elevator car arrived and she stepped in. He was quick to get in with her, then pressed the button for the first floor.

“It’s not important to me,” he informed her, his irritation growing. Supposedly, the woman was agreeing with him. But it was the manner in which she was agreeing that he found annoying. “It’s just that—”

She turned the most innocent expression he’d ever seen in his direction. “Yes?”

The woman was playing him. The second the steel doors parted, he all but shot out of the elevator, heading for the precinct entrance. “Never mind,” he ground out. “You want to drive? Because if you do, we’ll take your car.”

She preceded him outside. There was a soft spring breeze rustling through everything, quietly reminding them that at any moment, it could pick up and fan any flames it encountered.

“You don’t trust me with your car?” she asked.
Typical male
, she thought.

“I don’t trust
anybody
with my car,” he told her. “I spent too much time, effort and money restoring her to just hand the keys over to someone else.”

Sounded like the man was obsessed with his car, she thought. The smile she raised to her lips was the embodiment of serenity. “You can drive,” she told him. “It’s okay.”

She was yanking his chain—and a few other things, as well. He led the way to his car, parked over in the third row. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re laughing at me?”

The woman looked as if she was seriously considering the question. “My first guess would be insecurity,” she said brightly.

“Your first guess would be wrong,” he retorted.

She paused before the cream-colored two-seater. She wasn’t really up on cars, but she recognized it as a classic. “It really is a beauty,” she told him.

The compliment instantly softened him. “Thanks.” He pressed the security button on his key chain and released the locks. “You have the list of sites where the fires took place?” he asked. Since she’d already gotten in on her side, he slid in behind the steering wheel—and saw that instead of buckling up, she was holding up several sheets of paper. He presumed they were the list he’d referred to. “Okay, where to first?”

“How about MacArthur and Main?” she suggested after a beat. “That’s the church,” she explained, shifting as she buckled her seat belt. “That was the first fire,” she added in case he’d forgotten.

He hadn’t. “Where that firefighter rescued the visiting priest from Spain. The priest was sleeping in Father Colm’s room,” he recalled.

She vividly remembered all the details of that one. Daring, last-minute rescues like that always tugged on her heartstrings. “There was footage of the old priest being carried out of the burning building.”

The media, always hungry for something to sink its teeth into, had carried the story for days, and the morning talk shows vied for the exclusive rights to being the first to interview both the firefighter and the priest, sitting in the studio side by side.

He thought of the theory that he’d espoused. It seemed rather shaky here. “I really doubt that the church is being put up for sale.”

“I doubt it, too,” she agreed. Since he’d backed off, she could afford to be magnanimous. “But we can still ask if anyone made any offers on the property since the fire.” She shrugged again. “At any rate, it’s better than nothing.”

As he drove, he slanted a glance at her, looking for confirmation in her expression. “You’re humoring me, aren’t you?”

“No,” she said honestly, sitting back in her seat, “what I’m trying to do is prove or disprove your theory once and for all so we can move on.”

He knew which side of the argument she was on, and he didn’t care for being summarily dismissed. “What if it turns out that I’m right?”

“Then, most likely,” she recited, “you’ll be impossible to live with and I’ll be happy that I’m not part of the police department, because I won’t have to put up with it. But even if hell does freeze over and you’re right, the upshot will be that we’ve caught the person or persons responsible for all this destruction, and that’ll be a very good thing.” And then the corners of her mouth curved in a forced smile. “But you won’t be right, so there’s no point in anticipating it.”

The woman was being downright smug, he thought. Since when did he find smug so arousing? “You’re that sure?”

She lifted her chin ever so slightly, making it a good target, he couldn’t help thinking. Damn, his feelings were bouncing all over the place today. “I’m that sure.”

The light up ahead turned yellow. In any other car he would have stepped on the gas and flown through. But this was his baby, and he eased into a stop at the intersection several beats before the light turned red.

“Tell me,” he said, turning toward her, “do you walk on water all the time, or just on Sundays?”

“Mainly Sundays,” she answered with a straight face. There wasn’t even a hint of a smile. “There’s the church.” She pointed to the building in the distance on the right. “Looks like it’s being rebuilt.”

The light turned green. Ethan drove over to the church and said nothing as he pulled the vehicle into the parking lot. He brought his vehicle to a stop in front of the partially demolished building.

Kansas was out of the car before he had a chance to pull up the hand brake. For a woman who was wearing rather high heels, she moved inordinately quickly, he thought.

Kansas was more than several strides ahead of him by the time he got out.

“Father,” she called out to the cleric, waving her hand to get his attention.

A white-haired man in jeans and a sweatshirt, its sleeves pushed all the way back beyond his elbows, turned around in response to her call. He was holding on to the base of a ladder that was up against the side of the church, keeping it steady while a much younger man stood close to the top, trying to spread an even layer of stucco.

Kansas flipped her wallet open to her ID and held it up for the priest to see as she approached. “I’m Investigator Kansas Beckett—with the fire department.” Putting her ID away, she nodded toward Ethan. “This is Detective Ethan O’Brien with the Aurora P.D. We’re looking into this awful fire that almost took down your church, Father.”

“
Almost
being the key word,” the priest responded with a pleased smile. He turned back to look at the church. His smile told her that he was seeing beyond what was currently standing before them.

“I see that you’re rebuilding,” Ethan observed.

“Not me,” the priest answered modestly. “I’m just holding the ladder, stirring paint, that sort of thing. St. Angela’s is blessed to have such a talented congregation.” He beamed, looking up the ladder he was holding steady. “Mr. Wicks is a general contractor who, luckily for us, is temporarily in between assignments, and he kindly volunteered to give us the benefit of his expertise.”

The man Father Colm was referring to climbed down the ladder. Once his feet were on the ground, he shook hands with Ethan and Kansas, holding on to her hand, she noted, a beat longer than necessary. But she did like the appreciative smile on his lips as he looked at her.

Flattery without any possibility of entanglement. The best of all worlds, she thought.

“By ‘in between,’ Father Colm means unemployed.” Wicks regarded the older man with affection. “I’m just glad to help. It keeps me active and allows me to practice my trade so I don’t forget what to do. It’s been a
long
dry spell,” he confessed.

“With so many of the parishioners volunteering their time and talent, it won’t be long before we have the church whole and functional again,” the priest informed them with no small amount of pride.

It was as good an opening as any, Kansas thought. “Father, right after the fire—”

“Terrible, terrible time,” the priest murmured, shaking his head. His bright blue eyes shone with tears as he recalled. “I was afraid that the Vatican wouldn’t approve of our being here any longer and would just authorize everyone to attend Our Lady of Angels Church on the other end of Aurora.”

Kansas waited politely for the priest to finish unloading the sentiments that were weighing down on him. When he stopped, she continued her line of questioning. “Did anyone come with an offer to take the property off your hands? Or, more aptly I guess, off the Church’s hands?”

“The only ones who approached me,” Father Colm told her and O’Brien, “were Mr. Wick and some of the other parishioners. Everyone’s been so generous, donating either their time, or money, or sometimes even both, to rebuild St. Angela’s.” He sighed deeply. “I am a very, very blessed man.” There was a hitch in his voice and he stopped to clear it.

Ethan rephrased the question, asking it again, just to be perfectly clear about the events. “So, you’re sure that no one offered to give you money for the property, saying you’d be better off starting over somewhere else from the ground up?”

“No, Detective O’Brien,” the priest assured him. “I might be old, but I would have remembered that. Because I would have said no. I’ve been here for thirty-six years. I’m too old to start at a new location.” And then he paused, looking from one to the other, before exchanging puzzled looks with the general contractor. “Why do you ask?”