To Love a Cop (24 page)

Of course it wasn’t. He must constantly encounter women and children who sparked his protective instincts. He didn’t spend the day at the ocean with them. Make love to the women, make time for the children.

And she’d seen how much she hurt him with her doubt.

For all that this had been one of the best weeks of her life, she knew she had ground to make up. Since she had left his apartment after they made love last weekend, he’d been all about having fun. The three of them together. He hadn’t once even suggested lunch, the way they’d done the previous week. Out of desperation, she had Wednesday night when he called, but he said he couldn’t. Which was maybe true, and maybe not. That week, he’d only kissed her a couple of times, but lightly when she stepped out on the porch with him when he was leaving. So, okay, Jake was home. But Laura knew that wasn’t the only reason he was holding back.

He didn’t trust her, of course. And she couldn’t blame him.

She wanted to believe she could prove to him that he could, but every so often she had a bad moment. She’d had one this morning.

After beating Jake to Ethan’s SUV and calling, “I get the front seat!” she’d hopped in and found herself looking at the glove compartment. Outside, Jake protested and Ethan laughed, but she hardly heard them, because...there it was, right in front of her. Surreptitiously, she reached out and tried opening it, but it was locked. Oh, God. Was his gun in there? She wanted desperately to believe he hadn’t brought it today, but suspected he had. Matt had never gone anywhere without his.

“You never know when shit will happen” had been his defense. And she understood why anyone in law enforcement would come to believe that. But...could she live with it always there, somewhere close?

Her heart said yes...but she felt a hesitation first, a still moment shadowed by horror.

Ethan would never be as careless as Matt was—but Jake had managed to get his hands on Ethan’s gun, too. Because it was
there
, and Jake knew it.

He’s in counseling. And...look how happy he is.

How happy
I
am.

If she chickened out, she’d be letting fear cheat her and Jake. At a moment like this, seeing them reeling in the kite as they came toward her, faces lit with matching grins, she couldn’t imagine being dumb enough to do that.

“I want to get my feet wet,” she declared when they were close enough.

Ethan lifted a hand to shade his eyes as he looked out at the ocean. “Did you see the surfers? If we were here for another day...”

“Yeah!” Jake agreed.

Laura rolled her eyes and laughed. “Wet suit or not...
brrr
.” She mimicked a shiver.

Ethan slung a casual arm across her shoulders, leaving Jake to pick up the kite that had finally settled onto the sand. “We’ll get you on a surfboard sooner or later,” he murmured, his mouth close enough to her ear to make her shiver for real. With Jake’s back momentarily to them, he nuzzled her neck. “Damn. Don’t suppose he’d like an overnight with his cousins?”

Laura grimaced. “They’re away for the weekend. Besides...you know it’ll be late by the time we get home.”

“Huh.” He straightened when Jake turned toward her, but kept his voice soft, just for her. “Lunch Monday?”

The heat in his eyes told her food wasn’t what he had in mind. A different kind of heat pooled low in her belly. “Yes,” she said hastily, and hoped Jake would think her cheeks were flushed from the wind.

CHAPTER TWELVE

E
THAN GOT OUT
of his Yukon, slammed the door and stood for a moment taking in the chaotic scene. Strobe-like flashes from fire trucks and police cars lit the dark night and streams of water arced toward the burning house. Firefighters, suited up and unidentifiable from any distance, dragged hoses and called instructions and cautions. Shocked neighbors wearing pajamas and hastily donned coats huddled together in small groups to stare. A flash bulb momentarily shocked his retina. Press...? He couldn’t tell, but then saw the flash go off again. No, someone was photographing the audience, not the action.

Inevitably, he locked on the swastika, bigger than ever, on a still intact side of the wood-framed house.

He let out a vicious string of curses.

A familiar voice said, “I was afraid you didn’t know some of those words. Clean-living guy that you are.”

Ethan shared a few more words he knew with Detective Sam Clayton. Then both men sobered.

“You just get here?” Ethan asked.

“Beat you by ten minutes.” Knowing where Ethan was going with this, he added, “Whole family got out. Dad ran back in for the cat, which scratched the shit out of him and took off like a rocket.”

Brave man.

After exchanging a few more words with Sam, Ethan set out to find the home owners, who had been squeezed into the backseat of a squad car. Mom held a girl who was maybe seven or eight, Dad, a boy a couple of years younger. All four were staring at their house, utterly riveted, their expressions shell-shocked.

He opened the door on the sidewalk side and squatted to be eye level with them. He regretted exposing them to a more powerful dose of the pungent scent of wet, charred wood, but knew the closed car door wouldn’t have protected them from it entirely anyway. And he needed to get answers while events were fresh in their minds.

“I’m Detective Ethan Winter,” he told them, displaying his badge and keeping his voice gentle. “You’re the Friedlichs?”

Almost to the end of the
F
s, he couldn’t help thinking. Skimming the phone book, he’d noticed a Fromel who lived not much over half a mile away, and he guessed there might be a few others. He remembered a kid from high school named Joel Funk. Damn, Ethan hoped Joel and his family, if he had one, didn’t live in the area.

There were a lot of disturbing aspects to this case, and among them was the fact that, so far as he had yet determined, the first attack had been on the Eckstein home. Why not the Adelmans, the Bernsteins, the Cornfelds—maybe that didn’t sound distinctively Jewish enough, so, okay, the Cherniks? No Davidson, not Dorfman, no Dushkin. Why start in the
E
s?

And who was the next slated victim? The Garfunkels? Or would the anti-Semitic slimeball jump to some letter he liked better than
G
?

And, damn it, why go in alphabetical order? Just because he was running his finger down names in the phone book?

Now Ethan questioned the Friedlichs, Michael and Sarah, and learned that Michael was always an exceptionally heavy sleeper and that tonight Sarah had taken some cold medication that had really knocked her out, too. It was little Rachel who had roused her whole family.

Ethan smiled at her and said, “Lucky somebody was alert,” and saw her dimple with a smile before she hid her face against her mom’s shoulder.

“I’d already taken the medicine when Michael said, ‘What if that vandal comes after us next?’” Sarah said, her voice hollow. “But it seemed so unlikely.” Her dark eyes looked past Ethan’s shoulder to the ruin of her house.

He glanced over his shoulder, glad to see the fire had been knocked down, although the damage this time was extensive. This fire, he was especially enraged to have noted, appeared to have been set right below the bedroom wing.

Alphabetical order. Escalation.

He ground his teeth, intercepted a couple of alarmed stares and managed to hide his fury.

“What woke you up?” he asked the girl, who whispered, “I heard a crackling sound and I could see orange out the window.”

Her brother had been asleep when she woke him. She was the closest thing to a witness, and she hadn’t seen anything but fire.

A paramedic had already checked them out and determined that none of them had suffered smoke inhalation or burns. He offered to find them a ride to a nearby hotel, and they accepted. Whether anybody would sleep was another question, but he could tell the parents wanted their children away from there. Her instinct a common one, on the way out Mom had managed to grab her purse with her cell phone in it, the number of which she gave him.

When he thanked them and stood, his place was taken by a fire chief he knew. He was giving them his phone number so they could talk in the morning when Ethan walked away.

Clayton had already organized several of the uniformed officers present to question neighbors. Turned out it had been one of the firefighters from the first company who had immediately started snapping pictures of the spectators. Along with several local television trucks, Lieutenant Pomeroy arrived, dressed in heavy-soled boots to go in, but the minute he saw Ethan he shook his head.

“You know it’s going to be a while before I can get close.”

Ethan nodded. “You responsible for someone taking pictures?”

Pomeroy grunted agreement. “You know how often arsonists hang around.”

Ethan did—but his gut feeling was that the fire wasn’t the point for this perpetrator. He’d started with common vandalism, gone for shock value—the mannequin—then seemingly sought around for something even flashier. More destructive.

Fires were easy to set; they were newsworthy, they spread panic. This guy wanted attention, that was obvious, but did he get a rush from watching flames leap into the night? Ethan couldn’t even say why he was so sure that wasn’t the case.

He said, “I need to know if this one got out of hand because it had more time to spread or whether there was more accelerant or multiple points of origin.”

Pomeroy gave him a sharp look. “You think our guy wanted this one to be bigger.”

“Don’t you?”

“He’s getting more grandiose as he goes.”

“Just because he’s having fun? Or—” and this was what Ethan feared “—because he’s working himself up to something?”

“Nice thought.” One Ethan had expressed to him before. Pomeroy sighed. “I can tell you that the first company to get here thinks the fire was set on the exterior of the structure, like the previous ones. Doors were intact and locked. A few windows had blown, but likely because of the heat.”

Both men turned when Sam Clayton strode up, but from his head shake they knew he had no good news.

“Closest we’ve got to a witness is an old lady who lives a block thataway—” he nodded up the street “—and saw a car gunning by. Trouble is she hadn’t put on her glasses yet.”

They all grimaced.

“No idea how many people were in the car. Or make or model.” He spread his hands. “It was really booking, though, she says.”

“That’s it?” Ethan growled in frustration.

“As usual, it was the sirens that woke most people. A few of the closest neighbors heard the fire or smelled smoke. Three called 911. But they’re sure they didn’t see anyone outside until the firefighters arrived.”

“Wonderful.”

Ethan left not that much later. Investigating the fire scene itself was Lieutenant Pomeroy’s job, not his. Tomorrow morning, he’d want to expand the questioning of neighbors—not all of them had rushed outside to watch the fire, especially folks with younger kids. And, as with the past fire, the kids could be useful witnesses.

He had more questions for the Friedlichs, too, once they’d calmed down and had time to think. He was growing more attached to the theory that all of this was nothing but stage dressing for the main event. And, if that was the case—what if the Friedlichs
were
the main event? No question they could have died tonight. This fire had rapidly grown out of control. If the girl hadn’t woken up when she did, they’d have been in trouble.

But he didn’t really believe this family was the target. How many people would know David and apparently his son were heavy sleepers? According to them, Sarah usually awakened at the slightest sound. If not for the cold medication, she’d have hustled them all out, called 911 and the fire would have been knocked back without doing anywhere near the damage it had.

But he was going to be very surprised if there weren’t at least two and maybe three points of origin, a significant escalation from even the last fire. So he needed to find out whether there was anyone who really hated one of the Friedlichs.

And if tonight hadn’t been the main event...he had a bad feeling it was coming soon, and people would die.

* * *

“
H
OW DO YOU
know Ethan will even show up?” Jake complained. “He didn’t come last night, like he said he would. But he has to eat, even if he’s working, right?”

Laura lifted the pan lid to stir the goulash. “Not necessarily. Or if he does, he may grab something at a drive-through he can eat quick. It’s his job, Jake. He doesn’t always work nine to five.”

She’d have minded his cancellation last night more if she hadn’t seen him Monday.
Seen.
What a lovely euphemism for having fabulous sex that had left her smiling for the rest of the day. Not that she hadn’t been disappointed, too, when he’d called to cancel yesterday, even though she’d expected it after watching the morning news.

News footage had showed first the flames leaping into the night sky, then the charred shell of a home that remained come morning. When the camera had panned from the crudely spray-painted swastika to a stunned-looking family that included two elementary-age kids being helped into a patrol car, Laura had felt both sick and angry. She’d known Ethan was there somewhere, although this time the reporter had cornered a fire investigator instead.

Of course Ethan wasn’t free by five thirty to hang out with her and Jake.

“I guess not,” her son mumbled. “Did Dad do that, too?”

“Yep.” She wiped her hands on the kitchen towel and went to kiss his cheek. “It’s the nature of the beast.”

So was carrying a gun, she thought more bleakly, bemused because she knew which one of those flaws—if she could call it that—bothered most women more.

“There’s something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about,” she said. “This seems like the time.”

He froze.

“Ethan and I are...” Oh, Lord—she should have prepared a speech. “Well, dating. We’ve had lunch several times and...I didn’t want to say anything to you in case nothing came of it, but...”
Oh, spit it out.
“It sounds silly when you’re our ages, but I guess you could call him my boyfriend.”