Wrapped in Flame (13 page)

Yet he had no food.

“I have a few questions.” Out came his notepad.

“You have my phone number.” Her food lay like a rock in her stomach. Erica wrapped up what remained of her breakfast and reached for her coffee.

“Why call when you’re right here?”

“Very well. Go on.” She sipped her coffee. Even that soured her stomach.

“I’ve been talking with your neighbors. Several of them overheard Mr. Randall tell you he’d moved on to someone else long ago. Any idea who that might have been?”

“Not a clue.” But heaven help the poor fool.

“For a man so intensely disliked, I find it rather odd he would have a lover.”

One would think.

“Odder still that your neighbors never saw any strange vehicles or visitors at your house. In fact, no one was ever seen at your house when your husband was there.”

At least that was some saving grace, that he hadn’t screwed anyone at their home while she was at work. He’d been cautious, but then he would have to be, since he’d depended on Erica’s limited funds to bail him out. Not even Keith had been stupid enough to bring a lover into their house. Unless doing so served his own twisted purposes, and this woman had killed him. She pondered that for a moment. Even so, the ever-diligent neighbors would have seen a vehicle.

“Keith could be very charming and personable to a fault when he wanted something. He had a talent for spotting a person’s weakness and taking advantage of it for his own gain.” She knew that firsthand. “After he got what he wanted, a person was nothing more than a check-in-the-box to him.”

“And is that what happened to you?”

Embarrassment burned through her. Was there really any shame in admitting the truth? “Yes.”

“Then it must have been quite the blow to find your bags packed and waiting for you when you got home from work.”

“I had told him I wanted a divorce. He agreed without reservation. So, yes, his actions were off-putting. I’m sure the neighbors gave you a full description of events.”

Posner snickered. “They did. Most wondered why you didn’t deck him. They said he looked like he was spoiling for a fight. Most women would have dug in and fought back. You walked away.”

She shrugged. No sense stating the obvious, since others had already done so.

“What woman walks away from her things?”

Erica covered her irritation with another sip of coffee. It didn’t go down any easier than before. “I refused to engage in a battle of wits with a defenseless person. I’d planned to return for my things the next morning after he’d gone to work. I’d made arrangements for my friends to help. Any of them can verify that.”

She held her breath, waiting for him to make a snide comment or innuendo. Instead, he tapped his pen against the pad upon which he’d yet to write a word.

“As you can imagine, Mrs. Randall, the coroner’s going to have trouble identifying the body. It’d be helpful if you could provide the name of your husband’s dentist to compare dental X-rays.”

“To the best of my knowledge, he was seeing Dr. Smith.” Those bills had been atrocious. Four crowns Keith had charged to the credit card he never bothered to pay. Erica didn’t know who pissed her off more—the dentist for what was only cosmetic work or Keith. “Anything else? I have things I need to get done.”

That
he wrote down.

“You’ll be comforted to know he didn’t suffer. He was dead prior to the fire.”

She resisted the urge to say “too bad.” Keith deserved to suffer. “I presumed as much from the huge hole in his head.”

“And you know that how?” He shot a glance from under the ridge of his brow line.

“I was standing there when Captain Barnard passed that information along?”
Idiot.

“Any thought as to who would have wanted your husband dead?”

“Not a clue.” The list was too long, and that was only those people she knew. “Maybe his little
something on the side
could be of more help.”

Another scribble on his pad, accompanied by his grunt. “Have you notified your husband’s family yet? Can you give me any information on them?”

“Not yet.”

He scowled at her. “What’s the delay?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know who they are. I lost all records in the fire.” Only the ones important to her were in her safe-deposit box. “I wasn’t in contact with any of them. I never met them. All I have is the name Karen for his sister. I’m presuming they live somewhere around San Francisco, since he claimed to be from that area. Keith wasn’t forthcoming with the family details.”

“Seems you didn’t know much about your husband. Had to be one hell of a marriage.”

Hell was a good description when one was married to devil spawn. “Which would be why we were divorcing, Detective. Now if you’ll excuse me”—she gathered her trash and stood—“I need to help Chief Stanton figure out why his wife’s missing, since the sheriff’s department doesn’t seem inclined to do so.”

Confusion twisted his reddening face. Good, she’d caught him unaware. It gave her untold pleasure to walk away from his gape-mouthed stare. At least he had the good sense not to follow. She checked her rearview mirror to be sure. Clear, all the way to the Stanton driveway.

No neighbors challenged her as she walked up to the front door. She took a deep breath and unlocked it. The enormity of what she was about to do hit her when she stepped inside. This was a full-on invasion of privacy against a woman who guarded it zealously, even from her husband. Betty was never going to forgive her, even if it was justified.

The darkened room unnerved her, reminded her too much of a tomb. She was used to seeing the house bright and sparkling, the drapes open to sunshine. Despite Craig’s absence, the stench of alcohol still lingered in the air. Considering his hangover, she would have left the drapes closed too. Or was this how Betty had chosen to live? Shut off from the world, locked inside of grief?

Erica set her purse on the nearest table. The temptation to flood the room with light nagged at her. Doing so might reveal more than she wanted to see, evidence that things weren’t as bright and sparkling as she recalled but dusty and neglected, as depressed as Betty truly had to have been. Why hadn’t she reached out to them? Or they to her, when she became more reclusive? For the same reasons Erica kept her problems secret? Because it was her problem?

She shrugged off the comparison and charged toward the bedrooms. The doors to all three were closed. She’d never seen them otherwise, never thought much about it either. Not a big deal. Some people didn’t like others seeing their bedrooms. Every time she’d been here for parties—granted, that hadn’t been for a while—these doors had been closed. Now all she could see was the invisible Keep Out sign.

The first room looked like nothing more than a guest room. Winter coats in the closet. Dresser drawers empty. The bed made up with a rather bland brown duvet and mounds of beige pillows. Pictures on the walls were nonexistent. All in all, rather utilitarian and sparse. Odd for a woman who’d done the rest of the house up to magazine perfection. Keep Out. One face for the public, another for private. One no one was allowed to see, not even her husband. One not borne of grief but of something deeper that Erica couldn’t begin to fathom.

She closed the door behind her, flexed her shoulders, and stepped across the hall. Reality slammed her in the gut when she opened the door. The bed was rumpled, men’s toiletries were scattered over the dresser, the closet was open, revealing… A mirror into her own marriage. This was Craig’s room. Why? When?

Erica stepped back out into the hall and shut the door. She was here to find a clue to Betty’s whereabouts. Anything else wasn’t her business.

She took a deep breath and went to the final room. Erica hesitated, then opened the door. All was pitch-dark within. She flicked on the overhead light and dared a step inside. The room was awash in black-and-cream decor. Stark and simple, no pattern whatsoever. Drawers and closet were closed. Everything was in its place.

Where did she start, and what would she look for? Or would she even know when she found it?

Erica turned to the dresser first. There, hidden in a drawer under some very neatly folded lingerie, was a list of passwords, user names, and the websites associated with them. Even the one to Betty’s computer, which sat on a corner desk in the room. It was as good a place as any to start.

She fired up it and logged on. E-mail proved fruitless. Little was there. Although she could have deleted it. Erica did some further looking. Betty hadn’t posted on any of the social networks she belonged to since her mother’s death six months before.

Erica closed the window and logged on to the bank account on the list. She blinked twice when the statement came up, her heart plummeting.

“Oh, Betty, what have you done?” The better question was… Why?

Chapter Eleven

“Once more…the Valley View Fire Department will make no official comment regarding last night’s fire until a full investigation is complete.” How many times did he have to repeat that? Still, reporters asked the same question over and over. Rephrasing that question wasn’t going to change his answer.

“But you do confirm one of your own is dead?” the woman asked.

Mike held the phone away and stared at it. Too bad she couldn’t see that he thought she was an idiot. Good God, wasn’t there any other news to chase on a Sunday? He brought the phone back to his ear. “The coroner has yet to make positive identification of the body found in the home. You are already aware it was a home occupied by one of our firefighters.”

“Was there any evidence of—”

“The Valley View Fire Department will make no official comment until a full investigation is complete. Now, you must excuse me, but I have a fire station to run. We’ll let you know when there’s more to report.”

After a pleasant good-bye Mike sure as hell didn’t feel, he hung up. Ten to one reporters would be targeting Erica’s neighbors next. He wasn’t looking forward to the firestorm of speculation they’d spin after that. If only they’d let him in to investigate. County was busy enough as it was. He could be in there and done by the time the county arson investigator got there. No telling what evidence would be gone by then. No matter how much yellow tape cordoned off the scene, there were always people nosing around, taking stuff, messing things up, and destroying evidence. He’d never been less than professional. Every move he made was videotaped, everything he found cataloged. Being restricted, no matter how valid the reason might seem, pissed him off to no end. Yeah, the whole station had to take a backseat because of Keith’s lawsuit. But this? This was personal.

Gina stuck her head in the doorway. “Chief Stanton just pulled into the parking lot.”

“Thanks.”

Mike pushed to his feet and hurried to intercept him. Craig had taken longer to arrive than Mike anticipated, raising hope he’d reconsidered coming in to work. No such luck. He caught him as Craig was exiting his car.

“Uh-uh.” Mike strode forward, unimpressed with his scowl.

“Problem?”

Mike took a hands-on-hips stance. Craig was caught between two vehicles and the chain-link fence at his back. The only way around Mike was to push him out of the way—
not gonna happen
—or crawl over the hood. The fumes pouring from Craig’s body overwhelmed him. Mike was pretty sure the leaves on the palm trees edging the property wilted a little.

“You reek. Go home.”

Craig got up in Mike’s face. It was hard to not back away. “You don’t tell me what to do, Captain.”

“The hell I don’t,
Chief
. I’m not having our people see you like this. I’m only doing what you’d do if one of us showed up in your condition. And God forbid, one of those reporters circling smelled you. Is that the type of fallout you really want? Don’t we have enough to deal with without someone questioning your integrity? Someone sees you coming to work like this, they won’t care if it was a one-time thing or that you’re sick with worry about your wife. They will twist it around, saying Betty left you for a reason, that maybe Keith’s lawsuit had weight. They’ll question your competency as fire chief. Do you really want that? I don’t.”

Defiance melted from Craig’s shoulders. “No. I don’t.” He scrubbed his hand over his face. “I can’t go home, though. Erica’s going through Betty’s things. I can’t be a witness to that.”

Erica had been right. Craig wanted her to do his dirty work, but he didn’t want to watch while she did so. “Then go to my house.” Mike pulled his spare key from his pocket. “Here.”

Craig plucked it from his outstretched fingers. “Thanks. I’m sorry if I crossed any lines last night.”

“Well, you didn’t do me any favors by telling us to go have babies. But I did manage to cut you off before you launched into tales about all the hotties who’ve ever propositioned you.”

“Thanks, and sorry.” He unlocked and opened his car door, then looked back over his shoulder. “In my defense, you two would have some beautiful kids.”

They would, but Erica was skittish enough as it was. They didn’t need everyone breathing down their necks. That was between them, and if Mike had to tell their friends to back off, he would. “I can handle my own fledgling love life, thank you very much.”

“Just don’t screw it up.”

Mike bit back the words
Look who’s talking
. He liked to think he was still above snide comebacks. Craig was at his lowest. Mike refused to kick him when the man was down. So he said nothing, merely stepped away and watched Craig leave. He drew a deep cleansing breath when he was gone.

CJ was coming out the side door when Mike neared. “Detective Posner’s here to see you. I left him cooling his heels up front.”

“Thanks.”
This day just keeps getting better and better.
At least it wasn’t reporters. Though by the time he got through dealing with Posner, he might wish it were.

He found Posner looking at pictures of vintage fire trucks in the small reception area. Mike expected to see him pacing. Judging from the notepad clutched in his left hand, Mike suspected he wanted to, and this sign of normalcy was an attempt to throw Mike off guard. He wouldn’t be fooled.