On Fire (Shadow Stalkers #4)(15)
Author: Sylvia Day

She set her hands over his where they gripped her hips. “Give it to me. All of you.”

Chapter thirteen

Jared ran his fingertips up and down the arm Darcy had draped over his abdomen and ran the gathered data through his mind for the hundredth time, searching for what he might’ve missed.

When Darcy bolted upright without warning, his arm shot out, his hand grasping for his weapon.

Breathing heavily, she stared at the gun he had aimed at the door, then met his gaze. “Dani never said a word to me about Chris, but she told Jim. I didn’t know they were close, her and Jim. Close enough that she’d share a secret lover with him.”

“Okay,” he said carefully, returning his gun to its holster. “You’re following the same train of thought I had. I e-mailed Ralston’s name to Agent Kelley. She might have some questions for him.”

She pushed her hair back from her face. “I don’t want to make trouble for him. He doesn’t deserve it.”

He propped some pillows behind his back. “You deserve answers and I’m gonna see that you get them.”

“You don’t think he has anything to do with this, do you?”

“He wasn’t one of the subjects the Feds interviewed, so technically he didn’t lie to them, but it’s never a good thing to withhold information. It smacks of having something to hide.”

“Or someone to protect.”

Reaching for her hand, he linked fingers with hers. “How close is he to Miller?”

“Not very. But I do think he said what he did yesterday to protect Chris. If you tie the arsons and the murder together—which is what Chris came looking for you to talk about—outing Chris’s relationship with Dani absolves him of both. He has an airtight alibi for the first arson, he was out of town for three days prior to it—his sister just had a baby. And the night of the shelter fire he was in the station when the call came in, working on evaluations. Unless you find out differently, that makes it impossible for him to have been the one to set the fire or make the call from Seattle.”

He tugged her close, urging her to snuggle up with him again. “Can you get Ralston to talk to you?”

“Yes.” She laid her cheek against his chest. “When I talked to Nadine yesterday, she said jealousy can make a person crazy. If Chris isn’t the father of Darcy’s baby, there was someone else in her life. Maybe he found out about Chris and lost it.”

“We’ll figure out the why when we figure out the who. We’ll get there, sweetheart.”

She looked up at him. “I’m ready to put this behind me.”

“Where was home for you before you came back here?”

“Albuquerque. I wanted something arid after growing up with so much rain.”

“I can do arid.”

Her gaze softened. “Would you?”

“Sure, I can transfer.”

“When I left New Mexico, I thought it might be a while before I figured out what was next. I quit my job, sold my condo…” She ran her hand over the light dusting of hair on his chest. “I can start over anywhere.”

“I don’t care what the plan is, as long as it includes you.”

“After losing Dani and then last night…I could’ve lost you, too. A few minutes here or there and you wouldn’t be here now. I don’t want to waste any chances, Jared.”

He hugged her tightly. “We won’t. We won’t waste a thing.”

DARCY PULLED INTO the parking lot of the fire station and waved at Trish, who waited for them with Ralston by the open apparatus bay doors.

Jared stopped her from exiting with a hand on her arm. “I don’t want you leaving town. Even the animal shelter is too far. And I don’t want you in the car with someone else if you’re not behind the wheel. Don’t go anywhere private with anyone. And text me as you move around so I know where you are.”

“All right. I’m just going to pick over the motel scene with Jim, then come back here to the station to expand on my prelim report. If that changes, I’ll let you know.”

Dressed in her uniform, with her lush hair restrained in a ponytail, there was little evidence of the insatiable wanton who’d shredded him just hours before. Except in her eyes. The way she looked at him made his chest ache.

“You be careful, too,” she said quietly.

“Always.”

They split up and he watched her pull out of the lot a few minutes later, driving the pickup with Ralston in the passenger seat.

“You okay?” Trish asked.

“I’ve been better.” He faced her. “You?”

“Fired up. I want this shithead’s ass in a sling.”

His mouth twitched. “We’re starting here because of a volunteer named Mitch Quinn. There have been a few suspect shipments to the station, all under Quinn’s name. Inspector Michaels says he should be here today.”

“All right. Let’s talk to him.”

They found Quinn in the kitchen, putting away groceries. He looked up as they came in, his frown melting into a wide smile. With his shaggy blond hair and pale blue eyes, he had the look of a surfer about him, an impression strengthened by the seashell and hemp necklace visible through the opening in his uniform collar.

“Hi,” he greeted them. “Are you looking for Inspector Michaels?”

Trish returned his smile, but her game face was on, her eyes flat and watchful. “We’re looking for you, Mitch.”

He paused, then shut the refrigerator door. “What can I help you with?”

Jared stepped up to the island. “We need to talk about some of the deliveries coming through this station—”

Quinn shoved the groceries across the tile at Jared and fled.

“Well, shit,” Trish muttered.

Jared leaped over the oranges and apples spilling off the island onto the floor, and gave chase.

DARCY PICKED THROUGH the charred remains of the motel while Jim jotted notes in his folder.

“Your prelim was well done, Darcy.”

“Thank you.”

He closed the folder with a decisive snap. “When are you going to ask me why I didn’t say anything about Miller and your sister earlier?”

She faced him. “I was waiting until we got through the scene first.”

“All right. We’re finished for now. Since I was out all night, Columbo missed his morning walk. How about we pick him up and we’ll talk about it away from here?”

“Sounds good.” They headed back to the truck. She closed up the evidence collection boxes in the bed of the pickup and said, “I take it from your overnighter that the date went well?”

“Yeah…not bad. I appreciate you handling things last night.”

“You needed the break and I knew we’d need daylight to get the full scope.” She slid behind the wheel and headed to his house.

“You know Chris isn’t responsible for what happened to Danielle, don’t you?”

Darcy glanced at him. “I can’t believe he’d do it. I can’t believe anyone I know could do that to another human being.”

Setting his elbow on the window ledge, Jim rested his head in his hand and sighed. “He wasn’t wrong when he said she’d changed. There’s no easy way to say this…”

“So just say it.”

“She was…seeing a few men at the same time.”

Darcy’s grip tightened on the wheel. It was painful realizing there’d been a widening gap between her and Dani, and she hadn’t realized it. “Go on.”

“One of the guys was Mitch.”

“What?” But the moment she asked the question, she knew it wasn’t so surprising after all. Mitch was the sort of hardworking, good-humored type Dani had been drawn to. “Okay.”

“When he caught on to her having other interests…it hit him hard. She was special to him and he hadn’t realized that feeling wasn’t mutual. So I went to see her, talk to her, try to get her to let him off the hook easy. Turned out she was upset because he’d been following her. Angling to catch her in the act, I suppose. She told me she’d been trying to cut him off for weeks and if I was really worried about him, I’d tell him to knock it off or she’d have Miller arrest him.”

She felt him look at her, his gaze heavy on the side of her face. “Darcy…I bluffed when I said she told me about her and Miller. There was just something in her voice. I wondered. When he showed up at your place so upset about tying the arsons in with the murder—I took a shot in the dark.”

Pulling up in front of his house, she parked and twisted to face him. She thought of Jared asking her about Mitch that morning and wondered what had drawn his attention in that direction. “Do you think Mitch killed my sister?”

“No! Hell, no.” He shook his head violently. “If I even suspected that, I would’ve driven him to the sheriff’s office myself. Danielle was driving into Seattle a lot. I figure that’s where she met the guy, whoever he is.”

She shoved the door open and got out, needing to stand and suck in air to get past her sudden nausea. “I really need that walk.”

“THAT WAS A real dumb move, Mitch.” Trish circled his seat at a metal interrogation table in the sheriff’s department. “Running from a marathon man like Deputy Cameron.”

Through the two-way mirror, Jared watched Mitch Quinn sprawl insolently in his chair and shake his head. “I wasn’t running from the deputy. I left some ice cream in the truck.”

“Um, ice cream. What flavor?”

“Vanilla.”

“Ah, too bad. I like chocolate myself.” She settled in the seat across from him. “So, let’s talk about some of the packages that have been shipped to the station to your attention.”

Quinn met her gaze directly. “All packages coming into the station are addressed to me. Stuff was getting lost before. I keep things organized.”

“You’re meticulous, aren’t you, Mitch?”

“I am, yes.”

Trish nodded. “I bet building a precision incendiary device would be child’s play for a dedicated, meticulous, organized fireman such as yourself.”

He bolted upright. “Now, wait a minute! You’re not pinning the arsons on me. I fight fires, I don’t start them.”

“But in a town of this size, there’s no budget to take on more permanent firefighters, is there? Unless there was suddenly a rash of fires in the area. An arsonist setting up shop here would be almost a blessing for a long-suffering volunteer.”

“That’s sick.”

“I agree. The supply room here in the sheriff’s office is missing a can of tear gas. Did you know tear gas was used in the motel fire last night? Our arsonist didn’t mind charbroiling me and Deputy Cameron, but he wanted to get the other guests out. You were in the supply room yesterday, Mitch. What for?”

“Because there was a note on the dry erase board in the station telling me to grab a box labeled LBFD—Lion’s Bay Fire Department, if you couldn’t figure it out.”

“Who left the note?”

“I don’t know.”

“You didn’t recognize the handwriting? A meticulous guy like you?”

Quinn’s gaze was icy. “I didn’t look at it that closely.”

“All right.” She pulled out her cell phone. “I’ll text Deputy Cameron to snap a picture of it and bring it over.”

“I erased it after I finished the job,” he bit out. “That’s what we’re supposed to do, so we don’t have guys trying to do jobs that have already been done.”

“That’s a shame. Or maybe I should call it convenient?”

“This is a witch hunt. You’re looking for a scapegoat to keep your record looking good and I’m the lucky guy. No way. I’m done talking. I want a lawyer.”

“Fuck,” Miller muttered from his place beside Jared in the observation room. “This is why I should’ve interviewed him. He’d trust me enough to hold off on lawyering up.”

“Too risky,” Jared said, although he’d already said it before. More than once. “If the arsons in any way tie back to Danielle Michaels’s murder, you and I both have a conflict of interest. This way we’re keeping it semi-clean.”

His cell vibrated and he pulled it out of his pocket, reading the text from Darcy that said she’d gone to Ralston’s house and that he’d pegged Mitch Quinn as one of Danielle’s lovers.

Trish pushed back from the table. She’d gone casual today with jeans and blouse paired with a Marshals Service Windbreaker, but there was nothing soft about her approach to the job. “Maybe your lawyer can explain why you checked out three different books on Reginald Merkerson from the Seattle public library.”

“That’s a goddamned lie!” Quinn lunged to his feet, knocking over his chair and putting Jared on alert for his partner’s safety. Quinn’s eyes were wild and hot, his face pale. “I’ve never been to the Seattle library in my life.”

She pulled a copy of the library check-out list from the folder in her hand and set it on the table. “This says different.”

“I’m being set up!”

“Tell it to your lawyer.” She reached for the doorknob.

“Why the f**k would I drive to Seattle for books on Merkerson when Jim Ralston has copies of the actual case files in his office?”

“Check the dates on the paper there, Mitch. Those books were checked out before the fires started. Months before. Plenty of time to figure out how to make nasty little toys like Merkerson was known for.”

His jaw tightened. “Someone’s setting me up.”

“Who would do that to a nice guy like you?”

“I don’t know. What I do know is that I didn’t start those fires. A dedicated, meticulous, organized guy like me wouldn’t leave such an obvious trail.”