“You got it.” Shea punched in the lighter and found his pack of Marlboros on the dash, shook out a cigarette with one hand, drove with the other. “Okay, Shannon, this probably isn’t the best time to bring this up, but I want to know why you didn’t come to me about the burned birth certificate and crank call you received last week.”
“I told Detectives Janowitz and Rossi.”
“Today.”
“Yeah.”
“When you had no choice, but you didn’t bother calling me earlier.”
“It wouldn’t have prevented the fire.”
“Probably not.”
The lighter clicked. Shea cracked the window on his side of the truck, lit his cigarette, then drove through the business section of town, heading past an old Spanish-styled hotel with its red-tiled roof, potted p
alms and high, arched ceilings cut into soft gold stucco. Lights blazed on the hotel grounds, splashing illumination up the walls and displaying the terra cotta tiles of the roof and lush vegetation near the entrance.
“So why should I have called the police?” she asked, sensing that Shea was spoiling for a fight.
“Because you were being harassed. You could have put the department and me on alert.”
“I didn’t want to make a scene.”
“You mean you didn’t want to make headlines,” he clarified, slowing for a red light near a mom-and-pop grocery, “again.” He brooded and smoked, waiting for the light to change as his big truck idled. Twice he checked his watch.
A group of kids on skateboards—wearing knit caps despite the fact that the temperature was still near eighty, shouting and laughing—cut through the double lanes of stopped traffic, their slim, dark silhouettes thrown in sharp relief by the bright headlights of the vehicles.
Shannon said deliberately, “I thought I’d have Aaron look into it first.”
Shea cut her a glance and took another drag on his cigarette. “Why Aaron?” Smoke curled from his nostrils as the light changed and he stepped on the accelerator.
“He’s a PI, to begin with, and he’s not affiliated with the police department like you are, or the fire department like Robert is, or the priesthood—”
“Like Oliver, yeah, I get that. But Aaron is a PI only because he wouldn’t be able to cut it as a cop. He got his ass kicked out of the fire department and he’s no saint, so the church wouldn’t want him.”
“Your point?” she asked as they pushed the speed limit toward the outskirts of town.
“That he wasn’t exactly a prime choice.”
“Apparently not,” she muttered, flipping down her visor to shade her eyes. “Because he obviously couldn’t keep his mouth shut.”
“Hey. For once he did the right thing. Besides, as you said, you already told Janowitz and Rossi.” He squashed the rest of his cigarette into an overflowing ashtray.
Shea was right, of course, but that didn’t mean it didn’t rankle that Aaron had spilled his guts to her other brothers.
They drove in silence through the suburbs and past a few small ranches until they passed the vacant acres earmarked as the new subdivision.
The next driveway was hers. Shea eased on the brakes as he turned into the long lane. Shannon didn’t know which was worse, the jars to her body as the truck bounced along the uneven lane, or the assault on her emotions as she spied the blackened wreckage of the shed, the sooty exterior wall of the stable and her little home still standing, blessedly unharmed.
The security lights were blazing, casting pools of blue light. Yellow plastic tape still warned that the area was a crime scene. And the place seemed empty. Still. Lifeless.
“Where’s Nate?” she asked, searching the parking lot for his SUV. The Explorer wasn’t parked in its usual spot. Nor were any lights glowing from the windows of his apartment over the garage.
Shea lifted a shoulder. “Beats me.”
Shannon felt a whisper of dread slide through her. “I’d better check on the animals.”
“I’ll take care of it. You go upstairs and change.”