Her Only Hero (6 page)

“That’s good. I’m really happy for you.”

“Well, there’s something you should know before you get too
happy.” The sudden serious turn of his expression made her nerves tighten in
response.

“What is it?” Something told her she wouldn’t like his answer.

“I’ve been assigned to my first investigation. It’s here.” He
gestured. “Your fire wasn’t an accident. It was arson.”

L
aura could
only stare at Ryan, her mind slowly processing his words. The fire here. Arson.

She finally found the words. “Someone deliberately set the fire?
That’s impossible.” She couldn’t believe it. He had to be wrong about this.

“I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to hear news like that. Nobody
does.”

She was shaking her head, as if that would change his opinion.
Groping for another explanation.

“You said yourself that the construction debris was a hazard on
the back porch. Remember? It must have been an accident.”

It must have been, because the alternative was too frightening
to think about.

“Look, let’s sit down and talk about this.” He touched her arm,
nodding toward the stairs. “You’re having a lot of stuff thrown at you lately.
I’m sorry to add to it.”

He sounded like Bradley Potter with his list of bad news. She
shook off the thought. Unlike Bradley, Ryan was just leveling with her. She
ought to appreciate that, even if she thought he was wrong.

She let him pilot her to the stairwell, and they sat on the worn
wooden treads. Deep burgundy stair carpeting, she thought automatically. She’d already
picked it out.

But she couldn’t waste time daydreaming about something that was
already done. She had to face this new problem rationally.

“What makes you and this other investigator think it was arson?”
She didn’t even like saying the word, with its implication of malice.

“We know an accelerant was spread around the porch.” He said the
words slowly, as if to be sure she understood. “It leaves traces.”

“An accelerant.”

“Probably paint thinner.” He glanced toward the open paint cans
in the front room. “Do you have any around?”

She stiffened. Was he accusing her of carelessness? “I do, but
it’s locked up in the cellar. No one could have gotten at it.”

Ryan leaned back against the newel post. The pose might be
casual, but the way he studied her face was serious. “They didn’t have to find
it here. They could have brought it with them.”

“They.” She didn’t want to picture faceless people spreading
paint thinner, striking a match. “Why would anyone want to destroy something
I’ve been working so hard on? It doesn’t make any sense.”

“Plenty of things in this world don’t make sense. This could
have been a gang of kids, tempted by the stuff, not realizing the danger.”

“Not realizing! We were asleep upstairs.” Dread moved like a
cold draft on her neck.

His hand closed over hers, gripping it strongly. “I know. But
kids may not have known someone was living in the building. It’s been empty a
long time.”

A shudder ran through her. Ryan’s fingers tightened on hers as
if he felt it, too.

“Look, if that is what happened, we’ll probably never find them
unless somebody talks. They’ll have been scared to death by what happened. You
can be sure they’d never willingly come near here again.”

“I guess I should find that comforting.”

“Well, I’m trying to put the best light on it I can.” The stroke
of his thumb across her knuckles was feather-light. “I don’t like being the
bearer of bad news, believe me.”

She managed a smile. Ryan didn’t deserve to have her worries
dumped on him. He had enough to think about with his new job. She wasn’t his
responsibility.

“Okay. I promise not to overreact to the news. But I am glad
you’re investigating.”

“I doubt Lieutenant North will let me do anything more
responsible than carry his notebook, but at least I’ll get my feet wet.” His
eyes were serious. “North is the best. I couldn’t ask for anyone better to
train under.”

“Then I know my case is getting excellent attention.”

Did his family see how much Ryan wanted to succeed at this? They
should be proud that he was attempting something so difficult.

“There is
one other thing—”

He looked so reluctant to speak that for a moment her fear rose
again. Then she realized what he hesitated to tell her.

“I suppose it’s a conflict of interest for you to be friends
with me under the circumstances. I can understand that.”

That meant he wouldn’t be dropping in on her anymore. Well, that
was probably for the best. She’d already decided on that, hadn’t she?

He smiled. “Actually, that’s not an issue. When I told North
that we’re old friends, that we’d been in school together, he just rolled his
eyes. Said he was beginning to think everyone in Suffolk knew everyone else. I
guess it’s a big change for him from Chicago.”

“That’s not quite true.”

He blinked. “What isn’t?”

She said the thing she’d been thinking since the day Ryan had
walked back into her life. “That we were friends in school. You barely knew who
I was in those days.”

“Just because we weren’t in the same class—”

“That didn’t have anything to do with it. You dated girls in my
class. We weren’t friends because you were the football hero and I was the shy
little nerd who hid behind my stack of library books.”

He looked down at their clasped hands. “You’re telling me I was
a jerk, in other words.”

Heat flooded her face. “No, of course not. I’m just saying we
didn’t run in the same circles. I was so far from the in crowd I probably
didn’t have a circle.”

“Why?”

Now it was her turn to blink. “Why
what?”

“Why did you hide?”

Nerd. Loner. He could have used those words, but he wouldn’t
because he was too kind. Maybe he didn’t remember what it had been like in high
school for the kids who didn’t belong to that charmed circle of the accepted.
Maybe he hadn’t even known.

“I was shy,” she said carefully. “I didn’t have any confidence
in myself.” She wasn’t going to talk to Ryan, of all people, about how it had
felt growing up with her mother’s disappointments hanging over her.

He cradled her hand between both of his. “You know, it’s a funny
thing. Every day I run into people I went to high school with. Most of them are
still the same people they were then—still replaying old games. But you—you’ve
turned into someone completely different.”

The touch of his hands seemed to be turning her insides to jelly
and her brain to mush. She struggled to treat the words lightly, because if she
showed how his opinion mattered to her, she’d be betraying too much.

“You mean I don’t qualify as a nerd any longer?”

His gaze was serious and intent. “I mean you’ve grown into a
woman who’s a dozen times better than that in crowd. Strong. Independent.
Capable. Ready to tackle anything for your child. I’d say that’s a pretty good
comeback.”

The lump in her throat wouldn’t let her say much. “Thank you.”
It came out as a whisper, and she cleared her throat, embarrassed.

“Just remember that when you have to battle the likes of Bradley
Potter.”

“The consummate member of the in crowd? I will.”

Ryan released her hand and pushed to his feet. He stood for a
moment, hand on the newel post, looking down at her.

“There was something else I wanted to say. Before I got
sidetracked by our high-school social status.”

A chill crept down her spine. “What?”

“The arson very likely was what I said. Kids, out to make
mischief and going too far.” His face clouded. “But according to North, we
can’t rule out the possibility that we’re looking for a firebug.”

The expression on his face told her he was serious. “Have there
been other fires?”

“Not recently.” His frown deepened. “But about five years ago we
had a rash of fires in the business district. No one was hurt, but there was a
lot of property damage. They never caught the guy.”

“The fires just stopped?”

He nodded. “That’s not unusual. That kind of person can go for
years and then break out again.”

She struggled to remember what she knew about firebugs. “They
come back sometimes, don’t they? If they set a fire and it’s put out, they
might try again.”

“It’s possible.” He leaned over to grasp her shoulder. “Look, I
didn’t tell you that because I wanted to scare you. Chances are good it’s
nothing of the kind. But I know you weren’t in Suffolk when that happened
before, and I thought you ought to know.”

She straightened her spine. “You were right to tell me.” She
looked up at him, hoping she didn’t look panicked. “Do you think we’re safe
here? Mandy—” Her throat closed at the thought of her daughter.

“Whoever set the fire knows now that someone lives here. I think
that’ll discourage him.”

“Unless he wants to hurt someone.” She couldn’t help the shiver
of fear, but she tried to keep it out of her voice.

“If it is the same person, he was always careful to pick empty
buildings. Still, I’ve thought of a couple things that might be good precautions.”
He eyed her cautiously, as if wondering how much advice she’d willingly take
from him.

“What things?” If it meant Mandy’s safety, she’d take advice
from anyone.

He looked faintly relieved at her response. “Lights on the back
of the building, first off, because the alley is so dark. Motion detector
lights would be best. Maybe you ought to consider an alarm system.”

Those things cost money she didn’t have. Still, she’d have to
find a way to pay for them if that meant keeping her daughter safe.

“I’ll look into it right away.”

“Seth and I can probably install the lights for you.” He
grinned. “We once rigged the doorbell to ring every time Gabe turned on the
light in his room. Drove him crazy until he figured out what we’d done.”

Ryan was trying to dispel her fears, and she appreciated that.
He was definitely one of the good guys, no matter who he’d been in high school.

Unfortunately the fear wouldn’t be chased away so easily, no
matter what he said. Somehow she thought she wouldn’t be sleeping well for
quite a while.

“There’s little enough left to find now that half the town of
Suffolk has trampled through here.”

Lieutenant North stood in the alley with Ryan the next day,
glaring at the back porch of Laura’s building. The area was as clean as a burned-out
porch could be after the ministrations of the Flanagan crew.

“Sorry.” Ryan shifted his weight, wondering how much he should
confess. He wanted to impress North with his ability to solve the crime, not
cover up the evidence. “Some people from the church came over to help clean up.
There was no thought of arson at the time.”

“No.” North glanced around, his shrewd gray eyes seeming to see
the alleyway as it must have been that night. “No one thought of it until the
anonymous call came in.” He frowned, lines deepening in his lean face. “I don’t
like anonymous callers.”

Tipsters were useful sometimes, but Ryan understood what North
meant. Someone out there had knowledge, and maybe it was guilty knowledge.

“If kids did this, you’d hardly expect them to draw attention to
the fact that it was arson by placing the call.” That fact had been worrying
Ryan from the moment he’d heard about the tip.

North gave a grudging nod, as if to concede that Ryan did have a
brain. “A firebug, on the other hand, might resent the fact that his talent was
overlooked.”

The firebug. Ryan had been a rookie in the department then, but
he remembered only too well the tension of knowing an arsonist was on the loose
in his town. Every shift he’d been keyed up, worrying that this time the
firebug might miscalculate and kill someone.

“You think something’s set the same guy off again?” Ryan
couldn’t help but ask the question, even though North wasn’t likely to answer.

“I think we don’t overlook anything.” North’s tone suggested
that he wasn’t going to speculate with a junior officer.

“Right.” What did North think they’d overlooked to begin with?
It really bugged Ryan that they hadn’t even suspected arson that morning.