Maximum Exposure (22 page)

He figured waiting out rush hour made more sense than contributing to the mess. He just didn’t count on his nap lasting six hours—which was why he was still there at midnight to smell the fire.

He hadn’t slept much the night before, having spent most of it wrapped up, naked, with Olivia, so his body was obviously making up for lost time. And since six hours was about his limit anytime he closed his eyes, well, he was just lucky it was, or he would’ve been toast.

Literally.

As it was, he was double-checking that he hadn’t left anything in the room that he’d need before he got back when he heard an explosive bang, followed closely by the squealing of tires. By the time he got to the window, the vehicle was gone…and the flames were just getting started.

Getting out was his first instinct. Saving anything he could of Olivia’s stock was his second. Somewhere in there he knew he needed to call both her and 911.

He dashed into her office and grabbed her laptop, then dialed 911 from the top of the stairs, pulling the neckline of his shirt over his mouth and nose and reporting the fire while he made his way to the first floor.

Once he reached the bottom landing, he didn’t think of anything but getting himself out and saving his life. The smoke was rolling in thick waves down the hallway from the storeroom; the stench would soon ruin the fabrics of the clothes the fire hadn’t already destroyed.

He vaulted over the landing’s railing, hitting the hardwood floor below in a crouch. By now, the smoke was obscuring the rows of lights left on overnight along the far side of each of the stores.

Finn knew where the front door was, but there was just enough panic hitting him that it wasn’t only the smoke that was making it hard to breathe. He could hear the roar of the flames behind him, feel the heat, sense the integrity of the building beginning to give way. Above him, behind him, creaks and groans and loud popping bangs punctuated the roar of growing fire.

Aided by the streetlights, he found the front door. It was locked, as he’d known it would be, leaving him to consider whether to break that glass or the panes in the display window. Either way, it was throw himself or something solid through. He was already holding Olivia’s laptop….

He cast a quick glance side to side. He’d seen a heavy lockbox beneath the counter of the kiosk, but he didn’t have time to go back.

Jerking clothes from racks would take too much time, and the racks looked too flimsy, so he gambled, holding the laptop like a Frisbee and spinning it at the door.

He ducked as the glass shattered. Then, knocking away the remaining shards, he burst out onto the sidewalk, feeling something slice his arm on the way.

After snagging up the computer from where it had skittered to a stop, he bolted across the street, grabbing for his phone to call Olivia. It wasn’t at his waist. It had been in his hand….

He’d lost it either while jumping from the landing or bursting out the door, and he wasn’t about to go back. The interior of the store was a bonfire, and thinking about the loss, about Olivia, about his own near miss…

He doubled over and puked until he couldn’t puke anymore. When he straightened, he heard approaching sirens, and minutes later the scene turned into a madhouse of firefighters, hoses, water, and onlookers.

Barricades went up. Officers secured the area. Finn borrowed a cell phone to call Olivia, leaving her a message before being swept away for treatment.

He was sitting on the bumper of the rescue unit, breathing oxygen while one of the EMTs monitored his vitals, when he first heard her scream. He pulled the mask away, called out until she found him.

She argued with the officers at the barricade, her arms flailing as she fought against their efforts at restraining her, until one escorted her over to wait with Finn while the firefighters battled the blaze.

She collapsed in his arms, sobbing. He rubbed her back, shushing her, soothing her, finally putting the mask to his face again when the woman monitoring him threatened to tape it to his head.

That was when Olivia first realized he wasn’t just hanging around out of curiosity. She looked him up and down, touched the bandage on his arm. “What happened? I thought you were gone. When did you come back? God, Finn, did you try to put out the fire? There was a fire extinguisher in the kiosk. Did you find it?”

“Calm down, sweetheart,” he said, watching tears stream down her face. “I didn’t come back. I never left. I was upstairs sleeping when the fire started. I’m the one who called nine one one.”

Confusion marred her face, which was streaked with soot and mascara mixed with tears. “You were inside?”

He nodded, cupped her cheek.

She froze, backed a step away. Light from the blaze glittered in her eyes, which burned with an equally hot anger. “What did you do? Did you do anything? Did you save anything?”

He felt his heart begin to harden, his emotions to seize. He reached behind him, where he’d set the laptop on the unit’s floor. “I grabbed this from your office before coming downstairs. I’m not sure if it’s worth anything. The hard drive might be salvageable. I used it to break through the door.”

“I can’t believe this. I’m going to lose everything, and this is it?” she screamed.

“I called nine one one,” he responded, enunciating each syllable, as if her hearing them would make a bit of difference.

She paced in a circle, rubbing at her forehead, hugging herself, never once looking across the street at the store. “I should’ve called the police this morning. If I’d called them then, my entire life wouldn’t be burning to the ground. I should never have listened to you. I can’t believe I listened to you.”

“Listened to me? I think Roman was the one calling the shots,” he yelled back, gesturing toward what remained of the boutique. “And you don’t know if this wouldn’t be happening anyway. No one knows yet how the fire started.”

She cut him a harsh sideways glance. “Where’s your stuff? Is it still inside?”

“I packed the Jeep earlier,” he said, as a loud crash banged behind them. Firefighters yelled orders. Onlookers screamed.

Olivia never once looked. “How convenient for you. How lucky for you.”

“What the fuck? Are you saying this is somehow my fault?”

“You tell me. You were the only one inside.”

This was insane. “And if I hadn’t woken up when I did, I still would be!”

“Kids, kids.” The woman watching Finn’s blood pressure butted in. “This isn’t accomplishing a thing. Let’s all calm down,” she added, popping the elastic band of the oxygen mask against the back of Finn’s head.

He waited until she moved away, then grabbed Olivia’s arm. “She’s right. Our bickering isn’t doing either one of us any good.”

“It’s doing me a lot of good,” Olivia said, jerking free from his hold. “It’s given me a true picture of what you think is important and how far down the list I am.”

“Jesus, Olivia.” He rubbed at his forehead. He knew she was upset, that she wasn’t thinking straight—hell, was she thinking at all?—but her reaction was beyond unreasonable. “It’s a fire. It’s either arson or an accident. Something electrical maybe. None of that has anything to do with us, with you and me.”

“Us? You didn’t even call me, Finn. I had to hear it from someone else. How can there be a you and me if you didn’t even call me?”

“I did call. You didn’t pick up. I left you a message.” He had to get out of here. Another minute of this and he was going to say something he’d regret.

She stared at the fire. “You should’ve kept trying. You should’ve tried harder. You should’ve called until you got me. I shouldn’t have had to hear this from a neighbor watching TV.”

Okay.
He needed to calm down, and she needed to get her head out of her ass. He tore off the blood pressure monitor and the breathing apparatus. “I’m outta here.”

“I don’t want to see you again, Finn.”

She didn’t have to tell him twice. “Your wish is my command, sister. You won’t see me until tonight’s behind you and you get your perspective back.”

“No,” she said, stepping in front of him, blocking his way, the fire a huge, deadly halo limning her. “I don’t want to see you again, ever. And if you want to see me? You can get in line for a look just like everyone else.”

The scope of the disaster was emotionally devastating, the only—only—bright spot the fact that no one had been injured and no lives had been lost.

Paperwork kept her busy for days. The police department, the fire department, arson investigators. Her insurance company. The DEA, because once the authorities got their heads together, it was determined the fire was set purposely to destroy the heroin in the boutique’s storeroom and any evidence that it had ever existed.

They had Finn’s photos, of course. And Roman’s testimony, along with her and Finn’s story of finding the bricks. Of course, they’d never cut them open; they couldn’t testify about what had been inside.

Not that there would ever be a need for them to testify about anything. So far, there was no evidence connecting the Splash & Flambé arsonist to his work.

Along with Roman and Finn, she was able to identify Tomás in the shots taken from the second-floor window, but the van’s license plates weren’t visible in any of them, and Tomás and Carmen had both disappeared. Livia hoped their disappearance wasn’t of a permanent nature. She wanted them both caught and punished for their crimes.

Carmen was most certainly the one who had told Tomás that his stash had been discovered. Yet without knowing if she was more deeply involved in dealing the drugs, Livia could accuse the other woman only of being guilty of stupidity. And that wasn’t a crime as much as it was a character flaw—one Livia suffered in spades.

Her treatment of Finn at the fire had been nothing less than atrocious. It wasn’t his fault, any of it. In fact, if he hadn’t taken the pictures of Roland—Roman—and Tomás, exposing the DEA’s operation, the fire would never have happened, but she would still be in the dark. She could’ve stumbled into the middle of a drug deal and lost her life instead of her life’s work.

She realized that was a long shot. Roman was a trained professional, even if he had—in his own words—fucked up in a very big way. But she couldn’t help thinking that Finn might have prevented an even greater tragedy, and what had she done? Ripped him a new one in thanks.

Both of her sisters had chastised her and admonished her to stop borrowing trouble. Desperate to get out of Miami, if only for a few days, she’d gone to see Caridad in Tampa and arrived to find Marisol had flown in from Augusta as a surprise.

They’d had a great four-day bonding weekend, spent dancing with men they never planned to see again, drinking
mojitos
and margaritas until they couldn’t see straight, and sleeping each day away, because they’d talked all hours of the night.

How the subject had come up, Livia couldn’t say, but once the three of them had tired of talking of the fire, they found themselves taking a trip down memory lane, which led to the inevitable roadblock of the attempted molestation she’d endured and the role all of their behavior had played.

She discovered that with time and distance, her sisters both wished they’d had the emotional maturity to intervene, but sibling rivalry, jealousy, and their parents’ acceptance of her antics had kept them silent for fear of losing favor.

She also discovered that she wasn’t as comfortable with who she’d been then as she’d sworn to herself all these years that she was. She’d been selfish and childish, and a good grounding wouldn’t have been out of order.

But her biggest discovery of all was that her sisters were her friends, not her enemies, not judges and juries convicting her. They were in her corner, on her side, and were more valuable to her state of mind and emotional health than any therapist she could’ve paid.

Caridad and Marisol had demanded every detail about Finn, and Livia had told them everything, including details of that last photo shoot, which no one, but no one, would ever see.

They’d told her not to be so hard on herself, that if Finn was the man she said he was, he’d understand things said in the heat of the moment were usually regretted.

Said? Maybe. But what about venom spewed? What about vitriol dripped like acid? What about hatred so bitter, it chewed him up and spit him out and left him to burn in the fire that had take everything from her?

That was what had been eating at her since she’d come home. She couldn’t imagine him ever forgiving her the things she’d said. She’d hadn’t yet forgiven herself. And as much as she’d needed her sisters’ assurance that all would be well in the end, believing them wasn’t as easy.

Finding another friendly shoulder in order, she waited for the morning rush to die down, then headed out. After a quiet drive, she pulled into the parking lot at Downtown Blue. She hadn’t told Dustin she was coming, but she knew he’d welcome her with open arms. And he did.

“Oh, Livvy,” he crooned once they were behind closed doors in his office and he had her settled in one of his visitors’ chairs. “How are you really? You look fabulous, as always, but I know you, and no amount of concealer can hide the fact that you’re still not sleeping.”

She resisted digging into her purse for her mirror. “That bad, huh?”

“No, no. I’m the only one who would ever notice.”

She didn’t believe him for a minute, but she loved him, anyway. “Tampa was nice. I spent time with Cari and Mari both.”

He nodded, nodded again. “And you told the sisters all about your love life.”

Love. Ha.
“I told them all about the wild sex I’d been having before the fire.”

“As if the fire’s a reason to stop. Please.”

Her heart grew heavy. Her sigh weighed just as much. “I haven’t seen Finn since.”

Dustin considered her for a long moment, then picked up a pencil from his desk and leaned back in his chair. “Have you tried to see him?”

She shook her head, braced herself.

“Then if you’re not having sex, it’s no one’s fault but your own.”

“I told Finn I never wanted to see him again.” She wanted to laugh. That was putting it mildly.

“Aha.” Dustin pointed at her with the sharp end of his pencil. “That could be the reason he hasn’t been around.”

“There’s no
could be
about it. He told me my wish was his command.”

“So give him a new one.”

“A new what?”

“A new command, Livvy. If you want to see him and get back to engaging in all that glorious sex, tell him that’s your wish.”

“For some reason, I don’t think it’s that simple.” Simple in no way, shape, or form defined where she’d left her relationship with Finn.

“Livia, darling, you will never know if you don’t try. Here…” He paused, dug through a couple of his desk drawers and a file cabinet before locating his checkbook. “I can’t find anything since Jodi left.”

“She left? When?” This was news.

“I was a bitch about Roland, or Roman. And isn’t that name so dishy. Anyway,” he said, waving his pen. “She and the fed were screwing their brains out, with me still thinking I might have a chance with him and acting the fool. She told me my attitude made it impossible for her to remain in my employ. I sent her on her merry way.”

“And now you regret it.”

“Regret’s not the word I would use,” he said as he scribbled out a check. “Oh, who am I kidding? It’s the very word I would use. Now, here.”

Livia reached over and took the check, curious. It was made out to Finn. And it was for a lot more than she knew a photographer cost. “What am I supposed to do with this?”

“You take it to him, of course. If you can’t make your own opening, you need someone to do it for you. I’m happy to oblige.”

She stared at the check, folded it, slipped it into her purse. She started to tell him she’d mail it or courier it, that she’d make sure Finn got it, but he was right.

She needed a reason to make the trip to Key Largo that wouldn’t make her feel like an even bigger loser if he told her to never come back.

And so what she said to Dustin was, “Thank you. I do want to see him. I need to see him. I have so much to say.”

“Then go. Say.” He brushed her off with a sweeping motion of one hand. “Tell him I’m waiting on my pictures.”

“I’ve been thinking about the pictures—” Livia started to say, but Dustin cut her off.

“So have I—”

And since one good interruption deserved another…“I don’t know that there are going to be any pictures.”

“What do you mean? Have you two done nothing but roll around naked?” He held out a hand, fluttered his fingers. “Give me back my check.”

“Not so fast,” she said, crushing her purse to her chest. “There are a lot of pictures. I just don’t know how comfortable I am with you turning them into an exhibit. They’re very…personal.”

“Please,” he said, with a huff. “Hear me out before you get all emo and start cutting yourself. If McLain agrees, and if you agree, we’ll sell them in a silent auction. And the money will go to rebuilding Splash & Flambé.” He clapped his hands. “Isn’t that brilliant?”

“I’m not sure rebuilding is what I want.”

He blew out a long, theatrical sigh. “First, you’re giving up sex. Now you’re giving up fashion. What’s next? Should I get you a razor blade now?”

Was that really what she was doing? Giving up? “I’ll talk to Finn. We’d originally planned three more shoots, but now—”

“Don’t think there will be another check coming.”

She smiled, patted her purse. “I have a feeling Finn will balk at accepting this.”

“Don’t let him,” he said, getting up and coming around to the front of his desk. Once there, he perched on the table between the two visitors’ chairs and placed his hand on her forearm. “I would empty my bank account if it would mean he would keep you as happy as you’ve been this last month. As much as I kid about sex and men, I truly believe you’ve found something most of us never will.”

Livia leaned down to kiss the back of his hand. “I don’t tell you often enough what you mean to me.”

He waved her away, flustered. “I’m like the sister you’re glad you never had.”

“No,” she said, uncrossing her legs to stand. “You’re like the friend I’m so very glad that I do.”

“And just think. It all started in that very boring economics class taught by that odious professor Boyle.”

“Oh, my God,” she managed through her laughter. “He was not odious. He was gorgeous. And he was straight and very happily married, and you just couldn’t deal.”

He rolled his eyes, though he couldn’t roll away the dampness, and shooed her toward the door. “What I can’t deal with any longer is you. Now go tell that photographer of yours that I want what I’ve paid for, and I’d better damn well get it soon.”

Livia kissed him good-bye, her own eyes wet. As she left the gallery, she wondered if what he’d paid for was her photographs or her happiness—or if once she delivered the check, she’d never see either again.