Authors: Kimberly Foster
Tags: #Romance, #drama, #comedy, #Contemporary Romance, #Fiction
Breezy and Patrick looked at each other when they heard this, wondering if they were thinking the same thing. Carl, however, didn’t seem very impressed.
“Ma’am? Can you describe the man?” he asked.
“I can do better’n that, sonny! I can give you a name, description, and his license plate number!” the old woman said, smugly pleased at the shocked expressions on their faces.
She rattled off the number and Carl wrote it down, repeating the numbers out loud in case she needed to correct herself. She didn’t. He handed the note to the officer behind him, sending him off to have it checked out. The young officer returned a few minutes later, informing them that the results should come back within the hour.
“It was that nasty young man you had trouble with a few years ago, dear. What was his name? Frank something or other, wasn’t it?” Mrs. Princeton asked, peering up at Breezy.
“Yes. Frank Dupree,” Breezy answered in a daze.
“Yes! Yes, that’s it. He looks rather unsettling now. Much thinner…kinda sickly and dirty, you ask me. His hair’s a lot longer now, too, like a girl’s. Even had it tied back in a ponytail,” Mrs. Princeton scoffed indignantly.
“You’re sure about all this?” Carl asked, not prepared to take her word for it just yet.
“Positive! I may be old, and it may take me awhile to get from one place to the other, but I know what I saw,” she snorted.
“Mrs. Princeton, with all due respect, you must be in your 80’s,” Carl replied.
“Well, thank you, sonny!” the elderly woman grinned proudly.
“Uh…you’re welcome? But again, with all due respect, ma’am, it’s hard for me to accept that a woman of your tender years could see so much, so clearly, from several houses away.” Carl insisted.
Despite the gravity of the situation, Breezy and Patrick had to smile at hearing Carl choose his words so carefully while addressing Mrs. Princeton. Words like “accept” rather than “believe,” and “tender years” rather than “advanced years.” They outright snickered when he was so easily thrown by her pride and gratitude at his assumption that she was as young as 80-something.
“42985,” Mrs. Princeton said confidently.
“Excuse me?” Carl asked, totally confused.
“42985. That’s your badge number. I saw it a while ago when you opened your coat to take out a pen! I was always good at memorizing numbers,” she said.
Carl opened his coat to show the others the tiny gold number on his badge. Mrs. Princeton was absolutely correct.
“I had eye surgery last summer and now I have 20/20 vision! I know what I saw and I saw Frank Dupree run from this house, get into a little car and drive away. Then I saw the smoke and came over to see if she was okay. If you still doubt my ability to see, you’ll find a red Eagle gas can in that bush over there,” she said, pointing to a bush at the edge of Breezy’s driveway.
“And if you catch the little bugger, I’ll point him out in a line up!” she smirked.
Carl looked over at the officer standing next to him and nodded towards the bush, “Ben. Go check that out, will you?”
Carl took Breezy by the elbow and pulled her aside, away from everyone else. He furrowed his brow when Patrick followed, refusing to leave her side, but figured he had as much right to hear this as anyone else. As long as she didn’t mind, neither did he.
“I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Mrs. Princeton is right. They found two metal gas cans on either side of the house, although they weren’t Eagle cans,” Carl told them.
“Hey, Carl! You might wanna see this,” Ben called out.
They all turned to see him holding a short stick in one hand. Dangling at the end of it were the partially charred remains of a red Eagle gas can.
“Well, I’ll be…” Carl sputtered.
“She’s something, ain’t she?” Breezy chuckled.
“That must have been the sound I heard…empty gas cans hitting the ground,” Patrick told them.
“Probably. As for Frank, we have an APB out on him and the car. We’re also checking out the registration on the car to see if it was stolen. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised to find out that he’s behind all of this. If I remember correctly, he threatened your life the last time. Didn’t he swear he’d come back and get even with you the night you last saw him? “ Carl asked.
Before she could reply, Carl’s radio crackled and he picked it up. He listened to the voices on it for a while, answered what sounded like questions and listened again, his face tight with concentration.
“He threatened you?”
Patrick whispered quietly while Carl was busy talking on the radio.
“Yes. That night, when I came back to the house with Susan and Carl, Frank had written a message on the wall in his own blood. It said, ‘You’ll pay for this bitch! You will die!’ I guess when I hit him with the phone, it busted his head open pretty good,” Breezy explained.
“Well, good for you, baby! You should have beat the living…tar out of him with it.” Patrick said, struggling to control his rising anger. He’d give half his fortune just to get this guy alone for five minutes. “I wish you’d told me he threatened you, angel,” he sighed, enfolding her in his arms.
“Hold on, folks,” Carl said suddenly. He spoke into the radio once again and then listened to the reply. “The car is registered to a Frank Dupree of Indianapolis. He’s got a rap sheet about ten feet long and he’s wanted in three other states. I’ve got two black and whites involved in a high speed chase after a 1989 metallic blue Nissan Stanza down I74. License plates are a match. Description of driver matches Mrs. Princeton’s description of the man she saw running from here tonight,” Carl rattled off as the details came in thick and fast.
They all waited in silence for what seemed like an eternity. All eyes were on Carl and everyone held their breath. There was a lot of traffic on the radio but the only words Breezy could make out were “back-up,” “assistance” and “pursuit.” Every now and then, Carl would speak into the radio and then listen intently to the response.
Finally, Carl looked over at Breezy. “They got him,” was all he said.
Cheering, laughing and clapping erupted around them and, for the first time, Breezy realized the entire neighborhood was standing across the street in front of her house. Well, what was left of it. She was glad they’d caught Frank but she didn’t feel much like cheering. The fire that had destroyed her home was nearly out but it had left very little trace of her belongings behind. The firemen were still busy battling one last, stubborn flame that refused to die. She already dreaded having to sift through the remains. Seeing her home go up in flames from the outside was one thing but seeing what was left of all her belongings spread out and charred while sifting through the ashes was another. She hadn’t been mentally or emotionally prepared for such a destructive and violent act against her. This felt like a horrible nightmare she couldn’t wake up from. God! It was Christmas Eve and these charred ashes were all that remained of her entire life.
As if reading her thoughts, Patrick came to stand behind her. He wrapped his arms around her waist from behind and pulled her tightly against him, letting her know he was there for her…that she could count on him.
Breezy leaned back against his warmth and strength, resting her head against his broad chest. She stared up at her house and sighed deeply.
“Damn,” she whispered softly. Patrick tightened his grip around her waist slightly, waiting for her to say whatever it was she was feeling. She sighed once more, still staring at her home and watching the firemen.
“When I was a little girl, I could never understand why people lied or why they did or said the things they did to intentionally hurt others. Kids use to make fun of me when I couldn’t play outside in the summer because the heat made me sick or because I was tall and skinny at that age. It always hurt my feelings and made me feel bad about myself. The newspapers were always full of stories, too, about someone doing something to hurt someone else…usually someone they cared about. I made a promise to myself at a very early age not to lie, to never break a promise, or to make a promise I couldn’t keep. I promised myself to always look for the good in everyone and to never, ever say or do anything to hurt another living creature. I built my entire life around that promise and I’ve stood by it for 28 years. Now, if the police were to bring Frank here and stand him before me, I know I could cheerfully rip him apart with my bare hands and I hate him more for making me feel this way than for burning down my house. I suppose they are one and the same, though,” she told him.
She closed her eyes, unable to look at her home any longer. This night of destruction and heartache was too much for her to face right now and, without Patrick’s arms around her, she’d collapse where she stood.
He kissed the top of her head and, although he said nothing out loud, he prayed silently that Frank’s crimes against her wouldn’t make her lose faith in everything she believed in. She was the most extraordinary person he’d ever known and he only hoped that the bastard’s ignorance wouldn’t destroy her soul the way it had destroyed her home.
The firemen had finally been able to put that last bit of fire out and were now in the process of loading their equipment back onto the truck. The crowds gathered out front were thinning out, too.
“Tom’s driving Mrs. Princeton back to her house. Come over to my house and get warm, Breezy. We’ll all come back later this afternoon and get started on cleaning this up, okay?” Susan said, standing next to her.
“I’m afraid that won’t be possible, Mrs. Graham. This is arson, which means there’ll have to be an investigation. So, until further notice, this area will be sealed off as a crime scene. Breezy, I’ll do what I can to speed this along so you can salvage what’s left, but it may be a day or two before I can let you come back here,” Carl told them.
“Oh, of course. I’m sorry, Carl. I didn’t think about it like that,” she replied dully.
“Not a problem, ma’am,” he said, touching the brim of his hat and walking away.
“Breezy, you need to come back to the house with me and get warm, please?” Susan pleaded.
“I will…in a little while. Why don’t you go on home? I’ll be there as soon as I can. You’ve got babies to worry about, you know,” she told her.
“No, I’ll wait with you,” Susan said softly. “God, Breezy! I’m so sorry about this. There’s always been something I could say or do in the past to make you feel better, or at least smile, but now this… there’s nothing I can say,” she moaned, tears falling unchecked down her cheeks.
Breezy pulled her close and hugged her. “Not this time, sweetie…not this time,” she whispered.
She let Susan cry on her shoulder for a while longer. “Hush now. Don’t cry.”
“You’re taking this so well, Breezy. If this had happened to me, they’d probably have to sedate me to shut me up,” she said, wiping tears from her eyes.
“It’s all so surreal. I guess it just hasn’t hit me yet. It probably will later when I’ve had time to think…when I see with my own eyes just what all I’ve lost,” she said quietly.
She took Susan’s hand in hers, looked up at Patrick and took his hand, as well. “I’ll get by,” she said, reassuringly. “I’ll make it through.”
Breezy felt a deep need to comfort her friends as they seemed to be taking this harder than she was, at the moment. Later, when she went through the remains of her house…when she had to face Frank in court, she knew she’d need them more than she’d ever needed anything.
The fire truck was just pulling away when Carl approached her again.
“I think you should know that, since Frank had been following you for days, he probably knew you were home. This is not just arson, Breezy. We’re looking at two counts of attempted murder,” he announced solemnly.
Not only did Carl’s words scare the hell out of her, they also made her mad. Frank had been following her for the past three days and she suspected he’d been watching her the entire time…probably from somewhere close by. He’d tried to kill her tonight. Well, she could handle that. She didn’t like it, but she could deal with it. However, he had to have known that Patrick was with her, which meant he had intentionally tried to kill him, too. That thought sent a shiver down her spine and made her furious.
“Who in the hell does this man think he is? He can’t just come along and take a person’s life into his own hands and destroy it,” she hissed angrily.
“I have to know, Carl. What else has he done to be wanted in three other states?” she demanded, wondering just how dangerous Frank had become, and why.
“Besides what we want him for, taking off the minor league stuff, he has warrants out for the following charges: breaking and entering, theft, strong armed robbery, grand theft auto, forgery, and possession of a controlled substance with intent to sell. We’re talking a quarter of a million dollars-worth of cocaine on that one. Resisting arrest, fleeing the scene of a crime, hit and run which resulted in death, and…” Carl broke off, reluctant to tell Breezy the last two charges because she was his friend and he didn’t want to upset her any more than she already was.
“And…?” Breezy asked expectantly.
Carl looked up at Patrick who nodded, needing to know. Breezy needed to know, as well. She deserved to know what Frank was capable of.
“He’s also wanted for rape and murder,” Carl said softly.
“My God!” Breezy whispered in shock and disbelief.
“He’s managed to elude and even escape police custody several times. The man is a regular Houdini. They had him a few times on misdemeanors but he only got a slap on the wrist because the felonies hadn’t been connected to him. The last two charges have solid evidence placing him as the perp and he was picked up on those crimes but managed to escape. No one seems to know how, but we have him now, Breezy. That’s what counts and I will personally see to it that he’s placed under maximum security until we get the legalities all worked out,” Carl promised.
“How could a scumbag like him get away with that all this time?” Patrick wondered.
“Scum always rises to the top, Mr. Day,” Carl said. “It just takes the right judge to come along and scrape it off to be thrown out,” he grumbled.