Dash of Peril

Page 41

“Like family,” Logan said defensively.
Whoa. Dash would have said only “more familiar.” But family? Yeah. That covered it as far as he was concerned. Nice that his brother understood it, as well.
He just hoped the teasing didn’t scare Margo off. At the moment, she looked a little frozen.
“I sympathize,” Rowdy told her. “I felt the same way at first myself. But you might as well get used to it.”
Dash pulled her closer, pleased that the guys all understood what Margo hadn’t yet accepted. “And as long as you’re adjusting to that...I’m sorry if I worried you.”
She sucked in an angry breath, ready to blast them all...but deflated. “It’s difficult.”
Reese laughed at her. “Lighten up, Margaret. He’s a big boy. He can handle himself.”
“You—”
Logan cut in. “You have to admit, the dynamics are different now.”
Instead, she shifted her gaze from Logan to Reese and back again—and changed the subject. “We need to know if Cannon leaked our story about evidence, and to whom. Same with you, Rowdy.”
“Sorry, but I already checked. This doesn’t connect back to me. In fact, I’m not convinced it’s even related.”
Dash wasn’t surprised when Margo agreed.
“Our visitor is no more than a local yahoo, a dime-store thug who someone paid to come to my house—specifically, my house—to set a kerosene fire. He claims he doesn’t know or care why.”
“Who hired him?” Rowdy asked.
Logan filled him in. “A man in a dark car gave him the kerosene and twenty bucks and told him he’d give him two hundred more after he caused the vandalism. He never got a name.”
“Vandalism, huh?” What a schmuck, Dash thought. “Is that what he called it?”
“Yes.”
“He said he thought the house was supposed to be empty.” Rubbing her forehead, Margo drew a steadying breath that every one of the men noticed.
Dash bristled again.
“The thing is,” she continued, “Oliver startled him, and once he’d run through the kerosene, our intruder didn’t want to light it.”
Reese, too, gave Oliver a few affectionate pats. “Luckily, the little worm is pet-friendly. He doesn’t mind burning down a house, and possibly two sleeping people, but he drew the line at frying an animal.”
“Thank God for small favors,” Dash said, holding the old cat protectively closer. In a very short time he’d grown fond of the cat—and not just because Margo so clearly loved him.
“I suspect he’s telling the truth, that he doesn’t know anything more. But you two,” Margaret said to Logan and Reese, “will of course question him further.”
They agreed.
“The idea of the ‘dark car’...” Reese shook his head. “I don’t know. A lot of people drive dark cars. That part could be pure coincidence.”
“That reminds me. Hold up a second.” Margo went to her office. They all heard the hum of the printer, and less than a minute later she returned with several sheets of paper. She gave one to Logan, one to Rowdy. “Dash and I were doing some computer work when the firebug showed up. Notice the unique rims on the truck? We located a local dealer who sells a customizable rim identical to them.” She handed out more papers with the name and address of the dealership.
“Could lead to an address for the driver.”
Margo nodded. “I want you two to check out the dealership.”
Reese checked his watch. “Soon as it opens.”
“Rowdy, I thought maybe you could do some more asking on the street.”
“Consider it done.”
“The way things are heating up, I need everyone on their toes—and reporting back promptly.”
Over Margo’s head, Dash shared a look with his brother. “I think the biggest problem now is that your address is out there. I mean, not only did someone send that bastard here, but that reporter asked a lot of questions and took some pictures. It’s probably going to be on the news. Everyone will know where you live.”
“Why the hell was a reporter here anyway?” Rowdy wanted to know. “They sure as hell don’t chase down every cop car that pulls onto a scene.”
“Someone had to have alerted them...of something.” More or less herding them all, Dash got everyone into the living room. Reese leaned up against the wall. Rowdy sat at the edge of a chair. Margo settled into the center of her couch and immediately reached for Oliver.
Taking the seat next to her, Dash handed over the big cat. He was now more dry than not and began grooming himself.
Logan went to her other side. “Someone wanted us to assume the perp was hired by the same men who visited the pawnshop.”
Margo shook her head. “I don’t like assumptions.”
“It does feel off,” Logan agreed. “The thugs from the pawnshop wouldn’t care about a cat.”
“Agreed. So what are you thinking?” Reese considered things. “We all agree it’s not part of the underground  p**n o operation, but because of the kerosene, it was made to look as if it is.”
“Someone,” Rowdy said, “is conveniently using one thing to instigate another.”
That cryptic comment could have been confusing, but Dash knew exactly what he meant. “Someone on the inside track is working against you.”
It gave him a very bad feeling, but Margo only seemed thoughtful.
He didn’t want to voice the possibility, but more than that he wanted Margo protected—even if that meant protecting her from those closest to her.
“How did the guy get in?” He knew he would have heard the crash of breaking glass, but if someone picked a lock...
“Through the bathroom attached to her bedroom,” Reese explained. “The window was jimmied open. He must have crawled in after you two were already in the lieutenant’s office.”
Margo stared down at the cat as she stroked him. “The window locks securely. There’s no way to ‘jimmy’ it open.”
“The lock wasn’t broken,” Logan said.
Rowdy couldn’t understand the ramifications as he pressed her. “Lieutenant?”
She glanced at Dash, then away.
Did she want him to keep quiet? Was that her way of saying to stay out of it?
Like hell.
“If you two have something to share,” Logan said, “now would be the time.”
“I have to wonder,” Margo said, all business again. “Any chance you two were followed when you came to visit?”
Immediately Reese and Logan objected.
“Definitely not.”
“Hell, no.”
She held up a hand, silencing them. “I didn’t really think so. Even if you had been, it wouldn’t explain the open window.” She took a really big breath—and turned to Dash. “When my dad was here...which bathroom did he use?”
He should have known she’d have the same suspicion. Margo wasn’t a dummy. She was, unfortunately, tough as nails, in part due to her father’s never-ending hostility.
“I didn’t follow him in.” Dash wanted to hold her, but she’d hate that. With the others present he knew she’d insist on showing her strength. “I just waited at the door.”
Logan sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands hanging loose. “Your father was here?”
“He and West came by to...check on me.”
Cursing softly, Reese pushed away from the wall.
Dash and Rowdy were left in the dark. He wouldn’t ask her now, not in front of everyone.
Rowdy didn’t have the same reserve. “Someone want to fill me in?”
Silence. Dash felt the tension mounting—until Margo shook it off. She faced Rowdy with cool composure. “This goes no further.”
“Who the hell would I tell?”
She smiled as if she saw the humor in that. “My father was chief of police before he retired.”
“I knew that.”
“But you probably didn’t know that I forced him to retire. And unfortunately, he’s never forgiven me for that.”
* * *
BREATHING HARD, EXCITEMENT making him clumsy, Saul ran down the polished hallway and into his brother’s posh office. It had taken him thirty excruciating minutes to get there, the drive feeling endless. He’d wanted to speed, but Curtis was strict about things like that. Other than their playtimes, which they deserved—and the occasional need to snuff someone who got in the way—they were to live as law-abiding citizens, the same as the good, ordinary, insignificant people.
As slow as the drive had been, the elevator to the twenty-sixth floor seemed more so. By the time Saul got to the posh office that encompassed the entire floor, he forgot the general rule about always knocking first.
Curtis was on the phone behind his massive mahogany desk when Saul literally fell in through the doorway with a lot of noise and fanfare.
Toby, sitting on the couch with a cup of coffee, lurched forward, his gun already drawn. Seeing Saul, he scowled and put the gun away, then cursed over the coffee he’d spilled everywhere.
“I’ll call you back,” Curtis said into the phone. Frowning, he stood as he placed the landline phone back into the cradle. “What is it?”
Trying to catch his breath, Saul hung on the doorknob. This was his opportunity to redeem himself and he almost pissed himself in his excitement. “I know where she lives.”
Curtis circled around his desk. “She who?”
“That nosy cop. The one that got away.” Why couldn’t he ever remember names? It infuriated Curtis when he had to dance around without details. “The one Toby tried to follow today.”
Toby narrowed his eyes. “The one you let get away!”
Curtis raised a hand, silencing them both. “Get in here and shut the goddamned door.”
Saul slammed it behind him, wiped the sweat off his bald head, then pressed his damp palms to the front of his slacks.
Curtis rested a hip on his desk, studying Saul. “You’re talking about Lieutenant Margaret Peterson.”
“Yeah, her. Someone broke into her house. Someone acting like us!”
Curtis’s frown darkened more. “Calmly, Saul, tell me what you mean. Who acted like us? How?”
Saul drew a deep breath and slowly blew it out. “Someone tried to burn her house down with kerosene, but she and the dude stopped him.”
Curtis and Toby shared a look. “You’re not making any sense.”
God, why couldn’t Curtis ever understand him? He took another step forward. “The cops arrested him. I was watching the TV and I saw the whole report. They said some masked guy broke into her place and dumped kerosene everywhere.”
“But he didn’t light it?”
“No. Something about there being a cat and he didn’t want it hurt—”