Lucky Break (37 page)

I let myself into Romeo’s unmarked, ignoring the squeaky hinges and lumpy seat.
 
For the short ride, I didn’t bother with trying to fish the seatbelt out from between the seats.
 
“What’d they do, rescue this thing from the crusher at the junkyard?”

“Still working my way up.”
 
Romeo looked a bit fresher and he’d changed clothes.
 
“I won’t be sorry to turn this one in.
 
Maybe I’ll get one that doesn’t require two quarts at every fill-up.”

“Still, you’d think the department could spring for cars manufactured in this decade.”
 
As a fan of classic cars, I was torn—criticizing what was probably two years from being a classic felt like a betrayal.
 
Romeo and I filled each other in on what we knew.
 
It didn’t take long, which didn’t make me happy.
 
We suspected a lot but knew very little. In this sort of game that was akin to having our ears to the ground and our asses in the air—not a defensible position.

“We have the button and the photo.” Romeo ran through the high points, summing up. “But no jacket and no tape placing the guy, Sam?”
 
I confirmed with a nod.
 
“We have nothing placing him in the kitchen where Holt Box was killed.”

“Eyewitnesses?” I knew there were like a million people in that kitchen.

Romeo blew out a sharp breath.
 
“Very unreliable even if they did remember something, which, in this case, nobody does.
 
Everyone was wearing a white jacket and was busy with their own tasks.”

Nothing but loose ends, questions with no answers.
 
Speculation with no proof.
 
“What about the tapes Forrest gave you?
 
Anything there?”

He darted a glance my direction.
 
“Rented van, abandoned on the west side. Trace in it is overwhelming, as you can imagine.
 
Trying to match a set of fingerprints or anything to this crime will be a half-inch short of a miracle.”

“Clever.
 
But expected.”
 
I shifted as an unruly spring poked me in the butt.
 
“Any shots that can help us identify the guys?
 
Do you smell gasoline?”

“Yeah.
 
Got a full tank and there’s a leak in there somewhere.
 
No facial shots—they knew where the cameras were.”

“Pros.” I expected that too, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t disappointed.

“Weird thing, though.
 
After watching the two of them, I got the impression one was a woman.”

That
I wasn’t expecting. “Really?
 
Anybody we know?”

As we approached the Presidio, I rolled down the window in Romeo’s rattletrap, having to press the glass down the last few inches.
 
I stuck my head out and peered up at my apartment.
 
A huge hole gaped where my bedroom used to be.
 
Curiously, one curtain billowed through the hole, only partially burned.
 
Soot and smoke blackened the building above, but it looked like the fire had been contained quickly, my apartment taking the brunt of it.

“Like I said, they were careful.”
 
Romeo, looking like a kid behind the large steering wheel, turned up the drive to the Presidio, parking in the same spot I’d left the Ferrari in yesterday.
 
He killed the engine and pocketed the key.
 
“I gave the tapes to our forensics staff.
 
They have this gait analysis that might help us.”

“Is that admissible in court?”

He had the door open and one leg out, catching the breeze and letting in more of the stench that still perfumed the air and clenched my stomach.
 
“At this point, I don’t care.
 
If we have an idea of who, I’m sure we can catch them clean.”

“Since we’re doing such a great job as it is.”
 
Hanging back, I let Romeo lead us up the drive.
 
Unlike the rubberneckers on the highway, I never liked seeing the aftermath of an accident.
 
Although the fire was no accident, it was a loss just the same, perhaps worse.
 
And witnessing the devastation made it hurt.

Forrest rushed to greet me the moment I stepped inside the foyer, his face, his whole body crumpled with distress.
 
The smell of smoke lingered here, subtle yet noticeable. “Miss Lucky, I am so sorry.
 
This is all my fault.”
 
He blocked my way, taking both of my hands in his huge mitts.
 
“I let the plumbers in.
 
It had to be them.”
 
His gaze shifted to Romeo.
 
“Right?”

“I don’t know yet.”
 
He moved to step around Forrest, subtle in his hinting.

Subtle was no longer a tool in my toolbox.
 
I disengaged my hands.
 
“Forrest.
 
It is what it is.
 
I’ve called servicemen before and forgotten to tell you.
 
Why would you think this was any different?
 
Perhaps we need to change that policy, but that is for later consideration by the Homeowners Association.
 
I don’t blame you.
 
I blame myself.”

His shoulders turned in.
 
With his head hanging low between them, he looked like a chastised puppy.
 

I didn’t know what else to say, so I did what I always do—I changed the subject.
 
“Have the other tenants been allowed back into their homes?”

“Yes.
 
They got the fire out pretty quickly, containing it to your place really.
 
There’s enough smoke damage to Mr. Teddie’s that he won’t want to stay there until it’s been cleaned.
 
No structural damage, just cosmetic.”
 
Again, his face scrunched; he looked like he wanted to cry.

I knew exactly how he felt.

Romeo steered me by the elbow around Forrest, propelling me toward the elevators.
 
“They’ve restored service.
 
We won’t need to use the stairs.”

That was a good thing.
 
Thirty flights of stairs.
 
After having survived the blast, I didn’t want to meet an ignominious end dying of apoplexy halfway home.
 
Neither of us said anything, and I studiously avoided looking at Romeo’s reflection as I tried to ignore the stronger smell of smoke and fire.

The elevator slowed.
 
I prepared myself, but nothing could’ve prepared me for the sight that greeted me when the doors opened.
 
A blackened shell.
 
That’s all that was left.
 
Acrid dark water pooled in the low spots on the floor.
 
My furniture reduced to piles of cinders.
 
The color erased from the walls, the artwork gone.
 
As if my life had disappeared.

“Wow,” Romeo whispered.
 

“Not exactly the word I was reaching for, but, yeah, wow.”
 
Hurt unfurled in my belly, squeezing my heart.
 
I’m sure in the days to come I’d reach for something, forgetting it was gone, rekindling the incredible sense of loss that overwhelmed me now, stealing my voice, and erasing me.
 
I’d thought I was prepared.

I was wrong.

Not wanting roots to grow, I moved slowly though the great room, pausing, remembering where furniture was placed, hoping for the comfort of a memory and finding none—as if the memories had burned with the inanimate objects that triggered them.
 
It was all gone, a clean slate, the past reduced to smoke that drifted away on the wind.
 
A part of me, defined by the space I’d created, was gone now too.
 
Did that leave more space for the me I was yet to be, or simply a hole that would remain, a testament to who I used to be?

Sadness weighed on me; yet, underneath I sensed buoyancy unconstrained by the tether of past choices.
 
Romeo walked beside me, a reverence in his posture, quiet and reflective.

“It’s just things,” I told him.

He glanced at me, unsure.
 
“Things.”

“They can be replaced.”
 
I took in the devastation, imagining the heat that tore through my home, turning everything to cinder and ash.
 
“Could’ve been me in here.
 
Or one of my friends.”

“I still can’t believe how close you came.”

He had no idea.
 
One decision to walk down memory lane, to deal with the ghosts, the what-ifs and the why-nots.
 
Had I just gone to bed, I’d be dead.

In a way, Teddie had saved me.

Now it was my turn to return the favor.
 
“Let’s see what the pros have to tell us.”

The investigator with the Clark County Fire Department looked about as old as Romeo, both of them kids dressing up for Halloween.
 
Slicked down, carefully cut dark hair, a fresh face yet to be introduced to a razor on a regular basis, piercing blue eyes that looked older than the mountains—interesting pieces to the puzzle of an investigator that stood eye-to-eye with me.
 
“Fred Stone, Fire Investigator.”
 
His voice was unexpectedly deep, like a spirit speaking through a medium and as unnerving.
 
“You’re Ms. O’Toole, the owner?”
 

“Yes.”

“You’re lucky.”

“Yes.”
 

Knowing the guy wasn’t following, Romeo looked uncomfortable.
 
He knew my wise-ass, and this wasn’t it.

“In two ways,” I explained, taking pity.
 
“My name is Lucky, as in Luciano, but I also am aware that being alive today makes me very lucky indeed.”

“Yes, ma’am,” the inspector intoned like Sergeant Friday.

A bad day, and a bad act.
 
How lucky could I get?
 
“Any idea what caused the fire?”

“Yes, ma’am.”
 
As he led us back through the bedroom into the bathroom and dressing room, I tried not to think of the things that were no more.
 
The clothes could be replaced.
 
The shoes, too.
 
But the jewelry, each piece a memory, a celebration of a life event, a milestone.
 
That I would miss.

The investigator—Stone, was that his name?—knelt down next to the melted mound of my former jetted tub.
 
“They planted the device here, a charge carefully designed to blow straight out.”
 
We followed his gesture into the bedroom and out the window.
 
The bed was in the direct path of the blast.
 
“If you’d been taking a bath, getting ready for bed, sleeping … any one of those things and you’d …” he trailed off not wanting to state the obvious, I guessed.
 
“You were home?” he asked me.

“Yes.
 
Well, sort of.”
 
I waffled, then decided the truth was the only way to go.
 
“I was upstairs.”

I felt Romeo look at me.
 
I thought maybe he might understand, but I didn’t know.

I explained about the back staircase, passing off my foray upstairs to checking on the place, since I knew Teddie wouldn’t be home for a bit.
 
The investigator didn’t ask where he was.
 
Maybe he knew.
 
It didn’t matter.

“Perhaps you could tell the owner there was some pretty serious smoke damage?”

“Will do.”
 
Teddie was coming home today, at least that’s what his lawyer had promised.
 
And, somehow, I felt Squash Trenton didn’t welch on his promises.
 
So Teddie would have to find a new home to come home to.

Apparently, Romeo and I were riding the same track.
 
“House arrest at the Babylon?
 
Your old apartment?”

“Doable.
 
Set it up with Jerry, but you’re going to have to clear it with Mona.”

Romeo looked like I’d asked him to donate an organ or something.
 
“Don’t worry,” I assured him.
 
“Mona and Teddie are tight.
 
She’ll be nice.”

Romeo’s disbelief was written over every square inch.
 
He’d have to grow a set sometime when it came to Mona and other pushy women, myself excluded, of course.
 
But I wasn’t going to tell him that.

“Do you have any idea who might have done this?” Investigator Stone’s expression didn’t change, his monotone consistent despite the gravity of the topic.
 

One way of coping, I guess.
 
But spontaneous self-combustion could be a future downside.

Romeo and I filled him in on what we knew and what we believed.
 
It took a while.
 
He listened without speaking, only occasionally tapping a note or two into an iPad.
 
When we’d finished, he tucked his pad away, and then reached into his pocket, pulling out a plastic bag he handed to me.

A gold button.
 
With a familiar crest embossed in the metal.
 
It still gleamed, unadulterated by the fire.

“Where’d you find that?” I asked, transfixed by the audacity.

“In the drain of your tub, affixed to the grate with a wire.
 
I’m assuming it’s not yours?”

“Do I look like the kind of gal who does gold crested buttons?”
 
Both men looked at me like I’d just asked them if my slacks made my butt look fat.
 
“Not a trick question.
 
No, the button is not mine.”