Candy Apple Dead (5 page)

“I understand why people might not confide in me,” I assured him, putting my feet back on the chair. “What I don’t understand is why they’d choose
you
.”

With a laugh, Wyatt propped his feet onto the last empty chair. We were mirror images of the same reflection, except that he’s a foot taller, and I don’t have a mustache. “What can I say? I’m just the kind of guy folks trust, I guess.”

I made a face to show what I thought of that, but I couldn’t stop thinking about his accusations. I knew firsthand the depth of pain and anger a person could feel in the face of infidelity. I’d felt plenty of both after walking in on Roger and his new girlfriend. But to burn down an entire building and wipe out a man’s life work? That kind of anger was beyond me.

To soothe my irritated nerves, I slid grape, cinnamon, cherry, lemon, and orange sticks into a jar. “Well, whoever set the fire—assuming anybody did—I’m sure somebody will have seen something. You can’t sneeze in this town without somebody knowing about it.” I wedged in root beer, butterscotch, and watermelon. “You were there last night. Did you see anybody hanging around?”

Wyatt lifted his gaze away from what I was doing. “I was where?”

“On Forest Street. I saw you pulling out.”

“What in the hell were you doing on Forest Street? I thought you had a meeting.”

“This was after the meeting, and I wanted some exercise. So did you?”

“Did I what?”

“Did you see anybody hanging around Man About Town?”

His shoulders stiffened noticeably. “How would I know? I wasn’t there.”

“Of course you were. I
saw
you.”

“No you didn’t.”

Was he trying to drive me crazy? “I know your truck, Wyatt.”

“Apparently, you don’t.”

Telling me I’m wrong when I
know
I’m right is guaranteed to set me off. I pushed a licorice stick into the jar with a little too much force and felt it crack in my hand. I removed the broken candy and tossed it into the table. “I
saw
your truck pulling out of the parking lot.”

“There are probably a hundred other trucks just like it around here. I don’t know who you saw last night, but it wasn’t me, okay?”

No, it wasn’t okay. There might have been a hundred Dodge trucks around Paradise, but they weren’t all red, and only one has a license plate that reads EARP.

But Wyatt was finished talking. He shot to his feet and fished keys from his pocket. “I gotta go,” he snarled. “It’s getting late.” He was gone before I could even come up with a way to make him stay.

I stared at the door after he left, listening to the sound of his footsteps on the asphalt and trying to believe what he’d told me. Trouble was, I knew what I’d seen.

Wyatt had been near Man About Town last night and he was lying about it this morning. I couldn’t imagine why, but whatever his reasons, I knew they couldn’t be good.

My conversation with Wyatt preyed on my mind
while I finished packaging the candy jars, but no matter how I replayed the words, they still meant trouble. Hoping to ward off the headache I could feel coming on, I swallowed a couple of ibuprofen and called Brandon’s home number.

Yeah, I was still irritated and hurt over being stood up, but I’m an adult. Tragedy trumps hurt feelings any day of the week.

His answering machine clicked on after five rings, but I hate answering machines, so I hung up and tried his cell phone. One brief ring later, an automated voice informed me that the customer I wanted was either unavailable or out of the calling area.

That might have raised a warning flag if I’d lived in the city, but cell-phone coverage in the mountains is always spotty. He could have been passing Winegar’s Market, where the signal disappears for three blocks. He might have been standing in the shadow of City Hall, where the signal comes and goes like the flashing stoplight on Bear Hollow Road.

It had been half a day since I last talked with Brandon, and while that wasn’t unusual under normal circumstances, the past twelve hours had been anything but normal. On impulse, I locked up the kitchen and set off for Man About Town—what was left of it, anyway. Brandon was probably already there, I told myself. He’d be surveying the damage, talking with his insurance agent, and trying to get his life back in gear. Maybe I couldn’t raise him on the phone, but I could track him down in person and offer to help. It was the least I could do.

I wasn’t the only person in Paradise walking the streets so early in the morning, either. By the time I reached Forest Street, the crowd had grown almost dense—by Paradise standards, anyway. Sadly, the devastation seemed even more complete in the daylight than it had looked the night before. All that remained of Brandon’s store was one partial wall of bricks. The rest had been reduced to a smoking rubble.

My stomach knotted and my heart hung in my chest, heavy and sore. I couldn’t even imagine what I would do or how I would feel in Brandon’s place. I jostled through the crowd and battled a growing irritation. How many of these people were there out of genuine concern? How many out of morbid curiosity?

At the far end of the block I spotted a couple of SUVs bearing the logos of Denver television stations, and my heart sank a little lower. It must have been a slow news day in the city if our fire rated coverage, but I wondered if Brandon would be grateful for or annoyed by the attention.

I strolled through the crowd for a few minutes, occasionally glancing at the ruins and picking up stray bits of conversation. People were speculating like crazy, tossing around theories about how the fire started that ranged everywhere from faulty wiring in the old building to a cigarette thrown from a passing car. I took it as a positive sign that Nate’s arson theory wasn’t being widely circulated. Brandon didn’t need that headache on top of everything else.

When I spotted Lydia Cole, no longer wearing cow pajamas, in a small cluster of people up ahead, I started toward her. I was only a few feet away when Lydia shifted position and Stella Farmer’s frosted hairdo loomed into view. Grinding to a sudden halt, I decided to ask the stern-faced cop standing a few feet away if he’d seen Brandon anywhere.

A few of the guys I knew when I was younger have grown up to be members of Paradise’s finest, but there are plenty of others who aren’t familiar to me. This guy belonged in the second group. I’d never seen him before, but everything about him—from his close-cropped brown hair, to the moustache drooping over his lips, to the mirrors on his sunglass lenses—gave him away. Plus, he was inside the police barricade, leaning against the trunk of a cruiser. He crossed one cowboy boot over the other, and he cradled a steaming cup of coffee in a giant paw.

In sheer size alone, he was intimidating. The disapproving expression on his face didn’t help. “Excuse me, Officer,” I said. “I wonder if you could tell me where to find Brandon Mills?”

He stared at me for a full minute without answering, and every second that passed made me a little more uncomfortable. Like I said, he was a big man, probably in his late forties, and the badge pinned to his jacket labeled him P. Jawarski. He was every bit as tall as Brandon, but without any of the charm. I could have brought peanut brittle to the hard-crack stage in the time it took him to form his reply. “Sorry. I can’t let anybody over there.”

“I don’t really want to go over there,” I assured him. “But I’m a friend of Brandon’s, and I want to make sure he’s okay. And I’d like to help if I can.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched. “Help?”

I nodded slowly and wondered if he was just distracted or if he really was having trouble understanding simple words. “Help,” I said. “You know . . . that thing people do when someone else is in trouble?”

Jawarski nudged the sunglasses down on his nose and looked at me over the tops of the lenses. “There’s nothing you can do, ma’am. Just go on home and let the authorities take care of things around here.”

It was the look that bothered me. I’d seen plenty like it during my marriage and a bunch more at the law firm in Sacramento. It might be the twenty-first century, but the world is still filled with men who treat women as if we’re objects incapable of coherent thought. Jawarski’s look practically screamed “don’t worry your pretty little head about it,” and that’s not an attitude I’m fond of.

I squared up and glared back at him. “I’m not offering to clear rubble,” I said. “And I have no intention of getting in the way of your investigation. I’m just trying to find a friend and offer moral support.”

“Not necessary.”

“Excuse me, but don’t you think Brandon should be the one to decide that?”

Jawarski tugged the glasses a little farther down on his nose, exposing a pair of unfriendly blue eyes. “I think, ma’am, that you should go on about your business. We’ll do whatever needs to be done here.”

I know an immovable object when I run into one. I grew up with Wyatt, remember? So I decided to switch tactics. “Okay. That’s fine. Could you just tell me where to find Nate Svboda then?”

Somehow, those cold blue eyes grew even less friendly. “What do you want with him?”

“With all due respect, Officer . . . Jawarski, is it? That’s something I’d rather discuss with Nate—if you don’t mind.”

It was pretty obvious he
did
mind, but he didn’t say so. His lips curled into an antagonistic smile, and he squared up in front of me into a cop stance. “Nate’s a little busy at the moment. Why don’t I have him contact you as soon as he’s free?”

I was already feeling frustrated, and Jawarski’s bullish-ness didn’t help. I was all ready to launch into an argument when the cameraman from a nearby news crew shifted his camera toward us, probably hoping to catch a bit of spice for the evening news. A blond man standing beside me jerked backward to avoid the camera shot, then turned and plowed straight into me as if he didn’t even see me standing there. He crunched my toe underfoot and plunged into the crowd with nothing more than a mumbled apology. He was built like the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, and my toe began to throb painfully.

“Hey!” I shouted after him, but he didn’t bother looking back. I rubbed my tender shoulder and scowled at the scuff mark on my shoe. “Jerk.” To add insult to injury, I turned back to offer my next argument and caught sight of P. Jawarski’s broad shoulders disappearing into the crowd across the street. “It’s not a win if you run away,” I shouted after him.

I don’t know if he heard me or not. He didn’t let on.

Fine. Without him there to stop me, I scooted past the barricade and climbed onto the bumper of the police car. The slight advantage I gained didn’t net many results. I was just pondering the pros and cons of climbing a little higher when a woman’s voice sounded behind me. “Abby? What are you doing?”

With a muffled scream, I jumped from the car and turned to find Rachel Summers scowling at me from the legal side of the barricade. I don’t think I’ve mentioned how exquisitely beautiful Rachel is or how much I envy her. If she is spun sugar, I’m a sugar cube.

Her dark hair is blunt cut in the latest style, and I’m pretty sure she spends hours every morning getting that casually tousled look just right. I’ve tried to achieve the same effect, but no matter how much product I apply or time I spend, my hair looks as if I haven’t brushed it.

Rachel was dressed for success this morning in a pair of tailored black slacks, stiletto-heeled boots, and a black leather jacket over a cotton-candy pink shell, and I’m almost positive she was angling to get herself into the camera shot. “What are you doing?” she asked again.

I think she was talking to me, but I couldn’t be sure. Her eyes were focused on the reporter. “Looking for Brandon. Have you seen him?”

“Brandon?” She seemed almost confused by my question for half a second, then her attention seemed to snap into focus. “I just got here a few minutes ago. It’s a nightmare, isn’t it?”

“That’s one word for it,” I agreed. “Have you—”

“I guess this is one way to get out of a lease, huh?” she asked, cutting me off. “A bit melodramatic, but effective.”

My mouth snapped shut on the rest of the question I was about to ask, and I tugged her as far away from the camera as I could get her. “What are you talking about? Brandon didn’t want out of his lease. He loves that building.”

“That old thing?” Rachel angled a glance at me. “You’re not serious, are you?”

“It was a beautiful building,” I insisted. “And Brandon thought so, too.”

Rachel laughed. When she realized I wasn’t laughing with her, she sobered. “You’re serious, aren’t you? Does this mean he hasn’t talked to you about letting go of your location?”

“Of course he hasn’t.”

“Then you must be the only one he’s missed.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. “Do you know that for a fact, or is that just a rumor you’ve heard around somewhere?”

Rachel shrugged. “I know for a fact that he talked to me. And to Tony Pizzo and Corelle Davies. As for the rest . . .” She swept an arm toward the crowd. “Ask them yourself.”