Incandescent (15 page)

“Okay,” she acquiesced. “Let me grab my bag
and tell Gretchen where we’re going.”

While Aaron stacked the papers and replaced
them in a folder, Anna went into the living room to wake
Gretchen.

“Go sleep on my bed,” Anna offered. “I’m
going with Aaron. We’ll be back in the morning,” she added.

Gretchen let Anna pull her to her feet. She
trudged past the dining room towards the staircase. Looking at
Aaron, she said, “Good night, Dickhead,” winking at him.

Aaron smirked at her, shaking his head while
Anna rolled her eyes.

He slid the laptop into his backpack. Pulling
his truck keys from his pocket, he turned to Anna. “Let’s go. You
set the alarm and I’ll make sure the door is locked behind us.”

The man sat in his car. Dawn brightened the
sky with tendrils of pink and gold. In the distance, on the other
side of the river, a low-hanging fog bank hugged the
mountainside.

He sipped the power drink, waiting for the
caffeine to hit his system.

He slept, though not much. He watched from a
distance as the two shadowy figures left Braddock’s house in the
middle of the night. When the truck drove by his hiding place, he’d
seen their profiles. It wasn’t difficult to guess their
destination.

He took his time getting back to the motel.
There wasn’t any reason to hurry. He’d rented a ground-floor room
in the motel, across the parking lot from Aaron’s.

He stood next to the window listening to the
occasional laugh or murmured voice over the soft music of the
television. He couldn’t see any movement behind the thick curtains.
He waited until it was obvious the woman would be staying the rest
of the night. He returned to his car. She had to leave sometime and
when she did, he’d be ready.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Judge Johnson peeked into his daughter’s room
and saw the huddled mass under the covers. He decided to let her
sleep. He went downstairs and fed his dog, and put on a pot of
coffee. Still wearing his slippers and robe, he opened the front
door, slamming it shut when a high-pitched beeping started. “Shoot!
I forgot about the alarm,” he said when Fred sat back on his
haunches. James punched in the code and the beeping stopped. “Now
we go out, Freddie boy.”

He opened the door and lifted his face to the
light. He bent down to retrieve the newspaper while Fred ambled to
his favorite corner of the yard. While the dog lifted his leg on
several bushes and sniffed at rabbit doots in the grass, James
surveyed the neighborhood. Everything looked normal.

He’d lived in the quiet neighborhood for more
than twenty years, and he knew all its occupants. He wondered if
anyone had noticed a stranger, and decided he should speak with the
marshal about canvassing the area. He walked over to his garage and
tested the door. It was locked. He went to the side of the house
and tried the exterior garage door. It didn’t budge. He examined
the faint scratches on the door made by the intruder who placed the
bomb in his car. The alarm company technician pointed it out to him
the day before. The Eaton police officer responding to his call
told him the door’s hardware should be replaced. The simple knob
was too easy to pick with a sanded-down allen wrench or a small
screwdriver. A locksmith would replace it today and check on all
the house’s points of entry.

By the time he’d finished his survey, Fred
waited for him on the front stoop. The old dog thumped his tail as
James approached.

“Ready for breakfast?” James let the dog into
the house and followed the sound of clicking nails into the
kitchen.

As he moved through his morning routine,
making coffee and emptying the garbage, he heard footsteps on the
staircase. Fred thumped his tail.

“Morning sweetie,” he called over his
shoulder as he opened the door to the garage. He dropped the trash
bag into a can and came back into the kitchen.

Gretchen stood in the archway, stretching.
She yawned and rubbed her short tousled hair. “Mmm, smells good,”
she said. She lurched to the coffee pot and poured the brew into a
cup. “Oh yeah, Anna’s not here,” she said.

James tensed. “Where is she?”

Gretchen grinned. “Sorry, Pop, she left with
Aaron last night.”

James looked nervous. The last thing he
wanted to think about was his daughter in a sexual
relationship.

The front door slammed, saving him from
responding to Gretchen’s remark. He closed his eyes in relief when
he heard Anna’s greeting.

She entered the kitchen alone and made a
beeline for the coffee pot. “Thank God, just what I needed,” she
murmured.

James glanced toward the entry. “Where’s
Marshal Tahir?”

Anna exchanged glances with Gretchen and
received a saucy wink. “Too late. He knows,” Gretchen staged
whispered.

Anna placed her cup on the counter and opened
the refrigerator, pushing aside contents as she rummaged for cream
cheese. “He’s on his way to Harrisburg,” she said. “He said he
needed to search the archives there.”

She dropped a bagel into the toaster and
depressed the lever. “Do you guys want one?” she asked, avoiding
eye contact.

James frowned. His daughter’s nonchalant act
disarmed him. “What’s our next step?” As a man of the law, he
preferred action.

“He said he’ll contact us as soon as he knows
anything.”

This time James recognized the frustration
behind her facade. Anna’s mask was in place, hiding her hurt from
the world.

“Did you two have a disagreement?” James
asked.

“Disagree? That’s an understatement,” Anna
said. She sipped her coffee. “He drives me crazy. I can’t get him
to believe us about the batteries,” she said. “He keeps brushing it
off as ‘too circumstantial.’”

James inclined his head. “He’s right, honey.
I can tell you if it were my court, I’d say the same thing.
Feelings and intuition are not concrete evidence.”

She slammed the cup on the counter. “So this
creep gets away with trying to kill Lacey?”

“I’m not saying that,” James assured his
daughter. “I’m saying we have to let Aaron do his job. If he can’t
prove arson in one case, however, there’s a connection to another
arson case, then the perp still goes down.”

“If he’s caught,” Gretchen added.

James swiveled to look at both women. “He
will be. Have faith in the system. Plus, the FBI is involved now.
Aaron isn’t working alone and he’s is not the lead investigator on
the car bomb. Like I said, give him time to gather the evidence he
needs.”

“Meanwhile, this guy is still out there,”
Anna said. “What do we do? How do we protect ourselves?”

James wrapped his arms around Anna, and
rubbed her back. “We stay here for now and wait to hear back from
Aaron. We have a new security system. I’ll call the department and
see if we can increase patrols of the neighborhood.”

Gretchen sat crosslegged on the bed, filing
her nails while a morose Anna lay beside her, staring at the
ceiling.

“So, are you going to tell me what he did?
Why you’re pissed off?” Gretchen asked.

Anna rolled to her side and snorted. Propping
her head in her hand, she waited for Gretchen to look at her. “For
one thing, he thinks I’m an idiot. For another, he just walked
out.”

“He doesn’t think you’re an idiot,” Gretchen
said, pausing to blow grit from her nails. “He just doesn’t know
Lacey like we do. And what do you mean, ‘he just walked out?’”

Anna frowned. “This morning, while I was in
the shower, I heard him talking on the phone. When I came out of
the bathroom, he was packing to leave. He brushed me off.”

She rolled onto her back. “He tossed his bags
into his truck, along with me, and acted like he couldn’t wait to
get rid of me.”

“Did he kiss you goodbye? Did he say when
he’d be back?”

“Well, sort of,” Anna said. “He tried to kiss
me, but I was so angry, I wouldn’t look at him. I just jumped out
of the truck. And no, he didn’t say he’d be returning. Oh God, I
don’t know. What’s wrong with me? I’m acting like I’m
fourteen.”

“Did you ever think you might be in love?”
Gretchen’s query struck a nerve.

Anna sprang from the bed and paced the room.
“Give me a break. He’s an arrogant jerk.”

“You haven’t answered my question.”

Anna clenched her fists at her side. “I can’t
be. So no, I’m not.”

Gretchen tossed the nail file onto the
dresser. “Why can’t you be? What’s wrong with it? You don’t think
two people can fall in love over night?”

“Well, someone like you, maybe,” Anna said.
“Not that you’re different or anything …” she tapered off at
Gretchen’s scowl. “What I mean is, you’re open and cheerful and
happy-go-lucky. I’m not. I’m a ….”

“Party pooper?” Gretchen suggested. “Priss
pot?”

“No,” Anna said. “Okay, well maybe. I don’t
get close to people. I’m like my mother, I suppose.”

“You mean, you’re afraid you might be like
her. You don’t want to be,” Gretchen said. “Look, I know how you
feel about her. She’s gone and she can’t hurt you anymore. You
think opening up to Aaron means you’re going to get hurt, or
abandoned. Yeah, it might happen. But,” Gretchen added with a
smile, “it might not. You have to have faith in someone. Seems to
me he’s a pretty good guy.”

“Well, it doesn’t matter anymore. He’s gone
back to his little world and it’s over. I’m just a notation in
another report,” Anna said, turning her head so Gretchen wouldn’t
see the tear forming in the corner of her eye. She wiped it
away.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Thanks, that’s good news for us, at least,”
James said. Anna stepped through the garage door, Fred still on his
leash, in time to see James hang up the phone.

“Who was that? And what’s good news?”

“Marshal Tahir,” he said. “There have been a
couple of fires this week in New York matching the Bronx Blazer’s
M.O. There’s also a letter from someone purporting to be him and
taking credit.”

Anna unclipped Fred and hung the leash on a
hook by the door. “Oh no! Was anyone hurt?”

“No, not this time,” James said. “In each
instance, the fire detector batteries were dead. Not only that,
they were all the same brand as the ones in Lacey’s house. Tahir is
convinced there is an arsonist and he’s back in New York. He’s on
his way there to investigate.”

“So, now he believes me about the batteries?
I suppose this means we’re not on lock down anymore?”

Anna’s stomach uncoiled at her father’s
nod.

She crossed her arms and leaned against the
counter. “So, I was right. The fire was set by someone. And you
think it was someone you know? From when you were in the Army? Why
would someone be targeting you now?”

James poured a cup of coffee. He offered it
to Anna. When she shook her head, he placed it on the counter and
added the low-calorie sweetener he preferred. He stirred the cup
and spoke in a halting voice. “It’s strange. I can’t figure it out.
Who would hold a grudge against me for so long? I mean, I was an
Army specialist. Nobody with any power or importance.”

“So, you’re thinking it might not be someone
from your past? Do you think it may be someone from a recent
trial?”

“I can’t say,” he said. “I’ve gone over my
cases from the past few years and nothing sinister cropped up. This
town has its share of crazies, but none I think are capable of
making and planting a car bomb or burning down my daughter’s
home.”

Anna stared into space, her eyes distant and
sad as she recalled the events of the past month. As one thought
lead to another, her face twisted into a frown.

“Did he ask to speak with me?”

“No, I told him you weren’t here when I
answered.” James sipped his coffee.

Anna rolled her eyes. “It’s alright, Dad. You
don’t have to make excuses for him. We don’t have a relationship
and he doesn’t owe me any explanations.”

James reached out and squeezed her arm. “Just
wait and see how it plays out. Don’t give up on him yet. He’s
working on a tough case.”

“Too tough he can’t even call me? Can’t
apologize for not believing me,” she said, sarcasm dripping as she
drawled “Riiiiight. I’m not giving up on anything, Dad. There is
nothing to give up. We have no relationship. It was just a ….”

She couldn’t finish the sentence. If she said
“fling,” she was admitting she’d had a meaningless affair to her
father. She flinched.

Anna headed for the stairs. “I’m going to
take a shower. I have a class this evening,” she said.

Her cell phone rang in her pocket. She
glanced at the screen before answering, her shoulders slumping.

“Hello? Oh, hi Rand. I’m fine, how are you?
That’s sweet, but I’m working tonight.” Her voice faded as she
marched up the stairs and down the hall.

Dismayed, James watched his daughter’s
retreating back. Despite Anna’s protests, he knew she was incapable
of having a shallow relationship. What she felt for Aaron Tahir had
to be significant, or she wouldn’t have ….

He tamped down the thought. He clicked his
tongue, calling Fred. “Come on, old boy. Let’s go watch some
TV.”

The man parked in the Marshall College lot
near a battered Honda. The lot was remote and except for two cars,
empty and silent. Night classes would end soon and the students
would straggle out before joining their friends at a dorm party or
the local club. In his opinion, college students had too much time
on their hands. He’d been watching the lot for several weeks and
most conversations he’d overheard pertained to getting drunk or
high or laid.

It was time.

He pulled a can of insulating foam sealant
from a plastic shopping bag and affixed the straw to the nozzle. He
exited the car, cringing as the interior light came on. He closed
the door and waited several seconds before the light faded. He
moved to the rear driver’s side of Anna’s Honda, dropped to the
asphalt, and rolled under the vehicle. He pulled a penlight from
his shirt pocket and turned it on. The red lens spared his night
vision and he located the car’s exhaust pipe. He positioned the can
of foam spray so the straw reached as far as possible into the
pipe, then he depressed the nozzle. The foam pushed back on the
straw as it filled the cavity.