Her Colton Lawman. Carla CassidyЧитать онлайн книгу.
every item from the bright yellow throw pillows on the sofa to the little water fountain that sat on one of her coffee tables. Gone...they were gone.
She saw Flint talking to a man she recognized as Stan Burrell, the fire chief. She watched the two men for only a moment and then turned her attention back to the house in time to see the roof collapse.
Numb. She was completely numb as she realized she’d lost everything. The flowered pink lamp in her bedroom, the cheerful daisy arrangement that had greeted her each morning on her kitchen table...everything was destroyed.
Had there been a wiring problem? Had she accidentally left on an appliance that morning that had shorted out and started the fire? How on earth had this happened?
Her neighbors stood on the sidewalk. Thank God there was no wind tonight, nothing to aid a spark from finding its way to their homes. In any case, it appeared that the firefighters had given up attempting to save her place and instead worked to make sure the fire remained contained to her home alone.
It was probably easy to contain a fire that had already consumed everything inside, she thought in despair and watched an outside wall fall inward. She wasn’t even aware she was crying until she reached a hand up to her cheek and found it wet.
How had this happened? Her life was suddenly a scene from some crazy movie she didn’t want to watch. Her mind worked desperately to find the positives. Thank God she hadn’t been home and she didn’t have any pets.
Thank God she had good insurance. She could use the cot in the diner and live in the back storage room until she rebuilt. Thank God it was just things that had been destroyed and things could always be replaced.
Still, no matter how many positives she tried to make of the situation, she continued to cry silently. She’d thought she’d left all the bad things behind her when she left home. She’d believed that had been the worst time in her life, but tonight was right up there on the list of terrible things she had endured in her lifetime.
Flint returned to the car, a tense pulse in his jaw working overtime. “I’ll have a full report sometime tomorrow, but there’s no question in Stan’s mind that this was arson. The ignition points appear to be all four corners of the house, and he believes gasoline was used as an accelerant. Somebody intentionally set the fire, either as a warning to you or hoping you would be inside. If I were a betting man, I’d wager that the man you saw kill Jolene tonight definitely recognized you.”
She stared at him, the fear so great inside her she couldn’t find words to speak. He started the car. “You’re coming home with me,” he continued. “You’ll be staying at my place until I find Bittard and get him behind bars.” He said the words not as a suggestion but rather as a statement of fact.
She simply nodded, knowing that even though the last place she wanted to stay was Flint’s house, it appeared she was out of options. She couldn’t deny the fact that her life was in danger.
* * *
Flint stood at his kitchen window, watching the first streaks of dawn beginning to light the sky. He was already working on his second cup of coffee, knowing that with the lack of sleep the night before, he’d need a good caffeine buzz to get him through what promised to be a long day ahead.
Nina had said very little on the drive to his place the night before. She’d also been silent as he’d led her through the house to his spare bedroom. He’d provided her with one of his T-shirts to wear to bed, and she’d immediately closed her bedroom door and hadn’t come out for the rest of the night.
He was sure she had to have been suffering from some kind of shock. It was bad enough that she had witnessed a violent murder, but to know that the murderer had then burned her house to the ground had to be terrifying.
At some point during today he’d need to take her to the discount store to pick up some clothing and toiletries. From the scene at her house the night before, he was pretty sure that nothing would be salvageable. Not only did he need to take her shopping, but he also had a new murder to investigate and a new witness to protect.
Even though his officers would have a report for him first thing this morning concerning Jolene’s death, he wanted to go to the scene and check things out himself. The murder had occurred on the corner just two houses from where Jolene had been staying since Hank’s initial arrest, and even though he trusted his officers, Flint wouldn’t be satisfied until he saw the scene for himself.
This attention to detail, checking and rechecking, was what had made him such a successful cop in Cheyenne, at least until the end of his work there.
He frowned and turned away from the window. He didn’t want to think about the case that had been his swan song in Cheyenne. Besides, he’d already screwed up here by not placing some sort of protection on Jolene the minute Hank Bittard had escaped custody.
Even with Molly being stood up by her creep of a fiancé, even with the quarantine shaking everyone up and with his grandmother catching the virus, there was no excuse for failing in his duty of protecting Jolene. Just like Cheyenne, a little voice whispered in the back of his head.
He sat at the table and instead of getting caught up in his past and the agony of thoughts that brought, he began to mentally prepare himself for a houseguest that may or may not be so temporary.
It all depended on how long it took him to get the murderer back into custody. So far Bittard had managed to be successfully and frustratingly elusive in a quarantined town.
He thought of the fire at Nina’s house. There was no question in his mind that it had been set by Jolene’s murderer.
He’d need to check out the gas station to find out if a gas can and gasoline might have been stolen. Hank could have stolen a can of gas from anywhere, but the more details Flint could find out about the man’s movements, the better his odds of finally getting him back in jail and letting Nina get back to her normal life.
The object of his thoughts suddenly appeared in the kitchen doorway. She was dressed in the same clothes she’d worn the day before, a long-sleeved white blouse and a pair of black slacks, and by the paleness of her face, she hadn’t yet finished processing everything that had happened to her in the past twelve hours or so.
“Help yourself to the coffee,” he said as he pulled the blinds closed at the windows. The last thing he wanted was for anyone outside to see her movements inside the house. “Cups are in the cabinet over the coffeemaker.”
She nodded and moved to get a cup. After pouring her coffee, she carried her cup to the table and sat down across from him.
She took a drink of her coffee and then set the cup back on the table. “I feel like I’m living somebody else’s life right now.”
“I wish I could tell you that this was all just a bad dream,” he replied. Despite the paleness of her features, she looked pretty with the artificial light over the kitchen table dancing in the strands of her hair and highlighting her delicate features.
“This is such a nightmare,” she replied with a tremulous sigh. “And I still haven’t quite realized that I’m not going to wake up and find out that everything is fine.” She took another drink and then looked at him with slightly narrowed eyes. “If you think I’m going to hole up here and not go into the diner today, then you’re sadly mistaken.”
“I was just thinking about the logistics of this protective-custody position that you find yourself in,” he replied. “And trust me, I figured there was no way I could keep you from your work. Besides being here in my house with me, the diner is probably the only other place I think you’ll be safe. Bittard wouldn’t kill you in the diner when he’d be leaving behind dozens of more witnesses.”
He couldn’t imagine that her face could have grown more pale, but it did, and he mentally cursed himself for his bluntness. But it was important she understand the severity of her situation.
She wrapped her fingers around her cup and stared down into the warm liquid. “Do you cook?” she asked and looked back up at