still licking at what was left of her place. Stunned, numb, and unable to really process it, she didn’t cry or think. She simply watched the fireman on the fire engine ladder holding the hose, the intense stream sending up more plumes of smoke where it flooded out the flames.
Neighbors gathered on the sidewalks watching the show. Her downstairs neighbors huddled together. If the fire hadn’t destroyed their places, the water sure did.
Ava stood beside her and Tate. “What do you think started the fire?”
“Not what. Who.” Tate bit out those bitter words.
Ava sighed. “I thought maybe that guy would do something. But this?”
Liz didn’t want to believe it either, but . . . She simply couldn’t dismiss the notion that this had Clint written all over it.
He could have hurt or killed someone.
He didn’t care. All he wanted to do was destroy Liz’s life.
She shook off thoughts of Clint and focused on Ava. “I’m glad you called. Thanks for getting the fire department here so quickly.”
“I wish I’d gotten home a few minutes earlier. Maybe I’d have seen something to nail that guy.”
With the flames out and the fire department personnel losing their urgent intensity, people started walking away, going back to their places, grateful it wasn’t them. She didn’t blame them for feeling that way. She simply wished all this bad stuff would stop happening to her.
Detective Valdez joined them. “I spoke with the fire captain, told him to treat this as a suspicious fire. They’ve got their arson specialist ready to go in once it’s safe.”
“Any hope the fire didn’t destroy any and all evidence he did this?”
“They’ll probably be able to determine it was intentionally set. Linking it to Clint, well . . .”
She understood the detective’s frustration all too well.
She couldn’t help but think of what she’d lost. What he took from her. The locket her grandmother left to her. The dishes her parents got her when she moved in. All the photos she had from high school. All the silly notes Tate had written over the years. All things that she’d wanted to show their kids one day.
Tate’s phone dinged with a text. He pulled it out and frowned at the message.
“What’s wrong?”
“Maybe nothing. Drake’s at the shop with Adria, but neither of them have seen Trinity since she went out to toss the trash in the dumpster.” Tate read the incoming texts. “Her car is still there.” Tate raked his fingers through his hair. “Shit. They found her phone in the bushes.”
“You don’t think . . .” Clearly they were all thinking it. Clint took Trinity. “Why would he take her?”
Angry lines marred Tate’s forehead. “To piss me off. Lure me away from you.” Tate shrugged, his face a mask of concern and rage.
Detective Valdez got on his phone and ordered officers to Almost Homemade to check things out. “I’ll head over there now. Call me if anything else happens here.”
She hugged Tate. “Maybe she dropped her phone without realizing it. Maybe she saw someone outside, an old friend shopping downtown, and she went over to talk to them.”
“Why not go into the shop to talk?”
Liz grasped at straws and tried to rationalize Trinity disappearing without telling anyone. They’d all been on alert since Clint started his campaign to ruin Liz’s life.
“Miss Scott, can I ask you a few questions?”
“Sure.” She stepped away from Tate to speak to the firefighter. “Thank you for putting it out so fast and saving my neighbors’ homes.”
“Unfortunately, yours is a total loss.”
A car alarm sounded close by. Tate touched her shoulder. “That’s my truck.” Suspicion filled his eyes. “I’m going to check it out.”
Before she could stop him, he rushed off and the firefighter asked her, “Any pets in the home we weren’t able to save?”
Thank God she didn’t have a cat or dog. She didn’t know if her heart could take a loss like that. “No.”
Tires squealed as a car engine revved.
She turned toward the sound just as a silver sedan barreled toward Tate walking down the middle of the parking lot street. “Tate!” She screamed too late to warn him. The car hit him just as he turned and instinctively jumped. He landed on the hood, sliding up and into the windshield with a crack of his head, and rolled right over the top of it, down the back window and trunk, hit the pavement and toppled again as the car sped away.
She ran before she really thought about it but found herself sprinting ahead