Seeing Red Read online

  “Creepy but correct.”

  “The twins.”

  “Too young for the first fire.”

  “Stella and Gregg,” Joe said. “Neither of them smoke or have a size eleven-and-a-half shoe, though they have no alibi for either fire. Plus there’s the fact they lost a store of their own, and kept that quiet. Revenge.”

  “Gee, Joe, you’re good at this. Maybe you should get a job here.”

  “Ha ha. We need a real motive, Kenny.”

  “And a real suspect.”

  Joe leaned back in the chair, his head against the wall, his legs spread out in front of him. The exhaustion had set in. “My brain is so tired I could crash right here.”

  “You shouldn’t even be here,” Kenny said. “Where’s your watch woman? I told Summer to keep you in bed.”

  “That’s not really working out for us.”

  Kenny looked disgusted with him. “You kept your mouth shut again, didn’t you?”

  “Ironically, no. This time I opened up, all the way. And this time, unlike any of the others, I actually did the dumping.”

  “Well, that was stupid,” Kenny said.

  Joe had to agree.

  That evening the phone rang while Joe was sharing a can of SpaghettiOs with Ashes.

  “Summer needs you,” Chloe said without a greeting.

  “What?”

  “Just get here. Oh, and don’t tell her I called you.”

  He paid yet another cab driver yet another ridiculous amount of money, and twenty minutes later got out in front of Chloe’s condo. “Where is she?” he asked when Chloe opened the door.

  “In the kitchen. I burned dinner and the smoke alarm went off. She sort of freaked.”

  He found Summer sitting on the counter, hugging her knees, staring out at the ocean. At the sight of him, she let out a long breath and shook her head at her cousin. “Damn it, Chloe.”

  Chloe chewed her fingernail. “I’m so not sorry.”

  “Well, I am.” Summer turned to Joe. “You didn’t have to come.”

  “Tell me what happened,” he said.

  “Nothing.”

  Chloe snorted. “You had a damn panic attack.”

  “Did not.”

  “Right.” Chloe rolled her eyes at Joe. “I think I’ll leave her to you.”

  When she was gone, Summer sighed. “I really am sorry. It’s just that the alarm triggered some stupid response in me and in a heartbeat, I was back at that warehouse fire.”

  “There weren’t any alarms at that fire.”

  Her eyes were clouded. “No, but when I woke up in the hospital, Tina was there, holding my hand. It was a few days later, and I was so groggy. I was awake for a few minutes before she realized, and she was talking to someone about the fire, and the lack of an alarm. I guess that stuck with me.”

  “Was she talking to your mom?”

  She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can’t remember. My head hurt. God, it hurt so bad.”

  “You took a good hit,” he said quietly.

  “Yeah.” She rubbed her chest as if that hurt too. “I was pinned on the floor of the warehouse. Couldn’t breathe.”

  Joe blinked. This wasn’t a hospital memory, but from the actual fire. It was coming back to her?

  “I can still hear my dad.” Her voice broke. “I tried to get to him but the beam held me down.”

  Small tremors wracked her body and he limped closer, knowing she’d never remembered past this point. “Red, don’t. It’s okay—”

  “I screamed. I wanted help. And through the smoke I saw someone, only they didn’t come help me.” She clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at him. “Oh my God.”

  He set down the crutches and put both hands on her arms, gently squeezing. “It was me. You saw me. I came up those stairs after you and was there right after you got hit.”

  “Yes, I could hear you calling my name behind me. I could hear you pounding your way up the stairs.” She fisted her hands in his shirt and clung. “But in front of me, I saw someone else.”

  “Who?”

  “I don’t know.” She closed her eyes tight and shook her head. “I don’t know. But someone else was there, Joe. I know it.”

  “Your mother?”

  “No. No, she couldn’t have been.”

  “She’s covering for something.”

  “Someone.” Summer dropped her head to his chest and drew a shuddery breath. “I think she’s covering for someone.”

  “Tina?” Joe asked.

  “Well, look at my timing,” Tina said, and came into the room. “Chloe called your mom, darling, but she’s not home, so you get me. I’m sorry it took me so long to get here. There’s a jackknifed semi on I-5.” She looked from Joe’s face to Summer’s, then back to Joe’s. “Tell me what’s happening.”

  “We’re talking about the first warehouse fire,” Joe said.

  Tina’s smile faded. “Oh.”

  “Someone else was at the fire that day,” Summer said.

  “Are you sure?” Tina’s face was all concern as she hugged a clearly shaken Summer. “Darling, are you sure? Or are you wishful thinking?”

  “There’s nothing wishful about it. Someone else was there.” Summer stared at Joe as the implications sank in. She was now a witness to a crime. To a possible murder. “Do you believe me?”

  He looked into her eyes. “Yes.”

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “How about a hot bubble bath?” Tina asked. “That’ll soothe your mind enough to help you sleep later, at least.”

  She nodded, and let Tina lead her out toward the hallway.

  Joe knew she’d want to be alone. And wasn’t that half the problem. He had no choice but to watch her walk away, and he had to wonder, when the hell would he get used to it?

  They spent long hours working on the accounting discrepancies, not an easy process. Summer, Camille, and Tina started by figuring out which dates had cash missing from the deposit. This in itself was a huge chore, as the original deposit slips had not been kept with the daily records, but in a filing cabinet. Actually they’d been literally thrown into the bottom drawer and never looked at again. All the hundreds and hundreds of little white strips were in there like a tossed salad.

  Summer had taken the job of pulling them out and putting them in order to compare with the bank statements. After that, she’d go back and figure out who had been working on each day, who had closed, and who had gone to the bank with the day’s deposit. She didn’t know what she’d find, but she knew she wasn’t going to like it.

  At the moment, Summer and Camille sat on the floor of the back office, alone. Tina had gone to pick up lunch. Chloe was working the front of the store with the twins. Summer was doing her best not to think about Joe. “This is shocking,” she said flipping through receipts that dated back fifteen years. “You’re both such smart, modern women. How did you get so completely record challenged? I mean, fifteen years, Mom.”

  “I know it looks bad, but the truth is, once a year we bring our accountant the general ledger from the computer printouts. He’s never asked for paper backup. We never needed these little slips, you’re lucky we even kept them.”

  “We could call the accountant for help now.”

  “Sure, but he’d cost a fortune, not to mention think we were the biggest idiots in town.”

  Summer’s stomach rolled as she listened to her mother’s reasoning. Was embarrassment the real issue here, or was there something else?

  God, she hated this doubt, this never-ending fear.

  Camille was sitting on the floor. “What I don’t get is why you haven’t run screaming for the hills.” She wore a peasant blouse and a full denim skirt that was splayed around her, and four beaded bracelets up her right arm that jingled together with her every movement. “I’m beginning to think you’re enjoying yourself here.”

  Summer looked into Camille’s smiling but baffled expression. “I am, actually.”

  “You weren’t