I flew out the door and was there in less than fifteen minutes. I’d forced Melanie to stay on the phone with me the entire time. When she got worked up, you never could tell what she’d do. She cared deeply and would do anything for her friends. And while I admired and loved that about my best friend, I did not want her to end up in a jail cell tonight. Darkness had fallen by the time I parked, and I moved through the crowd toward the brewery.
“Where are you?” Mel hissed in my ear. I’d switched to my earbuds after I parked.
“Right behind you.” I could see her standing with a beer in her hand by a large maple.
Mel turned around, so swiftly her ponytail slapped a lady in the face. “Sorry.” Mel made an apologetic face at the scowling woman, whose presumed boyfriend laughed and winked at Mel—a gesture his girlfriend did not care for, and she gave his tummy a little slap to the midsection before stalking off.
I was shaking my head when Mel spotted me. “God. People. You’d think I asked that guy to wink at me.” Mel gave me a side hug.
“Only you.” I put my earbuds back into the case and zipped it up in my purse.
“I know. Want a beer?” She took a deep sip from her cup.
“Yes. I mean, I’m here, right? And after the day we’ve had”—I moved aside to allow a group of giggling college girls pass—“and what I found out about my family today, I need a beer.”
“Good. Me too.” Mel dropped her empty cup into the metal bin, and we went to get in line. “I lost LJ because of stupid Tim.”
“Seriously? Tim?” Seeing her ex always riled her up.
“Yep. He’s dating Patsy’s cousin.” She rolled her eyes.
“I bet Patsy loves that.” Our friend Patsy used to belong to the Jane Doe Book Club. But after a disagreement last year, she’d decided it was no longer for her.
We got our beers and sat on one of the cement benches in the middle of the square. The amphitheater was lit up brightly, and the smell of smoke from the barbecue food truck filled the air. For a couple of minutes, I just let myself breathe. Then I told Mel everything.
“My God.” Mel looked dumbfounded. “Your poor mom.” She raised her brows. “And uncle.”
I nodded and sipped from my cup.
“But how does that help Harper?” She turned, her eyes wide, and grabbed my arm. “I didn’t mean that how it sounded. We can totally discuss your family issues first. I just meant when Bea gave it to—”
“It’s fine, Mel. I knew what you meant. I assumed that what Bea gave us would help Harper too.”
“So we got nothing.” Mel finished her beer.
“Yep. From the computer anyway. We still can place LJ at the scene of the crime. And we have Bea’s testimony that she overheard LJ talking to my attacker. Which now I believe is linked. He wanted to scare me away from helping her. I won’t stop, though.”
Mel pointed. “There he is!” She grabbed my arm and pulled me upright. My beer fell from my hand. I stooped and picked it up, dropping it in the next available trash bin as we stalked after the man Mel identified as LJ and his date.
“Are you sure that’s him?” In the dark, it was tough to tell. When I’d seen him before, when Mel called, he had been wearing a faded denim jacket. This guy wore a dark denim coat, and the woman hanging on him wore a leopard leotard.
“Yes. It’s him.”
We were heading up the sidewalk toward Smart Cookie and Cousins Investigative Services. We were on the opposite side of the street from the businesses. LJ and his group must be leaving because this far up there was nothing but parking lots. Fatigue began to settle in my bones from the day, and I lost my desire to chase LJ down.
“Hey, Mel.”
She turned around and paused. “What?”
“I think we need—”
The sound of glass exploding and a chorus of shouts and screams split the night air. Mel and I gripped each other. Our bodies quaked. It took me a minute to orient myself and understand what had taken place.
“Oh my God!” I spied flames licking out of the office building across the street and a few yards ahead. Cousins Investigative Services and Smart Cookie blazed. I ran up the road but didn’t dare cross the street.
My face and hands tingled. Mel shouted into her cell phone. She probably wasn’t the first to dial 911 with all these people here. Police sirens were blaring. The fluttering in my chest had me panting. I spied a couple of people on the ground by the office. I rushed over and went to my knees. They were the college kids I’d seen earlier. “Are y’all okay?”
Over the cacophony, I could hardly hear a response. One of the girls was crying, and her arm looked cut up. I ripped off my jacket and wrapped it around her arm. “Come on. It isn’t safe to stay here.” I managed to get the group of four on their feet and across the street. EMTs arrived, and I waved them over.
I heard Melanie shouting, and I got up, smiling at the young, dark-headed girl who was having her wound cleaned. “You’re going to be okay.”
“Thank you,” she said in a small voice and through a watery smile.
“Teresa!” Melanie waved to her cousin, who came running up the street toward Mel. “Oh, thank God! Thank God! I thought you might still be inside.”
“Teresa.” My hands went to my face. I hadn’t even thought about the possibility she might be inside.
Mel opened her arms to her cousin as Teresa stood there bawling. “No. I just got back from dropping off the catering order. I parked the van out back and got a bit distracted because some idiots spray-painted graffiti on the backside of Cousins.”
“What?” I gaped.
“Yeah. I was on the phone with the police to report it while I was walking to my car, and I heard the explosion.”
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” I searched Teresa’s face. She shook her head. The shorter woman kept mopping at her face with the bottom of her apron. “Everyone else left before you did?”
“Yes. No one else is inside. I locked up when I left.”
“Good.” I let out a little sigh of relief.
“Someone did this.” Melanie waved her hand toward our buildings. “My shop, my beautiful shop!”
Teresa let out a huge sob, and Mel wrapped her arm more protectively around her shoulders. I took Mel’s free hand, and the three of us stood there helplessly as firefighters pulled up and rushed into action.
The temperature had dropped, and my breath made small white puffs in the air. I stood there, dazed, staring at the flicker of fire while the firemen unrolled the hoses from the truck, and a second team ran into the building. I hardly registered the next few minutes. A young EMT wrapped a silver thermal blanket around my shoulders, and I started to tell the man I hadn’t been in the building, but I couldn’t form the words. My mind swarmed with a flurry of worries. The warmth of the blanket didn’t make it to my weary bones.
The two front windows were nothing more than frames now, and the door was gone.
Both hands went to my head. I spied a couple of extra firefighters running into Smart Cookie. Black smoke billowed out of the windows of the business sweet Mel had worked so hard to build. My eyes still stung, and I had difficulty focusing as I searched for where the police or EMTs had taken Mel and Teresa.
“Lyla.” Rosa was in my face. “Lyla!”
I shook my head, clearing it. “Oh, Rosa.” I wrapped my arms around her neck, hugging her tight. She perfunctorily patted my back, but I could tell it felt awkward for her, and I let her go. “Sorry. I’m just …” I couldn’t think of how to finish my statement.
“It’s okay. Come on. The press’ll be here any minute. You’re in no condition to deal with them. Where’d you park?”
“Yeah,” I said, my voice sounding croaky. I cleared it. “I parked behind the brewery.” I nodded in that direction.
“Oh God! Uncle Calvin!” I started fumbling with my phone. “I have to call him.”
Rosa’s hands closed over mine. “We’ve called him. We’ll let the firefighters handle this, and we’ll go back to your place and have a conversation.” I glanced over and noticed they’d manage to put out the flames and let out a little sigh.
“My place,” I mumbled. Today had just been too much.
“Yes. Or we can go down to the police station. The chief thought it might be better if we go to your house. With all the media coverage of your family.” The way Rosa looked at me now shook me out of my funk.
I nodded. “My house is fine.” I moved out of her grasp. “I’m good.”
“You’re sure?” She sounded concerned.
“Yes. Where are Mel and Teresa?” I shot another glance over my shoulder and spied the two of them, speaking to someone who looked like the fire chief, and staring at the now extinguished fires. Thank God! As Rosa had predicted, several media vans had arrived on the scene.
Mel waved in my direction, and I stopped. “Rosa, thanks for checking on me. I’m good now. I’ll see you or whoever is coming to my house to take statements.”
Rosa furrowed her brow. “Are you mad at me?”
My shoulders slumped, and I closed my eyes. What a god-awful day. I was starting to question the motives of my friends. “No.” I opened my eyes and gave her a small smile. “Just a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.”
She grinned at my reference to her nephews’ favorite book. She’d told us how every time she saw him, he made her read it no less than a dozen times, and if she skipped a page, he’d know it, even at bedtime when his eyes were closed. “Okay.”
As I drove away with nothing but the sound of the tires on the asphalt to focus on, I couldn’t get LJ out of my mind. He had to be behind this. Had to. He’d been at the scene of the murder. He’d been at the crawl tonight. He had the most to gain if Harper went away for good. Bea said she’d overheard the conversation, and now I was going to tell Quinn. I didn’t care if, in the process, I got a slap on the wrist about the computer. Or exposed my family’s past. This had gone too far. Someone could have died in that fire. Enough.