Sorrels nodded. “That’s what we wanted to know.”
From the doorway, Paul cleared his throat. Torie jumped at the sound. “Oh, Paul. Inspector, Chief, you know Mister Jameson, don’t you?”
“Yes, indeed,” Sorrels commented, shooting looks between the two of them. “Obviously you two have come to some sort of truce?”
Torie nodded and prayed she wasn’t blushing, though she felt her cheeks heat. “Common enemy, it seems.”
“Yes, Ms. Hagen’s correct. I believe whoever killed our friend is responsible for this as well, and the additional attempts on Ms. Hagen’s life.”
“So you’re a detective now, too?” Marsden said, sarcasm tingeing his voice.
“No, but I’m a trained observer, Chief. And in talking with both of you, with Officer Tibbet, and with the officer who worked the scenes at the hotel, I can put a lot of pieces together.”
Paul turned to Torie, extended a hand as if to brush her arm, but changed the gesture at the last minute. Instead of a caress, he rested his hand on the door jamb. If the others found it odd, they didn’t show it. “So, Ms. Hagen, I know this is difficult.” His gaze was hot, but his tone cool. It was a strange combination.
With a grimace, Torie shook her head. “We’ve known each other for nearly twelve years, Paul. The inspectors know that.”
Paul smiled. “True, but I wanted to be sure you were comfortable.” He looked around, stepping away from the stairs and gazing into the trashed living room. “What a disaster.”
Marsden nodded. “The smallest fire can cause tremendous damage, and this was no small event.”
“May I take anything out of the house?” Torie finally gathered the courage to ask. “Or can I at least go upstairs and see if anything is left of my clothes?”
Sorrels and Marsden exchanged looks, but Sorrels spoke. “Yeah, but be careful. We don’t want you landing on our heads, okay?”
“I’ll come with you,” Paul said, following her up the stairway. The pictures on the wall were cracked and the glass blackened from the blast. She couldn’t tell if any of them were still whole. That alone broke her heart. The large picture of her grandparents was one of the only ones still hanging in place, but along with everything else, it was dark with soot, the black dust obscuring the seated couple.
The damage was only slightly less obvious upstairs. The scent of smoke permeated everything. Water stained the walls, and the enormous gaping hole in the floor and ceiling of her guest room showed the path of the flames. Plywood covered the windows here as well, making the room dark and dank. Everything in it was surely a total loss.
“Where do you want to start?” Paul said, his voice neutral, urging her to keep moving.
“The office,” Torie said, moving that way. She’d turned the third bedroom into an office overlooking the narrow garden in the back of the house. The windows here, unboarded, let in the spare sunlight. The trees and pretty bushes still stood, unmoved by the destruction in the house. At least the back was salvageable. “Oh.”
Stopping dead in her tracks, Torie surveyed the wreckage that had been her neat, pretty office. Soot and water stains were less visible here, with the fire concentrated in the front, but they were nevertheless present.
The large window overlooking the backyard was a haze of cracked panes. A storm front was blowing up outside, and the cloudy day made the formerly cheerful room seem sinister and murky.
“I don’t think anything in there will be useable,” Paul murmured, his voice ripe with sympathy.
“I have to see if my files are here. I have a fireproof box,” she managed, then stopped again, realizing that it alone would be undamaged.
Fetching it from the soot-covered drawer, she cradled it in her arms.
“I’ll hold onto that for you if you want to check on the things in your room.”
Not daring to look at him, knowing the least bit of pity would have her either flying into sobs, or the opposite, roaring into anger, Torie handed him the case. It was like a tackle box, only metal and bright red.
“You’re a smart woman,” he complimented, following behind her as she moved past him into the hallway. “Most people never get around to this sort of protection.”
She suppressed a shudder. “I never thought I’d need it.”
When she had to stop in the doorway to her room, he moved up behind her, his free hand pressing her shoulder in a reassuring squeeze. If nothing else had happened between them, if all were still wretched and horrible, that gesture alone would have gone miles toward mending things.
As it was, his presence, his comfort unlocked something frozen within her, something dark and powerful. Something primitive. She wanted to forget everything that had happened between them. Take back the words about trust and pain she’d spewed to him in the car. Make him…
“Torie?”
She couldn’t speak for a moment. Emotion choked her, both about her house, and about him. Clearing her throat, she managed a brief, “Thank you.”
“For?”
“Being here.”
He said nothing, just squeezed her shoulder again.
That gave her the courage to move forward into the disaster area that had once been her tidy, restful master bedroom.
Damn. Close calls were not part of the plan. Stories of an intruder weren’t part of the plan either.
