She spied it as he did, filmy, gray tendrils clouding the window of the door.
A moment later, that door slammed open and three salespeople ran in. “The toddler’s toy section,” one of them revealed as an alarm began to shriek. “And the games counter.” The panicked associate pointed in no less than six directions at once. “Coming up and over the shelves. The store’s burning, Mr. Mitchell. The fire’s between us and the front door.”
FITZ SAT IN THE ATTIC SUITE she rented in her father’s house and stared at the roofs of the neighborhood where she had lived since the two of them had moved here from Belfast twenty-plus years ago. She wanted more out of life than to live in a shabby-chic suburb in a Midwestern city that too many people still tended to associate with a 1970s sitcom. Or if she had to stay, she wanted to do it in style.
She wished she’d been born beautiful like Romana. Unfortunately, the most flattering description she’d ever received was the time James Barret had called her “a sprightly lass.” Still, she’d learned how to turn a man’s head. She paid attention to what each one liked and used that knowledge to stroke their egos.
Belinda Critch had taught her that single valuable lesson years ago, in the days when Romana had been a cop and she, Fitz, had been a mere gofer in Forensics.
The hospital underworld had revolved around Belinda back then. All the men had wanted her, except old Doctor Gorman, who’d been so feeble that snickering techs had occasionally stuck mirrors under his nose during his several-times-daily catnaps.
Men had adored Belinda; women had hated her. So why did everyone think a man had killed her…?
Giving her head a shake, Fitz sat cross-legged on the window seat and dumped the contents of her treasure box on the cushion. This was her secret stash, mementoes mostly, nothing of value, just trinkets that had stuck to her fingers when she’d been feeling low. She separated out a pair of Patrick’s sunglasses, one of Belinda’s watches, a pair of James’s cufflinks-actually, those would be worth some-thing-a woman’s antique pin, another of Belinda’s watches and a ten-karat gold ring that Dylan, the so-called security whiz, hadn’t missed even though she’d slipped it off his finger in the middle of a Fourth of July picnic.
He’d been glowering at someone, she recalled. James? Patrick? His brother-in-law? His sister?
Fitz couldn’t remember. Not about that day. But she remembered other events, like the Christmas party where Belinda should have been dancing with her then-fiance Warren Critch, but had instead been wrapped around twenty other men.
Had she ever unwrapped herself from any of them? Fitz picked through her treasures and tried to line it all up in her head. The men, the marriage, the men.
Maybe it didn’t matter.
Then again, maybe it did.
She turned to stare at the soft blue lights her father had woven through the limbs of a chestnut tree. Romana was important to her, like an older sister in many ways, except she was two years younger.
She forced her mind back to Belinda and the upshot of the woman’s death. Critch claimed someone had threatened his wife’s life. Now he was threatening Romana’s. Because she’d saved a cop.
But what if Romana was right, and the cop was innocent? What if someone else had killed Belinda?
Fitz rubbed her forehead, had to think. What had Belinda said to her in those last days they’d worked together? If she hadn’t been so busy trying to liberate Belinda’s silver bracelet watch from her wrist, she might have paid more attention.
Picking up the coveted silver watch, Fitz ran her thumb over the tarnished inner band. Letters and numbers emerged through the black, enough of them to pique her interest.
Ten minutes later, her hands trembled, her cheeks had lost much of their color…and her fear for Romana’s life had shot off the scale.
Chapter Eight
Romana couldn’t recall ever spending a more chaotic three hours in a mall, and that included the time one of her brothers had released seven gerbils in a busy department store. It had been Christmas then, too, and there’d been shrieks and squeals and a great deal of running by sales associates and customers alike.
But those had been small, terrified animals. This was a fire, or rather several fires, lit in trash cans throughout the complex. It was also, she discovered sometime during the first hectic hour, no less than seven smoke bombs, set off with crude timers near the outflow air vents.
Shoppers didn’t squeal so much as scream and stampede. In rushing for the exits, the more hysterical ones knocked down and injured a number of those who were somewhat more bewildered.
Mall security did its collective best. So did Jacob, Romana and three off-duty officers who’d been endeavoring to chip away at their Christmas lists.
Two of the doctors they found refused to help due to possible malpractice suits. Two others sighed and rolled up their sleeves.
Firefighters arrived and evacuated the mall, but of course that took time with a number of the exits shrouded in smoke and only a brave few willing to dart past the blazing cans to access them.
It took until midnight for the smoke, flames and screams to subside. The wounded, thankfully none seriously, had been transported to the hospital, disgruntled storeowners congregated in the parking lot, and Jacob was talking to the fire chief near one of the main entrances.
As the last of the ambulances pulled away, Romana spotted Shera Barret clicking across the parking lot with no regard for the ice under her designer boots.
“You.” She stabbed a gloved finger. “I know you, don’t I?”
“My father knows your father.” Romana took shelter from the wind behind one of the fire trucks. “TriBel Productions makes global travel documentaries. My father produces them. Yours is part of the media conglomerate that airs them.” She held out her hand. “I’m Romana Grey.”
Three tiny shopping bags hung from Shera Barret’s thin wrists. She had two broken fingernails, her hair was rumpled, and a streak of black marred her cream cashmere coat.
She worked the hair from her face. “I feel like I’ve been hit by a very long train. What happened in there?” She waved Romana off. “Not a question really.” Her eyes sharpened. “It isn’t through your father that I remember you. You’re that police officer who stopped Warren Critch from shooting a man. Detective Knight. Handsome, sexy and stupid to have been involved with a woman like Belinda.”
Romana’s interest kindled. “You knew Belinda?”
“Of her. We spoke twice. Once, I picked up the telephone and she asked for James. The second time, she was sitting in a car across the street from our house. As you might expect, I had a few choice things to say.”
Romana envisioned the fireworks, but remained silent and let Shera vent.
“She told me she had business with James.” Shera scoffed and slashed a finger across her chest. “Of course I bought that whopper with her wearing a dress cut down to here. Stupid woman. Did she think I’d just fallen off the turnip truck?”
Her insecurities were showing, Romana reflected. Off tranqs and on a verbal tear, who knew how informative she might become?
“Did you talk to your husband about the incident?”
“Apparently it’s a rather crowded turnip truck.” Unable to claw her hair back into place, Shera settled for sweeping it out of her face. “Yes, I talked to him. He said Belinda Critch had been coming on to him since he met her. A case of wanting the one thing she couldn’t have, I imagine.”
Romana turned up her collar against the rising wind. “When did this confrontation take place, Ms. Barret?”
“Shera’s fine. Shortly before she died, in mid-December.”
“Before Belinda died, but after Ben Brown passed away.”
“A month after Ben’s death, yes.”
“And you’d been married to your husband for how long at that point?”
“Eight months, three weeks, five days.” Shera plucked at the bulge under her glove that was undoubtedly her engagement ring. “My family is very wealthy and even better connected. I knew I’d land a big fish from the marriage
