“I was thinking the same thing.” Johanna made a distasteful face as she studied the picture. “After meeting the real Kendall Longman, it's hard to imagine that Thatcher would have even given Becca Manning a second glance.” She grinned. “In fact, I can't see why he would have ever strayed from Kendall in the first place. Now there's a woman with not only beauty, but class. There's no way I'll ever believe that Becca Manning and Thatcher Longman ever slept together.”
“Can you enlarge the picture?”
“Sure,” Johanna said as she tapped the keyboard.
“Wow. She is not an attractive woman at all,” Frankie said looking at the woman's cold eyes and plain features. She wore little to no makeup and her facial structure was severe. Her nose was long, lips thin, and her chin was pointy. Her medium brown hair was worn in a short, unflattering style.
“I don't get it. Why would Becca confront her boss like she did? It's only logical that he would have fired her on the spot. There's more to this.” She scanned the brief write-up on the page. “It looks like Bronson's web designer is upgrading their site and now posting photos and brief bios of all the department heads instead of just listing their names.”
“So you really don't think he ever slept with Becca? Not even one time?” Frankie's eyes slanted.
“No,” she answered distastefully. “Look at her. I thought we agreed on that point.”
“I have a thought.” She chewed her bottom lip. “Just hear me out on this for a minute. I don't think they are now or ever had a long term affair, but suppose he slept with her once or twice and pretended he cared about her romantically in order to convince her to shift some of the company's assets.”
Johanna took another swallow of wine. “That makes a lot of sense. Then after he gets what he wants from her he shoves her aside.”
Frankie nodded enthusiastically. “Only she can't go to anyone or she'll face the consequences for her actions. She'll take the fall because I'm sure Thatcher will have his tracks covered so that nothing could ever be traced back directly to him.” She pulled on her chin.
“Right. Add Kristin Robbins to the mix and there you have it. Kristin is everything she's not: young and beautiful. And now she has the man Becca thought belonged to her. Just enough salt rubbed into her raw wound. She's a woman out for revenge.”
“I love how we work together,” Frankie grinned. “If we ever decide to retire, we could write detective novels together.”
Johanna laughed. “With your imagination, we'd be bestsellers for sure,” she joked. “Only one problem: you'd never sit still long enough to write a book.”
“Yeah, you're probably right,” she joked back, then grew serious. “Do you think Becca could become violent if backed into a corner?” Frankie asked.
Johanna lifted an eyebrow. “Hard to say. After everything is said and done, I'm sure Thatcher will cut her out since Kristin's in the picture. She's not stupid. Surely, she's figured that out. If she's backed into a corner, I think she's capable of anything.”
“True, but she could turn that violence on Thatcher and not Kristin.” Frankie looked at Johanna who nodded in agreement. “You got some good pictures tonight. There's so much more to this case than a cheating husband.”
“I agree. I'm glad Alec wants us to see it to the end.” She powered off the laptop.
“While you were on the laptop I turned on the TV to catch the late edition of the news,” Frankie said. “There've been more fires. This time an actual business was hit instead of just the outside trash bins.”
“Who got hit?”
“Biggs Sporting Goods store in the strip mall we tailed Thatcher to.”
“Oh, my God. How bad was it?” She closed the laptop.
“Not much damage to the building, thankfully. Something was thrown through the front window, which thankfully triggered the alarm system. Once the fire started, the automatic sprinklers came on. There's a lot of smoke and water damage, but none of the neighboring businesses were damaged.”
“So whoever's responsible for the fires plaguing the city has escalated from just setting minor trash can fires.”
Frankie nodded. “But get this. There were also a couple more trash can fires before this the past few days. One was in the trash bin behind The Bronson Hotel and the other in the back of Kramer Insurance Company. It seems that some businesses' trash bins have been hit more than once.”
“Quite a coincidence with the fires,” Johanna stated. “Are you thinking there's a connection to the fires and Thatcher's whereabouts?”
She lifted her eyebrows. “It looks that way, at least to me. It appears that we aren't the only ones who are tailing him. Remember, Becca followed him to Kramer Insurance Company and drove around back. She could have been following him long before we came on the scene.” She placed her chin in the palm of her hand. “I think she's connected.”
“Shouldn't we tell George?” Johanna asked. “I mean this is serious. If she is doing it, she needs to be stopped before she burns a place to the ground or an innocent person is injured.”
She shook her head. “We could be wrong about Becca. Until we can connect her directly to the fires, I think we should keep it to ourselves for the time being.”
“I don't know, Frankie,” Johanna said uneasily. “We've only just started tailing Thatcher. We don't know where else he may have stopped before this week. I wonder if the previous fires were set at businesses he frequented.”
“Who knows? He never went inside the sporting goods store. It doesn't make sense to target it just because he was standing in front of it. We need to keep our eyes peeled, not just on Thatcher, but anyone else who might be coming in or
