Page 53 of Heating Up (Nugget)
Rhys gazed out over the herd of goats and nudged his head at a few of the babies as they ran through the corral, taking occasional sideways leaps into the air.
“Not those kinds of kids.” Aidan’s lips curved up. He had to admit they were damned cute. “The two-legged ones.”
“Sean and his little brother, Seth. Whaddya got?”
“Firework mortars.”
Captain Johnson joined them, took his fire helmet off, and mopped his forehead with the back of his hand. “You show Rhys what you found?”
A firefighter Aidan didn’t know approached. The first thing Aidan noticed was that he still had his mask and hood on—a little overkill, considering the fire was out. Johnson rolled his eyes.
“Go kick rocks, Duke.” When Duke walked away, Johnson muttered something about him being a whacker. A whacker was a guy who spent his day on Twitter and Facebook, telling the world about all the fires he’d fought when, in fact, he hadn’t done dick.
“McBride show you the shed?” Johnson asked Rhys.
“I was just about to.” Aidan motioned for Rhys and Johnson to follow him to a ramshackle outbuilding filled with electrical equipment, mortar tubes, and a collection of pyrotechnic chemicals he’d discovered earlier. “I found the remnants of a few of these”—he held up the cardboard tubes—“in the barn and suspect someone was celebrating the Fourth of July on the fifth.”
“You think Sean or Seth?”
“And maybe a few friends.” Aidan guided Rhys and his captain back to the burned-out barn and showed them a youth’s denim jacket that had been badly singed in the fire. But it hadn’t been damaged enough to obscure the ranch logo over the breast.
Rhys muttered something under his breath, then said, “So this was a group effort?”
“For all I know, the jacket was just sitting here when the fire started. The owner is an electrician, right?”
“Yep. The goats are his and his wife’s side business. I know for a fact that he was doing electrical up at Lucky’s ranch when the 9-1-1 call came in. Mrs. Rigsby was at the Nugget Market, where she works part-time. Nope, this has the mark of kids with too much time on their hands. And that jacket you found belongs to a neighbor boy . . . my godson.” Rhys didn’t look too happy about that revelation. “Let me round them up for you.” He got on his phone and wandered away.
“Looks like you’ve got this covered,” the captain said. “Good job. I’m going back to the house. See you later.”
Aidan watched Johnson walk back to the engine with Duke, who still hadn’t bothered to remove his gear, trailing him like one of those baby goats.
Twenty minutes later, Aidan and Rhys sat in the Rigsbys’ kitchen, staring down two teenagers who only wanted to look at the floor. The doorbell rang and Mr. Rigsby got up to get it, while Mrs. Rigsby made a pot of coffee. The two had come rushing home when they’d heard news of the fire.
Two more teens and one pissed-off father joined their ranks.
Aidan introduced himself. “Justin and Cody McCreedy, right?”
“Yes, sir,” the boys said in unison.
“I’m their father, Clay. We’ve met a few times, unofficially.”
“Good to meet you.” Aidan glanced over at the boys, who, like their comrades in crime, found the checkerboard linoleum enormously fascinating. Clay was the cowboy who’d given Dana a hard time, already a strike against him.
The boys, on the other hand, he felt sorry for. He still remembered the time he and his brothers had snuck out of the house one summer night and taken a joyride in his father’s Ford Torino GT. None of them had had a license, and he, being the oldest, had driven, taking a wrong turn and getting them lost in the process. Hastily trying to find his way back, he’d run a red light, got T-boned by a minivan, and was arrested. Aidan had never seen his father angrier. To this day, he, Arron, and Shane swore that smoke had poured out of Marty’s ears—just like in the cartoons—when he’d come to bail their sorry asses out of police custody. It had been the arresting officer who had diffused the situation.
“Although what you boys did showed terrible judgment . . . someone could have been seriously hurt, or worse, killed . . . I’m just thankful that all we have here are a few banged-up cars.” For the next part of the speech he’d looked straight at Aidan’s dad. “I don’t have to tell you, Marty, how this could’ve turned out. Thank God everyone is walking away from this okay.”
The truth was, the Torino GT was never the same after the accident. Still, when they left the station, Marty gathered all three of his boys in a giant hug.
“You guys ever do anything like this again and I’ll kill you.”
Aidan would never forget the sheen in his eyes.
He turned to the four teens, each one ready to piss his pants, and said, “Let’s cut straight to the chase. You were messing around with fireworks, the barn caught on fire, you got scared and ran off.”
“We got the goats out first,” Justin said. “And I called 9-1-1.”
Aidan looked at Rhys, who nodded. “That was good, Justin. Not good that you were playing with the fireworks. They’re illegal in Nugget. If that fire had gotten out of hand it could’ve burned the entire town down and then some. Not to mention that you four could’ve been hurt . . . or worse.”
