Page 119 of Heating Up (Nugget)
“Nope. Sloane is trying to reach Rigsby’s lawyer to see if he has an alibi for this fire. For the other three he was allegedly home with his wife.” Rhys rolled his eyes. “My money is on him.”
“Hopefully the boot evidence comes back soon, before he winds up killing someone.”
Aidan did one more round, combing for evidence while there was still light. This time no shirts or melted lighters. Not even a footprint similar to what they had. Their firebug was getting good at covering his tracks.
Rhys showed him to the conference room and got them a couple of drinks while they waited for Maddy. Aidan quickly called the hospital to check on Dana. She was stable but resting, according to the duty nurse.
“Hi. Sorry it took me so long.” An exhausted Maddy shuffled into the conference room.
“You have an idea of the damage?” Aidan asked. The inn was filled with expensive furnishings, rugs, and artwork.
“So far it looks like the kitchen took the brunt of it. The sprinklers only went off where the smoke was the heaviest.” She crossed her fingers. “So hopefully we don’t have too much water damage. The rooms upstairs are fine, thank goodness.”
“You see anything suspicious? A person lurking around? Someone asking unusual questions?”
“Nothing,” she said. “I was getting ready to leave for the evening when the smoke alarm went off.”
“Where were you when that happened?” Aidan asked.
“In my office. The wine and cheese had already been served for the evening and the kitchen had been closed.” That area of the building was hidden from the street. Aidan had already scoped it out. Someone could’ve easily slinked around to the south side of the property without being noticed, even in daylight.
“Anyone unhappy with you or the inn?”
“You mean like a vendetta?” Maddy shook her head. “This might sound out there, but I’ve been watching the news, and Gia Treadwell isn’t so popular these days. A lot of people believe she was part of her boyfriend’s Ponzi scheme. I had no idea she was a guest here . . . she used another name to check in and kept her face pretty well covered. But maybe that has something to do with why someone set the inn on fire.”
“I doubt it,” Rhys interjected, and so his wife wouldn’t feel silly, flashed her a lopsided grin. “Especially because we had three others that had nothing to do with her. This is a serial thing.”
Aidan agreed.
Nate popped his head in. “I’ve got about ten minutes before the cleanup crew shows up. You don’t know what I had to pay to get ’em here so quickly.”
“Grab a seat,” Rhys told his brother-in-law. “Aidan just wants to ask you a few questions.”
He went through the same inquiry he’d made of Maddy, and Nate answered similarly. Nothing had happened that had been out of the ordinary. Like always, Nate had been in his office doing paperwork when the fire alarm went off and the main floor began to fill with smoke, he said. He couldn’t think of one person who had it out for him or the hotel enough to set the inn on fire.
“It was like any other day,” Nate said. “Thank God we’d recently trained the staff with fire drills. Everyone performed beautifully, and the fact that people were willing to take up hoses and join the bucket brigade . . . it shows you how blessed we are.”
“All right,” Aidan said, frustrated. “I know you’ve got things to do.”
Nate got to his feet. “You guys at Cal Fire have been great. When I’m done cutting through the havoc, I plan on personally thanking you all. In the meantime, would you pass on our appreciation, especially to Duke. The guy went above and beyond.”
Aidan jerked his head in surprise. “Duke?” Half the time the guy couldn’t find his equipment, fumbled with his hose line, and seemed more interested in talking about fires than fighting them. “What did Duke do?”
“He was the first one on the scene,” Nate said, which Aidan found weird because Duke should’ve come on one of the engines with everyone else. “Helped us organize the buckets when we ran out of hoses.”
“Was he here before the first engine arrived on the scene?”
“Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of a blur, though.”
“Was he fully turned out?” Aidan felt a trickle of unease. Rhys, too, from the way he’d suddenly sat up.
“What does that mean?” Nate asked.
“Was he wearing his gear?”
“Yep. That I remember for sure. He even had an ax.”
“Had you already made the 9-1-1 call?” Aidan wanted to give Duke the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d heard it come over dispatch and had been in the neighborhood. He was just the sort who carried his scanner and gear with him wherever he went.
