“That’s enough of that.” I broke the handhold between them with my free hand. “Hallease, can you set up a phone meeting with Marjorie and then gather the information I asked you for? Don and I have a few things to discuss.”
She nodded at me but kept her gaze pinned on Don.
“You can follow me,” I said to him but didn’t stop to see if he followed. His heavy footsteps behind me, however, informed me that he had. I felt that distinct feeling of his eyes traveling over my body.
I looked over my shoulder and saw that I was correct.
When he lifted his gaze and saw that I’d caught him in the act, he had the nerve to widen his grin. The sparkle in his eyes intensified.
“Be careful you don’t walk into a door, not paying attention to where you’re going,” I warned as we entered my office.
His voice was laced with innuendo. “I’m paying attention just fine.”
I parted my lips to respond but didn't have one. “You’ll have to excuse Hallease, by the way. She tends to swoon whenever there’s a handsome man in the room.”
I stepped behind my desk and took my seat. Don didn’t immediately take the seat in front of me.
“You can sit down,” I said when he remained standing in the doorway.
His expression read cocky as he stood there with his feet crossed at the ankles. He took up nearly the entire doorframe. Dressed in an army green Henley, dark jeans and sneakers he couldn’t look any more perfect. The green of his shirt even made his eye color pop more, and the freckles on his face.
Don had a boyish charm to him, but he was all man. A memory of Corey retelling me about a prank he and Don had played on some guys at the station surfaced in my mind. I grinned but quickly smothered it when I realized he continued to stand at the door.
“What?”
“You just called me handsome.”
I jutted my head backward. “No, I didn’t.”
He nodded. “You did. I’ve got perfect twenty-twenty hearing. You said your assistant gets swoony over handsome men.”
“First of all, it’s twenty-twentyvision.Secondly, I simply meant that, uh, you know she tends to get googly-eyed over…” I waved my hand in the air, gesturing the length of his body.
He chuckled, and my toes curled inside my boots.
I snapped my mouth shut and made myself pull it together. “Did you bring the articles and pictures you said you were going to bring?” I asked.
He moved closer and sat down. That glint never left his eyes. “Sure did.”
He laid the manila folder in his hand on my desk and opened the front flap. “There are five articles for each one of the fires I suspect him of being behind. The pictures from Charlie’s are underneath.”
I picked up the articles one by one and scanned them for basic information. I grew and angrier reading about the injuries some of the people involved in the fires had suffered. Once I reached the final article, I stopped breathing. When I came to a picture of the family the article was about, I couldn’t read any further.
“Don,” I said, lifting my eyes to meet his. The mirth that had been present minutes earlier had morphed into deep bitterness. I stood and moved around my desk, leaning back against it, and held up the article. “This little boy died.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Emanuel was the one who pulled the mother and the baby out.”
“He killed a child. How could the department not see this for what it is?” I couldn’t believe it. Anything involving the death of a child should’ve warranted a hearty investigation, in my estimation. Agencies and departments did deep dives over property loss. Why not a child?
Don stood, took the article from my hand, and examined it for a long while. “This one was deemed an electrical fire. The owners had let their homeowner’s insurance lapse, so there’d been no incentive on the part of the insurance company to do a thorough investigation.”
“That’s horrible.” I moved closer to him. “What about the couple?”
He sighed. “They were devastated, understandably. They didn’t have the wherewithal to follow through with the insurance company. Months later, they came to the station to thank Emanuel. They were so grateful that he was able to save their baby.” He paused. “I didn’t go to them to ask questions about that night.”
I understood. “That’s the toughest part of the job.” He looked over at me as we stood side by side, leaned against my desk. “Talking to the families of victims. After…”
He nodded, and I assumed he understood what I meant. It was one thing to be a witness to a crime or even the aftermath of a dead body. That in and of itself was horrific enough. But going to notify a family and having to ask them invasive questions while they were in the depths of their pain was soul crushing.
