Lainie ignored the underlying point of that quip. “Evie could be dead. How can I forgive him for that?”
“You’re not even sure that’s the reason Evie was abducted. Vine is the enemy in this, not Ben Isaacs.”
Now, trying to sleep, Lainie wrestled with her conscience. On the one hand she could understand why Ben did what he did because she understood the bond between partners. She trusted and depended on Mike with her life. She’d take a bullet for him and knew that he’d do the same for her.
And she hated to admit it, but she would probably have done exactly what Ben had done if she’d been in Ben’s shoes. Her partner’s life would have been more important than policy.
So, why couldn’t she forgive him?
That was the thought that troubled her as she finally drifted off to sleep.
CHAPTER 47
The next morning Lainie, wearing borrowed jeans and a T-shirt from Sara, drove by her decimated home on her way to the station.
“Do you think he’s trying to intimidate you?” Sara had asked.
“If he is, I’m not intimidated, I’m angry. I don’t have time to be anything else.”
That was doubly true, she thought as she observed what was left of the structure she’d resided in for ten years. She didn’t even have time to be sad. Only the garage stood, seemingly undamaged. Maybe her Christmas decorations survived. The rest of the house was flattened, blackened, nothing salvageable.
A fire captain had called her and gone over the preliminary report. He’d said that the fire’s cause was an incendiary device thrown through the front window. From the timing he’d outlined, and the description of the vehicle seen fleeing from the scene, Lainie guessed the two guys who terrorized Archie and her nephews were probably the ones who tossed the devices into the houses.
They all lived close, and the reports said that Evie’s home went up first, then Lainie’s, then the goons went to her parents’ home. According to Archie, they tied the boys up first, then started tearing the place up. They were in a hurry to find the book.
Lainie didn’t drive by Evie’s home, but she figured it was probably the same. She shook her head, heart breaking that her poor sister would not have a home to return to when she got out of the hospital.
She left the shell of her home and drove to the station. Since both cases appeared related, Evie’s abduction and the assault on the boys, Shea and Collins were also handling the case concerning the men who’d ransacked her parents’ home.
Though preoccupied with current issues, at one point Lainie felt as if she was being watched. It was an odd feeling; the hair on the back of her neck rose.
Stopped at a light, she turned left and right and then looked in the rearview mirror. There was a black SUV behind her, just like the one that had been at her folks’ house.
A troubling thought tiptoed through her mind:Am I being followed?
The light changed and Lainie accelerated, keeping an eye on the vehicle. It turned right while she continued straight.
Taking a breath, Lainie relaxed. She was still tired and maybe a little loopy.
She arrived at the station and went straight to the homicide office.
“Hey, great work yesterday,” Collins said. “You saved the day.”
“I only did what I had to. My family means everything to me. What’s the status of everything now?”
“Tom Thornton lawyered up,” Shea said. “The other guy, we ID’d him as Davis Compton, is in stable condition at County General, but neither is talking.”
“They both work for Vine. Doesn’t what happened yesterday give you some probable cause to bring him in?”
“Yes and no.”
“What does that mean?”
“The men work for Quartz Enterprises. They both denied working directly for Vine.”
“Then why were they at my house searching for a journal?”
“Like I said, they are not talking.”
