“You don’t… I don’t need a guard dog.”
“He stays with you,” he said without looking back. “I’ll only be a minute.” When he glanced down, he was surprised to find a bright yellow rubber duck clutched in his fist. The second he opened his fingers, the duck drew a deep squawk of a breath. “Here. Catch.”
Reflexes quick as a cat, Cass snagged the duck he lobbed to her from the air. To his surprise, she peeked at the bottom of the toy, then showed him the bright blue dot. “You picked a winner.”
“Everything’s coming up aces.” He jumped down. “Back in a sec.”
“Don’t forget to pick out your prize,” she reminded him.
Jake shook his head as he jogged away. Cassidy was crooning and cooing at the dog. When he looked back, he found Max gazing up at her adoringly, clearly enjoying the attention. Again, Jake pushed down the sharp spike of envy jabbing his gut.
“I am not jealous of a dog.”
Still, he couldn’t blame Max for being smitten by a beautiful woman lavishing attention on him. His dog had lived the bachelor life alongside Jake in the years since he’d come to live with him. Oh, the dog trainer they worked with was a woman. And Jake dated every now and again, but he honestly could not remember the last time he’d brought a date back to his place.
“Hey, Donovan,” someone shouted as he approached.
Craning his neck, he spotted Evan Furst standing off to the side of the crowd, a small white rectangle in his hand. He made his way over to the man, sweeping the scene as he stepped carefully through the mess of splintered wood, chunks of filler from prizes blown apart by the blast, and ducks scattered in the stream of water left from the obliterated pond.
“Hey,” he said as he approached the firefighter. “Anyone hurt?”
Furst shook his head. “Only the ducks.”
“Threw some as far as the carousel. I drew a blue one,” he said with a wry smile. “Not sure how big a prize that gets me.”
Evan gestured to the dozens of dismembered, sodden or smoldering carnival prizes scattered around them. “I think you can take your pick.”
Jake jerked his chin at the card in the other man’s hand. “What do you have there?”
“Could be nothing,” Furst said, frowning at the card then turning it around for Jake to see.
It was another one of the We’ll Be Back Soon signs they’d seen on other attractions. But on this one, the hands pointed to three o’clock.
“Do you think maybe…” Furst stopped on a wince. “Nah. Probably not.”
But Jake caught on to the other man’s line of reasoning and the thought took off like a match set to a line of kerosene. “May I?” He pinched the edge of the laminated card stock between his thumb and forefinger.
“By all means,” the other man said, sounding pleased to relinquish the possible evidence along with his suspicions. “Maybe we should see if some of the other locations have these, too?”
Nodding along, Jake pulled his mic from his vest. “See what time they’re showing.” He pressed the button to talk. “Hey, Chief?”
Aronson responded right away. “Copy.”
“I think Sergeant Furst from Fire may have found something. We’re on our way up to see you.”
Furst shook his head. “I’m a forensic specialist. I need to sift through some more of this.” He nudged a jumble of split two-by-fours and squashed teddy bears with the toe of his boot. “You go ahead. Give it to the colonel with the compliments of the LRFD.”
Fifteen minutes later, Aronson stood at one of the tall tables in the arena concourse, looking at a handful of Be Back Soon signs. Some were pristine, like the one set for four o’clock. It had been pinned to the doorjamb at the entrance to the Poultry Barn, not far from the spot where Jake and Max had found the storage container under the table.
Laid out beside the one from the gate, set to twelve, and the sign suction-cupped to the shattered glass door of the Arkansas Building, it looked fresh out of the package.
“Cattle Barn 1 is set to nine o’clock, and the Swine Barn to seven,” Jake pointed out.
“I sent a team down to the pirate ride,” Aronson told them. “You said you saw one in the cattle barn?”
Jake shrugged. “Pretty sure I did. It was set to six o’clock. I remember thinking the cows would get dinner before me,” he explained.
Colonel Aronson stared at him, his expression bland. “I take it your shift usually ends at seven?”
