Page 69 of Burning Justice

Chapter Twenty

Brett headed north on I-25. The blood in his veins spiked with so much adrenaline he could barely sit still. This was it. The lead they’d needed. He’d always suspected there was something wrong about the Torrance Lane fire.

That still didn’t mean he could prove it in a court of law.

“Brett? You’re scaring me.” Gemma touched his shoulder, the first time they’d had physical contact since yesterday. On her mattress. As it always did, her touch sent a hot zing of awareness shooting through his body. “Any chance you could slow it down a little? Even Blaze looks worried.”

He glanced at his dog, who was standing up in the kennel with his head sticking through the opening and watching him intently. Brett knew that look. Gemma was right. Even Blaze had sensed the change in his demeanor. When his dog licked Brett’s cheek, he eased off the gas.

They’d been driving for nearly an hour. The Hawkin Construction office was still ten minutes away.

“Before we talk to Hawkin, let’s go over what we know.” With the added benefit of keeping his mind occupied with something other than what a shithead he was.

Sunday morning, after they’d had amazing sex, he’d been at a loss for words. As was typical for him, he’d totally choked and shut down on her.

He’d been torn. He no longer wanted to keep their relationship strictly professional, but when she’d offered up the idea, he’d grabbed at it as if it were a lifeline. Involving her more in his effed-up personal life wasn’t fair to her. There was no reason why things with Gemma would wind up any differently from all his other relationships that had crashed and burned. This was for the best. For both of them.

But as he refocused on the road and the investigation, he couldn’t figure out why it was so much more difficult to accept this decision. Or why it left his heart with an empty, hollow feeling.

From his peripheral vision, he caught Gemma pulling her laptop from the backpack on the floor between her feet. “The Torrance Lane fire is one of the twenty-three on your list, right?”

“Right.” She flipped open the laptop. Her fingers flew across the keyboard. “Michael Hawkin was the legal owner when it burned to the ground. Based on the purchase of the house, the insurance, and the sale of the property after the fire, he barely broke even. He may even have taken a loss.”

“Any heavy riders on that house?”

“No.”

Brett tapped his finger on the wheel as they whizzed through the city of Aurora. “That doesn’t fit with the other houses, nor does the fact that MEK was the unintentional cause of the fire.”

“I put that house on my list because it was titled by Kobuk,” Gemma said, “and because of its proximity to the Frodo warehouse, which was also burned down using MEK.”

The stack of questions he had for Hawkin was piling up fast. “Can you call your contact at Frodo? Ask him to pull up all invoices for supplies purchased by or for Hawkin Construction, let’s say for three months prior to the Torrance Lane fire.”

“You want to see if Johnny Nash had any part in those transactions?” Gemma asked as she pulled out her phone.

“That and it can’t hurt to know what supplies were purchased during that timeframe.” As with everything else they had so far, none of this would be enough to charge Hawkin. The most he could hope for was to firm up the link between Hawkin and Nash.

He listened while Gemma spoke to Logan Hicks and explained their request. “Thank you, Logan,” she said a few minutes later, then ended the call. “He said he can have that for us in a couple of hours.”

By the time they pulled up to the Hawkin Construction office on the north side of Denver, it was noon, and the dashboard thermometer indicated a blistering ninety-five degrees outside.

Gemma grabbed her portfolio.

“Wait.” Brett reached for her before she opened the door. Her gaze flicked to where his hand now rested on her bare upper arm. He yanked his hand back. Guess that was how it would be between them from now on. Awk-ward. And his fault. He pointed to the crew cab pickup and the green Beemer parked in front of the office door. “I want to run Hawkin and the company for currently registered vehicles before we go in.”

“For large white SUVs?” Gemma asked.

“Exactly.” Now that Hawkin, along with Nash, were both prime suspects.

Minutes later, he shook his head. “Every vehicle registered to the company is either a pickup truck or a heavy-duty dump truck. His personal vehicle is a brand-new silver Mercedes. That Beemer belongs to his wife, Kelly.”

“Business must be good,” she said with a sarcastic edge to her voice.

“That pickup in front is one of the company vehicles. Blaze,” Brett said over his shoulder. Once he’d slowed the SUV to quasi-legal speed, his dog had finally lain down and gone to sleep, snoring his heart out. Blaze scrambled to his feet, pushing his head through the opening, eyes and ears alert. “Time to go to work.”

“What are you going to do?” Gemma asked as she stepped outside. The way the sun was positioned behind her created a halo effect, making her look like she was wearing a crown of fire.

His heart squeezed with so much regret, and for a moment, he was tempted to tell her the truth.