Tears flooded her eyes and she fought them off, angry. What did that make her? She had asked Reed that question, lashing out in pain. But it was true. Who was her dad? Some guy her mother screwed? A one-night stand? Hell, maybe some pimply-face teenager who hadn’t known any better.
What did that make her? she wondered again. She thought back on her life, on the number of guys she had been with, how for a time she had turned to sex for answers. To everything. Boredom, anger, rebellion, powerlessness.
Is that what her mother had been doing? Looking for answers? Filling up the empty places? Had she finally recognized how self-destructive that behavior was, the way Alex had?
Alex looked down at her hands, feeling helpless and disingenuous. If she’d learned so much, what was she doing sleeping with Reed? They didn’t have a relationship, they barely knew one another. Hell, she’d gone to bed with him when a handshake would have been appropriate.
No wonder he could so easily accept the story about her mother.
Alex realized she was crying and fisted her fingers. Why did her mother even have her? Alex wondered. Why have one baby, then another? It didn’t make sense.
Angry, she swiped at her tears. She wished she hadn’t come here. She wished she had never found the trunk with all its bittersweet mementos, never seen the photograph of her mother beaming as she held Dylan in her arms. Smiling with adoration at her husband. Looking for all the world like the perfectly content wife and mother.
Perfectly content. In love. Adoring of her husband and baby.
She couldn’t have faked that, Alex thought. Even the most accomplished actress couldn’t fake it one hundred percent of the time. Not in candid shots. The camera didn’t lie.
Candid photographs.
Lyla Reed, she remembered. The wine launch party. On the walls of “the trophy room,” as Reed had called it. His mother, offering her the opportunity to thumb through the family photo albums.
Alex wondered if that offer was still good. Acknowledging there was only one way to find out, she climbed out of bed and hurried to dress.
CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE
Friday, March 12
8:20 A.M.
Reed made his way through the still smoldering remains of Max Cragan’s cottage. The irony of the situation hadn’t struck him until this moment-he’d left his and Alex’s still smoldering fire to be routed to this one.
The fire had begun sometime after midnight. Though the firefighters had been unable to save the house, they had kept the fire from spreading to neighboring properties. A feat considering the dry conditions and brisk wind.
An accelerant had been used to start the blaze; the fire investigator had officially called it arson and it’d become the Sheriff’s Department’s baby.
Reed frowned. When a home was deliberately torched, it was typically for one of two reasons: insurance fraud or an attempt to hide a crime. Several other motivations cropped up from time to time, like revenge, racial hatred, or pyromania.
So why did somebody torch the old man’s cottage?
Something shiny winked up at him from the blackened debris and he bent and picked it up. He turned it over in his hands, a feat made difficult by the bulky protective gloves he wore. An eyeglass lens.
Tanner had arrived and finished suiting up. The protective gear swallowed her, but without it neither of them would have been able to investigate the scene for hours.
She made her way to his side. “What’s it looking like?” she asked, voice muffled by her respirator.
“Arson investigator found a fuel can in back. Looks to him like that was the point of origin.”
“Any victims?”
He replied that there hadn’t been and held out the lens. “Found this just now.”
She took it. “The old guy wear glasses?”
“Don’t know, though it wouldn’t surprise me.”
“What’re you thinking?”
“That maybe Alex and the old man’s daughter are right. Maybe Cragan didn’t kill himself after all.”
A high, thin wail of grief pierced the morning air. Reed turned and saw Angie Wilson being consoled by a man he didn’t recognize. Her husband, Reed guessed.
He looked back at Tanner. “Do your thing. I’ll catch up with you later.”
He picked his way through the blackened rubble, heading toward the sobbing woman. When he had cleared the scene, he removed his helmet and respirator.
The daughter caught sight of him and broke away from her husband’s grasp. “You!” she cried, stumbling toward him. “Do you believe me now?”
Reed faced her stoically. “I’m sorry for your loss, Mrs. Wilson.”
“To hell with that! I told you! You wouldn’t listen! Are you listening now? All my father’s things… our family photographs, all his designs… everything I had left of him, gone now!”
The man slipped his arm around her. “Honey,” he said, “calm down. It’s only stuff. Just things.”
“To you!” She struggled free of his arms. “He was my father, I grew up here. All my childhood photographs and my memor-” The words caught on a sob. “Do you believe me now, Detective Reed? My father didn’t kill himself, he was murdered!”
She broke down then. Sobbing against her husband’s chest, obviously heartbroken. The man met Reed’s eyes. In them he saw apology-and condemnation.
“I’m Sean, Angie’s husband. Do we know yet, was this accidental or-”
“It was deliberately set. What we don’t know is who did it or why.” He turned his gaze to the woman. “Mrs. Wilson, do you have any idea who might be responsible for this?”
“Whoever killed him. They did this.”
He tried another tack. “Did your father have any enemies?”
“None that I know of. Everybody liked him.” She looked up at her husband. “Right, Sean?”
“Right,” her husband agreed, then looked at him. “Did you ever meet him, Detective?”
“I’m sorry to say I did not.”
“If you had, you’d understand. He was loved by everyone.”
“What about his house. Any idea why someone would want to torch it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Could he have been involved in something illegal?”
The question elicited vehement denials from them both. Reed tried again. “The house’s contents, anything of great value? Perhaps the fire was used to cover up a burglary?”
The two looked at one another in question, then simultaneously replied in the negative.
“No art or jewelry? Rare coins or books?”
“My dad lived on his Social Security, Detective. To do that, he needed our help from time to time.”
“Help we were happy to offer,” her husband added. “He was always there for us, to help with the girls, whatever.”
“You believe strongly he was murdered, yet you say everyone liked him. Somebody torched his house, yet you can’t think of a reason why.”
“Maybe it was just some wacko,” she offered. “Some sick stranger. It happens, right?”
“It does, Mrs. Wilson, but frankly it’s rare. Murder is a crime most often committed by a friend, family member or an acquaintance.”
She started to cry again and pressed her face against her husband’s chest. He wrapped his arms protectively around her. “Tell us what to do, Detective Reed. Anything that might help.”
He wished he had something to offer them, something that would give them a sense of purpose. He had nothing. “If you think of anything later, even if it seems like nothing, call me.”
He said he would and Reed started off, then stopped and looked back. “Did your dad wear glasses. Mrs. Wilson?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “He was blind as a bat without them.”
____________________
Twenty minutes later, Reed approached the medical group’s receptionist. He provided his shield for her review. “Detective Reed, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Department. I need to have a word with Dr. Whitney.”