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“What’s he saying?” Avalon asked.
Beau lowered the phone and put it on speaker. “Oh, just the usual,” he answered Avalon. “That jackass detective suspects I burned down my bar for insurance money.”
“I told him it was bull, boss.” Anger vibrated in Kai’s voice. “And I don’t think the pretty lady detective with the red hair bought that theory, anyway. It was mostly Cunningham. Heads up, I don’t think he likes you.”
“Shocking,” Beau rasped. Detective Cuntingham hates me? The feeling is mutual.
“He was questioning me hard, but then he got called away. Something about a dead body being found at another fire? I mean, damn, how many fires are we gonna have in this town? When I decided to move here from Hawaii, no one said it was the arson capital of the world.”
Beau looked over at Avalon. “It’s not.” Someone was just very busy and very dangerous.
She nibbled on her lower lip, then asked, “Did you happen to hear where this fire was?”
“Sweetheart,” Beau whispered. “We already know.” They’d passed the scene earlier.
“I just heard the name Slater mentioned,” Kai recalled. “Does that help any?”
“It does.” Confirmation of Beau’s suspicion. Now, next question, who had died in Slater’s house?
“What else can I do?” Kai pushed. “You need extra eyes on your girl? You want me to take a bodyguard shift? I know how protective you get of her, and with these blazes going down, you have to be about to lose your mind.”
Not his mind. His control.
“Name it,” Kai urged. “Tell me what to do and I am on it, boss.”
“I have eyes on her.” Straight on her. “You keep eyes on the bar. And if you see an arson investigator arrive at LeBlanc’s, you let me know, got it? Text or call right away.”
“Done.”
“Thanks, man. Appreciate it. And do me one more favor? If you see a fire, run away from it. Not into it.” Beau exhaled as he hung up the phone.
“Who died in the fire at Slater’s?” Avalon’s low question. “And when is this going to stop?”
When we make it stop.
But before he could say another word, Beau heard the shriek of a siren. One that seemed to be coming closer. “Let’s get home.” He needed to think. To plan.
To have her somewhere safe.
He started the car. Got out of the cul-de-sac.
But he kept hearing the shriek of sirens.
And, soon enough, he saw the flash of blue lights in his rearview mirror. Hell. He’d known this might happen. “Avalon…”
She’d already whipped around to stare behind him. “I see them.”
The cops were closing in. There were lots of ways he could play this scene. After all, it wasn’t his first time to be hunted. But it was his first time having her with him during a hunt. “Ophelia is a lawyer.”
“What?” Her head was still turned to gaze behind them. “I thought she was a PI!”
“She’s both. She’s my lawyer. You’ll need to get her to come to the station when they take me.”
“No one is taking you anywhere!”
Oh, but they were. He slowed down because he wasn’t about to get involved in a car chase with Avalon in the passenger seat, even though he knew the Jag could leave the patrol car in the dust. Her safety always had to come first for him.
“I’ll let them take me in. It has to happen.” If he ran, every cop in the area would chase him. And innocent men weren’t supposed to run.
