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EIGHTEEN
The next morning, they talked about the case while Chandler made breakfast. She had to admit that she’d loved waking up in his arms. She’d felt safe and…happy, but then the memory of the fire had stolen those feelings away.
“So, we’re thinking the mysterious caller—the one who insisted I stay late—is the one responsible for the fire, right?” Eden asked, forcing herself to deal with their situation.
Chandler frowned. “Right. But knowing that won’t do us much good, unless you hear his voice again. Probably any info he gave you about himself was a lie.”
“Well,” she said, propping her chin atop her hand, “his number was real. I used it to call him back. Maybe I can use it to track him down.”
“Maybe.” Chandler scowled as he stirred the scrambled eggs in the pan. “But he might have used a burner phone. If he did, he’s probably ditched it by now. We’ll have to wait and see. And be even more careful. I think we got complacent.”
“Yeah.” She shuddered at the thought of how close a call it had been. “Whoever’s behind this has attacked my car, my house, and now my salon.”
“We need to move faster,” he said. “The person behind this has little to lose and lots of determination.” Chandler sighed, frustrated. “I just wish we could get a solid lead on why this person is so invested in Jeff Ross to go after you so hard. It’s vicious.”
“Agreed.” Eden found herself admiring his fine backside. Heat prickled her cheeks as images of them from the night before filled her mind. She shook her head, trying to sharpen her mind and focus. “Did I tell you about the lady who came in yesterday who talked about the group home?”
“No.” He glanced over at her. “What did she say?”
“I started asking her about her job and once I found out she worked in a group home for foster kids, I thought maybe I could get more information about Jeff Ross’s situation. She said many of the kids stay in touch with their foster parents, even once they’re out of the system. Maybe if we can talk to the people from the foster homes he was in, we can get some answers.”
“I’ll look into it,” Chandler said. “This morning, I’ll check in with the friend of my dad who works in the prison system. Hopefully, he’ll be able to tell us who’s been visiting Jeff in prison.”
“It’s too bad your new security system burned up,” Eden said.
“Yeah, but the footage is backed up in the cloud, so we still have access to it. It’s just the devices that got wrecked. I’ll view it later—I told the detective who took my statement that I’d let him know if I came across any leads.”
Before Eden could say anything in reply, she was interrupted by her phone ringing. Checking the screen, she saw it was Lena, and relief swept over her. She knew eventually her family would hear what had happened and would inundate her with calls—but apparently they hadn’t seen the news yet.
“Are you guys okay?” Lena asked as soon as Eden picked up. “I saw it on the news, but they didn’t really mention what happened with you guys other than you were alive.”
“Yes, we’re okay,” Eden said, glancing across the kitchen at Chandler’s back. “I’m still a bit in shock.”
“I bet.” Lena sighed. “I’m so sorry, hon. On the news…they said it might be arson. Is that true?”
“Yeah, it is,” Eden admitted before telling her the whole story—about the customer who’d insisted she stay late, about realizing the front entrance was on fire and the back entrance had been blocked, about having to crash through the windows with the fire extinguisher just to be able to get out alive. Though it was warm in Chandler’s kitchen, she found herself shivering as she recounted it, the vivid images replaying in her mind and bringing back the same sense of fear she’d felt in the moment.
“Oh my god, how horrible,” Lena said, her voice full of sympathy. “Do they have any idea who caused it? Maybe those new cameras Chandler installed caught something.”
“Maybe.” Eden whispered a thank you to Chandler as he slid a plate of toast and mug of coffee in front of her, kissing her fast. “He still needs to check out the footage later. But first, I need to figure out a way for us to continue servicing our grooming clients so we don’t have to cancel all those booked appointments.”
“Honey, are you sure you should be worried about that right now? After everything you’ve been through, maybe you should just lie low and take it easy for a bit.”
“I can’t,” Eden said, her voice breaking a little. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I can’t just not work. I’m hoping the insurance will come through to help us get the shop repaired and running again, but we can’t wait until then to see to our clients, or they’ll jump ship for other groomers. Besides, I don’t have enough in savings to be out of work for long. Maybe we can be a mobile service for a while, going to customers’ homes. Or we could have them come to ours.”
She held her breath, wondering if Lena was going to say this was too much to ask of her—that she wasn’t ready to make this much of a commitment to Eden and to Perfect Paws when things were so unsettled and dangerous. But of course, Lena didn’t let her down.
“I’ve got enough space here at my house to see mine, so I’m good with that option for now,” Lena said. “And see? It was good that I used that computer program in tandem with your paper planner because now we have a backup of everyone that I can access remotely. In fact, let me start calling my people now. It’ll take one thing off your plate, at least.”
“Thank you!” Eden sipped her coffee, more grateful than ever for her best friend. “That would be fantastic. And I’ll get on social media and post about what happened so we can catch people that way too. I’ll leave the salon’s email as the contact to reschedule, and we can both check it periodically to re-book clients that way. I’ll figure out something for my people—whether I want to see them here or go to them.” Which would be safer? She didn’t like the idea of handing out Chandler’s address to a bunch of people she wasn’t sure she could trust. On the other hand, going to the client could lead to problems if she was called again by the man who was trying to kill her. She thought she could recognize his voice, but what if he disguised it? Or sent in his request via email instead of calling?
Lena sighed. “I’ll check in with you again this afternoon. Talk to you later, hon. And take it easy on yourself. You’ve been through a lot since yesterday.”
“I will. Thanks.”
Eden ended the call and exhaled slowly before getting online to post about the fire. An hour or so later, after she’d finished getting ready—interrupted every five minutes or so by phone calls from her parents and every one of her siblings to make sure she was okay—she checked the salon’s accounts and found many of their clients had posted comments of sympathy and well-wishes for them to be back on their feet soon. A bit of a silver lining in an otherwise dark-cloud kind of day.
Chandler stuck close to home and close to Eden all day, not really letting her out of his sight. Not so much because their relationship had changed after last night, she suspected, but because of the unknown threat of the person out there trying to kill her before she could testify. At present, though, the only thing that might take her out was the stress of dealing with the insurance company over the fire damage.
