Page 68 of The Fix Is In (Torus Intercession 4)
“Oh?”
“There’s someone in your house,” I told him as I got a call from Chief Brasher. “Hello. Are you calling about the interruption of monitoring at Benji’s house?”
“Yeah. Tan just got the alert from your security system. What the hell is going on?”
“Someone broke in.”
“Well, Woosley was out getting us all dinner, so he’s probably there already.”
“Call him and let him know I’m on my way,” I ordered and hung up, turning to Benji before I backed out of the stall. “I don’t know who to trust, so I can’t leave you here. But that means when we get home, you have to stay in the car with the doors locked until I give you the all clear. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,” he answered quickly. “As long as you keep me with you, I’ll follow your directions to the letter.”
“You realize that if the Feds come to take you into protective custody, I’m gonna let them do that, right?”
“But why would they?” he breathed out. “I don’t know anything. I took a picture in the woods, and that’s the entirety of my inclusion in this whole thing. I mean seriously, Shaw, I took a picture.”
“Then what the hell is going on? Why is someone targeting you when everything is out in the open now?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
It made no sense.
I understood why, at the beginning, before anyone knew who Heath Sears really was, that the picture Benji had taken, and Benji’s knowledge of the where and when of the capturing of the image, would have been important to keep secret. With the DEA involved, clearly Sears had been on the trail of some kind of illegal substance, and I was guessing that Alameda, Lindstrom, and Belmont were in it together up to their eyeballs. And yes, I was certain that Belmont had killed his wife’s lover, but not for the reason she thought. I was guessing that Sears had somehow tipped his hand and given his identity away. I doubted that he’d confided in Suzie, but sleeping with a married woman was not in the DEA playbook. Not that I’d ever been in the DEA, but screwing around in the middle of an investigation didn’t sound all that professional to me. Most likely, Belmont had known his wife was cheating on him, and when the DEA agent brought attention to himself, Belmont had probably noticed him snooping around wherever the drugs were that they were moving. I was betting that if Sears hadn’t engaged in the affair, he might still be among the living. As it was, I had no doubt that the search party would find his remains on Lindstrom’s now private land tomorrow.
I didn’t obey the traffic lights on the way to Benji’s, but since it was raining again, and I was practically the only one on the road, I wasn’t worried about hitting anyone or being broadsided in return. The speeding I was doing, as Brasher was on my side, I didn’t concern myself with either.
When I parked in front of Benji’s house, behind a police cruiser, the second I got out, I saw Woosley tearing ass across the front lawn.
“Get down!” he roared at me, diving over the trunk of his car at the same time Benji’s house blew up.
Ducking down beside the door for a second, I scrambled forward, grabbed hold of a winded Officer Woosley, and dragged him to my SUV. I opened the back driver’s side door, lifted and then shoved him into the seat, and then got back behind the wheel just as large pieces of wood started to hit the car.
Wanting Benji away from the site in case there was bigger debris, I put the car in gear and drove halfway down the block.
Coming to a jolting stop, I then turned around in my seat and looked at Woosley. “What the hell happened?”
“The front door was open when I got there,” he reported, still panting, working on getting the air moving in his lungs again. “I went in to check out the scene, and there was a guy there, and when I told him to stay where he was, I must’ve startled him, because he let go of the door to the oven and it––”
“Slammed shut,” Benji offered.
“Exactly,” Woosley agreed, sucking in a deep breath. “He ran out the back before I could even get another command out, and that was when I noticed that all the burners were on and the flames were on high.”
“Fuck,” I groaned.
“I beat it outta there, and that’s when I saw you.”
We watched Benji’s little house burn from where we were, safe down the street, as the rain got harder and there were sirens in the distance.
“I’m sorry about your clothes, Shaw,” Benji said sadly, and since all his equipment and clothes and every worldly possession was in the house, yet he was taking the time to try and comfort me, I leaned sideways and gave him a hug.
