Never Tell (Detective D.D. Warren #10)(112)

“You were just talking about it. Conrad was shot in his own home with his own handgun.”

“Exactly. Yet we’ve spent the past twenty-four hours spinning our wheels over hired assassins and dark-web vendors and shadowy criminals that go bump in the night. Really? How would a hit man know that Conrad kept his gun stashed in his own bedroom? How would a hit man gain access Conrad’s house, given that Conrad lives under an alias and has been on hyperalert for nearly a decade? Then, having accessed the house, and crept up the stairs and retrieved the hidden handgun, how does this ninja simply stand in the doorway of the study and shoot Conrad three times without Conrad ever putting up a hand in self-defense?”

“Conrad would’ve been on guard.”

“Meaning Conrad never saw the threat coming,” D.D. concluded for both of them. “He let his killer into his home. He thought nothing of it when his killer joined him upstairs in his study. He knew the person, Phil. Conrad had to have known and trusted his shooter; it’s the only explanation.”

Phil stared at her. “He finally identified the gun for hire contracted by Jules LaPage, and it turned out to be someone he personally knew? That seems far-fetched.”

“Because I don’t think it’s the contract killer he identified. Or who identified him. I think Conrad stumbled upon a bigger fish. Not the vendor. The site manager. A person with a double life worth burning down the entire city to protect.”

“Who—” Phil started, then stopped. “We are idiots,” he said.

“Yep. We need to get to Evie’s mother’s house. Now!”





CHAPTER 39


    FLORA


I CAN’T KEEP ROAMING HARVARD SQUARE in hopes of spying an arsonist. For one thing, being the heart of a college campus, the area is swarming with kids in hoodies. Rocket blends right in. Also, with emergency response vehicles and news vans piling up, it’s getting hard to move.

I don’t like crowds. I don’t like the feeling of bodies bumping, jostling, hemming me in. My heart rate is too high and that’s not simply from chasing Rocket.

I discover a little side street and exit the teeming masses. I take a moment to breathe more easily, exhaling little puffs of steamy air. Shouldn’t all these kids be on Christmas break? It’s been too long for me; I don’t remember how my own college calendar worked, let alone what a place like Harvard does. It makes me feel old—and, for a moment, adrift. The life I used to lead. The dreams I never returned to.

Okay, time to think like an arsonist. If I can’t follow Rocket, how can I out-anticipate him?

He’ll want money. Two big jobs in one day, he’ll return to his neighborhood to pick up his cash. Phil told me the police had it under surveillance, however, so that doesn’t feel like a good use of my time.

But wait—is Rocket done for the day? The criminal attorney’s stately brownstone must have taken some finesse. No way a fancy lawyer didn’t have a state-of-the-art security system—and no way a kid like Rocket didn’t stand out in a neighborhood that upscale. So, a finesse job. Like disguising himself as pest control for the Carters’ residence. He could’ve used the same ruse for Delaney, except the police sightings of him afterward didn’t reveal any uniform.

Maybe a delivery boy? Pizza? He’d just need a cap to pull that off. In a city of twenty-four-hour takeout, no one notices delivery people either. He could’ve stashed the gasoline earlier, as many of those town houses have patios in the back. A kid as athletic as Rocket could definitely scale a fence.

Then exit the same way. Watch his handiwork. Bolt when the police presence got too high or he needed to get moving to his next job. Which took him to the T stop. A simple transfer to the Red Line and Harvard Square it is.

Where he must’ve stashed his Molotov cocktail backpack somewhere out of site. In this day and age of constant vigilance, no unattended bag could’ve been left sitting at a T stop or, for that matter, near a college campus. So he would’ve had to have scoped out everything first. Prepared his supplies, identified key drop sites. Then once the first fire started in Delaney’s house, it was all go, go, go. Moving fast, leaving a trail of fire and chaos in his wake.

Which left me with the lingering feeling that he still wasn’t done.

Then something came to me. Like a whisper in the back of my mind. The media craning for a closer look of the Harvard fire.

The media that used to be camped out in front of Evie’s mother’s house. Documenting everyone coming and going. Making approaching that house nearly impossible.

The media, now drawn away to a string of fires on a college campus that was clearly more exciting than curb patrol.

My first instinct had been correct. Rocket Langley is still after Evie Carter. And he set the fires around the Harvard campus to lure away the media and expose his true target. Molotov cocktails for the foreplay. No doubt a fresh stash of gasoline for the main event.

I start to run.





CHAPTER 40


    EVIE, D.D., AND FLORA


BY THE TIME I PULL my dazed mother out from behind my father’s massive desk, then convince her to leave her martini glass behind, the smoke is noticeable. We pass through the doorway, then draw up short.

Thick black plumes roll out of the kitchen.

I remember what I’d heard about the fire that took out my own home. It had most likely started on the stove top, some kind of homemade trigger system utilizing cooking oil, which had flared up, igniting a trail of gasoline …