Seeing Red (Firefighters) by Shalvis Jill

Author:Shalvis, Jill [Shalvis, Jill]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781455529667
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2013-08-06T03:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Joe named the puppy Ashes for her rather disgusting love of rubbing her nose in soot. A friend of Kenny’s was indeed an arson-dog trainer who agreed to begin working with Joe and the puppy. Given that Ashes fell asleep in the middle of their first session, Joe didn’t expect any miracles.

The next day, San Diego was hit by a hot, violent summer storm. Joe and Kenny set out in it to talk to the people involved with the Creative Interiors case again, going to Ally’s Treasures first. As they ran from the truck, getting drenched in the process, the unhappy Ashes began to howl from her perch behind the wheel.

“She could wake the dead,” Kenny yelled over a boom of thunder.

“I need a dog sitter!” Joe yelled back, eyeing the pathetic puppy face plastered to the window, woefully watching them run away. “Or someone to just shoot me.”

“I’ll shoot you later,” Kenny promised, and pulled him inside Ally’s Treasures.

Ally was a tall, lean, haughty beanpole, with sharp eyes and a sharper tongue, who clearly did not like dripping wet fire marshals. “I’m busy,” she said when they identified themselves.

“This will only take a minute,” Kenny promised, and smiled his charm-the-witness smile.

Immune, Ally frowned. “Make it quick.”

“How do you feel about Creative Interiors?” Joe asked.

She lifted a shoulder. “They have the better building and street visibility, but since I do a better business, I don’t lose sleep over it.”

“How do you know?” Kenny asked, looking at a shelf of seashells filled with sand, all marked with shockingly astronomical prices.

“How do I know what?” Her tone was holier-than-thou, her nose so high in the air she was in jeopardy of a nosebleed.

“That you do a better business,” Kenny said patiently.

“Because I snoop, if you want the truth. I go into their stores and check out their stock and what their customers are buying. There’s no law against that. Camille does it to me right back.”

“Camille spies on you?” Kenny asked.

“Of course she does. She sends one of the twins, the one who smokes, to buy a Cosmo off my magazine rack, then she presumably goes back and tells them everything. If I were Camille I’d be more concerned about how much more work she does than her spacey sister, or that seriously creepy bookkeeper she just hired, or even that wild and crazy roam-the-planet daughter of hers, but whatever. To each her own.”

Joe bit his tongue with effort. “One of the twins smokes?”

“Yes. Don’t know which one.”

“Have you ever been to their warehouse?” Joe asked.

“The one that burned?” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Have you?”

Her cool veneer slipped a moment. “I don’t like where this is going.”

“Yes or no.”

“No.”

“What about the new store site?” Kenny asked. “Creative Interiors II. Were you there at all?”

She paled and shook her head.

“Are you sure?” Joe asked.

“Once,” she admitted. “At the opening party. They had quick-serve hors d’oeuvres set out. Please.”

“What about the next day?” Joe asked. “Were you there at all on opening day?”

Some of the snide light and superiority drained out of her eyes.

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