Second Chance - 02 - When Dreams Cross Page 15

  Andi heaved a deep sigh. “Justin, they aren’t threats. He means it. He’s been trying to close us down since the first groundbreaking.”

  “Why?” Justin asked, thinking it was despair talking rather than reason.

  Andi bent down to pick up the metallic remains of a robot’s hand. She fondled the smut-covered thing as if it were some personal object that brought back a memory. “Because this was his land before my father bought it, and he doesn’t think we paid him enough for it.”

  “Well, he sold it to you, didn’t he?”

  Andi nodded. “Yes, and he got much more than it was worth. No one else would have ever bought it. It was all bayous, and he went through the whole deal as if he were getting away with something. But when he found out it was going to be the site of Promised Land, he felt he had been cheated.”

  “Why? Didn’t he know who your father was?”

  Andi shook her head. “He never saw him. My father had other men who scouted the area, and they in turn hired real estate agents to buy up all the land. None of them even knew who the buyer was. Dad knew that if word got out, the owners would jack the prices so high that it wouldn’t even be feasible to put Promised Land here. It was perfectly legal, and he was fair with the prices he paid. But Givens owned most of it, and he thinks he was tricked somehow.”

  “Still,” Justin said, “why would he deliberately set out to hurt Promised Land? That man owns a lot of the town. The revenues the park brings to this area could be worth a fortune to him.”

  Andi breathed a dry laugh. “It’s gone beyond animosity, Justin. It’s revenge now.” Stepping closer to Justin, she glanced out the entrance to make certain that no one was listening. “After Dad’s accident, he started rumors that Promised Land would fail without him. When he saw that I was going to prove him wrong, he approached me, insisting that I pay him an annual ‘protection fee’ to make sure that none of the townspeople set out to hurt Promised Land. I assured him that we could ‘protect’ ourselves.”

  Justin wasn’t sure he understood. “Protection fee?” he asked. “Protection from whom? Givens himself?”

  The question didn’t require an answer. “I wasn’t intimidated by his threats,” Andi said. “I’m not big on being pushed around.”

  Justin almost smiled. “The man had a lot to learn about Andi Sherman, didn’t he?”

  “I thought so.” She shrugged and looked around her, opening her arms helplessly. “But this is all he needs. This fire and the idea that it was an electrical problem are perfect ammunition for scaring the state into closing us down completely.” Throwing down the metal hand, she raked her fingers through her hair in frazzled frustration. “Do you know what that would mean, Justin?” she asked, fresh emotion giving her haunted eyes new depth. “It would mean that I was ruined. There would be nothing left. Nothing. I put some of my Sherman Enterprises stock up as collateral to buy Promised Land stock when the investors wanted to pull out after Daddy’s accident. And I used the rest to buy into your company because I believed in this park. I knew that I could see it through.”

  “You still believe in it,” Justin said, his eyes intense. “I believe in it. You can do it, Andi. All you have to do is go and face the press. Answer their questions. Prove you have nothing to hide. By the time the park opens this will have died down and no one will even remember it.”

  Andi dropped her hands to her sides in helplessness. “You just don’t understand, Justin,” she whispered.

  Justin wanted to hold her, but her stiffness and the wobbly edge in her voice warned him away. “I do understand,” he said. “It seems like a terrible blow right now, but a few months from now it’ll just be one more obstacle that you’ve overcome. You’re a special woman, Andi, and I’ve seen you get around worse problems than this. It could have been so much worse. You might not have seen Madeline in time to save her. She would have died if she’d been in there a few minutes longer. And if we had gone in there just minutes later, the toxic fumes from the melted plastic might have killed us. But everyone’s all right. We lost a building. Just a building, Andi! And God knows you’ve dealt with bad press before.”

  Knowing his words were steeped in truth, Andi heaved a long sigh and made her features relax. “I know you’re right,” she said. “I’ll get through it. Give me an hour, and I’ll be a pillar of strength. I always fall apart right at first, but my reconstruction usually makes me stronger.” Setting her hands on her hips, she looked around her. “I’ll call a press conference as soon as I meet with my animatronics engineers to discuss the rebuilding. And Press Preview Day is in just a few weeks. They’ll see it firsthand and love it, even though all the rides aren’t quite finished.” She faltered, then took a deep breath. Walking into his outstretched arms and embracing him as if it were a way to absorb some of his strength, she said, “It’s going to be all right, Justin. Now, I’ve got work to do.”

  “You go ahead,” Justin said, hanging back. “I want to look around for a little while.”

  “All right,” she said softly, pressing a kiss on his lips.

  Justin watched her leave, noting the weary slump in her shoulders and her slow, hopeless gait. If only he could do more for her than offer her a strong embrace.

  Kicking a charred beam out of his way, Justin walked to the back of the building where he remembered seeing Andi’s silhouette against a wall of flames. His pulse raced anew as the picture snagged his mind, bringing back the fear that had screeched through him when he’d thought he had come too late. The fire had a better hold back there, he thought, and it seemed odd since the electrical work was only along the sides. Stepping closer, he kicked some of the debris from the fallen ceiling out of his way and found the place in the wall where an outlet had been. The firemen had chopped the area around it in their overhaul, leaving little evidence of the char patterns or melted aluminum. Something was wrong. Though the area around the outlet was still standing, it had burned to the ground just a few feet away. That was impossible if the fire had sprung from that outlet, for the point of origin was usually burned more thoroughly than any other area. Walking down the wall, he mentally measured the lowest level of burning. The wall had burned out in a V pattern with the lowest point almost in the center. That meant that the point of origin was probably just a few inches above the floor in a place where there had been no outlet. He’d have to check the blueprints when he got back to the office to make absolutely sure, but if he was right, the firemen who had done the investigation had been wrong. But what had started the fire?

  Stepping over the wall into the bright sunlight that mocked such disaster, he looked at the back of the gutted building. This wall was the one that had sustained the most damage, for the other ones were still standing. Obviously it had not been the robots that had a defect in the wiring. Maybe it had been an extension cord plugged into the outlet and run along the length of the wall. Maybe the crew had walked on it so much that the wires had become bared and a fire started away from the outlet. But that was doubtful, since the construction had been finished in that part of the building and the robots had been hooked to their own electrical sources.

  Brushing off his hands, Justin paced the length of the burned structure. Charred remains of the wall were scattered at his feet, and it seemed no clues had survived. Turning away from the building in frustration, he let his eyes sweep the ground.

  An oblong pool of something white several yards from the debris caught his eye, and he walked toward it and stooped down for closer assessment. He ran his finger across it and realized that it was dried wax. Pulling his knife out of his pocket, Justin snapped out the blade and scraped up the dried substance until he came to an unburned wick stretched the length of it. A melted candle, he thought as a flash of lightning sparked something in his mind. In light of the fire and questionable point of origin, it seemed too much of a coincidence.

  Closing his eyes, he strained to bring together fragments of memory—a criminal justice professor in college, a chapter on
arson detection, a list of common methods. “One undetectable method,” the professor had said, “is to soak the area in diesel fuel so that the fumes won’t rise before the arsonist can get out of the building. He’ll then set a candle in the middle of wadded paper, light it, and leave. By the time the candle burns out, the arsonist is gone, and the paper will catch fire, in turn setting off the fuel.”

  Could it be, Justin thought now, tracing the oblong circle of wax with his fingers, that the fire was the result of arson, and that the arsonist had dropped an extra candle on his way out of the building? Maybe Madeline had frightened the arsonist into making a careless escape.

  Impossible, Justin thought, standing up. No one could have gotten onto the grounds without clearance, and the construction crews had gone home. There were no other signs of arson. At least none that he’d seen.

  Running back over the rubble, Justin stepped over the wall and stood on the inside of the building again. Other clues to arson, he thought, racking his brain, were the smell of fumes in the charred wood. Picking up a piece that was charred less deeply than some of the others, he brought it to his nose. Nothing unusual. Moving the debris until he could reach the bottom layer that would have come from the wall instead of the ceiling, he picked up a more charred piece. Closing his eyes, he brought it to his nose, trying to block out the smell of burned wood and concentrate on any foreign vapor. His heart accelerated when the faintest smell of diesel fuel reached his nostrils. Ignoring the soot that coated his clothes, he began to clear away the debris closest to where he believed the fire had started. When he’d cleared a wide area, he peeled his shirt off his damp back and used it to sweep back the soot that blanketed the concrete.

  A victorious smile captured his face as he found a line of char burned into the concrete in front of the lowest level of burning. Following the line on his hands and knees, continuously brushing the soot out of his way with his shirt, Justin saw that it led along the wall and toward the robots on both sides of the structure before it stopped. That was why the robots had not burned immediately. They had been free of the fire until the fuel-invoked flames had taken firm hold of the walls and spread toward the front of the building. And the center of the back wall had probably been splashed with diesel to ensure that the fire got a good start before the fire fighters could reach the scene.

  Anticipation flooded through him as he stepped back over the shambles, realizing that all this combined evidence proved beyond a doubt that the fire was the result of arson. This would clear Promised Land of its responsibility. This would prove that it was not an electrical flaw that had caused the fire.

  And it would give Andi back the drive and determination that had seemed wilting in her this morning. That alone was worth anything he could do.

  In spite of her melancholy, Andi stifled a laugh when she saw Justin dart off the elevator covered with soot and perspiration, heading toward her office as if he had no time to waste.

  “Justin,” she called, hurrying across the reception area to meet him, noting the lull in typing and the surprised eyes that followed them into her office. “I was just coming from talking to Wes—”

  “Arson,” Justin cut in, his heavy breath diluting the impact of the word. “It was arson, Andi. Not some wiring problem. The fire was set deliberately.”

  Andi stood motionless, absorbing the meaning of his words. As the word took hold of her, confusion blurred her understanding. “But … the fire inspector said—”

  “Forget what he said. It was arson. I can prove it.” Justin started to lower himself to the ivory-colored sofa, then remembered he was covered with soot and caught himself. “My guess is that he used diesel to soak the wood of that back wall and the floor around it. Then he set a candle in the middle of paper or something and got out. He left one candle behind, so he must have heard someone coming before he could set up the second one. Probably Madeline.”

  “You found a candle? In all that debris, why didn’t it melt?”

  “I found it melted into the ground several yards behind the building.” Remembering that piece of wood he’d saved, he pulled it from his pocket. “Smell this.”

  Andi inhaled and recognized the faint lacing of fumes. Bringing her alarmed eyes back to Justin, she asked, “Is this enough proof? Will the fire inspector determine it to be arson based on a smell and some melted wax?”

  “We won’t depend on him,” Justin said, pacing back and forth in front of her. “If he overlooked this he’s liable to overlook other things. This kind of thing is easy to miss if you’re convinced something else was the problem. We’ll call the arson squad. They’ll know what else to look for. I also found a definite char pattern burned into the concrete. That’s indisputable proof that an accelerant was poured onto the floor. You’re clear, Andi. All we have to do is figure out who set it, have him arrested, and call a press conference. And then things can get back to normal around here.”

  Andi stood up and stopped Justin’s pacing by stepping in front of him. Her eyes glowed with a moist rush of relief, and without thinking about the soot or dirt or how her clothes would look afterward, she reached up and wrapped her arms around his neck, embracing him with the strength of all the fear and dread she’d been experiencing since she’d read the headlines that morning. His dusty arms closed around her, crushing her against him with desperate tenderness.

  “I told you we could get through it,” he whispered into her hair as her warm tears wet his neck and twisted his heart, invoking the fiercest protection toward her, along with the love that multiplied with each passing day.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  It was late afternoon before Andi and Justin, who had both showered and changed clothes, made it back to her office with the security tapes of yesterday’s activities at each entrance to the park. They had convinced the arson squad that a mistake had been made in determining the cause of the fire, and now they were determined to find the culprit, even if it meant questioning everyone who had been on the grounds that day. They watched the tapes on her six screens, running them at a faster-than-normal speed, stopping the tapes every few minutes to determine who each person was and whether he had been an employee, crew member, or visitor.

  “From now on the guards should write down everyone who comes in and out,” Justin said wearily after they had been at it for several hours, “in case this ever comes up again.”

  Andi shook her head in disagreement. “They have a list of people who have clearance each day, and in the case of a visitor, they follow it up with a phone call. But too many people come in and out to write them all down, and it’ll be worse when the park opens.”

  “Well, I don’t want to have to do this again,” Justin said, rubbing his hands down his tired face and sighing. “There’s got to be a better way.”

  Andi smiled and looked over at him leaning back in his chair, an ankle slung over his knee.

  “You know, you’ve gone way beyond the call of duty today,” she said softly. “You’ve completely ignored your own work, and you don’t have to.”

  “My staff is running things pretty smoothly,” he said, taking her hand. “At this point, I’m not even sure we can trust your security guards to do this. It’s too important, and I want to help.”

  “You have helped.”

  “I want to do more,” he said, his eyes still on the screens. “I’ve come to like this park a lot, and I don’t like the thought of some maniac out there who wants to mess it up. The next time we might not be so lucky.”

  Andi inclined her head and sighed. “A few weeks ago you wouldn’t have lifted a finger for Promised Land. Or me.”

  Justin massaged the soft lines of her hand, fitted so naturally in his. “A few weeks ago I was a proud fool, still running from emotions so strong that they’d chased me for eight years.”

  His easy admission startled Andi, and she swallowed back the emotion constricting her throat. “And now?”

  His eyes were the deepest shade of blue, dark as the night sky
, as they smiled at her. “And now I’ve come to terms with those feelings.” He brought her hand to his mouth, bent down, and kissed a knuckle. “I’m not going to run from them again.” His voice was soft, velvety deep, indolent as he spoke. “I used to be so afraid of failing you somehow. You saw things in me that I couldn’t even see in myself. But now I realize that I was never better than when I was with you. God knew it, too. That’s why he brought us back together. And it doesn’t scare me anymore.”

  Andi’s eyes brimmed with emotion, and silent prayers of gratitude sang through her mind at the wonder of being in love. Tearing his eloquent eyes away from Andi’s, Justin looked back at the screens.

  “Looks like we’re nearing the end of the workday,” he said, breaking the spell and reluctantly dragging her attention back to the tapes. “Some of the crews are leaving right here. Slow them down a little.” Picking up the list he and Andi had been compiling of people who’d come in during the day, they began to identify each person and check off the names as they went out.

  When the activity at the entrances trickled down to one or two people coming through every few minutes, Justin glanced back over his list in search of a particular name. “You know who hasn’t come out yet?”

  “Who?” Andi asked, keeping her eyes on the screens.

  “That building inspector who came in during the afternoon. Blond hair. Black pants and shirt.”

  Andi flipped back to an earlier page on her clipboard. “Butler’s his name,” she said. “Speed it up a little. Let’s see if he came out late.”

  Justin set all the tapes on high speed, carefully watching for the man in question. When even two of the animators who had been with him until late into the night were shown exiting beneath the bright lights of the gates, he gave up. “That guy never came back out last night.” The speeding tapes showed nothing for a few minutes, until the guard ran to open the gates to let the fire trucks in.