Page 7 of Hold a Candle

Surprisingly enough, he did find a job at a local animal shelter, but that salary would hardly support the clothing he wanted to wear. Some of the stuff he’d appeared in, plus his sudden secrecy about his life, had set off an alarm in Pauley’s cop intuition. Where had he been all night? He was home now, but she knew he hadn’t been before she left the house this morning because she’d checked.

He hadn’t answered his phone either. Not until after she’d gotten the call from the dispatchers about Happy Housekeeper’s break-in. On her way to the case, he’d returned her call and said he’d stayed over at a friend’s house, and asked why he needed to make excuses for where he spent his time. Of course, she’d called the friend and he had confirmed it. Kids always stuck together unless you could manage to interrogate them separately in a police station. She wasn’t about to do that.

Yet.

When Chief Inspector Quinn Tannock snapped his fingers in front of her face, she started.

“What has ye concentrating so hard that ye are ignoring everyone around ye?” he asked with a grin. “I need to see ye in my office, if ye can tear yerself away.”

Pauley yawned and pushed her chair back. “Aye, sir. I was just watching the video from the murder case this morning.”

He lost his grin. “That’s what I want to talk to ye about.”

She nodded and followed him into his office where he shut the door behind them. She took a seat in front of his desk as he walked around the wooden monstrosity and sat down, the old chair creaking slightly when he did so. The Chief Inspector was in his early sixties and well able to retire, but he liked his job and chose not to. He was also physically fit with thick, iron-gray hair, piercing gray eyes, and a commanding air that she respected.

“So, what do ye want to know, Quinn?”

“Have ye figured out who killed Tommie Ruskag yet?” he asked, steepling his fingers as he watched her closely.

“When I do, ye’ll be the first to know,” Pauley replied with an uneasy feeling. Quinn didn’t ask idle questions. Did he know something? “Why do ye ask?”

“Because something’s come up that ye need to know about,” he replied with a definite air of regret.

Something was up, his attitude making Pauley tense and her pulse leap. Whatever it was, she had a sudden uneasy feeling it was connected to her son.

“Detective Peterson got a call from Hope Barks animal shelter. It appears a couple of the employees there were horsing around the employee lockers and bumped into one of them. It opened and a bag fell out.”

Pauley’s stomach tightened with each word Quinn spoke. Hope Barks was where Luca worked. The feeling of her world about to fall out from under her made her light-headed. “Who did the locker belong to and what was in it?” she asked, her pulse rate increasing.

Quinn hesitated and then leaned forward. “It belonged to yer son, Luca,” he replied bluntly. “The clothes had fresh blood on them. Couldn’t be more than half a day old.”

“Maybe someone just shoved the bag into the first available locker,” Pauley protested, feeling the cold creeping like probing icy fingers through her body. Instinctively, she knew that wasn’t the case.

Quinn shook his head. “I watched the video myself with Detective Peterson. The clothing looks exactly like the clothes the kid who ran was wearing. I should be hearing from the M.E. anytime now with the owner of the blood sample. I’m betting it will be Tommie Ruskag.”

“That doesn’t mean the clothing belonged to Luca though,” she gritted, trying to deny what was staring her right in the face.”

Quinn sighed and leaned back in his chair. “Ye know how this works, Pauley. Mica is bringing him in for questioning as we speak. I don’t need yer permission because he’s twenty-one, but I did want ye to know. Maybe they don’t belong to Luca...but maybe they do. We have no choice but to follow where the clues take us, I just wanted ye to be prepared.”

Pauley gave a short nod, her jaw clenched. She knew how it worked, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. “And if it is Luca? The crime scene speaks for itself, Quinn. There is no doubt it was self-defense.”

“That may be true, but I still have to take ye off the case, Pauley. Mica Peterson will be investigating all of it. Luca is young, with no criminal history. If it is self-defense, then he’ll nae be charged with anything. But my advice to ye is to get him a good lawyer and find out what he’s been up to. Take a few days off, bond with yer son. The lad appears to be getting into things he has no business being a part of.”

“He won’t even talk to me,” Pauley snapped, unable to keep the bitterness out of her tone. “How am I supposed to bond with him?”

“When he’s released into yer custody, I suggest ye find a place to get him out of town for a while. Someplace that won’t be easily accessible to the people he’s mixed up with.

“Aren’t ye getting ahead of yerself? We don’t even know if it was Luca yet. And if it was, there may be a perfectly good explanation. Maybe he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe he saw something go down that he shouldn’t have seen.”

Unable to stay seated, Pauley stood up and paced. “There could be any number of reasons Tommie was chasing him, Quinn. It doesn’t mean he’s joined a gang or something.” She turned to face him across the desk. “I want to hear the interview from another room and see his face when Mica talks to him,” she insisted. “I’ll know if he’s lying.”

Quinn stood up, watching her with a guarded expression. “Are ye sure about that?”

She stared mutely back at him wanting to tear him to shreds and kick the desk in frustration, but it wouldn’t do any good. It wasn’t his fault and she knew he would try to help as much as he could. “No, I can’t be completely sure,” she finally admitted to him and herself. “But I still want to see the interview.”

Pauley wasn’t sure about anything at the moment. Luca was the private sort, just like herself, and never had been one for confidences. He was only 15 when Peter cheated on her and she’d subsequently divorced his dad. It hadn’t been pretty, and Luca had been more susceptible to Peter’s lies than Natalie and Elliot were. When Luca needed a real father figure, Peter chose to be bitter and blame her for their break-up.

Quinn’s phone beeped and he held it up to look at it. “Mica’s bringing him in now,” he said. “Ye don’t have to do this, Pauley. No one would blame ye.”

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