Page 22 of Beehives and Broken Heroes

“Nope, all that matters is finding the dress for you.” Allie was already pulling the dress off—refusing to look at herself in the mirror in her dressing room.

“How diplomatic of you,” Jo said, chuckling as she slid back into her dressing room.

Look at me go, Allie thought,and I wasn’t even trying.

* * *

Brandon stood in the corner room upstairs where he slept, with his phone calling out on speaker, waiting for Major Alana Davis to answer her phone. He set his phone on a little table by the window where he stood watching the sun set across the field and over the river. Vibrant pinks and oranges reflected in the moving water, making it appear like a well of mixed paints swirling together. He pulled a clean shirt on over his head just as someone answered the line.

“Carroll,” Alana answered, sounding amused. She’d gotten close with Brandon and Andy over the last few of years. She loved to harass him, and he’d come to think of her as that irritating cousin that you couldn’t get rid of but didn’t really want to.

He picked up his phone. “Major.”

“Last time I saw you, you were packing up your office.” A hint of chastisement played inside Alana’s teasing tone.

“Time sure does fly, doesn’t it?” Brandon turned his back on the window.

“It does.”

“How’s your family?” He headed to the bathroom and ran a towel over his head, getting most of the leftover drips from his recent shower.

“Good. Healthy. Happy. And yours?”

He cleared his throat. “Good.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Carroll,” Alana said, “I’m always happy to play catch-up, but something tells me this call isn’t of a personal nature, now, is it?”

He sat on the edge of the clawfoot tub. “No.”

“You’re calling about the fires?”

“You know me too well.” Brandon had worked with Alana for nearly as long as he had Andy. When he’d retired, she’d taken his position.

“I wondered when you’d get in touch,” she said.

“So there is more to them . . .”

She let out a breath. “I got to be honest with you, Brandon. We’ve had our suspicions and have been looking into them, but so far, there’s nothing that suggests that they were anything more than accidents.”

He waited.

“But . . .”

There it was.

“Tobias Grant was released last November.”

Brandon scrubbed a hand down his face. Tobias Grant was a soldier he’d put away for arson eight years ago. The man had been so meticulous about making his fire seem like an accident that Brandon almost hadn’t caught him. Brandon had been fastidious in his investigation, unearthing three more fires that had probably been Grant’s, because a soldier had lost his life. But when it came to trial, the one solid piece of evidence they’d had against the man disappeared. So, instead of going down for manslaughter and spending life in prison, he’d gotten ten years and the chance for parole.

“It’s only been eight years,” Brandon said.

Alana cleared her throat. “Apparently, he’s been a model inmate.”

Brandon paced in front of the vanity. “Does he have alibis for these fires?”

“Yep, and according to the law, they’re solid,” she said.

Brandon nodded. So, someone or someones were lying for him. Made sense. He always thought Grant had people helping him.

---