Page 32 of Bachelor Cop Finally Caught? (Hot off the Press! 2)

Beneath the newspapers was a manila folder filled with what appeared to be schoolwork. Handwritten papers. “I’d like to borrow this folder, if you don’t mind. I promise to return it to you.”

Opal studied him with a frown. “How will samples of Eddie’s handwriting help you find him?”

“I’m just pursuing all possible leads. I’ll also need a recent photograph of Eddie and a list of his friends, girlfriends, anyone he might have talked to about his plans.”

“I’ll give you anything you need to find my boy,” she said fervently, seemingly satisfied that he was taking her report seriously.

Dan gave the rest of the room a perfunctory once-over, finding little of interest among Eddie’s sparse belongings. Certainly nothing that pointed directly toward arson. He glanced at the computer, then decided to wait before taking that for evidence. For one thing, he was barely computer literate. He’d have to turn it over to a computer expert to find out if there was anything significant stored there—and that was best done with a warrant.

Twenty minutes later Dan and Lindsey left the worried mother’s home, both assuring her that they would do everything they could within their respective jobs to help her find her son.

“You think Eddie had something to do with the fires, don’t you?” Lindsey asked as soon as she and Dan were in his truck again.

He fastened his seat belt and started the engine. “I think there is some reason to speculate that Eddie might have a fascination with the fires,” he replied, thinking of the stack of newspapers. “That doesn’t necessarily mean he had anything to do with them.”

“Did you recognize his handwriting? Was it the same as in the notebook?”

“I haven’t had a chance to compare handwriting, obviously. But remember, Lindsey, there was no confession in the notebook. Only what might have been called an obsession with fire imagery. Some teenagers are preoccupied with music and poetry about death. That doesn’t necessarily mean they’re homicidal or suicidal.”

She nodded and gazed through the windshield, apparently lost in thought. Waiting at a stop sign at a busy intersection, Dan studied her while she was looking away from him. She had a lovely profile, he couldn’t help noticing. Long, thick lashes. A small, straight nose. Delicate cheekbones and a firm little chin. She held her lower lip between her teeth as she contemplated her thoughts. He frowned, thinking of the marks she would leave in her tender skin.

When she was little and hurt herself, she would come to her big brother to “kiss it and make it better,” he remembered from out of the blue. Sometimes, if Dan was there, she would want him to kiss her “boo-boo,” too—just to make sure it healed completely, she’d told him somberly. He’d found it amusing when she was six. Eight. Ten.

The last time he’d kissed her she’d been twenty-one. He’d brushed his lips over hers in a birthday kiss that he’d meant to be brotherly and affectionate.

He could still remember the physical jolt he’d felt when their lips had met that night. Although he’d done his best to conceal it, his reaction had been startlingly intense—and very male. Secretly shaken, he’d found himself watching her more closely for the remainder of the evening, aware for the first time that she had become a beautiful young woman.

She’d been twenty-one; he’d been ten years older. He’d felt vaguely like a dirty old man for even noticing her physical attractions. She was just a kid, he’d told himself in exasperation—B.J.’s cherished and sheltered little sister. What was he thinking?

It was only a matter of days after that night that he and Melanie had eloped. For all the wrong reasons.

Lindsey glanced his way, one eyebrow lifted in question. “You taking a nap, Chief? The intersection’s clear.”

It sounded so much like something the old Lindsey—his pal and sometimes nemesis—would have said, that he instinctively relaxed a little. “Sorry,” he murmured, pressing the accelerator. “Guess I got distracted.”

“Me, too. I’ve had a thought—and it could be crazy, but I might as well run it by you.”

“What is it?”

“What if, instead of setting the fires, Eddie stumbled onto something that told him who was starting them? If he’s that fascinated with the subject, maybe he was snooping around on his own.”

“I suppose that’s possible,” Dan conceded, though he’d hate to think a punk kid had come closer to solving a series of crimes than an entire team of trained investigators. Of course, he would also hate to think that same kid had managed to commit those crimes without leaving any clues for the trained investigators to find.

“What if he did? What if something he found out put him in danger? Maybe he ran because he was scared. Or maybe worse—maybe somebody already silenced him.”

“Now you’re letting your imagination run away with you,” Dan chided. “For all we know, Eddie’s staying with a girlfriend, hiding out until his mother’s willing to give him whatever he wants just so he’ll come home.”

“That’s another possibility,” Lindsey acknowledged, sounding a bit reluctant to let go of her more dramatic scenario.

“So what are you going to say in your story?” he asked, trying to keep his own voice casual.

“Only that Eddie’s mother reported him missing, and that no one has heard from him since Monday. Of course, I’ll probably call some of his school friends, and his father—you know, try to round out the story with some quotes.”

“You won’t mention any possible connection to the arsons?”

“Of course not. How many times must I repeat that I’m an ethical journalist, not a tabloid tattlemonger? I don’t know why you can’t seem to get that through your thick skull.”

For some crazy reason, he was always more comfortable with Lindsey when she was calling him insulting names. He grinned at her as he parked his truck next to her car. “I know the difference. And if you weren’t so prickly and stiff-necked, you would know I wasn’t trying to insult your professional integrity.”

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