“We don’t have time for a beer,” she objected.
“Diversionary tactic.” Standing in the shadows, he watched out the window until the photographer passed by. Dylan turned toward the bar and Guidry. “Is your waitress here?”
Guidry shook his head. “Nell has the night off.” He crossed his anvil-sized arms and eyed Dylan suspiciously. “Why?”
“Gracie needs a change of clothes.” The two men studied her as if she were an alien species. “You sell T-shirts or anything?”
“We’re selling festival sweatshirts, like everybody else in town.” Guidry reached under the bar and pulled out a purple one.
“Great.” Dylan took the garment and slipped it on over her tangerine-colored T-shirt. “What do you have that will hide her hair?”
“How about a cloth napkin?” Gracie suggested.
Guidry unrolled some silverware from a black square and tossed it to Dylan.
Standing in front of her, he tried to hold her hair back while tying the cloth. When tendrils of hair escaped down one side, he scooped them up and tried again, only to repeat the exercise on the other side. With her chest pressed against his, she smiled as his frustration grew.
Finally, he thrust the napkin into her hands and turned her away from him. “You tie. I’ll gather.”
With a hand behind each of her ears, he stroked his fingers through her hair much more sensually than doing the job required. She focused on his face in the mirror above the bar as he concentrated on pulling her hair back. When she lifted her arms to tie the napkin like a kerchief, she was very aware of his heat surrounding her, his breath fanning her neck. And of Guidry watching them.
“Chances are that bottom-feeder doesn’t know what you look like,” Dylan said. “He only caught a glimpse of you. If you go out there on your own, maybe he won’t recognize you.”
“On my own?”
“We should separate for the time being. Maybe he’ll shove off now that he has a picture.” His gaze shifted toward the window again. “Hmmm.”
“What?”
“I thought I saw someone I recognized.” He craned his neck to see down the block. “I’m going to check it out.” He dropped a kiss on her lips. “How long will you be working at the church booth?”
“A couple of hours.”
“I’ll catch up with you later,” he said, closing the door behind him.
Dylan trailed the flashy blonde down the street, trying to keep her in sight without being obvious. He hadn’t seen his father’s press secretary in about ten years, but having Karen Hammonds show up in East Langden like this was too weird. What the hell could she want in this sleepy little town, so far away from the notoriety she craved?
She turned the corner and threw him an inviting look over her shoulder. Like she intended for him to see and follow her. More and more weird since there was no love lost between Karen and the remaining Bradfords.
From all reports, his father had been amply satisfied with her professional efforts on his behalf. But for years after his death, other trusted staff members had pointed the finger at Karen as the instigator of some shady campaign tactics. His mother characteristically kept mum on the subject.
In the past few years, Karen had drifted from one campaign to another. Just recently, she’d made news by writing a tell-all about life in the political world. Hints leaked out regularly about the “inside” information she planned to reveal. But Dylan hoped she had fresher material to write about than his father.
He stopped at the corner when he realized he’d lost her. He studied both sides of the street without spotting the vibrant yellow dress she’d been wearing. Maybe the whole incident had been his imagination. He didn’t think so and set off to look more closely.
“Dylan!” Chief Fleming called his name. “Hold up there.”
Reluctantly, he turned. “What’s up, Chief?”
“Want to step inside headquarters for a minute?”
Dylan scanned the street and crowds again. Still no sign of Karen. “Sure.” He followed the man up the steps and into the historic red brick building.
Inside a cluttered and shabby office with a stuffed moose head on the wall, the police chief propped his feet on his desk. Dylan took the visitor’s seat across from him.
“Just wanted you to know,” Fleming began, “we may have an identity on the arsonist.”
“That fast? How’d that happen?”
The police chief frowned. “We have studied modern investigative techniques, you know. We rely heavily on smoke signals and secret decoder rings. But sometimes, we get lucky.”
“No offense. You’re doing a great job under trying circumstances. But frankly, I thought locating the arsonist would take a backseat to catching Lana Harris’s murderer.”
“We’ll do what we can for Clayton’s sake, but with a murder that old...” The chief shrugged. “There isn’t much of a trail.”
“Is the firebug from around here? How’d you catch him?”
A grin split the weary face. “It was mostly just dumb luck.”
Chapter Twenty-four
“You mentioned hearing a boat engine, so I had my deputies run a check on boaters in the area. Today, tourists are arriving by the boatload. But yesterday was pretty quiet. Stewart called docks up and down the coast, when damned if he didn’t hear about a kid who’d rented a skiff in Portsmouth yesterday. When the idiot brought it back after dark with no lights on, he rammed the dock.”
“You’re kidding.” Dylan bit back a smile.
“A deputy ran a routine check on Lenny Carter, the name he’d used to rent the boat. The name turned up zilch. He ran some prints, and wouldn’t you know? Turns out the kid is Leonard Castellano, convicted arsonist.”
The name didn’t ring any bells. “Where is he now?”
Fleming heaved an exasperated sigh. “Don’t know. The marina in Portsmouth didn’t know when the accident occurred that we’d have reason to look for him. He paid for the damage with a wad of cash, and they let him go. There’s an APB on him, but he hasn’t turned up yet.”
Dylan scratched his head. “Somebody hired him to torch my place?”
“Probably. Or maybe there’s some connection or history between the two of you. Does the name Sal Eversol sound familiar?”
“Sure.” A shiver of alarm ran down Dylan’s spine. “Anyone from Hartford would recognize that one.”
“What do you know about him?”
Anything Dylan knew about Sal was speculation or general knowledge. He figured the police chief had to know more about the crime boss than Dylan did. “He’s bad business. A powerful, dangerous man. Nobody wants to cross him.”
Fleming’s study of Dylan sharpened to intense scrutiny. “Did you ever cross him?”
“Not that I know of.” Dylan’s grandfather might have gone toe-to-toe with Sal in the old days. But Dylan had never been involved in any business that wasn’t strictly legal, and Sal was barely involved in any that were.
Women? Nah. Again, the old guy was from a different generation.
Money? He didn’t think so. “Our areas of interest don’t overlap much.”
“Well, you must have done something to cross him,” the police chief said. “Or you crossed his nephew, Leonard Castellano, anyway.”
That’s when Dylan began to sweat.
“A double scoop of chocolate chip.”
“Coming right up.” Gracie shoved the hair off her forehead with the back of her wrist and turned to fill her umpteenth order of the night. She pushed the dish of ice cream through the window. “That’ll be four dollars.”
“Thanks, Gracie.”
“You’re welcome—” She looked up to put a name with her gratitude. “Henry! Good to see you!”
“Me?” The former Old Maine security guard pointed an index finger toward a scrawny chest above a potbelly. After her eager nod, his expression evolved into a leer. He let his gaze rake over her. “I’m flattered.”