Burn Out (11 page)

The police department was helping with
the investigation and so far they had not turned up anything,
either. There was talk about the Mexican mafia, but so far he
hadn’t heard of any concrete leads.

Sam’s husband was in jail so it ruled
him out…unless he had help. But according to the warden, Ken was
surprised to hear about Sam and was upset when told the
news.

Of course, the family of Campbell’s
Farmers Market was investigated thoroughly, but nothing had come
up. Their finances were solid and they had a nice insurance policy
– nothing outrageous or suspicious. As the owner pointed out, his
son was in the building during the fire. Why put your life on the
line? So they were ruled out. That left other unknown suspects. Now
he was back to square one. Who and why?

Jeff shuffled paperwork around his
desk and thought about what to do next. He always worked better at
the scene of the crime. He opened his desk drawer and pulled out
his camera. On his way out of the office, he stopped by to tell his
assistant, Valerie, he was leaving. Valerie Crumpton reminded him
of his grandmother. She was in her late fifties and had an ample
bosom and always wore themed sweaters around holidays. It didn’t
matter if it was 80 degrees on Halloween. She had on her orange
pumpkin sweater with orange and black beads. She brought in fresh
muffins and sweet rolls once a week for the staff.

“
Valerie, I’m leaving for
the rest of the day. I’m going back out to the farmer’s
market.”

“
Ok, Mr. Stanton. See ya
tomorrow morning.” He asked her to call him Jeff, but old habits
never die.

He didn’t know what he hoped to find
out at the farmer’s market since he had been out there several
times since the fire. He had a feeling he was overlooking something
obvious.

The drive to the farmers market only
took a few minutes. He parked around back and got out of his state
vehicle. He looked around the perimeter, focusing on the woods
behind the warehouse, and took photos. Putting on his work boots,
he entered the shell of the warehouse. Days before, his
investigative team sifted through all the debris. Samples of the
debris were taken and sent to the forensics lab.

He looked again at the back door where
someone apparently forced entry. There were tool marks on the side
of the door frame. Forensics took a mold and sent it to the lab.
They would determine what type of tool was used and hopefully
narrow it down if a suspect was found.

Jeff took another look around and
something shiny caught his eye. He reached into his pockets and
found his gloves. Reaching into a mound of debris, he pulled out a
buckle. Some reflective fabric had melted onto the buckle. He was
familiar with this type of buckle. It was normally found on bunker
gear of firefighters. The reflective strips were on the jackets
they wore. Intrigued, he went back to his truck and pulled out his
tool box he carried with him at all times. He went back to the
debris pile and took some pictures. Then he went to work sorting
through the rubble. He got to the bottom of the pile. What he found
next stunned him.

Santa Rosa Beach, Thursday
evening

“
He was too weird for
words.” Rachel went to dinner with Stacy and filled her in on the
details of her meeting with Paul.

La Pas was a Mexican restaurant
Michelle, Rachel’s friend, had suggested they try. It was packed
with tourists on a perfect, late summer night.

“
Weird how?” Stacy
asked.

“
Well, it was nothing he
said. It was more what he didn’t say. He had this nonchalant
demeanor.”

The waitress brought over steaming
plates of enchiladas for both of them. “Man, this looks good,”
Stacy said digging into her food. “Mmm, lobster enchiladas. I think
I have died and gone to heaven. Sorry, you were saying?”

“
Also, the fact he has
shown no interest whatsoever in helping look for Sam. Ken is
supposed to be one of his closest friends and he grew up with Sam.
I would be doing everything I could to help find her.”

“
Yes, you’re right. That is
weird.”

“
He was quick to think her
disappearance had something to do with revenge from the drug
cartel.”

“
You think he is hiding
something?”

“
I do. And I intend on
finding out what it is.”

“
What can I do to
help?”

“
Do some more digging. He
was living with someone recently. Mary Anne Lipscomb, I think.
Maybe we should start there.”

“
I’m on it.” Stacy said in
between huge bites of food. “Man, this is so good.”

Rachel laughed, pointing at Stacy’s
almost empty plate. “I can tell. Are you going to lick the plate
when you’re done?”

“
I’m a little more
civilized. I plan on using my finger to get the leftover sauce
up.”

After dinner, they returned to the
beach house and Stacy retreated to her room to work on submitting a
story to the newspaper while Rachel sat outside on the deck and
watched the waves roll lazily in. She loved the smell of the beach,
the feel of the smooth sand on her feet, and the soothing sounds of
the crashing waves. She was momentarily distracted when her cell
phone buzzed. She didn’t recognize the number and picked it up.
“Rachel Scott.”

“
Hi Rachel. It’s Jeff
Stanton. Fire Marshal’s Office.”

“
Hi Jeff. What’s
up?”

“
Sorry to call so late. I
just got back from a meeting with the police chief and thought I
would give you the news before the media gets wind of
it.”

“
Yes?” That didn’t sound
good. She was glad she was sitting down.

“
We have officially ruled
the warehouse fire as arson.”

“
Well, I guess it shouldn’t
come as a big surprise. What happened?”

“
Test results came back
late this afternoon. An accelerant was used, just like we
thought.”

“
How is the owner’s son
doing?”

“
He is good and was
released from the hospital today.”

“
He never saw
anyone?”

“
Nope. He walked his
assistant to the door, said goodnight and returned to his office
around five-thirty to do some paperwork before leaving. The fire
started a little after six, we believe.”

“
Any ideas on why Sam went
back into the fire against protocol?”

“
Well, I found something
else in the rubble that was missed the first time we went
through.”

“
What?”

“
This information hasn’t
been released to the public. The chief wants to keep it under
wraps,” Jeff said. “Pieces of a mannequin were found.”

“
A mannequin?” Rachel asked
incredulously.

“
Firefighters sometimes use
a mannequin in their training. For things like CPR classes and when
they do search and rescue drills. We think the mannequin was
clothed in a firefighter bunker suit.”

“
Why would that be at the
warehouse?” Rachel asked. “So Sam would think it was another
firefighter in distress?”

“
Could be.”

“
Who would have access to a
training mannequin?”

“
Chief Gladstone is talking
to the fire chief now. We will find out if any training equipment
is missing from their department.”

“
Does Mack
know?”

“
No. I’m sure the police
will be talking to everyone again at the fire department. That’s
all I got for now.”

“
Ok. Thanks for the heads
up.” Rachel hung up the phone. She hated she couldn’t share this
bit of information with Stacy, but she didn’t want to compromise
the investigation. Stacy would run with a juicy tidbit. She went
inside the house to get her notebook. Whenever she was working on a
case, she would keep a written journal of events that happened
during the search. Rachel compared finding a missing person kin to
putting together a jigsaw puzzle. She just had to make sure she had
all the right pieces. She wrote in her journal -

Possibilities: X starts
fire and plants a mannequin to distract Sam. X knew her routine and
knew she would break from protocol to rescue someone. Who is X?
Pedro Gonzalez and Richard Flores? Would the mafia go through the
trouble of setting fires just to kidnap Sam? Ken Collins? He could
have set it up to get Sam away from everything. Which means she had
to be in on it? Sam had access to fire equipment. So did Mack and
Paul.

Rachel looked over her notes and
sighed. No matter which possibility was right – all she knew was
she had to find Sam. She owed it to Nora and her little girls. She
would search every square mile of this beach town if she had to.
She needed some help getting information about the Mexican drug
cartel, too. She wasn’t ready to rule them out yet. And she knew
just who to call.

Santa Rosa Beach, Friday
early morning

There was a knock on the door just as
Rachel was having her second cup of coffee. Stacy had already left
to meet someone for breakfast and she wasn’t expecting anyone. Her
heart skipped a beat when she glanced through the front door
window.

“
Hello, Mike Mancini.”
Rachel opened the door. Mike was a former DEA agent she met while
working on the Amber Knowles case. He recently retired from the DEA
and was working as a private investigator in
Jacksonville.

Mike bent down and kissed Rachel on
the cheek. She thought he smelled wonderful. Like a mix of mint and
something woodsy.

“
You look nice,” Mike said,
admiring her long, tanned legs.

“
Oh, thanks. I just got
back from a quick run on the beach.” Rachel wondered if she should
go put on some jeans. She felt naked in front him with her tiny
running shorts and sports tank top.

“
Nice place,” Mike said,
looking around the beach house.

“
Yes, it is. My friend
Michelle was nice enough to let me use her vacation home while I
worked on this case. I wasn’t sure how long I would be here.”
Rachel opened the sliding glass door which led to the deck. “Want
to go outside and have some coffee?” She grabbed the coffee carafe
and an extra mug.

He followed her out onto the deck and
took a seat. He hadn’t changed much since she had last seen him,
which was a few months ago. He still had the “biker” look going on
with a snug white t-shirt under a black leather jacket and
distressed blue jeans. He looked good, she thought. Real good. She
had a hard time keeping her feelings in check around him. It was
hard to maintain a professional relationship with a handsome man
who obviously liked you as well.

“
Well, this is a surprise.
I didn’t expect you until later this week,” Rachel said. When she
had called him last night, he said he would be glad to help out,
but it would be a couple of days before he could leave. It was a
four hour drive from Jacksonville so she figured he must have left
before the crack of dawn.

“
The case I was working on
got wrapped up sooner than I thought. So here I am.”

“
Well, I’m glad you
came.”

“
Tell me what you got so
far.”

Rachel sat down on the chair next to
Mike, curling her legs up under her, and brought him up to speed on
the case. She ended with telling him the conversation with the fire
marshal. She trusted Mike not to say anything to anyone about the
mannequin. “I think Sam may have gotten mixed up in something that
was bigger than she could handle.”

“
And the Mexican drug
cartel may have been responsible for her disappearance?”

“
Maybe. The head of the
gang, Richard Flores, was pissed Ken and Paul zeroed in on his
territory. Not to mention Ken was the person who initially busted
one of his guys, Jason Blum. Then turned around and used Jason to
run his deals. I think he had something to do with it – whether he
kidnapped Sam or she set up this whole thing in order to get away
from him. ”

“
Flores is a sadistic and
unpredictable son of a bitch. The rumors have circulated about him
are gut-wrenching, to say the least. He is a legend among the
Mexican mafia. You need to be careful.”

“
I’ve already been warned.
It’s why I wanted to see if you could help me out. I figure if
Flores had something to do with Samantha’s disappearance, then the
more I know about him, the better chance I have of finding her,”
Rachel said. “What can you tell me about Flores?”

“
Let’s see. Where do I
start?”

“
How did he get involved in
the drug trade in Florida?”

“
Richard, or little Ricky
as he was called when he was younger, grew up filthy poor in Mexico
City. His mom was a prostitute and his dad was non-existent most of
his life. He learned to survive on the streets. When he was just
six years old, he worked for Richard Gomez peddling weed to
tourists and stealing from the same tourists he sold the weed
to.

“
When Flores turned
sixteen, he was Richard Gomez’s right-hand man. He had proved his
loyalty to Gomez by committing many murders of other rival gang
members. By this time, Gomez had relocated his mafia family to San
Diego.