“Will you help me get your friend out of here?”
I followed him to the back, where Diana sat in one of the interview rooms. I looked through the window in the door. Someone had brought her a sleeping bag and a pillow. It looked like Alex had been sending take-out meals to her as well. The door wasn’t locked when I reached out to turn the knob. I looked at Mac and he cocked an eyebrow in an “I told you so” way.
“Diana?” I peeked around the doorframe.
She was sitting at the table with her head in her hands. Even her curls were droopy. She quickly looked up at the sound of my voice. She stood and rushed over to me.
“Have you found anything that can help Dylan?” she asked.
I nodded. “Maybe.”
“I can’t leave here until I bring Dylan home with me. He’s all the family I have. I have to get him out of here.” She took my hands and squeezed.
“I know.” And I did know. She’d taken over the care of Dylan when their parents died. Even though they were both technically adults, the seven-year age difference meant that Diana felt responsible for him. She’d always been more organized, more driven, and more grown-up than Dylan. They fell into a way of relating that was less sibling-sibling, and more parent-child.
“Mac says he can’t let Dylan leave yet. We have to find out what really happened,” Diana said.
“Let me take you home. You can get cleaned up, take a shower, and help us figure this out. It’s not doing Dylan or anyone else any good having to worry about you at the jail.”
In the end, Diana barely had time for a shower.
27
We turned the corner on the way to Diana’s house and saw fire trucks on my street. With a sinking feeling I detoured to see what was happening. As we got closer, I realized they were parked in front of my house. Two firemen were outside chasing Baxter.
I left my Jeep in the street, and ran to the front yard. The alarms were sounding again from inside the house. Seth called to Baxter, who seemed to be having too much fun dodging the firemen. I looked at the porch and saw that Seth held Tuffy at arm’s length and the little dog had light blue paint on his feet and belly.
“Oh my.” Diana held her hand up to her mouth. I suspected she was covering a smile.
Dad came out of the house with Baxter’s leash, and stopped dead when he saw me.
“This isn’t as bad as it looks, Clyde,” Dad said. He held his hands out to stop me from progressing toward the house.
Baxter spotted me and bounded over to say hello. The firemen gratefully followed while Dad snapped on his leash.
The two guys looked nervously from me to my father. One of them said, “Everything seems . . . safe, so we’ll be going now.”
Vi’s warning about Dad’s home repairs echoed in my head.
The firemen climbed into their truck and waved.
“Good luck, Frank!” one of them yelled. The other one laughed and beeped the horn.
“What’s going on, Dad?”
“Maybe I should go . . . ,” Diana said, but I shook my head and held up one finger.
Dad gestured toward the house. “I had set the burglar alarm to test it—I was waiting for Seth to come home so he could pretend to break in and I could time how long it took the alarm company to call.”
I crossed my arms and narrowed my eyes.
“I decided to fix the toilet roll holder in the downstairs bathroom while I waited,” Dad said. “I noticed it was a little wobbly the other day when I was here.” He caught my eye and quickly looked away. “Anyway, the holder fell off and I slipped and dinged up the wall a little bit.”
“That’s fine, Dad. How did the fire department get involved?”
“I’m getting to that. I got out the paint to repair the wall and then Seth arrived. He didn’t know I’d set the alarm, so when he came in, the alarm went off.”
I nodded.
“Tuffy didn’t like the noise and apparently he likes to hide behind the toilet when he’s scared.”
I was starting to see where this might be headed.
“I went to turn off the alarm, and Tuffy ran into the bathroom and fell into the paint pan.” Dad looked at his shoes. “Tuffy doesn’t like paint, either.”
Seth stepped off the porch, still trying to keep Tuffy’s feet away from his clothing. “In Tuffy’s defense, he’d never stepped in paint before. The poor guy was freaked.”
“In the process of trying to catch Tuffy, I missed the phone call from the alarm company.”
“So they sent the fire truck, again,” Seth said.
Dad’s face brightened. “The response time was really impressive.”
Dad finally allowed me to go inside. The front hallway was covered in tiny blue footprints. The path of Tuffy’s flight was well marked from the bathroom, down the hallway to the front door, where the prints began to fade and then disappeared, presumably where Seth had picked him up.
“I’ll help clean up,” Diana said. “Hot soapy water should be enough since it’s still wet.”