“Worth checking it out.” He headed toward the bedroom door. “Call if you need anything.”
“Okay,” she agreed, although she wasn’t sure what she might need while the neighbors’ house was on fire. She watched him leave, thinking of how strange it was to not follow him. Since he was capable of closing the interior door, and the outer one locked on its own, she wasn’t needed for exits anymore. The change was equal parts freeing and terrifying.
While Chris had been distracting Daisy, Rory had arrived and was talking to the firefighter in the white helmet. From the way he was shouting orders and gesturing, Daisy guessed he was Chief Early. They’d gotten the front door open somehow, and Ian and another fireman—masks covering their faces and oxygen tanks strapped to their backs—were hauling hoses inside.
Rory was working on something by one of the engines, although she kept glancing at the entrance where Ian had just disappeared. Daisy tried to imagine watching Chris walk into a burning building, and her stomach cramped at the thought. Although she knew that his job was dangerous, it would be so much harder to actually watch him in action. Her gaze found her deputy making his way around the trucks and firefighters to the far side of the yard.
She watched Chris examine the area, squatting down at one point next to the pine tree she’d indicated. There was a flash of light in front of him, and she was confused for a second before she figured out that he was taking pictures. Another Field County squad pulled up behind the one already parked in front of Daisy’s house, and the sheriff climbed out of the driver’s seat.
After scanning the scene, he strode over to where the man Daisy presumed was Chief Early directed the other firefighters. The two spoke briefly before the sheriff’s head snapped in Chris’s direction. When Coughlin started toward where the deputy was still taking pictures, Daisy hurried to tap out a text to Chris, letting him know that the sheriff was headed his way.
Even though his back was toward her, Daisy knew when he read the text, since he turned around and waited for the sheriff to reach him. Despite the distance between Chris and her viewing perch, she could tell that his entire body was tense.
Their conversation was short, and it ended with Chris retracing his steps around the firefighters toward her house. After a cursory look around the area Chris had been examining, the sheriff returned to the fire chief’s side.
Although Chris was clearly stalking toward her front door, Daisy was reluctant to stop watching the activity outside long enough to run downstairs and let him in. She knew she wasn’t helping, but it still felt like she’d be abandoning the firefighters if she looked away for even a second.
Tamping down that illogical compulsion, she forced herself to tear her gaze from the window and hurry down the stairs. Even competing with all the other noise from outside, Chris’s knock was loud.
Daisy pushed the button and opened the inside door. By the time the night was over, she figured she’d be completely comfortable with seeing the open exterior door.
Well, at least more comfortable.
“What’s up?”
Apparently, she wasn’t the only one becoming accustomed to her newfound bravery, since he didn’t pick her up and move her out of the way that time. Instead, he stepped around her as he entered, allowing her to close the door on her own.
“I’ve been grounded,” he gritted, heading for the stairs.
“Grounded?” Daisy followed him to her bedroom, where he alternated between pacing and watching out the window. Unwilling to give up her view, she ducked under the arm he’d braced against the wall and reclaimed her spot on the window seat. Chris didn’t seem to notice and just watched the scene below them over her shoulder.
“Sent away like a kid who was acting up. I managed to get a few pictures of a partial shoe print in the mud by that tree you pointed out before Rob arrived. Good thing, too, since he ordered me back here after a verbal spanking.”
“But…” With an effort, Daisy looked away from the hole being chopped in the roof of the burning house and focused on Chris’s profile. “That makes no sense. You’re just doing your job.”
“Trying to, at least.” His jaw muscles were flexing again. “He’s got to be protecting Macavoy. I just don’t get why he’s covering for someone he’s known less than a year. Blackmail, maybe? Could Macavoy have some kind of dirt on Rob?”
Turning her attention back to the window, she watched the action blindly as her thoughts spun on the hamster wheel. “We just assumed it was Macavoy because of the way he quit and ran. What if it wasn’t? What if it’s someone else?”
In her peripheral vision, Daisy saw him turn his head so he could look at her. “But he admitted to Rob that…shit.”
As she met his gaze, she saw the dawning horror in his face. “Did you ever talk to Macavoy about it before he quit?”