“Yeah, I could eat,” she smiled. “Want me to go next door and see if Jonah wants to have lunch with us?”
“No!” I shrieked causing Kennedy to burst into a fit of giggles. His presence meant nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Chapter Nine
Judge
I dropped into a chair in Copper’s office at the clubhouse. “What’s up, Prez?”
“Fire Marshal called with the preliminary results from the fire. He said it was clearly arson. Whoever did it, didn’t try to make it look like an accident. They went with the classic can of gas and some matches,” Copper told me.
“They got any leads?” I asked.
“Not yet. I know we didn’t have any external cameras at that house, but I need you to check the feeds for the ones at yours. See if they picked up anything.”
“Got it. Anything else?” I asked.
He sighed and rubbed his chin. “I don’t like this. River is a traveling nurse and only in town for a three-month contract, so no one would be targeting her, which means this was likely aimed at the club. I can’t have innocent people being hurt or killed because of the club.”
And that’s when I realized he didn’t know who she was. “Uh, Prez, I forgot to mention something, that at the time didn’t seem important, but now—”
“Spit it out, Judge.”
“River Rain Lawson is Dash’s little sister.”
Silence.
“He knows she’s here, but I guess there’s some bad blood between them. He asked that I keep an eye on her, but to also be respectful of her wishes, which include having nothing to do with him,” I explained.
“What caused the bad blood?” Copper asked.
I shrugged. “I don’t know for sure. He doesn’t know, and she won’t talk about it.”
“But you do know something,” he observed.
“Harper told me what she could remember from high school, and really, it isn’t my business,” I said.
“You’re right, it isn’t your business. But it is mine if it’s affecting my actual business. I’ll stop by the hotel and have a word with her.”
“Give me a chance to go through the security footage first. Might not need to bother her with all this if the cameras caught something useful,” I suggested. I didn’t know why, but I didn’t like the idea of him, or anyone, prying into a part of River’s life she clearly wanted to forget about.
Copper studied me for a few long moments before nodding in agreement. “Yeah, okay, but I need you to go through the recordings today.”
I left the clubhouse and went back to my office to start sifting through the footage. It didn’t take long since I knew roughly what time the fire started. Within fifteen minutes, I had clear shots of the vehicle, the tag number, and the two occupants. The only thing I didn’t have was a video of them actually pouring the gas and lighting the fire, but I had the next best thing. My cameras had audio recordings.
I downloaded the recordings to three different flash drives and took them over to the clubhouse. “Here’s one for the Fire Marshal, one for the police, and one for the club,” I said and placed the drives on Copper’s desk.
Copper grinned and inserted the flash drive into his computer. We watched as the rusted-out sedan rolled past my house at a snail’s pace, giving us a clear shot of the license plate, which I already had Spazz running. The car passed again headed in the opposite direction. Moments later, you could hear doors opening and closing followed my muffled voices.
The video cut to the camera mounted on the side of my house that faced the side of River’s house. A man and a woman were each carrying a red jug presumably filled with gasoline. They were only on the screen for a few seconds before they disappeared.
The third part of the video was from the camera mounted at the back of my house. This one didn’t show anything, but it picked up parts of their conversation that were crisp and clear.
“That little bitch always thought she was better’an everybody else….knock her off her high horse....refusin’ to help her momma,” the woman grumbled.
“Will you shut the fuck up and just pour the damn gas? I swear, Spring, if you still had teeth, I’d knock them the fuck outta your mouth right now,” the male said.
“Roy! You’re pouring that shit on my feet!”