Silent Protector by Barbara Phinney Page A

asked timidly.
    “I’d say, but we’ll wait for the fire department to tell us for sure.”
    “I’ll leave then.”
    Ian looked at her. “Did you hear Leo yelling?”
    “Um, yes, I think so. Or maybe it was the dog. I don’t remember.” She glanced around before moving away.
    Ian watched her, noting how she still wore that simple dress she’s worn the previous day when he’d been pulling Liz from the sinking car. She’d found the time to throw it on, which in itself wasn’t suspicious, but, as she turned away from him, he noted that her hair was still piled high in the same messy bun she wore before, revealing the dress’s clasp at the nape of the neck.
    She’d managed to fasten that clasp, too, something he wouldn’t have considered to be that important, unless she hadn’t even gone to bed. It had to be after 1:00 a.m.
    The hairs on his scalp tingled, a sure sign to him that something wasn’t right.
    “How’s everyone at your house?” he asked George, who’d stopped beside him.
    “Fine. Elsie got the kids back to sleep, and she and Jenny have made a pitcher of iced tea.” George wiped his forehead with a faded handkerchief. “I expect we’ll be up for the rest of the night. The police and the fire department are still about fifteen minutes away.”
    “And Liz?”
    “You were bang on right when you said she was tired. She hasn’t woken up yet, even with Elsie putting the two boys in Charlie’s room with her.”
    It was a small mercy that she hadn’t driven away with Charlie tonight. Sure, she hadn’t been offered a car, but should she have found one, like his SUV now parked behind his house, she’d have been a danger to herself and Charlie.
    Ian pivoted quietly, his words for George alone. “Someone deliberately set this fire.”
    “I guessed as much, considering the smell of gas.”
    “But Leo and his family were in the living room tonight because it was cooler than the bedrooms.”
    “So someone who didn’t know that tried to kill him and his family? Or do you think Leo did this to himself?”
    “I was thinking it might have also been a diversion.”
    “It didn’t work. Perhaps because of Poco. He’s big enough and loud enough to scare off anyone.”
    Ian glanced around. From his view through the trees in the Callahans’ small backyard, he could see Monica opening her own back door. With a hasty glance over at Leo, she hurried inside her house. “And there’s something going on between Leo and Monica. They seemed pretty nervous around each other.”
    George peeked over his shoulder. “I don’t know why. Except…”
    “Except what?” Ian asked.
    He pondered his answer first, then finally said, “Except that Monica is heavily in debt. I don’t know who she borrowed money from, but I’d say it wasn’t from the banks. I do know she owes thousands of dollars and hasn’t paid anything back yet. She told Elsie at the women’s Bible study that she needs to make money fast. She was asking what she might do to get some fast cash.”
    Ian clenched his jaw, noting that both the Callahan house and Monica’s were nearly identical, both bungalows having been built during some distant boom time.
    Great. Another suspicion. The fire might have been a ruse to lure them away from Charlie, but it could have also been a mistake. Whoever Monica had borrowed money from could have been looking for their payment or putting pressure on her to cough it up.
    Though Liz’s dark, curly hair wasn’t like Monica’s medium-brown waves, they were both the same approximate age. Had Liz been mistaken for Monica when she’d been run off the road?
    Did that mean that Smith wasn’t on the island after all?
    No, Ian refused to slacken his vigilance because of a supposition.
    Hours later, after the fire department had arrived and the house was checked completely, the police report filled out and the mattress taken away by them, Ian trudged into the Wilsons’ house.
    Leo and Jenny had taken their daughter