“Please let it be two,” Hope said under her breath. Mustering a tired smile, she accepted the packets of papers from the inspector. “Thank you for coming so promptly.”
“My pleasure, Mrs. Elliot.” He ducked his head, then made a beeline for his car. “Good luck!”
Hope snorted as she pulled the last strip of caution tape off the doorframe. “Thanks. I’m gonna need some.”
* * * *
As the only son of a proud Irish-Catholic family, Michael McInnes was blessed with five saint’s names. Three, he’d been saddled with at birth—Michael, James, and Thomas—which covered his father and both grandfathers. At the time of his confirmation at St. Bartholomew’s boys’ school, his mother insisted he take Finial to honor her only brother and Luke because he wrote her favorite of the four gospels. Until the day she died, his sainted mother had been the only person allowed to use any, or in a few cases, all, of the five names.
Everyone else called him Mick.
Everyone except his daughter. Though she was grown and a parent in her own right, she still called him Daddy. Something Mick loved and hoped never stopped.
“I know you have a lot on your plate, Daddy, but she seemed like such a nice lady, and I don’t think she knows anyone around here,” Kelly said, the earnestness in her tone keeping shy of wheedling. “I hate the thought of her picking a name out of the phone book and then getting fleeced because she has money.”
Mick tipped his head up to speak into the tiny speaker embedded above the visor in his truck. “You don’t know she has money,” Mick pointed out. “I thought you said the house belonged to her parents.”
“Yeah, but I saw some of her stuff. Whether she has any money at the moment isn’t the point. If she doesn’t, she will once that house is sold.”
“Stuff?”
“Shoes, purse, big honking diamond earrings laying out there right beside her makeup bag,” she expounded.
Mick cringed, his fingers tightening reflexively on the wheel as he envisioned the scene his daughter sketched out for him. As much as he hated that she ran into burning buildings for a living, he was also uncomfortable knowing her job made her privy to some of the most vulnerable moments those people would have in their lives. Most people were grateful for the assistance rescue services provided, but a few—thankfully few—became angry and lashed out.
Just last year, the fire and rescue had been sued for simply doing their job. The homeowner failed to secure their property after the windows had been broken out for ventilation. But when some opportunistic asshole felt the need to help himself to taking, the jackass homeowner dared to imply the robbery had been perpetuated by one of Kelly’s fellow firefighters, and the accusation stuck in Mick’s craw.
Every day those men and women put their lives on the line. And what thanks did they get? Some fat lawyer spouting off on the evening news about no one being above the law. The judge had been unsympathetic to the homeowner, but the suit cast a pall of suspicion over the department and other suburban units. Wealthy suburban homes were chock-full of temptation. Particularly when a person was a single parent trying to make ends meet on a civil salary and a child support payment anyone would deem pathetic, and the jackass made only sporadically.
Kelly sighed heavily, jolting him out of his thoughts. “Listen, I don’t know that she’ll call. I only gave her your phone number and wanted to give you a heads up.” She paused and her voice turned wistful. “Beautiful old house. I drive by every day on the way to the station. Always wanted a peek inside, but I have to tell you, what I saw last night wasn’t pretty.”
He put on his blinker and pulled into the single-story brick building McInnes Electric called home base. Eager to lighten the mood, he asked, “Shag carpet and foil wallpaper?”
“Built around World War II. Looks like they updated in the 60s or 70s. Breakers, not fuses, but I saw ‘Zinsco’ on the panel and the name kind of stuck in my head.”
Mick lunged forward, then fell back when he stepped on the brake too hard. “Zinsco?”
“Yeah. Wasn’t there something about those?”
After letting up enough to roll the rest of the way into his usual parking spot, Mick stopped. “Yeah, they stopped making them because they had a tendency to melt down.”
“Ah. Something tripped a trigger,” she murmured. “I guess all those days of ditching school and tagging around after you are finally paying off.”
He chuckled and put the truck in park. “You mean the days you told me you were too sick to go to school?”
“Yeah, those.”
“Maybe you did learn a thing or two.” He spoke directly into the Bluetooth microphone, even though he knew he didn’t have to. Some things were hard to get used to. Talking on the phone anywhere and everywhere was mind-boggling. Having an entire call without talking into a handset was even harder to grasp.
Pun intended.
“If she calls, I’ll talk to her, but I honestly don’t know when I could work an inspection into the schedule. The week is fairly booked up.”
“Even if I tell you she’s pretty?”
Mick rolled his eyes. This wasn’t the first time Kelly had tried to play matchmaker in the years since he and Madelyn split. Probably wouldn’t be the last. His daughter hadn’t let her own failed marriage sour her on love. Something Mick envied, because he couldn’t say the same. Sure, he’d dated a bit in the last fifteen years. If a person could count a handful of dinners, some scratch-the-itch sex, and a couple of one-night stands as dating. But love?
Been there, done the marriage thing, got taken to the cleaners, and left with little more than a sullen teenager and a mortgage large enough to choke a horse.
As soon as the divorce was final, he’d sold the house in the ’burbs, moved the goth rock poltergeist once known as his kid back to the old neighborhood, and got down to the business of getting on with things. All without the pesky complications brought on by infectious diseases like love.
“I can’t afford her kind of pretty, baby.”
“Not that I’m suggesting anything anyone would have to go to confession over—”
Mick smiled. Warning each other away from confession rather than temptation was their bit. A remnant from his days as an altar boy. “No, never.”
“Anyway...heads up. Your daughter has been pimping you out again.”
“Exactly what every father dreams of hearing.”
“I meant professionally.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Love you, Daddy.”
“Love you, kitten. Get some sleep.”
He killed the engine but remained exactly where he was, left hand gripping the steering wheel, keys clutched in his right. Closing his eyes, he spoke the same simple prayer he uttered every time his baby called him safe and sound and on her way home from a shift. “Thank you for keeping her safe. Thank you.”
Gathering his energy, he roused himself enough to grab the margarine tub of leftover spaghetti he’d brought for his lunch from the passenger seat and rolled out of the truck. Busy or not, he’d be spending most of his day in the office. Not his favorite thing to do, but he had month-end books to hand over to his accountant, and a pile of mail and other paperwork he’d been ignoring for too long. With Stevie and Pete fully trained, certified, and handling most of the day-to-day service calls, he was free to do other things. The problem was, he wasn’t exactly