Muscle for Hire(52)
He scanned the small kitchenette, noting the blast pattern. The detonation had occurred in that area, but as far as Aslin could determine there was nothing in the kitchen capable of exploding. The stove hot plates—now black warped discs on a charred and buckled silver surface—told him the appliance was electric, not gas, and there was no oven, nor a space in the fire-ravaged cupboards where one might have been pre-blast.
He crossed the rubble on slow, careful feet, running his stare over everything, his mood growing dark.
Nothing.
Not a sodding thing.
What were you expecting? A sign with the words “I did this” pinned to the remains of a lump of C-4?
He sneered. And then jerked around when a noise came from behind him.
“See anything you like?” A man stood in the gaping mouth of the trailer, white shirt pristine and crisp, black tie perfectly knotted, stare locked on Aslin with drilling intensity. “And while I’m asking questions, who are you?”
Aslin studied him. “Aslin Rhodes.”
The man processed the answer before narrowing his light blue eyes. “The owner of the trailer.”
Aslin nodded. It wasn’t his trailer, per se, but he wasn’t ready to divulge anything until he knew who the man was.
“Was there anything of value inside it when it detonated?” the man asked, his inspection on Aslin’s face unwavering.
“No.”
“But there could have been, correct?”
Aslin didn’t answer.
The man cast a quick look over the burnt-out interior surrounding Aslin. “Your girlfriend was about to enter, correct?”
Aslin clenched his teeth. “Yes.”
He didn’t know if girlfriend was the correct word to describe what he had with Rowan, but once again, he wasn’t prepared to offer up that information to the stranger yet.
“She’s lucky she’s alive,” the man went on, returning his stare to Aslin’s face. “Or maybe, you’re the lucky one. Given that it was your trailer.”
Aslin let his spine straighten. He turned—slowly—to fully face the immaculately dressed man. “And you are?”
Blue eyes flicked over Aslin, from head to toe. “Officer Desmond Russell. Chief arson investigator. Mind telling me why you thought it was okay to cross a police line?”
Aslin held the officer’s stare. “Because my girlfriend was almost killed, and I want to know who did it.”
Desmond Russell’s eyes narrowed a little. “And what makes you think it wasn’t an accident?”
“My gut.”
“Intelligent gut you’ve got there.”
Aslin snorted. “Some would argue differently.”
“What else is your gut telling you?”
“That you’re not telling me something.”
Officer Russell’s head inclined. Once. “True. And I’m not going to, I’m afraid. But I can tell you this is a crime scene and you have to exit it. Do you have a problem with that, Mr. Rhodes?”
The urge to tell the arson investigator to sod off welled up in Aslin. He bit it back. Like the cop earlier, the man was only doing his job. Crossing the remains of his trailer, Aslin dropped through the door to the ground, directly in front of Russell. “I don’t.”
Russell fixed him with another narrowed-eyed stare. “Why’s a musician’s bodyguard working on a film site?”
Aslin stiffened. “How do you know what I do for a living?”
“I do my job properly, Mr. Rhodes. Before I even look at the scene I know who the parties involved are. Just that little fact can give me a wealth of information of the scene.”
“And what does me being Nick Blackthorne’s bodyguard tell you about this scene?”
“That an ex-British Special Forces officer would know how to detonate a trailer if he wanted.”
Aslin balled his fists. “He would. But he didn’t.”
Russell didn’t break Aslin’s stare. “How about I be the judge of that. In the meantime, mind telling me why you had a gas heater installed in the trailer in the middle of summer? I know you Brits constantly complain about the Australian heat so I can’t fathom why you’d need a heater in there?”
An icy finger traced up Aslin’s spine. The hair on his nape prickled. “Heater?”
Russell studied him for a long second and then, with a dismissive noise, wrapped his fingers around the charred edges of the doorframe and pulled himself up into the trailer. “Don’t leave town, Mr. Rhodes,” he said over his shoulder before withdrawing a pair of blue latex gloves from his back pocket and stepping out of sight.
Aslin stood motionless, his heartbeat fast, the arson investigator’s words ringing in his head.