Since I Fell For You(90)
“Thank you.” Suzanne looked beyond grateful. “As soon as I call the fire chief to check in this morning, I’ll be right there with you combing through the logs. With everyone pitching in, hopefully we’ll see some sort of pattern before our brains leak out of our ears.”
Her phone jumped on the counter next to Roman and he recognized the number that flashed on the screen as the one the fire chief had given them yesterday. “It’s the fire chief.” He handed her the phone.
“This is Suzanne Sullivan. Do you have news?” She listened to his response. “Okay, we’ll be right there.”
She hung up then looked at Roman. “He’d like us to come to the apartment to take a look at something the investigator found.”
CHAPTER THIRTY
“Good morning, Suzanne. Roman.” Wayne, the fire chief, shook their hands in the lobby of her apartment building. “This is Lee Mitchell, one of our top fire investigators.”
“It’s nice to meet you both,” Lee said. “Why don’t we head up to your apartment and I’ll show you what I found?”
Suzanne was a strong woman, but she was still glad that Roman kept his hand on the small of her back as they headed for the elevator. She could have faced all of this on her own—but she didn’t have to be a one-woman battleship anymore. She had Roman beside her now. And, she thought with a smile, she had her family and friends too. They’d been there all along, waiting for her to open the door and let them in. At long last, she finally understood that needing other people didn’t make her weak.
Roman’s eyebrows rose in question when he noticed her smile. She answered him with a quick kiss, one that instantly brought a smile to his face.
When the elevator doors opened on her floor and her heart began to pound hard and fast, Roman took her hand before she even had a chance to reach for his. Whatever it was they found out today, they’d deal with it as a team.
Lee stopped just inside her front door in front of a hole in the wall where her home automation system used to be. “We were able to trace the start of the fire in your apartment to this wall. From what we’ve been able to ascertain so far, someone did an update to your home automation system, reinstalled it, and then one of the new parts got too hot and melted down. This is turn caused the electrical wires behind the unit to heat up and start smoking and sparking.” He handed her a plastic bag with the unit inside. Previously bright white plastic, the device was now covered in soot and half melted.
“CP Systems. One of these home automation systems is also in the apartment next door.” Fury rang out in Roman’s voice.
But Suzanne was beyond furious at this point. She was stinging with betrayal.
“There’s a CP Systems unit in every apartment in the building,” the fire chief confirmed.
Suzanne refused to let her hands shake. “I know this is evidence, but could I please take this with me? I’ll return the device as soon as I’ve shown it to someone.”
“Who would that be?” Lee asked.
“Craig Boylan, one of the founders of CP Systems.”
Lee looked to Wayne in question. When the chief nodded, Lee said, “Okay, but I’d like to be there with you when you show it to him.”
“That’s fine. Roman and I will meet you in the lobby of their headquarters in a few minutes.” She handed the investigator the device, proud of how steady her hands were.
On the way down to Roman’s car, Suzanne called her father’s cell. “What did you find out, honey?” he asked. “I’ll put you on speaker so you can tell us all.”
“The fire started behind my home automation unit.” It took some effort to keep her voice steady, but she managed it. “Evidently there was an update done to it while I was at the wedding that caused the wiring behind it to smoke and spark. We’re going right now to talk to the founder of the company that makes the unit, but I was hoping you and the rest of the group might be able to tell me first—are the Philippines showing up on any of the server logs?”
“Yes.” She recognized Calvin’s voice. “None of the early logs show activity from the Philippines, but this week that’s where everything originated.”
“Thanks, guys. That information helps a great deal. I’ll call you again as soon as we’re done with our next meeting.”
“Everyone in the security business used to set up their servers in the Philippines,” Suzanne explained to Roman, “but over the years, CP Systems undercut everyone by so much that we all had to leave the country to find other places to host our servers.” Despite the security work Suzanne did for a living, she had always believed that most people were fundamentally good. It was a big part of why she did what she did, in fact: She didn’t want all the good people to be hurt by the few bad ones out there. But learning that her friend had targeted her…that was a low blow. “With so few companies there now, there’s a really high chance it was them. I trusted Craig. I can’t believe he would do something like this to me.”