Stomping down the hall, Candy couldn’t wait to get Gary into his office and slammed the door behind her after they had entered. Her anger boiling red-hot through her veins, she intended to let all three of them have it, but stopped cold when she realized that Caroline had been crying. “What are you blubbering about?” she demanded instead.

“Candy, I’m so sorry,” the other woman sniffed while adjusting her grip on a wad of tissues. “I know we don’t know each other very well, but your mother and son are both wonderful people; I’m sure that applies to you as well.”

“And?” Candice snipped.

“And she needs our help,” Gary stated firmly, closing the discussion. Opening his briefcase, he withdrew the envelope of evidence and unclasped the flap. Laying each of the stacks out on his desk, he continued, “I had a chance to go over these today, and I agree that there are some oddities that bear further research, starting with the investigator of the fires.”

“Harvey Waters,” Ben interjected.

“Yes,” Gary agreed, picturing his slender, previous coworker.

“Harvey Waters,” Candy echoed, recalling the guy from her few visits to Gary’s office when he had been at the county investigator’s department. “You know him,” she glared at her mate.

“Yes,” Gary smiled slightly, “balding head, scrawny build, and smokes like a freight train. Pretty ordinary guy by all appearances.”

“So, what does he have to do with this?” Caroline asked in a meek voice. “Did someone really set everything up, or is he simply incompetent?”

Gary and Ben exchanged glances, then Gary soothed, “I think it was intentional. If it had been a coincidence, no one would have needed to search your place, looking for whatever it is they think you’ve got. I’m still curious how they knew to go after you. Any idea how they knew, Caroline?”

Her crystal blue orbs staring back at him, the blonde swallowed her reply; she had a good idea why she had been targeted, but still didn’t understand how they had located her. Shifting her gaze, she watched the other woman while she formulated her response, then mumbled, “I’m not sure how they found out. Maybe someone I contacted about those documents just got suspicious.”

Ignoring the exchange, Candy adjusted the pages on the desk with trembling fingers, noting her old address on the top of one of the stacks. Lifting it to flip through it, she shrugged, “What is all this stuff?”

“There’s insurance documents, statements of record, and a copy of the official findings from the investigation; which Harvey signed. All four fit in a neat little package; two fires two years ago, two fires last year. If there’s been any this year, I haven’t heard about them yet,” Ben summed up the situation. “I filed the paperwork for the last of the claims a few weeks ago, and we finalized the details on it last week. It took the better part of a year for my client to get paid on this last one, but it finally went through. Of course, that’s when I noticed that something didn’t seem quite right about it, and I came to Gary for help.”

Moving to the next stack, Candy continued her inspection, only half hearing as Gary continued to question Caroline, who seemed to be evading him with her responses. Once she had viewed them all, she asked, “What are you going to do about this?”

“Well,” Gary inhaled deeply, and his voice deepened, “we’re going to ask a few quiet questions and get a few answers. I’ve already put together a short list of people I think can and will help us. Harvey is the senior investigator here at the fire department; he’s got respect and he’s got friends.”

Ben shook his head slowly, examining the list of names Gary had produced, “I see you have Tom Harris on here. I’ve deposed him as a witness a couple of times; I think I could get him into the office without any suspicions being raised. But Christmas is in a couple of weeks, so we will have to act quickly, before things start shutting down for the holiday.”

Candy shivered at the mention of her least favorite time of year; the time where things seemed to always be the darkest for her.

“That’ll be fine,” Gary agreed. “I’ll need to have a case of some kind as well; something I need to file and have you working on. We’ll schedule the meetings around noon; you can send your new secretary to lunch and we’ll have the place to ourselves for our chat, since our priority here is to find out everything we can without getting too many people involved.”

His eyes flicking over at his wife, he noticed she had remained silent, even though she appeared fully engrossed in their conversation. “Are you ok, baby?” he prodded.

“Yeah,” she agreed, nodding slightly. “I just can’t believe someone would burn a building on purpose, much less one with people still in it. Everyone made it out of our building, but people died in some of these fires!”

His spine tingling, Gary agreed, “I know. It’s one of the reasons I loved my job; helping people, if you know what I mean.”

Studying his deep brown orbs, Candy knew exactly what he meant. Offering the slightest curl of her lips, she agreed, “Ok. You guys find out what you can, and I’ll help if you need me.”

“Ben and I will handle the investigating,” Gary replied, standing up straighter, and smoothing his pristine shirt. “You have finals next week, and I really want that to be your focus. Carol will take care of mom and Daks.” Glancing over at their new housekeeper, he could see the fire in her eyes, and realized his mistake. “Sorry, Caroline will take care of things around here.”

“Then I think things are settled,” Ben agreed. “I’ll set the meeting up for Tom on Thursday, if I can, and I’ll let you know what time to come in, and confirm the date.”

Her eyes darting between them, a glimmer of sadness washed over the petite young woman standing in their midst as she fully realized this Christmas could turn out to be the most terrifying she had ever experienced.