Page 131 of Fire Fight

Aspen and I shared a look, but before we could respond, the front door pushed open again, and Lane stepped inside.

“What’s going on?”

“They were about to tell me why they think Aspen’s phone has been bugged,” Trey told him.

Lane’s expression shifted from brotherly concern to cop mode in an instant.

I looked to Aspen. “You want to show him, or should I?”

“Show me what?”

She ignored him and said, “I will,” then disappeared down the hall. A moment later, she reappeared with the notebook and reluctantly handed it over to Lane.

“During the course of every investigation, I keep a notebook. Thoughts, random tidbits of information that don’t mean anything at the time but could pop off later, weird things that happen. That”—she nodded at the one in his hand—“is the one for this case.”

“And this matters to me, why?”

“The day I picked my car up from impound, I found a note under my windshield wiper. It’s tucked in the back there, but I also wrote down what it said in case it ever got lost. I’ve also been getting creepy emails.”

“What does this have to do with me?” Trey asked, almost bored.

“The fire at the Lees’ house wasn’t an accident,” Aspen said.

“No shit,” Lane muttered, and I cut him a glare that told him to shut the fuck up or he’d find my fist in his face.

“You asked me in our very first conversation how I knew about the case,” she told Lane.

“And you said a concerned citizen, who I now know was Leigh Lee.”

“Still wondering what this has to do with me.”

Aspen glared at Trey, then kicked out, knocking his booted foot off my coffee table with her bare one. Lane and I choked on our laughter.

“No one but Crew knew I’d spoken to the Lee family,” she finally told him. “But somehow, I don’t think the killer lighting their home on fire was a coincidence.”

Lane flipped through the notebook, pausing every so often to read a passage before moving on. Trey’s attention was fixed on the device in his hand.

“Can you run diagnostics on it or something and see if it’s been tapped?” I asked.

“Of course,” he said. “Though I’m not sure how they would’ve…”

He trailed off, mumbling things to himself that made no sense to me.

“Do you mind if I take photos of this?” Lane asked Aspen.

“Take the whole thing.”

“I’m going to need to see those emails too.”

“Sure,” she said, retreating to the office to print them.

“I can see the wheels spinning in both of your heads,” I said to my brothers. “Tell me what you think we’re dealing with here.”

“I think it’s likely this fucker has been keeping tabs on her,” Trey said.

“It’s an obsession,” Lane agreed.

“Butwhy?”