Ashes, Ashes, They All Fall Dead (8 page)

She’d betrayed him, by leaving him.

His hand fisted around the box of matches in his pocket. His lungs suddenly seized with the urge to cough. He drew a shaky breath, trying to hold back, but he was helpless to stop it. His shoulders shook as he gave in to the coughing fit, the fiery burn lancing through his lungs. When he was finally able to draw a normal breath again, he wiped his handkerchief across his mouth, smearing fresh red blood onto the stained cloth. He shoved the reminder of how little time he had left back into his pocket just as a man turned the corner by the gas station, walking up the sidewalk, heading his way. It was
him
.

His prey.

His reason for coming back.

John Crawford, her best friend’s father, the owner of the drugstore. Recognition stole his breath, closed his throat. Crawford had never liked him, had warned her daddy, had said terrible things, things
his
father had heard about. And because of those things—those
lies
—his father had kicked him out of the house, turned his back on his only son. All because of Crawford.

His pulse leaped in his throat. He hunched his shoulders and bent his head. He forced his feet to move forward, slowly, instead of running like he wanted. The sharp corners of the box of matches dug into his palm. His fingers curled, like talons. He’d never cut anyone before. His weapons were gas and kerosene. But suddenly he wanted to dig his fingers into the other man’s throat. He wanted to rip, and tear, and—

“Morning,” Crawford said as he walked by.

“Morning,” he replied, his voice the tight, guttural rasp he had come to hate.

His breath left him in a rush and he swallowed hard. He recognized the feelings inside him, the rage that was always there . . . and something he hadn’t felt in years.

Fear.

He hated the fear most of all. He ruthlessly shoved it back, locked it away. There was nothing to be afraid of. No one here could hurt him, not like before. He was invincible. He’d proven that over, and over, and over. He’d survived a betrayal no one else could have survived. He was strong. In control. No one hurt him anymore without paying a price.

“Don’t let your little girl anywhere near him, Tom,” Crawford had said. “There’s something wrong with that young man.”

Lies.

“I’ve seen the way he looks at her. It’s not normal.”

He loved her! There was nothing wrong with that.

“He’s dangerous.”

That part was true. He
was
dangerous, but only to people who hurt him, who mocked him, people who treated him unfairly. People who didn’t understand.

Like Crawford.

His lies had almost ruined everything.

Almost.

The familiar, hungry ache exploded deep inside him.

No
! It wasn’t time yet. He wanted to explore the town, relive more memories, have a few more hours thinking about
her
before he punished
him
.

He shoved his hands into his pockets again, stroking the box of matches. Deep breaths. Calm down. Breathe. Breathe. That’s what
she
used to tell him, when his anger clouded his mind, when he couldn’t focus. Sometimes it worked. Other times . . . her eyes would fill with fear, and he’d have to punish her.

She told him she loved him, and then she ran away.

Ashes, ashes . . .

He rubbed his thumb across the gritty edge of the box that had the power to bring each match to life.

The power to burn. The power to destroy. The power to punish.

The hunger roared.

Ashes, ashes . . .

The beast inside him was strong. He couldn’t resist its lure. He stopped, turned. Crawford had just reached the next corner.

He shuddered in anticipation and started after his prey.

Chapter Five

Day Two

B
ITTER REGRET SWEPT
through Tessa as she stood at the edge of Sharon Johnson’s lawn, in a suburb of Charleston, South Carolina—not Brunswick, Georgia, the postmark on the envelope—staring at the burned-out skeleton of what once was a majestic home. In one weak moment, Tessa had compromised her principles, her convictions, her work ethic, by agreeing to Matt’s foolish plan. Now the one letter that could have tied Sharon’s murder to the killer had been destroyed and, along with it, quite possibly, Tessa’s career.

Her only hope was to figure out the killer’s identity and find some concrete evidence to tie him to Sharon’s death—before Casey discovered the letter had been switched. Because once he made that discovery, she’d be off the case, probably out of a job. And she’d never be able to bring Sharon’s killer to justice. If that happened, she’d never forgive herself—or Matt.

She drew in a deep breath, then coughed at the lingering scent of smoke that still clung to the oak trees and shrubs, even though the fire had occurred two days ago. A woman had died, and Tessa wanted to take a moment to reflect on that. She wanted to focus on the victim rather than her own troubles and regrets before she tromped across the property, examined what was left of the structure, and boiled down a woman’s life into fingerprints, fibers, and sooty tracks.

The home’s blackened chimney rose to the sky, strong and true. The charred rafters stuck up like the legs of a dying spider from the decimated second floor. The firemen had saved most of the first floor from the flames, but no one would ever live in this house again. It had been utterly destroyed, just like the life of its owner, who’d been found inside, dead.

Matt stood ten feet away from Tessa, staring at the same burned-out shell. But the distance might as well have been miles instead of feet. Tessa had lost her temper at the lab yesterday evening, yelling at him for convincing her to destroy the letter. Matt hadn’t apologized. Instead, he’d calmly waited until she ran out of things to say. Then he’d quietly suggested they fly to South Carolina the next morning to investigate the crime scene.

She’d agreed, but only because she didn’t have a better alternative. She needed his help, per the agreement she’d signed with Casey. Like it or not, she was stuck with Matt for now.
With
him, she had very little chance of saving her career.
Without
him, she had
no
chance.

When they’d arrived at the Charleston airport, she’d called and arranged a meeting with Charleston PD’s chief of police. But the meeting wasn’t due to start for another hour. The chief had a heavy caseload and had to rearrange his schedule to speak to them. So after they rented a car and drove into town, they’d filled the awkward silence between them by going straight to the crime scene.

Without bothering to look her way, Matt started toward the house. But instead of stopping at the front porch steps as Tessa expected, he lifted the yellow caution tape the fire marshal had tied around the railings and ducked underneath.

Outrage boiled up inside Tessa. “Matt, don’t!”

He didn’t acknowledge her. He broke the paper seal on the front door and went inside.

Tessa stood frozen, shocked at what he’d just done. She stared at the dark, gaping entryway, and the same resentment she’d felt during the Simon Says Die case slammed into her. Then, like now, his youthful arrogance had him running roughshod over an investigation, second-guessing those in charge, ignoring the opinions of others far more experienced than him. And now, like yesterday when he’d switched the original letter for a copy, he was dragging her down with him.

She flexed her right hand over the holster on her hip and started after him.

M
ATT WALKED THE
perimeter of the family room. Everything was coated with a fine layer of soot and ash, clumped and bleeding down the walls because of the water that had been pumped inside to douse the fire. Pictures either hung haphazardly on the wall or lay on the floor, a soggy, warped mess.

It was easy to figure out which woman in the pictures was Sharon Johnson, since she appeared in most of them. Medium height, shoulder-length brown hair with light-gray streaks, faded blue eyes. She wasn’t particularly pretty, but she had a friendly, easy smile.

The police chief had told them over the phone that Sharon had lived alone. But Matt wasn’t sure he agreed with that. He studied one of the pictures before moving to the next, and the next. His suspicion grew with each new picture he examined. Time to verify his theory. If Sharon was anything like him, he’d find the evidence he needed in her kitchen. He turned around.

Tessa stood just inside the front door, her green eyes practically flashing sparks at him. One of her hands tightened into a fist at her side. The other was perilously close to the gun in the holster on her hip.

“Get out.” Her voice was tight and angry. “We were supposed to walk the property, not go inside and muck up the crime scene.”

He pointed to the open sky above them. “I hardly think we can be accused of contaminating the scene.”

Her gun hand twitched. He decided a retreat might be in order, and since it went along with what he wanted to do anyway, he moved past her through the archway into the next room. An old-fashioned china hutch sat in the corner and a table that could easily seat twelve occupied the middle of the room. He scanned the contents of the hutch before heading into the kitchen.

There, on the floor beside the soot-blackened refrigerator, was proof of his theory.

“What are you doing?” Tessa’s voice sounded from behind him. “We need to get out of here and let the police chief know he needs to reseal the door.”

Her trigger hand was no longer hovering near her gun, so Matt figured she’d gotten over her initial burst of outrage.

He gave her his most charming smile, but she continued to glower at him.

He sighed and moved past her back into the dining room. She followed behind him, cursing beneath her breath.

“Do you know anything about dishes?” He tried to head off the impending storm.

Her brow crinkled. “What? Dishes?”

He suppressed a smile, enjoying the war of emotions playing across her face. Part of her still wanted to shoot him, but the other part, the part that was winning, was her insatiable curiosity. That curiosity was probably what made her such a good agent. He’d heard so many glowing stories about her exploits over the years from his brother Pierce that he already knew her far better than she knew him. That gave him the advantage of knowing what buttons he could push to get a reaction out of her. Sneaky, not exactly fair, but useful.

He waved at the shelves in the hutch, crammed full of colored glassware. In spite of the fire and the deluge of water that must have rained down, the solid, heavy hutch had done its job, protecting its precious cargo.

“Is any of this worth anything?” he asked.

“What makes you think I’d know? Just because I’m a woman?”

“You caught me. I made an entirely chauvinistic assumption that, being a female, you’d have been raised with the requisite knowledge of dishes. So, are they? Expensive?”

Her mouth curved into a reluctant half smile. “I wish I could throw that back in your face, but you’re right. I do know dishes. This looks like Depression glass.”

She put on one of her ever-present latex gloves and took out a pink plate, turning it back and forth to catch the light.

“Well?” he asked.

“I was checking to see if it’s a reproduction. It’s not. See the bubbles in the glass, and the slightly wavy look? Those are imperfections typical of Depression-era glassware. My mom collects this stuff, same pattern—Cabbage Rose. And yes, to answer your earlier question, it’s expensive. People spend their entire lives trying to collect complete sets. Some of the pieces are really rare and hard to find. At auction, this shelf alone could bring hundreds, maybe thousands of dollars. I would guess everything in this hutch could go for tens of thousands of dollars.”

“That rules out burglary as a motive,” Matt said. “If someone set the place on fire to cover up their crime, they wouldn’t have left thousands of dollars of dishes in here. Which makes it much more likely we have the right Sharon Johnson.”

“Maybe they didn’t know what the dishes were worth.”

“Doubtful,” Matt said. “Even though I don’t know much about the value of antique glassware, I suspected these were valuable. I think most people would assume that.”

Tessa replaced the plate and gently closed the hutch door. She peeled off the now soot-blackened glove, turning it inside out before shoving it into her suit jacket pocket. “I think the fact that the second floor burned so evenly, without burning the first floor, makes it obvious that arson wasn’t just an afterthought to a bungled burglary. The perp used some kind of accelerant all along the perimeter, but only on the second floor. This was deliberate, with a specific goal in mind.”

“To kill Miss Johnson.”

“Or to burn her body after killing her, to ensure no forensic evidence would remain.”

“Then I’d say arson was secondary to the primary goal, a means to an end,” Matt said. “The perp was here for one thing, murder.” He headed back into the family room.

“Where are you going now?” Tessa sounded exasperated as she followed him again.

Matt waved toward a group of pictures. “There’s a black lab in these photos, and food and water dishes in the kitchen. Sharon Johnson had a dog. Where is it?”

W
HEN
T
ESSA CONTACTED
the police to ask about Sharon Johnson’s missing pet, the chief was still too busy to take her call. His assistant routed the call to Detective George Jimenez.

“The chief sends his apologies, Special Agent James,” the detective said over the phone. “We’ve got an all-hands-on-deck situation right now. But he assigned me to assist you. I’m at your disposal. I can meet with you now, if you want to come to the station.”

“Thank you, Detective.” Tessa leaned back against the rental car. “But we’re already in front of Sharon Johnson’s house. We’d like to interview a few of her neighbors while we’re here, to get some background information on the victim.”