Chasing Can Be Murder (29 page)

“Why? If I turn off my torch, it’ll be dark and we won’t be able to see a thing.”

“Exactly.” She swung her walker in front of her at each step, moved around the front of the car until she reached her husband, grabbed his torch, and switched it off.

By the time the torch came back on again, I was dressed and Ben had his mobile in his hand and was standing outside leaning on the side of the car. Within a few minutes he’d let the unsuspecting daughter know to expect a surprise visit from her parents and drawn a map showing the directions to Wild Horse Plains. And then, after helping Madge fold her walking frame and stow it on the back seat of their car, he stepped back and waved them off.

“Well, that was fun,” he declared, sliding behind the wheel and blowing out a tightly held breath.

“Only if you’re into self-mutilation or being eaten by maggots,” I replied. By this time I’d decided making out in the car, on the side of the road, might be high on a teenager’s to-do list, but I’d hold out for a nice comfortable bed. “Let’s finish this at home, Ben.”

Ben leant across the console and brushed his lips against mine, so lightly, so suggestively, I almost changed my mind. “Best idea you’ve had all night,” he murmured, his voice low and husky.

The windows were steaming up and I had to fan my face. “Phew! Is it getting hot in here—or is it just me?”

He grinned and then, obviously satisfied he’d managed to turn my legs to jelly with one kiss, started the car.

“Your place or mine?”

“Better make it mine,” I said. “If I don’t show up, Scuzz will be worried.”

“Ring him and let him know he’s off duty…as from now,” ordered Ben swinging the car back onto the road. “Tell him to hop on his Harley and go visit his cousin.” He sent me a glance so sizzling hot that every one of my hormones began to sweat. “After all, we haven’t finished our
talk
yet.”

Flirting outrageously, I puckered my lips, sucked my finger and drew the wet digit slowly down his arm. “About that talk
,
Benjamin,” I said. “What say we slow it down to crawling pace this time? Nice and leisurely and drawn out. We wouldn’t want to miss out on all the good stuff by jabbering, would we?”

As though his throat had suddenly lost all its moisture, Ben gulped, and I watched his fingers strangle the wheel. He grabbed a shaky breath. “Make that phone call, Kat. Now!”

Ignoring the corresponding tightening in my groin I jerked the cell off my waist band, hit my preset home number. No answer. I tapped out Scuzz’s mobile number, but all I got was his message bank. A fleeting sense of unease shifted like a heavy weight on my chest. Where was Scuzz? Why wasn’t he answering the phone?

“Maybe he’s outside checking for prowlers and switched off his mobile in case the ring tone alerts them,” Ben suggested.

I clipped my Nokia back onto the band of my jeans and nodded. “Yeah, you’re probably right. Scuzz takes his bodyguard duties very seriously. I’ll try again when we get closer to home.”

As the car hummed along the main road toward Two Wells I settled back and closed my eyes. This had been one hell of a night. I’d crawled through acres of mud and pig shit, broken into a house, been shot at by crooks with machine-guns...

And to top it all off, my good mate Ben had finally, after two years of me dreaming and fantasizing, noticed I possessed one less X chromosome than he did.

I smiled as I thought of the way his lips, hotter than roadtar, had left me gasping for breath, the way his fingers, strong, agile, and hitting my G spot with ten out of ten accuracy, had me writhing against him, the way he moaned my name as I explored the warmth of his mouth with my tongue.
Oh! Uh!
I crossed my legs, told myself
to get a grip!
We were barreling along Downes Road. Another two minutes and we’d be home. Looking across at Ben’s craggy familiar face, my smile widened. Oooh yeah. And the best part of the night was still to come.

“Where’s that smoke coming from?” Ben’s body tensed beside me. Frowning, he stuck his head out the open window. “Shit!” he growled, his voice seeming to scratch his throat.

I dragged my eyes from Ben’s face to peer through the windscreen. Thick black smoke enveloped a property up ahead. I blinked, my breath caught in my throat and fear sliced a hole in my chest as I took in the flames leaping angrily into the night sky.

Three fire engines, sirens echoing and hammering in my ears, whooshed past, screeched through my open gateway and slewed to a halt in front of my burning kennel-house.

“
Nooo!
” Screaming, sobbing, I tugged on the door. “Please, God. Not my dogs!”

Before the van stopped, I leapt through the open car door and hit the ground running. All I could see through the thick choking smoke were tongues of yellow and red flames. All I could hear was the roar of the fire and the hysterical barking of terrified dogs.

28

A fierce roaring filled my ears. I stumbled. Almost fell to my knees as I plunged through a blinding fog of smoke.

“Scuzz…where are you?” I screamed, but my voice got lost in the rage of the fire. Why wouldn’t my legs move faster? It was like my brain had pressed the slow motion button and left me to plough through a sea of treacle.

Not content with devouring my kennels, the greedy flames snapped at the sky, demanding more. Heat punched me in the face. Two firemen, snaking thick hoses along the ground, yelled at me to stay back. I ignored them.

Only two thoughts filled my mind–finding Scuzz and saving my dogs.

Coughing and retching against the blanket of smoke that curled and blinded, I fought my way to the open doorway of the kennel-house. The only recognizable shape in the frenzy of flames inside was my luxury dog-treatment table. I’d spent more than I could afford on that piece of equipment, but with all the extra attachments it had made my work easier and I’d never regretted the expense. Now, the wooden surface bubbled and the steel legs were red hot and melting. To my overwrought senses, the table appeared to be writhing in agony. A shiver dumped down my spine yet the heat from the inferno was so intense I tugged my T-shirt over my head before lurching through the doorway.

If this was akin to the fires of Hell, from now on I’d be especially kind to the sick, the homeless, those who called me bad names and my mother, if she ever returned from her extended holiday. My eyes stung. My throat burned. My lungs were a tight clamp in my chest. But I had to find Scuzz. Save my dogs.

I hadn’t gone more than three steps when a rough hand grabbed at my shoulder, dragging me backwards.

“Let me go!” I kicked out, connecting with a hard shin.

“No way.” It was Ben and of course he didn’t listen. The kick didn’t even slow him down. And when I dug my heels in and refused to cooperate, he continued hauling me like a bag of garden refuse until we were well clear of the burning building.

“Jesus, Kat!” His eyes wild, his head huddled under his jacket, Ben tightened his fingers on my arm. “You got a death wish or somethin’?”

When I tried to shake loose from him, his fingers fastened onto my other arm and clamped tight. When I tried kicking him again, he picked me up and held me hard against his body.

“Damn it, Kat. It’s too late! There’s nothing you can do in there except commit suicide.”

“Noooo!” I screamed, struggling to get free of his python hold, only to have it rack up an extra notch. “I have to find Scuzz. Save the dogs.…”

“Kat, it’s okay. Scuzz is—” Ben began in a soothing voice and ended with a groan—right about the time my knee connected with certain sensitive items around the groin area.

Breathing heavily, Ben’s face contorted, but his grip didn’t loosen. “Scuzz…is over by the ambulance,” he gasped, his face going a strange greenish color. “They’re treating him for burns.”

“You’re sure?”

Ben nodded, and then, just when I expected him to give me a blast for hurting him, he angled his head to the side and kissed me. A kiss so soft and comforting it was as though he was telling me how glad he was we were alive. I felt him relax his hold and, lips attached, slid through his arms until my feet touched solid ground again.

A mixture of guilt for the knee jab, euphoria that Scuzz was okay and the need for comfort had me deepening the kiss. After the first five seconds, guilt subsided and enjoyment kicked in. But not for long.

“What about my dogs?” I asked, my voice cracking and tears threatening to spill as I pulled away.

Arms still wrapped around me, Ben cocked one eyebrow and twisted his mouth into a grin. “Well, apparently, our mate, Scuzz, is a hero. He managed to save all but one dog and the only reason he couldn’t save her is because the roof caved in before he could get back in.”

Relief flooded through me at Ben’s words. Scuzz was safe. All but one dog had been rescued. I should have been dancing for joy, but for some strange reason my legs had gone on strike and refused to do anything but shuffle. Add to that my throat was on fire and my chest hurt and all I wanted to do was cry.

Ben’s dark eyes glinted yellow as he looked down at me, a reflection from the flames. “Now, sweetheart, can we
please
move right away from this fire? I admit, I did plan to be stretched out beside you tonight—but not on a slab at the mortuary.”

“I don’t understand any of this, Ben. Who hates me so much they’d want to kill my dogs? And why?”

“I don’t know, babe, but I’m sure as hell determined to find out.”

We found Scuzz perched on a hard green plastic chair beside the ambulance. His face was streaked with soot, his beard singed and his leather pants scorched. In stark contrast, spotless white bandages covered both his hands.

As we approached, Scuzz removed the oxygen mask covering his mouth and in the light of the fire I thought I saw a tear balanced precariously in the corner of one eye. I shook my head. Nah! Leather-clad bikers didn’t cry. Especially a rugged, man-mountain with legs like two-hundred-year-old tree stumps and a knife strapped to his boots.

“How’s it going, Scuzz?”

“Kat,” he croaked. The single tear began its slow downward roll. I gazed at the phenomenon, mesmerized, unable to stop my own tears from bubbling to the surface again. The tear slid down his cheek, reached his chin and plopped onto his boot. “I’m
so
sorry,” he whispered, his ruined eyes never leaving mine. “I couldn’t save her. The little white dog in the end kennel. She was so scared, yet she didn’t make a sound, not until the end and then…and then she screamed. One long, drawn-out, terrified scream.” He shook his head, wiped his nose on the back of his hand. “I’ll never get that scream out of my head as long as I live.” His eyes beseeched me to understand. “I tried to reach her, Kat. Honest. See, I’d promised I’d come back…but the fire beat me and—”

“Oh, Scuzz…”

Bawling like a five-year-old, I threw my arms around the big guy’s neck and hung on. “Bubbles knew you did everything possible to save her,” I assured him, hiccupping as I patted the large expanse of leather jacket under my hand. “She wouldn’t have blamed you.”

“Bubbles? Was that her name? I called her
Little One
.”

“Hey, she’d have known you were talking to her.
Little One
was her nickname.” Weighing in at only 24 kilos, Bubbles had been the smallest, cutest, sweetest greyhound in my racing kennels.

Ben shuffled from one foot to the other, concern for Scuzz scribbled in anxious lines across his face. “You okay, mate?”

“I’ll live.”

Scuzz placed the oxygen mask back over his nose and mouth, took a few deep breaths then ripped it off and frowned up at us. A frown so ferocious, so dire, his eyebrow rings clicked together.

“We have to catch this maniac,” he growled, top lip curling back in a wolf snarl revealing teeth jammed together hard enough to crack the enamel.

Ben’s eyes narrowed and grew darker. “Bloody oath, we do.” He took a step closer, bent down so he didn’t have to yell over the noise. “Don’t suppose you caught sight of the mongrel who lit the fire, did you?”

Scuzz nodded.

“Recognize him?”

Scuzz slowly shook his head. “Too dark.” I could see frustration eating at him; hear it in the bitterness of his voice. “The son-of-a-motherless-goat took off into the bushes when he saw me coming. If I had been close enough to grab him I would have hurled the creep so far into orbit he would have landed in the middle of a meteorite storm.” Scuzz shrugged his massive shoulders and stared down at his bandaged hands. “The kennel-house was on fire by this time so I couldn’t chase him. All I could do was ring the fire brigade and evacuate the dogs.”

“Thank God you did,” I put in, affection for the big guy making it difficult to talk through the soggy lump in my throat. “You know, if I thanked you every day for the next ten years, it still wouldn’t be enough for what you did tonight, Scuzz.”

At that moment the ambulance attendant, a motherly woman dressed in bottle green overalls with luminous yellow strips front and back, came hurrying over. She paused to replace Scuzz’s oxygen mask and check his bandages.

“You really should get checked out at the hospital, Mr. Parkington.”

For a moment I couldn’t work out who the ambulance attendant was addressing until Scuzz answered. “I told you before, madam,” he said, one finger pulling his mask away from his face so he could speak. “No hospital.”

With a slight shrug she lifted his chin and checked his eyes. “No need to get upset, dear. It’s your call.”

“I
hate
hospitals,” Theodore Parkington the Third continued, his bottom lip protruding like a toddler ready to throw a tantrum. “Last time I was admitted the nurses avoided me and the doctor on duty selected the largest needle he could find to sedate me before I could even begin to explain my medical problem.” He paused and I caught a fleeting glimpse of naked pain in his face before it was whipped away by the quirking of his lips. “Anyway, hospital sheets are way too scratchy for my tender skin.”

I grinned. Glad to see the return of the Scuzz I knew and loved. “I could always drop your black satin sheets off at reception for you. Pack them in with the Panda Bear hot-water bottle and your Superman jammies.”