Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (25 page)

“Not to mention that I didn’t say anything to her about
you having nowhere to go until yesterday
,”
Chris added. “We’ve all had hard times coping since this happened, in one way or another. Kara and the Rescue are simply hoping to make things easier so times aren’t so hard for you anymore.”

He
r breath still shallow,
Ronnie looked between them with teary eyes. “I… I don’t know how I could ever thank you. You’re being unbelievably kind.
Now that we’ve somewhere to go, and
Jessy’s
talking again, we might finally get out of this darn hospital.”

***

As soon as she’d driven across the Gracechurch corporation line, Martie had felt the kick of adrenaline throwing her heartbeat into overdrive. She was here for one reason only—to talk to Ronnie again—but her nervousness stemmed from the angry look in Chris’s eyes the last time she’d been here. Martie knew she’d hurt him badly with that damn background check—why had she listened to the idiots who’d planted the seeds of doubt in her
m
ind?
Graham
and
Tony
… Neither
of them
had ever met Chris—and she might only have known him a few days, but damn it, she knew him better than they did. He was kind, serious, protective, brave…and loving. He’
d been so generous when
they’d made love, making sure she had received
her pleasure before he’d sought his
own.
Even that first time—
when his emotions had been raw, the wound from
losing his friend still fresh—
he had brought her to climax first.

The chances of her running into him were slim, as she planned to head back home as soon as she’d seen Ronnie Thompson. But that didn’t stop her heart from hoping she would, or her body from wanting her to patch things up so that he’d be willing to show her again and again how much he wanted her, making her nerves dance at his touch and her limbs weak from loving him…

And that was really the gist of it, wasn’t it? She loved him, as incredible as it was, as hard as it had been for her to admit to herself. Martie was in love with a man who no longer wanted
her,
because she’d been fool enough to let her insecurities get the best of her. As harshly as she’d spoken to him a week ago, as angry as her accusations had made him, she was certain he’d never even give her a chance to apologize. And while she couldn’t say she wasn’t still curious as to why he’d started that fire twenty years ago, she had come to realize it didn’t matter.
Chris
was right—he’d turned his life around
and what he’d done as an adult, the man he’d become since growing from the headstrong boy he’d been…

…that was what mattered now.

Spotting the entrance to the hospital up ahead, she took a deep breath and forced herself to refocus. Ronnie had answers she needed, though the questions she would have to ask to get them were probably going to frighten the younger woman. It had been pretty clear that while she may have regretted her involvement with the married Kenny, at one time she had loved him. He may have wanted her to get an abortion, but was he the kind of man who would seek a woman out after more than ten years to do what she couldn’t?

Parking in the visitor’s lot, she headed into the hospital and rode the elevator up to the third floo
r, where she bypassed the nurse
s
’
station and headed straight for room 309. Martie stopped short just inside the threshold when she saw an orderly changing the sheets on the bed, and no sign of Ronnie or Jessica in sight.

“Excuse me,” she said to grab the man’s attention. He paused in the middle of placing the corner of a fitted sheet around the end of the mattress and turned to her. “Can you tell me what happened to the little girl who was in this room?”

The orderly shrugged. “I got no idea. I’m just cleaning the room for the next kid.”

Frowning, Martie turned a
nd headed back toward the nurse
s
’
station. “Excuse me,” she said again, pulling out her badge as she did so. “I’m Lt. Martine
Liotta
from the Bureau of Fire Safety. Where are Veronica and Jessica Thompson, the little girl who was in room 309?”

The nurses behind the desk, a girl in her twenties and another probably in her forties, both studied the badge in her hand. “Ronnie and
Jessy
are gone,” the younger one said after a moment.

“Gone where?” Martie asked.

“Jessica
was released this afternoon,” said the other nurse. “Dr. Milner had kept her for observation because of her not speaking and all, and also because the poor things—
Jessy
and her mother—had no
where to go. But they got a visit from one of the guys in the fire department and his niece, who offered Ronnie and
Jessy
a place to stay. Guess
knowing she had a new home to go to
got
the girl
talkin
’ again, because by the time they left, she sure was a chatterbox.”

Only one of the firefighters she had met had a niece that she knew of, but before her hopes ran away with her, she made herself ask, “Which firefighter was it?”

The young nurse grinned. “That yummy Native American fellow with the great ass—if you’ll pardon me
saying.
I think his name’s Chris.”

Her co-worker nodded. “Yep, that’s his name. And the girl he was with is Kara Maynard, one of our EMTs. Her daddy’s the one that died in the fire. Poor thing’s had a hard time, losing her father like that. So sweet of her to offer to let Ronnie and
Jessy
stay in her apartment now she’s living back in her daddy’s house.”

“That was certainly kind of her,” Martie agreed. “Would you mind giving me the Thompsons’ new address?”

The young nurse shared a glance with her older counterpart. “I don’t know that we can give out patient information, Miss
Liotta
.”

“It’s Lt.
Liotta
,” she corrected her
firmly
, “and Veronica Thompson is a material witness in my investigation. That fire was set deliberately and the arsonist is still at large. If he believes she or her daughter ca
n identify him, then they are
in very real danger.
I need that address.”

“You mean to say they’ve seen him?” the older nurse asked, alarm in her voice.
“Oh, no.
Jessy’s
such a sweet little girl. Who’d want to hurt her?”

“Nobody will if I have anything to say about it,” Martie assured her. “But I can’t protect her or her mother unless you cooperate.”

Immediately she turned to the computer on her left and rapidly tapped her fingertips into the keys. Martie noted absently that her typing speed was better than her own. After a few clicks of the mouse and some more typing, she reached for a Post-it and a pen and scribbled something down.

“This is it,” she said, handing the piece of paper to Martie. “That’s in the Liberty Park apartments.”

Glancing at the address, she nodded. “Thank you,” she said,
then
quickly headed for the nearest elevator.

Not being entirely familiar with Gracechurch,
it took Martie longer than anticipated to find the Liberty Park Apartments complex—to her embarrassment, she’d had to stop at a gas station and ask for directions. Arriving at last, she drove to the back of the complex where the station attendant had told her the address would
be
(his sister lived in an adjacent building)
. Parking in an unmarked visitor’s spot,
she glanced up and
took a look all around her. The apartments were
fairly new—couldn’t be more tha
n five or six years since construction was completed. That meant, or so one could safely assume, that each building had been thoroughly inspected and had met all of the state’s current fire codes.

Ronnie and J
essica
should be pretty safe here, at least from another fire.

Martie headed for the stairs that would take her up to the second story, and a moment later she was knocking on the door of apartment H. A
couple
minute
s
later she
heard the snick of a lock turning,
then
the door opened.

“Hello—Martie, right?”
Ronnie asked. “How…
how did you know where I was?
”

Nodding, Martie replied, “Yeah. Martie
Liotta
,” she said. “One of the nurses on the third floor told me Jessica had been released and gave me the address. Do you think I could come in for a few minutes?”

“Oh, yeah.
Of course,” Ronnie said, stepping back and holding the door open wider. “Forgive my
rudeness,
I was
hoping you were the pizza
.
Jessy
asked for pizza for dinner, and I just couldn’t say no.”

Mar
tie grinned.
“Certainly not.
I
heard she was talking again.”

Ronnie shut the door and then stepped around her into the dining nook off to the right. “
She is, thank goodness. I still can’t figure out how Kara did it. I’m her mama, and nothing I said or did could get a word out of her. The doctors and nurses couldn’t get her to speak either.”

At the crestfallen expression that crossed the other woman’s face, Martie placed a hand lightly on her shoulder. “Hey, I doubt it was anything you did or didn’t do. Maybe Jessica just wasn’t ready to talk until today.”

“That’s what Kara said—that maybe she was finally ready to end her silence,” Ronnie said. “I’m beginning to wonder if it wasn’t because she—Kara, that is—said the word ‘fireman’. First words
Jessy
said in nearly two weeks was that there was a fireman in the fire. Then she and Kara talked about Kara’s dad—all while she was hiding in the wardrobe.”

“I’ll bet that was some conversation to overhear,” Martie said, then cleared her throat. “Listen, speaking of fathers, I need to ask you some questions about Jessica’s.”

At that moment, Jessica came running in from the back of the apartment.
She was clad in an over-sized Bugs Bunny t-shirt and a pair of long shorts that had clearly come from someone much taller than she. “
Mommy, is the pizza here? I want pizza.”

“I know you do, baby,” Ronnie said, the frown she’d formed at Martie’s last words changing instantly to a smile when she looked at her daughter. “But it’s not here yet. I’ll let you know when it is,
okay?
”

Jessica huffed dramatically.
“Fine.
Tell me the minute it gets here—I’m hungry.”

Martie watched the little girl turn and trudge back the way she’d come, disappearing into what she assumed was a bedroom, with a smile on her face.
“Wow. From zero
to bossy in a matter of hours—but I’m sure you don’t care much right now, so long as she keeps talking.”

“No, I don’t,” Ronnie agreed. “Why do you need to ask me about her father?”

Looking over, Martie said, “I think we should sit down.”

Ronnie’s frown returned, deepening as she indicated the round, glass-topped table beside her. She and Martie both took seats and once again, Martie brought out her recorder. After she pressed the record button and spoke her usual preamble, she said to Ronnie, “I need you to tell me about Jessica’s father. You said his name was Kenny?”

Ronnie nodded.
“Yeah.
Why do you want to know about him?”

“Was Kenny his legal name, or was his full name Kenneth? What
was his last name?” Martie ask
ed.

“He told me Kenny was short for Kennedy, his middle name.
He wouldn’t tell me
his first name no matter how many times I asked, and his last name was
Still
… something. To be perfectly honest I ca
n’t remember if it’s
Stillson
or Stillwater or something else beginning with ‘Still’
, as I’ve tried to forget it ever since I left him.”

Shock coursed through her, along with a small dose of shame. Martie had half been expecting Ronnie to say Graham’s last name even though she had no reason whatsoever to suspect he had ever met her
—he was the one who’d suggested Martie ask about Jessica’s father, for goodness’ sake!
Never before had her boss given her a reason to
mistrust him, and one stupid mistake was no reason to suspect a man she’d known for more than ten years of arson and attempted murder.

This, of course, led to her feeling even more like the total bitch she’d been to pull the same stunt on Chris.

But stronger than her shame—at least for the moment—was the utter disbelief that someone as affable and outgoing as Victor
Stillman
could possibly have a single evil bone in his body. He was a frien
d, someone she
chatted up in the cafeteria, or shared a beer with after work. He always seemed so dedicated to his work, to justice and the pursuit of the truth—and he always seemed to work especially hard on her cases. He’d been as frustrated as she had been at not being able to pin the warehouse or convenience store fires on their owner.