Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (29 page)

Her
story was brief: After changing into the clothes Kara had given her (she really liked Bugs Bunny, she told them), she and her mom had watched cartoons on the TV. The
n
she told her mom she wanted pizza for dinner,
and her mom
had said she would call a friend to bring them one. She then went to play in her new room (previously Kara’s guest room) with the dolls she’d gotten from the nurses at the hospital.

Then a really pretty lady had come to talk to her mom—she knew this because she had come out of the bedroom hoping the pizza had come. Her mom told her she would let her know when it did, so she went back to play with her dolls. She could hear her mom talking to the lady but not what they were saying, and after “a bunch of minutes”, there was another knock on the door. She had just climbed off the bed
again to see if the pizza was finally there
when her mom yelled, and she didn’t like her mom yelling. It meant something bad was happening, and she didn’t like bad things. Big people yelling
—her mom was yelling at a man and he was yelling back—
and fires were very bad things, so she ran into the closet to sit in the dark where it was safe. Bad things couldn’t get her if they couldn’t see her, though she had wished her mom and the lady would come sit with her so the bad things couldn’t get them
either.

The little girl had then curled up in Kara’s lap and started crying, wanting her mommy. Kara had wrapped her arms around her and rocked her, and Sam had asked what they should do with her. Kara offered to take her home with her until Ronnie was found, to which Scott had agreed, sending along a pair of uniformed officers as escort.
He
next
directed
Cordelia
to take pictures of the blood spatter while they waited for the crime scene unit, then pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket to examine the recorder. After
studying it from various angles
he
pressed a button, then
called Chris over and the two men sat down at the table with the recorder in between them.

“Are you ready for this?” he asked.

Chris, who had already sent Rick and Tim back to the station with orders to call in another of the volunteers
—because he sure as hell was no longer in a
ny condition to lead them, not until Martie was found—
swallowed past the knot in his throat and nodded. Scott pressed the rewind button, and when it had finished it popped up. He then pressed the play button, and a second later they heard Martie’s voice giving what
Chris recognized as her routine interview introduction.

She
then
asked Ronnie to tell her about Jessica’s father, a man whose name was apparently Kenny
Stillman
. The name had seemed familiar to Martie because of its resemblance to that of a man she worked with, but Ronnie had assured her it was probably only a coincidence. Martie had agreed, citing a “weird morning”, then had replied to Ronnie’s next query as to why she wanted to know about Jessica’s dad with more questions of her own. The two women discussed whether or not Kenny was violent or vengeful, after which Martie had revealed that her investigation thus far had led her to the conclusion that she or Jessica—or both—were the arsonist’s intended target.
Ronnie had become understandably upset
and Martie attempted to calm her down.

Then there was a knock at the door. Martie told Ronnie to take a minute to compose
herself
, saying she would answer it for her. Her voice, sounding a little farther away, said it was only the pizza and then they heard the sound of the door opening. A muffled voice they couldn’t quite make out said one word, and then a sound was heard that had
fear wrapping itself like an angry boa constrictor
around Chris’s heart—he knew Martie had been struck. It was her blood on the floor. Ronnie yelled, “
Larry, what the hell are you doing?
” as the sound was heard again, followed by a heavy thud.

Chris pushed to his feet as the intruder said, “
Who the hell is this?
”

Ronnie countered with, “
Larry, what are you doing with a gun?
”

“
Who is this?
” Larry demanded.

“
M-Martie
Liotta
.
She’s an investigator with the Bureau of Fire Safety. Larry, what’s going on? What are you doing with a gun?
”

“
Fuck!
” Larry yelled. “
He’s
gonna
kill me now, I just know it. Shit! Which car down there is hers?
”

“
I—I don’t know
,” Ronnie replied.
They could tell she was crying now.

“
Shit
,” Larry said again, and muffled sounds Chris couldn’t identify could be heard. The noise was explained a moment later when what sounded like keys were jingled. “
Good, there’s a door lock remote. That’ll help
.”

He grunted then, and said next, “
Get your kid and let’s go. We have to leave now
.”

“
I’m not going anywhere with you!
” Ronnie cried.
“
Put her down and just leave. I swear I won’t call the police until you’re long gone. I can give you a head start—
”

“
No! If I come back without you, I’m dead. Just get Jessica and let’s go
.”

“
Larry, please don’t do this! Please!
” Ronnie pleaded. “
You’re a good person, I know you are. You can’t have faked all those nice things you said to me—some of it
has
to be real!
”

“
I’m sorry, Ronnie
,” Larry said then. “
I really am. I really like you, but… I have to do this. He’s… I’m telling you, he’s
gonna
kill me if I don’t bring you with me. He might kill me because of her. He didn’t want any witnesses
.”

“
Who are you talking about? Who is doing this to you?
”

Larry groaned. “
It doesn’t matter! Just get Jessica and come with me. Please, Ronnie. I don’t want to have to use this
.”

Chris could
picture him waving the gun, though Ronnie had mentioned he was now holding an apparently unconscious Martie.
His chest bur
ned at the thought.

“
I’ll go with you, but I’m not bringing my daughter
,” Ronnie was saying. “
She’s just a
little girl, Larry—I won’t let you put her in harm’s way. Prove me right by letting her stay behind or prove me wrong by shooting me, because I’ll die before I let you or whoever the hell your puppet master is have her
.”

They heard Larry growl again. “
I’m probably going to regret this, but fine. Let’s go before he calls wanting to know where the hell we are
.”

The next sounds heard were those of the two of them leaving.
There was nothing but silence for
several
long
minutes,
then
muffled voices that proved to be their own—Martie’s recorder had still been running when Officer Blakely had first entered, followed by Chris, Kara, and Sam. It had run through Chris’s departure and return,
his revelation that Martie had been there and his belief that it was her car that had been set on fire, Kara’s search for Jessica, and Scott’s conversation with the little girl.

The detective pressed the stop button as his partner approached with an evidence bag. He dropped the recorder into it as he stood.

Chris looked at him knowing that all his love
and all his fear for Martie were laid bare
on his face. “Scott—”

“We’re going to find her, Chris,” Scott said. “We’ll find them both.”

Iktomi
had
taken her, he thought bitterly. Once again, his
thunkášila
had been right.

“We don’t even know where to begin looking,” he said, fighting panic. “She’s out there, injured, with a crazy fucker with a gun, and whoever the hell was pulling his strings could have—”

He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, unable to bear
the idea that Martie had been shot or worse.

“I doubt this Larry guy’s gone far,”
Cordelia
Givens spoke up. “Not with one of his hostages unconscious.”

“She’s right. He had to carry her downstairs, which means she could still be unconscious wherever they are—depends on how hard he hit her. She’ll be difficult to transport in that condition,” Scott agreed.

“So you think they’re still in the area?”

Scott and
Cordelia
glanced at each other and nodded. “Given how agitated Larry sounded on the recording, I’d say so. Remember he was worried about getting back to whoever’s giving the orders,” Scott replied.

“Scotty, I’ve already put out a BOLO for the white van,” his partner said as a couple of men wearing hats with CSU stitched across the brow appeared on the landing outside the open door.

Scott nodded to them. “We’ve got blood splatter there at the door, and though audio evidence suggests the
perp
didn’t move past the door, I want you to dust throughout for prints.”

“Got it, Detective,” said one of the techs, who stepped over the blood and entered the apartment with his kit.

“I want to go look for her,” Chris said. “If you’re right and Larry hasn’t taken them far, then she may still be in town.”

“We need to find out who this Larry person is. That will give us clues as to where to start,” Scott told him. “How much contact have you had with Ronnie Thompson or her daughter?”

Chris loosed a frustrated growl. “Not much.
I’ve only seen the woman three times, once at Cal’s funeral, then today…
First time I ever met her was at the
Breckon
Apartments fire last week. I spoke to her for less than a minute, when she told me her daughter was still in the building. She said something about having been to the gas station for pop.”

“Did she have any soda with her?” Givens asked.

He frowned. “No, I don’t think so. She must have dropped them as soon as she realized her building was on fire.”

“What about Martie?” Scott asked then. “Do you know how much contact she’s had with the Thompsons?”

Running a hand through his hair, Chris replied, “As far as I know, she interviewed Ronnie once last week, at the hospital. She mentioned that she might have gotten a lead about the arsonist, because Ronnie said an electrician had come by the day before the fire, but that no one else
who
lived in the building saw or was visited by one.”

“She mentioned that on the recording,” Scott mused. “Based on what she said about the evidence and what’s happened today, I’d surmise she’s right about the Thompsons being targeted. Whoever Kenny
Stillman
is, he appears to want to want Ronnie and Jessica eliminated.”

“The question is, why?” his partner wondered. “
Ronnie Thompson said he claimed she’d ruin him—might mean he’s someone in a position of power, or was looking to be at one time.
Based on what we heard, neither Kenny nor Larry
were
pretending to be an electrician, so there’s a third person involved. We need to find out how Ronnie Thompson knew Larry—that will lead us to his connection with Kenny and the third man.
”

Suppressing another growl, Chris told them, “You guys can speculate all you want. I’m going to go look for Martie.”

With that he stormed out, brushing roughly past the crime scene tech who was swabbing the blood from the steel runner across the bottom of the door frame. He wouldn’t need a lab test to tell him who it belonged to—that recording was proof enough to him that Martie had been harmed. If he ever found out who did this, it would take the combined forces of the entire police and fire departments to keep him from beating the man to death.

Fear and guilt swirled in with the rage as he descended the stairs to ground level. He should have called her before now. Should have swallowed his pride and told Martie about the fire he’d started 20 years ago.
She would have understood his reasoning, even if she didn’t agree with it. He could live with that. He could—he would—forgive her for sneaking behind his back and running the background check, and she’d apologize for doing it in the first place. Hell, even if she didn’t he’d forgive her, if only God would give him the chance.

It wasn’t until he stopped to watch a tow truck loading the wreck of Martie’s car onto its bed that he remembered he’d come here on the fire engine—though the heavy turnout gear he still wore should have been a clue. He had no transportation for getting anywhere except his own two feet. Cursing himself, he looked around, wondering how in the hell he was going to go about looking for Martie.