Into the Fire (6 page)

Any response she might have made was
forestalled by the ringing of her cell phone. As she picked it up,
he slapped the envelope down on the counter and stormed out of the
kitchen.

“
Davis,” she responded, but
her eyes tracked Nate’s back as he pushed open the front door hard,
making it thunk against the porch siding.

“
Fourth and Washington,” the
precinct’s dispatcher announced, “early reports are this is
definitely a torch.”

“
On my way,” she
disconnected the line. Even as she tried to shift her mind from
Nate to the case, it stubbornly refused. The orgasm he’d given her
was stupendous, fabulous, but just like he’d said, she knew there
could be so much more, if she’d let herself go.

Shaking her head, she bolted for the
bedroom and a new blouse before grabbing her keys and purse on the
way out the door. Her relationship with Nate--or lack
thereof--would have to wait.

Chapter Five

Nate leaned against his hood,
seething, even as he recognized he was being an ass. Yeah, she’d
said it was only sex, but dammit, as always, she’d turned him
inside out, and he wanted more. He wanted to use the nipple clamps
and restraints still sitting uselessly in his pocket; he needed to
hear her beg for his touch. Dammit, he wanted it all.

He’d actually sat in his truck for a
few minutes, keys in the ignition, before he realized that in order
to have it all, he needed to understand the “new” Charly. The girl
he’d known was still there, yes, but tempered by a woman he didn’t
really know. So he’d stepped out of the cab and into the cool
night, determined to wait out his anger and try again.

The new and improved Charly walked out
the door with her hair pulled back into a tame ponytail, purse
under her arm. She turned to lock the door, and he could see her
Beretta holstered at the small of her back.

The phone call, which he’d heard
coming in as he stormed out, had obviously mobilized her. And, just
as obviously, it was work.

After what they’d just
done, dare he involve himself? 
Hell
yes.
 He pushed away from the
truck.

“
Another?”

She barely spared him a glance as she
opened the car door.

He wasn’t dissuaded. He couldn’t be.
Not if he wanted to win Charly. And, dammit, if this was another
arson fire, he wanted in. His years in the Air Force had taught him
how to analyze almost anything. The Department of Defense was
damned good at training their Airmen to think outside the box. If
that training got him closer to Charly, if it helped her, then so
much the better.

As she fired up the engine, he walked
to the passenger side, opened the door and slid into the
seat.

“
What in the holy Hell do
you think you’re doing?” Charly ground out, tension clear on her
face.

“
I still want in, regardless
of where you and I stand,” he replied as he buckled his
seatbelt.

“
Get the fuck out of my
car.” She was furious, there was no doubt.

Nate turned to face her fury. “I will,
if you want me to. But I’d still like to see the scene, walk
through it with you.” He forced his voice to be calm, reasonable.
He may have been pissed a few minutes ago, but now he was thinking
clearly. “You’re undoubtedly the expert, but I may see something
you don’t, because I have a fresh, different
perspective.”

She considered him through narrowed
eyes. He actually saw the moment she chose the case over her
feelings, saw the shift from anger to speculation. He knew, in
order to fulfill his goal of claiming her, he’d have to respect the
importance she placed on her job. The thought was sobering, because
no matter how much he boasted of “different perspective”, she was
still the professional here; he was a clueless amateur.

In the end, their history won out. “If
I didn’t know there was a world-class mind behind your
testosterone-driven manness, I’d kick you to the curb.” She sighed.
“But regardless of our history, past and present, you’re right. I
won’t let our relationship muddy the waters when a fresh set of
eyes might solve this case.”

She started the car and backed out of
the parking slot before addressing him. “It’s a clothing store this
time. The dispatcher said it’s a total loss because of the
flammable product inside.”

“
Makes sense,” he answered,
taking care to keep his voice neutral instead of jubilant. He’d
broached one of her shields. Sex wasn’t his problem. His
understanding of her psyche, her needs and goals, was.

She grunted in response, and he kept
his silence for the long, twenty-minute drive to the scene, even
though it killed him.

He wasn’t an “after action report”
kind of guy, but, dammit, their sex had always been the best he’d
ever had, and she was acting as if it hadn’t even happened. Damned
if he’d be the one to broach the subject, though, even if it was
eating him up inside.

Charly pulled into the parking lot of
the obvious crime scene. His engine company was on-scene, as he’d
expect since the locale was smack-dab in the middle of their
coverage area. That made his radar start to ping.

“
How many of the other
torches have been in my company’s turf?”

Charly cocked her head and looked at
him. Her eyes were light-years away from half an hour ago. While
he’d love to see that look of complete abandon again, the deep
thought in her eyes fired him up even more. She took his comment
seriously, as something of merit.

“
All of them. It’s a
higher-crime neighborhood, so the locations were a given.” She
considered him through the eyes of a professional now. “Good call,
Nate. While we plotted everything, I was looking at the crime-rate
correlation, rather than at the profiling possibility.” Her voice
now held a bit of chagrin.

“
Hey, if I wasn’t a first
responder myself, it would never have occurred to me,” he replied,
warmed by her acknowledgement of his vision.

“
Doesn’t matter in the long
run, with the exception of our performance reports. And personally,
I don’t give two shits about those.” She unbuckled and opened the
car door, which forced him to mirror her action. “I just want to
get this guy before he kills someone.”

Nate regarded her over the roof of the
car. “I played promotion games for eight years in the Air Force. I
agree, they’re bullshit. Let’s catch this fucker.”

Charly looked at him long and hard
before nodding.

* * * *

Charly completed her initial
interviews while the crews finished their clean-up and Nate
discreetly videotaped the crowd. Just like the other blazes over
the last month, she found a whole lot of nothing.

A concerned motorist, who’d seen the
flames as he drove by, had made the initial call. Her questioning
of him was comically short; he was an EMT on his way home from work
at the local ambulance service. His supervisors confirmed his
departure time, and it squared exactly with his drive-by of the
scene. He hadn’t had the time to set the fire. If her impressions
were anything to go by, and they usually were right, then he was
exactly what he purported, an innocent bystander who’d done the
right thing. He’d called 911 and then used the back stairway into
the overhead apartment to ensure no one was home; he earned a minor
case of smoke inhalation in the process.

The people in nearby
businesses hadn’t seen anything suspicious, and there were no
familiar faces in the crowd that had gathered. The investigation
was stalled where it had been with the last fire, exactly
nowhere.

Nate got his battalion chief’s
blessing to enter the building and slid into a set of borrowed
turnouts and gear, then followed Charly into the still-smoldering
building, toting the evidence case for her. The charred building
was a stand-alone structure, unlike the video store from a few days
ago, and the other retailers earlier in the month.

“
Do you think he went
further with this one because it wasn’t attached to another
building?”

Charly swung around slowly to face
him. It was something she’d already considered. It shouldn’t
surprise her he’d come to the same conclusion, but it did. “I like
the way you think, Nate. This is the only solo structure so far,
and one with an apartment to boot. He’s escalating, rubbing our
noses in it.”

She pulled a digital camera from her
turnout coat and began to shoot, noting the winding damage trail
through the sodden heaps of still-smoldering clothing. An
accelerant had definitely been used. The smoke eaters had destroyed
some of her evidence out of necessity, but the damage trail was
still blatantly clear.

Fifteen minutes later, she’d finished
her first circuit of the scene with Nate following silently behind
her. She crouched, directing the beam from a mini-Kleig toward the
fire’s point of origin. Just like the other fires, the alligatoring
was blatant evidence of an accelerant.

Pulling a bottle from the evidence
case, she carefully deposited scrapings and chunks of charcoal into
the container, then screwed the top on. At floor level, the smell
of kerosene was overwhelming.

Putting the evidence carefully away,
she retrieved a camcorder and began her second sweep, complete with
dictated observations. “Initial search indicates the same
perpetrator. The method of ignition appears to be an exact match to
the previous three fires. No apparent container is visible.” She
paused near the back door. “There is no sign of forced entry, with
the exception of the Halligan tool marks made by initial
responders. I’ll leave fingerprint discovery to the crime scene
technicians. Building appears to be a total loss. A uniform will
stay on-scene until CSU completes their initial.”

She panned around the room one last
time. “No injuries, as with the earlier conflagrations.” Clicking
off the camera, she turned to Nate, who watched her silently in the
gloaming. “I don’t know how long we’re going to be this lucky,” she
said, shaking her head. “He’s gonna kill someone. I just feel it.
C’mon, let’s get out of here.”

They wound their way through the
bundles of clothing and splashed through the standing water. With
each step, she felt his warm, comforting presence at her back.
She’d been able to push away the earlier events of the night, their
lovemaking, his incendiary words, because the job took precedence.
Now, all of those thoughts bubbled to the forefront of her mind,
and each of them made her ache.

Outside, night had fully fallen; a
full moon rode high and bright in the inky sky. One ladder truck
sat idling, along with the battalion chief’s SUV. Chief Ryan strode
up to them.

“
Same perp?” he asked
matter-of-factly.

“
Looks like,” Charly
answered as she pulled off her helmet and ran her fingers through
her sweaty bangs. Nate--and their love life--would have to take a
backseat again. “Same MO, probably used kerosene as the
accelerant.” She stretched out her back and stared at the building.
“Why was the store closed? It’s Saturday night, prime shopping
hours before women hit the clubs.”

“
Employees’ night out. The
owner does it once a quarter as a bennie. She’s standing over
there.” He pointed out a tiny woman dressed in casual clothes,
leaning against a patrol unit; her expression was shell-shocked.
“Her cell was turned off; she had no idea what happened until they
finished dinner.”

“
Thanks, Chief. I’ll have
the prelim paperwork done in the next few hours. I just want to
talk to her real quick.”

Ryan tipped his white
helmet in acknowledgement and walked to his vehicle. Just before
getting in, he turned back. “I’ll expect to see you bright and
early at the ‘house, Andrews. You can return the gear
then.” 
And talk to me about sniffing
after our only female arson investigator.
 The chief might not have said the words, but Charly
could read them loud and clear.

Nate’s mouth quirked up in a smile.
“Wild horses couldn’t drag me away.”

Charly shook her head as she walked to
her car. The rumor mill would be in full swing by the time Nate
showed up for work. They’d appeared at the scene together. She
always played it solo, and the firefighters would notice. Oh well,
she couldn’t do anything about it now. She was definitely not going
into meltdown about it like the last time rumors flew. She was
bigger than that now, and dammit, her work record spoke for
her.

She popped the trunk to her car,
stowed her gear and the evidence kit, armed herself and grabbed a
notepad before heading back to the business owner. Nate, having
shed his turnouts and boots, was two steps behind her.

The woman still had a dazed expression
on her face. The patrol officer, Paul Williams, intercepted them a
few steps out. “Marie Wilkins is her name. She’s gonna stay with
her sister until we release the building to her.”

Charly nodded in thanks and approached
the victim. “Ms. Wilkins? I’m Detective Charly Davis, Ludington PD.
If you don’t mind, I’d like to ask you a few questions.”

“
Please call me Marie,
Detective Davis.” She blew out a shuddering breath. “I saw you come
out. They say it’s a total loss. Are they right?”