RICHARD (A BAD BOY ROMANCE) (27 page)

I
let the bacon and eggs cool on the stovetop. Suddenly, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Chapter 9

Gunner

I
didn’t like the thought of leaving Tanya after what had happened the night
before. With that psycho on the loose, I felt like I needed to be watching over
my stepsister 24/7 in case he decided to make another house call.

But
my professional life had other plans.

The
firehouse seemed a little less than boisterous when I walked in through the
garage. Normally I could hear the boys from a few yards off in the dining room
talking about the latest game, but not today. It almost felt like I was walking
in on someone’s funeral.

I
found
Stoggins
up in the kitchen cleaning up what
must have been a big breakfast for the rest of the firefighters.

“Everyone
already gone out?” I asked, looking around at the practically deserted common
area.

“Yeah,”
Stoggins
said, hanging a heavy steel pot up to dry.
“Probably nothing major, but they asked for a bunch of us. Got enough guys here
to man the other engine if something else comes up.”

“I’m
surprised I’m not getting a damn earful from the Captain about the other day.’

Stoggins
let
out a laugh as he turned the faucet off, looking at me over his shoulder. “You
had us talking about that for a while, but Garfield wouldn’t say what you two
got into that had you so mad—he said it wasn’t for him to say.”

“Yeah,”
I sighed.
”It’s
not something I really want to talk
about right now.”

“It
must be pretty bad if you won’t even talk about it with me.”

“You
could say that,” I offered, letting the weight of everything that had happened
settle into my thoughts. “When I’ve got it all sorted out, I’ll make sure to
tell you everything.”

Maybe not
everything,
I thought.

“Works
for me,”
Stoggins
said with a shrug. “Not like I need
to hear you go on and on about your problems. I’ve got my own shit to worry
about.”

“Real
sensitive of you,” I muttered, shaking my head. As I turned to go make sure my
equipment was all in order I saw the captain pass by the door.

Before
I could even speak, he waved me over, an odd expression on his face.

“Gunner,
I’m going to need you in my office for a moment,” he said, his face setting
into a deep frown.

“Listen,
Cap, if this is about the girl—”

“It’s
not. This problem’s way more serious, Cole. Just please, get into my office and
have a seat. I’ll be in there in a minute.”

I
frowned, a strange tightness starting to creep into my chest as I gave the
captain a silent nod. Something was up, something the Cap didn’t want to talk
about in the hallway. Maybe he’d decided to take action against me after I
punched Garfield the other day.

His
office was empty save for a red folder set squarely in the center of his desk.
I didn’t like the look of it. Something about how out of place it seemed just
put me on edge.

I
sat in one of the two chairs in front of the captain’s desk, my hands set
awkwardly on the arm rests as I waited for him to return.

It
didn’t take him long, and behind him came a tall, bald-headed black guy I’d
seen a few times before, but couldn’t remember from where. My mind jumped
automatically to the thought that this man might have been some kind of HR rep
from the city, or something, here to talk to me about the plentiful accounts of
unprofessional conduct I’d perpetrated on multiple occasions.

Unfortunately,
the truth ended up being much
more grim
.

“Gunner,
this is Lieutenant Frasier,” the captain said. “He’s with the arson unit, and
he wanted to ask you a few questions.” Then he delicately maneuvered his belly
around the edges of his desk and flopped into his ratty, worn-out swivel chair.

I
narrowed my eyes. “What the hell does the arson squad need from me?” The fire
investigative unit was where all the police transfers headed when a few cops
decided their jobs were a little too tough for them. Cops and the firemen
didn’t get along—in a sort-of-friendly-but-not-really kind of way—and having
some cops hanging around pretending to be firemen never sat too well with me.

“It’s
actually your sister we needed to speak to, but the number we have on file
isn’t in service any longer,” Frasier said, sitting down in the chair next to
mine. “I heard from the captain that she was staying with you and wanted to set
up an interview whenever she’s available.”

“An
interview to find out
what,
exactly?
You think the fire at her apartment was intentional?” If my suspicions—and
hers—were true, then it was. But something about the way Frasier said it made
my hackles raise. The fuck was he thinking, wanting to question my baby sister?

Cool it, Gun. Let’s be a
professional.
Shit, Tanya had me thinking all kinds
of things,
feeling
all kinds of
things—all of which were driving me nuts.

“We
just wanted to see if she had maybe witnessed anything before the fire. Or if
her landlord was in any kind of trouble that she knew of.”

“So
it
was
arson,” I mused, clenching the
arm of the chair. My mind immediately flashed to Tanya’s stalker, the way he’d
broken my Mustang’s window and the scorched brick sitting on my counter back
home.

“That’s
what our investigation is pointing to, yes,” the lieutenant affirmed. “We found
evidence of an accelerant at a few points around the building. It was
sloppy—maybe a crime of passion, or maybe he’s just new to burning shit down on
this kind of scale—but he’s done his homework. There was a hole busted through
the dry-wall near the building’s laundry facility and a few gas-soaked rags
shoved inside. Once he lit those rags, the walls went up in no time.”

Firefighters
like me don’t usually spend a whole lot of time contemplating the
why
and
how
of the calls we respond to. For us, it’s a lot simpler than
that. Is it on fire? Okay, then how to we put it out?

We
don’t think a lot about the specifics. About the victims. Yeah, sure, we think
about them when we’re saving them. And we think about them in this sort of abstract
way—every guy fantasizes about pulling grateful citizens out of a burning
building. But we don’t think about the little things. The details. Because
honestly? That’s what makes it real.

And
to do this job, you
gotta
keep a certain distance.
Have a certain amount of clarity. See the forest, but not the trees. You
gotta
look at the big picture. Fire: bad. Girls: pretty.

So
knowing how this fucking psycho had done it—knowing what parts of the building
had gone up in flames first—it let my well-informed imagination run wild.

Fuck. All those
people_.
_._._

“You
have a suspect?” I asked, hoping that maybe they already had someone—someone
who didn’t know my sister—who looked good for the crime. If Tanya’s stalker was
the kind of guy who’d set an entire building on fire, then I didn’t want to
think of the lengths he’d go to in order to get to her now.

Never should’ve left her.
Not even at the mall. I’m a fucking idiot. I’m so fucking stupid. Just because
I didn’t want to talk about a stupid fucking
kiss_.
_._._

The
lieutenant shrugged. “The usual. Landlord, a few disgruntled tenants. Nothing
solid just yet.”

“I
might have a lead for you, then,” I said, taking a deep breath.

“Go
ahead.”

“My
sister has a stalker,” I began, staring into the space between the captain’s
desk and myself. Even talking about this brought to mind the horrible things
that happened that night. “A violent one.”

Frasier
leaned forward. “And you think that he could have set the fire? Do you have any
evidence?”

“Last
night, after I brought my sister home
from_.
_._._work,
my car was broken into. I came outside and found my back window smashed in with
a brick. When I brought it inside, I saw that it had scorch marks on it. There
was a note, too. A message for my sister. It was weird shit, man.
Like_.
_._._
Criminal
Minds
-level crazy.”

“I
see,” the lieutenant said, taking out a notepad and jotting a few things down
as I spoke. “And you just learned of this person last night?”

“Yes,”
I said, flexing my hands anxiously. “My sister and I had been estranged until
the fire.”

“Do
you know the name of her stalker?”

“No,
he’s stayed fairly anonymous. Like stalkers tend to do. Look, like I said, I’ve
only just been made aware that this guy even existed.”

“Has
your sister filed any police report on the matter?”

“No,
I don’t think so. She never mentioned it, just told me that he accosted her at
work. I think that his message and the brick have been the first time he’s
communicated since then.”

“Then
we’ll definitely need to have that talk with your sister, Mr. Cole.”

“Yeah.”
I nodded, rubbing my hand over my face as my thoughts raced. “I’ll make sure
she’s available to talk to you. Mind if I grab your number so we can set
something up?”

“Absolutely,”
he said, scribbling what I could only assume was his work number down on his
notepad and tearing the page out. “If she can get back to me as soon as
possible, I’d appreciate it.”

“Sure
thing,” I said. “Is that all you needed?”

“That
should be everything,” Frasier answered as I began to stand.

No
sooner had I reached for the door then it flew open.
Stoggins
was standing square in the doorway, his eyes wild, face twisted and pale.

“Something
wrong,
Stoggins
?” the Captain asked, his mustache
bristling at the intrusion.

“We
just got a call, Cap, and I think Gunner’s
gonna
wanna
be on this one.”

Cap
snorted like a bull about to charge. He
hated
being interrupted. Hated cryptic shit like what
Stoggins
said even more. “The hell are you talking about?”

“It’s
your house, Gunner,” Tom said, turning to me. “There was a 9-1-1 call just a
few minutes ago.”

My
stomach went cold and I froze in place. My thoughts drifted right to the worst
possible scenarios—Tanya lying dead on the living room floor, some freak in a
drama mask standing over her with a knife. My house in flames.

“Let’s
go,” I said. When I moved, I didn’t think about it. I was action man again,
muscle memory taking over. The exact same thing that let us charge into burning
buildings without ever thinking about the consequences.

I
was still on autopilot as I geared up and climbed into the cab of the fire
engine. My pulse pounded like a war drum in my ears and the siren wailed as we
pulled out of the garage, a symphony I’d heard a thousand times before, but now
it was different. Personal.

Loss
wasn’t really my thing. I tended to book it before I could get attached. I’d
learned that from a shitty father—drink it away, or get away. But now, with
Tanya, I had no choice. I had to wade right into the thick of it. For once, I
had to stick around and see how it all turned out.

I
started preparing myself for the worst.

Chapter 10

Tanya

I
knew the second I saw the house that something was wrong.

I
was on the phone with Chelsea, walking back to Gunner’s from the bus stop. I’d
just finished a mini shopping spree at the mall. I wanted to get there early
enough
so’s
I wouldn’t be getting home after dark.
Gunner lived in a nice enough part of town, but considering some psycho had the
hots
for me and was on the loose, I wanted the sun
beating down on me at all times. I wasn’t
gonna
make
it easy for him.

Besides,
I was on my own carrying bags full of new clothes and holding a brand new cell
phone to my ear. No way I was
gonna
chance it.

“You’re
serious?” she asked me. I could almost see her wide, doe-like eyes through the
phone. “Jesus, Tanya. You think it’s the guy with the mask?”

“That’s
my best bet,” I told her, plodding along the sidewalk. It was an older
neighborhood and I had to be careful of cracks and raised tree roots. “It makes
the most sense, at least. I can’t think of anyone else who’d go through the
trouble.”

“What
about Craig?” she asked, and I cringed. If I never heard that name again, it
would be too soon. “He was always
kinda
nutty, huh?”

“Craig
was infatuated,
Chel
. Not obsessed.” He was an old ex
of mine, some fan from my days at the Dollhouse. I was just nineteen when I met
him, and he was forty-six. I guess I thought back then that having an older guy
interested in me meant I was hot shit. I didn’t realize until later that all
the perverts go for the chicks with daddy issues.

“Besides,”
I continued, “Craig’s been out of the picture for years. Why would he show back
up now?”

“That’s
true,” Chelsea admitted with a sigh. “I don’t get it, sweets. You got all the
bad luck.”

I
smiled a little. That was one hell of an understatement. But I knew Chelsea had
seen her fair share of bullshit, too.

“Well,
both our moms are dead,” I pointed out. “Maybe this is just the shitty part of
the movie right before we become Disney princesses.”

Chelsea
laughed at that, a shrill chortle that nearly blew out the speaker in my phone.
When she came back down to earth, she said, “I love you, sweets. Just be safe,
huh?”

“I
will,” I’d promised her.

So
when I got to Gunner’s driveway and saw his house—when I knew something was
wrong—it took me a long time to build up the courage to figure out what it was.

It’s
hard to say, even now, how I knew. Even from the outside, I could tell
something was
just_.
_._._wrong about the whole thing.
Jax
wasn’t where I’d left him this morning, either—out front
by his dog house, safe and sound behind the chain-link fence. And I didn’t hear
him bark when I got to the stoop.

I
put my hand on the knob. “
Jax
?” I called out. “Here,
boy_.
_._._”

Nothing.
Silence.

I
let go of the doorknob to grab my key, but when I did, the door just swung
open. It was already unlocked. And I was sure I hadn't left it that way.

I
set my bags down on the stoop and dialed 9-1-1. Most people only ever have to
call once or twice in their whole lives, but for me, it was becoming a habit.

“9-1-1,
state your emergency.”

I
peered through the open door. “I think someone’s in my house.”

“Okay,
ma’am,” the dispatcher said in this stoic way that made what was happening to
me seem even creepier. “Are you alone?”

“Yeah.
And it’s my brother’s house. Not mine. 4288
Camptown
Drive. Yellow with a teal door. You can’t miss
it_.
_._._”

Stupidly,
I crossed the threshold into the house. When I did, the silence around me was
deafening. Thick, like it held actual weight that pressed down on me like a
vise slowly, slowly clamping shut.

I
glanced around. Everything seemed the same. And yet not the same. Somehow, I
knew that everything around me had
been_.
_._._violated.
Touched.

The
dispatcher’s voice startled me. “Where’s your brother, ma’am?”

“At
work,” I whispered. “He’s a firefighter.”

“Are
you in the house?”

I
was moving down the hall. I couldn’t stop myself. Something was pulling me
forward. Urging me on.

“Yes,”
I told her.

The
dispatcher said, “Can you get out?”

“The
dog,” I answered. The door to Gunner’s room was open. I had to look inside. “I
can’t find the
dog_.
_._._”

“Ma’am,
the police are on their way. If you can get out of your
house_.
_._._”

Gunner’s
room looked normal. Or normal as far as I knew, anyway. There were some clothes
on the floor. A wrinkled, unmade bed. But nothing out of the ordinary, except for
one conspicuously open drawer.

I
knew better than to touch anything that could be a crime scene. I backed out my
stepbrother’s room and turned toward my own. That door wasn’t open.

That
door could have someone behind it.

Someone
who was in my room. Waiting for me. Breathing, just on the other side of that
door.

Wearing
that awful
mask_.
_._._

“Ma’am?
Are you still there?”

“I
think_.
_._._” I paused to swallow. My mouth was so
dry. “I think he’s in my room.”

The
operator was telling me to run. To get the hell out. Solid advice, but I
couldn’t do it. I couldn’t move.

Except
to reach out toward the door. The one that might have held my death behind it.
The one I should have, under no circumstances, tried to open.

But
I did. As if in a dream, or guided by some unseen force, I thwarted my own will
and used the back of my wrist to open my bedroom door.

“Jesus,”
I gasped. “Oh, fuck.”

My
room was trashed. I hadn’t owned much, but the furniture and bed I’d been using
were strewn across the floor. The TV was broken, fragments of the screen
scattered right in my path. The dresser was overturned, drawers pulled out, its
flimsy back panel in splinters.

As
I surveyed the damage, I saw my mattress had been stripped, as well. And
hanging over the wall in front of me was the top sheet, covering up something
beneath it. Something that smelled.

“He
left something for me,” I said into the phone.

But
as I reached up to pull down the sheet, I saw it. Right at the top, there was a
glass container with what looked like powder in it.

That
was when I’d finally listened to the dispatcher and left the room, wishing I
knew where the fuck
Jax
was.

Almost
an hour later, I was standing in that room again, but this time there were cops
everywhere.
They’d called in the big
guns—bomb squad, for starters. The CSI team was there too, ready to start
dusting for fingerprints once the other guys were done with the scene.

Gunner
was beside me. He’d raced home as soon as he’d heard. It was because of him we
were even let back in here at all. He wanted to know what was under that sheet.
I did, too, but I guessed firemen had a bit more pull than strippers did.

“We’ll
analyze the material in the vial and get back to you,” one of the officers was
saying, “But I think I have an idea of what it is, based off this painting.”

Gunner
shook his head in wonder. “Christ. It’s a fuckin’ mural.”

They
were talking about what they’d found under the sheet, which was a massive,
hastily-drawn scene, a collection of frantic strokes made in a hundred shades
of red. There was a naked woman sitting on top of a man or beast, something
with way too many heads, while little humans writhed and stretched before her.

I
touched the side of my neck. The woman in the picture had a tattoo just like
mine. In fact, it
was
mine.

“That’s
the
Whore of Babylon
,” the officer
said. “Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth.” When he caught me
staring, he shrugged. “I was an altar boy.”

“Great,”
I muttered. “She’s got my tattoo.”

Gunner
looked at me, then back at the painting. His hands were clenched into
stark-white fists at his sides. “So this guy’s got a hard-on for you,” he
gritted. “We
gotta
get you out of here, baby. Before
he does something worse.”

I
turned to the cop. “What do you think was in the vial?”

“Flash
powder,” he said matter-of-factly. “If I had to guess, whatever your guy drew
the mural with is flammable. Bomb squad says there’s a little device in there
rigged to spark on impact. If you’d pulled that sheet down, the glass would’ve
broke and the powder would’ve ignited. Boom! Wall goes up in flames.”

I
shook my head, staring at the portrait. At myself, on the back of
that_.
_._._thing. With seven heads that all looked like
Gunner’s.

The
cop said, “Did he take anything?”

“A
picture,” Gunner told him. “From my room.”

The
cop raised his brows. “Picture of what?”

“Her.”
My stepbrother jerked his head toward me. “When she was a kid. Before I left
home.”

For
just a moment, Gunner’s eyes met mine, and I could see the sadness there behind
them. Maybe he really had never stopped thinking about me. For all the good it
did.

But
still, knowing he’d kept my picture around, that he hadn’t just forgotten
me_.
_._._

Slowly,
the officer nodded. “Anything else?”

“I
didn’t bring much with me,” I said. “When my apartment burned
down_.
_._._” My eyes widened and I turned to Gunner. “Did
you tell them? About the brick?”

“I
did,” he assured me. “They’re taking it into evidence.”

“
Gotta
say I agree with your brother on this one,” the
officer said, tucking his thumbs into his belt. “This guy’s
goin
’
for the throat. You should get out of town. Lay low for a while.”

I
shook my head. “No. I’m staying here. I can’t let this bastard win. And
besides, the way things are, I wouldn’t feel safe on my own.”

“Then
I’ll go with you,” Gunner said, taking me by my shoulders. His touch was so
warm, so gentle. My overstimulated nerve endings faded into a mere fizzle.
“You’re not
gonna
go through this alone, baby. Not
anymore. I’m here.”

“You’re
a firefighter, Gunner,” I reminded him, desperately trying to steel my resolve.
“I can’t ask you to give up your job. To just walk
away_.
_._._”

But
Gunner gripped me tighter. “You’re not. I’ve got vacation saved up… Besides,
that’s a choice I’m making on my own. A choice I’ve made before.” His lips
flattened into a grim, pale line and his eyes blazed. “Last time, I hurt you.
This time, I’m
gonna
make sure I save you. I don’t
care what it takes.”

Part
of me wanted to pull away and tell him I didn’t need to be saved. That was the
kid inside who remembered all the hurt his absence had brought me, all the
wounds he had inflicted on my soul. And a grown-up part, too, who remembered a
tender kiss that my stepbrother didn’t even want to acknowledge, let alone talk
about.

How
could I trust somebody like that to take care of me? I was better off saving
myself.

But
I also knew he’d pulled me out of a fire once already. And some other part of
me knew he could do it again, if only I’d let him.