by Janie Crouch
“Tulle?”
“Damn it, how does everyone know the name of that material except me?”
He reached over and kissed her again. “You wear tulle for me for just a few hours and then you never have to wear it again.”
“Promise?” she whispered.
“Absolutely. As a matter of fact, after we’re married, I’m going to do my best to make sure you spend as much time as possible wearing nothing at all.”
Chapter Three
Damn Tanner and his smooth talking. Five hours after he left, Bree still couldn’t sleep.
Part of it was being wound up from their heavy make-out session against the wall. The other part was the fact that she hadn’t been able to talk him into going before the judge, so those damn vows were still coming up and she had no idea what she was going to say.
I will love you forever and always my whole life, you and no one else.
Yeah, that was perfect.
If she was looking for complete stupidity meets Braveheart.
Bree punched the pillow beside her. Why were emotions so hard for her? Why did there seem to be so many variables that she had to take into consideration when writing these vows?
And why couldn’t she get any sleep?
A few minutes later she finally just gave up and decided to go work in her office at the New Journeys building. Sitting at her own desk with her computer would at least be more familiar. And it had to be more useful than lying here tossing and turning in bed.
Twenty minutes later, dressed in a sweatshirt and yoga pants, she discovered that staring at a blank screen on her computer in her office was, in fact, just as bad as tossing and turning in bed.
She had nothing.
What the hell was she supposed to say to explain to the man she loved that she loved him?
Wasn’t actually getting married enough of a declaration?
And the tulle? Wasn’t tulle enough of a declaration of love, for heaven’s sake? A solemn description of what agonies she was willing to bear for him?
When no other words or ideas came to her, she did the only thing she knew how to do: she opened her browser and began coding. Within fifteen minutes she had a program written that would automatically filter every mention of wedding vows from the internet and into a folder. She may not be able to write these vows herself but she could at least research—
She froze, head spinning to the side as something caught her peripheral vision on one of the black-and-white monitors on the table in the corner. What the heck was that?
Those monitors were set to the cameras recording the section of the building that hadn’t been remodeled yet. Bree and Cassandra had installed them after some town teenagers were caught having a little rowdy fun back there. Bree had written a quick program that caused the cameras only to record if motion was detected.
Evidently motion had been detected.
Bree’s fingers flew across the keyboard so she could bring up the footage on her computer monitor, which provided a much larger and clearer picture of the uninhabited area. Except the picture wasn’t much clearer. It took her a moment to realize it wasn’t because of a problem with her computer, but because the room was full of smoke.
The building was on fire.
Bree grabbed the phone on her desk and dialed 911.
“Grand County emergency services. You’ve reached 911. What’s your emergency?”
“Debbie, it’s Bree Daniels.” Recognizing the 911 operator was definitely one of the perks of living in a small town. “There’s a fire at New Journeys. Not in the main section, thank God, but it might spread. Send the fire trucks around to the back to the section that hasn’t been renovated yet. I’m going to see if I can get it under control with the fire extinguisher.”
“Now wait a minute, Bree. You need to stay on the line with me so we can direct the first responder—”
Bree didn’t wait for Debbie to finish her sentence. The woman had lived in Risk Peak her whole life. She knew exactly where to send the first responders.
Bree grabbed the fire extinguisher in the corner of her office and dashed out into the hall, yanking down the fire alarm. Her office was on the opposite end of the housing area—uniquely situated between the residential space and the area that hadn’t been renovated. Pulling the alarm would be the quickest way to get everyone out without having to run down to the living quarters herself.
Because maybe she could stop this whole thing before it got out of hand.
Once the alarm was blaring, she dashed back into her office and out the door on the other side that took her into the section of the building where the fire was located. She started in a sprint down the hall to the room where the motion had triggered the camera, but soon slowed. Already smoke was starting to fill the hallway.
The farther down the hall Bree went, the thicker the smoke became. Would she be able to put out a blaze making this much smoke with a single fire extinguisher? She had to try.
She heard some sort of screeching noise ahead of her and started to run again, coughing as she took in more smoke. Was somebody trapped back here? Teenagers fooling around again who accidentally started a fire and got trapped?
She turned the corner and dropped low in the thick smoke, crawling forward now. It almost sounded like someone was calling her name, but she couldn’t tell from where. The smoke and her own coughing had her disoriented already, and that screeching noise was growing louder.
Someone had to be trapped in there. She pushed forward faster.
Extinguisher in one hand, she reached for the door handle with the other and let out a shriek when an arm wrapped around her waist and lifted her off her knees, spinning her around.
“Oh, no you don’t,” a voice said in her ear. “You’re not getting out of the tulle that easily.”
“Tanner.” His name came out in a relieved cough. “There’s a fire. I heard a noise and I think someone was calling my name. It’s behind that door.”
“That was me calling your name. We’ve got to go.”
She gestured toward the door. “But what about the noise? There may be someone trapped in there.”
The screeching noise got higher and louder and Tanner muttered a curse under his breath, tucking his arm around her and launching her toward the corner. They just made it around and she was about to argue her case again when a thundering explosion roared from where they’d just been standing. Smoke encased the hall from top to bottom.
“What—” Bree stuttered.
“Too many accelerants in a construction area. It was like a pressure cooker.”
A pressure cooker that would’ve killed her if Tanner hadn’t been there to stop her from opening that door and get her out of the hallway.
Taking the fire extinguisher, he tucked her under his arm again and propelled them both back toward her office. Once there she was at least able to breathe again.
“You’re going to have to let the firefighters go after that blaze, freckles. There’s nothing you can do. Let’s just get everybody out of the front of the building.”
She nodded, sucking in huge gulps of air. “You saved my life. I just called 911 a couple minutes ago. How did you get here so fast?”
“I was already here when you pulled the alarm.”
They rushed together toward the housing units.
“You were? Why?”
He stopped for the briefest of seconds and gave her a hard kiss, before taking her arm and spurring her down the hall once again. “I went by your apartment to tell you I wanted both. We could go before the judge tomorrow and have the church wedding in two weeks. All I knew was I had to have you in bed with me tonight. When you weren’t there, I came over here to plead my case.”
“Holy hell,” she whispered, then coughed again. “If you hadn’t needed a booty call...”
She would’ve bee
n dead.
He gave a short bark of laughter and shook his head grimly at the same time. “Yeah. Thank God I’m addicted to you.”
A few moments later they were in the housing area.
“Bree!” Marilyn said. “What’s going on? Is this some sort of drill?”
Bree was still coughing from the smoke she’d taken in and her run down both hallways.
“No,” Tanner answered for her. “Not a drill. Everybody needs to get out. There’s a fire in the other section of the building.”
The panic was almost instantaneous. Mothers began calling for their children and some of the other women yelled for anyone who might still be asleep. Most of the kids were crying and Eva and Sam were looking up at Bree and Tanner, eyes huge in their pale faces, Tromso’s leash in their hand.
Bree couldn’t stop coughing. It paired horribly with the dog’s whining.
Tanner put both hands on her shoulders. “You need to get outside and stop exerting yourself.” He turned to Marilyn. “Can she take the kids outside and you and I will get everyone else out?”
Marilyn nodded.
Bree started to argue but another coughing fit overtook her. Tanner was right—he and Marilyn would get everyone out. The most she could do to help right now would be to get out of the way. She nodded and offered Eva and Sam her hands. They took them and she led them quickly outside, some of the other residents along with them.
Outside was pure chaos. Lights from fire trucks, police cars and ambulances lit up their block like it was some sort of disco rave party. Half the town was frantically pacing back and forth, and everyone seemed to be talking all at once.
Eva and Sam were looking even more traumatized, so Bree pulled them back toward the outer edge of the action. She wanted to reassure them, but every time she started talking she was besieged by coughs. So she just crouched beside them and put an arm around each small, shivering body.
It wasn’t long before a paramedic came up to her.
“Miss, I think we ought to get your cough checked out. Can you come with me?”
She shook her head. She wasn’t leaving Sam and Eva alone in this craziness. “I’ll stay with them,” she managed to get out.
The paramedic smiled at the kids. “Yeah, this is pretty nuts, isn’t it?”
They both nodded solemnly.
He gave Bree a kind smile. “This sort of situation can be pretty overwhelming for folks their age, especially in the middle of the night. But you really ought to get that cough checked out. How about if I escort you over to the ambulance, and I’ll personally stay with the kiddos to make sure they’re not scared.”
“I don’t know—”
“I can keep them over at the side, out of harm’s way and where it’s not so chaotic. Probably best for everyone that way.” He gave her a smile.
Bree was about to agree, but then she looked down at Sam and Eva, who still hadn’t said a word. One silent tear rolled down Sam’s cheek and he was clutching Tromso’s leash with shaking fingers.
No. She wasn’t leaving them. She didn’t care if she had to hack up a lung until Tanner and Marilyn arrived.
“I’m fine. I’ll stay with them,” she whispered.
The paramedic looked like he was going to argue, but then there was some yelling closer to the building, so he shrugged and took off. Bree sat watching the burning building, clutching two tiny hands in hers, trying to establish the extent of the damage in the dark. And offering up constant prayers that no one had been hurt.
When Tanner jogged over to her a couple minutes later, she didn’t resist at all as he pulled her against his chest. He smelled like smoke, but she was sure she smelled the same. “Everybody’s out and accounted for. Doesn’t look like anyone was hurt or that there was much damage to the living quarters.”
Marilyn clutched her kids to her and they all watched the firefighters attack the blaze in the back of the building. It looked like most of it was contained back there, not the living quarters, but it was impossible to tell.
More townspeople continued to gather around. Tanner had to step up into his role of law enforcement when some teenagers kept trying to get too close to record for social media what was mostly now just smoke.
The blaze was completely out before Bree let Tanner lead her over to one of the ambulances so she could be examined. The younger, female paramedic was quite a bit less friendly than the guy Bree had met outside, stuffing an oxygen mask over Bree’s face and suggesting she go to the hospital for follow-up. Bree didn’t want to go but knew from the determined look in Tanner’s eyes there would be a trip to get her lungs checked out in the next few hours. She might as well get it out of the way tonight.
Because it looked like there was going to be a whole lot of stuff requiring her attention tomorrow.
Chapter Four
Tanner had almost lost Bree.
Two days later that knowledge still wasn’t ever very far out of his mind. If he’d gotten there one minute later, if he hadn’t been thinking with his libido rather than his brain, she would’ve opened that door and provided the fire somewhere to escape.
And the escape would’ve been straight through her.
She hadn’t been aware that the screeching noise they heard from inside the room was from the fire building in intensity. Opening the door would’ve provided more oxygen to the flames and caused them to engulf her.
If she’d opened that door, they would’ve been planning the final details of a funeral today rather than a wedding. Fear still clawed inside his gut at the thought, as he sat staring at the charred remains of the doorway.
“Pretty jarring to look at, isn’t it?” Grand County fire inspector Randall Abrahams said from behind Tanner.
It would take a couple of days before the official report would be filed and Tanner could act on it, so Randall had agreed to meet Tanner out here as a personal favor in order to try to get this wrapped up before the wedding.
“You have no idea. Bree almost opened that door.”
Randall whistled through his teeth. “If she had, this definitely would’ve been a homicide investigation rather than plain old arson.”
Tanner turned. “You’re sure it was arson? There were a lot of building supplies and leftover stuff from the construction. Maybe not stored properly or something. An accident could’ve lit it on fire.”
Randall walked around Tanner and entered the room where the blaze had started. “That was our initial thought.”
“But something changed your mind.” It wasn’t a question.
“When we talked to your fiancée, we found out that she had put a security camera in here. That’s how she realized the building was on fire so quickly—the camera turned on when the smoke and blaze got big enough to trigger the motion detector.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did you help rig that camera? Know anything about it?”
Tanner shook his head. “Not a whole lot. Cassandra and Bree wanted to do it themselves. I gave them a couple good camera suggestions and then looked it over once they had it hung. Seemed fine to me.”
“But someone could’ve sneaked by the camera?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Tanner shrugged, looking around. “They were just trying to keep teenagers out of trouble, not provide full-fledged security for an empty section of the building.”
“Camera was up in that corner, right?”
“Yes.” Tanner took a step farther into the room with the older man, stepping carefully around the debris left by the fire and the hoses. “Do you think someone sneaked in around the camera and lit the fire? I checked the footage first thing and there was nothing. Just the blaze itself.”
“Did you go back any further than the night of the fire?”
Tanner nodded, still looking around at the mess. “Yeah, just in case someone had been hiding in here. Nothing ha
d triggered the camera in the forty-eight hours before the fire. The footage doesn’t keep more than that.”
“Let me show you what we found.”
Randall and Tanner stepped carefully through the debris until they were standing in the corner of the room directly under where the camera had been located before it was destroyed in the fire.
“You’re gonna have to tell me what you want me to see, because it all looks like the bottom of my fire pit to me,” Tanner told him.
Randall pulled out a plastic evidence bag from his pocket. “This is what I want you to see, and this corner was where we found it.”
Tanner took the bag, squinting at it as he held it up. Randall didn’t keep him in suspense.
“It’s a timer. We found parts of it and a pretty sophisticated detonation device in this corner. Somebody very definitely set this fire.”
Tanner let out a low curse. “A sophisticated detonator goes well beyond some kids playing a prank or a firebug who wanted to watch a building burn.”
“I agree. This was set with deliberate intent to go off exactly when it did. And I think someone broke in here ahead of time and planted the device and timer. It could’ve been a while ago, but every day it sat here, it risked detection.”
Tanner ran a hand through his hair. “So it was probably in the last couple of days. And if there’s no record of it in the footage, that means whoever sneaked in here knew where that camera was located and how to avoid it.”
This had just become much more serious than any of them had counted on.
Tanner studied the evidence bag and its contents. “But to what end? Were they trying to blow up the whole building? Kill everyone?”
Randall shook his head. “No. If anything, the opposite. I know Bree was here and called the fire department much more quickly than would’ve occurred on any other night. But the way this fire was set up, it would’ve burned itself out before it ever got to the inhabited side of the building. I don’t think it was meant to harm anyone.”
“Well, it damn nearly harmed Bree.”