by K. C. Crowne
“I third that,” I said.
Everything had been so nuts, and we'd been moving so fast. It didn't hit me until that moment just how glad I was everything turned out okay, and how glad I was Sarah was safe. Seeing here there, sitting in the passenger seat of the truck, alive and unharmed, filled me with a sense of relief that was as deep as the ocean.
“I know I'm in deep shit with you, Austin,” she said. “And I'll accept whatever punishment you hand down. I just need you to know that I'm grateful that you got my sister out. There was no way I was going to leave her there to burn.”
“I understand,” Austin said, not sounding angry, but disappointed. “But you not only put your own life in danger, you put ours in danger too.”
“I know,” she said softly. “And I'm sorry.”
“You screwed up big time, Sarah, and –”
“Guys,” Wes said. “Can we do this later? We have more important things on our plate right now.”
We all fell silent, but the tension, and ominous energy inside the truck ratcheted up a few notches. He was right though, we did have more important things to worry about. Praying that wind didn't take a sudden and violent shift, sending the fire straight up our asses was one. Another was the question that had bouncing around in my head since we first pulled up to the ranch.
“Who was that guy with your sister?” I finally asked.
Sarah groaned. “His name's Eric,” she said, sounding annoyed. “He's just some lodger at the ranch who does work for the brothers, I think. Jacklyn thinks she's in love with him or something.”
“Uh huh,” I said, as some of the pieces of the puzzle start to fall together in my head. “And do you know how long he's been staying there?”
Sarah turned in her seat to look at me, her eyes boring directly into mine. My voice must have given something away because the look on her face was one of intense curiosity.
“No, I don't actually. She's pretty spare with the details about him,” she said. “Why do you ask?”
Austin met my gaze in the rearview mirror, and I saw the same knowing look flash through his eyes I knew was in mine. Maybe he'd already thought it too. Maybe he hadn't, and I was imagining what I was seeing. Either way, he knew where I was going with this now. The whole picture was starting to come into focus for me. I just hoped that when it resolved, it was an accurate picture. It felt like it was deep down in my bones. But a feeling is not proof.
“It's just that I've seen some recent reports about the fires from some of the locals who've blogged about it and whatnot.”
“Yeah, and?” she pressed.
“In everything I've read, they've listed a potential suspect. Somebody who was spotted near some of the bigger fires we've seen lately,” I said. “And frankly, Eric matches those descriptions physically. More than that, he matches the description of the suspect, right down to the limp.”
Sarah's entire body tensed up, and her eyes grew wide. “And you let my baby sister get in the truck with him?”
“Not like we had time to argue,” I said. “And honestly, this is speculation at this point. I have nothing in the way of proof. Not concrete proof that will hold up in court of law. Hell, I don't even think we have enough at this point for the cops to arrest him. But, let me ask you, did anything seem off about him to you?”
“Yes, just about everything,” she said. “Jacklyn was convinced I was being paranoid. That everything going on had me so freaked out that I was chasing ghosts. She was so insistent on him being a good man that I was starting to think that maybe I was being paranoid. After all the help he'd given us with the horses and all, I thought that maybe I'd judged him wrong.”
She turned around in the seat again and stared through the windshield, trying to make out the forms of the trucks in front of us. One of those trucks, of course, holding her sister and a potential firebug – and murderer, given the fact that a few people had lost their lives because of them.
Her face was a mask of worry. Sarah's eyes were wide, her jaw clenched, and she looked like she was on the verge of jumping out of the truck and rushing to her sister immediately. I always knew she was protective of her sisters but seeing the mama bear come out in her was really something else entirely. It was the difference between knowing something, and seeing it play out live and in front of you.
That fearlessness and determination I saw in her face in that moment only endeared her to me even more.
“Do we really think this is the guy?” Wes asked.
“I think it's a strong possibility,” Austin said. “Luke may have figured this one out.”
“You know, Owen said something back at the house that I brushed off at the time...”
Sarah's voice trailed off, and she seemed lost in thought for a moment. She stared straight ahead, as if her eyes could cut through the smoke and see all the way through to Jacklyn.
“What did he say?” Austin asked gently.
“When Eric came in, Owen said something about him reeking of gasoline,” she said, her voice thick with emotion.
“Gasoline?” Wes asked.
She nodded. “Yeah, he said his truck had broken down, and it was actually oil Owen was smelling on him,” she said. “But, from where I was, I'd say it was definitely gasoline. At the time, I didn't think anything of it, really. There was a lot going on, we had a lot to figure out, and I just accepted him at his word that his truck had broken down. Fuck, how could I have been so stupid?”
“It's not your fault, Sarah,” Austin said gently. “You couldn't have known.”
“I'm a firefighter,” she said. “I should have known.”
“You're not a mind reader, nor are you an arson investigator,” I said. “And hell, we don't actually know for sure we're looking for a firebug. Everything seems to point to it, but until we have a definitive ruling from the Commissioner's office, we can't say it for sure.”
“Nor can we rule anything out,” Austin said. “If it looks and sounds like a duck –”
“It's probably a goddamn firebug,” Wes said, his voice tight with anger.
“What are we going to do?” Sarah asked.
“What we're not going to do is let this guy ghost us,” Austin said, his voice hard. “If he is the arsonist, we need to make sure we know where he is.”
“Which, given the fact that he's a lodger at the ranch – and said ranch is probably going to burn – will be pretty fucking difficult,” Sarah said. “The guy's a transient. He doesn't have a fixed address. If we lose him now, we lose him for good.”
“Yeah, I know,” Austin said. “But, we're not the cops. We can't make an arrest.”
I slip my phone out of my pocket. “No, we can’t,” I said. “Which makes it a good thing that we have friends who can.”
“What are you going to do?” Wes asked.
I punched in a number and held the phone to my ear. It took a minute, but Rick Morgan finally answered the call with a gruff grunt. I'd obviously woken him up. Morgan was an old friend from the Sheriff's office. We got together for a beer and a game every now and then and had done each other professional courtesies from time to time. This was a big ask though, given the fact that we had no proof of anything. All we had were our suspicions and circumstantial evidence – and barely any at that.
After talking to him for a few minutes, he was on board. He said he'd rather err on the side of caution and get this son of a bitch, than having him in the wind. I disconnected the call and slipped the phone back into my pocket.
“Okay,” I said. “He's going to meet us there.”
Austin nodded. “Good.”
Sarah looked at me, panic in her eyes. “What about Jacklyn?” she asked. “What if –”
“As soon as we park the trucks, I need you to grab your sister and get her away,” I said. “I'll have Morgan hold off on doing anything until she's clear.”
She nodded. “Thank you, Luke,” she said. “Thank all of you.”
The truck sped along the highway, the wind
gusting, but the fire still at our backs. I didn't want to jinx anything, but I had a feeling this was all going to turn out okay.
I just hoped that optimism wasn't misplaced.
8
Wes
Everybody was tight and tense inside the truck, which was understandable. We were walking into a real shitstorm. If this guy turned out to be the firebug and he got wind of what we'd set up back at base camp, it might not go well for Sarah's sister. Our top priority once we got back to camp, was to get Jacklyn out of harm's way.
Until then, we had to play it cool. We couldn't afford to tip Eric off. Which meant not even telling Owen what was up. We couldn't afford to have him acting all squirrely or trying to play the hero. It was something that was going to piss him off. Dude already had an inferiority complex and didn't feel like part of the team as it was. This was just going to add to that attitude.
Owen wasn't really a bad guy. He just had a sense of entitlement and attitude that always got under my skin. He never failed to make me feel like he was looking down his nose at me, or that he thought he was better than me. Maybe part of that was my own shit. Probably was. But he just irritated me at times. Despite that, I didn't think the kid was a bad guy. He just had some growing up to do.
But we couldn't afford to fuck this up. Jacklyn's life was literally on the line. We had no idea what Eric would do once he figured out we'd walked him into a trap. I don't know a whole lot about the psychology behind firebugs, but I figured they probably weren't the most stable people around.
Of course, nobody was officially saying we even had a firebug. The Commissioner's Office hadn't connected all the dots. If not for Luke, we might not have even been suspicious of Eric to begin with. It was his brains that put all the pieces together, and after seeing what he'd laid out, I would have bet my pension on the fact that we had a firebug setting off all these blazes – and that the firebug was up in the lead truck with Sarah's sister.
We had to get this right and take him down with as little drama as possible. For Sarah's sake. I didn't want a hair on her sister's head harmed, knowing it would devastate her. I knew how close they all were, and how protective she was about Jacklyn. I couldn't even imagine what it would do to her to have something bad happen to her baby sister.
“Luke, what do we know about firebugs?” I asked. “Are they known to be violent?”
I glanced in the rearview and saw him shrug. His eyes were fixed to his tablet – no doubt studying up on them a bit more. Of all of us, Luke was the most likely to know. He was, without a doubt, the smartest of our group. He seemed to know a little bit about most everything – and everything about certain subjects. The guy was brilliant and I'd never understand why he gave up the career path he did to become a firefighter.
But, he had, and I was glad we had him.
“Just depends on the person,” he said. “From what I've read, no, they're not normally known to be violent. But there are a few cases that disprove that rule.”
“Do we know if he's armed?” Austin asked.
“We don't really know shit about him,” Sarah said. “My sister barely knows the guy.”
“If he sees the squad cars there when we roll into camp, there's a chance the guy could freak out,” I said.
“Yeah, there is that chance,” Austin said through gritted teeth. “But we don't have any choice. We can't let this guy leave. We can't afford to have him in the wind.”
“He's right,” Luke added. “If he gets away, there will be more fires, and more people will die because of him.”
“Chances are, that squad cars will look normal to him,” Austin said. “I mean, cops are emergency responders too.”
“Might make him paranoid though,” Luke said grimly. “Paranoid enough to do something stupid.”
“Which is why it's vital that we get to Jacklyn, get her out of the truck, and away from him the moment we get to camp.”
“How about if I pull ahead of him?” I ask. “If we can get to camp first –”
“No,” Sarah said. “If you blow by him now, when they pull in and see squad cars there, that's going to set off his warning bells big time.”
“She's right,” Austin said. “Just play it cool. Our best bet is if we just act normal.”
I was gripping the wheel so tight, I was half afraid I'd rip it off the steering column. But they were right. We had no choice to play it cool. We had no idea what we were getting into, or how this was all going to play out. Having no information about this clown made it like throwing darts in the dark. We had no idea what was going to happen once we parked the trucks.
About fifteen minutes later, we crested the small hill and pulled into base camp. There were people all milling around, and off to the side were two squad cars. Thankfully, they didn't have their sirens going, though they were still obvious.
“Okay, play it cool,” Luke said.
I pulled into the lot and threw the car in park. The other three were out of the truck before I'd even managed to unbuckle my seatbelt. I watched as four big, burly Sheriff's deputies crossed the lot toward us, their hands on the butt of their weapons.
“Yeah, so much for playing it cool,” I muttered.
I jumped out of the truck, and saw Sara dragging Jacklyn out of, then away from the truck she'd been riding in. Luke and Austin helped drag her away to safety. Eric was standing outside his truck, watching Jacklyn being hauled off. The deputies, weapons drawn now, were shouting at him to get on the ground, but the front end of the truck stood between him and them.
Eric's face twisted in rage, and in one smooth motion, he turned and awkwardly bounded off toward the tree line. The crackle of gunfire filled the air, but I watched Eric slip through the trees, getting safely away from them despite his limp.
“Shit,” I growled.
The smart thing to do would have been to go to the tents to check on Sarah and Jacklyn. The smarter thing to do would have been to stay out of it and let the deputies deal with it.
But I wasn’t often known for being the one to do the smart thing.
Turning, I ran after Eric, plunging into the woods well ahead of the cops who were tailing us. They shouted at me to stop and to let them handle it, but there was no way in hell I was going to let that scumbag get away. I didn't want to see more people lose their homes or be killed because I'd sat on my hands and done nothing when it mattered the most.
A strong gust of wind blew through the trees, rattling branches, and kicking up a lot leaves, and a lot of debris. The wind was a constant low growl, making it difficult to hear. Where the base camp was located was on a ridge above the valley that was currently being devoured by the fire. We were upwind of the smoke and flames, with the winds rushing through clearing it out, and keeping the air free of the choking black clouds that were sweeping over everything in front of the valley.
Even still, in the middle of the night, the orange and red flickering glow seemed to fill the entire sky with its light. It was eerie as hell. Thankfully though, we weren't choking on the clouds of smoke that clogged the rest of the world around us.
I stopped running and strained my ears to listen. I heard the sound of the cops crashing through the underbrush behind me, but I was listening for something ahead of me. It wasn't long before I was rewarded for my patience, when I heard the sound of twigs snapping, along with a muffled curse.
I'd always been pretty quick, and light on my feet. Nimble, you could have said. I was able to pick my way along the floor of the forest we were running through without stepping on anything that would send me flying, tripping over unseen hazards, or falling flat on my face.
As I ran, I heard the sound of the man in the forest ahead of me. He was obviously having considerably more trouble navigating his way through the darkened forest, and I was closing the gap quickly.
Another muffled curse up ahead of me, followed by a hiss of pain. I was close. Very close. As I came around a thick screen of bushes, I saw the man getting to his feet again, determine
d to continue running. I wasn't going to let that happen. This was going to end, and it going to end now.
He must have seen me coming from the corner of his eye, because he threw the punch before I even realized what was happening. As I saw his meaty paw coming at me, I dodged as best I could, but he caught me in the ear with a solid blow. It sent me staggering backward, and I landed flat on my ass, my head ringing from the impact. I literally saw stars and had to shake my head to start clearing them, as well as to drive away that dazed feeling.
Eric didn't wait for me to recover though. I thought he was going to come over and start wailing on me, but he obviously heard the cops closing in on our location and didn't want to be around when they showed up.
As I watched him turn to go though, I knew I had to do something. I couldn't let him get away. This fucking madness had to end. Climbing back to my feet, I did my best to push the ringing in my ears aside. I grabbed a fist-sized rock from the ground, and with all my might, hurled it straight at the man like Clayton Kershaw throwing a fastball. The rock hit Eric square between the shoulder blades – which was a little bit off the mark, since I'd been aiming for his ass. Oh well. It still had the desired effect.
Eric cried out and went down in a heap. He grabbed at his back, then knowing the danger he was in, tried to get to his feet again. I closed the distance between us and delivered a vicious kick to the man's midsection. I heard the air leave his lungs in a very audible whoosh, and he groaned in pain, curling up into the fetal position on the ground.
When he looked up at me, I thought the man looked tired. He looked completely beaten. Yet still, there was a light of anger and defiance in his eyes. I reared back and delivered another kick to his midsection. He let out a choked, strangled sounding gasp, and doubled over on himself again.
“That one's for Sarah and her sister, you son of a bitch,” I growled.
I shook my head, my ears still ringing, as the cops burst through the foliage and found their way over to us. The first one to the scene looked at me and grinned.