Blue Smoke

by Nora Roberts

  He’d holstered his gun and held instead a home fire extinguisher.

  “They’re dead.” She shouted it over the roar and spit of flame, but heard the dullness in her own voice. “He killed them in their own bed.”

  His eyes held hers another moment, that flash of understanding that was rage and disgust. “We save what we can.” He lifted the tank. “That’s the job.” And pulled the pin.

  The explosion knocked her off her feet, kicked her onto the bed so she lay across the dead. For an instant her mind was stunned, unable to comprehend.

  Then she was screaming her partner’s name, dragging the bloody sheet from the bed and rolling through the fire, through the door.

  She knew he was gone, knew it, even as she threw the sheet and her own body over the fire that buried him.

  Water gushed behind her, drowning fire, as others ran into her personal hell.

  He knew I’d go up first.” Reena sat on the curb. She’d shoved aside the oxygen mask Xander had pushed on her. “Those people up there, they were nothing to him. That’s why he shot them instead of giving them to the fire. They meant nothing. But he knew I’d go up first.”

  “There was nothing you could do, Reena. Nothing you could change.”

  “He killed my partner.” She squeezed her eyes shut, pressed her face to her knees. She would always, always, see him burning, his torn body engulfed.

  That’s the job. The last words he’d spoken. Now she wondered if she had it in her to do the work that had killed him. Grief and guilt filled her belly.

  “The bastard knew I’d go up first, to the fire. He rigged that home extinguisher, figuring O’Donnell—or someone—would grab it, use it. In the kitchen, probably in the kitchen. Plain sight. You go with instinct. You grab it, you use it. If I’d waited to go in—”

  “You know better than that.” Xander gripped her shoulders, lifted until their eyes met. “You know better than if, Catarina. You did what you had to do, and so did O’Donnell. There’s only one person to blame here.”

  She looked back toward the house. The war still raged, but she was just one more casualty. She’d lost her partner up in that room. She’d lost her heart, and she was afraid she’d lost her nerve there as well.

  “He only killed them to show me he could. He only killed them so I would see. O’Donnell, he was just icing. Fucking bastard.”

  “You need rest, Reena. You need sleep. I’m going to take you to Mama’s, give you a sedative.”

  “No, you’re not.” She rested her forehead on her knees again, struggled with tears she was afraid would never stop if she shed the first of them. She wanted her anger, wanted to feel it burn through her blood, but could only struggle with an awful, demoralizing grief.

  They were young, she thought. Younger than she. He’d killed them cold and quick in their own bed, then posed them like dolls.

  The image of it would haunt her for the rest of her life. Just as the image of a good man, a good cop, a good friend, covered with flames would haunt her.

  She lifted her head again, looked into her brother’s eyes. “I told you to stay inside. I told you it was important you stay inside.”

  It could’ve been her brother, she thought. Her mother, sister, father. That was Joey’s message to her with O’Donnell’s death. He could have chosen anyone, and still could.

  “I’m the least of your worries.” Xander cupped her cheek. “One of the cops took An and the baby to Mama’s. We’ve got our own personal police force at this point.”

  He’d touched her face then, too, she remembered. Twenty years before, when she’d lain stunned and crying after Joey’s attack. Her brother had touched her face. He’d smelled of grape Popsicle.

  The grief in her heart poured out into her throat, her eyes. “Xander. He burned your clinic.”

  He lowered his brow to hers now, and her arms went around him. “It’s okay. It’s going to be okay.”

  “Oh God, Xander. He burned you out. He’ll come after you, after all of you if we don’t stop him. O’Donnell was the next thing to family. He knew that. He had no part in what happened twenty years ago. His connection to me, not revenge, is why he’s dead. I don’t know how to stop this. I’m scared to death.”

  The shaking started in her toes, worked its way up so she gripped his hands as if to keep herself from shaking to pieces. “I don’t know what to do. Xander, I don’t know what to do next.”

  “We need to go home. We just need—”

  He broke off, and both of them looked over as Bo pushed and shoved his way through people and barricades, shouting for her. She gained her feet, teetered a bit until Xander steadied her.

  “Wait here. I’ll get him.”

  “No.” Reena trained her eyes on Bo. “I can’t just sit anymore.”

  She moved as quickly as she could, but it was like swimming through syrup as Bo struggled with two uniformed cops who restrained him.

  “He’s with me. It’s okay. He’s with—”

  Bo broke free, smothering the rest of her words as he grabbed her up. “They said you went in.” His arms locked around her, stole her air. “They said you went inside. They said a cop went down. Are you hurt?” He yanked her back, his hands running over her. “Are you hurt?”

  “No. O’Donnell.” Her vision blurred with tears. “He . . . he’s dead. He’s dead. Joey rigged an extinguisher, it blew up in his hands. It blew up, and the fire . . . I couldn’t save him.”

  “O’Donnell?” She saw the fear in his eyes go to grief. “Oh Jesus. Jesus, Reena.” He dragged her close, held hard. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Oh God, Mrs. M.”

  “What?”

  “His sister.” He rocked her as they stood there, in the street, with death and smoke everywhere. “Reena, I’m sorry. I’m sick and I’m sorry.” And so glad it wasn’t you. Relief tangled with grief had him clutching her tighter. “What can I do?”

  “There’s nothing.” The dullness was creeping back. The empty sorrow. “He’s gone.”

  “You’re not.” He drew her back to look at her face. “You’re alive. You’re here.”

  “I can’t think. I don’t even know if I can feel. I’m just—”

  He cut her off again, this time blocking words with his mouth on hers. “Yes, you can. You’ll think and you’ll feel, and you’ll do what you have to do.” He pressed his lips to her forehead. “That’s all there is.”

  We save what we can, she thought. And with that, she found her balance.

  “You level me out, Goodnight,” she murmured.

  “What?”

  She shook her head. “What are you doing out here? Running down the street like a crazy person. Doesn’t anyone listen to me?”

  He kept touching her, her hair, her face, her hands. “I’m younger and faster than your father. I got by the cops at the house. He didn’t.”

  “Hell.” She turned, studied the scene.

  The fire would take the top two floors. It would nibble at the neighboring houses, scar lives. But it wouldn’t take any more tonight, not here. And it was done with her, for now.

  That’s the job, O’Donnell had said. It was her job to do something. To study, observe, dissect. To find the why and the who, not to sit on the curb and shake with shock and grief.

  “Give me a minute.” She squeezed Bo’s arm, walked back to Younger, who’d come when the news of O’Donnell’s death had hit. “I’m going to go reassure my family, check in there. If he calls again, I’ll let you know.”

  “Took one of ours now.” His face was cold as winter. “Took a cop. A good cop.” He looked up at the sky. “He’s walking dead now.”

  “Yeah. But he may not be done with us. We’ve covered everything. I want to clean up.” She unfastened her jacket. “Clean up, clear my head. If you want to do the same, stay close, you can use the facilities at my parents’.”

  “I may take you up on it. Captain’s on his way. I’ll update him, post guards.”

  “Appreciate it.”

&
nbsp; He put a hand on her arm as she turned. “He was a step ahead of us, Hale. He, by God, won’t stay that way.”

  Couldn’t he? Reena thought. He was a fucking cobra, just as patient, just as lethal. He could go under, go into the wind for years and slither back out whenever he wanted.

  She took a last look at the house as she walked away. No, that was wrong thinking, that was exhaustion and discouragement thinking. He’d gone too far to stop now, to wait now. He was too close to the goal for a frigging time-out.

  She locked her things in the trunk.

  “Detective Younger may come up when he’s finished here. John’s on his way back from New York.”

  “What was he doing in New York?” Bo reached for her hand, linked fingers.

  “Looking up Joe Pastorelli. He’s got pancreatic cancer. He’s terminal.”

  “Hard way to go.” Xander flanked her other side. “Is he in treatment?”

  “Didn’t sound like it, and it may be Joey figures he’s got tumors ticking away like little time bombs inside himself.”

  “Is it genetic?” Bo asked.

  “I don’t know.” Fatigue weighed on her like a cairn. “I don’t know. Xander?”

  “Under ten percent of the cases are hereditary. Smoking’s the leading cause.”

  “There’s some irony for you. Smoke, fire, death. In any case, I’ll get the details when John gets back. What it tells us is this is most likely what set Joey off, pushed him to finish things up. Look, I’m going to run home, get some fresh clothes.”

  “I’ll go with you.”

  “There are cops on the house, Bo.”

  “I’ll go with you,” he repeated and walked around to get in her car.

  She rolled her eyes. “Get in,” she ordered her brother. “I’ll drop you at Mama’s. Nobody walks around alone tonight. Tell them I’m fine,” she added as she started the car. “That I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  The lights were on, she saw, all over the house. She got out for a moment to speak to the two cops parked at the curb. Head cocked, she walked back to Xander.

  “Fran, Jack, the kids, Bella, her kids. You didn’t mention everyone congregated over here.”

  “It’s what we do.”

  She kissed both his cheeks. “Go in, smooth everyone’s nerves. Ask . . . ask Mama to say a rosary for O’Donnell. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes.”

  She got back in the car before someone inside spotted her. She’d never get home for clothes if they started streaming outside.

  “They hold together,” Bo said when she pulled away. “You’ve got granite for a base there, Catarina. They’re scared, they’re sick with worry, but they don’t come apart.”

  “He wants to hurt them. I’m afraid knowing that will make me come apart.”

  “It won’t. I guess if I’m going to do the married thing—hey, I said ‘married’ right out loud. If I’m going to do the married-and-kids thing, I’d want to build that on a good, solid base.”

  “Well, the timing’s odd, but if that’s a proposal—”

  “Uh-uh. You proposed, I’m just giving you an answer.”

  “I see.”

  “Don’t see a ring though. It’s not official until you buy me a ring.”

  She stopped, just braked in the middle of the street, laid her head on the steering wheel. And wept.

  “Oh hey, oh God, don’t cry.” He yanked at his seat belt, swiveled over to try to take her in his arms.

  “I have to, just for a minute. I thought I would lose it in the house, first in that bedroom. Seeing what he did to them. He shot them, then sat them up in bed like puppets.”

  “What?”

  “Carla and Don Dimarco. I didn’t know them well. They only bought the house a few months ago. Young couple, first house. Her mother and Gina’s mom went to school together.” She sat up, wiped at tears. “He didn’t fire the bed. I could see them. I could see the pillows he used to muffle the shots. I was standing there, the fire’s all around and I could see how he came in while they slept, put the pillows over their faces . . . low caliber. Little hole. Just a little hole.”

  Bo said nothing, only took her hand.

  “It’s all around. The fire. The heat, the smoke, the light. It talks. You can hear it mutter, sing, roar. It has speech. It fascinates me. It pulls at me. It always has, since the night I stood on the sidewalk with a glass of ginger ale and watched it dance behind the glass at Sirico’s. I understand his . . . attachment to it,” she said and turned to look at Bo.

  “I understand why he chooses it, or it chooses him. I can see the steps that brought us here, all of us. But now, after O’Donnell, I feel as though I’m standing on the edge of them. I lost my balance up in that room, looking at people who did nothing except buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Looking at them and feeling the fire, I lost it, then my partner’s standing in the doorway, pulling me back from that edge, reminding me we had a job to do. And dying for it.”

  She shuddered out a breath. “I can see what he’s doing, why. More, why he has to do it. The fire fascinates him, too.”

  “Have you got some screwy idea that you and this crazy bastard have something in common?”

  “We do, more than one thing in common. But I’ve got that granite base, and thank God for it. And now I have you. I said you level me out, Bo. If I lose my balance, you’re going to steady me again. Why else would you sit here on this hellish night and talk about marriage and children?”

  “You want to know?” He hitched up a hip, pulled out a bandanna and used it to mop at her wet cheeks himself. “I’ve spent a good part of tonight sitting, standing, pacing in your parents’ house. Watching your family sit, stand, pace. And I realized if you love someone, when it’s the most real, the most important thing in your life, it’s not enough to coast. You need to dig in those footers, start building on that base. You want something to last, you put your back into it.” He kissed her hand. “I’ve got a strong back.”

  “Me, too.” She kissed his hand in turn, then, pushing back her hair, started the car again. “What kind of ring do you want?”

  “Something gaudy that I can show off to my friends to their envy and avarice.”

  Her laugh felt rusty in her throat.

  She pulled up behind the police unit in front of her house. “I’m going to talk to these guys a minute, then run in and get some things. Why don’t you wait here and start planning your dream wedding? You’re going to look amazing in a long white dress.”

  “That may be going a little too far. It’s not really appropriate for me to wear white.”

  She had her badge out, then recognized the officer who stepped out of the radio car. “Officer Derrick.”

  “Detective. Bastard killed O’Donnell.”

  “Yeah.” She steadied herself again. “How long have you been on?”

  “Since two. Another unit was doing circular patrols, but since it looked like he might be working his way here, we pulled off the clinic fire to do the sit and watch. Two officers are covering the back. Check-in’s every fifteen.”

  “Status?”

  “Quiet. Some people came out when they heard sirens. Had some milling on the sidewalk. We dispersed.”

  “I’m going in to get some fresh clothes. My—” She started to say “friend,” then gave herself a lift. “My fiancé’s in the car. Appreciate the duty, Officer.”

  “No problem. Want me to walk you in, stand by?”

  “It’s okay. I’ll be quick. Alert the rear team that I’m entering the premises.”

  “Will do.”

  Jingling her keys, she crossed the sidewalk, started up the steps.

  Four fires set in under six hours, she thought. Was he going for the record book, looking for fame as well as revenge?

  He knew the neighborhood, so that was to his advantage, but still it was fast work. Damn fast.

  She unlocked the door, flipped on the lights as she stepped in. She set her keys down as she brought the map back
into her head.

  From Fells Point, entering around six-thirty. Exiting between nine-fifteen and nine-thirty. Plenty of time to get to John’s, set