The Protector

by Dee Henderson

  “Hold on, let me get them.”

  Jack stripped off the smoky shirt and tossed it toward his duffel bag.

  “She noticed his shoes,” Cole said.

  “I wish she noticed his face. She’s looking at the books but it sounds iffy.”

  “Jack—we’ve got a problem. She saw him.”

  Jack heard Cole’s words, knew the man had just made a leap forward connecting information, and felt totally lost. How did he ask Cole what he was talking about without sounding like a fool? Jack sighed. There were days he felt like he was not playing on the same field. “You lost me.”

  “She noticed his shoes.”

  “Okay…” Saying she seemed to have a thing about shoes tonight probably would seal the impression that he was a fool.

  “She doesn’t notice shoes and not notice a face.”

  “You know what you’re saying—” Jack sat down on the side of the bunk, overwhelmed by the idea.

  “Even money she could tell you if the guy had a ring on that hand he pushed in his pocket,” Cole replied. “She noticed him. Learn something fast: Cassie does what she thinks is right, not necessarily what is right.”

  Jack was resigning the title lieutenant and going back to caring about how much water pressure was dialed in so he didn’t get knocked flat when they put water on the fire. The people stuff of leadership was never going to make sense. “Cole—”

  “I’m here for at least another hour. Where is she?”

  “Your office, looking through the arson books.”

  “She’ll give you what she can without crossing her own line.”

  Jack thrust his hands through his hair. “I think you’d better handle this one.”

  “I’d just get mad at her. Sit down and tug the information out of her. She’s got an acute conscience, so nag and you’ll get her to spill it.”

  “Cole.”

  “You don’t have to like it; you just have to do it. It’s one of the joys of being a leader. And Jack—if you make her cry I’m going to be annoyed. So choose your words with care.”

  Jack rubbed the back of his neck and kicked the metal footlocker. “Let me go talk to her. I’ll call you back.”

  Eight

  The moon was full and it was shining in her eyes. Rachel shifted her arm under the pillow and turned her head away from the window. She was thirty-five and she was awake in the middle of the night, morose over the fact she was alone. It was a reflection on the choices she had made in her life.

  With a groan she buried her head in the pillow. Every time she saw Gage she told herself she was not going to wish for what she didn’t have. And every time she did exactly that.

  Next year she was going to scale back the amount of energy she put into others and start putting some attention into her own long-term dreams. She had been denying it for a long time. She wanted kids. She wanted to be married. The psychologist in her was amused at the order of those dreams.

  Her childhood home had been loud and rough. She tried so hard to be the peacemaker, to fix the problems and the anger and the bitterness between her parents. She was eleven when it had all unraveled. When her parents divorced, she went with Dad. And then her dad didn’t have a place for her so she’d ended up at Trevor House.

  She wanted a different future. She wanted a happy home and children. Once and for all she wanted to destroy the painful memories of childhood she still lived with.

  And her heart was hung up on Gage.

  She deserved the mess she was in.

  Come the new year, she would be moving on. Her dissatisfaction had been building for a long time but was now ready to be put into words and acted on. She was going to go after those dreams.

  All the choices in her life hadn’t been bad. Professionally, she could look in the eyes of a hurting child and empathize, reach through and connect with the fear surrounding a trauma. In doing so she could help a child heal. But in putting her focus on her career, she had put her personal life on hold.

  No more. The new year was going to be her turning point.

  She lifted her head as she heard the distant sound of a siren and relaxed only when it faded. Being around her brother Jack and her sister Kate had made her very sensitive to the sound of a siren.

  The apartment returned to silence.

  The phone rang.

  Rachel tensed even as she reached for it. At this time of night, a phone call for her meant a crisis somewhere and a child in trouble. She did not want to take the call. She couldn’t cope with another one. “This is Rachel.”

  “What exactly did Cole tell you about the fires?”

  She blinked at the question. “Gage?”

  “Gage. What exactly did Cole say?”

  She scowled. “Do you know what time it is?”

  “Late.”

  “I’m sorry you can’t sleep. Call me back when it’s not late.” He was working. She appreciated his help in learning why Cole was worried about the fires but did not appreciate hearing his voice or the question this time of night. “Good night, Gage.”

  “There was another fire.”

  She pulled the phone back to her ear and pushed herself up on one elbow. “What?”

  “Jeffrey’s at the scene; I’ve got him on hold on the other line. He says the house is a total loss and that Cole is there. Now I need to know what he told you.”

  She was getting grilled as a source for a story. “Gage, I don’t like you.”

  “Quit thinking and just talk.”

  Rachel turned on the light. “Deep background, off the record, and all that other reporter legalistic stuff I have to say to get you not to print what I say in the paper.”

  “I’m not going to quote you, Rachel LeeAnn.”

  “You’ve quoted what your wife said in her sleep claiming she hadn’t qualified it.”

  “You are never going to let me live that one down, are you?”

  “Never.” She had found his Valentine’s Day story adorable, if intrusive.

  “I won’t show Jeffrey my notes. Talk.”

  It wasn’t easy to remember the exact words of the conversation. “As best I can remember—the fires started about two months ago. Cole didn’t say what fires, only that there had been a lot of them. That the house fire last week was an escalation and Jack was being kept busy.”

  “He used the word escalation?”

  “Yes. He was worried about Jack getting hurt.”

  “Jack, by name?”

  “I don’t remember. I could have inferred the concern since we were talking about Jack.” She turned the tables on him to get a couple questions of her own answered. “What has Jeffrey said? Is Jack at the scene?” A tone signaled another call coming in. “Hold on, Gage.” She answered the other call. “Hello.”

  “It’s Cole.”

  Cole. He’d never called her before. His tone was worse than grim. She swallowed hard to get back her voice. “I’m dropping the other call. Hold on, Cole.”

  “Gage, good-bye.” She hung up on him. And fought the panic as she waited for the phone to click and give her back Cole. “Jack—he’s hurt? Please tell me he isn’t hurt. I just heard there’s been another fire.”

  Jack stopped at the door to Cole’s office, hating what he had to do.

  Cassie was paging through the second arson book. She had her injured hand elevated, idly rocking it back and forth with the melted ice pack lying limp across her open palm. She had neatly arranged six of the bite-sized candy bars end to end, alternating Snickers and Milky Way.

  He didn’t remember her loving chocolate. He was almost sure she had been a sugar cookie person. Clearly stress changed priorities. The look on her face…

  She spoke without looking up. “Do you realize there are kids in this book young enough to still like Sesame Street?”

  “There’s one boy over at Gibson Elementary who has Cole worried. He’s already set two fires. The last one did some serious damage to his bedroom.”

  “Troubled home?”
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  “His parents were divorced last year. He’s an angry young man.”

  “Sad.”

  “Yes.”

  How did he ask? Straight out? Let her talk and see what she said?

  Jack sat on the edge of the table, reached over, and closed the album. He’d always preferred directness. “Cassie, what are you not telling me?” he asked gently.

  She just looked at him.

  “Cole thinks you’re hiding something. Is he right?”

  Her expression closed up.

  Jack was accustomed to people trusting him. Cassie was doing the opposite. On an emotional level it hurt that she chose to respond that way. What was she hiding? He always found it better to face bad news and deal with it than shift into denial mode and lose valuable time.

  Who was she trying to protect? And then he tried to get a breath as he struggled to accept the impossible. Another firefighter? “You won’t say or can’t say?”

  The sadness and conflict in her expression… The silence grew.

  She’d been biting her nails. Jack reached for her hand and rubbed his finger across the rough edges, feeling that rough himself.

  He didn’t want to tug it out of her, didn’t want to push until she gave him the truth. “I’ll take you home.”

  His quiet words rocked her. “Home?”

  She hadn’t been expecting him to back off. But if it were a firefighter starting the fires, it was likely someone Cassie knew. Cole could talk to her tomorrow.

  And as cruel as it was to consider, it made sense that it would be a firefighter. The fires had been carefully set to make a point. They had started recently. And tonight it had been the chairman of the fire district targeted.

  Those facts suggested a motive. Someone laid off in the consolidations, angry enough to be their firebug, might be using fires at the edge of the district line to prove the closed stations needed reopening. And given the location of the fires…it was probably someone from Cassie’s old company. If that was what she suspected, Jack couldn’t blame her for wanting to keep quiet.

  Cassie wouldn’t be able to ignore her suspicion. But what would she do if she didn’t tell either him or Cole? If she tried to confront the person herself…the thought was horrifying.

  Jack found himself backtracking on the decision he had just made. He needed her to tell one of them. He had to at least keep her from trying to act on her own.

  Stalling for time, he pulled over the other chair and picked up her tennis shoes. Her pale blue socks were banded with a dark line of ash. “Would you like me to get you a clean pair of socks?”

  It tugged a smile from her as she wiggled her toes. “No, but thanks for asking.”

  He picked apart the knots in her laces, slipped on her tennis shoes, and then retied them.

  “Jack.” He looked up. She leaned forward and rested her right hand against his cheek, holding his gaze. “Thanks.”

  He leaned his cheek into that touch, surprised she would offer it but charmed by it and the smile. Cassie, you’re making me feel like a heel because this isn’t over. “You’re welcome.”

  She moved her hand to his shoulder and used him as leverage to push to her feet. “Cole is going to be annoyed with you.”

  The decision already made, Jack could afford to be philosophical about it. “What else is new?”

  “Tell him to call me.”

  “I will.”

  She laughed at his immediate agreement.

  He’d take her home. It might be easier to have the discussion outside of this place.

  They walked through the district building and back to the bays. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the empty, cavernous room. Jack grabbed his jacket and a spare one for Cassie. It wasn’t quite as large as Cole’s but it still swallowed her.

  “We’ll take my car.” He tugged out his own keys. “Do you have someone who can work at the store for you tomorrow so you can sleep in?”

  “Linda covers for me fifteen hours a week. She was already planning to open up in the morning.”

  Jack held his car door for her. There was a high-pitched squeak as she started to sit down and they both froze.

  “Sorry.” Embarrassed, Jack reached over her for the rubber cat toy he’d meant to give Kate that had fallen between the front seats.

  He waited until Cassie was settled and had fastened her seat belt before he circled the car and slid in behind the wheel. He turned up the heat to the point he would bake but where Cassie might be comfortable, then turned on the scanner.

  “What happened to J. J.?”

  The small, white lifelike mouse had been a practical joke from Bruce. It had traversed the district showing up in various people’s sleeping bags until finally taking up residence on Jack’s dashboard tucked between the radio and the scanner. “Lisa borrowed it last week to surprise Quinn.”

  “How is your sister?”

  Lisa was still getting over her too-close brush with a man who had killed more people than the authorities would probably ever be able to discover. “Falling in love smoothes over a lot of stress.”

  U.S. Marshal Quinn Diamond was the last person Jack would have expected Lisa to fall in love with, but it had developed into a great match. Quinn would keep Lisa out of trouble, or at least be there to get her out of it.

  Silence descended as he drove Cassie home and Jack didn’t try to break it. If he was going to get her to change her mind and realize she had no choice but to trust him and tell him, giving Cassie time to think was to his advantage. Silence forced her to rethink options.

  He had such a good evening visiting Cassie at her store. To have the day end like this… Jack hated having friends hurt. She was moving the ice pack around in her hand, searching to find a way to rest her hand to lessen the pain. The painkillers the paramedics had given her were wearing off.

  Jack did not like where she lived. It was an impersonal apartment complex, an older group of eight brick buildings. She lived in building number three on the second floor in a corner apartment. The building foyer did not have good security, the carpet needed replacement, and the hallways were well lit but dreary. The only redeeming feature was the fact that her balcony overlooked the playground in the complex.

  Jack knew she had chosen the apartment because it was three minutes from the station where she had once worked. He wondered if she would consider moving now that she was no longer bound by residency requirements.

  He parked four spaces away from the building door. The sounds of nearby tollway traffic were intrusive. He walked around to open the car door for her.

  He knelt down when he realized she wasn’t even trying to release the seat belt. “Cassie?” He leaned across her and freed the seat belt clip. In the dim glow of the dome light he could see the tension.

  “Jack, it wasn’t what I saw.” His hand tightened on the door frame as the words were whispered. She surprised him by saying what she had been unwilling to say before. “It was what I thought.”

  Jack rubbed his thumb across the back of her hand, wishing he could soothe the turmoil he heard.

  “He slipped his hands into his pockets and turned. The way he moved…” Her eyes filled with an incredible agony. “Jack, I think I saw Ash.”

  He stopped breathing.

  Nine

  Jack used Cassie’s keys to unlock her apartment door. He found the light switch inside the door. Boxes were stacked in the entry-way. She was moving? Cassie passed him, stepping around the boxes and moving into the first room on the left. Jack turned the lock on the door and followed her.

  His gaze swept the living room with its green recliner and ottoman, couch and rolltop desk. If she was moving she hadn’t begun to pack this room; pictures were still on the walls, a jigsaw puzzle was spread out across a cardboard table. She’d been folding laundry. The basket was beside the coffee table and mismatched socks were lined up in a neat row from light colors to dark.

  Jack helped her off with the jacket. “Sit.”

  He
headed toward the kitchen, flipped the lights on with an impatient hand, and tugged open cabinets until he found drinking glasses. Like his sisters she kept medicines beside the spices. He scanned prescription bottles, found the one for pain, and dumped two tablets in his palm.

  He wasn’t surprised at the extensive bandages and gauze she had stocked but it was sad she needed to use them again. He took out supplies for her hand.

  He was under no illusions that anything he said in the next few minutes would help. She thought it was her partner setting the fires.

  Few things would cut more than that.

  The humor he could normally dredge up to defuse a tense situation wasn’t there. And he never needed it more.

  She was on that brittle edge of tears. He hated being asked to deal with a woman who was ready to cry. Of all the things he could remember with clarity about his childhood, one of the most vivid was how lousy he was at comforting someone who was crying. He wished liked crazy she hadn’t told him. Why couldn’t she have waited and told Cole? His friend could deal with this.

  She hadn’t sat as he instructed. Jack set down what he carried on the mahogany end table next to the lamp, settled his hands on her shoulders, and put her into the recliner. He settled on the ottoman and handed her the glass. “Take the pills. This is going to hurt.”

  She set aside the ice pack as it had warmed. Jack carefully unwrapped the bandage Neal had put around the blisters. It was damp with more than just water; the blisters were weeping.

  He carefully added burn cream and replaced the gauze. This he could do. This was practical and tangible. He did his best to ignore the fact she was occasionally sniffing against the threatening tears. “Tell me why you think it was Ash.”

  “He lives in that neighborhood.”

  Jack stopped. He wasn’t expecting that. “Where?”

  “Quincy Street. He moved there about a month before he disappeared.”

  “Why?”

  “Why did he move?”

  Jack nodded.

  “Something about storage for a boat. He called it his little rowboat.”