Deadly Heat

by Cynthia Eden

  Great. But… She eased back from the crew and lowered her voice. “Then why did the captain say that?” Kenton was talking to Elle, calm, composed as he said—

  “We definitely expect to apprehend the suspect soon. It’s just a matter of time. The SSD is confident that the perpetrator known as Phoenix will be captured.”

  “He wanted glory.” Ramirez hesitated, then told her, “But what Lawrence did was put our guy in the cross-hairs.”

  “I don’t—”

  “Phoenix killed the last witness.” Blunt. She flinched, remembering the flames. “So what do you think is gonna happen when our perp hears about this one?”

  “Cut!” Travis’s voice. “Great. That’s a wrap, people!”

  Kenton managed a curt nod for Elle, and then he yanked at the microphone clipped to his lapel.

  “He’s losing his objectivity because of you.”

  She didn’t look away from Kenton. His jaw was locked tight, and his eyes were on her. Narrowed and sharp.

  You’ll be as dead as Carter.

  “I’m not too happy with him right now.” Because he’d hit too deep with his words.

  “He’s scared because with you… it’s personal.”

  Kenton rose and headed toward her.

  “It’s hard enough when you don’t know the victims.” A whisper of something came and went in Ramirez’s voice. Something that sounded like pain. Her stare slid to him, but nothing showed in his eyes. But then, she hadn’t seen any emotions show at all in the agent’s eyes. He could tease, he could play, he could rile Kenton, but it was like all that was surface. Just actions he was supposed to perform in order to fit in.

  “When it’s someone you care about…” One of his shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. “All fucking bets are off.”

  She swallowed.

  “We’re done.” Kenton’s arm brushed against hers. “Monica wants us to meet her at the police station. She’s got some info for us about the other victims.”

  Ramirez nodded. “I’ll meet you there.” Then he was gone, moving quickly through the tangle of bodies in the newsroom.

  Kenton caught her hand. “We need to talk.”

  In less than a minute, he’d found an empty office—Tom’s office, because his name was spelled out in gleaming gold lettering on the door. Kenton pushed her inside, slammed the door, and glared.

  She glared right back. No way would she back down.

  “I—I’m sorry.” His words sounded gruff, awkward. “About Carter, I didn’t mean—” He stepped forward, raised his hands, as if he’d touch her, but seemed to freeze. “He’s not getting to you.”

  But Phoenix had already come calling once. “What about the other guy? Ramirez told me the witness—”

  “The witness is safe. We’ve got him protected in an undisclosed location.” The faint lines around his mouth tightened. “Phoenix won’t get him.” He wrapped his hands around her arms. “Or you.”

  He kissed her, pressing his lips hard against hers.

  Hunger. Need. Lust. All there, always there.

  But, more…

  His body shuddered against hers. Lora’s hands came up and wrapped around his shoulders.

  His tongue drove into her mouth. Her lips curled around it, sucking lightly, and he growled.

  His mouth rose, a breath of space. “I just found you, I won’t lose you.”

  What the fuck?

  Witness in Phoenix Fires, Police Hopeful of Arrest.

  He stared at the newspaper headline, his body trembling. No, no, there couldn’t be any witness. He’d been too careful…

  But he’d been careful before, at the building on LeRoy. He’d thought the scene was clear, but Larry had been there getting high and watching.

  He’d taken care of Larry. So easy.

  There couldn’t be any loose ends. No tangles. No ties.

  No witnesses.

  He stared down at his fingers as they curled around the white edges of the paper. His eyes lingered on the black ash beneath his nails. She was calling again.

  Burn.

  She called to him, more and more now. The beast was out of the cage. The fire—oh, she liked to tempt.

  Sweet, sweet fire.

  No, there could be no witnesses.

  His hand reached for the phone beside him. He cleared his throat and dialed his contact. He’d been in this business for so long. The SSD might think they could keep the witness safe, but some information—ah, some information was really too easy to get.

  It was all about knowing who to ask.

  CHAPTER Fourteen

  She was in Interrogation. Again. Lora drummed her fingers on the table and tried not to shift in her very uncomfortable seat.

  “I need to ask you some questions, Lora.” Monica Davenport sat across from her, looking perfect again, while Lora reeked of smoke and wrinkles covered her clothes. Figured. Oh, well. “I want to figure out why our perp seems to be drawn to you.”

  “You mean you want to know why he decided to set my house on fire last night?” Lora gave her a tight smile. “Yeah, let’s figure out that one.”

  Kenton yanked back the seat next to her, and the chair legs squeaked as they scraped across the floor.

  She and Kenton hadn’t talked much after the kiss. He’d pulled away, stared at her with eyes too intense, then hauled her down to the station.

  And that no-talking bit was a good thing. Truly. Because Lora wasn’t sure what to say to him.

  She wasn’t real sure what was happening between them anymore.

  Sex. Yes. God, yes. But… more.

  Anger, hunger, need, fear—everything was so tangled up in her mind.

  “We found a broken match at the edge of your property last night,” Kenton said.

  She blinked. “What? And you’re telling me this now?” Christ, this was big! “You think Phoenix left it and—”

  “No DNA was recovered from the match,” Monica said, interrupting Lora’s words.

  Disappointment caused Lora’s shoulders to sag. She caught the clench of Kenton’s jaw and knew he felt the same way she did.

  “But today we’re following some new leads.” Monica pulled out photos of the vics and spread them out on the table. Lora glanced at Carter’s picture and waited for the pain to come.

  It didn’t. Just… a wave of sadness.

  What could have been…

  “Other than Creed, did you have any contact with these people before their deaths?” Monica asked.

  Lora stared at the faces, the unmarred faces they’d had before Phoenix, and shook her head. “Maybe I saw ’em on the street, but I didn’t know any of them.” Well, okay, she’d heard her brother mention Tom Hatchen once or twice. He’d called the guy a dick, but she’d never met the guy.

  “Jennifer…” Monica’s nail tapped against the picture. “Tom. Charlie.”

  “I didn’t know them.”

  Kenton leaned forward. “Something’s there. Louis Jerome—he was killed because he saw something. Or he knew something. We had word that he wanted to talk about an arsonist—”

  “The arsonist just got to him first,” Monica finished.

  “Because he didn’t want anyone talking.” Kenton exhaled on a rough sigh. “He must have figured that Larry saw something, too, and that was why he took him out.” His fingers brushed over the photos of Jennifer Langley, Tom Hatchen, and Charlie Skofield. “But these three—these three…”

  “Maybe they saw something, too,” Lora blurted. Could be. If he was killing witnesses. “They don’t have to be linked to me.” She did not like that idea.

  The door of the Interrogation room swung open slowly.

  A woman stood there, wire-framed glasses perched on her small nose, her red hair pulled back in a tight knot. “Or maybe he saw them.”

  Kenton jumped to his feet, sending the chair snapping back. “Sam?”

  Monica’s eyes widened. “Wh-what are you—”

  The woman’s thin shoulders stiffened. “
Hyde sent me up here with Dante. I–I’m backup. I’ll be working with Jon.”

  And Jon Ramirez stood behind her, wearing the usual expressionless mask on his face.

  “I thought you were taking some time off,” Kenton muttered.

  “Got tired of that.” Sam licked her lips. “I—I have something I wanted to show you.”

  Monica pushed away from the table and walked slowly to her side. “Are you okay?” Her voice had softened, letting in a whisper of worry.

  Uh-oh. For Monica to show worry, something bad must have happened to the woman.

  Sam’s smile was brittle. “Fine. Don’t worry about me.”

  Ah, Lora knew how those words felt. Like a lie.

  The new agent pushed a file at Monica, then glanced Lora’s way. “Uh… you’re Lora, Lora Spade?”

  She tossed her a smile and tried real hard to look friendly. “My name gets around, huh?”

  “I’ve been… pulling your records.”

  Oh. Not so good, but she kept her smile in place.

  “I’ve been pulling a lot of records. You’re not directly linked to the other victims.” She crept away from Monica and took the empty seat on the right of Lora.

  Her words registered slowly. Not directly linked? Right. That’s what she’d been trying to tell them.

  “And from what I gathered, they didn’t know each other either.”

  “Sam—that’s Special Agent Samantha Kennedy—can find anything on a computer,” Kenton said, appreciation warming his voice. “The woman can dig every skeleton out of your closet with a few keystrokes.”

  A dangerous talent.

  “I didn’t just use a computer this time. I started to see a pattern, and I knew I had to do more digging.” Sam’s lips pulled down.

  A pattern?

  “I went to Memorial Infirmary and did some talking to the nurses there. It turns out, a few months back, one of Jennifer Langley’s patients… ah, received the wrong medication.” Her hands brushed the tabletop, skimming just below the pictures. “This was the third time that someone had a dose of the wrong meds on her watch.”

  Uh, interesting, scary, but…

  “Jennifer was suspended,” Sam continued. “The cops didn’t press charges against her because there wasn’t enough evidence.”

  “Shouldn’t our cops have found this?” Kenton demanded. “Malone was sending a team to question friends and family members of all the victims—”

  “Captain Lawrence is fully aware of the allegations against Jennifer Langley. He’s been investigating her.”

  Lora didn’t speak. She just watched and waited.

  “Let’s talk about the other victims first.” Sam’s gaze darted to Lora, then back to Kenton. “We’ll come back to the cops.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  One of Sam’s brows rose. “Did you know that Tom Hatchen was arrested eight months ago for domestic violence?”

  “No.” Kenton’s immediate reply.

  Lora blinked and remembered a small woman, with short black hair, staring up at the blazing remains of that garage. Her face had been dazed and blank with shock.

  Sam licked her lips. “His arrest was right there, nice and pretty for me to see in the system.” Her gaze darted to Kenton.

  “Then why wasn’t the guy locked up?” Lora demanded. If Pete had arrested him…

  “Because his wife changed her story. After two days, she withdrew her complaint, even though she had a broken arm, a broken jaw, and a dislocated collarbone.”

  Well, damn. “Okay, so the guy was an asshole, what does that have to do with Phoenix deciding to attack him?” She scanned the agents, trying to gauge everyone’s reaction. Was she missing something?

  Monica wasn’t looking up. Her gaze was on the file that Sam had given her. She scanned through the pages quickly.

  Kenton’s gaze was up and on Sam. “What about Skofield?” he asked.

  “Charlie Skofield was paralyzed in a car accident a year ago.” Sam took a breath. “The other driver—she was killed on impact. Skofield—”

  “Had been drinking,” Lora finished. Right. She’d already told this to Kenton. There’d been no missing the stench of Charlie’s breath as he’d slurred and said “The bitch c-came out of nowhere, h-hit me…”

  “When I started digging into Skofield’s past,” Sam continued, “I found more arrests for DUI. Some dating back years.” A faint frown pulled her brows low. “His license was already suspended when he hit the other driver. He should never have been on the road.”

  Lora blinked. The tension in the room had ratcheted up, too high.

  “And then you have Louis Jerome… a known drug dealer. A guy who seemed to slip right through the system, because he knew how to make deals with the Feds.”

  Louis Jerome. The poor bastard that they’d found dead in a closet.

  “That kid—” Ramirez stabbed a finger toward Sam. “Michael Randall, he’d done time for arson.”

  “No.” Lora shook her head. This one, she knew. Randall had never set foot in a cell. “He was mentally unstable. He got sent for counseling at Meadows Rehab.”

  “But a young girl died in the fire he set,” Sam said. “And if Randall hadn’t been a minor, maybe he would have seen the inside of a prison.”

  Maybe. Maybe not. Randall had been sick.

  “Wait a minute.” Kenton’s eyes narrowed, and then he reached forward and started searching through the pile of papers. “The transcript from his call. I need that damn transcript.”

  Monica leafed through the papers with him.

  Lora waited, her hands starting to sweat.

  “Here!” Kenton yanked up some stapled pages. “He told us… The weak die. The fire burns. She kills. She judges the wicked.” Kenton exhaled on a hard breath. “She judges. He was fucking telling us, and I didn’t even see it.”

  “Well, call me blind, but I don’t see it.” Okay, wait, maybe she did. Tom and Charlie—they’d committed crimes. Jennifer, too, from the sound of things, and everyone knew about Michael Randall. So… Lora sat straight in her chair. The vics had all broken the law, and yet—

  “They got away with it.” Monica glanced at the photos, her stare lasering in on them, one at a time. “His victims—Jennifer, Tom, Charlie, Jerome, and Randall. Even Larry—they all got away with crimes. The cops didn’t punish them. Those people didn’t pay for what they did.”

  “The fire judged them.” Kenton ran a hand over the back of his neck. “That bastard was telling us everything.”

  “She judges the wicked,” Monica quoted.

  Lora rubbed her temple. “You’re telling me this guy is punishing these people? Because they didn’t go to jail, he’s burning them?”

  “No.” A quick negative shake of Monica’s head. “Not him. The fire is judging. I think—” She dove into her suitcase, pulling up more papers. “He’s even giving them a chance to survive. He calls the fire department and tells them—you—where to go.” Her words came faster. “If—if the victim is saved…”

  “Hasn’t happened yet,” Ramirez pointed out.

  “Then the fire lets him rise from the ashes. It’s…” Monica’s lips twisted in a humorless smile, “judgment by fire.”

  Kenton nodded, obviously following Monica’s line of thought. “Fucking biblical.”

  Lora leapt to her feet. “This isn’t God! This is some nut job out there who is burning people alive! Doesn’t matter who these people are or what they did, he’s still killing them!”

  Monica raised a brow. “It matters to him.”

  “My people are getting hurt.” Her nails bit into her palms. “Carter never hurt anyone. Never. And Wade—he’s barely more than a kid. These fires aren’t just set to kill the victims, they’re set to trap the rescuers, to trap us.” Last night, he’d come after her directly. She hadn’t hurt anyone. Hadn’t broken any damn laws. She didn’t need to be judged.

  Least of all by a psychotic pyro.

  “They’re a challe
nge, don’t you see?” Monica’s eyes locked on her. “He wants to prove the firefighters can’t beat his fire. He’s stronger. Smarter. The flame can’t be stopped, and when fire judges, no matter what, the guilty are punished.”

  “This is insane.” Lora shoved away from the table and started pacing—long, fast strides. “If he’s going after folks who’ve broken the law…” The words ripped out. “What have I done?” She swung around to face Sam. “I haven’t killed. I haven’t sold drugs or slapped some poor woman around. I haven’t done anything wrong!”

  “I think maybe…” Monica’s voice came slower. “You’ve committed the worst sin in his eyes.”

  “The hell she has.” Kenton’s low snarl of fury.

  Monica’s watchful gaze drifted between them. “You’re trying to stop his judgments, Lora.”

  His judgments? Screams echoed in her ears.

  Her screams.

  “Lora…”

  She flinched.

  Kenton was there, in front of her and staring at her with worried eyes.

  She pushed past him, shaking her head. She needed to get out. To breathe. Lora had to get away from those pictures on the table.

  Her hand slammed against the door, and she stormed out with her head down, ignoring Kenton’s urgent call.

  She wanted this damn nightmare over. Huffing, she pushed past the cops and rushed for the exit.

  “Lora, Lora! Stop!”

  Right at the glass door, with freedom within sight, she stopped. Her hands pressed against the metal bar, ready to push it open. Go. But she glanced back.

  “You can’t go alone.” Kenton’s jaw was clenched. “Come back, get some coffee, just—”

  “There’s something I have to do.” Tension knotted her insides. Out. Go. A hard edge sharpened her senses.

  “Then I’ll go with you.”

  “I need to be alone, okay?” For this, she had to be.

  “Lora, he’s watching you.”

  Fuck him. Her hands slapped against the metal bar. The door opened, and hot air hit her in the face.

  Breathe.

  Yeah, she could still breathe, because she was alive. Others weren’t that lucky.

  “You don’t have a car.”

  The slightly amused voice stopped her at the bottom of the steps. Lora swiped away a stupid tear that had fallen on her cheek.