Fatal Burn

by Roxanne Rustand

  Sirens. But the discordant wailing was too, too far away.

  Please, God…. please…

  In heart-stopping slow motion she saw the figure turn toward her.

  Now she could almost make out a face twisted with anger—or hatred—though the dark shadows and surging flames playing across his face rendered his features into something evil. Barely human.

  He lifted the rifle high. Took aim.

  She spun around, racing for the back of the SUV. Her foot caught on a muddy rut and she started to fall…

  Something hot, searing, exploded at her ear.

  And then everything went black.

  SIXTEEN

  Sirens wailed like banshees screaming inside her head. Lights spun in a dizzying whirl; red, blue, blinding white. Voices filled the air—a legion of people started running. Shouting orders.

  She felt cold…so cold.

  Blinking, she shifted her weight and felt icy water and mud squelch up between her fingers. She realized she was on the ground, her jeans and jacket soaked through.

  She shivered as she struggled to sit up, the world still off-kilter, her head throbbing with some deafening jungle beat that threatened to drown out the melee.

  The fire.

  She blinked and fell back against the rear tire of the SUV in near darkness, stunned by the surging activity around the cabin—now just a blackened stone fireplace surrounded by charred, skeletal fingers clawing toward the sky and a jumble of burning logs.

  A back wall collapsed with a rush of sparks and flames that spurted skyward, hungry, eager.

  Lights bright as a circus filled the meadow. Spotlights. The headlights of rescue vehicles. Fire trucks. Patrol cars, their light bars still spinning. Beyond that, she could make out the gleaming bumpers of a cluster of cars—probably the volunteer firemen. Trace—was he here?

  A wave of nausea pitched through her stomach, warring with…what was it? Pizza…she’d had pizza earlier, back when the world was normal and sane. Back when she’d had a cabin and Thalia’s precious things in boxes…

  Someone on the periphery of the action noticed her and called out. Suddenly, yellow slickered bodies crowded around her, their speech nonsensical and loud.

  One of them leaned down and loomed into her face. He lifted off his helmet, and she realized he worked at the drugstore.

  She floated into some misty, weightless place….

  A hand touched her shoulder and an image of a fire-lit creature filled her thoughts. She fought against it, trying to escape. A gun—did he have a gun?

  “Sit—don’t move.”

  She instantly stilled, then shook her head to clear her scrambled thoughts. She looked up into the concerned expression of a different man looming over her. “Sh-sheriff?”

  Someone else dropped to her side and tightened a blood pressure cuff around her arm, then flicked a flashlight on and off, in front of her eyes.

  “Are you okay?”

  “I—I think so.” She reached for her cheek, expecting to find blood, but her hand came away with mud. She moved her hand higher and found a tender lump forming on her forehead.

  “Can you stand up?”

  When she nodded, he hooked an arm under hers and hoisted her to her feet.

  “Can you make it over there?” he tipped his head at the open doors of an emergency rescue vehicle parked a few yards away. “They’ll come get you if you can’t”

  “I…can.” She tottered a few steps, then walked slowly with him at her side until he helped her sit on the bumper.

  A matching vehicle was parked next to it, where an emergency crew with large, glowing EMT letters on the back of their slickers was working feverishly over a prone figure on a gurney.

  One of them barked a command, then they worked as one to hoist it into the rear of the vehicle. In a few moments the vehicle was gone, lights flashing and its siren wailing into the night.

  “W-what happened? Who was that?”

  “You didn’t see anyone else here?”

  “I—I don’t know.” The pounding in her head intensified, making it harder to form the words. “I thought I saw something—someone. I think he shot at me, but I was falling…that’s all I remember.”

  “Tell me what happened here tonight. Exactly what happened.”

  His voice was calm, but it held a thread of steel and she suddenly knew something was very, very wrong. And though she was already shaking from the cold, wet clothes that clung to her skin, now her blood turned to ice.

  Someone draped a blanket over her shoulders and she gratefully grabbed at the edges, drawing it tighter.

  “Kris?” he prodded. “We need to know.”

  “I—I went to town tonight—with Carrie Randall. We went for a movie and pizza. I dropped her at home and came here. Only…” She swallowed hard, then forced herself to go on. “Only the cabin was engulfed in flames. I don’t understand. My new security system—why didn’t it trigger an emergency call?” She searched the faces of the sheriff and the EMTs who now stood around her. “It should have. I lost everything. Everything of Thalia’s…”

  “But you saw no one except for someone in the distance who shot at you.”

  “Right.”

  The sheriff turned away and spoke to someone behind him in a low tone, then met her eyes once more. “You do have quite a knot on your head, so the EMTs want to get you checked out at the hospital. We’ll probably have more questions for you tomorrow. You’ll stay in town. Right?”

  “No. I have to be here. The animals…”

  “Were any in your cabin?” he asked gently. “We might find them running loose if they escaped…”

  She closed her eyes briefly as relief washed through her. “No. I left my dog out in the kennel for the night, since I was going to be out late.”

  “Your personal house pet?” The sheriff exchanged glances with another officer. “Is…that something you would often do when away?”

  “Yes…no…” She faltered to a stop. “He sometimes has trouble with separation anxiety since I’m almost never away. He likes his bed in the kennel office, though, and I figured he’d be near the other dogs. Why?”

  “Just curious. Lucky that he wasn’t in the cabin.”

  Again, she caught the glances between the two men…and suddenly knew that they suspected her of arson. How could she ever prove that she hadn’t lit the match?

  But worse, someone had been injured. “Tell me—who did they take away in the ambulance?”

  “Deputy Sam Martin. We found him in the weeds on the back side of the house, unconscious. He’d been shot, Kris…and right now, it doesn’t look good for him.”

  The Battle Creek hospital was a small one—around twenty long-term beds, plus a half dozen earmarked for the emergency room. With just a bare-bones staff on the best of days, it was even lighter at night.

  By the time a radiologist and a physician finished with Sam and a helicopter had airlifted him to Billings, it was nearly two in the morning.

  By the time Kris’s own X-rays, labs and a CT scan were complete and evaluated—all fine—dawn was breaking over the eastern horizon, and she was exhausted.

  And now, she was in town without a vehicle.

  She started to dial Carrie’s number but then ended the call, knowing that her friend had gotten to bed late and was probably still sleeping.

  And calling Trace? No way.

  At eight, Kris paged through the slim telephone book in the waiting room and dialed the home number for Polly Norcross. It took just a minute of explanation before Polly interrupted her with a brisk promise to be at the hospital in ten minutes.

  Kris went outside to sit on one of the benches and wait.

  Good as her word, Polly soon pulled up at the E.R. doors in an ancient silver Horizon and waved. “I’m an early riser,” she chirped. “Glad to help out—but I am horrified to think about all you’ve been through. And that poor deputy. Oh, my!”

  On the drive out to Wind Hill, Kris told her the w
hole story. When Polly pulled to a stop in front of the damp smoldering remains of the cabin, her mouth sagged open in horror.

  “Land sakes,” she muttered after a long pause. “This is just hard to believe. How many times was I here, visiting your dear aunt? And now it’s gone. All gone.”

  They both got out of Polly’s car and moved closer, circling the acrid cinders and charred beams. Here, twisted water pipes hung in arcs at a crazy angle. There, the blackened remnants of appliances and plumbing fixtures had been haphazardly tossed.

  “I was hoping I’d be able to salvage some of Thalia’s things,” Kris said quietly. “I’d hoped it wouldn’t look this bad in the daylight.”

  Polly turned to face her. “What are you going to do?”

  “I…don’t know. I can’t sell it as is. There’ll be insurance money—the policy was paid ahead by the estate for a few more months, but I don’t know if that will be enough to fully replace the cabin or not, much less the contents.”

  “Do you need a place to stay? I’ve got a spare bedroom.”

  “After all that’s happened lately, I can’t thank you enough for the offer. But I’d better stay close to the shelter. I’d be afraid to be too far away.”

  “You can’t just pitch a tent out here.”

  “With the way things are going, a bear would probably carry it off—with me in it. Maybe I can set up a bed in the kennel office for a few nights, while I try to find a small travel trailer. Most of them have all the amenities, so I’d be set until I figured out what to do.”

  Polly tapped a finger at her lips. “I do have a friend who recently bought a bigger one. Maybe you could lease her old one for a while. It’s a bit cozy, but it’s clean and only a couple years old. Nice little kitchen, half bath—nice big awning.”

  “That new, it should be in good shape.”

  “She didn’t use it that much, either.” Polly glanced at her watch, then pulled a cell phone from her pocket and punched in a number. She walked around the remains of the cabin one more time as she talked, and when she came back she was smiling. “You’re welcome to it for a month. After that, you two could negotiate for a sale, lease or just end the deal, no questions asked.”

  “Tell her it’s a deal—sight unseen—and ask her when I can pick it up.” Kris grinned. “I wasn’t really looking forward to staying in the kennel—even for one night. The barking would drive me crazy.”

  “What about clothes? Food and so on?”

  “One stop at the discount place on the edge of town will do it. A few jeans, sweatshirts and such, and I’ll be set. In fact, I think I’ll be heading into town to do just that—”

  Polly looked over her shoulder. “Or maybe not. It looks like you have company from the Rocking R.”

  Sure enough, a familiar black pickup was rounding the last curve in the lane and heading straight for them. Carrie—no, it was Trace under the brim of that black hat.

  From his height and the breadth of those shoulders, it couldn’t be anyone else.

  “I’d better be going, hon, so I can get cleaned up and get to the pet store. Do you need anything else? Will you be okay out here?”

  “Fine. Absolutely fine. Thanks so much for your help, Polly.”

  “Don’t you worry—things will work out. I just know they will.” Polly gave her a quick hug, then got in her car and waved to Trace as she passed him.

  Kris felt her mouth drop open when he pulled to a stop and slowly got out. First came a cane, then his left leg, which was fitted with some sort of complex, hinged metal brace.

  “What happened?” she cried out, closing the gap between them.

  He bent over to adjust something on the brace, and when he straightened, his faint, weary smile told her the answer without words.

  “Oh, no. This is from that night when you helped me rescue Lucy, isn’t it!” She reached him, wanting to give him a hug of thanks, hesitated, then she cast discretion to the winds and gave him a hug anyway. “I am so, so sorry.”

  He held back for a moment, then returned her embrace. “It wasn’t just that night. Though,” he added as he pulled away, “the midnight hike was probably the final straw. I’ve been in physical therapy three times a week. They said I’ll be better than I was before, though—I’ve got a new therapist who says I should have been pushing the PT all this time.”

  “You should have told me. I could’ve helped drive you there, or something.”

  “It’s okay. Carrie has been my chauffeur, for the most part.”

  She closed her eyes briefly as a wave of guilt rushed through her and landed like a heavy, wet blanket on her chest. It had been her fault, and then he had shut her out completely, even as a caring friend. “I never should’ve let you go with me that night.”

  “This is why I told Carrie not to say anything. And it wasn’t your fault. It was my choice, and I did what I had to do. End of story. Now, I need to get to work.”

  “You’re here to check out the fire?”

  “To gather evidence, yes.”

  “I sure hope you find some answers. No one seemed to have any last night.”

  “We’ll see.”

  “Well, I need to do all of my kennel chores, so I’ll get out of your way. If you need anything, just yell.”

  “I will.” He gave her a long, measuring look. “I most definitely will.”

  “Before I go—have you heard anything about Sam?”

  “Nothing conclusive. He was in surgery last night, and was talking this morning. I understand he didn’t see the face of the shooter.”

  She’d hoped Sam could do a positive ID on the guy. “I think that same man shot at me, too. And if he’s the one who let the dogs free, we’d be that much closer to solving the whole situation.”

  She looked so hopeful, so eager to find the person behind her troubles…or was she?

  Trace tried to shove his personal feelings aside as he slowly walked the perimeter of the cabin, then awkwardly hunkered down and began sifting through the remains. A total loss like this one usually made an investigation harder because there was so little to go on…no remaining walls to show char patterns, the collapsed walls were harder to discern.

  But one thing he knew for sure—this fire had been so intense that it was definitely arson. The accelerant—probably kerosene—had been liberally doused throughout, and then the fire had been started in multiple locations around the house for an even, fast burn.

  From what his pals on the volunteer fire department squad had said last night, this had been a fully involved fire long before they ever arrived. They’d only stayed to ensure containment, and nothing more.

  So…if an accelerant had been used, where were the containers? Had the arsonist tidily cleaned up his mess? Or had it all been tossed out in the weeds?

  Banking on the weeds, Trace started slowly hiking around the meadow, searching through the heavy underbrush, then moving farther into the timber to check out any suspicious objects.

  He’d made it three-quarters of the way around when he spied a long, slender shape lying on the tall grass, perhaps twenty-five feet from Kris’s SUV. Even from a distance, he knew exactly what it was.

  According to the sheriff, Kris had been found on the ground next to the SUV. Trace lifted his gaze to the ruined cottage. To the point where Kris had supposedly seen someone. And then to where Sam had been found.

  The most likely scenario was what the sheriff already suspected. Arson. And the attempted murder of a deputy, who’d just happened to come upon the scene, and instantly become a major liability for the triggerman…or woman.

  The sheriff had already thought it suspicious that Kris’s beloved dog was conspicuously absent from the cabin on the one night it caught fire.

  But what would be her motive?

  Financial troubles and the lure of a windfall insurance check? Or arson—to frame someone and get them out of the way?

  But no matter what his personal feelings were, the evidence Trace had found would go to the
sheriff, and it would be out of his hands. Let justice be served.

  He looked down at the grass, pulled on a pair of vinyl gloves and picked up Thalia Porter’s Winchester—the one with her initials carved in the stock.

  And prayed that Kris was as innocent as she seemed.

  SEVENTEEN

  Trace carefully placed the rifle in the backseat of his truck, locked the door, then continued his painstaking search of the area.

  The soft, dried, bowed grasses of last summer were exposed now, freed from their snowy mantle to bob and sway in the wind…and to effectively hide ammo casings, footprints or other small bits of evidence.

  After all the trucks and cars here last night, it would be impossible to pick out any particular tire treads from a suspicious vehicle.

  And barring the squirrels, moose and bears that might have happened by, there were no witnesses. Except for Kris, who had reported seeing a tall person clear across the meadow. Bathed in the pulsing firelight this person had appeared to “glow” which only made him seem to be more figment than fact.

  If such a person had been here, there was no sign.

  With a sigh, Trace went back to the cabin site and gathered some samples, then made a labeled sketch of the wreckage and took a few dozen digital photos from all angles.

  Satisfied, he headed for his truck to drop it all off before going to the kennel to announce his departure.

  Kris must’ve seen him through a window, because she met him outside with a tentative smile. “Successful?”

  “I got what I needed…and what was available.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.” She bit her lower lip. “Last night I got the impression that the sheriff considered me a possible suspect. I suppose it would make sense if you look back…a troubled childhood, bad marriage to a guy who was real trouble, financial troubles. Why not arson and toss in attempted murder? It would certainly make everyone’s life easier,” she added with a faint note of bitterness. “An easy way out.”

  “I’m not a criminal investigator for the sheriff’s department. I only collect information regarding fires, and I evaluate that data for the county, or for the insurance companies who request a report.” He hesitated, then added, “I did find a rifle, though. I’ll have to turn it over to the sheriff for ballistics testing.”