A Touch Of Heat (H.E.A.T. Book 2)

by Claire, Nicola

  “No. Why?”

  “Where did you go?”

  “What aren’t you saying, Lara?”

  “I need you to have an alibi.” The words were out before I could stop them.

  Damon stared at me, his face a shade paler all of a sudden.

  “Fucking hell, Keen. You still doubt me?”

  I shook my head too vigorously. It hurt, and the back of the ambulance swum, but I forced the nausea back down.

  “Just tell me,” I pleaded.

  “I’m tired of this,” he said, the words flung harshly, but his voice hadn’t even risen in volume. “Of giving and giving and giving just a little more and you hold it all back. You won’t give an inch. It’s so fucking black and white. Never grey. Never shadows of fucking grey. I don’t know how to reach you and I don’t know if I can keep giving all of myself like this anymore.”

  So many thoughts tumbled through my mind. So many emotions choking off my air. I could feel my pulse racing in the pounding of my head. I reached up a shaking hand to rub my temple, but ended up staring at the tremors in my fingers instead.

  Fuck this!

  “And you don’t hold back when you drop everything for Carole?”

  “Jesus, Lara. She’s missing. What would you have me fucking do? Take you out for a romantic dinner while my sister might be unconscious somewhere at the mercy of a drug dealer? What do you take me for?”

  “It’s not just this,” I growled. “It’s every single time she can’t sleep or she feels a craving she doesn’t understand or she has sex with a stranger and wants you to pick her up from an address she’s never been to before. It’s every single day you check and recheck on her health status. You obsess over her living arrangements. You lose the train of our conversation because you see a waif-like girl who reminds you of your fucked up sister.”

  God, this was going all wrong. The words were like sharp knives I was flinging at his heart and head. He flinched with each one. But I couldn’t seem to stop them. I was exhausted from it all too. Emotionally spent. And when your emotions have been worn down to such a base level like this then it’s harder to think before you speak.

  Carl had taught me that.

  I didn’t want to hurt Damon. I wanted to protect him. I wanted to ensure his name didn’t get dragged through the mud by some psycho who was using Cawfield for an agenda that didn’t yet make sense. I wanted to hold him, love him, tell him everything would be all right. Do for him what he had done for me for the past three weeks.

  Unfailingly.

  Sure, his sister interrupted our days and nights. Sure, she was a constant worry, always on his mind. But never once had Damon truly let me down when my world had been spinning out of control.

  Not once.

  I was a bitch. And it was a part of me I found increasingly difficult to turn off.

  “You have no heart, Lara,” Damon said, voice uneven and roughened around the edges. “Cold as ice.” I closed my eyes. I’d been called that many times by Cawfield. “You don’t feel things like a normal person does.”

  I did. I fucking did. I just didn’t know how to express them.

  “I keep waiting for you to get it,” he whispered. “I keep hoping today will be the day she opens up. Lets me inside. I think I glimpse it and then you freeze over. You push me out. I don’t think you know you’re doing it.”

  I do. I see it. I can’t seem to stop it. But I do see it.

  “Maybe this was a mistake,” he added, looking at his ruined knuckles, flexing his fingers while he talked. “Maybe you and I can never meet in the middle. I need a sign, love.” His eyes came up to mine. Still haunted, but now a little empty. “I need a sign you’re never going to give.”

  He stood up, having to duck his head slightly as the roof of the ambulance was not high enough for his six foot plus frame. He walked to the door and hesitated.

  “Whatever Cawfield has on me I’ll deal with Pierce about it.”

  He was shutting me out. He was walking away.

  The door opened and he stepped down beside Pierce.

  I looked at his broad shoulders, at the soft curls lying on the nape of his neck. I saw the flashing beacons out in front of him, the multitude of emergency services personnel criss-crossing the scene. I smelled the burned house and dusky whisky off my shirt. I heard Pierce ask Damon if he was staying to overlook the scene.

  His head shook.

  He was leaving.

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter 24

  “This is me.”

  “So, we know it’s an intentional explosion,” Pierce was saying. Hart just nodded his head for him to go on.

  We were back at CIB. It was six in the morning. I hadn’t slept for well over twenty-four hours. I hadn’t eaten for almost as long. I was showered and clean, dressed in a spare beige trouser suit and cream blouse from my locker at Central Police. But I was barely here. Barely present.

  I was back in that ambulance. Back facing my worst nightmare.

  I have a problem. I know this. I’ve lived with it for twenty-six years.

  I fear being alone.

  Oh, I can be by myself. I don’t need a lover or a boyfriend. What I need is to be busy. To have the illusion of not being alone. Work with a partner. Part of a team. Long hours. Be a part of something bigger than my lonely lifestyle. Walk out of my quiet house and into a busy city and not look back. Surround myself with other emotions. View the world through someone else’s pain.

  I do live with ice around my heart. But not by choice. Because I’m scared. Scared to let it melt and realise I feel so very alone.

  “Have you had a chance to corner your father regarding this banquet?” Hart suddenly said. And it was only my strict upbringing that had me seamlessly shifting back into the conversation without either man knowing I’d been inside my head.

  “I haven’t yet, sir. I’ll phone him again after this meeting.” The fact I’d tried my father last night for an entirely different reason was irrelevant. It meant I wasn’t necessarily lying when I spoke right now.

  “You’ve got less than seven hours to change his plans,” Hart pointed out.

  “I’ll get into the banquet one way or another.”

  “Good. This is dragging on too long and we’ve got nothing to show for it. Pressure to solve Samantha Hayes’ murder means anything Cawfield brings to the table the assistant commissioner will consider.” Hart looked directly at me again. “Does Michaels have an alibi?”

  I kept my face neutral, but inside I was melting.

  “If he does, I don’t know it, sir.”

  “We need to know it,” Pierce advised. “It doesn’t ring true. Cawfield swears by his informant, but he hasn’t actually met the man.”

  “So, it’s a man?” I asked. “How does he get the tip-offs?”

  “Phone calls. Photos dropped in his mailbox.”

  “So, the informant has been to his house?” I queried.

  “Where are you going with this?” Hart demanded.

  “I don’t know yet, but I find it a strange coincidence that his house happens to blow up while I’m standing outside discussing the information Cawfield has on Michaels. Which in turn calls the HEAT Investigation team on call to that address.”

  “And the HEAT Investigation team on call contains Michaels,” Pierce concludes.

  “Exactly.”

  “It could still be a coincidence,” Hart pointed out.

  “I believe in those less and less.”

  “What do you believe in?” Hart asked.

  “I believe Damon’s being framed.”

  “That’s becoming more and more plausible,” Pierce advised, pulling a sheet of paper out of a folder resting on the Inspector’s desk. “Preliminary on-site reports show the accelerant used to aid the explosion at Cawfield’s house was the same type used in a shed fire on HEAT Rescue member Andrew (Stretch) McIntyre’s property in Henderson. It also matches the accelerant used in a bush fire next door to HEAT Prevention m
ember Malcolm Whiting’s Titirangi property. It’s the same one used in a fire bomb that killed several sheep on HEAT Investigation member David Spencer’s Kumeu lifestyle block. And it is identical to that found in a garage fire at HEAT Prevention member Marc Holland’s Westmere home.”

  Silence followed all of that. It wasn’t something I didn’t already know. That file was in fact mine.

  “It’s too obvious,” I said.

  “What? A house explosion being linked to a series of unsolved arson attacks directed at HEAT members?” Hart queried.

  “Cawfield is not a HEAT member,” Pierce said carefully. “But he has been a thorn in your side.”

  “My side?” I looked at Pierce. “What are you saying?”

  “Damon threatened to kill him when Cawfield sexually harassed you yesterday afternoon.”

  “And we’ll be having a talk about that incident at a later date, Detective,” Hart exclaimed.

  I was thinking the talk involved why I hadn’t informed the Inspector myself. Why he had to hear from Pierce and not me.

  I wasn’t stupid. I’m the daughter of a cop. I didn’t even look at Hart when he spoke. Keeping my eyes on Ryan Pierce I said, “So he rushes to Cawfield’s house and plants a bomb. A bomb he had made up already for just such an occasion in a house that has a state of the art security system.”

  “No need to be facetious, Keen,” Hart grumbled.

  “Sir,” I said. “This is a set-up.”

  “Of course it is!” he almost shouted back. “But a clever one.”

  “Clever?”

  “The devil’s in the details, Detective. Or lack thereof.”

  “It’s simple,” Pierce added. “It’s clean. Not enough evidence to convict. But enough to cause suspicion.”

  “Enough to cast doubt,” Hart finished for him.

  My stomach plummeted. It’s exactly what Damon had thought I’d felt. Doubt.

  I didn’t doubt his innocence. This arsonist was not the man I cared for. But I did doubt everything else.

  “So, what now?”

  “Now we need to find out if this has any bearing on Samantha Hayes’ murder and the Boardman Lane assault,” Hart provided.

  “Did we get the CCTV footage of Boardman Lane yet?” I asked.

  “Missing,” Pierce replied, holding my raised eyebrow with one of his own.

  “The cameras at Sweet Hell were doctored. A Police CCTV camera in Boardman Lane is missing coverage. That’s a hell of a coincidence,” I concluded.

  “And you don’t believe in coincidences,” Pierce shot back.

  “Not anymore.”

  “Then find the connection,” Hart ordered. “There has to be one. Sweet Hell. Boardman Lane. Both security cameras interfered with.”

  “So, we’re going with Sweet Hell’s being purposefully blurry?” I queried. “Computer forensics couldn’t confirm it.”

  “Didn’t rule it out either and with Boardman Lane’s tapes missing it sheds new light, doesn’t it?” Pierce offered.

  I nodded my head.

  “So,” Hart said, bringing his feet down flat to the floor from where his legs had been crossed as he stared at the ceiling, contemplating the crimes. “Links between the cameras. Links between the bomb at Cawfield’s house last night and the murder. For now we’re saying Michaels is being set-up, but if we go with that, I need another name. Keep your eye on the prize.”

  “And the prize, sir?” I asked, holding his steely gaze.

  “The prize, Keen, is a murderer who may be an arsonist. And if he or she is not, then what the fuck are we actually dealing with?”

  “Two separate crimes,” I offered.

  “The photos Cawfield had were of Michaels beating up members of Sweet Hell,” Pierce said quietly at my side. “This is not two separate crimes.”

  I let a long breath of air out at that.

  Coincidence? I could hardly use that argument now.

  I walked out of Hart’s office feeling like I’d been railroaded. I had to corner my father and force him to take me to a black tie event when I hadn’t even shared so much as a cup of coffee with the man in over six years. I had to link our known suspect list, including the Marcrofts, David Gordon, and Superintendent Keen, with not only Samantha Hayes and Boardman Lane, but possibly a bomb and a string of arsonist attacks on members of my boyfriend’s HEAT teams.

  I had to deal with my boyfriend being set-up to take the fall.

  I had to deal with my boyfriend looking very much like my ex-boyfriend right about now.

  But this all smacked of the HEAT saboteur, and if it was, if the murder and the assault and the bomb were all from the one person trying to tear HEAT apart, then Damon needed to know.

  I slid into my car and stared out of the windshield. Damon would be at the HEAT lab, going through the evidence from Cawfield’s house with a fine tooth comb.

  The Hauraki Emergency Assistance Team’s Fire Investigation laboratory was located in Mt Albert in the same building as the Police Science Centre, where all our additional forensics are housed that can’t fit into the Central Police building in the centre of town. It took me forty minutes to get there. Sunday shopping traffic had started up by the time I’d made it out of CIB.

  I parked next to his truck around the back. And stared at it for way too long.

  There was so much to say and no way to say it. I was losing him. I refused to believe that I already had. But I knew I was also fooling myself. Damon had had enough. He’d walked out of the ambulance and not looked back.

  I could let him go. I could be professional, stick to the case. Treat this like any other inter-departmental job. I let a long breath of air out. I seemed to be doing that a lot lately. It wasn’t that I was breathing too quickly, like I had been for the past three weeks. It was as though I couldn’t breath enough.

  My chest hurt.

  No. My heart did. There was no more ice to protect me now. I was bare.

  I climbed out of the car as though my body weighed a thousand tonnes. I stood with my face tipped up to the early morning sunshine and told myself I could breathe. I could do this. I could go on without him and live my life.

  We weren’t so special, him and I. He made me laugh. I made him smile. He touched me where no man had ever reached before. Inside. But that didn’t mean he’d be the last. He was just one man. And I was encased in ice.

  I shut and locked my door and strode over to the back entrance, hitting the intercom button because I didn’t have the lock code that would let me in. A woman answered.

  “Detective Lara Keen,” I said in answer to her greeting. “Auckland CIB. Can I come in, please?”

  “Show your ID up to the camera, Detective.”

  I flashed my badge where required and the door clicked open.

  “ESR is to your left, HEAT to your right,” she advised before I slipped through the door.

  Cool air conditioning met me, the soft hum of electronics filled the air. Maybe the air con unit, maybe wiring in the walls. This place was meant to be something straight out of a science fiction story. Normally, I’d go left, to our forensics lab. But this time I took the right branch and walked the long white corridor to the staff only entrance at HEAT’s lab.

  I pushed through the double doors and came to an unmanned desk. The woman I spoke to over the intercom would have been at reception around the front of the building. This area was purely set-up for HEAT staff.

  Who were inside a pristine looking lab, much like those found at Central Police and back down the hall.

  Charred detritus spread out over a stainless steel bench. Bright lights shone down illuminating every facet of every single piece they’d collected from the scene of the crime. Bubbling solutions boiled off to the side in clear pots, small fragments of unidentified objects floated forlornly inside. Electronic equipment beeped and whirred, computer screens flickered on the walls. A microscope’s image displayed on one of them.

  Damon had his head down over the viewing piece of th
e microscope and was adjusting the magnification, while Flack looked up at the screen.

  “Any luck?” I said from the doorway.

  Flack turned slowly, but Damon jumped.

  “Detective,” he said, causing Flack to raise a single eyebrow.

  “Damon,” I returned. His eyes closed slowly and he reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “I think I need a coffee,” Flack announced. “Yeah, I definitely need a coffee. Anyone else want a coffee? I could do us coffee.”

  I smiled. I was sure it didn’t reach my eyes.

  “Thanks,” I managed and Flack nodded his head, took one last look at Damon, and then ducked out of the room.

  “We don’t have anything more than what I’ve already conveyed to Pierce,” Damon announced, returning his attention to the microscope. Or so it seemed.

  The image on the screen up on the wall was out of focus. Damon was looking at the same blurred scene.

  “It’s a set-up,” I announced.

  His hands came up onto the bench, fingers clenching the edge, and he raised his head to look at me.

  “What is?” he asked.

  “The bomb. The information passed to Cawfield. Everything.”

  “The murder?”

  It hurt, that he could slip back into work so easily. That he could stand there and discuss a case so reasonably hours after walking out on me. He said I was encased in ice. He did a damn fine impersonation.

  “That’s where it gets messy,” I admitted.

  “Tell me about it,” he encouraged, the knuckles on his hands not looking quite so strained as he grasped the edge of that stainless steel bench.

  I rubbed at my face, feeling so very tired. Feeling so very much alone. Could he see? Could he tell the ice was gone? Did he even see me?

  “Cawfield’s anonymous tip-offs about you. All of it relates to Sweet Hell in some way. The only hard evidence that’s been supplied so far, though, has been photos of you beating up a couple of Sweet Hell members from earlier in the week. I’m guessing they’re the ones you questioned about Carole.”

  “Probably,” he said with a frown.

  I almost didn’t ask. But he made it fucking difficult.

  “Probably? Who else have you beaten up?”