Ronnie winced at the insult, but she swallowed and said, “But I wouldn’t, Kenny. I told you I was fine raising the baby on my own.”
Graham whirled on her, back-handing the side of her face that wasn’t already red. “Shut up!” he screamed. “Only sound I want to hear out of you is your moaning as I fuck you brainless, and are we fucking right now? No. I didn’t think so.”
He turned back to Martie muttering “Stupid cunt” under his breath. To Martie, however, he offered a smile. “Sorry about the interruption,” he said mildly.
“Why did you tell me to ask Ronnie about Jessica’s father?” Martie asked. “Did you think I’d not find out?”
He shrugged nonchalantly. “To be honest, I was hoping you’d think it was Stillman from the lab—how perfect it was to discover that we happen to have the same middle name. Victor made the ideal scapegoat even ten years ago, which is why I used his last name instead of my own.”
“You set the fire,” Martie said, though she already knew he hadn’t.
Graham shook his head. “No, that was another of my acquaintances—he’s dead now. I’m afraid I had to kill him so he couldn’t identify me. I knew Victor would know about chemical accelerants so I stole some acetone from the very lab he works in, which I knew would further damn him in the eyes of the prosecution. Told my little firebug to do with it as he pleased but to make sure the building burned and that the whore and her kid were caught in it. The plan was to get rid of Veronica and her brat, pinning the blame on Victor with nothing leading back to me. The connection to Trevor Breckon was simply kismet—I knew eventually you’d prove it wasn’t him, but it was a perfect way to muck things up while I figured out how to correct the mistake made in Veronica and the kid surviving the fire.”
“And what now? What about me?” Martie asked.
He surprised her by straddling her lap and sitting on her legs, his arms draped casually over her shoulders. “I love you, Martie. You’re so beautiful, and smart. We’re perfect for each other. I’ve wanted you since the moment we met, and it’s been almost more than I could take keeping my hands to myself all these years. You’ve got the most incredible body, with perfectly round tits and an ass I can’t wait to part so I can slide my dick into you.”
Graham lowered his head and pressed his lips to hers. Martie stiffened and felt her stomach heave in protest, but she didn’t struggle. Instead she remained motionless as he pushed his tongue into her mouth and swirled her own with it.
“Christ, you even taste perfect!” he said when he came up for air. “I’m sorry about this morning. I know I came on too strong. Can you forgive me for that?”
She nodded slowly, deciding to play along for now. “Of course I can. I think I can even look past the fact that you’re married. Now that I think about it, I’ve never really wanted to get married myself—it’s probably why I’ve never been able to settle down with anyone. ”
“You see?” he said excitedly, pressing his lips to hers again. “Perfect! I don’t have to worry about you nagging me to leave my wife. I don’t love her anymore, you know. Truth be told I can’t fucking stand the bitch—have hated her for years—but I have to stay married at least until after I’m Governor. Maybe one or two years into my term I can finally divorce that dead fish. Except being married looks good on a politician, so unfortunately I have to keep the cunt around for now.”
Martie swallowed. She knew that what she said next had the potential to save her life or end it, but she had to ask. “But Graham, what about the rest of it?” she asked carefully. “I know you’re an accessory to arson. You’ve admitted to committing murder, and you’re planning to commit at least two more. How am I supposed to look past that?”
He had frowned as she spoke, but then he happened to glance down and his face lit up. Martie followed his gaze and saw that her blouse had at some point lost a button, exposing an inch or so of cleavage. Graham licked his lips as he moved his hands to her shirt front and began to undo the rest of the buttons, pushing it off her shoulders to reveal the lacy white bra she wore underneath. She tried not to shudder as he cupped his hands around the sensitive flesh, his thumbs brushing against her nipples.
“Martie, I know it will be hard for you,” he said, still staring down where his hands played. “I know that as a cop, it goes against everything you believe in. It truly goes against everything I believe in, but something had to be done. You have to believe that I had no other choice—I can’t let Veronica ruin my career. My future—”
He looked up then. “Our future is at stake.”
Thirteen
A small gray digital recorder sat between them. Chris stared at it with equal parts loathing and hope.
After Officer Amanda Blakely’s call for a detective, Sam’s brother Scott and his partner Cordelia Givens showed up. Kara had convinced Blakely to allow her to look for Jessica, who was thankfully found in the closet of one of the bedrooms. After coaxing her out of the safe haven it offered her, Sam and Kara had examined the girl for injuries and found none, and when Scott arrived he attempted to question her, doing as Kara had done at the hospital that morning and crouching down before her when he spoke. Jessica refused to speak until both Kara and Chris had assured her that it was okay, that he was a real policeman.
Her story was brief: After changing into the clothes Kara had given her (she really liked Bugs Bunny, she told them), she and her mom had watched cartoons on the TV. Then she told her mom she wanted pizza for dinner, and her mom had said she would call a friend to bring them one. She then went to play in her new room (previously Kara’s guest room) with the dolls she’d gotten from the nurses at the hospital.
Then a really pretty lady had come to talk to her mom—she knew this because she had come out of the bedroom hoping the pizza had come. Her mom told her she would let her know when it did, so she went back to play with her dolls. She could hear her mom talking to the lady but not what they were saying, and after “a bunch of minutes”, there was another knock on the door. She had just climbed off the bed again to see if the pizza was finally there when her mom yelled, and she didn’t like her mom yelling. It meant something bad was happening, and she didn’t like bad things. Big people yelling—her mom was yelling at a man and he was yelling back—and fires were very bad things, so she ran into the closet to sit in the dark where it was safe. Bad things couldn’t get her if they couldn’t see her, though she had wished her mom and the lady would come sit with her so the bad things couldn’t get them either.
The little girl had then curled up in Kara’s lap and started crying, wanting her mommy. Kara had wrapped her arms around her and rocked her, and Sam had asked what they should do with her. Kara offered to take her home with her until Ronnie was found, to which Scott had agreed, sending along a pair of uniformed officers as escort. He next directed Cordelia to take pictures of the blood spatter while they waited for the crime scene unit, then pulled a pair of latex gloves from his pocket to examine the recorder. After studying it from various angles he pressed a button, then called Chris over and the two men sat down at the table with the recorder in between them.
“Are you ready for this?” he asked.
Chris, who had already sent Rick and Tim back to the station with orders to call in another of the volunteers—because he sure as hell was no longer in any condition to lead them, not until Martie was found—swallowed past the knot in his throat and nodded. Scott pressed the rewind button, and when it had finished it popped up. He then pressed the play button, and a second later they heard Martie’s voice giving what Chris recognized as her routine interview introduction.
She then asked Ronnie to tell her about Jessica’s father, a man whose name was apparently Kenny Stillman. The name had seemed familiar to Martie because of its resemblance to that of a man she worked with, but Ronnie had assured her it was probably only a coincidence. Martie had agreed, citing a “weird morning”, then had replied to Ronnie’s next query as to why she wanted to know about Jessica’s da
d with more questions of her own. The two women discussed whether or not Kenny was violent or vengeful, after which Martie had revealed that her investigation thus far had led her to the conclusion that she or Jessica—or both—were the arsonist’s intended target. Ronnie had become understandably upset and Martie attempted to calm her down.
Then there was a knock at the door. Martie told Ronnie to take a minute to compose herself, saying she would answer it for her. Her voice, sounding a little farther away, said it was only the pizza and then they heard the sound of the door opening. A muffled voice they couldn’t quite make out said one word, and then a sound was heard that had fear wrapping itself like an angry boa constrictor around Chris’s heart—he knew Martie had been struck. It was her blood on the floor. Ronnie yelled, “Larry, what the hell are you doing?” as the sound was heard again, followed by a heavy thud.
Chris pushed to his feet as the intruder said, “Who the hell is this?”
Ronnie countered with, “Larry, what are you doing with a gun?”
“Who is this?” Larry demanded.
“M-Martie Liotta. She’s an investigator with the Bureau of Fire Safety. Larry, what’s going on? What are you doing with a gun?”
“Fuck!” Larry yelled. “He’s gonna kill me now, I just know it. Shit! Which car down there is hers?”
“I—I don’t know,” Ronnie replied. They could tell she was crying now.
“Shit,” Larry said again, and muffled sounds Chris couldn’t identify could be heard. The noise was explained a moment later when what sounded like keys were jingled. “Good, there’s a door lock remote. That’ll help.”
He grunted then, and said next, “Get your kid and let’s go. We have to leave now.”
“I’m not going anywhere with you!” Ronnie cried. “Put her down and just leave. I swear I won’t call the police until you’re long gone. I can give you a head start—”
“No! If I come back without you, I’m dead. Just get Jessica and let’s go.”
“Larry, please don’t do this! Please!” Ronnie pleaded. “You’re a good person, I know you are. You can’t have faked all those nice things you said to me—some of it has to be real!”
“I’m sorry, Ronnie,” Larry said then. “I really am. I really like you, but… I have to do this. He’s… I’m telling you, he’s gonna kill me if I don’t bring you with me. He might kill me because of her. He didn’t want any witnesses.”
“Who are you talking about? Who is doing this to you?”
Larry groaned. “It doesn’t matter! Just get Jessica and come with me. Please, Ronnie. I don’t want to have to use this.”
Chris could picture him waving the gun, though Ronnie had mentioned he was now holding an apparently unconscious Martie. His chest burned at the thought.
“I’ll go with you, but I’m not bringing my daughter,” Ronnie was saying. “She’s just a little girl, Larry—I won’t let you put her in harm’s way. Prove me right by letting her stay behind or prove me wrong by shooting me, because I’ll die before I let you or whoever the hell your puppet master is have her.”
They heard Larry growl again. “I’m probably going to regret this, but fine. Let’s go before he calls wanting to know where the hell we are.”
The next sounds heard were those of the two of them leaving. There was nothing but silence for several long minutes, then muffled voices that proved to be their own—Martie’s recorder had still been running when Officer Blakely had first entered, followed by Chris, Kara, and Sam. It had run through Chris’s departure and return, his revelation that Martie had been there and his belief that it was her car that had been set on fire, Kara’s search for Jessica, and Scott’s conversation with the little girl.
The detective pressed the stop button as his partner approached with an evidence bag. He dropped the recorder into it as he stood.
Chris looked at him knowing that all his love and all his fear for Martie were laid bare on his face. “Scott—”
“We’re going to find her, Chris,” Scott said. “We’ll find them both.”
Iktomi had taken her, he thought bitterly. Once again, his thunkášila had been right.
“We don’t even know where to begin looking,” he said, fighting panic. “She’s out there, injured, with a crazy fucker with a gun, and whoever the hell was pulling his strings could have—”
He couldn’t bring himself to say the words, unable to bear the idea that Martie had been shot or worse.
“I doubt this Larry guy’s gone far,” Cordelia Givens spoke up. “Not with one of his hostages unconscious.”
“She’s right. He had to carry her downstairs, which means she could still be unconscious wherever they are—depends on how hard he hit her. She’ll be difficult to transport in that condition,” Scott agreed.
“So you think they’re still in the area?”
Scott and Cordelia glanced at each other and nodded. “Given how agitated Larry sounded on the recording, I’d say so. Remember he was worried about getting back to whoever’s giving the orders,” Scott replied.
“Scotty, I’ve already put out a BOLO for the white van,” his partner said as a couple of men wearing hats with CSU stitched across the brow appeared on the landing outside the open door.
Scott nodded to them. “We’ve got blood splatter there at the door, and though audio evidence suggests the perp didn’t move past the door, I want you to dust throughout for prints.”
“Got it, Detective,” said one of the techs, who stepped over the blood and entered the apartment with his kit.
“I want to go look for her,” Chris said. “If you’re right and Larry hasn’t taken them far, then she may still be in town.”
“We need to find out who this Larry person is. That will give us clues as to where to start,” Scott told him. “How much contact have you had with Ronnie Thompson or her daughter?”
Chris loosed a frustrated growl. “Not much. I’ve only seen the woman three times, once at Cal’s funeral, then today… First time I ever met her was at the Breckon Apartments fire last week. I spoke to her for less than a minute, when she told me her daughter was still in the building. She said something about having been to the gas station for pop.”
“Did she have any soda with her?” Givens asked.
He frowned. “No, I don’t think so. She must have dropped them as soon as she realized her building was on fire.”
“What about Martie?” Scott asked then. “Do you know how much contact she’s had with the Thompsons?”
Running a hand through his hair, Chris replied, “As far as I know, she interviewed Ronnie once last week, at the hospital. She mentioned that she might have gotten a lead about the arsonist, because Ronnie said an electrician had come by the day before the fire, but that no one else who lived in the building saw or was visited by one.”
“She mentioned that on the recording,” Scott mused. “Based on what she said about the evidence and what’s happened today, I’d surmise she’s right about the Thompsons being targeted. Whoever Kenny Stillman is, he appears to want to want Ronnie and Jessica eliminated.”
“The question is, why?” his partner wondered. “Ronnie Thompson said he claimed she’d ruin him—might mean he’s someone in a position of power, or was looking to be at one time. Based on what we heard, neither Kenny nor Larry were pretending to be an electrician, so there’s a third person involved. We need to find out how Ronnie Thompson knew Larry—that will lead us to his connection with Kenny and the third man.”
Suppressing another growl, Chris told them, “You guys can speculate all you want. I’m going to go look for Martie.”
With that he stormed out, brushing roughly past the crime scene tech who was swabbing the blood from the steel runner across the bottom of the door frame. He wouldn’t need a lab test to tell him who it belonged to—that recording was proof enough to him that Martie had been harmed. If he ever found out who did this, it would take the combined forces of the entire police and fire departments to
keep him from beating the man to death.
Fear and guilt swirled in with the rage as he descended the stairs to ground level. He should have called her before now. Should have swallowed his pride and told Martie about the fire he’d started 20 years ago. She would have understood his reasoning, even if she didn’t agree with it. He could live with that. He could—he would—forgive her for sneaking behind his back and running the background check, and she’d apologize for doing it in the first place. Hell, even if she didn’t he’d forgive her, if only God would give him the chance.
It wasn’t until he stopped to watch a tow truck loading the wreck of Martie’s car onto its bed that he remembered he’d come here on the fire engine—though the heavy turnout gear he still wore should have been a clue. He had no transportation for getting anywhere except his own two feet. Cursing himself, he looked around, wondering how in the hell he was going to go about looking for Martie.
Then something—or rather someone—caught his eye. A man of about six feet, his curly blond hair a bit shaggy and falling into his eyes, was standing at the edge of the crowd still gathered around the police barricade. He kept glancing between the tow truck and building 1095. Chris narrowed his eyes, trying to figure out why the man seemed out of place, because everyone else was staring at one or the other...
…but not both. Though some of the people did look back and forth, the majority of the crowd were either focused on the car or were looking up toward the door to apartment H. The shaggy blond’s gaze switched back and forth as though he were a spectator at a tennis match. And now that he was focused on him, he noticed that the man kept shuffling his feet.
Chris turned and started toward the barricade. He was certain that the stranger knew something, and he was determined to find out what it was. He might even be Larry, coming back in the hopes of snatching Jessica as well. The idea that he could be sent renewed fury blazing through him, and Chris started to walk faster.
Fire Born (Firehouse 343) Page 19