Fire Storm
Page 25
Kaely tried to respond, let her mother know how much her confession meant, but she couldn’t find the words. They felt stuck in her throat, almost choking her. Finally, she’d simply put her arms around Marcie and they both cried together. Before she left, Kaely promised to stay in touch and come back for a visit as soon as she could.
Jason had decided to stay a bit longer, but he and Kaely hired a woman to help Marcie until she could get by on her own. Jason wanted to make sure the arrangement was working before he left, and he’d arranged for Audrey to come to Darkwater before he headed home. Thankfully, this time Marcie accepted the help without complaint. It was a huge relief to both her children.
Saying good-bye to her brother had been hard. Kaely felt closer to him now than she ever had, even when they were kids. She was really going to miss him.
“What do you recommend I order?” Kaely asked Tuck.
“The chocolate pancakes are off the chain,” he said. “You’d love them.”
Kaely laughed. “Chocolate for breakfast? I’ll pass. How about the pecan pancakes? I think I can handle that.”
“They’re great too,” he said with a grin. “Coward.”
“I call it being smart,” she said, returning his smile.
The waitress came over with coffee and filled their mugs, then they all ordered. Kaely picked up her mug and took a sip. It was delicious. Right now she wanted coffee more than anything else. It had taken her days to get the aftereffects of those sleeping pills out of her system.
“Well, I can’t say this turned out the way I thought it would,” Josh said with a deep sigh. “I really didn’t believe Jack was in Darkwater, setting those fires. And finding out Sam was the one who set his house on fire? I still don’t completely understand that. It’s just not like him.”
“I’m not a psychiatrist,” Kaely said, “so all I can tell you is that it seems Jack was born without the ability to relate to others or to care for anyone except himself. Every slight, every rebuke from his parents, no matter how small, made him furious. That anger built up into hatred. He finally decided to get rid of his family. I don’t think Sam would have been involved if he wasn’t so afraid of his brother. Jack is obviously a great manipulator. He was the strong twin and Sam was the weaker one. My guess is that Sam felt he had no choice. We have to remember that he was just a kid.”
She shrugged. “The authorities will have to figure all that out. I expect at some point Sam will be charged in the death of his parents. I believe he became a firefighter to try to make restitution for what he’d done.”
“That’s why he took so many chances,” Tuck said quietly. “Trying to make things right.”
Kaely nodded. She could tell that Tuck was still devastated by Sam’s confession. “Sam tried hard to put the past behind him. He really thought Jack was dead. He didn’t get suspicious until he saw the letter.”
“It’s still hard to fathom,” Josh said, “ that Jack has so much hate inside of him.”
“Yes, he does and it won’t go away overnight. At least he has a chance to get help. Your quick thinking saved his life, you know. Pushing him down into the snow and putting out the fire kept his injuries to a minimum.”
“After he recovers physically, the hospital is going to transfer him to a mental facility in Omaha,” Josh said. “It doesn’t mean he won’t face charges. Getting off by pleading insanity is getting harder and harder in this country.”
“He was very clever,” Kaely said, “and showed great planning. I don’t think his lawyers will get away with an insanity plea, but you never know.”
“What he did is monstrous,” Tuck said. “People are dead. I just can’t forgive him. But Sam is at the hospital every day, trying to help him. Jack doesn’t want him there, but Sam won’t leave. After everything . . . I just don’t understand why he would do that.”
“Sam and Jack are brothers, Tuck,” Kaely said. “No matter what, that will never change.”
“We both promised to stick by him, Tuck,” Josh said. “We need to keep that promise.”
“I know I told Jack I’d be there for him,” Tuck said. “I’ll try, I really will. But only because I made a promise.”
“Monsters may not deserve compassion,” Kaely said softly. “But everyone gets forgiveness from God if they want it.”
“I’m not God,” Tuck mumbled.
“Why did he burn down your mom’s house?” Josh asked, changing the subject. “And how did he even know who you were?”
Kaely sighed. “It’s a good question. One I don’t have the answer for. I can only guess.” She took a sip of coffee before responding. Trying to understand the mind of a madman wasn’t easy. “Somehow he found out about me. I was looking for the arsonist the night of the fire on Mayfield, and I believe he was watching me.” She shook her head. “I wanted information from some people watching the fire, so I showed them my creds. I shouldn’t have done it. I think he asked those people about me after I left.”
No one said anything in response to her admission, but Kaely knew she’d made a mistake. Nothing she could do about it now.
“Maybe that’s how he found out you were FBI,” Tuck said, “but why burn down your mother’s house? And why try to kill you the other night?”
“Again, I just have guesses. I think he felt I was challenging him. And Jack doesn’t like being challenged. His ego wouldn’t allow it. He wanted to beat me. Win whatever game he thought we were playing.” She looked at them. “It doesn’t make sense. Neither does his reasoning when he wanted to destroy the remainder of his house with Sam and me inside. The evidence wouldn’t have supported his strategy. But by that point, he just wanted us gone. He was devolving, falling apart. The scary thing is that he might have gotten away with it if I hadn’t realized that Aaron Pollard was Jack. Not wearing his contacts gave him away.” She felt a shiver run down her spine. If Jack had murdered her and Sam and taken off, would anyone have thought to look for him since no one believed he was alive? The thought of another psychopath unleashed in the world was frightening. How many other people would have died?
“You waited too long to send us your 9-1-1, you know,” Josh said accusingly. “I was getting ready to call it off several minutes before you signaled us.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” Kaely said. “Of course I wanted to summon you sooner, but we needed Jack’s full confession. I have to admit that finding out what Sam had done took me by surprise. There was always something about this case that bothered me. As much as I tried to understand Jack’s motivation, I always felt as if something was missing. Sam’s involvement was it.” She smiled at Josh. “I wanted to make sure we had everything. Even Sam’s confession.”
“You know that getting a confession wasn’t the reason we went along with this plan in the first place,” Josh said. “Locating Sam was more important. Once you knew who Jack was, we realized Sam was missing and figured that Jack had to have him. We were afraid Jack would kill him before we could find him.”
“I have to agree with Josh,” Noah chimed in. “You could have died, Kaely. Waiting so long was extremely reckless.”
“It was my call,” she said. “I’m not sorry about my decision. I still feel it was the right thing to do.” She looked over at Noah, but he wouldn’t meet her gaze. She knew he was upset with her. He’d been quiet, uncommunicative ever since the night they arrested Jack.
“It might have taken us a while to get to the truth,” Josh said. “But we would have. You shouldn’t have taken a chance like that.”
“Maybe you’re right. But it was mine to take.” Kaely took another drink of her coffee. “Yes, finding Sam was the top priority, but getting a full confession from Jack was icing on the cake.”
“Well, no matter what, thanks for everything,” Josh said to Kaely and Noah. “Without your help, I don’t think we could have stopped Jack.”
“So maybe the FBI isn’t so bad after all?” Kaely asked with a grin.
“Yeah, maybe not.” Josh rai
sed his coffee cup, and all of them tapped their cups together in a gesture of victory.
fifty
About an hour later, after Noah and Kaely had said their good-byes, they were on their way. The roads were clear, so they didn’t anticipate any problems getting home.
Kaely noticed Noah swallow two pain pills with the cappuccino he’d purchased at a convenience store.
“You better be careful with those things,” Kaely warned.
“If your arm hurt as much as mine does, you’d take them too.”
“Definitely not. I’m done with being drugged. It’s getting old.” Kaely sighed. “Next case let’s do something easy.”
Noah was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “I have a couple of questions.”
“Go for it,” Kaely said.
“You told me you felt Dr. Roberson was hiding something. Did you ever figure out what it was?”
Kaely nodded. “I’d noticed that his legs looked stronger than they should have. Once I had time to think about it, it came together. There were footprints on the carpet, and the bottoms of his slippers were worn. Things in the kitchen were too far back on the counter to be reached by someone in a wheelchair.”
“He can walk.”
“Right. He’s probably afraid he’ll lose his benefits if he admits to it. I doubt seriously that would happen, since I assume he still has significant pain, but when you’re in his situation, you protect yourself.”
“You didn’t tell anyone?” Noah said.
“No. It’s none of my business. I was in Darkwater to see my family and try to stop an arsonist, not to ruin the life of a man already broken by tragedy.”
“He may have committed fraud.”
“I doubt it. My guess is he couldn’t walk after the accident. He may be getting better, but that doesn’t mean he can work. Besides, it’s only conjecture on my part. I don’t have any proof. No reason to turn him in. What’s your other question?”
“When did you set up the plan to catch Jack? I know some of it, but we haven’t had much time to talk, since you needed to spend time with your family before we left.”
“I called Josh when I realized the truth about Jack. The police went to the Pollard house and found Aaron’s body. Then Josh tried to contact Sam but couldn’t locate him. He was supposed to be at the fire station, but he never showed up, which was when we suspected Jack had him. Since ‘Sam’”—she made air quotes with her fingers—“had already called me, asking for a date, we figured Jack was ready for his end game. I was certain he was going to take me to Sam. We were the two people who’d escaped his attempts to kill us.”
She sighed. “I kept feeling like I had overlooked something. Something important. But it never occurred to me that Sam was involved. A friend tried to tell me I’d failed to see a major clue, but I just couldn’t figure it out.”
“That’s when you and Josh came up with the idea for you to wear a wire?”
“Exactly. And thank God we did. They heard Jack say he wanted to go to his old house, so the police drove there ahead of us. There’s a dirt road that runs behind the trees on the property. Josh and his deputies arrived before we did and waited with their lights off.”
“Why didn’t Josh just get Sam out of there?”
Kaely shook her head. “We didn’t want to set Jack off. If we got there and Sam was gone, who knows what he would have done?”
“Did Sam know they were there?”
“No. We were afraid he might accidentally give away our plan. We couldn’t take that chance. We needed a confession.”
Noah was quiet, and Kaely snuck another look at him. His expression was taut and his lips were thinned.
“You’re really hurting, aren’t you?”
“It’s not that, Kaely.”
“Then what is it?”
“You did it again. You put yourself in danger.”
She was startled by the anger in his voice. “Like I said, I wanted to make sure Jack incriminated himself. Then when Sam started to confess—”
“Stop it,” Noah barked. “Just stop it.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Yes, you do. We’ve been over this and over this. You’re reckless with your life. You take chances you don’t have to. Josh said the same thing, that you should have signaled him earlier. I blame him too. He was in charge. He should have gotten you out of there before things went so far, but in the end, the fault lies with you.”
Kaely didn’t know what to say. Noah had never been this angry with her before.
“I don’t know if I can work with you anymore.”
Kaely couldn’t believe her ears. “What? What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that I care about you. I can’t stand by and watch you kill yourself. I won’t.”
Kaely felt as if her whole body had suddenly grown cold. “Noah, please. We can work this out. You’re the only person in the world I trust.”
“Trust?” His laugh was bitter and shocked her.
“Yes, I trust you.”
“Okay, Kaely. Who is the friend who helped you? The one who tried to steer you in the right direction? As far as I know, the only people who knew what was going on besides me were Josh, Jason, and Tuck. Oh, and Sam, but it couldn’t have been him.”
Kaely hesitated as she wrestled with what to say. Suddenly the image of the kiss she gave Noah in the hospital popped into her mind. She couldn’t lose him. She just couldn’t.
“Don’t do it.” Georgie’s voice came from the back seat. “You told one other person about me. He’s gone. Noah will leave too.”
Was Georgie right? Would she lose him if he knew who she really was? Frankly, she felt she could explain Georgie. What really frightened her were the UNSUBs who had begun to talk back. The last time she’d used her profiling technique she’d been threatened. The dark words she’d heard drifted through her head like slow-acting poison, taking over the rest of her body, causing her to tremble. “You’re going to die. It will not happen here, in Darkwater, but it will happen. And soon.”
“Kaely, please. Listen to me.” The pleading tone in Georgie’s voice caught her attention. Would Noah think she was crazy and walk away?
She glanced over at him. “The truth might be hard to believe,” she said finally, unable to keep her voice from shaking.
“Try me.”
Kaely glanced in the rearview mirror. Georgie was gone. She took a deep breath and sent up a silent prayer. “I . . . I’ve never told you about my friend named Georgie, have I?”
Acknowledgments
My heartfelt thanks to one of my heroes, Supervisory Special Agent Drucilla L. Wells (retired), Federal Bureau of Investigation (Behavioral Analysis Unit). This series wouldn’t exist without you. Thanks, Dru. I’m incredibly grateful.
Thank you to retired Battalion Chief William S. Farmer, Clayton County Fire & Emergency Services, Clayton County, Georgia. Your help was invaluable. And thanks for stopping me from blowing up one of my main characters!
My special thanks to Dr. Andrea McCarty in Wichita, Kansas, for stepping in when I needed her. You’re such a blessing.
My sincere appreciation to USCG-licensed Captain Randall J. Davis, BBA, NR-PARAMEDIC S/V PAINKILLER. You never know who you’ll meet sitting in a doctor’s waiting room! Although I didn’t have time to use all the great information you provided me, I hope you’ll hang in there with me. I think we have more work ahead of us!
Once again, thank you to Raela Schoenherr for her help with Fire Storm and for giving me the chance to introduce Special Agent Kaely Quinn to my readers.
Nancy Mehl is the author of more than thirty books, including the ROAD TO KINGDOM, FINDING SANCTUARY, and DEFENDERS OF JUSTICE series. She received the ACFW Mystery Book of the Year Award in 2009. Nancy has a background in social work and is a member of ACFW. She writes from her home in Missouri, where she lives with her husband, Norman, and their puggle, Watson. To learn more, visit www.nancymehl.com.
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Table of Contents
Cover
Half Title Page
Books by Nancy Mehl
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
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Acknowledgments
About the Author
Back Ads
Back Cover