by Paige Tyler
Taper had gone pale before Logan was halfway through the list of charges. By the time the detective brought up accessory to murder, the orderly was hyperventilating. When Logan mentioned the death penalty, Dane thought the man was going to keel over.
“Whoa, wait a minute! I didn’t do any of those things,” Taper said, holding up his hands like he was trying to keep Logan and the rest of them at bay. “The doc said the bodies were being donated to medical schools for education and research. He said that since those three people didn’t have any family or insurance that their bodies would get cremated and interned in a potter’s field somewhere. It seemed like such a waste, so when he asked me to help him, I agreed. He slipped me a few bucks, but all I did was fudge the paperwork then look the other way while he took the bodies.” He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. “I swear I don’t know anything about a missing doctor or paramedic. I came into work a couple hours ago. No one tells me shit down here in the basement. I don’t even know who’s missing.”
Dane felt his heart sink into the pit of his stomach. He was half a second from slamming this jackass up against the wall and threatening to send him to the morgue he worked in. “You’re saying Patton trusted you enough to help him get rid of three bodies, but when it came time to get rid of two more people, he asked someone else? I’m not buying that shit.”
Taper looked at him in confusion. “Um… What are you talking about, dude? Patton’s a dick weed and wouldn’t be caught dead down here. He’s not the guy who wanted those bodies for research.”
Logan frowned. “If Patton isn’t the doctor who paid you, who is?”
Taper looked even more confused. “Dr. Lambert.”
Logan had his phone out before he reached the stairs. “This is Maxwell. I need everything you have on a doctor here at county named Arthur Lambert, and I need it yesterday. Then I want a BOLO put out on him, but advise caution. The man may have a hostage with him, a DF&R paramedic named Lexi Fletcher. I’m heading to Lambert’s house as soon as you get me the address.”
“I’m going with you,” Dane announced, following him.
“Me, too,” Trent added.
Logan didn’t even look at them as he ran up the stairs. “Fine. Don’t get in the way when we reach Lambert’s place. If things go to shit, I can’t be worrying about you two and Lexi at the same time.”
Dane nodded even though he had no plan to do anything Logan suggested. If Lexi was in danger when they found her, he was going to get her out of it. No matter what he had to do.
Chapter Thirteen
LEXI WOKE UP with a godawful headache and a sore neck. She squinted against the light, closing her eyes for a moment as she tried to figure out where she was. She remembered Lambert jabbing her in the arm with a needle then lowering her to the floor…then nothing.
She opened her eyes again, more slowly this time. She tried to lift her hand to push her hair back from her face, but it wouldn’t move. Frowning, she shook her head to clear the last remnants of unconsciousness from her head and realized she was tied to a chair, her wrists bound behind her back. Panic surged through her as she discovered her ankles were secured to the legs of the chair as well.
Heart thudding, she struggled against her bonds. Lambert was the killer, not Patton. He was the one who’d taken the other bodies to do heaven only knew what to them, and now he had her. She had to get free.
But no matter how hard she yanked, all she accomplished was abrading her wrists. Whatever was holding her to the chair was too strong for her to break, and too tight for her to slip out of. Her fingers and hands were already numb—so were her feet, for that matter. How long had she been down here?
Lexi took a deep breath, forcing herself to calm down. She was a paramedic, for heaven’s sake. Freaking out wasn’t going to help anything. She needed to figure out where she was and what kind of immediate danger she was in.
With that in mind, she lifted her head and let out a startled yelp, almost tipping the chair over as she tried to get as far away as possible from the disgusting scene set out before her.
In front of her was a meticulously set dinner table, complete with a white linen tablecloth, fancy silverware, and a holiday dinner. There was even a big turkey sitting in the center of the table. It looked so perfect, she almost thought it was fake, but the smell couldn’t have come from anything but a real bird. Along with the turkey, there were the traditional holiday fixings—cranberry sauce, gravy, vegetables, and biscuits. There was no way she’d been unconscious long enough for someone to cook all of this…right?
But it wasn’t the food on the table that really attracted her attention. That privilege was reserved for the three dead people sitting around it with her.
Wayne Moore sat to her left at the head of the table, dressed in a retro mint-green leisure suit. Debra Wallace sat to her right at the other end of the table. She was wearing a red velour dress, her hands closed in prayer on the table in front of her. Jessie Strickland sat across from Lexi. He wore a T-shirt with Rocky and Bullwinkle on it, his lifeless eyes fixed on the turkey. Beside Jessie, another place was set at the table, but there was no one seated in the chair.
Lexi looked away from the eerie tableau and down at her plate. That was when she realized she wasn’t wearing her DF&R uniform anymore, but a white ruffled peasant top and flower print skirt. Knowing Lambert had undressed her while she’d been unconscious was almost as disturbing as waking up to find herself sitting at a table with three dead people. Had Lambert done anything else to her while she was out besides dress her? And how long would it be before she ended up like Wayne, Debra, and Jessie.
It took everything in her to not lose it completely and start screaming her head off for help. Lexi had never considered herself a person prone to panic. In fact, because of her occupation, she’d always prided herself on maintaining a level head. But that was before she’d been drugged, kidnapped, stripped, and redressed, tied to a chair in a semi-dark room, and posed like a doll in an episode of The Twilight Zone. The only thing stopping her from screaming was the knowledge that if she made a sound, Lambert would probably come back. She really didn’t want that.
She forced her attention away from her dead companions and looked around the room. While the single chandelier positioned perfectly over the turkey on the table illuminated the tableau, it left much of the remaining space around her in shadow. The lack of windows and the heavy wooden stairs disappearing upward into the pitch darkness were a dead giveaway that she was in a basement, even though basements were as rare as hen’s teeth in this part of Texas.
Lexi could make out two couches, a recliner, and a huge console TV to one side of the room, and beyond that, there was a small fish tank with water gurgling in it. She wasn’t able to make out any details, but the whole thing looked like it came out of the 1970s.
She turned back to the silverware on the table in front of her, wondering if she might be able to somehow use it to get loose, when she heard the thump of footsteps on the stairs. She jerked her head up to see Lambert coming down the steps. He was carrying a big bowl of mashed potatoes, and he smiled when he saw her.
“Ah, you’re awake,” he said as he set the bowl down, positioning it just so on the table. “That’s good. I was so worried the food would get cold while we waited for you.”
The man’s voice was so completely casual and conversational that it made goose bumps rise on Lexi’s arms. The urge to scream for help crept up again, but she pushed it down. Whatever she did, she couldn’t provoke him. Maybe then he might not do anything drastic.
“You killed these poor people,” she said softly.
He straightened, drawing himself up. “It was necessary. Besides, no one will miss them anyway.”
Lexi’s blood went cold. “Are you going to kill me?”
Lambert smiled warmly at her again, like he had that day when he was comforting her over Wayne’s death.
“Of course not dear,” he said. “I’m going to sav
e you from the fire.”
She swallowed hard. “What fire?”
“The fire I have to start,” he said in that casual, almost serene voice as he moved about the table, carefully adjusting Wayne’s tie, gently patting Debra’s hair into place, positioning Jessie’s knife and fork just so. When he was done, he looked over the three dead people at the table then at Lexi. “Everything has to be perfect, like it was before. But, this time, I’ll save all of you.”
That’s when it hit her. “Oh God. Your family died in a fire, didn’t they?”
Lambert didn’t say anything. Instead, he spooned out food carefully onto the plates, positioning the potatoes, green beans, and dressing as if getting them ready for a photo shoot. Then he picked up a knife and slowly carved the turkey.
“I was young, little more than twelve,” he said in a voice so soft Lexi could barely hear him. “It was Christmas, and I was over at a friend’s house, playing with the new toys we’d both gotten.”
Lambert paused for a moment, staring off into the darkness of the basement, his eyes far away. “It’s funny. I can remember in clear, vivid detail what every member of my family was wearing that day, but I can’t remember my friend’s name. Strange, isn’t it?”
He turned back to the turkey, carving as if he didn’t expect her to answer. In reality, Lexi wasn’t quite sure he was even talking to her.
“It was getting dark when I finally ran home to have dinner, but I was still able to see the smoke billowing up from the back of the house as I approached. I thought it was coming from the fireplace, so I didn’t pay attention to it. Not until I reached the front yard and saw the flames through the windows.” Lambert placed perfectly cut slices of turkey on the plates. “I ran through the front door, shouting for them, but the heat was so intense that I had to stumble back outside. I ran around the back and went in that way. That time, I made it to the living room. I saw them sitting at the table. They weren’t moving.”
Lambert’s eyes were almost glazed over as he relived that horrible moment from his past. It was impossible to hear him talking about seeing his family die in a fire and not think about Dane. Their stories were so similar, yet Dane had become a firefighter, risking his life to save others from the same fate that befallen his parents, while Lambert had become psychotic.
She wanted to ask why he was doing this now, after all these years, but realized she already knew the answer to the question. All it took was the memory of the media interviewing Lambert outside the ER triage area and asking him to tell them all about the amazing kid who’d saved his entire family from a house fire. That would have certainly been enough to set a person like Lambert off.
“I wasn’t in time to save them.” Lambert drew himself up, his eyes taking on a resolute, determined expression. “But, this time, I will save them. Then everything will go back to being the way it was.”
Giving her a smile and a nod, Lambert turned and headed for the stairs. Crap, he was really going to do this.
“Stop!” Lexi shouted. “You can’t do this. It won’t bring back your family.”
Lambert glanced at her over his shoulder. “Don’t worry, sis. I’ll be home from playing in plenty of time for dinner.”
Lexi shouted for Lambert to come back. But he wasn’t coming back. He was too far gone for that. She didn’t know where in the house he was going to start the fire, but she had no doubt he was getting ready to do it right then.
Pulse pounding, she struggled against the bindings tied around her wrists, ignoring the damage she knew she was doing to her skin, but they still wouldn’t give. Desperate, she jerked side to side and front to back, hoping the chair would weaken and break. If it did, she might be able to scramble out of her bonds.
She heard a thud upstairs, followed immediately by a sloshing sound that was impossible to ignore. Then the smell hit her.
Gasoline.
Lambert was dousing the first floor with gas.
Screw it. Lexi opened her mouth and screamed for help at the top of her lungs, praying there was someone nearby to hear her. If not, then she was going to die.
* * * * *
Dane heard Lexi’s screams at the same time he saw flames flickering through the windows of the traditional ranch style home west of Garland. Shouting for Trent to get DF&R out there and that one of their own was in the building, he ran toward the front door of the house.
“Slow down, Dane!” Logan shouted, falling into step beside him. “We have a murdering psycho in there who’s already killed three people. He won’t hesitate to kill more.”
Dane didn’t care. The drive out here in Logan’s unmarked police car through Friday night traffic had been torture enough. Now that they were here, there was no way in hell he was going to leave Lexi in a burning house, no matter what he had to do.
Dane kicked in the front door, slowing only long enough to let Logan enter the house first with his weapon drawn. He immediately followed the cop inside, trying to see everywhere in the smoke-filled room at once. Heat and the scent of gasoline rolled toward him in waves from a long hallway that he assumed led toward the bedrooms. All it took was one flash of flames to remind him that he wasn’t wearing his turnout gear—or a SCBA.
“Lexi!” he shouted over the roar of the fire. “Where are you?”
There was nothing but silence in the roar of the fire, but then a shout came from somewhere down below them.
“In the basement!”
Her voice was hard to hear over the flames, but he knew without a doubt it was Lexi. Relief rushed through him.
“Be careful!” she added. “He’s up there somewhere!”
Leaving Logan to worry about Lambert, Dane took off for the kitchen, praying that was where he’d find the entrance to the basement. If it was in the other direction, they were screwed. The flames were already too high to ever get through that way.
Dane found the door to the basement near the old-style refrigerator in the equally antiquated kitchen. Logan grabbed his arm as he yanked open the door. The detective was already sweating and gasping for breath in the heat and smoke filling up this side of the house. Thanks to the gas Lambert had used to start the fire, the flames were spreading way faster than they should have, even in a place as old as this one.
“I’ll stay up here and make sure Lambert doesn’t try to trap all of us down there,” Logan said. “This could be a trap, so be careful.”
“You, too.”
Giving him a nod, Dane turned and raced down the dark steps. Within a few feet, the air started to clear and turn cooler, and he breathed it in gratefully.
The scene in the basement was like something out of a frigging horror movie. A single chandelier shone light on a table piled high with food. Three dead bodies sat positioned around the table dressed in retro-style clothing and staring unseeingly at the plates in front of them. Lexi wasn’t in sight though.
Dane’s heart pounded even harder.
“Lexi, where are you?” he shouted.
“Over here,” she called from the far side of the table. “On the floor.”
He raced around the table, forcing himself to ignore the bodies there. Lexi was lying on the floor on her side, bound to a heavy, wooden chair, the ropes around her wrists so tight her fingertips were starting to turn purple.
Jerking the chair upright, Dane pulled his Gerber rescue knife off his belt and cut the ropes around her wrists, upper arms, waist, and ankles. He worked as fast as he could, knowing the situation upstairs was getting worse by the second.
Lexi tried to stand the moment he cut the last rope, but immediately stumbled. Dane caught her in time, easing her down to the floor in alarm.
“My feet are completely numb,” she said, panic in her voice. “I can’t walk!”
“It’s because you were tied up for so long. You’ll be okay, but I have to get you out of here.”
Putting his knife away, Dane scooped her into his arms and ran for the steps. As he expected, the fire was much worse upstairs, and
he immediately began coughing and gasping for breath. In his arms, Lexi did the same.
He looked around, wondering where the hell Logan was. They had to leave—now.
Suddenly, a tall form emerged out of the smoke from the dining room. Dane was about to let out a sigh of relief, but then he realized it wasn’t Logan.
“She can’t leave!” Lambert shouted, running at them like an enraged linebacker. “Not yet!”
With Lexi in his arms, all Dane could do was drop his shoulder and brace for impact. But at the last second, two other figures darted in from the direction of the living room and slammed into Lambert, knocking the doctor across the room. Logan, Trent, and Lambert ended up in a heap in the floor. For a guy who didn’t look like he worked out a lot, Lambert was damn spry Jumping to his feet, he ran down the stairs to the basement.
“The dead bodies he stole are down there,” Lexi said in between coughs. “He killed all three of them and now he thinks he can save them. He’s insane.”
Dane figured that last part went without saying, and was more than ready to let the deranged killer try to save as many corpses as he wanted—not that Dane thought that was very likely.
Logan headed for the stairs. “I’ll get him!”
“You don’t have time!” Dane shouted. “This whole house is going up any second. There won’t be enough oxygen left up here by the time you come back with him.”
The detective met his gaze. “I gotta try. It’s my job. You two go. Get Lexi out of here.”
Logan turned and charged down the steps before Dane could say anything else. Dane would have gone after him, but Lexi was coughing again. He had to get her out of her.
He turned and nodded at Trent. “Lead the way!”
Trent led the way out of the kitchen. Dane followed, cradling Lexi closer to his chest to protect her from the flames as much as he could.