Melting Point

by Debra Cowan

  Kiley grinned. “Neither do I.”

  “I guess we’d better begin. Maybe we’ll turn up something here.”

  “Maybe so.” Kiley shared the fire investigator’s frustration over the cold trail of leads on their other homicides.

  As they moved toward the group of waiting firefighters, Terra said, “I’ll go ahead and do the walk-around with the guys then meet you back here. Once we determine the structure is secure, you and I can go inside and begin our investigation there.”

  “All right. I’ll start interviewing witnesses.” And she would start with Collier McClain.

  Presley had seen a serial arsonist before, but not a serial killer. A little over two years ago, a cameraman for one of the local news channels had started setting fires to get Terra’s attention, then murdered anyone who he perceived as distracting her attention from him.

  Kiley had been promoted to detective ten months ago and in October had happened to catch the call involving the firefighter who’d been shot in the back as he ran into a fire at Presley High School’s gym.

  Terra lifted the camera around her neck to snap pictures of the building and surrounding area. Two firefighters unloaded portable floodlights from Terra’s SUV and set them up inside the warehouse. The daylight-strength power of the scene lights outside brightened the area.

  When the other woman started toward the building, Kiley walked over to the body again. The group of firefighters had scattered. Dan Lazano’s facial features were recognizable. Since he had been wearing all his protective gear, there were no visible burns on what she could see of his body.

  Ken Mason, the Oklahoma County coroner, knelt beside the body.

  “What do you think, Doc?”

  “No soot around or in the nose or mouth, no burns at all. Like Sandusky said, Lazano never made it into the building. The only injury I’ve noted so far is the gunshot wound. It’s a through-and-through.”

  In through the back, out through the chest. “Thanks.” She turned, searching for Collier McClain and saw him near the warehouse’s front door talking with Terra.

  The man was rangy, strong and built with the lean lines of a baseball pitcher. His hawkish features were sharp in the unstinting white light from the megawatt bulbs illuminating the scene. He wasn’t her type at all, which was exactly why she’d danced with him. And why her over-the-top physical reaction had rocked her. Might as well get this over with.

  Taking a deep breath, she started toward him. He left Investigator Spencer to meet her halfway.

  “I need to ask you some questions,” she said quietly.

  “All right.” He looked tired and dazed.

  “Tell me what happened. Or what you remember.”

  He dragged a hand down his face, his turnout coat wet, his breath curling in the cold air. “I went for the nozzle.”

  “Was that usually your spot?”

  “Whoever got there first, but yeah, it was usually me.”

  “Go on.”

  “I was off the truck and ahead of Lazano when this stupid cat tripped me. By the time I got around the dumb thing, Dan had the nozzle and was on his way into the building.”

  “And you were how far behind him?”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know. Four, five steps. He was at the door.”

  Collier had long legs; his stride was easily over a yard. “And then what?”

  “He started in, then I heard the gunshot.”

  “You knew right off what it was?”

  “I reacted more from reflex at first. We’ve all been jumpy since Miller’s murder,” he said grimly.

  Gary Miller was the first firefighter who’d been killed by the sniper three months ago. “Then you went for Lazano?”

  “Yes.” He stared over his shoulder at the warehouse. “The padlock was cut. We didn’t have to use force to open the door.”

  She followed his gaze to the door, now open. Terra’s floodlights illuminated the inside of the big concrete cave.

  So the sniper had time to aim for the best shot while Lazano took those two heartbeats to open the door. Kiley scribbled the note in her notebook. “How long before you heard the shot?”

  “I’d guess maybe two seconds, three. It was quick.”

  “Did you work the scene where Miller was killed?”

  “No, but I was there.”

  “Why?”

  He shrugged. “I heard the call and went by. Turned out they needed another pair of hands so I stayed for a while. Don’t you cops do that?”

  Yes, they did. “Do you remember seeing anyone hanging around that night? Anyone you might’ve noticed here, as well?”

  “No.” He thought for a moment. “There may have been people walking or driving by tonight, but I didn’t see a thing besides that stupid cat.”

  “Okay.” Kiley glanced over at the victim, now being transferred into a body bag. “How long did you know Dan Lazano?”

  “Twelve years. We went through firefighter academy together, then he was assigned to Station Two about five years ago.”

  A tightness in his voice made Kiley switch her focus to him. “Were you friends?”

  In the glaring, smoke-hazed air, she thought she saw his mouth tighten. “Not really.”

  Was there resentment under his words? “Enemies?”

  “Not exactly. We had a tug-of-war going on over the nozzle.”

  “About who would get it first?”

  He nodded.

  “Know anyone who would want to hurt him?”

  Collier’s gaze bored right through her. “No, but you’ll probably hear different.”

  “Okay,” she said expectantly. At five-nine, Kiley didn’t have to look up to very many men, but she did with the six-foot-plus firefighter. A tiny sliver of awareness shimmied up her spine. What was it about this man? She dismissed the giddiness he put in her stomach, but allowed herself to search his eyes. She saw a rawness there before he shuttered them against her. What was he not telling her?

  Oh, yeah, she was really getting somewhere with this guy. “McClain—”

  “Lazano and I were friends once.” He glanced away, clearly reluctant to talk.

  “It’s better if I hear it from you.”

  He stepped closer, the odor of smoke swirling around her. “He and my fiancée were—” He broke off and dragged a hand down his smoke-buffed face. “I found them together.”

  She drew in a sharp breath. That was brutal. Now she understood the emotion that had flashed through his eyes, and her chest tightened. She really didn’t want to continue this line of questioning, but she had to do her job. “So you had a reason to hate him.”

  “But not kill him.”

  “Your fiancée cheated on you with one of your friends.” Kiley could only imagine the pain. “If my ex took up with one of my friends, I couldn’t find it that easy to forgive.”

  “Not forgiving is a long way from murder, Detective.”

  “Not to some people.” Just because Collier had broken his engagement didn’t mean he wasn’t still in love with his ex. And maybe angry and hurt enough to kill the man who’d betrayed their friendship.

  Anything was possible and he could’ve hired a sniper and been here to fight the fire, but Kiley had a good sense of people. Collier McClain didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would hire someone else to take care of his problems. He would do it himself, face-to-face. The fact that he could’ve easily been the one killed tonight also helped in settling her questions about his involvement. Once she checked his alibis for the nights of the other murders, she could probably mark him off her suspect list officially.

  A glance over her shoulder showed Terra stepping inside the warehouse, but Kiley had more questions. She looked back at her witness. “I may need to talk to you again later.”

  “I’ll be around.” He tucked his helmet under his arm and tunneled a hand through his short, wet hair.

  Annoyed at the way his cool voice knotted her nerves, she moved over to Pitts and Foster, th
e safety crew who had been sent by Captain Sandusky to talk to her.

  She needed to put aside her personal feelings. The memory of that dance, the feel of Collier’s large hand curled warmly on her hip, the hard length of his body against hers. She had a job to do and she would focus on that. Looking for commonalities between the victims had Kiley asking the same questions she had asked at the other three murder scenes.

  Did tonight’s victim socialize off duty with any of the others? Did he go to the same doctor or church with the other victims? High school or college? Had he been involved in a side business with any of the victims? Again all answers were no.

  About thirty minutes later, she joined Terra outside the front door of the warehouse where the fire investigator again stood talking to Collier McClain. Three firefighters had backed up his story about the cat as well as vouching for him on the other nights in question.

  And the firefighters she’d interviewed had confirmed that he and Lazano did have an ongoing rivalry regarding who would get the nozzle first.

  “The structure is secure enough for us to go inside,” Terra said when Kiley reached her. “It’s lucky the next warehouse is at least three hundred feet away or this whole side of the street might’ve gone up.”

  It appeared this fire, like the others, had been set to lure the firefighters here and kill one of them, but they needed proof. “Did you see anything that hinted at arson?”

  “Not yet. The window was blown out from the inside, probably from heat, but that doesn’t mean we’re looking at arson.” She glanced at Kiley’s feet. “Good, you have on some of our boots. You need a helmet, too.”

  “Is there falling debris?”

  “We want to be prepared.”

  Kiley took a helmet from the firefighter who held one out at Terra’s request and slid it onto her head.

  Collier McClain stood silently to the side. He had cleaned the ash from his face, but there was strain around his gray-green eyes and the same guardedness she hoped he saw in her eyes. She shut off further thoughts of him and followed Terra inside the cavernous concrete and metal building. It smelled of burned coffee, wet ash and the searing odor of charred insulation and chemicals. Light glanced off white burlap bags of coffee stacked on row after row of wooden pallets.

  Strong light streamed from the portable floodlamps, and Kiley stopped, taking a quick look around the soaked floor, wet wooden pallets stacked with now-sopping white bags of coffee.

  “I bagged the padlock so we can check it for prints.”

  Startled to hear McClain’s voice, Kiley spun. “What are you doing?”

  He frowned. “Going through the building.”

  “Why?”

  “He’s my new fire investigator,” Terra said absently. “You know he’s been working with me on his days off. For about the last year and a half.”

  “Yes, but he fought this fire.” She looked away from his level gaze, wishing she’d had a little warning about his more significant involvement in the investigation. She’d known their working together would happen eventually, but she wasn’t ready. “How can he investigate and work the scene as a firefighter?”

  “It’s happened before. Besides, this is his last shift. When he reports to work on Monday, it will be for me.”

  Kiley knew displeasure and sheer panic showed on her face.

  “What’s going on, Kiley?” Terra looked slightly irritated.

  “I…just didn’t expect him to also investigate.”

  “Is he a suspect?” Collier asked tightly.

  “No.” Curling her hands into fists at her sides, her gaze shot to Terra. “This isn’t a conflict of interest?”

  “No.” The other woman glanced at Collier then back at Kiley.

  “Can you handle it, Detective?” His smoke-roughened voice challenged her.

  She wasn’t about to let him see how off balance she really felt. She flashed a smile at Terra. “Let’s go. I’ll try to keep up.”

  “Whew, good. I’m going on maternity leave in two weeks. I want Collier to know everything I know about this scene.”

  “Is he going to take over this case?” Had she just squeaked?

  “Unless we clear it before I have this baby, and I don’t foresee that. So, you’ll have to partner up.”

  Kiley gave a forced smile, avoiding Collier’s gaze.

  “Let’s get started, then,” Terra said.

  The three of them began a slow walk, sloshing through dark water, with Collier beside Terra and Kiley slightly behind. Her eyes narrowed on his broad shoulders. Collier McClain wasn’t just Presley’s newest fire investigator, and her partner for the time being. He was the one man she’d sworn to avoid like the Ebola virus.

  Chapter 2

  Collier had wanted to be first on the nozzle tonight, but nothing about this call had gone the way he’d wanted. Not what had happened to Lazano. And not seeing Kiley Russell.

  Collier hadn’t allowed himself to think about her since that Christmas party at the FOP club. Then tonight, on the second day of the new year, she’d burst in front of him like a firecracker.

  In the month since meeting her, he hadn’t forgotten the curve of her hip beneath his palm as they’d danced. Or the warm, spicy fragrance of fresh woman and body heat.

  Kiley Russell wasn’t conventionally beautiful like Gwen, but he wasn’t the only man who couldn’t take his eyes off her. Her tangle of red hair hinted at a wildness that was banked in her eyes. Creamy skin and rosy cheeks gave her a fresh-faced appeal that invited people to like her even though Collier sensed that if she decided to seduce a man, those stunning blue-green eyes could knock him clear into next week.

  What really had Collier’s internal alarm screaming was the memory of Detective Russell’s laugh. Low and smoky, the sound had grabbed at something deep inside, telling him that his attraction to her was more than physical. He’d managed to bury all that over the holidays, but seeing her now brought the memories bubbling to the surface. Memories he had no intention of giving free rein.

  In the year and a half since he’d called off his engagement to Gwen, Collier hadn’t regretted his new no-strings policy with women. He didn’t like that Kiley Russell was the first woman to make him think about breaking it. Liked even less that his thoughts were on her instead of the crime scene in which they stood.

  “Since we can’t take measurements of the body’s original position,” Terra said, “we’ll have to rely on the Rapid Intervention Team and any other eyewitness accounts to determine where Lazano fell.”

  Kiley stepped up, pointing to a spot in front of the open doorway. “The RIT put Lazano here.”

  “That’s right. And so did the attack crew who took over for me and Lazano.” Collier turned, his gaze skipping over the puddles of black water on Benson Street. “The shot came from behind. Probably from that warehouse across the street.”

  Kiley made a note in her notebook.

  Standing on the edge of the bright light thrown by the portable floodlamps, Collier walked to the bloodstain barely visible on the wet concrete and dictated the location into Terra’s handheld tape recorder.

  “I’m surprised all the blood wasn’t washed away,” Kiley observed, following the other woman into the warehouse. “I guess it would be too much to hope we might get some prints off this door? I’m guessing the firefighters probably blasted them off with their hoses.”

  “We’re trained to put out the fire, which means we can’t really worry about preserving evidence,” Collier said from behind her. “To put out a blaze, you’ve got to chop holes in the roof, tear down walls, kick out windows plus soak everything in thousands of gallons of water. Even so, we’re trained not to get carried away with our water streams. We douse the flames and make sure they don’t rekindle. And we typically use a wide spray pattern, like a fog. If that doesn’t work, we have to use a small spray, so a straight stream could’ve destroyed that evidence.”

  “You’re both assuming there were prints to begin with,” T
erra said as they paused shoulder to shoulder in a small huddle.

  Kiley slid a look at Collier. “What about the heat? Would it compromise a fingerprint?”

  “Prints can be tricky. Most people believe fire destroys all evidence, but that’s not true. It would take hot, hot temperatures to distort or destroy a print. From the condition of the wood pallets, I don’t think the fire burned long enough to get that hot. The door is barely discolored.” He pointed over his head to a steel beam with dark streaks. “None of the steel up there is melted, though it is discolored and marked. The melting point for steel is 2500 degrees.”

  “So a twenty-minute fire wouldn’t normally be hot enough or long burning enough to melt the I-beams?”

  “Not unless there were flammable liquids or explosives, something to help it along.”

  “What accelerant do you think was used?”

  “Maybe none. That’s something we need to find out.” He studied the steel beams supporting the apex of the roof. “It doesn’t appear the fire got hot enough or high enough back here to melt the steel.”

  “Just some of the aluminum walls.” Terra pointed to some damaged sheeting.

  Kiley scribbled in her notebook. “So what does that tell you?”

  Terra looked at Collier expectantly, so he said, “That the fire temperature on the walls was less than 660 degrees and that whatever reached the ceiling probably burned less than a thousand.”

  The detective nodded and made another note.

  “First, we’ll try to confirm or eliminate arson,” Terra explained over her shoulder.

  Collier added, “Part of that process will be checking the electrical wiring.”

  Kiley resettled her helmet. “So, all we know at this point is that Dan Lazano was murdered.”

  “Right,” Collier said. “It was definitely not suicide.” Suicide was one manner of death that had to be eliminated in the course of an investigation. Given he was an eye witness, Collier could do that with confidence. He still couldn’t believe Lazano was dead. And how close he had come to being a victim himself.