Burning Love

by Debra Cowan

  When the city had experienced a population explosion ten years ago, the fire investigator's office had been moved into the sturdy, but outdated, building. Recent renovations included new electrical wiring and plumbing, but no facelift to the exterior. Now Presley boasted four fire stations complete with engines and trucks.

  Prodding himself to get out of his pickup truck, Jack gave himself a mental shake. Regret still flared that he'd made the crack about her reaction to Vaughn's body. Jack shouldn't have said what he did to her—he probably had less experience at fire deaths than she did—but she'd looked so out of it. Her peachy velvet skin had gone ash-white, making her green eyes even more vivid and huge.

  He rubbed the taut stretch of muscle across his nape. There he went again. Thinking about her when he should be thinking only about what she could bring to this case.

  Patting the pocket of his khaki sports jacket to make sure his notebook rested in its usual place, Jack pulled open the creaky glass door. The smell of chemicals and scorched air hit him full on, not overpowering, but strong and steady. The empty desk outfitted with a phone and neatly stacked files caused him to look at his watch. A little after six.

  "Hello." His voice echoed off the flat concrete floor. He let the door shut behind him and moved past a worn oak secretary's desk.

  Separated from the front area by glass walls was a small office. It was crammed with a squat oak desk, files piled ten-deep on its scarred top. Fresh, ruby-red roses spilled from a vase at the desk's center. The flowers looked frivolous and out of place in the midst of records and a computer. Two wooden armchairs faced one side of the desk and a stuffed leather chair sat on the other. Scratched gray filing cabinets lined the wall adjacent to the desk. Photographs, some framed, of fires and ancient fire engines covered the wall above the files.

  Opposite the open door stood a dry-erase board on wheels. He stepped over to study the pictures stuck there in meticulous precision and recognized them as being from Harris Vaughn's bedroom. "Anyone here?"

  When he received no answer, he whistled. Still nothing. He heard a muffled thud and peered down a short, dark hallway to a metal door. Seeing a thread of light beneath it, he made his way there.

  A loud pop sounded, causing his pulse to spike. The burn of smoke filled the air. Panic stretched across his chest as he rushed the door and slammed down the metal tension bar. He sprinted inside and stopped dead in his tracks.

  Terra August, wearing a turnout coat and hard hat, stood several feet away over the scorched base of a lamp. Jack could also see she had on safety goggles and gloves. Flames raced in a vee pattern up a large section of Sheetrock attached to wood, which was propped against the brick wall. As the fire spread, she made notes. Notes, for crying out loud!

  Why would any man want to be involved with a woman in a job like this?

  "What the hell are you doing?" he yelled. He couldn't help it. Just standing this close to flame caused his entire body to pucker, even if he wasn't about to become barbecue. A wave of heat rolled past him.

  Terra jerked around at the sound of his voice. Grabbing an extinguisher from somewhere near her feet, she doused the fire.

  Relief seeped through him. He hadn't been in danger, but he felt better with the fire out.

  She set down the extinguisher, scribbled more notes on the yellow pad she held, then turned to him as she pulled off the hard hat. She wore the same ponytail she had at the crime scene. "I was right in the middle of something."

  "I noticed." He'd forgotten that her gaze was nearly level with his, how long her legs were. "What happened?"

  She frowned as she removed her goggles. "Nothing. I was testing my theory about how the fire started at Harris's."

  "You've already figured that out?" The admiration he'd felt earlier slid up a notch.

  She shrugged, sliding off the turnout coat and draping it over the back of a chair he only now noticed. A red-hot sweater snugged her full breasts, disappeared beneath the trim waistband of the faded blue jeans that gloved her long, lean legs.

  Well. Presley's fire investigator could start a few fires of her own. His gaze tracked over the curve of her breasts and the sleek flare of her hips. Jack knew now why a man would be drawn to a woman in a dangerous job. Terra August had the kind of shoulda-been-a-stripper curves he'd seen only on the wrong side of a badge. Hell, a man could get whip-lash trying to look twice at her.

  At his scrutiny, her chin lifted slightly. Her warning stare snapped him back to the job at hand.

  Shake it off, man. He cleared his throat. "You have a theory about how the fire started?"

  "Maybe." Cool wariness slid into her eyes. "I found a piece of evidence and wanted to test my theory."

  "Wanna share? That's why I'm here." He could tell she wasn't wild about the idea, but after a brief hesitation, she nodded and walked past him, motioning for him to follow her out the door and back down the hall.

  He did, trying to keep his gaze from tracing the slender lines of her back, the gentle rounding of hips his hands suddenly itched to span. A vague hint of woodsmoke drifted around her, but Jack was more aware of the scent of sweet, musky woman. Good hell, what was going on with him? "This building's in pretty good shape for its age."

  "Yes. I like it—the history, the stories."

  They walked into her small office where the scent of roses merged with a metallic whiff of chemicals. Behind her desk sat a pair of firefighter's boots, a shovel and a fire ax. Amid the stacked files on the cluttered desk were maps and newspaper clippings.

  He gestured to the files. "Are you handling all this yourself?"

  "My secretary, Darla, helps a lot."

  Jack gestured to the photographs covering the opposite wall. "Did you take the pictures?"

  She glanced at them as she walked around the corner of her cluttered desk. "I took a few. Harris actually took most of them. Like that one." She pointed at a framed black-and-white photograph in the middle of the wall. "That's Presley's first fire engine."

  Terra moved aside the vase of full-blooming flowers and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. After opening a small paper bag, she shook into her palm a piece of glass about the diameter of a pencil eraser.

  Jack leaned forward to get a better look.

  She lifted her hand toward him. "Lightbulb glass."

  "Yeah."

  "See the tape?" The pleasure in her voice had him glancing up before directing his attention to her palm as she pointed at what he now determined was a piece of clear tape on the glass.

  He nodded.

  Reaching to her left, she flipped on a lamp then adjusted the shade so the light shot across her palm. She pointed again. "See this hole? You can make it out if you hold the piece of glass up to the light."

  She did so gingerly.

  "Someone drilled a hole in the lightbulb?" He frowned.

  "Yes. The fire was deliberately set and this lightbulb plant is the incendiary device."

  "Lightbulb plant?" He straightened, his pulse revving. "How does that work?"

  "Our arsonist drilled a hole in the top of the bulb, probably used a syringe to fill it with accelerant, covered the hole with tape then screwed in the bulb. He connected the lamp to a clock timer—" she picked up a blackened piece of metal sprouting a short wire "—and he left."

  "So the lamp wouldn't come on until the timer tripped the switch?"

  "Right."

  "The heat generated by the electricity caused the explosion."

  "Yes." She smiled.

  "And our guy was far away, establishing an alibi."

  "Yeah. Lightbulbs distort at a thousand degrees and will hold that temperature for about ten minutes. The explosion would've happened once the temperature climbed higher."

  "There was definitely an explosion? Not just a leak?"

  "An explosion, probably close to what sounded a while ago back in the testing area. The bedroom door and windows were blown outward, not inward. That's a sure sign."

  "So, it makes sense to thin
k the victim was either immobilized or dead before the fire started."

  "Absolutely. Whoever did this probably tied up Harris then set the plant."

  "The killer and the arsonist might be two different people."

  "Maybe, but I don't think so. Still, the M.E. will be able to tell us if Harris died before the fire or as a result."

  Jack agreed. "Any ideas about the type of accelerant used?"

  "Isopropyl alcohol. I think it was some type of cleaning fluid." After carefully returning the piece of bulb to its brown paper bag, she closed it. She gestured to the pictures around her office. "I was able to recover some traces of the accelerant. No other lightbulbs exploded at the burn site. I washed down the lamp with the blown bulb and the bedside table holding it, and found a fluid pattern at the base of the lamp. I also took some samples from Harris's darkroom. He was an avid photographer."

  "Right. I noticed a lot of photographs in his house."

  She nodded. "I scraped some samples from the charred wall around his bed, also from the lamp base, and ran them through my gas chromatograph."

  "Do you have a full lab here?" Jack glanced around, wondering if he'd missed another door.

  "No. I have a few pieces of equipment, but until our budget gets a little more healthy, I have to use the lab in Oklahoma City for most of my analysis. My chromatograph showed an alcohol-based chemical."

  "So, none of the darkroom chemicals were used to start the fire?"

  "No. A photo fixer in Harris's darkroom did contain glacial acetic acid, which is also highly flammable, but that isn't our accelerant."

  "This is great. You've really made some progress."

  "Unfortunately, I didn't have to start at the very beginning."

  "What do you mean?"

  "I've seen this before. Three times, in fact."

  "What? The lightbulb thing?"

  "The alcohol-based solvent, the lightbulb plant, the timer."

  The little nerve on the side of his neck twitched, as it always did at any sign of danger. He narrowed his gaze. "What are you saying, August?"

  She exhaled and reached up to release her ponytail, funneling her fingers through the reddish-gold fall of hair as it tumbled to her shoulders. The thick satiny curtain was an equal mix of gold and red, a true strawberry blonde.

  "I've been working on three cases very similar to this. I think this is his fourth fire."

  Jack's spine stiffened. "You're saying we have a serial arsonist?"

  "I think so."

  "There have been no other fire deaths," he said bluntly. "I would've heard about that."

  "You're right, but the other fires involved a janitorial supply store, a photography studio and a dental office."

  "All places with the same accelerant?"

  "Yes. The first fire was about ten weeks ago, mid-July. The photography studio was torched in August and the dental office about a month ago. Our guy is a professional. He uses as little accelerant as possible and something that might be used in the course of cleaning any building. If this is the same guy, last night was the first time he's killed."

  "Why now?" Jack drummed his fingers on the edge of her desk. "And why Harris Vaughn?"

  "I have no idea."

  Her voice was even, but the glimmer of brightness in her eyes reminded him that the arsonist's first victim was also her friend. "I'm sorry."

  "We've got to catch him."

  "We will."

  "I'm not sure if I'm—we're—dealing with an emotional firesetter or a pathological one. Revenge, attention, concealment of a crime are all motives I'm considering. I've eliminated juveniles, who often start fires out of curiosity or vandalism. And of course, these fires didn't start during a riot."

  "What about insurance fraud?"

  "That's also been ruled out. So far, I don't find that any fire was set in order to conceal a crime, but the revenge and attention angles will take more digging."

  Jack nodded, surprised by a growing urge to offer some sort of comfort, a promise that went beyond his usual dedication. Since when had he even noticed anything about people besides how they fit into his investigation? "I got a call from Mayor Griffin."

  "I thought you might."

  "Since you know Mr. Vaughn was the mayor's uncle, you probably also got the same…encouragement about solving this case."

  She nodded.

  "A good start to that would be you answering my questions."

  For a heartbeat, raw pain stressed her features then it disappeared. "Oh, yes, go ahead."

  Jack swallowed the apology on the tip of his tongue. She wanted to get this slimeball as much as he did. Taking out his notebook, he flipped to a blank page. "How long did you know Mr. Vaughn?"

  "Twenty years. He was a good friend of my grandfather's."

  He searched her softly sculpted features. "So you knew Harris when he was the fire investigator?"

  "Yes. He trained me. I apprenticed under him for two and a half years before he retired."

  "And you had dinner with him last night?"

  She nodded.

  "Did you do that often?"

  "Lately, we'd done it once a week."

  "Lately? Does that mean the last month, the last year?"

  "The last couple of months, I guess. Since the second serial fire. I was bouncing ideas off him about this arsonist."

  "What time did you meet for dinner last night?"

  "Seven. We left the restaurant about a quarter to nine."

  "What restaurant was that?"

  "Charlie's Steakhouse."

  "Can anyone there vouch for you?"

  "The waitress, I guess. Charlie, too. We always speak…spoke to Charlie."

  She didn't react to her slip other than to swallow hard, but Jack felt an unfamiliar burn in his chest. Despite her willowy height, he remembered how wobbly she'd felt in his hold last night and wondered how she was really doing. She put on a good front. "Is there anyone who saw you after you left the restaurant?"

  "I went to my gym for a swim and when I got home, I called a friend. Robin Daly."

  "Lieutenant Robin Daly, Presley P.D.?" Jack's eyebrows arched.

  "Yes."

  He jotted a note. Terra's friendship with one of the best female cops on the Presley P.D. was something he hadn't uncovered. "And then?"

  "Another friend, Dr. Meredith Boren, called. We talked for about twenty minutes then I went to bed," she said in a wooden voice. "My pager went off a little before 1:00 a.m. You know where I was after that."

  The crime scene. Discovering that the victim was her friend. She didn't lose her composure, but he saw the bleakness in her eyes. Jack gave her a moment. "You said Harris was divorced."

  "For about six months now."

  "And were the two of you more than friends?"

  "No."

  "Ever?"

  Her jade gaze leveled into his, but her voice was tired, not angry. "Friends only, regardless of what you may have heard from Cecily."

  Jack felt an unexpected relief upon learning Terra hadn't been romantically involved with the victim. "His ex-wife thought the two of you had something going on?"

  "She thought Harris had something going on with a lot of women."

  "Did he?"

  "No."

  "There was no girlfriend at all, no other women?"

  "He wasn't ready. Besides, he loved Cecily, despite her jealousy. If she hadn't been so obsessed, they would still be married. He just couldn't live with it anymore."

  "With what?"

  "She followed him everywhere, accused him constantly of lying to her. That was before the divorce. Even afterwards, she wouldn't leave him alone."

  "Does she still believe you were involved with him?"

  "I don't know."

  He flipped through his notebook unnecessarily, giving her a moment to control the emotion swimming in her eyes. Understandably, women might be jealous of Terra August's perfectly molded features, the classically straight nose and peach-tinted skin. Her moist, p
lump lips looked as if they could leave a man weak. "Do you know what contact, if any, Harris had with Cecily recently?"

  She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. "He said she'd been calling, leaving messages on his answering machine. He'd also seen her following him."

  "Did she follow the two of you last night?"

  "If she did, I didn't see her." She sighed, stroking nervous fingers down the long, elegant column of her neck. She had a beautiful neck.

  "Did Cecily ever threaten you?"

  "No."

  She paused and his eyes narrowed. "It's better if I hear it from you rather than her."

  She contemplated a moment, then said, "One time, she blamed me for their divorce. She never threatened me, but for a while after they split up, she would show up here or at my house. She also left messages on my answering machine."

  "Saying what?"

  "Just…none of it was true."

  He stared at her.

  Protest flared in her eyes, but she finally spoke. "Saying I couldn't have him, that he didn't want me, things like that. There were never any threats against me. And she stopped bothering me altogether about a month ago. Didn't she tell you this herself?"

  "I haven't been able to talk to her yet." Sounded like Terra had a motive to kill Harris's ex-wife, but so far, Jack hadn't found one to explain why she would want to kill Harris. "When I stopped by her house, she'd taken a sedative."

  Terra's gaze held his. "When you go back, I'd like to go with you."

  Which was perfectly legal and within her rights as the fire investigator on this case. He had no grounds to refuse, but he wished he did. "Okay. I plan to try again after I leave here."

  "Great."

  He wondered if she would confirm the information he'd learned about her earlier. Watching her closely, Jack said, "I thought firefighters who were interested in investigations could move into the job with a lot less years on the job than you had."

  She arched a brow. "How many was that?"

  "Nine."

  She cocked her head. "You've been checking up on me."