by Lynn Red
“You’re laughing, right?” Rory asked. “Please tell me you’re laughing. You’ve never had your phone’s touch screen just not respond when you were trying your best to answer a call?”
Eve stayed quiet.
“Come on,” Rory said. “Seriously, don’t leave me hanging like this. Please!”
She heard what she thought was a snicker, but couldn’t be sure. “You’re killing me!”
“Okay, okay,” Eve finally said. “I was just seeing if you’d let me hear another of those tirades. By the way, I’m really impressed with your ability to string together swear words. That’s not a skill many people have, you know.”
“Ugh, thanks. I guess? Anyway, what’s up?”
“Well, I think I’ve found someone for you, but I’m not sure it’s the best idea. Dora assures me that it is, but... I’ve never second guessed myself before, but this time I am.”
“But why? I mean I can’t be that bad. I’m a little weird, and sort of sarcastic, but plenty of people like being up in the middle of the night because it’s peaceful. Right?”
Eve was quiet for a moment. “It’s not that. I actually kinda like you. And I don’t like many of my clients personally. I mean, I don’t dislike them, but... I think you know what I mean. Right?”
“This changed around quickly,” Rory said. “But yeah, I think I do. Tell me why you’re having second thoughts though. That doesn’t sound promising? At least I don’t think it does.”
Eve sighed audibly. “Look, here’s the thing. I have always done my job a certain way. I put the girl on file, I interview men, and then match them that way. But I think you might have accidentally skipped a step.”
“Er... how?”
“Well, I think you already met him.” Eve cleared her throat, obviously nervous. “This is a terrible idea. Listen, I’ll get back to you when—”
“No,” Rory said. “I kinda already made my mind up too. Even if you didn’t match us.”
There was a moment’s silence, long enough for the light to change to green. “What?” Eve finally asked.
“Can I tell you something and not have you think I’m crazy? Well, crazier than you already know I am for screaming at my phone?”
“Sure thing,” Eve said.
“I’m going to see him right now,” Rory said. “He’s a firefighter and I’m investigating an arson. I’ve never done this before in my life. I’ve always stuck to protocol and never... well, never really broken the law very hard.”
“What on earth do you mean?”
“Well we had a fire the other day, and I’m pretty sure it was arson. But I have to prove it, and to do that I have to find accelerant in the carpet fibers. Anyway, I was going to the station he works at to try and get him to come with me because... hell, I don’t even know why I’m doing it, it just seems like the only thing I can do.”
Another pause of substantial length. “It... is?”
“Yeah,” Rory said. “I can’t stop thinking about him. About the way he was laughing, and how that made me feel. Just go ahead and tell me I’m crazy.”
“No,” Eve said. “I am. But I may as well tell you. It was him. Maybe I’m not wrong after all. Because he just called looking for you, too.”
*
I should probably go check the house first before I go hunting for boyfriend bear, Rory thought, blushing a little at her thought of the firefighter as a boyfriend. I’d hate to get all distracted and forget what I was doing, where I was going.
Something plucked at the tentacles of nerves in the back of her brain. She felt prickles on the back of her neck, the hairs stood up stiff and tall, like she’d just walked into a freezer with a pack of ghosts living in it. Rory looked around her car, not entirely sure what sent that chill squirming down her neck.
She was just... alone. But not alone in the normal sitting somewhere by yourself way. Alone in the existentially, terrifyingly, dying alone because no one remembers you exist way.
Just as she thought that, another shiver worked down her back. “Why the hell do I keep having these morbid, horrible thoughts for no good damn reason?” she asked the inside of her car. “Why can’t I just think about sitcoms and popular books, or, god forbid, sports?”
She sighed heavily and gripped the steering wheel, squeezing until the tendons in her knuckles stood out white against her slightly knobby, sausage-like fingers. Without realizing what she was doing, she pulled to a stop in front of the burned out husk of the house. As she climbed out of her Acura, Rory nodded to a passing patrol car, then remembered to put the FORENSIC INVESTIGATION UNIT magnet decal on her car to avoid any sort of unwanted attention.
The intent to go get Breaker before she showed up at this charred husk of a building went through her mind briefly. She thought maybe that would have calmed her somewhat, but what she couldn’t figure out for the life of her was why she was nervous. She’d been to a thousand crime scenes, many of them far more gruesome than this one. After all, the only corpse here was the house. She sighed, and shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, stretching her back until it popped softly. Another deep breath, another sigh, and she was collected enough to stop shaking.
If only she could figure out why she kept shaking.
The thought hung over her head as she ducked the yellow tape stretched between the trees, and crouched down by the front door, immediately absorbed into a world of charred carpet fibers, accelerants and scorch marks.
As though nothing had happened to get her confused and worked up, she immediately felt comfortable as she plucked a black knot of what used to be carpet, and dropped it into a small, plastic evidence baggie.
Her eyes swept side to side, cataloguing details one after the other – the change in color on the wood sweeping from golden brown to black and thickly scaly; the way chips of old paint curled up, dark in the center and charred on the ends. Everything around she took in like she’d become one with the fire, one with the scene.
With her eyes closed, she could see how the flames licked the walls, how they heated the drywall, popping screws like ants cooked under a kid’s magnifying glass. One after another, from top to bottom, they erupted inside the walls, blowing tiny holes through the plaster texturing and...
“Top to bottom?” she screwed up her face and chewed on her lip. “But if it went top to bottom, then... wait, where’s that fuse box?”
Rory stood up, taking a second for the blood pressure to even out. Little specks of light danced in front of her eyes for a moment. It wasn’t bad health or anything of the sort – it was just that going into her trances and all that kind of zonked her brain for a moment, and it was like reality needed to catch up with her neurons.
A snap from the back of the house immediately caught her attention. Even when she was slightly schnockered from her fire trances, loud crunching and snapping noises came through the haze.
“Who—” she squelched herself before finishing. If there was someone in the house, or someone sneaking into it, she might be witnessing the arsonist coming back to clean up any loose ends. In all her time in the lab, she’d never had that happen, and preferred to keep it that way. Except...
Adrenaline is coursing through my brain. Shit, I’m like one of those ambulance chasing photographers who talk about adrenaline rushes and turning into a junkie for it.
Instinct took over, and she snaked her mink body behind the small, fragile stairway that led to the second floor, and tucked into the shadows. Even hidden like this, her super sensitive nose and ears were just as good as video cameras. When no further sound came for a space of a minute, the nerves started really kicking in as her adrenaline subsided slightly.
Sweat beaded on the back of Rory’s neck, but she wasn’t about to move. It could have been nothing, she thought. Just some squirrel jumping out of a tree and cracking a stick. And she supposed that could have been true, but the sound was too defined, too clear, to be something that small. Something cracked a twig of some sort, and then stomped, and... Cal
m down, Rory, she told herself. Just keep calm. Unless you do something stupid, no one’s going to find you here. And let’s be serious, it’s not like there’s actually anyone in the house with you. That’d be crazy. Why the hell would an arsonist come back to—
A snap interrupted her inner debate. That time it was the back stoop creaking under the weight of someone who must be heavy enough for that to happen. She could keep pretending all she wanted that this was nothing, just some animal coming out of a tree, or the wind, or anything else in the world.
“But it’s just not,” she whispered inaudibly.
Rory’s breath hitched in her chest. She held it in until her lungs burned fiercely, hoping to get some other clue as to what was coming in for a visit. Her boots squeaked softly, and something cold and metal jabbed her ankle.
As she exhaled, Rory closed her fingers around the can of pepper spray she always kept in her shoe. It was an old habit, one that seemed more paranoid than useful most times, but then again, at times like this – when she was crouched over in a darkened stairwell with nothing but her own haunted thoughts running through her head, it wasn’t such a bad idea. She flicked the plastic lock on the top of her spray.
The creaking, plodding, heavy footsteps – and that’s what they must be, she decided – had entered the kitchen. She could tell from the telltale scrunch of burned linoleum under what must be substantial feet. Whoever it was moved a chair, and then let out a grunt of effort, as though he...she...whatever, had crouched down to examine something.
If this is the guy who started this fire, wherever he is could tell me something, she thought. As long as I don’t get splattered against a wall or something.
Not even Rory could take that sort of panicked thought seriously. She hunched down deeper into the shadows as a form began to emerge from the kitchen. She shook her head. Whoever it was, he was big. Real, real big. And he definitely knew what he was doing. He crouched again, fiddled with something on the floor that she couldn’t quite make out, and stood again. His hair was held back with a backwards baseball cap, a ratty one, not the sort worn by someone trying to look cool.
No, this was the sort of hat that existed to be a tool. It was worn, the bill frayed slightly and the emblem on the front, which she didn’t recognize, almost threadbare. She felt her chest tighten, and for a horrible second, she wasn’t sure if it was fear, or desire that had her in its grip.
Silently, she chided herself for being crazy. Excitement had always gotten her going, that much was true, but this was something else entirely. When you’re trapped in a house with someone who may well be a dangerous criminal, you don’t let your ladyparts start to think for your brain. That’s just not a very good idea.
The mystery visitor was going around the baseboard of the small eating area, his back still to Rory’s position. Action is better than sitting, she thought. If I can sneak up on him and give him a face full of capsaicin, I can get the cops here and...
He started whistling. Whistling! So careless, so completely uninterested in anything else going on around him, this massive, giant of a criminal was actually whistling.
For some reason she couldn’t exactly identify, that made Rory more irritated than anything else. That this son of a bitch was so at ease with what he did – and she was sure by now that this was the guy who tried to kill an entire family – that he could wander happily around the place whistling?
She tightened her fist around the can, almost like she was trying to choke the damn thing. Her skin squeaked softly. Next time he stands up, she thought. That’s when I jump. That’s my only chance to get this guy and make sure he doesn’t get away. She wasn’t thinking of escape anymore. This is how she got, how minks get. Territorial, almost insane with territorial anger, to the point that she couldn’t think of anything except nailing him.
But then, just as she was about to jump, something else did pop into her head, disarming her for a split second. Breaker, she thought. What if I end up dead and he ends up alone? That’s not fair.
She bit down on her bottom lip. No time for that kind of thing. This was do or die, not time to sit around and wonder about the romantic fate of some guy she hardly knew.
Except I can’t stop thinking about it, ran through her mind. I can’t stop thinking about him – I can’t help myself, it’s almost like something is rooting around in my brain, like one of those weird fungus things that grow out of ant heads like little alien antennae.
He crouched again, was still whistling, and for a moment anyway, Rory’s thoughts went back to focus. Now or never, she thought as the mystery man bent again, thumbing something along the baseboard. He plucked up what remained of the charred, blackened, melted carpet and examined the underside.
Briefly the thought crossed her mind that she was doing something too hasty, something completely ridiculous. Rory hadn’t gotten this far in life without trusting her gut, though. And it wasn’t time to start living differently, not if she was going to have anything to say about it.
“You shit!” she screamed, diving out of her hiding place, turning the plastic trigger on her pepper spray, and starting to press. “You burned this place and came back!”
“Huh?” the big guy stood and turned, then immediately put his hands in front of his face. “Rory? Is that...?”
Time slowed to a stand-still. She pressed the trigger and at exactly the same moment, realized what was going on.
“No!” she squealed, but the message from her brain to her fingers was too slow. A quick burst of juice shot out of the end with a burst of mist that almost caught her in the face on the backblast.
“Get down!” she heard herself screaming. “I didn’t mean to...!”
It was too late though. The stream hit Breaker full in the face. He lifted his hands to his eyes to shield himself from taking any more of the horror, and Rory dropped her can, rushing to his side.
She was beside herself with dread. “I’m so sorry,” she said. “It’s just that you came out of nowhere, and you’re not supposed to be here, and,” she cut herself off when she heard that instead of howling in pain or angry screaming, she just heard him laughing really, really loud.
5
The laughing turned to sputtering turned to wheezing, but before anything could really happen, Breaker fell backwards over a chair and ended up in a heap on the floor. “I really shoulda waited,” he said, half crying from the pain in his eyes and half laughing still. “Oh my God should I have waited.”
“I’m so, so, sorry,” Rory said. She cradled his head in her hands and blew at his face to try and cool the spray and give him a little relief. Luckily she had enough wherewithal to put on gloves before handling him. “I can’t believe I did that, I—”
“You’re a damn ninja,” he said. “How did you do that?”
She shook her head, although he couldn’t see it through the haze of pain in his face. He coughed again, trying to catch his breath, but that just made his lungs burn more. He couldn’t help it though, the more his eyes hurt, the funnier the whole thing got to be. But then, the more he laughed, the more it burned, and before she knew it, Rory had a sputtering, coughing, red-faced bear in her arms.
He was blinking violently, his eyes shot through with red. But he was blinking which meant the pain was beginning to subside. “If I have to take a shot of mace in the eyes to get your attention, I guess I’ll just have to deal with that.”
Breaker smiled, but with the whole red eyed thing, and the tears running down the sides of his face he looked more like a sad clown than he did like the incredibly beautiful bear Rory knew he was.
“So why are you here?” she finally asked, figuring that if she couldn’t stop the physical pain, she may as well try to distract him while the burning chemicals subsided. He sniffed hard, and then groaned at how badly the sniffing hurt. “I thought once the fire was out, you guys just kind of went on to the next thing.”
Breaker stretched his neck, trying his best to appear dashing. Really, it was j
ust funny, but something about the amount of effort he was willing to put forth to make her smile did just what it was supposed to do.
“I was just hoping to come out and check out the place, you know? See how the thing was holding up. And I guess I was trying to meet a beautiful woman at the same time.”
“Oh good lord,” Rory said, but laughed anyway. “You’re a ridiculous thing, you know that? You could get arrested for being out here. Hell, I could arrest you!”
“Cuff me, officer,” Breaker said with a grin. “You can cuff me, throw me in the slammer and toss the key. Just so long as you stay.”
“You are ridiculous,” Rory said, laughing still. “You get sprayed in the face with pepper spray and here you are laying lines on me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were some kind of super desperate teenager.”
“Maybe I am?” he twisted his neck around to look up into Rory’s eyes. Even with the faint remainder of redness in his, the gold flecked, green irises were striking enough that it took Rory’s breath for just a moment as she stared into them.
“No,” she said softly. “No, I doubt you are. But there is something about you I can’t figure out.”
“There’s a touch of desperation in these bones,” Breaker said. “But I don’t think this is really the time to get all touchy-feely and emotional. After all, I’m a lawbreaker, and you’re a lab rat. I don’t think either of us is supposed to be here without a cop to make sure we don’t do anything stupid. Or smart, I guess. Depends on how you look at it.”
“I like you,” Rory said in her standard, matter of fact way. “You don’t really filter yourself, do you? You’re just sort of big, and out there, huh?”