McQueen's Heat

by Harper Allen

  The man who’d paused at the site and then walked on had been wearing a hat pulled down low over his eyes and his collar turned up, but even those features that weren’t actually obscured were impossible to make out in the shadows.

  “He’s dressed like the invisible man, goddammit, even down to the gloves,” Stone had muttered in frustration. “Wait for me here, Tam.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she’d whispered.

  “Taking the bastard down. What am I supposed to do, just let him walk away?” he’d replied in an angry undertone.

  She’d shot an apologetic glance at Harry, forgetting for the moment that he couldn’t see her. “If he’s not Pascoe, that’s exactly what you’re supposed to do, McQueen. And if he is Pascoe, he’ll be off and running as soon as he sees you. Harry says these walks of his are a regular thing. He probably knows every shortcut within a five-block radius.”

  “And your plan is?” There’d been an edgy note in his voice.

  “Follow him. Find out where he lives,” she’d said urgently. “Then we call Uncle Jack and get some reinforcements in.”

  If there’d been no doubt in his mind about the man’s identity, he would have done it his way, Tamara thought now. The only reason he’d gone along with her suggestion had been because he’d seen the same problems in Harry’s story as she had.

  “If nothing else, we’ve got a name to check into,” she said. “A Davidson who died sometime prior to the fire. Harry seemed pretty sure about that part.”

  “That’s quite a lead,” McQueen growled, slowing the car to a crawl. “We don’t know when he died, we don’t know if he was connected with the fire department and Davidson isn’t exactly an uncommon name. Even if we found out who he was, what does that get us? The guy once took the fall for Harry’s mystery jakey and no one ever learned about it. If you want to stamp a big red ‘Case Closed’ across the file on the basis of that, honey, be my guest.”

  “It’s not a good idea for you to tighten your mouth like that, McQueen,” she said coldly. “Your bottom lip’s split open again.”

  Automatically his thumb went to his lip. He touched it gingerly, and then glanced her way.

  “What a dirty fighter you are, honey,” he said softly. “Are you keeping me in line?”

  “Only when you step over it.” She saw sudden color mount his cheekbones. “And only when you need me to, McQueen,” she murmured huskily.

  “Oh, I need you to, sweetheart.” He held her gaze. “I think I need it right now.”

  Her own cheeks felt hot, Tamara thought. In fact, she felt hot all over. In any other circumstances she would have urged him to turn the car around, head straight for her house, and probably neither of them would have made it to her bedroom before giving in to the heat.

  But this wasn’t the time or the place. He knew it as well as she did.

  “When this is all over let’s go to bed and not come out for three days,” she said, her voice suddenly uneven. “We’ll turn off the phone, lower the blinds and let the rest of the world go by while we make love. We can do that, can’t we?”

  “We can do that, honey.” He reached over and touched her hair. “When this is all over we won’t let anyone stop us from doing that.”

  For a moment his hand rested on her hair. Then he sighed, and took it away.

  “Sorry I snapped at you, Tam.” His knuckles tightened around the steering wheel. “But I knew Harry when he was drinking. The whole thing sounds pretty damn flimsy.”

  “It’s all we’ve got,” she reminded him, her gaze narrowing on the figure up ahead. “But you’re right. I can’t even guess what that reference to a Chinese man—hey! Where’d he go?”

  She’d had her eyes right on him, she thought. One minute he’d been there. Now he wasn’t.

  “He has to have slipped into a hidden entrance or a doorway.” McQueen let the car coast to a stop. “I’m going to take it from here myself, honey. If I’m not back in five minutes, go call Jack. Understand?”

  “I understand, Stone.” She watched with wide eyes as he exited the vehicle. As soon as he started down the sidewalk she began counting under her breath.

  “One…two…three…four…five.”

  Grabbing the keys from the ignition, she jumped out of the car and caught up with him.

  “I told you I understood,” she said as he spun around to face her. “I didn’t say I agreed.”

  “Listen to me, Tamara—” he began furiously, but she cut him off.

  “No, you listen to me, McQueen. I don’t stand around outside a burning building waiting for the guys on the crew to give me the all-clear. I go in and take the same risks they do. Let’s get moving.”

  “You drive me crazy,” he muttered, striding down the sidewalk as she trotted to keep up with him.

  “Ditto,” she snapped. She jerked her head at the darkened storefront they were approaching. “There’s where I lost sight of him.”

  “At least let me be point man,” he growled, stepping in front of her. Recessed into the wall beside the store’s dingy window was a door. “I was right. This must lead to an apartment over the store. Got a credit card on you?”

  When she shook her head McQueen shrugged.

  “Let me know if you see anyone coming.” Grasping the doorknob, he braced himself and put his shoulder to the door.

  In her line of work she’d kicked open more than one locked door, Tamara thought. She saw his biceps bulge with tension. But that procedure depended on abrupt force applied to just the right place, and resulted in the lock popping open loudly and the door smashing back on its hinges. Surely it took more strength than was humanly possible to do what he was attempting—to push inexorably against the lock itself until it gave way. She heard metal grind against metal. McQueen grunted, checking the sudden inward swing of the door as it opened.

  “My hero,” she breathed, impressed.

  His grin was briefly white in the gloom of the unlit entrance. “And don’t you forget it, baby.” He squinted into the darkness. “There’s probably just the one apartment up there. Stay to the sides of the stairs.”

  This wasn’t the way she usually entered a stranger’s home, Tamara thought. The one component of a firefighter’s job that the public never comprehended was the noise. She stepped on something soft, and stifled a nervous gasp.

  “Stone, look…a leather glove,” she whispered. “Okay, that clinches it. This is where he came in, and this must be where he lives. Let’s get out of here and find a phone.”

  They’d reached the miniscule landing at the top of the stairs. From under the only door facing onto it came a crack of light, enough to see his expression as he took the glove from her.

  He frowned. Slowly he shook his head, and met her suddenly suspicious gaze.

  “I can’t do it, honey.” His voice was edged. “I just can’t walk away now. I have to know if it’s Pascoe. I have to look the son of a bitch in the face.”

  Fear and anger flared in her. Just as instantaneously, it died.

  Robert Pascoe had destroyed his life. He’d killed five of McQueen’s colleagues and countless other innocent victims. And it was possible that he was just behind that door. She’d known all along what McQueen intended to do.

  “If it’s him, can you take him?” she asked foolishly.

  “Honey, please.” His tone was wry. “Yeah, I can take him. I can take most guys, and Pascoe’s not what I’d call physically formidable. He’s a handsome bastard and I’m sure he’s never had any trouble getting the ladies, but he’s just medium build, at best. But I want you to keep back, and this time it’s not negotiable, okay?”

  “Okay.” Even on the one word her voice had shaken, she realized. Her mouth suddenly dry and her palms suddenly damp, she watched as McQueen stepped up to the door.

  “If he asks who it is, let me talk,” she said urgently. “He’s more likely to open up for a woman.”

  He hesitated, and then gave her a curt nod. Turning back to
the door, he rapped lightly on it with one knuckle.

  “Hold on.” The casual command was called out from somewhere in the apartment, and a moment later came the sound of muffled footsteps crossing the floor. “Who’s there?”

  McQueen was to one side of the door, out of range of the security peephole, Tamara saw. She swallowed.

  “I—I’m looking for Claudia Anderson. Do I have the right place?”

  Silence greeted her words. Then she heard the rattle of a chain-lock sliding back, and she shrank against the wall.

  “Come on in, McQueen.” The voice on the other side of the door sounded amused. “What took you so long, buddy?”

  The door opened. Light from the apartment spilled out into the small hallway. Tamara looked at the man in the doorway.

  Horror swept through her.

  She’d seen burn victims before. Despite their scars, she found it easy to look past the destroyed tissue and cruelly stretched skin to the courage and humanity of the person inside. Maybe that was why Robert Pascoe’s disfigurement was so nightmarishly monstrous, she thought numbly, staring at the barely human face confronting them.

  His mask had been melted away. Now his outward appearance reflected the soulless evil that had always been there. Sometime in the past seven years the beast he’d unleashed on so many others had turned on him.

  “A pretty woman at my door used to be a common occurrence. Now I’m lucky if they don’t scream when they see me on my evening walks, so maybe it’s better if I leave the hall light off.” He glanced at the bare and unlit bulb above them. “You look shaken, McQueen. Don’t worry, it’s really me.”

  “I know it’s you, Pascoe,” Stone rasped. “But how did you know it was me, even before you opened the door?”

  The sound from Pascoe’s throat might have been a laugh. “As soon as I got back into town a few weeks ago I just had to stroll over to take a look. I thought, hey, if I can’t stay away from it, I bet my old buddy McQueen can’t, either. Can you believe they’re building on the site again?”

  “I’m not your buddy, I’m the guy who’s taking you in.” Stone’s expression was shuttered. “Let’s go.”

  “You sure you want to play it that way?” Pascoe didn’t move. “Because they’re not going to let you near me once you hand me over, McQueen, and you know it. You were an embarrassment to them. I’m even more inconvenient, because I’m the man they insisted was just a figment of your imagination. The way I see it, they’ll dig up some restaurant grease fire to pin on me just to get me locked up, and then they’ll wash their hands of the two of us. They won’t ask me the hard questions. They won’t ask me the questions you want to ask me.”

  His ruined mouth achieved a smile. “They don’t want to know the answers. If you don’t, either, then let me get my coat and I’ll come quietly.”

  “Stay where you are.” McQueen’s tone was sharp. “I don’t know what your game is, Pascoe, but I know you’re playing one. You weren’t willing to let yourself be caught seven years ago and I’m not stupid enough to think you don’t have something up your sleeve now.”

  “Seven years ago I was a man. No—a god.” With shocking suddenness raw fury filled Pascoe’s voice. “Whenever I wanted I could light up the night with my flames and watch the rest of you trying to save yourselves while your world burned around you. Do you understand how that felt, McQueen?”

  He brought his hands up in front of him. The terrible scars covering his face contorted into a grimace of anguish.

  Protruding from the sleeves of his sweater were two clawlike appendages. The fingers of his right hand were completely gone. His left hand seemed to be only a knob of flesh.

  “They’re useless. I can’t even hold a match! That’s why I’m willing to turn myself in, McQueen—because there’s nothing left for me anymore.”

  “You looked into the face of the beast, Pascoe,” Tamara grated. “Finally it looked back and saw you. I call that justice, not a tragedy.”

  He let his hands drop to his sides, the emotion he’d just displayed fading as if it had never been. When he spoke his voice once again held a note of amused affability.

  “She’s a looker, buddy. Feisty, too. But then, you never had any trouble finding them, you just couldn’t hang on to them. To be honest, that’s a problem I’ve been running into lately myself. Thought I’d call on an old girlfriend the other night, but it was obvious when she saw me I wasn’t her dream date anymore. I went back the next day and found I’d scared her right out of town. Do I scare you, little lady?”

  McQueen stepped swiftly forward, his face dark with anger, but Tamara put her hand on his arm.

  “Yeah, you scare me,” she said softly. “You scare the spit out of me, Pascoe. I’m not a little lady, I’m a firefighter, and you scare me because I’ve seen lives destroyed by crazy bastards like you. But I’m not afraid to have that chat with you.”

  She turned to McQueen. “He’s right, Stone. Once you hand him over they’re not going to allow you access to him.”

  Even before she’d finished he was shaking his head. “I don’t like it, Tamara. I know him. I know what he’s capable of.”

  “You know what he used to be capable of,” she said urgently. “He’s not a threat anymore. Dammit, there’s a jakey walking around who stood by and let five firefighters die. I’m not willing to risk that being covered up.”

  She turned to Pascoe. “We know you had a contact in the department. Who was he?”

  “A business associate from the old days.” Pascoe slanted a glance at her. “Nice name. What do they call you, Tammy?”

  “The old days when you worked for Bracknell Curtiss? The old days before you killed him?” McQueen moved, forcing Pascoe’s attention on to himself. “Are you saying you’ve had a jakey feeding you information and protecting your back all that time? What in the world would turn a jakey against his own so completely that he’d betray them like that?”

  “He had a problem. Curtiss made his problem go away. I told Curtiss he was playing with fire, so to speak, but he didn’t listen.” Again Pascoe’s mouth stretched into a parody of a smile. “The jakey didn’t turn against his own, McQueen. In the end he turned against Curtiss. He was the one who killed him, not me.”

  “Now I know you’re lying,” Stone said tightly. “That fire was one of your rocket fuel specials.”

  “Of course he used the same accelerant,” Pascoe snapped. “He wanted to make it look as if I’d done it, just like he wanted to make it look like I torched that rooming house. You’re not tracking, McQueen. Do you really think these things were capable of setting a fire three days ago?”

  He held up what remained of his hands. “He knew where I stored it. He knew I only used it when everything had to be just right. Some crackpot inventor in the desert near Vegas when Bracknell and I used to operate out west came up with the formula for it. He was another one who had a problem, only in his case Bracknell had no reason to make it go away. When he couldn’t pay off his debts I was sent in to make an example of him, and when I saw how perfect his invention was for my needs, I took what was left with me when we relocated in Boston. He stole a whole can of the stuff from me. Do you know how many fires he robbed me of by doing that?”

  “I don’t give a damn how many friggin’ fires you think you lost out on,” McQueen ground out. “All I’m interested in is a name. Who was he?”

  “I’m telling this my way or I’m not telling it at all,” Pascoe said flatly. “This is all I’ve got left, McQueen—talking about my fires.”

  “So he’s still in the department and still operating.” Tamara closed her eyes briefly. “Dear God, is he trying to take up where you left off?”

  “We were never best buds. We were enemies who had enough on each other to make a working relationship possible, but he still thought of himself as one of the good guys. It’s all justifiable to him. Bracknell never understood that about him. I didn’t either at first.”

  Pascoe’s gaze lingered for
a moment on her. “Anyone ever tell you you’ve got hair like fire, Tammy? Bet the other kids teased you about it when you were growing up, but there’s something sexy about a woman with red hair.”

  “You don’t talk to her. You don’t even look at her, Pascoe.” McQueen’s tone was ice.

  “I didn’t mean to step on your turf, buddy.” To Tamara’s relief Pascoe took his gaze from her. “Like I said, I came close to going down the same way Bracknell did, but me and the jakey came to an arrangement. I wouldn’t tell what I knew and he wouldn’t blow the whistle on me. It worked okay until the Mitchell Towers blaze. I pushed him over the line on that one. That’s why I had to leave Boston.”

  “Why did you do it?” McQueen’s jaw was clenched so tightly he could barely force the question out. “I know you get off on the fires, but that was deliberate murder. You waited until they went in before you detonated that explosion, didn’t you?”

  “No, McQueen. I waited until I saw you,” Pascoe said softly.

  “You waited until you saw—” Stone’s voice was harsh with shock. Glancing swiftly at him, Tamara saw terrible comprehension enter his gaze. “It was all about me, wasn’t it?” he said hoarsely. “I was getting too damn close to you, and you needed to derail me. For the love of God, you killed five firefighters just so you could remain a ghost, a man no one believed existed.”

  Under his tan his skin was ashen. He took a step forward. “If that’s what you want, I can give it to you,” he said thickly. “Dammit, I can take away your existence right—”

  “You’re too late, McQueen!” Pascoe snarled, the mask of affability he’d been wearing finally stripping away completely. Tamara saw hatred flare in his eyes, and fear flashed through her. “I’m one step ahead of you, just like I’ve always been. I’ve arranged it myself, and I’m taking you with me!”

  The knob of flesh that had once been his hand moved so swiftly that it was a blur. Tamara saw it knock the hall light-switch upward. She saw Pascoe’s mouth open wide in a scream of unholy triumph. She saw the bare bulb above them brighten like an exploding sun—