Fighting the Flames (Southern Heat Book 2)

by Jamie Garrett

  “I know, it’s silly. No, it’s actually stupid of me to try and come up with another explanation for what happened. All of them fly in the face of logic, but I can’t . . . I can’t take much more!”

  She looked up at him, her brow furrowed, her gaze imploring. “I don’t know what’s happening, Liam. Why is someone trying to hurt me? I don’t understand.”

  “I don’t know, Meg.” He looked down at the plastic bag in his hand and looked more closely at the object. “Where did you find this?”

  “Near the back corner of the house, lying in the dirt under the shrubs. I had just pulled the car into my driveway and parked it close to the garage. I thought I saw a shadow of someone in the back yard, but I think . . . at least I hope, it was just the tree branches blowing in the breeze.”

  He lifted the object closer and pressed the plastic close against the object, turning it over to examine it more carefully. “Meg, I think we’d better—”

  His phone rang. A default tone. He reached into his back pocket and pulled it out, glanced at the screen, then tapped it. “Cohen.”

  Meg didn’t look at him. Her gaze roamed the firehouse, the street, anywhere but at the device he held tightly clutched in his hand as he listened to the voice on the other end. It was Detective Hodges, telling him that his presence was requested at the GBI. “Meg Devers is with me, Detective. I’m bringing her along. We have some more information, and I also have something that I think you should see.”

  A moment later, he disconnected the call. Meg looked over at him, eyebrows raised in a questioning look. “That was Detective Hodges. He has some information. We’ll go down, but first I want you to meet the guys. They’re all in there, haggling over recipes.” She hesitated. “Come on in, just for a minute before we go. Sloane’s inside, too.”

  That caught her attention. “Sloane’s here?”

  “Yep, with a bag full of groceries. I have a feeling the guys are going to be spending the rest of the afternoon cooking. Want to see what they’re up to?”

  She offered a tentative smile. “Sure. I need to thank them.”

  Liam was glad that she’d decided to go in. A distraction would certainly be welcome for both him and Meg. He led her through the garage area past the engine and through the side door into the combination of living room and kitchen area of the firehouse. The sleeping quarters with its bunks and the bathroom were upstairs.

  “Meg!”

  The moment they entered, Sloane rushed toward Meg and wrapped her arms around her, giving her a gentle hug. “I’m so sorry to hear what happened to Promise House. We’ll do everything we can to help you get back up and running in no time, okay?”

  The guys also turned, smiled at Meg. She spotted Dean, who had pulled Meg out of her attic room and offered him a small wave.

  “You’re Dean, the one who carried me out of the attic over your shoulder.” She forced a smile as she extended her hand. “I can’t thank you enough. I thought for sure that I was going to—”

  He ignored her hand and stepped closer, giving her a quick hug. “It’s my job, ma’am.”

  That brought a round of laughter from the guys. Meg also laughed. “Please don’t call me ma’am. It makes me sound old. It’s Meg.” She turned to look at all of them. “And I want to thank you all for pitching in.” Again a sheen of tears filled her eyes. “You can’t imagine how much it means . . .” her voice choked on her emotion and Sloane filled the gap.

  “Well, we should have enough food to feed anybody who’s hungry this evening. I’m going to go over to Promise House as soon as I can, to help set up the tables out back. Will that be all right?”

  “More than all right,” Meg said, glancing at Liam. “We have to go to the GBI for a few minutes, but maybe on the way back, we can swing by the Red Cross shelter and get the others. I’m sure they’d be glad to pitch in and help as well.”

  Sloane nodded, glanced at the others, and then turned to Meg and spoke quietly.

  “How’s Amy doing, Meg?”

  “Up until last night, she was doing fine. I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of them since . . . since early this morning.” She shook her head. “It feels like so long ago, but it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours.”

  “I know what you mean,” Sloane smiled with encouragement. “We can talk more later.”

  Liam knew that Sloane had gone through a traumatic experience with her former boss, antiquities employer named Sakkas, or something like that. She’d been kidnapped and held at gunpoint. If anyone could help Meg deal with the trauma of the past day, it would be Sloane. But first, they needed to go see what Detective Hodges wanted. He also had to show Hodges the device that Meg had given him. Their forensic guys would have to take it apart to find out exactly what it was. He’d known what it was the moment he’d looked it over, but for Meg’s sake he needed legal confirmation.

  It was a trigger device. As soon as Detectives Hodges and Petit saw the device, they’d have to know that Meg had nothing to do with the fire. Someone had used the device to time the eruption of the flames. A device like that would have given the arsonist enough time to set the stage, pour the accelerant, and get out of the house before the fire was ignited. He hadn’t seen any devices that might have been used as an ignition device inside the house, but they could have been burned away. He knew one thing for sure. He was searching that house from top to bottom before Meg spent another minute there.

  16

  Meg

  “Hodges didn’t tell you anything about why he wanted to see you . . . us?”

  They drove to the GBI headquarters in Liam’s SUV. She shifted slightly in her seat to glance into the back. The seats had been pulled down to make more room to store his gear. It looked like a sleeping bag, a tent, a camp chair, and other stuff. “You going camping?” Liam glanced her way, apparently surprised by the question until his gaze followed her own.

  “No, I just like to have my winter gear in here when it gets close to the weather changing. You never know.”

  What was he, a Boy Scout? Taking their motto, Always be prepared to the extreme? “Seriously?”

  He nodded, not taking his eyes off the road. “I’ve seen enough accidents, tragedies, and events take people unawares. It sounds pessimistic, but I live by the motto ‘prepare for the worst and hope for the best. That way . . .” he shrugged.

  Maybe he was right. The past twenty-four hours had given Meg a lot to think about. Mainly, her vulnerability. After her divorce, she’d thought it was smooth-sailing time, that she’d gotten through the worst part of her life. Never again would she take anything for granted. Liam was right. One minute everything could be fine and the next, your life was turned upside down. She said nothing more but sat quietly, one hand on the door handle, the other idly tapping at her jeans. Contemplating. Worrying. Anxious.

  Still, she felt grounded. How could that be? No, Meg knew why, even if she didn’t want to admit it. It was the company she had, Liam’s calming presence. Even after everything that had happened today, Liam was there. She’d only just met him, but he believed her, and was willing to help her. She felt her cheeks heat. Plus he’d given her the most amazing orgasm she’d ever had. If he was like that with a quickie in the kitchen, what would it be like to be under him, him thrusting . . . Meg cut off the thought even as the images flashed through her mind, her cheeks burning now.

  She needed to be concentrating on what the hell was going on, not when she was next getting off. When he’d looked at the device she’d handed him, his expression had left her with no doubt that it had something to do with the fire.

  She stared out the window at the passing scenery, willing herself to relax and tame the blush still lingering. What did Hodges want? Maybe the detective had found some information that would help her case. Maybe they had found whoever was responsible for setting Promise House on fire. They had yet to be told of someone shooting at her, but in a matter of minutes that too, would be divulged and discussed.

  Sh
e tried to stay calm, to not let her thoughts and worst-case scenarios run away with her. It was one thing to be prepared, another to live in a constant state of panic. She’d completely lose it if she had to go through another day like this.

  By the time they pulled up to the GBI headquarters, she focused on tamping down the anxiety that gnawed at the edges of her consciousness. She tried not to assume the worst, but it was difficult. Meg’s past experiences with Hodges had left her feeling sick to her stomach. What would he accuse her of now?

  “You ready?”

  She turned to Liam and nodded. With a heavy swallow, she reached for the door handle and exited the vehicle. Liam climbed out of his side of the SUV, the plastic baggie in hand. Together they walked into the GBI and once again, Liam offered a wave to the desk officer and was directed back toward Hodges and Petit’s office.

  Déjà vu. Once again she stood in the doorway as Detectives Petit and Hodges glanced up. Again that look that Hodges gave her. It wasn’t angry, even overly wary, but an expression that someone gave when they weren’t quite sure whether they understood a joke. As if he wasn’t quite sure how to respond to her.

  “Liam, Meg, come on in,” Detective Petit invited.

  So they were on a first-name basis now? Before she could speak, Liam turned to her. “Tell them what happened this morning and then we’ll move on from there.”

  “What’s up?” Detective Petit asked.

  Both detectives gave her their full attention. As calmly and matter-of-factly as possible, Meg related the events of the morning with as much detail as she could. When she got to the part about someone shooting at her, she saw the surprised doubt that flashed over Petit’s face, the frown on Hodges’. He didn’t believe her. She knew it. Hodges turned toward his partner, who nodded and quickly stood and left the room. Hodges turned toward her.

  “We’ll get a patrol car out there, see if we can find any cartridge casings, tire tracks, footprints, anything.”

  What was that she heard in his tone? Disbelief? Who would make something like that up? In less than a minute, Petit returned to the room and sat down, nodding toward Hodges. They both waited for her to continue.

  “When I pulled back into my driveway, I thought I saw some shadows moving in the back yard.” She paused, waiting for Hodges to tell her that she was mistaken. He didn’t. “And then I found that.” She gestured to the plastic bag that Liam held. He extended it toward Hodges.

  Hodges took the bag, looked at it for several moments before passing it to his partner. “Looks like some kind of remote-control device to me.”

  “My thoughts exactly,” Liam said. “Someone didn’t set that fire from inside the house. The accelerant wasn’t meant to start the fire. It was meant to encourage it. Someone was standing outside somewhere and triggered it.”

  Without looking up from her examination of the device in the bag, Petit spoke. “Range?”

  “Not more than thirty, forty feet I’d guess. Could’ve been standing in front of the house, in a neighbor’s yard, across the street. Hard to tell.”

  “You didn’t find any kind of an incendiary device inside the house?” Meg heard the sound of dismay in her voice. She looked away, thinking Liam might be offended, but he wasn’t. He just shook his head.

  “No, but you can believe me, I’m going to go back through every inch of the house again. It either completely destructed when it was set off or it was close to one of the hotter spots and was consumed. Still, I want to check ATF files when I get back to the firehouse. Maybe some other fire in the county, or even the state . . . hell, even the country where a similar trigger device was used. If there is, I’ll find it.”

  Meg looked at him. He was deadly serious. Liam’s eyes burned and his muscles were tight. She held herself back from taking a step toward him and tackling him to the floor. Why the hell was she so attracted to him? Sure he was sex on legs, but it was more than that. The aftermath of a frightening experience? But what about the kitchen? There had been a hell of a lot more than fear there. Was it all simply a combination of adrenaline, Liam looking like he should be modeling underwear, and that it’d been months since the last time she’d had sex with anything not requiring batteries? Had everything simply surged together into a single, momentary loss of self-control, of sexual desperation?

  “We’ll have forensics take this thing apart.”

  Hodges’ voice interrupted her direction of thought, thank God. Her pussy had started gently contracting just thinking about what she now referred to, in her mind at least, as “the kitchen incident.” She didn’t need to turn herself on any further while standing in the police station.

  “Pull up another chair,” Petit said, gesturing for Liam to take one of the chairs from the other detective desk, empty for the moment. He did, placing it next to the chair catty-corner to Hodges’ desk. He gestured for Meg to sit, then took the other chair next to her.

  Meg waited. There had to be more than just what she’d told them for Hodges to call her down there. Maybe some good for a change. But when Hodges looked at her, her heart sank and her stomach was suddenly awash in acid. The expression on his face did not bode well.

  “Miss Devers . . . Meg, we’ve got some information for you. “We—”

  “I did talk to my ex,” she interrupted, remembering her conversation with Ray. “He insisted he never took out a life insurance policy on me from New York Life.”

  “You believe him?”

  “I could always tell when he was lying,” she shrugged. “I don’t think he was . . . but it is possible. He claimed his wallet had been stolen after the divorce . . . is there any way that you can find out if it was him?”

  He held up a finger. “We’ll circle back to that in just a few minutes. First, we have some other things to talk about.”

  Great. Now what?

  “Okay, first off, your cook, no . . . your bookkeeper, Monica Chambers.”

  “What about her?” Meg’s heart pounded again. She looked at Liam, sitting calmly, one leg crossed over the other at the ankles, his hands resting on his thighs. They were thickly veined. Strong. Capable, and oh so sexy. Funny she’d think about how sexy his hands were right now, but there it was again, that sexual tension, that almost desperation. More than anything in the world she wished she could extend her hand up and touch his, feel his fingers intertwined with hers, offering her a sense of solidarity, of comfort that she desperately needed. There was that word again. Desperate.

  “She’s refused to take the lie detector test.”

  Monica had refused? Still, not all that surprising. “She has a general distrust of bureaucracy.”

  “And Tanisha Watkins? Does she have a problem with the police or with government?”

  “What do you mean?” she asked.

  “I can tell you that she did agree to take a lie detector test, but only with the greatest of reluctance.”

  “Do you blame her, given her past?”

  “You mean as a prostitute? No, not really. But it is interesting, isn’t it? These people, the ones that you seem to hold in such high esteem . . . they seem hesitant to come to your aid now, don’t they?”

  His words stung hard. Meg felt a hollow feeling encase her chest. “That’s hardly fair,” she stammered.

  “Maybe not, but still true.” He reached for a piece of paper off the side of his desk on top of the stack of folders, glanced down at it then back at her. “And what about Amy Carlson.”

  “What about her?” Meg was growing distinctly uncomfortable. What was Hodges trying to intimate? The she was naïve? That she somehow considered her residents her BFFs? She didn’t. She knew their living at Promise House was only temporary. She tried hard not to grow too attached to any of them. Just sometimes that didn’t work.

  “How much do you know about her history?”

  “Not much,” she said. “I know just a little bit, through Sloane Maxwell. She helped me a lot getting Promise House up and running. She asked if I could take in Amy,
who was messed up in that affair with her former employer. All I know is there was some history about a human trafficking ring.” She shook her head. “Disgusting.”

  Liam spoke up. “You might want to talk to Captain Rawlings over at Engine Company Eighty-One about the incident.”

  “I will, but I’m just curious how much Meg here knows about it.”

  “Why?” she asked. “Do you think all this has something to do with that?”

  “Too early to tell,” he hedged. “But you seem to know quite a bit about the history of Monica Chambers and Tanisha Watkins, even some about the man who was murdered, Tim Jefferson. Why not Amy Carlson?”

  Meg glanced between Petit and Hodges. “I don’t barrage my residents with questions. If they want to open up and talk to me about something, fine, but I don’t press. Amy is quiet. She stays mostly in her room. She doesn’t really interact with anyone at Promise House. She’s just getting her feet back under her. She’s young and impressionable. I certainly don’t blame her for not wanting to talk about such a horrifying experience.”

  Hodges nodded. Whether he believed her not, she didn’t know and at that point she didn’t much care. Why all this questioning about her residents? Did he think that it was one of them that had set the fire? Or that something else in their past histories had somehow caught up with them? Had one of her residents been the target? But then why would someone shoot at her this morning? Why the business insurance policies? Why the life insurance policy on her? Her mind whirled and she gripped the arms of the chair in an attempt to ground herself.

  “We did manage to catch up with Shelby Coultrie in Florida,” Hodges said. “Something interesting.”

  Meg didn’t even bother asking the question, but merely lifted an eyebrow.