Burned Too Hot: A Thriller (Val Ryker series Book 2)

by Ann Voss Peterson

  Lund was exhausted and every bone in his body ached. The thought that one of the LLFD had set the fire that killed the chief… he just couldn’t believe it, couldn’t process it at all.

  Police cars disappearing around the adjacent apartment complex, Lund went back inside the station and made his way to the garage. At first he thought Dempsey had left, missing all the drama. The bay doors were closed, tools neatly put away, Unit One ready to go at a moment’s notice. Then Lund heard a scraping sound from the other side of the big rigs.

  No doubt Dempsey had decided to finish up whatever checks he had to do on the donated junkers.

  Lund wound around the fire engines, making his way to the source of the sound. He could use a chat with the weathered old firefighter. If the chief had been like a substitute father to him, Dempsey resembled the wise uncle.

  Come to think of it, he couldn’t sing a lick either.

  Circling Ladder One then Engine One, Lund scanned the three training cars. The cargo door of the van yawned open. He shimmied between fire engine and the other junkers until he could peer inside.

  Dempsey wasn’t there.

  But the van wasn’t empty, either.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Seven

  Emily

  Emily sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the girl. She was older than Emily, like a senior in high school or something. But although they’d never really spoken too much, sometimes when the bus reached Emily’s stop, the girl had a seat to herself, and she was always nice about letting Emily share.

  Emily felt bad that she was lying there, her hands tied, her eyes blindfolded, but she didn’t know what to do about it.

  When her employer had dropped the girl off, she’d simply told Emily to watch her, not to talk to her. When she’d found Ethan on the bed with the girl, curled in her lap, she’d almost had a heart attack, she was so worried her employer would know. She’d lured the little boy away with more crackers, always more crackers, and as she heard the sound of the back door unlatching, she was relieved she’d found them together before it was too late.

  Her employer stormed into the room. “Get Ethan out to the car. Now.”

  Emily didn’t say anything. She knew better than to do that. Her father had trained her well. She just grabbed Ethan and a box of crackers, carried him out the back door, across the wooded yard, to Rossum Park’s boat landing parking lot. The car was there, one she’d never seen before her employer had brought the girl. Ethan’s car seat and all his things jammed the back seat, more bags piled on the passenger seat. Emily strapped him in, gave him another cracker, and was just about to peek back at the house to see what was happening when her employer burst through the bushes leading the groggy girl.

  “Open the back door.”

  Emily did as she said.

  Her employer pushed the girl inside and guided her to lie down on the floor, the seat already jammed with Ethan’s suitcase and toy bag.

  “All right. Ready to go.” Her employer opened the driver’s door.

  “Where should I sit?” asked Emily.

  Her employer turned to her, staring at her as if not understanding a word she’d said.

  “There’s no room for me,” Emily explained. “Where should I sit?”

  “What makes you think you’re going with us?”

  “I, ah… Are you firing me?” Tears swamped Emily’s eyes. As weird and scary as this job had become, she still didn’t want to lose it. Losing it meant she would never see Ethan again. Losing it meant she’d have to return to her father. Losing it meant going back to being hit. “Please.”

  “I don’t need you anymore.”

  The girl. Was that why the girl was there? To replace Emily? She was older. More experienced with kids. She could probably even drive. “I can do lots of things. Please don’t make me go back home.”

  “You’re right. That probably wouldn’t be a good idea.”

  Her employer took something from the car, something long and thin and black that telescoped out like one of those compact umbrellas without the actual umbrella part. She flicked it and got longer, making a horrible sound.

  Ratt-attatt-attatt.

  Emily backed up, toward the lake. She wasn’t sure what was going on, but she didn’t like—

  The black pole moved so fast, she could hardly see it coming.

  The first blow clanged through her head, like her daddy’s fist.

  The second made the world go black.

  The third and she was in the lake, sinking, the water cold as it covered her face.

  Lund

  Four plastic barrels jammed together in the back of the van, and Lund didn’t have to think too hard to figure out what was inside.

  “Lund.”

  He spun toward the voice, and came face-to-face with Bix Johnson. For a second, he couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think.

  “Thought you left with Chief Ryker,” Johnson said.

  “I found Blaski’s bomb. It’s right here in the garage. In that panel van.”

  Johnson narrowed his eyes. “Here?”

  Lund dipped his hand in his pocket and pulled out his phone. “The police need to know. They’ll send the bomb squad, take it as evidence.”

  Johnson held up a hand. “Wait a second. I’ll call. This is very serious. Better to make it official.”

  Lund looked from Johnson to the van. Blaski hadn’t been out in the garage, not since Lund had arrived. So why did he leave the bay door open? Why risk anyone seeing what was in that van?

  Unless the Firebug wasn’t Blaski at all.

  Then who?

  Dempsey worked on the vehicles. He was out in the garage all the time.

  But Lund would sooner suspect himself than Dempsey.

  And that left…

  As surreal as the possibility of Blaski being the Fire Bug had been, it was easy to swallow next to the prospect that the arsonist was Johnson. Lund felt sick. Not just queasy, but unwell deep into his bones.

  He tapped his phone, redialing the last number called, then slid it back in his pocket. “That’s right. You’re the interim chief. And you have experience with this kind of thing from your job at Merlyne.”

  “I do. And while ANFO is pretty stable, and Blaski is in no position to detonate it, I think we’d better clear out.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me on that.” Lund held up his hands, palms out in surrender. “I’ve already been blown up too many times this week.”

  They stepped back from the van, Lund keeping Johnson in sight, trying to sidle between the junkers and Engine One without fully turning his back. “Why in the hell would Blaski do this? I thought everything was going pretty well for the kid.”

  “Don’t know.”

  “Isn’t he in one of that shrink’s support groups?”

  “Sometimes therapy doesn’t help. Sometimes it makes things worse.”

  “Poor kid. I guess I can see how he wanted to blame Tiedemann’s death on someone else, even if that someone was me.”

  “How did the cops decide on Blaski anyway?”

  “Not sure. But I think it had something to do with the shrink. Val wouldn’t tell me, but that’s my guess.” Lund wasn’t sure if Val was on the line listening or not, but he couldn’t risk checking. “Of course, the shrink could always be lying.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Maybe she’s protecting someone. Or maybe she set the fires herself.”

  “And why would she do that?”

  “I don’t know. Hell, maybe it has nothing to do with her at all.”

  Where in the hell was Val? He wasn’t sure how long he could continue this blather. And if that van held what he thought it did… something Johnson could build more easily than anyone else… the interim chief couldn’t afford to let Lund go around spreading the news.

  Lund would have to make his move before Bix did. But without a weapon or a way out, his best move was to stall, give Val time to bring the cavalry, and get the hell out o
f this garage.

  “So you’re talking to the shrink, right?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Talking to her. In one of those groups.”

  “Where did you hear that?”

  “The guys. You know. Some of them gossip more than their wives do.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Okay, I didn’t hear it. I was just thinking of talking to her myself, and wanted to know how the whole thing worked. I was hoping you’d had some experience.”

  “Can’t help you.”

  “You sure?

  “I’m sure.”

  “Has Tracy worked with her? Maybe I should call her.”

  “What are you getting at, Lund?”

  “Just gathering information.”

  “Shrinks are eighty times more screwed up than the rest of us, okay? That’s why they become shrinks, to try to figure themselves out. I wouldn’t go near her, if I were you. I’ll bet Blaski is regretting getting tangled up with her right now.”

  “Yeah, I bet he is.”

  “You said it yourself. Everything was going good for him, then Pender happened, and now?” He stopped ten feet from the front bumper of Engine One, clearly no intention to follow Lund the rest of the way. “Go on ahead and tell Nancy to clear out of the dispatch office.”

  “Are you sure I can’t—”

  “Go. That’s an order.”

  Lund had assumed Bix’s move would be to get rid of witnesses. Maybe he simply planned to make a run for it. Simply drive away, and then what? Then whoever he’d planned to use the explosives against would be dead, their lives sacrificed because Lund took the easy way out.

  There was no way that was going to happen.

  Lund glanced around, looking for a fire ax, a Halligan bar, something. The Milk Jug Firebug had stolen a mini arsenal from the Tiedemann house. Lund sure hoped Johnson didn’t have one of those weapons on him now.

  “Go. Get out of here.”

  Lund tensed, nothing within grabbing range, he’d have to rely on his fists or an old-fashioned football tackle. “What are you going to do, Bix?”

  “What do you think I’m going to do? I’m going to call the police.”

  “No need. I’m already here.”

  Chapter

  Twenty-Eight

  Val

  Val stood between the front of the big pumper truck and the closed garage door, her crutches canted under her, hand hovering close to her gun. She didn’t see a weapon, but with Lund standing between her and Johnson, his broad shoulders filling the gap between Engine One and a collection of three old cars, she wasn’t willing to take a chance. “I just want to talk, Bix. Find out what’s going on.”

  “How long have we been fighting fires together?” Lund splayed his hands, his voice outraged. “How in the hell could you be setting them?”

  “Lund…” Val said, hoping he heard the warning in her voice.

  Johnson shook his head, as if he was fighting against the illogic of that idea as much as Lund.

  “Why? After all these years?”

  A sound came from deep in Johnson’s throat, something akin to a growl. “You don’t know?”

  “Should I?”

  “I asked you to bring me on full time. After the plant closed, after I was destitute, after Tracy threatened to leave me. You and Fruehauf. But you refused. What the hell was I supposed to do?”

  “Get another job.”

  “It was a recession. There weren’t other jobs. The best I could hope for was that there’d be a drought, lots of calls.”

  “You set fires, so you’d be paid to fight them?”

  Johnson waved his hands in front of him as if trying to erase the misunderstanding. “They were small fires. Contained. No one was hurt. I made sure of it.”

  Tension rippled through Lund’s body. “Until Tiedemann.”

  “I didn’t have anything to do with that. I explained that to you.”

  Of course, Johnson had insisted there were two arsonists from the very beginning. Only it hadn’t occurred to Val that when Johnson was analyzing the original Milk Jug Firebug, he’d been talking about himself.

  “The Tiedemann fire,” Val spoke in a slow, calm voice, “that was someone else. A copycat.”

  Johnson nodded. “Exactly. That’s what I was trying to tell you. All I wanted was to prove I should be a full time firefighter. Always first on the scene. Always the best at the job. I would never hurt anyone.”

  “How about Fruehauf?” Lund said.

  “I… I didn’t mean for that to happen.”

  “Didn’t mean it? The cover on the oil tank was open.”

  “Lund, stop,” Val said. She could cover all this with Johnson once they got him away from the bomb, away from whatever kind of detonator he might possess. “Please.”

  Lund shook his head. “You of all people should know that it’s impossible to control fire, not all the time.”

  “That wasn’t supposed to happen,” Johnson said, his voice taking on a desperate tone that Val didn’t like one bit.

  “It was an accident,” she supplied.

  Johnson nodded. “I didn’t get the idea to pump out the oil until…”

  “You decided to build the bomb?” Lund supplied.

  “I didn’t want to build a bomb.” Johnson twisted to indicate the van over his shoulder. “It isn’t mine.”

  “Isn’t yours?” Lund shook his head, as if he didn’t believe it for a second.

  Val wasn’t sure she believed it either. “Someone forced you to build it?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who?”

  “I…” Johnson stumbled backward a few steps. “I can’t say.”

  Val stepped forward and laid her hand on Lund’s shoulder, pulling him back to the front of the truck and slipping around him. If she could, she’d scream at him to go, to run. Of course, knowing Lund, he wouldn’t go anyway. “Bix, if the bomb isn’t yours, then you don’t have anything to worry about. You let me know who forced you to make it, you explain it all to the district attorney, and this will all go pretty easily for you.”

  “They’ll fire me. I’m finally chief, but they won’t let me keep the job, not after they know.” Johnson held up his hand. In his fingers, he held a set of car keys, but it didn’t take a genius to figure out they were more than that.

  The detonator.

  Val drew her weapon with her clumsy right hand, switched it to her left, and leveled it on Johnson. “Lund, go.”

  She couldn’t hear his footsteps, had no idea if he’d listened or not.

  “Put it down, Bix.” Val’s voice was even, far more calm than she had any right to be, far calmer than she felt.

  Johnson shook his head. “She was going to tell everyone. She was going to tell you.”

  “You’re talking about JoAnn Pender?”

  “I talked to her. Once. She put it all together, what I was going through, the fires. At first she acted like she was trying to help. But she knew I worked at the Merlyne plant, that I knew…”

  “How to build a bomb.”

  “If she told, I would go to prison, and then I would have nothing. I would have less than nothing.” His eyes filled with tears, the corners red. He looked like a desperate little boy, out of control, with nowhere to turn.

  Where was that backup? The LLPD? The county? Someone to help her shut down Johnson while they waited for the bomb squad to arrive from Dane County.

  Training dictated she wait for backup before she rushed into a situation like that, but with Lund inside, letting her listen to what was going on over his cell phone, she knew that whatever the consequences, she couldn’t wait. She had to go in and get him out.

  Val glanced behind her, but Lund was no longer there.

  Thank God.

  “This bomb, it’s Pender’s problem, Bix. Not yours. She forced you to do it. She’s responsible. You need to tell your story.”

  Bix nodded, agreeing with her, buying in to her narrative.

 
; “But that only works if you turn the detonator over to me. Help me put her away.”

  He glanced at the key fob in his hand as if newly discovering it. “I… I can’t.” He moved his fingers on the device.

  Val willed herself to remain steady. With her right hand numb, she’d been practicing holding her gun in her left, but she still wasn’t confident her shot would be accurate. Even if it was, even if she hit him, he could set off the bomb anyway. “Set it on the floor, Bix.”

  “I can’t.”

  “If you detonate it, that won’t be her fault. If you detonate it, that’s on you.”

  A shudder shook Johnson’s whole body. Then another. “You don’t understand… The chief’s death… that’s on me already.”

  Val picked up the faint scream of a siren. “This isn’t your fault, Bix. I’ve been there. Being chief is tough. Some people don’t understand, but I do. You’re a good man just trying to do the best he could in a horrible situation. Anyone can see that.”

  Val heard a sound from behind her. She glanced over her shoulder to see Lund back at the corner of the truck.

  What the hell did he think he was doing?

  For a second, she wanted to twist around and aim the gun at him, make him leave, get out, get safe. If Johnson set off the bomb, he wouldn’t be able to save her. All three of them would die.

  She couldn’t let Bix set off that bomb. “You help me, Bix, and I’ll help you. I’ll explain it to everyone. You and me.”

  He cocked his head, and that’s when she knew he’d finally heard the sirens. Despair descended over him like a shadow. He shook his head over and over. “I can’t. I can’t. I can’t.”

  “We can discuss it,” Val said. “I’ll get my phone. I’ll call them. I’ll tell them to back off.”

  Gun in her left hand, it took forever for her to locate her phone with her numb right fingers. But eventually, she had Oneida on the line. “Tell Pete to stand down.”

  “What’s going on, Val?”

  “Stand down. Stand down. Tell them to turn off the sirens and stay back. We have a bomb.”

  The sirens grew louder.

  “They haven’t stopped,” Johnson said. His tears were flowing harder now, and his breath came in gasps.