Playing with Fire

by Rachel Lee

  Nor did she believe this wasn’t the arsonist. She hadn’t been here long enough to make anyone want to kill her. Hadn’t had the time to anger or worry anyone else.

  This guy had to be stopped at any cost. He’d definitely crossed the line, putting himself in a rare class of people who didn’t just want the excitement of a fire, but wanted to kill.

  The Buell fire had suggested a murder attempt, but there was no way to prove it. The speed with which that house had gone up might not have been intentional. This was intentional.

  Another car pulled up. She recognized the sheriff.

  Enough of sitting here. Reaching over, she turned off Wayne’s engine, grabbed the keys and climbed out, wrapping the blanket around herself once more. Sooner or later fury would make her warm again, but it hadn’t yet.

  She stepped inside. Techs were examining the disabled detectors. Bright floodlights had been carried down into the cellar, to judge by the light pouring out the cellar door. She quickly stepped aside into the living room as a rubber-gloved tech moved past with a case.

  She heard familiar voices in the kitchen and darted in there to find Wayne, the sheriff and a man in a blue police uniform. She edged up to Wayne and passed him his car keys.

  Conversation stopped. Finally Wayne said, “Charity, this is our police chief, Jake Madison. Jake, Charity Atkins, the insurance company arson investigator.”

  Jake immediately smiled. “Nice to meet you. Obviously I would have preferred better circumstances. How are you doing?”

  “I’m starting to get very angry.”

  Without a word, Wayne slipped his arm around her shoulders. “It’s hitting,” he said. “I thought you were too calm, woman.”

  Did she imagine the glances passing between the two other men as Wayne drew her against his side? Damned if she cared.

  “Adrenaline,” she said shortly. “But it works only so long. Do you think you’ll find anything?”

  “We’re sure as hell going to try,” Jake said. “We’re sending everything to the crime lab, but the prints we lifted are probably all Hanks or yours.”

  “Why?”

  “Because whoever did this was smart.”

  “Yeah, I’ve noticed. How did he get in?”

  “The window locks can be jimmied from the outside with a spackle knife. All you need is some darkness.”

  Charity shook her head. “There hasn’t been a whole lot of dark time when I haven’t been here. And Hank’s been keeping an eye out since the arson incident.” Then she paused. “He’s also dealing with a colicky baby.”

  “Folks go to work,” Gage said. “They come home and focus on dinner. If someone didn’t seem out of place... Well, we’ve got to check sightlines on the window that was jimmied. It might have created more opportunity.”

  “It wouldn’t have taken a whole lot of time to do this,” Wayne remarked. “In through a window out of sight, then out the front door as though it was perfectly normal. Who’d be paying attention?”

  He paused, then dropped his next words like a stone. “Everyone knows why Charity is here. One of my crew wouldn’t have seemed out of place.”

  The chill returned to Charity, trickling through her like glacial runoff, numbing her anew. She’d been with many of those guys just today. She couldn’t believe any of them would have done this.

  But maybe it was time to accept it.

  * * *

  Hank Jackson returned as things were beginning to wind down. “Am I allowed to fix that furnace now?”

  Looks were exchanged. “I think we got all we can,” Gage said. Jake Madison agreed.

  “I’ll do it first thing tomorrow,” Hank said. “Before the colic starts up again.” He looked at Charity. “I’m not sure it’s safe for you here anymore.”

  “Or for you,” she said, her lips feeling stiff. “I don’t want to bring any more trouble your way. I’m sorry I’ve caused you this much.”

  “Hey,” said Wayne. “You didn’t cause this.”

  Hank nodded agreement. “I’m not holding you responsible for any of this. We got us a lunatic. The important thing is you being safe.”

  Agreeing they’d all meet again tomorrow at the Sheriff’s offices, the last of them trickled out, except for Wayne.

  “You stay at my place tonight,” he said. “I’m not letting you out of my sight.”

  “I seem to be a flash point,” she argued. “You have Linda to think about.”

  “Linda called when I was on the way over. She’s going to stay with Charlene tonight. Regardless, if you think I’m going to let you go sit in a cheesy motel room across from a truck stop where anything could happen, you’re out of your mind. Pack some stuff. I have a guest room.”

  The house had grown considerably colder since the furnace and probably water heater were turned off. The windows had been closed, but all that did was remove the outside air from the equation.

  She packed quickly, running on automatic, as if she was getting ready to fly home. Leaving nothing behind.

  The way, it suddenly seemed, that she had been living her whole life.

  * * *

  Wayne didn’t say anything on the short drive to his house. There was nothing he could say that wouldn’t be a useless eruption of fury. Work the problem. His mantra for many years, but it was wearing thin. First the appalling Buell fire and now what was clearly the attempted murder of a woman who was here only to ensure that Buell got his rightful compensation from insurance.

  He couldn’t for the life of him imagine how she threatened anyone. But he knew one thing for certain—no matter how much he might not want to see the last of her, he had to get her out of here soon.

  Like tomorrow.

  They reached his house and pulled into the driveway. When he turned off the ignition, neither of them moved or spoke. He felt the withdrawal in her, probably the main reason she wasn’t erupting. Wasn’t expressing anything, really. Under the circumstances, she seemed too calm.

  Not good.

  He climbed out and rounded the car to open the door for her. She looked at the open door for a second, then joined him. They grabbed her two suitcases and her laptop case and walked the short distance to his front door. He let them in, waving at her to go first. He grabbed the one bag remaining and followed her in.

  “Have a seat somewhere,” he said. “I’m going to make you something hot to drink. You look chilled to the bone.”

  Chilled to the soul more like, he thought. This was a woman who had fought fires and who must have faced other difficulties in life, but this was different. It was not every day that you narrowly escaped being murdered.

  And they were dealing with a murderer. There was no question in his mind that somehow the arsons and this were linked. There could be no other reason to target this woman. None at all.

  When he returned with cups of hot chocolate for them, she was sitting on the couch, still wrapped in the comforter she had taken, her jacket underneath. She stared at the cup he offered her, then blinked and took it.

  “You’re not okay,” he said finally as he sat beside her.

  “No, I guess not,” she replied, her tone dull. “I feel awfully numb. It’s as if everything inside me has just shut down completely.”

  “It’s hard to deal with something like this,” he said sympathetically. “Me, I’m mad enough to spit nails.”

  “I’ll get there, I suppose.” The comforter slipped from her shoulders as she cradled the mug in both hands. He wondered if he should pull it up again, then decided she might be too fragile for even a caring touch at this point.

  He could only imagine what must be going on inside her.

  “You know,” she said after a while, “I’ve faced worse things than this. Roaring fires that could easily have killed me. Why does this feel dif
ferent?”

  “Because this time it’s personal.”

  At that something moved in her face. She lifted the mug at last and sipped. “Yeah. It’s personal. Hugely personal. It doesn’t make sense, but why should it? None of this is making sense. Few arsonists can create a fire like Buell’s. Few arsonists want to kill anyone. Few arsonists change tack and try to commit murder with carbon monoxide poisoning. And most arsonists know how unlikely they are to be caught if they keep their mouths shut.”

  “Maybe you’re crediting arsonists with too much intelligence.”

  “This one is no slouch. And this one has slipped the rails completely.” A long shaky breath escaped her and she leaned forward to put the hot chocolate on the coffee table, careful to set it on a coaster. Considering how many rings from old soda cans marred the top, the gesture was touching in a way. Or maybe a mark of her personality that even now she noticed little things.

  Then he spoke the tough words, words that were surprisingly hard to say when he had known this woman such a short time. “You have to leave. Tomorrow. There’s too much risk for you.”

  He couldn’t have chosen better words to strike a fire. In an instant she sprang to her feet, leaving the comforter behind, and began to pace dizzying circles in his small living room.

  “No.”

  “Charity, be reasonable! You’ve done ninety-five percent of your job. You can interview Mrs. Buell by phone. There’s nothing left for you to do here, so why put your head in a guillotine?”

  She faced him, planting her feet like a boxer in the ring. “Because this guy must be caught. You think he’ll stop with me? What if he decides you’re a threat? Maybe you aren’t worried about yourself, but there’s Linda to consider. There’s also the possibility of future fires like the Buells’. More lives than mine are in the balance here. This is no typical arsonist and you know it.”

  “But...”

  “But what can I do? I can stay here, that’s what. We know I’m a target. This guy is going to slip up.”

  Her hazel eyes blazed, and he saw the fury in her. While fury was a far sight better than her withdrawal, it worried him in a different way. This angry, she might do something stupid. He hoped it would wear off fast.

  But something else was rising in him, too. He cared about all the people he knew, would have protected any of them with his life, but this woman was somehow special, and damned if he was going to let her put herself needlessly in the line of fire. “We’ll catch him. You don’t need to put your head in a noose for us to do it.”

  “Ha.” It was an angry, bitter sound. “Unless this guy was stupid enough to leave fingerprints all over Hank’s place, I doubt you’re going to get a clue. One of your firefighters? Maybe. But you can’t put on blinders yet. Besides, you made a point of minimizing my role in arson investigation. They’ve all heard by now that I’m not here to solve this. So that tells you something right there.”

  In spite of his own tide of anger and worry, he reined himself in, gathered his churning thoughts. She was right. He’d done what he could to make her seem like less of a threat.

  “So something else is going on here,” she said.

  “But what?” he demanded. There wasn’t room for both of them to pace, so he stayed on the edge of the couch, his hands knotted together, his elbows on his knees.

  She threw up a hand. “I don’t know! How could I? It would require some kind of connection between the Buell fire and what he tried to do to me. I can’t figure it. But it’s sure as hell not limited to the orgasmic excitement of watching something burn and the fun of watching firefighters go to work. It’s not boredom. There has to be something else going on, some link we’re not seeing.”

  He supposed her anger was preferable to her earlier withdrawal, but he feared it just the same. Somehow it had to be tamped down, controlled, like the difference between a brush fire and a campfire. One wreaked havoc, the other was a useful tool.

  “Charity...ease up for a minute. I don’t blame you for being furious, scared or anything else you need to feel right now. But thinking is best done with a cooler head. You don’t need me to tell you that.”

  It was a part of every firefighter’s training, learning to resist the emotions of the moment and keep a clear head. He waited, hoping it would take hold. He knew she had to be capable of it, or she wouldn’t have survived a year as a volunteer. They’d have benched her quickly.

  For an instant she looked as if she wanted to take his head off. Then she visibly deflated, and came to sit beside him on the couch. “You’re right,” she said quietly.

  “You can storm if you want. Cry, rant, whatever. I’ll listen. I’ll hold you. Get it all out. Only then can we go to work.”

  One corner of her mouth lifted a fraction. “You’re not all that calm, either.”

  “No, I’m not. I told you how mad I am. But we both need to recognize that we need cooler heads. You might be right about some other agenda. You probably are. But we need to get through our gut reactions before we have any hope of getting anywhere. So have at it. I’ll probably join you. The urge to kick something is pretty strong right now. There aren’t words for what I felt when I saw the carbon monoxide detector had been deliberately disabled. There aren’t words for how I felt when I realized how close you came to not waking in the morning. So do I want to shout? That’s the least of it.”

  She blew a short, sharp breath. “Wayne? I think it’s starting to hit me.”

  About time, he thought. She’d been too controlled for too long, and anger wasn’t going to satisfy her. It simply couldn’t be her only response to discovering someone had tried to kill her.

  “Whatever he’s trying to accomplish, this guy’s a coward,” she said quietly. “Dealing his blows stealthily, from a safe distance. He doesn’t want to come out of the shadows. We need to make him.”

  * * *

  She drank her cocoa and asked for more. Adrenaline used up calories fast. He was sure this wasn’t over, and he kept waiting for the next bout as this mess continued to sink in.

  He didn’t hold it against her that it was taking time. Some things were so shocking that the brain simply rebelled, feeding it out in bits, letting it sink in slowly.

  She was halfway through her second cup of cocoa when he saw her start to shake. She put her cup down quickly and wrapped her arms around herself as if that would stop it.

  He slid across the couch and added his arms to hers, hugging her tightly, feeling the tremors rip through her.

  “Just let it happen,” he murmured.

  Without any difficulty, he leaped back to the moment when his wife said she was leaving. He’d been in shock then, disbelieving then believing, a seesaw of emotions that took him from rage to anguish and back. He remembered the denial, the numbness that had held it all at bay, but not for long enough. He remembered it crashing in on him again and again, like huge waves battering a shoreline, battering him. Until finally he’d accepted the truth: he had lost his wife. Only then had he truly felt the failure, the grief, the emptiness in his life. But first he’d had to accept.

  She spoke, her voice tight and shaky. “Monoxide is a horrible way to go.”

  “Yeah.”

  “People think you just go to sleep. But what if you wake up?”

  He’d seen it once. An attempted suicide, but the car had run out of gas too soon. The result had been horrifying. Neurologic damage had probably been the worst of it in the end, but there had been burns, too, a process he didn’t fully understand. Sometimes there was violent sickness—headaches and vomiting that were often ascribed to something else, unless the exposure was already known. If more people had understood the possible consequences, they wouldn’t begin to consider it a good choice for suicide.

  But then, few methods were.

  He rocked gently, waiting for her tremors
to pass. He had no doubt Charity was a tough cookie when she needed to be, but this was an experience beyond what most folks would consider remotely normal.

  “I’m being stalked,” she said in that same thin voice.

  “Which is why I keep saying you need to go home, be safe.” He didn’t want her to go, but even less did he want her to be hurt or killed.

  “No,” she said again, her voice a little stronger. “Somehow I became part of something bigger, and someone else might pay if I just leave.” She looked at him from hollow eyes. “Two attempts on me, Wayne. The first a warning. This one could have been a successful murder. If anyone’s going to draw this guy out, it’s me. And we have to do it before he sets another fire like the Buells’.”

  He wanted to argue with her, but she’d put him at an impasse. If this arsonist had the ability and the taste for it, he could do the Buell job all over again. Not soon, maybe, but eventually. And maybe next time the family wouldn’t escape. It was clear now that he didn’t care if he killed someone. That made him all the more dangerous.

  In the meantime, there’d be smaller fires, fires that caused property damage and all the heartache and fear that went with it even when no one was injured. People around here were getting nervous. He’d heard it earlier this evening. Any one of them could be the next victim. That was what they were thinking, with the Buell fire at the top of their minds.

  Every single fire created risks with potentially deadly consequences. Even when a building was empty, fire crews could get seriously injured or killed fighting the blaze. There was no innocent arson.

  Gradually her shuddering stopped. She didn’t try to pull away, just leaned against him almost limply. When she spoke, she took the conversation in a totally unexpected direction.

  “I told you,” she said in a small voice, “that my boyfriends get fed up with my traveling, and we break up.”

  He waited, sensing that something important was about to emerge. “Yes.” He kept the word quiet, hoped it was encouraging.