Playing with Fire

by Rachel Lee

  Wayne sighed impatiently. “I hate this. Catching an arsonist is never easy. One like this even less so. Charity and I were talking earlier about how this seems to be about something more than getting a thrill from a fire. Something else is going on.”

  “And someone,” Sarah said, “is clearly nervous about what Charity might discover. I guess the title of arson investigator leads to all kinds of concerns for an arsonist. But that’s not really what you do, is it?”

  Charity explained once again. “Mainly I’m hunting for evidence that this fire might have been set to gain fraudulently from the insurer. I’m not equipped to hunt for the arsonist beyond a paper trail that might indicate the ranch’s owner could gain from this. You and the fire department do the real work. And as far as I can see, Mr. Buell stands to lose any way you slice it. We don’t usually see owner-instigated arson that results in losses. Mr. Buell isn’t the type of man who is going to be able to write this off to save himself from a code violation or whatever.”

  Sarah shook her head. “No, he’s not. I’ve known him since he was a kid. He’s put his heart and soul into making that ranch work for his family. It’s all he knows. This has to be killing him.”

  “I think it is,” Charity said.

  Sarah looked at her. “But you get some kind of training for this, right?”

  “I went to an arson academy way back. I didn’t focus as much on methods as on motives. The chief here has more training in identifying the actual causes of arson than I do.”

  “MMO,” Sarah said. “Any investigator’s triad. Means, motive and opportunity. I guess you’re still working on the means, Chief. The motive is unclear. The opportunity...”

  Charity answered. “Happened every Sunday morning when the Buells left the ranch to go to church. There was also opportunity when the new siding was put on the house.”

  Sarah nodded. “I remember that. A few houses had roof or siding damage from that hailstorm last fall. Fred was cussing because he felt wood siding would have stood up better, but the insurance would only pay for that metal stuff.”

  Charity perked. “How mad was he?”

  “Oh, not that mad. He just felt the money could have been better spent on something sturdier. According to him, the insurance was wasting its money. Maybe he’s right, I don’t know.”

  “That isn’t an unreasonable opinion,” Charity responded. “Sounds like a man thinking of a better way to prevent future losses. But there’s something going on here that doesn’t just have to do with fire.”

  Sarah agreed. “I’ve seen a lot, all these years as a deputy. Motives are often muddier than they seem at first. But this time...this isn’t just about setting fires. Anyway, the guy has a new target. The target is here. We’re going to keep a sharp eye out tonight. I just wanted you to be aware of it, Chief, so you weren’t wondering about prowlers. The city cops don’t have any overtime, so you’ll see deputies if you see anyone.” Sarah rose.

  “You haven’t had your coffee yet,” Wayne objected.

  Sarah smiled. “I’m one of your watchers tonight. Gotta get to it.”

  After she left, silence filled the house once again. Charity was no longer tapping at her computer, or even really looking at it. Wayne was twisting the pieces of this mystery around in his head like one of those old wooden puzzle boxes.

  “None of this is making any sense,” he said.

  “No, it isn’t.”

  He hesitated, then said, “Coffee?”

  “Thanks. I might actually get to drink it this time.”

  So the interlude was over. She’d enticed him like a siren, fueling desires he’d been ignoring and burying for years now. Living like a monk didn’t exactly suit him, but he had a daughter and he had a public position. Plus, during so many years of monogamy, he’d never once felt a strong urge to kick over the traces and sample around. He guessed he was one of those one-woman men, so what the hell had he been thinking earlier?

  Donna wafted into his mind as he filled the mugs yet again and carried them back to the living room. So Charity thought the woman was sweet on him? Man, he didn’t want that. He was her boss, and anyway, Donna had never caught his attention that way. That was one spark that hadn’t flickered even briefly.

  They sat on opposite ends of the couch and Wayne realized he felt ready to spring. Waiting for another knock on the door? Waiting for something? Maybe a solution to drop in his lap from the heavens?

  “I’m sorry.”

  He turned his head toward Charity. “For what?”

  “You want the whole laundry list?”

  As frustrated as he felt, he couldn’t contain a smile. “After only a few days, it can’t be much of a list.”

  “It’s long enough.” She clapped down the lid on her laptop. “I brought danger your way.”

  “You’re just doing your job. You didn’t cause any of this, and considering that I’m heading up the investigation at this point, I might have been a target anyway.”

  She turned on the couch, stretching out one leg and leaning back against its arm. He liked it when she sat that way. Snug denim reminded him of the incredible legs beneath it. He hadn’t seen many women in his life who had legs that would look great on a chorus line.

  “Then,” she said, “I’ve flirted with you beyond belief. I’m usually more professional.” A tiny impish smile appeared on her face. “You’re certainly the first guy I ever stripped for.”

  His heart slammed. He cleared his throat, suddenly caught up again in the musky tendrils of desire that had been winding around them such a short time ago.

  “No answer for that?” Her smile widened a shade. “You do things to me, Chief. Can’t explain it, and I’m not going to dissect it. Maybe I got a little carried away. It’s the first time someone’s actually tried to kill me. Plenty of threats, but no action. So maybe I decided I deserved to have some fun.”

  He felt himself hardening again, and shifted so she couldn’t see it. He was beginning to have some doubts about whether either of them could skate through this as a one-night stand. He wasn’t at all sure he was built that way. As for her, he didn’t know how much she might be riding the edge of shock and fear and trying to avoid thinking about it.

  He was sure of one thing, though: she was opening up and he was finally getting a peek into that complex head of hers. And maybe, in some way, he was finally getting a peek into his own. So many things he hadn’t done and hadn’t allowed himself the space and time to think about since his divorce. Maybe he’d buried himself in being a dad and a fire chief to the exclusion of everything else.

  “I was thinking,” she continued, “while I straightened myself up in the bathroom so I wouldn’t embarrass you, that maybe I went too far. I mean, I’m not the only one to consider here.”

  He cleared his throat again. “You know I want you.” Did she color faintly?

  But her answer was blunt. “That I do. But there’s always the morning after. You said I should have been named Lilith. It was flattering in a way, but it got me to thinking. I don’t want you to feel like the victim of a drive-by later. I have a tendency that way. I told you. I don’t want to leave any wreckage in my wake here.”

  As much as he wanted to deny it, to claim he could handle it, he couldn’t honestly say that. He had no experience of drive-bys, or one-night stands or whatever. He just simply had never done that. He’d married almost right out of high school, and within a short time had had a brand-new daughter. Not even the bit of college or the fire academy had put the brakes on Lindy’s conception and arrival.

  She leaned forward a little and drew absent patterns on the sofa fabric with her fingertip. “I’ve never been much interested in one-night stands in the past. I can’t tell you how I’d react. For me, there were three long-term relationships. I got to know the guy first, we dated for weeks or month
s until I thought I’d found something steady, all before we did more than kiss. Didn’t help much in the end to be so cautious at the beginning, but that’s always been my approach.”

  “So this is not you? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “I’m saying I don’t know if this is a part of me or a moment of near hysteria. Either way, I’m not a good bet. And now I know why.”

  Now the picture was coming together for him. Now he was understanding her, and he felt a heaviness in his chest. She’d reached out for something she wanted, then withdrew into her shell at the first opportunity, to protect both of them. Damned if he knew a way around that. All he knew was that he felt bad for her.

  “So anyway,” she continued a little too brightly, “I’m sorry I was a tease, and I’m glad Donna showed up to make sure we weren’t in bed together.”

  That hit him like a punch. Was that really why Donna had showed up? He’d be the first to admit he didn’t pay attention to such things, and his mind didn’t run along those paths, but as a woman, Charity might have sniffed it out. She might have caught on to something he didn’t know how to detect.

  “You really think that’s why she was here?”

  “Telephones exist,” she said drily. “She wanted to know if I was here. She wanted to see with her own eyes that I was still being businesslike. A phone call would have satisfied nothing. I guess I must be pinging her threat meter, even though I won’t be here long.”

  Then she turned, putting both feet on the floor and opened her computer. “We need to work, Chief. There’s something going on here and we need to nail it down.”

  He didn’t know how her computer was going to help much with any of this, but it was probably safer than looking at each other.

  He might understand a little better what was going on inside Charity, but he didn’t have a clue as to what was happening with the arsonist.

  And that was beginning to terrify him.

  Chapter 8

  They sat staring at a list of possible motivations built from their own experience and from searching the web. It wasn’t a very long list of motives for arson, topped by an attempt to defraud and at the very bottom, jealousy and revenge. The latter two seemed to be the primary causes of arsons committed by women, which were rare to the extreme.

  “And we can cross them all off,” Wayne said, “because of what happened to you.”

  Charity shook her head slowly, carefully avoiding Wayne’s gaze. “Maybe not. We might be making a mistake to link what happened to me to the other arsons. Think about it. Just because someone put a fire starter out behind the house doesn’t mean they’re the same person who torched the Buells. It might be a copycat or someone with an entirely different motive. And I’m going to get a headache.”

  She flopped back against the sofa and blew a long breath. “I can’t imagine any woman being jealous of Fred Buell. Or wanting revenge.”

  “Why not?” He sounded defensive.

  “I don’t mean there’s anything wrong with Mr. Buell. But he’s got a family, he never goes anywhere and he works his butt off. Does he strike you as the type who would fool around even if he could find time?”

  “Well, no,” Wayne admitted.

  “Exactly. I’ve heard not one critical word about that man here. Assuming one of his kids didn’t tick someone off, or his wife isn’t having an affair when she goes to church with the family on Sunday.”

  Wayne laughed. It sounded reluctant, but it emerged anyway. “Sorry, I know this isn’t funny, but...”

  Charity shrugged and smiled back. “I meant it to sound funny. But seriously. I doubt that family drove anyone to those lengths. They don’t have time and they live too far away from the neighbors. It’s not as if there’s a problem with a barking dog or something. And I assume if his livestock strayed into someone else’s land, he’d be called and asked to recover them.”

  “I can’t imagine any rancher wouldn’t do exactly that. If the problem became frequent, they might ask the sheriff to stop by, but my guess is if Buell had a fence down his neighbor would be helping to patch it.”

  “That’s the sense I get, too, but I haven’t been here that long.” She sighed, ran her hands through her hair, pulling half of it out of the neat chignon, paying it no mind. “The box is too small.”

  “Box?”

  “We’re looking at typical arson motivations. We’re linking two incidents that may be separate.”

  He rose and returned quickly with two fresh mugs of coffee. She took hers with thanks, and drank.

  “So you want to go outside the box?” he asked. “That widens the field, all right, but makes the problem a whole lot bigger.”

  “True,” she agreed, “but right now the box we’re in isn’t helping at all. There’s nothing typical about any of this. If there is, it’s buried beneath something else.”

  He sat thinking for a minute or so. “Okay. It can’t hurt. We’re not getting anywhere this way. So let’s start with what’s outside the box.”

  “The Buell fire was no typical arson. It appears to have been well planned. No simple crime of opportunity. It could have killed five people in addition to the livestock. I gather that around here killing a man’s livestock is tantamount to murder.”

  “Pretty much anywhere that would be true. It’s his livelihood. It’s his treasure, and his family’s future.”

  “Which could put this in the category of a whole lot of anger against Buell. But that brings us back to an inoffensive man. We need to dig further into his past.”

  He arched a brow. “How so?”

  “I don’t know. Let me think about that. It may be a very old grudge. We need to think about how he might have unintentionally hurt someone way back.”

  “This is revenge in slow motion if that’s true.”

  “I know. It’s just an idea. All I know is this person’s motives are muddy. They don’t fit the usual, so we’ve got to look at everything.” She shook her head, and for the first time truly noticed her hair had fallen. Impatiently, she pulled the rest of the pins from her head and let it all tumble down. She scattered the pins on the table, then stared at them. This whole investigation looked like that.

  Absently, she reached out a fingertip and began to move them around. “Say the stuff that’s happened to me has been done by the same person. We’ve been supposing that, so maybe we ought to suppose it for a little while longer until we can disprove it.”

  “I don’t think we should rule out the connection too quickly,” he said firmly. “The first incident was too much like a warning. The second...”

  “Was attempted murder. The Buell fire may have been, as well. But if we keep coming back to that, we’re inside the box again, and this box isn’t fitting.”

  She continued to avoid looking at him, mainly because she was a little embarrassed. What had gotten her to pull that striptease earlier? That wasn’t like her. A moment of wildness because death had come so very close? Or her attraction to this man, which was strong? If she could just be sure what had been going on inside her, she’d feel a whole lot better. It seemed she had a sexy imp buried within. Another revelation to add to the list tonight.

  He wasn’t the only one, she thought ruefully, who couldn’t figure out what was going on inside her head. She darted a glance at him, but he seemed to have let the earlier interlude slip into the past. He was intensely focused, his clipboard in front of him, scribbling notes here and there as they talked.

  “I should just go back to firefighting,” she remarked. The words startled her even as she spoke them.

  He smiled faintly. “I thought you were ready to move on.”

  “I thought so, too. But I missed it more than I expected, and you know what?”

  “What?”

  “It was a hell of a lot simpler than this.�
� She gathered her hair with one hand and began to twist it back up onto her head.

  He spoke. “Unless it’s driving you crazy, leave it down. You have pretty hair.”

  His words sucked the air from the room. “Wayne...”

  “I know. Neither of us really wants to play with that kind of fire. I get it. But let me enjoy the eye candy.”

  She felt her cheeks turn red-hot. No man had ever before said she was eye candy. Her blush didn’t keep her from smiling, though. She liked it. “Tsk,” she said, then laughed. “You’re eye candy, too, Chief.”

  His smile widened. “Okay, you wanted to get back to business. I’m old enough to behave. I get having a taste for firefighting, obviously, but have you been that miserable in your job?”

  “Why, do I have to be miserable to remember I once took greater satisfaction from something else? And it was satisfying in a way this job will never be.” She tossed the pins back on the table. “I’m kinda between worlds in this job. I have to let you guys and law enforcement do ninety percent of the real work, and then I piece it all together. I get some satisfaction from clearing an owner and getting him his money. I get some real satisfaction from preventing fraud. But it’s not the same, and I’m feeling so hampered right now it’s not funny.”

  “You wouldn’t be any less hampered if you were one of my crew.”

  “I know. But at least they get to help people in important ways, even if they don’t get to do it as often as they’d like.” She fell silent, thinking about what she’d just discovered about herself, and wondering if it was a temporary aberration. Given her penchant for moving on, she couldn’t really trust herself, could she?

  Wayne tossed down his pencil. “Just for a moment, let’s put the Buell fire back in the target-of-opportunity box.”

  “How so?”

  “Well, say we have someone who likes to play with fire. Maybe he’s been experimenting to amuse himself. Trying out different ideas for creating a fire. Maybe he just tried this one out, but never thought he’d have a chance to really do it. Maybe never intended to really do it. Just had kicks trying it. And then Buell is having that siding put on, and all of a sudden there’s an opportunity to try it full-scale.”