“More.” Her voice was husky as she freed one hand long enough to drag his mouth back to hers. But while she kissed him, his mind was firmly fixed on her hands, back under his shirt, as one wandered toward his right side. He stiffened, preparing for the coming blow, knowing that he’d never really be ready for it—
She went still, and then leaned back far enough to look into his eyes. “You okay? You were with me, and suddenly it’s like you’re not there.”
“Sure. I’m great.” He laughed, but the sound had a sharp edge to it. He cursed himself silently as she considered him, then nearly swore under his breath when she pulled out of his arms to stand beside the couch.
She stood for a moment, staring down at him, her eyes sharply assessing. “Lie down.”
“What?”
“Lie down,” she repeated more slowly.
Cautiously, he stretched out on the couch.
She sat down beside him on the edge of the cushion, her hip pressing against his. “How long has it been since you slept with a woman?”
A shiver of shock ran through him at her question, the hot burn of embarrassment following close behind. “How long has it been since you slept with someone,” he retorted, then grimaced. “Sorry.”
“It’s a question you have a right to ask. Not since my last long-term relationship ended over a year ago. Now, your turn.”
“It’s been . . . a while.” When she simply raised her eyebrows and the silence dragged on, he finally said, “Like since before coming to Boston kind of a while. Okay?” He heard the defensiveness in his own voice and could have kicked himself. Smooth, Matt.
She leaned down over him, laying one hand flat against his chest, her face so close that her breath whispered across his lips. “There’s nothing wrong with being selective. I’ll take it as a compliment that I’m the one you’ve chosen after all that time.” She sank into a long slow kiss with him before pulling back. “But we have a problem.”
He had a bad feeling that he knew what she was referring to, but he played dumb, hoping he was wrong. “Problem?”
“Whenever it looks like we might be getting physically intimate, you pull back. Just like you did in your bedroom after the Hershey house. But then you not only pulled back, you shut me out.” He drew breath to speak, but she cut him off. “I’ll make you a deal. I’ll show you mine, and then you show me yours.” She gave a small laugh when his eyes shot wide in shock. “That wasn’t exactly what I meant, at least not quite yet. But you’re not comfortable in your own skin with me, even though I’ve told you I don’t have any problems with your scars.”
He felt hot color flood his cheeks, but she laid one palm gently against his jaw, not letting him turn away. “There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. But from where I’m sitting it looks to me like maybe the reason you haven’t dated in so long is because you put up roadblocks so no one ever has a chance to see your scars.”
He stared at her, not sure what to say.
“I’m not interested in unnecessary roadblocks.” She pulled her hand from his jaw, her fingers whispering over his skin. To his shock they went to the tiny buttons that ran up the front of her blouse, slowly undoing them. “I told you, I’ll show you mine first.” She locked gazes with him. “My scar.”
He bolted upright and shifted his hips backward on the couch cushions. “You have a scar? What happened? Were you . . .” His voice trailed off as his gaze fixed on the delicate midnight-blue lace revealed by the parted material.
Silence lay heavy as she undid the rest of the buttons. Then she spread the blouse wide and let it fall off her shoulders.
“And to think I had you pegged as the sensible cotton type.” His voice was hoarse as his mouth had suddenly gone dry. Her skin, drenched in firelight, was almost luminous. Stunned, he took in the delicate lace intertwining of leaves and petals overlaying a scant amount of matching dark silk, perfectly framing her breasts. “Was I ever wrong.”
“This is my concession to me. I work with a bunch of men who expect me to conform to their dictates of dress and behavior. They don’t need to know that those tailored suits hide some spectacular lingerie.” She hooked two fingers under the twin satin straps laying over her left shoulder and slid them down to rest against her arm, baring the upper curve of her left breast.
The hunger building in Matt at the sight of her gorgeous body dissolved as his gaze fixed on the small circle of scar tissue. He raised his hand to touch it, and then checked the motion, his hand frozen in midair.
“It’s all right.” She took his hand in hers, and pressed it to her skin. “You can touch me.”
With exquisite care, he ran the pads of his fingers over her skin, feeling the lump of hardened tissue under his touch. “How did—”
She cut him off, the steel in her tone a surprise. “Gunshot wound. Let’s just leave it at that.”
His gaze jumped to her eyes. There was a banked misery there that he understood on a visceral level. Deep waters here. Something she’s not ready to share yet.
He knew exactly how that felt.
He turned his attention back to her breast. “You could have been killed.” He felt some of the stiffness ease from her body as he focused on the injury itself.
“The doctors said I was very lucky. Apparently it just missed a major blood vessel.”
“One of the pulmonary vessels, from the location,” Matt said, without pausing to think. “Or maybe the subclavian, depending on the angle.”
“Sometimes I forget that you know as much about soft tissue as you do about bones from your time as a medic. Now . . . your turn.”
His hand froze over her skin before slowly dropping away to lie limply against his thigh. “My turn?”
“I showed you my scar. Now it’s your turn.” Their eyes met, held. “Show me yours.”
His jaw clenched as his gaze dropped.
“Do you trust me?”
He gave a reluctant nod.
“Then trust me with this.”
With a quiet sigh, he sat up. He tugged his T-shirt up and over his head to drop it carelessly on the floor. He lay back against the arm of the couch, his right arm thrown over his head, clearly exposing his damaged side to the firelight. He turned his face away from her to stare sightlessly over the back of the couch.
But she cupped his chin, turning his face back to her. “Don’t look away,” she said quietly. “We’re doing this together.” She pulled his upraised arm back down, and took his hand in hers, interlinking their fingers to bring them together to the twisted mass of tissue marring his skin.
He forced himself to look down, seeing it as she did for the first time.
The scar stretched over his side, a full six inches in width and disappearing out of sight below the waistband of his jeans. The skin was a mottled red-brown, a continuous mass of melting, twisted knots of flesh.
Their hands still intertwined, Leigh ran their fingertips over his skin, following a long line of raised, uneven tissue.
Instead of watching their joint exploration of his flesh, he focused on her face, waiting for the reaction he expected from every woman: Horror. Distaste. Worst of all, pity.
But it never came.
She simply took him in, her eyes closely examining every ridge and discoloration. But there was no disgust in her expression.
It was a revelation to him.
The silence stretched until she finally looked up. “Do you know what I see when I look at you?” she asked him softly.
He mutely shook his head.
She released his hand to lay it on her thigh, then pressed both her hands against the defined muscles of his abdomen. “I see a man who works himself hard at the oars—your body clearly shows that.” She ran her hands up his stomach and chest, sliding them over his pectorals and wide shoulders, then stroking down over his biceps. Her left hand slowed to trace the fresh scar on his right biceps—a new addition following a narrow escape during the Bradford case. “It’s sexy. You didn’t look like thi
s three years ago. It’s a definite improvement.” She laid her hands against his sides, smooth skin under one, and thick, ridged skin under the other. “I also see a man who bears the marks of his time in service to his country. Do you remember what I called your scar before?” She lifted her hand to lightly touch the line of twisted skin running into his hairline at his right temple.
“A badge of honor.”
“Yes.” Her hand came back to rest against the ruined skin. “Be proud of it.” She looked down at the injury. “Can I ask how it happened?”
The blackness threatened to pull him under, but this time Matt fought back. He’d spent too much time during their first case at its mercy. He roughly cleared his throat. “I was with the Fifteenth Marine Expeditionary Unit that established the first land base in Afghanistan—Camp Rhino—and then proceeded into Kandahar to take the airport. But after that, we were tasked with raids in southern Afghanistan. We were trying to take command of a Taliban stronghold when we were ambushed. They were above us in the hills and we were pinned down. It was bad.” He closed his eyes, once again feeling the earth shake from explosions, and hearing the whine of bullets flying and the screams of his comrades. “Guys were dropping like flies around me. I was trying to get to those closest to me to patch them up when I got hit.” He touched the scar at his temple. “The bullet grazed me, but still cracked against my skull hard enough that I went down. I probably passed out for a few seconds. I came to and managed to get up again to stagger over to one of the men. He was bleeding out fast and I was trying to stabilize him when an RPG—a rocket-propelled grenade—exploded nearby. We were both thrown from the force of the fireball. I had enough left to crawl across the sand and turn him over to see if I could help, but he was gone. The last thing I remember was pain like I’d never felt before—like my body was burning from the inside out. And then it all went dark.”
Leigh remained silent, but stroked his skin soothingly as he talked.
“When I woke up, I was back in Camp Rhino. One of the other medics had done his best to patch me up, but out there in the field, all you try to do is keep the guys alive; you don’t aim for pretty. If I’d been stateside with a plastic surgeon on call, I’d look different, but I was in a field hospital and this is how I turned out.” He looked thoughtful for a moment. “I’ve thought about plastic surgery and having it reshaped—”
“No!” Leigh’s eyes widened at her own outburst.
“You’d leave it?”
“Yes. You know how I feel about it. I just don’t think it’s worth the pain of surgery to remove something so meaningful.”
His gaze dropped to her own scar and he considered it carefully. “You’ve never thought about having your scar done?”
Pain streaked across her face. “Some marks deserve to be worn,” she said bitterly.
She startled him when she abruptly rose up, swung one leg over his hips and settled over his pelvis. His hands involuntarily came to clutch at her hips, holding her down firmly, increasing the pressure for both of them for a moment before he forced himself to let go.
Any thoughts of scars vanished from his mind.
“Now,” Leigh said smoothly, leaning down to run her tongue over his lower lip. “Where were we?”
She gave a little gasp of surprise when he suddenly reared up, one arm banding around her back and pressing them skin to skin. His free hand came up to brush the straps off her right shoulder, only to replace them with the heat of his open mouth on her skin. “Right about here, I think.”
Leigh gave a low groan, her fingers threading through his hair, holding him closer. With a gentle nudge of his head, he pushed hers back, exposing her throat to his explorations. Her head fell back and she leaned back into his hands as they spread wide behind her shoulder blades, supporting her weight.
She slid one hand from the back of his head, sliding down the smooth skin of his back to slip lightly under the waistband of his jeans—
The sharp peal of Leigh’s cell phone split the air and they both froze. Sitting up, Leigh dropped her head down onto his shoulder, gently rapping it a few times in frustration. “No, no, no!”
“You have to take that?”
“Yes.” She practically growled it. She pulled her phone off her belt. “Abbott.” She sat up straighter, but stayed sprawled over his hips.
Alarm jolted through him when she went still in his arms. He pulled back to see her face.
Her expression had gone from soft and aroused to composed and alert. “Where?” Pause. “Got it. I’ll inform Dr. Lowell. We can be on scene within ten minutes.” She ended the call.
“What’s happened?”
Leigh was already sliding off him and shrugging into her blouse. “We have to go. That was Bree. There’s a fire in progress at a Catholic church. One of the firefighters from last Sunday’s scene is there and reported a pentacle nailed to the front door. We need to hurry. They’re fighting the fire right now and she wants us on scene.”
Matt rolled to his feet, reaching for his own shirt. For one brief moment they made eye contact, but no words were needed. They both knew what had happened.
Their killer had struck again.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: MALTESE CROSS
* * *
Maltese Cross: firefighters borrow the symbol of the Maltese Cross from the Knights of Saint John the Baptist of Jerusalem, an organization that traces its origins back to the eleventh-century group of Benedictine monks—Frères Hospitaliers de Saint Jean de Jerusalem. When the Saracens used glass bombs containing naphtha to repel Crusaders advancing on their fortresses, hundreds of knights were burned alive. The Hospitallers risked their lives to save their brothers-in-arms from painful fiery deaths. These men were the first organized paramedics group; and the first in a long line of courageous firefighters and first responders.
Thursday, 7:53 p.m.
Saint Patrick’s Catholic Church
Salem, Massachusetts
Leigh sprinted down the street, her eyes locked on the otherworldly glow reflected off the low hanging clouds while the rest of the neighborhood was steeped in darkness. Matt’s footfalls followed closely behind.
They ran past an engine on the outskirts of the scene. The name on the side of the door caught Leigh’s eye—Marblehead Fire Department.
“That can’t be good,” Leigh threw over her shoulder as she leapt over a length of hose. “They’ve called in other departments.”
They both poured on the speed. The street was awash with the strobe of red, white and blue emergency lights, and the air vibrated with the roar of running engines. Leigh counted as she wove through the jigsaw puzzle of vehicles parked on the street—five engines and two ladder trucks. A damned big fire.
Matt cleared the cluster of engines and hit the sidewalk surrounding the church first, but Leigh was right on his heels. They slid to a halt, getting their first good look at the fire.
Saint Patrick’s was once the largest Roman Catholic church in Salem, but for the past few months it had been locked and dark. It sat astride a large corner lot, set back from the street by at least fifty feet of lawn, a spiked wrought-iron fence separating the property from the sidewalk. The church itself was built of heavy granite blocks, the front of the building dominated by a towering square steeple flanked by twin towers. The pointed wooden roof of the steeple was ablaze, fiery red outlining the cross on its spire. At ground level, the three sets of heavy double front doors were thrown open. Roiling smoke poured from the doorways and, above them, flames could be seen through the tall stretches of stained glass inset in the towers and steeple. The doors at the back of the vestibule opened into the sanctuary beyond, where flames danced over white-hot piles of rubble. Inside was an inferno, a maelstrom worthy of hell itself.
The fat hoses leading through the doors implied crews inside the building. Leigh counted the hoses—three—but movement at the back of the church made her think they were fighting the fire from both ends of the building. Her heart stuttered at the though
t of men alive in those flames. The heat rolling off the fire almost pushed her back, even at this distance.
And the pentacle. Was there someone trapped in there? Or was it already too late?
Suddenly, one of the windows on the side of the building shattered, raining shards of colored glass down over the grass. The men moving hoses below ducked and protected their faces with their helmets.
Leigh turned away from the fire’s fury. “We need to find Bree. She’s probably with whoever’s running this show.” She pointed to a red Salem Fire Department SUV parked on the far side of the street, the back hatch open. “That’s the deputy chief’s vehicle we saw yesterday, right? Let’s start there.”
They found an older man in a white turnout coat and helmet standing under the open hatch of the SUV and barking orders into a walkie-talkie. This was clearly the operations center for the fire. Inside, a white board with a chart and hooks was propped against a heavy case. Notes in wax pencil on the board listed the location of each firefighter.
“Message received.” He turned, irritation flashing in his eyes at civilians at his scene.
Before he could speak, Leigh palmed her badge. “Trooper Leigh Abbott, Essex Detective Unit. We’re looking for Trooper Gilson.”
The man jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Over there. Stay out of the way.”
“Thanks.”
They strode down the street, checking every vehicle until they found Bree near the back of an ambulance. A firefighter sat on the bumper, his mask and helmet at his hip, his turnout coat unfastened. Soot coated the ends of his hair and smeared his face in a circle where his mask once sat. A medic crouched beside him, fitting an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose.
Matt and Leigh jogged up behind Bree and Leigh tapped her arm. “We came as fast as we could.”
Bree glanced over her shoulder. “You made good time.”
“He going to be okay?” Leigh asked, pointing at the firefighter.
“He’s probably just overheated and needs a little extra oxygen. But they’ll send him to the hospital to get checked out.”
A Flame in the Wind of Death Page 13