Spontaneous Combustion

by Bobby Hutchinson

  And then what? What would he do?

  He wasn’t out for a casual morning jog—he wasn’t dressed for it. He had to be wearing the same clothing he’d worn last night—jeans, blue golf shirt. Trainers. He did have trainers. He’d taken them off to dance, just as she had.

  For a moment, she had an overwhelming desire to stand right there, wait until he caught up, and confront him. She ached to vent her anger and outrage at his deceit.

  Yeah, and maybe that isn’t the smartest idea in the world. He’s awfully big, O’Shea, and he knows you took that license. Why else would he be coming after you?

  She turned and fled.

  He had longer legs, but she’d run this mountain route all her life. She was lighter; she could take him on distance. And distance was exactly what she planned to put between them.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  JOHN’S CHEST WAS BURNING and his throat was parched. His breath came in short, heaving gasps, and still he pushed himself to go faster up the steep, winding path.

  He’d assumed he could overtake her without much effort; after all, he was half a foot taller and physically as fit as he’d ever been—he’d had to train hard to impersonate a fireman. But although he was closing the gap, he was beginning to think it was touch and go. She was still running full out, and the path was steeper here. He was getting winded.

  Face it, Johnny boy, you’re getting trounced by a woman.

  He was also getting angrier with each labored step, although he had no breath left for curses. Somehow this had become a contest, an arm wrestle, and he was determined that she was not going to get the better of him. He used the anger as fuel and forced his legs to pump harder. The gap between them shortened, and shortened again.

  His lungs were on fire. He couldn’t get the oxygen he needed, and he could feel his muscles starting to burn, to give out. Gasping, he used every ounce of willpower he could muster and increased his speed one last time.

  He burst around a corner, and there she was, scant yards ahead. He lunged, reached out an arm, grasped a handful of her singlet, tripped, staggered.

  She screamed, but just when he thought they’d both tumble to the hard-packed earth, she caught herself, turned and slugged him square on the jaw. Hard.

  The shock was severe, but so was the blow. She had one mean upper cut, and he was already off balance. He grunted, bit down hard on his tongue, and the pain made him lose his grip on her shirt. He managed to grab one of her forearms, and she pivoted and tried to knee him in the groin. She missed her target by mere inches, and now he was furious.

  “Stop. Damn it, Shannon—” His mouth was full of blood, but that didn’t affect his volume any. He was hollering and she was punching again, so he grabbed her other arm and shoved her backward as hard as he could. His weight overbalanced both of them, and this time they went down together. She landed on the hard earth, flat on her back with him on top of her, and he heard the air whoosh out of her lungs.

  Her blue eyes were wild and frantic and there was naked fear in them. It dawned on him that she actually thought he was going to deliberately hurt her. That made him angrier than ever, and he straddled her, pinioning her with his thighs, holding her arms flat at her sides as he struggled to speak. It wasn’t easy to hold her. She was incredibly strong. She was also winded, desperately trying to draw air into her lungs.

  “You—bloody—fool,” he finally gasped out.

  She struggled in his grasp, and it was all he could do to hold on, even though she was still making rasping noises in her throat.

  “Listen—to—me. Stop this—and just—listen.” Drops of sweat were running down his cheeks and dripping off his chin, landing on her face and neck. He had the insane urge to lean down and lick them off, but the coppery taste of blood still filled his mouth. Besides that, she’d probably bite him if he got close enough.

  She was trembling, and so was he. And in spite of the lack of oxygen, she was still fighting. Jesus, the woman was a warrior.

  He tried again. “Will—you—stop? And let—me—explain?”

  This time he got through to her. She quieted, but he didn’t dare release her. Not yet, not until he was certain she wasn’t going to sock him again. Or hit him smack in the balls.

  “You found the license, right?”

  She jerked her chin up and down, and now there was contempt in her blue eyes. “John—Sebastian—McManus,” she spat at him as she got her breath back.

  “Right. FBI.” He watched her expression, and he knew right away that she didn’t believe him. Well, why the hell should she? He had to admit he hadn’t really given her much reason to trust him.

  “Liar. Let—me—go.”

  “If you promise to bloody well sit still and listen, okay. Otherwise, I’m hanging on. And I also want your word that what I tell you stays between you and me.”

  Her eyes were still brimming with sparks and her expression was mutinous, but after a long moment, she nodded. He guessed that it had dawned on her that she wasn’t in much of a position to negotiate.

  “Say it.” He didn’t trust her one bit. That knee had come way too close to its target, and he could feel his jaw swelling. It was a wonder he hadn’t lost a tooth.

  “Okay.” She threw the word at him like a weapon. “Okay, I’ll listen. Okay, I won’t breathe a word of your lies to anyone else. Now…take your hands off me.”

  Very gradually, with extreme caution, he did. She scrambled up to a sitting position, wincing once or twice as she scuttled a good three feet away from him. He started to worry that maybe he’d broken her ribs, they’d gone down so hard, but he saw her draw one deep, shuddering breath and then another, so he figured she was okay in that regard.

  He sat back, resting his elbows on his bent knees. He was soaked with sweat, the knees of his pants were filthy and his hands were stinging about as much as his mouth was.

  She rubbed her arms and he could see scrape marks there. She had scratches on her legs. Neither of them had come off unscathed. He turned his head away and spat out blood, feeling with his tongue to make sure his teeth really were intact.

  “Show me your identification, if you’re FBI.”

  He gave his head a frustrated shake. Trust her. “I don’t have it with me, for God’s sake. I’m undercover. I shouldn’t have had that damn license in my wallet.”

  She was scowling at him. “You were in that warehouse fire. You were the man in the silver, weren’t you?”

  “Yeah.” He nodded and sighed, longing for a glass of water. “Yeah, I was.”

  Anger flared in her eyes. “So you lied when I asked you, and then you went right on lying to me over and over. Why? How could you do a thing like that, be so dishonest? Unless you’re the one who started that fire. Unless you’re the arsonist.”

  That surprised him and then made him laugh. “C’mon, Shannon, you can’t really believe that.”

  But he could see from her expression that she actually wasn’t sure. For God’s sake, she really thought he was a criminal? Now, that hurt his feelings.

  “I’m FBI,” he repeated. “And as soon as I get a chance, I’ll prove it to you. I have documents back at the motel. I’m here in Courage Bay on a major case, Shannon.”

  How much could he tell her? How much should he tell her? Caution and training and the need for secrecy warred with his desire to be totally honest with her. What the hell. Desire won.

  “There’s a major Freon smuggling operation based here in Courage Bay,” he began. “The perps were storing the stuff at that warehouse. They’d moved it out just before the first fire, but we’re not sure yet if the fire had anything to do with the Freon.”

  “Who’s we?”

  “Joe Ripani and me. Joe’s the only one who knows who I really am and why I’m here. And now you do. Joe told me that Sam Prophet recovered parts of the triggering device used for that first fire, and he hasn’t seen anything like it before. He thinks a cell phone wired to explosives had been jammed behind a supporting bea
m. When the number was dialed, the connection set off the explosives. It’s damn clever, whoever did it.”

  And he’d had to get his boss to call off the investigation the police were conducting because it jeopardized his own investigation.

  She was listening hard, but he couldn’t tell what she was thinking. After a minute, she shook her head and his heart sank. She still didn’t believe him.

  “I don’t get it. If they’d moved the Freon out like you said, why blow up the warehouse?”

  “I don’t know for sure.” That was only one of the things that puzzled him. “Maybe to destroy evidence because they’d been careless? In fact, I know they’d left some things behind. They must have been in a hurry to get the stuff out of there. They used heavy straps to secure the metal canisters the Freon is stored in, and that’s what I was doing in the warehouse. I needed to recover those straps as evidence.”

  “That’s when you found me and Salvage.”

  He nodded. “I heard you call out. It was sheer coincidence that I had the silver. The company that makes the suits for the Aeronautics and Space Association wanted a new version tested for use by commercial firemen. My boss at the Bureau is a friend of the guy who runs that department, and he asked if I’d try one out if I got a chance. The warehouse fire was a good opportunity.”

  “So you were already in Courage Bay when that fire happened. The airline ticket you showed me was a fake.”

  “Yeah, it was. I’d flown in on a private jet the day before the fire. In order to maintain my cover, I couldn’t be seen in that silver or at the warehouse. Joe knew I was there. He got me out and away without anybody knowing, except for you. And Salvage.” John shook his head and gave a rueful smile. “Damn dog did his best to bust me.”

  “I knew all along that Salvage recognized you. And what about the second fire? Did it start with that same cell-phone thing?”

  John frowned and shook his head. “The weird thing about that fire is that Sam figures it was started with a fuse and liquid accelerant. And the question is, why would the perp change his pattern? For that matter, why torch the warehouse a second time?”

  “Yeah, and another question is, why couldn’t you have told me all this in the beginning? Why make me feel like an idiot, blabbing to everybody about a guy in a silver that nobody else had seen? You were lying right, left and center about everything. You made a fool of me.”

  “Shannon, cut me some slack here. I didn’t know you. For all I knew, you could have been in on the operation. In fact, when I saw you in that warehouse, I figured at first you might have been the one who set the fire. You were at the exact spot where I found the straps.”

  Now she looked outraged. “Of all the stupid suppositions, that takes the prize. I was only trying to get Salvage out of there alive.”

  “I know that now. I know that you wouldn’t be involved in anything like this Freon thing. Or anything else the slightest bit illegal or—or immoral—or wrong.”

  He swiped at the sweat running into his eyes. He really wasn’t doing a good job of this at all. He tried to figure out how to phrase what he wanted to say and couldn’t, so he blurted, “I—I guess I’m trying to say that I trust you now, that I…well, I guess I sort of…I care about you, Shannon.” It was tough to verbalize his feelings, and he soon realized he’d botched that along with everything else.

  She narrowed her eyes at him and her voice dripped with sarcasm. “You sort of care about me? Gee, that’s so reassuring, John. What’s that supposed to mean, exactly? Let’s see now…” She used her fingers to tick the points off. “You care about Salvage. You care about little kids. You care about old women, and your job, and your car, and no doubt your damn motorcycle, and—and football. All guys care about football. And then there’s—”

  There was only one sure way to shut her up. He lunged to his feet, grabbed her hands and dragged her up by sheer force when she resisted.

  “You don’t make anything easy, do you?”

  Her blue eyes were startled and he could feel the stiffness in her body as he wrapped his arms around her.

  “What do you think you’re—”

  He bent his head and kissed the words away, trying to show her that the way he cared for her had nothing whatsoever to do with those other types of caring. He wasn’t sure himself exactly how his feelings for her were different, but they were. So he went on kissing her until her body went soft and pliant in his arms, and he only winced a little when she got very involved in the kissing and it affected his jaw and his cut tongue.

  “You taste funny,” she said after a while, pulling away a little and scowling up at him.

  “Blood. You busted my chops, remember?” He kissed her again, with less urgency and more attention to his wounds this time. Due care and attention.

  “Blood? Yuck.” She pulled away and made a face.

  “You have a mean right hook, lady.” He rubbed a hand gingerly over his jaw and was reminded that he hadn’t shaved yet. A powerful odor from his underarms made him add showering to the list. And he hadn’t so much as swallowed a single damn glass of water, never mind breakfast.

  He was probably on the verge of dehydration. After all the energy he’d expended during the night, plus sprinting at top speed halfway up this steep mountain, he was pretty much running on empty. In fact, he didn’t think there were even fumes left.

  He could hear the plaintive tone in his voice, and he didn’t care. “Can we go back to your place and clean up a little? Please? Then I’ll take you out for breakfast and we can discuss this some more.”

  “I’ve got eggs and bread and coffee. We can eat at my house. Maybe Uncle Donald has already made breakfast, the old sneak. Although I hope not, because I’ve still got a million questions I need to ask you.”

  DONALD AND WILLOW WEREN’T there, but the questions had to wait, because when they walked in the front door, the phone was ringing.

  Shannon answered it, and it took a moment for her to recognize her mother’s trembling voice.

  “We’re at the hospital,” Mary said, and Shannon’s hand tightened on the handset.

  “It’s Linda. She’s losing the baby—can you come, dear? Something’s gone very wrong.”

  “I’ll be right there.” She hung up and turned to John. “That was Mom. Linda’s miscarrying. I need to get over there now—” She glanced down at herself. “Oh, God, look at me. I can’t go like this.’

  “Go have a quick shower. I’ll get my stuff from your room and I’ll drop you there.”

  In ten minutes, she was in the car, and in another six and a half, during which she gained new respect for John’s driving talents, he was pulling up in front of the hospital.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  JOHN BRAKED THE CAR and turned toward her.

  “Do you want me to come in with you?”

  She looked at him. He was bruised and dirty and sweaty. His pants were torn at the knee, his shirt had seen better days and there was blood on his chin. She gave him a shaky smile and shook her head.

  “Thanks, but no. You need a shower and some food. Mom’s here, and my dad, and my brothers. I appreciate the offer, though.” She leaned across and gave him a quick, hard kiss. “Maybe just say a little prayer for Linda, okay? She and Sean were so excited about this baby.”

  He nodded. “Do you have a cell phone on you?”

  It was in her handbag. She recited the number and he repeated it. Then she got out and raced into the hospital, where she was directed to the surgical floor. Her mother and father were there, in the waiting area. Caleb’s arm was around Mary, holding her close to his side.

  Shannon hurried over to them. “What’s going on?”

  “Oh, Shannon, I’m so glad you’re here.” She could hear the tension in her mother’s voice, and when she touched her arm, could feel her trembling.

  “Sean was on shift at the fire hall. Linda called him and she was hysterical. She was in terrible pain, on the verge of passing out. The doctor believes she had
an undiagnosed ectopic pregnancy, and the fallopian tube may have burst.”

  “Oh, no.” Shannon knew how dangerous that was. A ruptured tube was life threatening.

  “Sean got the call transferred to a cell phone,” Mary continued. “He kept her talking, and he and the rescue unit got there before the ambulance.” She drew in a sobbing breath. “She’s in surgery. Sean’s pacing the hallway, waiting to hear.” Mary looked at Shannon, her hazel eyes brimming with tears. “It’s very serious, isn’t it?”

  Shannon nodded. She couldn’t think of anything comforting to say. She recalled vividly the rescue training they’d had dealing with ectopic pregnancy and the severe hemorrhaging that could result. She’d been relieved to hear that such pregnancies were rare, and she remembered hoping she’d never in her life have to encounter such a situation.

  And now her brother had had to face it, with his own wife. She felt compassion for Sean, but she also felt pride in his strength and knowledge.

  Wordlessly, she put her arms around her mother and then her father. Suddenly they both looked older, and she could feel them trembling in her embrace.

  “All we can do is wait,” Caleb said.

  “And pray,” added Mary.

  Shannon knew they were all three doing that already. They sat in a row on the hard plastic chairs with their hands joined, and after a long while Patrick came racing in.

  Shannon told him what had happened.

  “How serious is it?” Patrick asked.

  She hesitated, but there was no point in soft-pedaling. “Very serious.”

  Patrick’s face blanched. “Do they know yet…?”

  She shook her head, and he sat down beside Caleb, looping an arm around his father’s shoulders.

  The hands on the clock moved through a full, slow hour before Sean finally walked in. He wore his fireman’s blue uniform. His face was greenish-white and somber.

  Shannon’s heart gave a sickening lurch. They all got to their feet, surrounding him, afraid to ask.