Consumed (Firefighters #1)

by J. R. Ward

  “No problem. Call me if you need other files. I’ve limited your access to your scope of inquiry. Sorry we don’t go back more than four weeks.”

  “This is going to be a big help. Thanks again.”

  Hanging up, she double-clicked the link, got to the log-in, and entered her ID and temporary password. The screen presented her with a table of links to video feeds marked with alphanumerical descriptors that matched the street addresses of the cameras around the most recent warehouse fire.

  Opening the first one, she saw a black-and-white image of the dark street and a navigating panel at the bottom. Using the mouse, she ran time fast-forward starting at 12:01 a.m., watching what was an empty street. Vagrants entered and left the scope of the monitoring. Then the sun came up.

  She stopped and took a map of the city out of her desk. Flattening it, she found where the camera was, orienting herself. Then she went back to the files. According to the incident reports filed by the crew, the fire started sometime around nine thirty p.m.

  Talk about watching paint dry.

  Nothing changed but the shadows, the relentless shift of the sun broken up only by the occasional truck or car. Night came back. Now there was once again nothing but the glow of the streetlight on the corner where the pedestrian box announced to absolutely no one when it was safe to cross the traffic-free road. Nothing approached the warehouse from the front—until there was a sudden flash. Smoke. Then the fire engines and the rescue crew’s ambulance arrived.

  She switched to another camera after she reoriented herself. Now she was checking out the road that went along the side, and the process started all over again, the monitoring starting at 12:01 a.m. and going through to nightfall. Then the fire.

  And again with the street camera on the other side. Dark. Dark. Light. Midday. Late afternoon. Nightfall. Flash. Evidence of smoke. Fire trucks. Ambulance.

  “Shit.”

  Sitting back, she cracked her spine and rotated her shoulders. Soot was snoring softly in his crate, and it was almost lunchtime.

  One more. Firing it up, she started the review again.

  Frankly, it was amazing that there were any feeds at all given how deserted that part of town was. But the mayor’s office had set up cameras throughout the zip code as part of an initiative to encourage businesses to move down there and invest in real estate renovation projects. With the amount of crime, there had been some pushback on safety, and in a rare moment of loosening purse strings, the former mayor, Greenfield, had stepped in and identified the monitoring as a priority.

  And of course, God only knew what Ripkin had kitted his properties out with. Not that she expected to see anything from that information request anytime soon. Sterling Broward was going to pump the brakes—

  “What? Wait, what was that?” she muttered to herself.

  Leaning in toward her monitor, she reversed the feed. Initiated the file at a slow speed.

  Three thirty-two a.m. Dark street. Dark street. Empty—

  The box trailer and truck rolled past the camera and then bumped up over the curb and continued across the scruffy lawn. It stopped. Someone got out and opened a bay door. Drove inside and closed themselves in.

  Forty-six minutes later, at 4:18 a.m., the bay was opened, the truck reemerged with its trailer, and then the driver shut everything up and drove off. Unfortunately, the footage was so grainy, she couldn’t catch any license plates or markings on the trailer or truck, and the individual who’d gone inside had been wearing a dark hoodie.

  But it proved that someone had gone in there

  “Gotcha,” she said with a smile.

  As her cell phone started to ring, she absently shoved her hand into her purse and answered the call. “Hello?”

  There was a pause. “Anne, it’s Moose. We gotta talk.”

  * * *

  Twenty minutes later, Anne was at Hereford Crossings, an outdoor shopping center that had cafés and locally owned restaurants along with stores that sold clothing for middle-aged women and shops that had pottery and handmade rugs in their windows.

  It was the kind of place that her mother would have loved to check out, Anne thought as she walked along with the light crowd.

  Moose was sitting on a bench in front of the Lunch Depot, but his head was lowered and he was fiddling with something.

  “Hey, Moose.”

  He looked up. “Hey, Anne. Thanks for coming.”

  But instead of getting up to go inside the restaurant, he just continued to run a thin gold necklace through his fingers.

  “You ready to eat?” she asked.

  When he shook his head, she sat down next to him and tried not to let her unease show. Not that he was looking at her.

  “Danny’s been fucking Deandra.”

  As he spoke the words, her first response was to laugh. That woman was nothing that he went for—

  “She came to the stationhouse this morning. She said he was fucking her and he lied when he said they weren’t.”

  With total clarity, she remembered going into Danny’s room that first night she went to see him and finding that lingerie on the floor of his bedroom.

  But we weren’t together then, she told herself.

  “Deandra said she couldn’t wait until he fucked her again.” Moose rubbed his face. “Look, I don’t know what the status of your relationship is with him, but you’ve got to understand about the two of them. He slept with her right before our wedding.”

  Anne twisted around so she could look right at the man. “What are you talking about?”

  “He fucked her at the apartment. I found the two of them in his bed when I came back from the rehearsal dinner.” He cursed. “I love her so much. She’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

  “Moose, I’m not following.” Or maybe it was more like she didn’t want to hear. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “I saw them in bed. It was after people had split for the night after the rehearsal dinner. I wasn’t supposed to see her until we met at the altar. I was staying at the honeymoon suite downtown at the Crescent Hotel, you know? ’Cuz that’s where we were gonna be after the ceremony and reception for the wedding night. But I forgot my tux at the apartment.”

  Anne’s heart started to beat hard. “So you went back for it?”

  “Yup. Walked in and heard these noises. I thought the TV was on, and it’s like . . . I didn’t turn the lights on. I just had this feeling. I went down the hall . . . I could smell her perfume. Her dress was on the floor outside his room. I went far enough to hear her say his name and I left.”

  Her head was spinning, a cold sweat breaking out all over her body, especially as she thought about the bullshit that had run through her idiot brain that morning.

  “Why did you marry her?” she blurted.

  When what she really wanted to ask was, Why did I fall for that crap?

  “I almost didn’t go. But she called me that morning in tears. She said she loved me. I never told her what I’d seen. All I cared about was that she wanted to marry me. She wanted to be with me—not him. She picked me—not him. Moose won over the great Danny Maguire. Finally.”

  Anne focused on Moose properly and saw through his partying, his linebacker persona, his brash frat-boy car freak. As he sat beside her, he was a slightly overweight, going-on-pudgy wannabe next to the cool kids, the keep-up instead of the leader, the wingman instead of the stud.

  “I’ve tried to make her happy. I swear, Anne.” His anxious eyes bored into her like he was giving testimony. “I did ever thing I could, but it’s never enough. She’s never happy—and it’s because the truth is, I didn’t win. She married me for the same reason I had to tell you about him. He’s a toxic man for women. Deandra knew that he wouldn’t ever settle down with her, and so I was second prize. You gotta know that he uses woman, Anne. He’s a bad guy.”

 
Looking away, Anne seriously considered turning to the trash bin next to her and throwing up.

  “Don’t think you’re different,” Moose said. “I guess that’s what I’m really saying. We all saw him flirt with you when you were on the crew. We used to have bets how long it was going to take for him to fuck you because any woman he’d ever wanted he got. But you armed-lengthened him, and that just kept him interested in you. He focused on you because he couldn’t get you. And then there was the fire. Now, you’re back and I don’t know what you’re doing with him for sure, but I have a feeling it’s the same thing he’s doing to my wife.”

  Anne opened her mouth. Closed it.

  “I know he crashed at your place last night. You’re telling me he slept on your couch?” Moose got up and stretched. “I can’t go in that restaurant and eat. I want to vomit.”

  That makes two of us.

  “When it came out at the stationhouse, I nearly killed him,” Moose said. “Well, first I nearly killed her. Then I went after him. I was told to take some time to collect myself, and that’s when I called you. I’m not telling you this to take something away from him or some shit. I’m fucking done with him. But I don’t want you to be made a fool of like I’ve been. And I’m guessing by that expression on your face that you feel the way I do.”

  Anne glanced down to duck his stare, and as she looked at her prosthesis, she actually thought, for a split second, that this was much, much worse than losing her hand.

  Because this meant she couldn’t judge reality at all.

  chapter

  48

  The three texts had come throughout the day to Anne’s phone. The first was a picture of her and Danny leaving her house in the morning with Soot—which as she looked at it again was the last thing she wanted to see. The second was three words: I see you. The third was a picture of her coming out of her brother’s stationhouse.

  Sitting back in her office, she looked at the window. Darkness had fallen, and she didn’t want to go out into the parking lot to her car. Safelite had come and repaired the front windshield after she had driven over here this morning, and it was the height of gallows humor to reassure herself that they could come again.

  If she got shot again.

  But that wasn’t the only thing she was thinking about. And it was a sad testament to the magnitude of Danny’s snow job that even in a situation where her life could be in danger she was focused on him.

  When her phone rang, she jumped, but then she saw who it was. “Jack. I was just going to call you.”

  “Our good friend Ollie Popper killed himself in jail about an hour ago.”

  Anne sat forward. “He’s dead?”

  “They found him hanging in the shower from a loop made of bed sheet.”

  “Shit.”

  “Interestingly enough, the video monitoring camera had something put over it.”

  “So it wasn’t suicide?”

  “Hard to know if he obstructed the lens or someone else did. They’re going over the body with a fine-toothed comb, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they found nothing. Danny’s staying with you, right?”

  “Ah, no. He’s not.”

  “Oh, that’s right, he’s on shift.”

  She let that stand. That last thing she needed was the SWAT team showing up as a character reference for a man they only knew in that macho brothers-in-arms way of first responders.

  “You want me to come over with a couple of my boys?”

  An image of large, muscled, tattooed men in tactical gear sleeping like lions in a zoo on the floor of her living room almost made her smile.

  “Nah, I’m okay. I’m not afraid.”

  “You get any more calls?”

  “No.”

  “And how many texts,” Jack said wryly.

  The guy was like a bloodhound for voice inflection changes. “Three. One was a picture of me leaving my brother’s stationhouse.”

  “I don’t like this, Anne.”

  “I’m going home with a bunch of work and I’m staying indoors with the doors shut and the drapes drawn. I live in a neighborhood full of people.”

  “That didn’t matter when they shot your window out.”

  “They’re just trying to scare me.”

  “Wonder if that’s what Ollie Popper thought as they hung him up by the throat from a pipe. In a prison. With a hundred guards around.”

  * * *

  So much for a slow day, Danny thought as he sat down with the crew for dinner. Four box alarms, two car crashes, a kid who got his head stuck between the iron bars of that fence over at the cemetery, and Moose losing his ever-living mind. The only good news was that at least for once Danny hadn’t been the one being a hothead and getting suspended.

  It was early yet, though.

  Taking out his phone, he checked to see if Anne had called him back. Texted him back. Anything, anything—nope.

  Fuck.

  Pushing his plate of reheated ribs and room-temperature slaw away, he sat back. Around the table, the other men were resolutely looking at their plates, the clinking of silverware the only sound in the room.

  The last time they’d had a meal like this was after the Patriots lost to Eagles in the Super Bowl.

  He got up and took his plate to the trash, scraping off the food and putting it into the dishwasher. Then he left out the back door, got a cigarette, and lit it. The night was cold and he was just in his NBFD T-shirt and work pants, but he didn’t feel a thing.

  After trying Anne again, he decided, Fuck it.

  Calling a number out of his contacts, he put the phone to his ear. “Jack. Wassup.”

  “My man. I just talked to your girl.”

  “Anne?” He frowned. “She answered her phone?”

  “Yup. I had news to share. That suspect she questioned yesterday was found dead in the prison shower. I told her she needed to have you over at her house again tonight, but you’re on shift.”

  “Yeah. On shift. Listen, could you do me a favor. Could you do some drive-bys of her house tonight?”

  “I’m doing one better. Two of my boys who’re off duty volunteered to stake out her house. They’re each doing a four-hour shift, the first starting at ten.”

  Danny exhaled. “Thank you. That’s awesome.”

  “We take care of our own, Dannyboy. And I told her to call me if she needs anything. I guess that asshole with the unknown number is still texting her.”

  “Yeah.”

  There was a pause. “I don’t usually say this, Danny, but if there’s any way you could talk to her about backing off of Ripkin, it might be a good idea. This is not to say that she can’t handle herself or that justice doesn’t need to be served. But there are a lot of bodies around anything that threatens that asshole in his ivory tower in Boston. I don’t want her to be the next one floating in the ocean or buried in a landfill.”

  “Neither do I.”

  After they hung up, he stared at the phone. And called her one more time. He didn’t think she was going to answer—and she didn’t.

  As voicemail kicked in, he cleared his throat. “So I’m guessing by the fact that you’ll talk to Jack and not me that Moose called you about the drama this morning between him and Deandra. I just want— It’s got nothing to do with me. Deandra was just shooting her mouth off about shit because she pissed off about money. I really hope you’ll call me so we can talk about it. I love you, Anne. I wanted to tell you in person this morning, but I lost my nerve. I really . . . I love you and we were headed in a good direction. I want to keep going like that, for the rest of my life. Anyway, call me. Please.”

  Ending the connection, he stared at his phone until the lock screen came on. Then he looked at it some more.

  When it stayed black, he didn’t know what he expected.

  Bullshit. He’d thought she’d listen
and call him back and tell him she loved him and Moose was in a bad relationship with a bad woman and it was all just a misunderstanding.

  Putting the cell phone back in his pocket, he smoked and thought of the nightmare that had woken him in Anne’s bed.

  It had been him back at that apartment where the old lady had been gutted. He had walked into the room, taken a look at the mutilated body, and started to throw up.

  And then everything had morphed and he had been the one with hands and feet tied, screaming as a shadowy perpetrator had cut him open and removed his internal organs.

  That had been a party compared to what he was feeling right now, stuck at the stationhouse while what little glimpse of a good life he’d had dimmed . . . and disappeared into the night as if it had never existed.

  He was going to fucking kill Moose.

  chapter

  49

  Anne sat back on her sofa and closed her eyes. It was going on ten o’clock and she was surrounded by printouts of reports on those warehouse fires, the papers like the snow cover of winter, a December of documents on the floor, the coffee table, the cushions.

  Except for where Soot was curled up next to her.

  She had been going over the same information and nothing was sticking anymore. Good distraction, though. It had gotten her through dinner and past the dead zone before bedtime.

  “You want to go out one last time?”

  Soot knew the cue and obligingly got off his spot. The jingle of his collar was a welcome accompaniment as they went to the back door and she turned off the security system by her remote.

  Before she stepped outside, she took the nine-millimeter handgun she’d left on the corner of her desk with her.

  The night was cold and dry, and the outside lights were bright and clear. She took comfort that her neighbors were all home, their lights on, their bodies moving in and out of windows as the whole neighborhood settled for the rest of the night.