Explosive Forces

by D. D. Ayres

  Alibi done.

  Now he just needed to make a few arrangements.

  He walked into the family room where he’d left Carly on a folding cot. For a second his heart stopped. She wasn’t there.

  He whirled around, afraid to use a light of any kind that might alert someone that the vacant house wasn’t empty tonight.

  He walked the perimeter of the room, letting the light from beyond the windows direct his search.

  He found her in the kitchen pantry. She scooted herself into it and tried to close the door.

  “Stay away from me.” Her voice was coarse with fear.

  He wasn’t angry. He was grateful she was still there.

  Even so, he hauled her back to the cot and dosed her a second time. Taping her mouth shut so that she had to swallow. She fought him, stronger than he would have thought possible for a tied-up drugged-up woman.

  When she finally passed out, he stripped her, no interest in sex now that he had a blaze to plan. He gathered up everything, even her jewelry and shoes. Nothing must be left to make identifying the body easier. He carried it all to his truck and backed it away slowly from the house so as not to draw attention. Coming back after he’d parked on another street, he used an old broom to scatter his tire tracks. Then the impressions of his booties in the dirt of the yard. His handyman truck contained everything he’d needed so far.

  Carly’s Mazda was another matter. He’d driven her here and then taken her Mazda and parked it in her own lot, just after midnight. Come morning, if anyone was looking for her, they’d find her car and think she’d come home sometime during the night.

  If he had time, tomorrow, he’d use her passkey to check out her place and return all her clothing, jewelry, even handbag and phone. But for now, his schedule was too tight for those details.

  The night was so quiet he could hear himself breathing as he drove out of the neighborhood with his lights off.

  Three hours. That’s about all the time he’d get to set his plan in motion before the sun rose and the roofie wore off. He didn’t want her to suffer. He was not a cruel man. Or a killer. He had no choice.

  Three hours to plan the last best fire of his career.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  Four men in the room at the Fire Investigation building stared at the whiteboard containing every detail they could cram on it about the fires Noah had been investigating. After hours of discussion and argument, they had zilch. The tension had already spilled over twice into shouting matches. Now the room hummed with the buzz of overhead lighting and frustration.

  Eight hours had passed without any sight or sign of Carly. They were monitoring dispatches about every fire in the county. There’d been a kitchen fire in a bucket-of-chicken type place just after midnight. An apartment blaze started when a child decided to make a volcano for school, without informing her parents first. And a collapsed building on the north side. Nothing, so far, that sounded like the work of an arsonist.

  No one dared say what they all wondered. Was Carly Harrington-Reese dead?

  “No reason to think so,” Durvan had said repeatedly at the beginning of the gathering. “Maybe a hostage situation.” The photos in Cody’s house had finally convinced Durvan that Noah could be right about Cody being a suspect in his arson case. “Arson is one thing. But this Cody person has to know there’s no going back from murder.”

  The last time he said it, Noah had slammed out of the room and was gone an hour. The discussion had not come up since he’d returned.

  Durvan came into the room now, brisk and businesslike. “Been on the phone with the police. The BOLO out on both Cody’s CowTown van and the truck registered in his name haven’t yielded anything yet. Neither vehicle has been sighted.”

  “J.W.’s probably gone to ground until he decides what to do.” Jack Burnett, the arson investigator on call overnight, had joined Noah, Mark, and Durvan in their search for Cody.

  “Or, he could be halfway to Mexico.”

  All three men glanced in Noah’s direction, but he seemed not to be listening to them.

  Mark shook his head as Durvan was about to head over to Noah. “While you were checking that, I called Cody’s boss to ask where he’s supposed to be working come daylight. He wasn’t on emergency night shift tonight. The job Cody’s scheduled to work today doesn’t start until eight.”

  It was a little before seven. Sunrise no more than a pale promise on the eastern horizon.

  “I’ll ask that they have an officer there to see if he shows up.”

  “There’s got to be something we missed in those other fires.” Mark smacked his desktop. “We’re looking at old clues in light of new information. Why can’t we come up with something?”

  “There’s only so much the FWPD is willing to do for us. Or the DA’s office. As far as we know officially, Cody hasn’t done a thing wrong. Not being at home isn’t a crime. Neither is collecting newspaper articles, or even taking pictures in public places.” He glanced in Noah’s direction. “Carly isn’t missing as much as not accounted for, since we have no proof otherwise.”

  “Wish we could get a warrant to search J.W.’s house. Those pictures would be enough to make Carly’s absence a high priority.”

  Durvan grimaced. “We can’t know about them because it would add breaking and entering to Glover’s list of crimes. Move on.”

  Mark glanced up at the board. “Isn’t there always a pattern for an arsonist? That’s what you teach us. We know the methods change for arsonists as they get better. But the motivation stays the same. What’s motivating Cody?”

  Durvan shrugged. “We don’t have time right now to go through Cody’s life to see if he was having a bad day or can account for his location each of the days we caught those suspect fires.”

  Mark nodded. “There might even be some we missed. Still listed as undetermined because none of them were high-risk or high-cost fires.”

  “Until the homeless man.” Durvan stroked his mustache. “Could have been an accident. But Cody doesn’t strike me as the kind of arsonist to make mistakes. My bet is on it being intentional, but why? It was out of character. What set him off? Good news? Bad news?”

  “The need to be recognized? Vanity?”

  Noah’s voice came from the back of the room where he’d been hunkered down listening and evaluating. But it had taken every bit of his firefighter training to sit and go methodically through this drill.

  He was by nature even-tempered, not easily rattled. The best firefighters had the ability to maintain their composure while multitasking, thinking on their feet in the face of life-and-death emergencies. But his skill set was being tested to the max as the hours ticked by and nothing could be found of either Carly or J.W.

  Noah gritted his teeth. He had nothing but the faith that Carly was okay to hold this all together. Any other thought wasn’t tolerable. The worst-case scenario seldom occurred. If and when it did, there’d be time enough to deal with the incredible fear banked down behind his heart.

  Right now, Carly being alive was the only reason for him to be sitting here wearing out his enamel. He’d been husbanding his energy, going down deep. It would be light in less than an hour. When the sun cleared the horizon, he was going to tear Fort Worth apart and find Carly.

  He stood and came forward slowly. “Mark mentioned a pattern. Arsonists usually work an area, for the sake of convenience.”

  He moved before the large map of Fort Worth posted on another wall with the fire precincts clearly marked. The sites of active arson investigations were pinpointed on the map, alike colored pins used to show which had been linked.

  He’d stared at the six orange pins that represented some of the arson fires he’d been investigating. These were the ones he had now been accused of starting. They’d never stood out before. Six among a dozen more he knew were arson but had no leads on. They weren’t high priority. Nothing of true value had been damaged. In most cases, the houses had been derelict so long the city couldn’t f
ind the legal owners. The locations weren’t clustered by convenience, neighborhood, access to highways, none of the things that usually led to an eventual suspect and arrest. These six fires were almost uniformly spaced around the city, which made them impossible to connect together until the source of the gasoline had been found to be identical to the gasoline in his lawn mower tank. That’s all he had. What had he missed?

  Noah pointed to the middle of the circle of orange pinpoints. “The only thing these fires have in common is that they—Fuck!”

  He stared at the place where his finger was jammed against the map. It was his block, practically on top of his house. “He made my house his bull’s-eye. That’s it!”

  “Let me see that.” Durvan, Mark, and Jack moved in together behind him.

  “Damn if you’re not right. The fires are spaced just about equally distant from your street.” Durvan smiled for the first time. “Good catch, Glover.”

  Noah removed his finger. “There’s more. There’s a fire in an almost perfect ring around the city, except for—”

  “—Edgecliff Village.” Mark looked embarrassed to have beaten Noah to speech. “Sorry.”

  Jack smiled. “You know what they say. Don’t shit where you eat.”

  Noah took a deep breath. “My fake suicide was a one-off. Up until then Cody was trying to frame me for arson. Because I didn’t know that, I didn’t notice the pattern.”

  Crissie, who’d come in to work the desk, appeared in the doorway. “We just got a call. There’s a grass fire in Edgecliff Village. But it’s bordering on Fort Worth proper so FWDP is sending out a crew.”

  “Who called it in?”

  She looked at her notes. “An Edgecliff Village firefighter volunteer.”

  “J.W. Cody,” Noah and Mark said together.

  Crissie frowned. “How did you know?”

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  The sun was rising by the time Noah and Mark sighted the distant plumes of smoke from the grass fire that was their destination. Durvan was right behind in his own vehicle. They needed his truck to carry their equipment. The early rays illuminating the smoke showed the deeper gray was turning whitish closer to the ground as water and other flame retardants were applied at the base fire.

  Unfortunately, they were wedged in with rush-hour traffic streaming up and down Village Parkway, along with school buses turning in and out of neighborhoods to pick up students. The snarl was further complicated by rubberneckers with nothing better to do.

  Cursing under his breath, Noah pressed the floorboard on the passenger side with his right boot. He hated being a passenger! More than that, he hated not being in command. Every minute of delay was eating up his self-control.

  Harley, in the backseat, began to vocalize softly. The pheromones pouring off his handler were disturbingly intense. Noah might look a study of coolness in his slouch, but Mark and Harley knew their travel companion was anything but.

  Noah reached back a hand and stroked his partner. “It’s okay, Harley. It’s just taking us too damn long.” Useless anxiety wasn’t doing the job for either of them. Hold back, control emotion, and wait for the opportunity. That was practically his job description.

  “Easy, bro.” Make flicked a glance Noah’s way. “This is our first solid lead. It’s going to get us what we want.”

  Noah didn’t answer. Nothing to say. Carly was out there, somewhere. He knew it. He had to find her. Fast.

  The thing he couldn’t keep from eating at him was why. Why had Carly put herself in jeopardy by talking with Cody? Why did she feel the need to do anything at all? For him? The idea scared the living hell out of him.

  He wasn’t accustomed to anyone taking care of him. That was his job. He’d always shouldered it just fine. Would be doing so now, if she hadn’t disappeared.

  This was why he didn’t want her involved in the case. God knows he’d said that to her often enough.

  Guilt ripped at his calm. He knew this was his fault. In spite of what he’d said, what he’d done told a very different story.

  He’d wanted to be with her. Wanted to touch her. Wanted to dive into her silken heat. Pump long and hard into her, offering pleasure even as he took it from her. He still wanted her. Just thinking about it was enough to make him curse his own weakness. But he also wanted to talk to her. She challenged him, didn’t sit in awe or expect him to have all the answers. They’d operated from the first as if they knew each other by heart. Shortcuts. Shorthand. They didn’t play games. It was easy and exhilarating with Carly. She made him feel … so many things he’d thought he’d lost.

  He wanted her. Wanted to be with her. Wanting to know that she was in the world and happy. But now her life was in jeopardy. His fault. His to correct.

  “Selfish prick!”

  “Huh?”

  Noah ignored Mark’s questioning look. He would never expose Carly’s confidence, her generosity to him, by ever telling a soul about them. Mark, Durvan, and the rest might speculate from here to doomsday but they’d never get a word out of him.

  Something raw and ugly whip-snaked through Noah. If that asshole Cody had hurt Carly—

  Finally, police intervention in the form of traffic control rerouted most of the commuters to other streets and they were allowed through to the blocked-off area after showing their FWFD credentials.

  Two engines plus a grass wagon and water tank were on-site. Fire had burned halfway across a field between two new housing projects. Fires like this were often easy to contain and put out by an attack “from the black,” that is, approaching it from the rear over already-burned ground. That way, there was nothing to catch fire behind the crew that might box them in. But a brisk March wind was frustrating efforts to contain the blaze this morning. Burned patches of grasses, flame links pushed by the wind, could be seen farther afield than where the main fire spread on a rolling lip of yellow flames. Blackened ground was still smoking heavily, sending up a gray veil that obscured the neighborhood in the direct path of the flames.

  Once out of Mark’s truck, Noah pulled out his fire gear. The set he kept in his truck had been impounded with the truck. Luckily the department provided two sets for its members, so that one would always be clean and ready to use.

  A stiff breeze dragged at his gear as he stomped into his boots, and pulled up his pants and suspenders in one move. His bunker jacket was bulky and hot, so he stashed it under his arm to carry if and until it was required. His gloves were stashed in a pocket. He dumped his helmet on his head and grabbed Harley’s leash.

  Durvan and Mark were dressed likewise as the three men crossed over to the fireman in charge. The acrid sting of smoke and ash swirled around them as the fire sucked up more and more oxygen for fuel.

  “Damn wind. But we’re getting it knocked down.” The Edgecliff Village fire captain came up to share his progress when he recognized Durvan. He offered his hand. “Fire chief sent for you guys to go in to search for cause?”

  “No, this is an unofficial visit.” Durvan’s look was stern all the same. “Looking for one of your men. J.W. Cody. Need to speak with him.”

  “He’s here somewhere.” The fire captain looked around, scanning the line of men working the margins of the grass fire. Dressed in bunker suits, helmets, and other gear, it was nearly impossible to tell one man from another. “There.” He pointed at the far end of the blaze. “Working the edge by the road in the reflector vest.”

  “You hold on to Harley.” Noah tossed his leash to Mark.

  “Whoa!” the fire captain called as Noah headed in Cody’s direction. “We’ve got an uncontrolled burn on-going. I can’t have unauthorized men in the field.”

  Durvan stepped in between them and pointed. “Looks like you’ve got maybe a hundred yards before the edge of the blaze meets that far fence line. This wind will eat up that distance in no time. You got the first row of houses behind that fence on alert to be evacuated?”

  “We’re on it.” The fire captain began shouting orders into his
radio, giving Noah the chance to make his way toward Cody.

  Noah walked right up to Cody, who was using a backpack foam sprayer, and grabbed him by the arm to swing him around.

  “Where’s Carly?”

  Cody spun around with a look of surprise. “What the—? Glover? What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Not the right answer.” Noah hit him like a freight train, knocking both men to the ground.

  As the two men grappled on the still smoking ash, other firefighters came running to pull them apart. But not before Noah had wrenched Cody’s helmet off and thumped him with his fist a couple of times, demanding, “Where is she? Where?”

  Regaining his feet with the help of two of his fellow firefighters, Cody pulled off a heavy hair glove and wiped at the blood on his face. “What the hell, Glover? You been drinking?”

  Durvan and Mark had Noah by the arms, but Noah was angry enough to make holding him back a test. “Where’s Carly?”

  “Who? Oh, you mean Ms. Reese. Haven’t seen her since yesterday when she gave me a list of work she wanted done on her store. I got it somewhere back in my truck.” He bent to pick up his helmet. “Now I got to get back to the fire.”

  As Cody turned away, Noah shook free of his friends. “I know it was you who tried to kill me.”

  He took a step toward the man though both Durvan and Mark flanked him, ready to intervene again. He looked back at them and they paused at the expression on his face. It was a cop’s face. He was back in control. He’d released just enough of his rage to master the rest. There’d be no more brawling.

  He turned the full force of his personality into the stare he focused on the man. “It’s over, J.W. We’ve got video of you last Friday night, coming out of the store where you left me and Harley to die. You drove off in my truck.”

  Cody scowled. “That’s a lie.”

  Noah took another measured step closer. “You forgot about the security cameras in other nearby parking lots. The senior citizens apartments, for instance. I know you started those other fires, too. The one that killed the homeless man is going to send you to prison.”