by D. D. Ayres
“You’ve lost it, Glover.” Cody was still smiling, certain he was Teflon-coated against all accusations.
Noah’s voice lowered to a snarl. “I’ve been to your place. I saw the pictures.”
He was hammering J.W. with everything he had. Looking for a crack in the man’s facade. They were so close again he could smell the man’s stale breath despite the choking smoke of the nearby blaze. “You’ve been stalking Carly. Where is she?”
He saw uncertainty, finally, in J.W.’s blink and kept bringing it. “You want me in prison? I’ll definitely be going there—for your murder—if you don’t tell me where Carly is. Now.”
“That’s enough, Noah.” Durvan grabbed Noah’s shoulder from the rear.
Noah jerked his head toward his friend with a snarl.
Freed of Noah’s menacing gaze, Cody turned to his two colleagues who had come to his aid. “You hear that? This man’s threatened to kill me.” He turned back to Noah. “I got witnesses you already attacked me.”
Harley, who had been sitting tensely by Mark’s side, suddenly ran up to Cody, sniffing him. Cody bent over to pet him. “Hey there, boy.”
Harley sidestepped, sniffed the man’s hand, and then sat and looked back at his handler.
A chill ran down Noah’s spine. Harley had just alerted on J.W. That meant the man had recently handled explosive materials of some sort.
Noah grabbed him by the front of his jacket. “What’s on your hands, Cody?”
“I don’t have any idea what you mean.” Cody flicked a heavy glove at Harley as the dog tried again to catch the vital scent. “Get off me.” Cody swung away. “I’m going back to work.”
“Not today.” Durvan stepped out and said, “I’m placing you in protective custody until this matter is settled.”
“You can’t do that. You don’t have any jurisdiction in Edgecliff Village.”
“So sue me.” Durvan produced handcuffs and cuffed Cody. He pulled Cody over to where two Edgecliff police officers were keeping gawkers away and spoke to them.
Cody was shouting and swearing, threatening to sue Noah, the FWFD, the city, and anything else he could think of. But it was the voice of a scared man.
Mark looked at Noah. “Now what?”
“Harley signed on J.W. That means he’s recently been around explosive chemicals.”
Mark’s face went grim. “You think he’s made an explosive device?”
Noah nodded. “He’s hoping to get rid of Carly in a way it will take a long time for forensics to identify. Come on.” He headed toward the rear of the fire where volunteers had parked the vehicles.
Just to be certain Harley’s actions hadn’t been precipitated by his fight with J.W., Noah led his K9 past several other vehicles first, allowing Harley to sniff them thoroughly. Working him quickly so that he wouldn’t accidently sign to Harley which vehicle he was concerned around, they wound their way back and forth between cars and trucks and vans.
Harley kept stopping to sneeze, clearing his air passages of the burn smell that permeated the air. But the second they approached J.W.’s van, Harley started stepping high, tail going rigid as he sniffed the door on the driver’s side. When he reached the door handle, he sat, hard and alert.
He didn’t have the right to search the vehicle without probable cause, but that didn’t mean Noah couldn’t look inside through the window. He pulled his flashlight and aimed it inside the van. Between the seats in the back he saw a jug of all-purpose fertilizer. He stopped breathing. Ammonium nitrate.
“Damn,” Mark said softly when he had looked in.
“Yeah.” Noah barely had breath for sound. He pulled a treat from his pocket for Harley, and then a second one, praising his dog highly though he felt sick inside.
“What’d you boys find?” Durvan jogged up minus J.W., now being held by local police.
As Mark explained, Noah turned inward and mentally threw away everything they had been concentrating on during the night. None of it now applied. The facts now were these.
Carly was missing.
J.W. had taken her.
He must have decided she had figured out he was the arsonist.
He needed to get rid of her.
More than a fire this time, he needed more damage more quickly.
He didn’t have time to make an elaborate plan like he did for Noah’s suicide.
The grass fire had been called in by J.W. More than likely, he had started it for a reason. Distraction.
Distraction from what? Another fire.
Noah remembered Carly’s question about the Friday night fire. And it gave him a watery gut feeling.
Why not choose a place where the perpetrator had all the time in the world to set the fire and make certain it took?
What better place than in his own community?
Edgecliff Village was small. If J.W. wanted to distract the local fire department, it must be because the fire he’d set for Carly was nearby.
Heart thumping at low heavy strokes, Noah looked up. The prevailing winds whipping up from the southwest were driving the fire northeast, into a populated neighborhood. Evacuation would take the attention of every first responder, diverting attention from any other fire, especially one deemed less important.
Noah turned to face the opposite direction of the fire, upwind. For two hundred yards there was nothing but scrub brush and grass. Beyond that, the field gave way to a cleared area where the streets of a new housing development had been paved. No housing to see yet. Just a single, half-finished structure sat isolated in the middle of the second block. Someone’s dream house that had yet to be realized.
Noah shivered in response to an adrenaline rush. Could Carly be in there, close enough for J.W. to watch her burn, but using his involvement in the brush fire as his alibi?
Harley had followed his handler’s gaze, something dogs alone among domesticated animals do. He lifted his snout, sniffing the breeze moving directly past the house to the south and into the field where they stood. After a few seconds, he began to whine and tug at the leash, wanting to head in the direction of the structure.
Noah bent down and stroked his K9, the beginnings of a smile on his grim face. “Is that where Carly is, Harley? Do you smell her on the breeze? Or is it the explosive?”
He reached up and released Harley’s leash.
The German Shepherd took off like a furry dart across the field.
Noah stood up, fear suddenly crawling up through his glacial calm. Carly and a bomb. J.W. had left her to die.
Just as quickly as it reared up, the fear died. He’d worked the puzzle pieces and won.
“Got you, you bastard!”
And now he was going to get Carly.
* * *
Noah outlined the bare bones of his theory to his colleagues as they ran back to their vehicles.
Mark thought it was a long shot.
Durvan called it a Hail Mary pass without even the hope of a receiver. “That’s just plain nuts. J.W.’s gotta be smarter than that.”
Noah didn’t waste his breath arguing. His full focus was on Carly. If she was there in that house, then she had very little time left. The grass fire would be controlled soon. He could hear the sirens of additional FWFD apparatus rolling toward them bringing reinforcements in the way of firefighters and resources. J.W. must have wanted the explosive fire to start in the thick of things.
It took less than three minutes before they were pulled up before the house. Harley was there before them, barking and clawing at the front door.
Noah called him back.
Harley came racing back to his handler, tail flying and tongue lolling in happiness. He’d done good, and he knew it.
“Good Harley. Best damn dog in the business!” Noah crowed in a high excited voice, stopping to give praise that would have no meaning for Harley later. Dogs lived in the now. So he loved on his dog and fed him two more treats, using precious seconds that counted. Without Harley, he wouldn’t be here.
“New construction,” Durvan said when he’d exited his truck and stood surveying the house. “No brick to hold in the heat, but no protection against the updraft a fire inside would create. Harley thinks there’s an explosive device inside. I’m calling in the bomb squad.”
Noah wasn’t responding. He had turned to the task of donning the rest of his equipment, making certain every piece fit and lay flat, the many layers of protection against flames essential for safety. He didn’t fight fires anymore, but he did go into active burn sites that were deemed suspicious in order to collect evidence before it was destroyed. The drill had been with him so long it was muscle memory, eliminating every other thought.
“Here.” Durvan tossed him a helmet shield and breathing apparatus from the back of his own truck. “You might need extra gear. But I wish you’d wait until we can get a truck over here and get a hose line started.”
Noah shook his head. “There’s no fire. They won’t spare a truck when they are fighting to save occupied houses. I’m going in now.”
“Then take this.” Durvan handed him a backpack full of flame retardant with a short hose and wand attached. “Don’t be a fool. If it’s not doing the job, come out.”
No one said what they all knew. They hadn’t brought bomb squad gear with them. Noah was taking what the other men thought was an unnecessary risk, without knowing for certain a person was inside. But there was no way to know that without first entering.
“I’ll take the door.” Mark had suited up and was holding an ax, the kind used to break through doors and rooftops.
Noah eyed him closely. “You’re sure you want to do this?”
“Bomb squad on the way.” Durvan was shouting from the open door of his truck. “ETA fifteen minutes.”
“Too long.”
Mark nodded. “Let’s go get her.”
With Harley tucked safely away in Mark’s truck, they approached.
Mark hit the doorframe with the ax, splintering wood and shattering what was probably a very expensive door.
The explosion, buffered by the half-open door, still managed to force both men back a step. But Noah kept going, right into the heart of the new conflagration. Carly was in there. He was going to get her out.
The house was filling quickly with smoke. Whatever explosive device J.W. had used was only to ignite the accelerant that saturated the main floor. He could smell the gasoline even through his breathing apparatus. New houses were made of materials that ignited easily and burned quickly. Even without drapes and furnishings, the house would be up in flames within a few moments. As he made his way across the floor, the swoosh of flames appeared all at once, in every room. The smoke gathered quickly as wallboard and laminated wood flooring burned. Where to begin looking?
He braced himself for the worst, and went back to school in his head.
The thing about primary searches is this. You’ll be going in for live victims, often before the first hose is full. It’s not like in the movies. Flames don’t dance around behind and in front of you, backlighting your fellow firefighters like goblins in a Halloween cartoon. The flames don’t show you stairs or furnishings, or holes in the flooring. There’s only smoke. You can’t see shit. But you can feel things. Like heat. Lots of it pressing in everywhere.
So far, that wasn’t his problem in an empty shell of a house. There was only a light smoke condition.
It should have made him feel better but it didn’t. Poisons from flames were often invisible and could kill before heat ever became a problem.
Noah heard movement behind him, probably Mark coming through the door, but he didn’t waste time to check. He headed methodically from the entry with its eight-foot ceiling through to the living room, his classroom still functioning.
A primary search begins as close to the fire as possible.
He turned a corner with a curved wall and came to a stop. A mattress lay in the middle of the family room floor. It was in full flame, yellow licks rising three full feet in the air. He couldn’t see a body but he didn’t waste time evaluating.
Swearing savagely, he hit the blaze with flame retardant.
“Jesus!” Mark’s voice came through his radio though he was at Noah’s side. He added his efforts to Noah’s.
But Noah was moving again. Carly was not lying in the bed that he knew Cody had meant to be her funeral pyre. Heart pounding so loudly he could hardly think, he headed for the bedroom. Go to school, he told himself.
If someone is still alive in here, where would they most likely be?
He came upon a closed door.
You can’t see shit. But you’ll hear things.
He heard something. At least, he thought he did.
He couldn’t say why, but he thought the sound came from there.
He pushed through, aware that the fire was climbing walls behind him.
Nothing in the bedroom.
And then he heard it again. A voice. A woman’s scream.
He barreled through the opening into the bathroom.
Carly lay curled on her side in a Jacuzzi tub. She was naked, her hands and ankles strapped by electrical tape. Her mouth was red and raw, and her eyes were uncovered by the bandage strapping her head. He could see her arms and knees were bruised, but all he cared about was that she was screaming. That meant she was breathing. But the fumes had followed him from room and room. She wasn’t safe even here.
He bent over the tub to touch her, his heart pounding so hard he could hardly hear his own voice. “Carly, it’s Noah. I got you, baby. You’re safe.” She jerked under his touch but stopped screaming. “Hold on. I’ve got you.”
He grabbed his radio and shouted. “Found Carly. Extricating.”
“Roger.” Just as Mark came through the bathroom door a second explosion occurred in the family room.
Both men flinched, but Mark was shouting a reply. “The place is booby-trapped. We need to go now. Get her out of there.” Mark pointed to the big square decorative window over the tub. “We’re going out that way.”
Noah wriggled out of his backpack and stripped off his breathing apparatus then bent and scooped Carly up by the waist. His remaining gear was bulky, impeding his efforts to haul her out. With her hands tied behind her back she couldn’t help him. But once she got her to her knees, she was able to get her feet under her and push herself to standing. He leaned in and shoved her up over his shoulder, caveman style, uncaring that she was naked, this once.
As Noah backed away, Mark stepped over the rim into the tub and swung his axe. The window shattered. He swung several more times until he had cleared the frame of glass fragments that might cut them. Then he turned to Noah.
“You two first. I’ll get the gear.” He stepped back and let Noah climb into the tub and then swing a leg over the windowsill.
Noah didn’t stop when his feet hit the packed earth outside. He suspected that a third explosion might bring the house down upon them. With a hand clamped behind her knees to hold Carly in place over his shoulder, he made several long quick strides to put distance between them and house before turning to check for his partner. He sighed in relief as he saw Mark climbing through the window. Then he turned and headed for the street where fire equipment and firefighters were arriving.
Durvan met Noah before he reached the curb with a silver blanket to cover her. Once it was wrapped around her, Durvan tried to take Carly from him. Noah held tight. “I got this.” He moved to the far side of the street from the burning house, passing firemen with hoses headed toward the blaze.
Finally, he knelt in the grass and let Carly slide from his shoulder. He caught her to keep her from falling. “Get me a knife or scissors.”
Durvan pulled a knife from his pocket and carefully slit the tape binding Carly’s wrists and ankles. More slowly, he worked the blade between her hair and the tape so as not to damage her hair or eyes.
All the while she stared up at Noah, and she was smiling. When she was free she reached up and grabbed his neck so hard
it surprised him. “I knew you’d come. I knew it!” But the relief was too new. Her voice still held the plea of a prayer.
The realization that he almost didn’t make it in time sent a hard shiver through Noah as he pulled her protectively close. “Are you hurt? Did he hurt you in any way?”
She pulled back and shook her head.
But Noah needed verbal confirmation. “Is Cody responsible for this? Just say yes or no.”
“Yes.” She seemed about to say more but her voice caught and she coughed and half-choked.
He touched her face tenderly. “That’s enough. Don’t try to speak. The ambulance is here. You’re safe, and you’re going to be fine.” His tone was gentle, his expression mild. Until he glanced up at Durvan, who remained watching them.
“You can arrest that son of Satan for attempted murder now. Carly will testify to it.”
Durvan nodded. “With pleasure.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
Two months later
“Come on, Harley. Faster. Faster!” Andy ran ahead of the German Shepherd who was nearly twice his weight.
They were running the obstacle course at Fort Woof. The park at nine o’clock on a Saturday was full of people and their pets. But few dared the embarrassment of trying to get their dogs to show off their physical prowess on the Agility course.
The obstacles were built low enough for even small dogs to enjoy. That meant they were not a taxing effort for Harley. But the dog gamely played along, jumping over low barriers, running through hoops, and ducking into plastic tube tunnels. Boy and dog were having a great time.
Noah stood nearby, his son’s windbreaker slung over his shoulder. He grinned as he watched Andy’s flushed face and heard his shouts of delight over Harley’s performance. He drank in the sights and sounds of his son as if they were pure oxygen.
They came out here every Saturday or Sunday morning that Noah was off. And Noah made certain he did something alone with his son when his days off were in the middle of the week. Recently, he’d picked Andy up from school for a dental appointment. Andy didn’t make it back for classes. Instead, they went to see the latest Disney offering at the movies.