Dead Man District

by Julie Miller

  Matt didn’t even bother getting up to get a fork. He picked the wedge up in his hand and took a bite. His grandmother was one hell of a cook, and this pie reminded him of that perfect blend of talent and experience. The second bite made him forget the niggling thought at the back of his mind that told him something was very wrong in that small apartment across the hall.

  There was also something very right about that little family.

  Corie McGuire had pretty hair, a pretty butt and a pretty smile.

  Matt inhaled the last of the sweet, flaky crust and tart filling.

  And damn, the woman could cook.

  He might just be in love.

  Chapter Two

  “Okay, now you’re just showin’ off.”

  Ignoring the teasing voice, Matt pushed up off the snow-dusted pavement after checking to make sure there was no fuel leak and pried open the hood of the burning car with his long-handled ax. He wedged it upward, bracing the ax between the frame and the hood to keep it open. He turned away from the billowing smoke that poured out over the fenders to frown at his younger brother, Mark, who’d brought a second ax from the engine parked several yards away in the parking lot.

  “Huh?” Matt lifted the hose he’d dragged to the burning car off his shoulder and pointed it toward the flames before opening the valve and spraying the engine block. The steam of water meeting fire forced them both to take a step back. They wore their turnout gear like the rest of the Lucky 13 crew, who had responded to the call to a car fire behind an office building just north of the downtown area. But since this wasn’t a structure fire they had to walk into where oxygen would be scarce, there’d been no call to wear face masks and a breathing apparatus. His cold cheeks stung with the spray of steamy moisture on and around his goggles, forcing Matt to redirect the water. “Are you complaining because I’m doing my job?”

  “I’m complaining because you’re doing everybody’s job.” Mark moved in beside him, waving his arm through the smoke and steam, clearing it away to get a visual on the origin of the fire to ensure that it was completely out. “Hell, I could have stayed at the firehouse where it’s warm and finished my lunch instead of getting in the truck and riding here to watch you do all the work.”

  “I let you turn on the water and pressurize the hose, didn’t I?” Matt covered the engine with one more spray of water before shutting off the valve and giving a high sign to Ray Jackson, another firefighter, who was waiting beside the hydrant to turn it off.

  “Big whoop. I know this is small in the grand scheme of fires, but we are trained to work together as a unit. You’re making me look bad in front of our adoring audience.” Mark turned his blue eyes to the group of curious bystanders huddling together for warmth on the far side of the parking lot. “Unless you’re trying to impress one of those ladies over there?”

  Matt glanced across the way. Although he’d been aware of the small group of people, making sure they’d remained at a safe distance while he put out the fire, he hadn’t really noticed that there were three women in the group. He didn’t seem to notice any women since last night’s visit to Corie McGuire’s apartment. Honey-blond ponytails and big green eyes must be his thing. The two brunettes and a bright, unnaturally platinum blonde were attractive enough, he supposed, but not one of them had been compelling enough to divert his attention. “No.”

  “Of course not. Big bad Matt Taylor’s just doing his job. Like always.” Mark’s groan echoed Matt’s as Ray Jackson turned over shutting down the hydrant to another teammate and jogged across the parking lot to chat up the three ladies. “Can’t say the same for Jackson.”

  “Maybe he knows one of them,” Matt suggested, giving his teammate the benefit of the doubt.

  “Would it matter if he did or didn’t?” Mark swung his ax onto his shoulder and shook his head. “How am I ever going to find you a date to Amy’s and my wedding if you got to compete with that?”

  Matt shrugged as Ray took off his helmet and the three women eagerly shook hands with him. Matt had never possessed the gift of gab or the movie-star looks of their buddy Ray. He’d been a natural to represent Firehouse 13 on the KCFD fund-raiser calendar last year. Matt probably should be jealous. Instead, he was glad he’d never been called on to do any PR for the KCFD. Although he’d fought more dangerous fires than today’s car fire side by side with Ray Jackson and was happy to let Ray or Mark do the friendly conversations with the witnesses and victims they interacted with, he was a little embarrassed to see Ray focusing squarely on the women in the group, barely acknowledging the two men standing with them.

  “If we had a sister,” Matt announced, “I’d never introduce them.”

  “Agreed.” Mark clapped him on the shoulder, pulling his focus away from Ray and the onlookers and back to cleaning up after the fire. “Come on. I’ll help you drain the hose and roll it back up. Water’s freezing fast. Careful of that ice. I think we just turned this place into a skating rink.”

  They worked in silence for a few minutes while their firehouse captain, Kyle Redding, stood farther down the sidewalk talking with a uniformed police officer and the older couple walking their dog who had called in the burning car. Apparently, there was some issue in finding the owner of the vehicle. He’d like to think that Ray was following up on the investigation by chatting with the onlookers, but it didn’t seem as though anyone who worked around here recognized the car or knew where the owner worked.

  Matt pulled the hose out straight and began the laborious task of clearing the line before something Mark had said in jest—he hoped—sank in. “Don’t set me up on any dates. Not even for the wedding.”

  Mark stopped abruptly and straightened, grinning from ear to ear. “Why? You seeing somebody I don’t know about?”

  Matt replayed the images of Corie walking away from him and the sweet smile that had softened her pretty mouth when he’d made her laugh. He wasn’t sure exactly what he thought might happen with his neighbor. Probably nothing more than just that—being neighbors. But he wanted to savor last night’s encounter with the small family across the hall awhile longer before he tried to work up interest in any matchmaking his brother and future sister-in-law might have in mind for him. “No. But I’m not interested in meeting anyone new.”

  Mark’s blue eyes narrowed suspiciously. “So, you have met someone,” he prodded, fishing for information.

  Matt’s answer was to pull off his goggles and toss them at Mark. “If you’re so anxious to do some work, stop talking and get to it.”

  But Mark never gave up that easily. “Do I know her? Has anyone in the family met her? Did you find her on one of those dating sites?”

  Matt gave the hose a strong tug, pulling it right out of Mark’s hands. “I outrank you, Taylor,” he teased, knowing with his brother, it was a useless threat. “I said get to work.”

  “Yes, sir, Lieutenant, sir.” Although that cheesy grin never wavered, Mark had the good sense to let the matter drop so they could get the hose prepped for the truck.

  Of Matt’s three adoptive brothers, his younger brother, Mark, was the only one who was his brother by birth. Unlike their older brothers, Alex and Pike, who were cops, Mark had followed Matt into firefighting, making for a friendly family rivalry in interdepartmental softball games, blood drives and fund-raisers. Sometimes the cops won; sometimes the firefighters came out on top. But nothing could ever break the bond they shared. All four brothers had lived in the same foster home and had been adopted by Gideon and Meghan Taylor—the firefighters who had saved them in more ways than one, and who had inspired Matt to follow in their footsteps. The six of them had become the family that, as a child, Matt hadn’t believed he’d ever find—or even deserved.

  If Alex, the oldest, was their leader, and Pike, the second oldest, was the intellectual, then Matt was the quiet one. And that made Mark the obnoxious one. There was something about being the youngest�
�and something about being ridiculously in love and planning a summer wedding—that made Mark particularly ornery lately. Although he’d nearly lost his fiancée, Amy, to a serial killer who’d hidden his crimes in a series of arson fires, and had nearly lost his own life saving her, Mark was now as happy as Matt had ever seen him. Amy was good for Mark. She’d brought him out of his grief and guilt after the traumatic loss of their grandfather had hit Mark particularly hard—and she thought his goofy sense of humor was actually funny. No accounting for taste, he guessed.

  Mark elbowed Matt’s arm, drawing his focus back to the work at hand. “What’s up with you today? I just caught you smiling. There is a woman.”

  “Nah. Not me.” For now, Corie McGuire and her cherry pie were simply a good feeling Matt wanted to keep to himself. The musical trill of a woman laughing carried across the parking lot, and both Taylors paused to see Ray Jackson leaning in and saying something that delighted his captive audience. Knowing Ray, he’d have all their phone numbers before the conversation was over.

  Mark snorted a laugh. “Maybe you and I ought to kick back and let Ray finish cleanup duty.”

  Matt shook his head, preferring to stay busy and keep moving in the cold weather. He hefted his section of hose and carried it several feet closer to the fire engine. “What would you do if Ray flirted with your Amy like that?”

  Mark followed with the next length of hose. “I love the guy. But I’d lay him out flat.” Mark chuckled as he dropped the hose alongside the lines two other members of their team were winding onto the truck. “Unless Amy laid him out first.”

  Matt laughed with him, suspecting Mark’s fiancée wouldn’t put up with anyone or anything she didn’t want to. Matt liked that directness about Amy Hall. Not only did it make it easy for him to have a conversation with his future sister-in-law, but her honesty left him with no doubt just how much she was in love with Mark. While Matt was a little envious that his three brothers had found their soul mates, and the two older ones had even started families, he was also happy that Alex, Pike and Mark had each found the right woman. One day, he hoped for the same.

  He silently wondered if anything would come of this unexpected attraction to Corie, and if he could handle the ready-made family that came with her. Not for the first time since last night, Matt debated his suspicions about the oven fire in the McGuire apartment. He’d shown the residue he’d collected to Captain Redding this morning before they’d been called out, and the captain—who had almost twenty years of experience on Matt and agreed the substance was suspicious—promised to run it by some of his old cohorts in the department. Something was off about the whole story of baking a pizza gone wrong. Something more than the sooty remains of a fire had coated the heating elements in the oven. And Corie had seemed so certain that she’d had a fire-suppressant mixture stored in her cabinet for just such an emergency that he had a feeling there was something deliberate about that fire.

  Somebody had wanted it to burn.

  Matt had set more than one fire himself when he’d been barely more than a toddler. He’d been curious, yes, but he understood now that he’d been acting out against his birth parents’ neglect, and later against being stuck in foster care and the guilt he felt at putting him and Mark there. Was there something going on in Evan McGuire’s life that was making the eight-year-old experiment with fire? It would require Matt drawing on some painful memories, but maybe it was worth prodding Corie a little to see if she suspected her son might have picked up a dangerous hobby, and if he could get the boy some of the same type of counseling that had helped him as a child.

  “Yo, Matt.” Mark’s summons pulled Matt from his thoughts. “Take a look at this.” Mark was standing in front of the sedan’s charred engine block. Now that the fire was out and the smoke and steam had dissipated, they could make a clearer assessment of what might have caused the fire, despite the ice frozen around the parts Matt had hosed with water. “You’re the fix-it guy. Those wires don’t belong there, do they?”

  Matt frowned at the blackened metal wires crisscrossing above the radiator and battery. If they’d been part of the car’s makeup, they should have been coated in rubberlike polymers or plastic to prevent sparks or accidental electrocution to the unwary handler. Even with the intense heat of the fire, some trace of the insulation should have remained. Reaching under his turnout coat, Matt pulled out his pocketknife and chipped away at the ice. “Looks like some kind of homemade repair job.” He peered down between the frame and engine parts. “It doesn’t look like they’re holding anything together, though. Just a sec.”

  Without regard for the snow or ice, Matt dropped down to the ground and slid as much of his bulk as he could beneath the car. Between his flashlight and the pocketknife, Matt quickly found what the wires were attached to—the melted remains of a cell phone and a wad of charred, waxy cord that fed into a hole in the oil pan.

  Talk about wanting something to burn.

  This fire was no accident.

  “Hey, if it isn’t the wonder twins.” At the sound of approaching footsteps and a man’s familiar voice, Matt slid from beneath the car.

  “Uncle Cole.” Mark was already trading a handshake and friendly back-slapping hug with the dark-haired older man by the time Matt was on his feet.

  “Mark. Matt.” Other than the lack of silvering sideburns, Cole Taylor was a dead ringer for their father, Gideon.

  “Uncle Cole.” Matt reached out to shake hands with the family member, too. His gaze dropped to the KCPD badge and gun peeking out from beneath his leather jacket before sliding back up to slightly lined blue eyes. That meant he was on duty. It didn’t explain why he was here at the scene of a small fire, though. “Good to see you.”

  He pointed to the man with the dark sideburns and stocking cap standing beside him. “This is Agent Amos Rand, my new partner. I’m showing him the ropes while my regular partner is on maternity leave. He’s on temporary assignment from NCIS.”

  “A Navy man?” Matt extended his hand in greeting.

  “Marines.” Agent Rand could give Matt a run for the money in the stoicism department. But his grip was solid and friendly enough.

  “Like Grandpa.” Mark shook hands with Cole’s new partner. “He served during the Korean conflict, and in the reserves for several years after that. He died earlier this year.”

  Matt reached over and squeezed his brother’s shoulder. They all missed the family patriarch, who’d suffered a fatal heart attack while helping Mark rescue the victims of a car accident. But Mark seemed to take it personally that he hadn’t been able to save their grandfather, as well.

  Agent Rand buried his hands in the pockets of his coat and nodded. “I would have liked your grandpa.”

  “You would have loved Dad,” Cole agreed, erasing the wistful grief that had momentarily darkened his expression. “He’d have been telling you stories for hours. A few of them might even have been true.”

  Amos chuckled. “Sounds like a good man.”

  “He was the best,” Cole and Mark echoed together.

  Matt nodded his agreement. “What brings you two to our parking lot on this cold day? You’re not working arson now, are you?”

  Cole shook his head. “We’re still major cases, organized crime division.”

  Amos pulled out his cell phone and nodded toward the sedan. “You all catch up.” Matt watched the NCIS agent type in the license plate and send it off in a text before he circled around the car, sizing up the blackened engine block and peering into the windows. “This was an arson fire?”

  “Looks like it,” Matt confirmed.

  Cole shoved his hands deep into the pockets of his coat, his breath gusting out in a cloud of warm air. “We’re supposed to meet a CI on a case we’re investigating.”

  “CI?” Mark asked.

  “Confidential informant.” Cole Taylor scanned the people around the parking lo
t before tilting his gaze to the windows above them on either side. “Don’t suppose you’ve seen a skinny, hyperactive guy with dark hair? Possibly wearing coveralls. He works at a garage over on South McGee.”

  “We cleared the immediate area.” Matt pointed to the gathering across the parking lot where one of the brunettes was typing on Ray Jackson’s phone. “Except for that group over there, it’s too cold to have a lot of onlookers. Is one of those men your guy?”

  “In a suit? I don’t think so.” Cole glanced back as Captain Redding dismissed the couple with their dog. “The guy talking to your captain is too old to be our man. Our CI requested we meet on neutral ground where the chances of anyone recognizing him would be next to nil. He’d stand out like a sore thumb here in the business district. Unless he was dropping off somebody’s car he was working on.”

  Amos returned from inspecting the car. “It’s Maldonado’s car,” he confirmed. “Plates and VIN number are in his name.”

  “Ah, hell.” Cole looked up at Matt, his expression grim. “Please tell me you didn’t find a body in it?”

  “Hadn’t looked beyond the front and back seats.”

  “Can you open the trunk?” When Matt hesitated, Cole pulled back the front of his coat to expose his badge where anyone passing by the scene could see it. “We have probable cause that our man could be in danger. I’ll take full responsibility.”

  “Not a problem.” His firefighter’s training included a vow to save people before property. Since Matt’s ax was currently wedged between the hood and frame, Mark picked up his ax and followed them to the back end of the car. He wedged the blade into the locking mechanism and forced it open. Suspecting it was useless to warn the two officers to stay back, Matt raised the trunk. Although some of the smoke from the engine has made its way through the car’s interior and drifted out to dissipate in the wintry air, it was easy to see that there was nothing inside but the spare tire and a toolbox. “The car looks abandoned.” He reached inside to open the toolbox. “He’s got the means here to rig that fire. But then, it wouldn’t take any special tools to set that up. Just a cell phone and the know-how.”