Into the Fire (12 page)

Reynolds nodded. “It’s that bad. I’ll
question her myself.” He turned to face her house, which looked so
innocent on the outside. Well, except for the uniformed presence,
that is. The firefighters were exiting the building, and CSU and
John Janssen, a fellow arson investigator, were entering. “As soon
as Janssen and CSU clears it, then, and only then, can you take a
look, understood?”

She nodded, hating to have her hands
tied, but understanding nonetheless. “Can Nate go in? He’s a
firefighter, former military, but you know that already.” She knew
she wasn’t asking anything Nate didn’t want, or at least she hoped
not. Then he was standing by her side, strong and silent, and she
knew she was right.

Reynolds scrutinized them. “And your
boyfriend.” When Charly didn’t contradict him, he continued. “Yeah,
he can go in. You’ll see why in a few minutes.” He paused, as if
weighing his words. “This was a message, Charly. To both of
you.”

Without another word, he turned and
walked to her sedan, pulling his badge to show Emma. He disappeared
inside the car, leaving Charly with more questions than answers and
a raw, burning feeling in her gut.

*

Nate wanted to pull Charly into his
arms and comfort her but knew she wouldn’t welcome the embrace, not
now, not in front of the firefighters and cops. He already gritted
his teeth against their prying eyes. Across the street, a neighbor
hovered on her front porch, her gaze ping ponging between Charly
and the activity swirling around her sphere.

He’d like nothing better than to tear
CC from stem to stern right now. Even without seeing the damage
wrought, he had no doubt his colleague was responsible for this
travesty. That conclusion only made sense.

And he was responsible for it, as
well. He could have left well enough alone, but he hadn’t. He’d
been so damned concerned with winning Charly’s trust that he hadn’t
considered the ramifications, what CC might do if provoked. And
Charly had certainly provoked the man last night.

He ran a hand through his hair. Jesus.
What had he done?

As if reading his thoughts, Charly
bumped his shoulder with hers and walked back to her car. While
Reynolds questioned Emma inside, she leaned against the hood, arms
crossed, waiting ... for both him and clearance of the scene. Nate
joined Charly at the hood of the car but shoved his hands in his
pockets to keep from reaching for her. He’d done enough
damage.

“
Stop it.” Charly’s voice
was so quiet he almost didn’t hear her.

“
Stop what?”

“
Beating yourself up. I
would have done the same thing to CC with you by my side or
without. He’s the bastard here, Nate, not you.”

He sighed. “Maybe, but I sure hurried
it along.”

She huffed out a humorless laugh. “I
wouldn’t call waiting eight years hurrying anything along. CC had
it in for me from day one. I should have known he was spreading the
rumors; he hated me too much, y’know? But, I didn’t have the balls
to confront him. I just didn’t want to stir the pot, not after
everything died down. It was easier to be mad at you.”

Huh. He certainly never expected this
conversation. “And now you have a reason to be mad at me all over
again.” He wasn’t a masochist, really, but given his past with
Charly, dissembling was a luxury long gone.

She turned to him, her face set in
professional lines, but her belief in him shining fiercely in her
eyes. “Don’t play the martyr, Nate, it doesn’t suit. This is all
CC.”

“
Maybe,” he
replied.

Janssen exited the building, his face
expressionless as a stone. She’d never seen that blankness on
Janssen’s face, and she’d been working with him for a long damned
time. What the hell was inside that would make a veteran look like
that?

The arson investigator made his way
across the lawn slowly. He walked to the driver’s side of the sedan
without a word to them and waited for Reynolds to exit the vehicle.
Seconds later, Charly’s precinct captain stepped out of the car and
turned away from them. He talked to Janssen in low
tones.

As Nate and Charly watched silently,
Reynolds sighed, his shoulders slumped. Finally, he turned and
walked to them. He looked tired as they pushed away from the hood
of the car and waited.

“
You can go in. CSU isn’t
done yet, but I want your impressions, as the owner, now.” He
handed Charly a digital tape recorder. “I want it all. Don’t hold
anything back.” He faced Nate. “You too.”

Nate squared his shoulders and nodded.
What in the hell had CC done?

*

The familiar smell of smoke
and burned materials assaulted Charly as she stepped over the
threshold. A distant part of her mind screamed that the space
was 
hers
,
that she’d been violated, but the professional in her muted it
down. She needed to remain distant if she wanted to get through
this walk-through.

She viewed the carnage that had been
her carefully restored living room with dispassionate eyes. Piles
of smoldering clothing were scattered in strategic heaps designed
to use the airflow through the rooms for maximum damage. An open
paint can still stood by the front door, just as Emma had
described; it seemed to mock her. She hoped to God the perp had
left prints this time around. She had no doubt it was her serial;
the clothing trail was eerily similar to the last blaze.

Her kitchen was by far the
worst, and as soon as she entered, she understood why Reynolds had
sent in both her and Nate. Above the dining room table the wall had
been defaced; the word 
whore
 was painted in giant red
letters. Her mind balked at the thought CC could have done this,
could have possibly known what she and Nate had done on this very
table. Then her eyes were drawn to smaller lettering, written in
red, ballpoint pen beneath the blasphemy. 
He’s mine
, 
he’s always been mine
 the words
proclaimed, and everything in her turned cold.

She whirled and pinned Nate with her
gaze, finding his glued to the amendment. He’d gone almost as white
as Emma had been, his shock evident on his features. His eyes
dropped to her.

“
What the fuck...?” He
trailed off, speechless for the first time in their
acquaintance.

“
What if it’s not about me,
Nate?” Charly whispered. “This all started right before you came
back. This isn’t CC at all.”

Her mind spun, churning out suspect
after useless suspect. Faces flashed in her mind’s eye: arsonists
she’d helped put away, simple arrests when she was still walking a
beat to earn her badge. But, nothing jelled. There was simply no
one she could imagine doing this to her ... to them.

She brushed past him into the living
room, noting something she’d skipped over before. The piles of
clothing trailing throughout the room were all intimate ... her
thongs, bras, nighties.

Nate stood beside her now. Flags of
angry color highlighted his cheekbones, and his lips thinned with
pure rage. He all but vibrated with fury.

“
You about done here?” he
asked.

“
Bedroom sweep.”

Nate dipped his head in assent and
followed her into her most personal space. Just as in the rest of
the house, the room had been destroyed. Charred tee shirts hung
from dresser drawers and her closet looked as if a bomb had gone
off in it. On closer inspection, all of her uniform shirts and
slacks, which she never wore unless in court, had been slashed with
an obviously sharp blade. Her favorite dress lay in shreds at the
foot of her bed. She’d worn it whenever she needed to dress up,
which meant whoever had done this had been watching her, and
probably for some time.

Charly felt a fine shudder of
violation work through her body, and then Nate’s hand was on her
shoulder; his mere touch bolstered her. With a gentle shrug, she
dislodged his fingers and turned on her heel, not stopping until
she was outside, on the porch, drawing cleansing breaths deep in
her lungs. Yet even as she did, she could feel eyes on her, making
her feel polluted all over again. The perp was out there somewhere,
watching his--or her--handiwork.

Reynolds stood at the end of the walk,
his face etched with lines of concern. Charly strode toward him,
feeling Nate at her back. When she approached, she met his eyes.
“Not outside, where the perp can see. Next door. Mrs. Montgomery
will be happy to let us use her place. You’ve already questioned
her, right?”

Her captain nodded in response, and
the three of them trekked across the lawn. Mrs. Montgomery gaped at
them for a moment but then hurried to the door. She shooed them
inside when they paused to ask admittance.

“
Use the parlor,” she said.
“I know you want privacy.” She turned her worried expression to
Charly. “Are you all right, dear?”

Charly smiled in response, touched by
the woman’s concern. “I’m fine, ma’am. I was with Nate last
night.”

“
Thank goodness,” her
neighbor chirped and scurried away. “I’ll get some iced
tea.”

Reynolds turned to her as soon as Mrs.
Montgomery had left the room.

“
This was personal,” she
said baldly. “Someone knows about Nate and me.” She gulped.
“They’ve seen us together. Specifically in my kitchen.” She refused
to be embarrassed. Reynolds was a big boy; he could take
it.

To give him his due, no expression
crossed his face, though Nate flinched behind him.

Nate added, “I thought, just
yesterday, that the serial was targeting Charly. Now, after seeing
Charly’s house, I hold to the assertion. But the reasons I was
operating on were all wrong.” He took a deep breath and turned to
face Charly. “You may be right. This may be about me
instead.”

Chapter Eleven

Nate stood tall before Reynolds, even
though the captain’s stare felt like a searchlight. Then Charly was
beside him, and the man’s gaze shifted. While Nate was grateful for
her support, he didn’t want her to think he was so weak he needed
it. Her next words, though, floored him, and showed him how far
she’d really come from the good old days.

“
Who knew you were coming
back?” she asked, turning the attention away from him and to the
perp, where it belonged.

He shrugged in response and mirrored
Reynolds when the captain dropped into an armchair. “My Chief,
mostly, though it wasn’t exactly a secret I was coming on board. I
caught a lot of shit for being a flyboy firefighter the last few
weeks. Word was out.”

Charly was still on her feet, pacing
back and forth. Both men watched her as she processed, for both
knew that was exactly what she was doing. She’d always thought the
best on her feet. When she finally came to a halt, she voiced what
Nate had been thinking.

“
CC had a one-nighter with
some chick who blabbed about our off-duty activities eight years
ago. Now we’ve got a torch who starts lighting fires right before
you return, who does it damned well. Now, she’s targeted me; hell,
maybe she was targeting me all along, hoping to make me look
stupid, since Nate was coming back.” She faced Nate. “So who were
you with before me, back in the day? Someone with a firefighter
fetish, a woman who learned the ropes from just hanging
around?”

He scrubbed a hand through his hair.
He didn’t like airing his dirty laundry in front of Charly’s
captain, but he would. “I’ll need to consider it. It’s not like I
played the field a lot before we hooked up, no matter what you may
think.”

Reynolds spoke for the
first time since they’d entered the house. The fact he hadn’t
delved into their “off-duty activities” made Nate feel a bit
better, but not much. “Figure it out fast, smoke-eater. This whole
scene has escalation written all over it. If you are right, and I
believe you are, she knew Charly was with you last night. She’ll
come after 
her
 next, not just her house. We need to get you both into
a safe house.”

“
Absolutely not,” Charly
said, her back ramrod straight. “Don’t even think about pulling any
macho man crap on me, Captain. I may be arson, but I’m still a cop,
and I won’t run and hide. Hell, Nate and I are the perfect bait,
and you know it. We’ve got to catch this torch before she kills
someone.”

Reynolds’ face was a perfect mask for
a long moment, before he let out a big sigh. “You’re right, but I
don’t like it. What did you have in mind?”

“
First let’s see if CSU
pulls any prints off the paint can. I seriously doubt it’ll be so
easy, but it’s worth a shot. I didn’t have any blades sharp enough
to shred my clothes like that, so unless they find it in the house,
that’s a dead end. If CSU doesn’t come up with anything by end of
day and Nate can’t figure out who it was, then we let her follow us
back to Nate’s, lay a trap.”

“
I don’t like it,” Nate
stood and mimicked Charly’s pacing, pausing only when Mrs.
Montgomery entered the parlor balancing a tray with a pitcher of
iced tea and glasses.

“
Just a little something to
wet your whistle.” She set the tray down then touched Charly’s
cheek. “Do you need anything else, dear?”