Burning Love

“Great. That will save a lot of investigation time.”

“The walk-around’s finished. The structure appears sound enough for you to begin.”

“Your guys were first on the scene, right?”

Jerry nodded. “We had some trouble putting out the blaze. It took a small spray pattern to finally do the trick.”

Terra noted that in her tape recorder. If the typical wide or “fog pattern” spray was inefficient in putting out the fire, that was a clue to the type of accelerant used. “Thanks, Jerry. I’ll come out in just a minute to talk to your crew, walk through overhaul with them. Right now, I need to check for accelerants before they evaporate.”

“Gotcha.”

Still off balance and slightly disoriented, she set her tackle box down on the soggy, debris-covered carpet.

Soot streaked Jerry’s weathered, leather face. Concern darkened his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

She nodded, giving him a small smile. “I can do this.”

“I’ll see you outside.” He squeezed her shoulder and motioned to the two firefighters she’d barely noticed earlier. One woman, one man, both pale and wide-eyed. Probies. Had she ever been that green?

The cop who’d kept her from planting her face in the floor watched her coolly from a few feet away. Uneasy with the knowing steadiness in his eyes, her gaze slid away. She opened her tackle box and took out the small, boxlike “sniffer.” The wooden footboard for the queen-size bed was still intact, but the headboard was a crumbling screen of ash. Charred mattress. Closed, scorched closet door.

Rubbing her temple where a headache had started, Terra walked to the far side of the bed. Bedroom fires were typically caused by three things: frayed lamp circuits, electric blankets or smokers. Harris had never smoked so she dismissed the possibility that he could’ve started the fire that way. Though fires due to frayed lamp circuits and electric blankets were rare, Terra checked anyway. There was no electric blanket on this bed. At the bedside table, she noticed a blackened brass lamp and knelt to check the electrical cord. No frayed lamp circuit here.

Intent on checking the same things on the opposite side, Terra edged around the foot of the bed. An identical bedside table held another brass lamp, now soot-black. This lamp’s electrical cord wasn’t frayed either. The fire hadn’t been caused by faulty electric wiring. Glass fragments sprinkled the sodden carpet. The shattered base of a bulb still screwed into the lamp testified that at least some of the shards belonged to an exploding lightbulb.

“You the fire investigator?”

She remembered the rough velvet voice. Standing up, she had to tilt her head a bit to look him in the eye, something she didn’t have to do with very many men. “Yes.”

“Detective Jack Spencer. I’ll be the primary on this case.”

His gaze scoured her face. What was he looking for? She wasn’t going to faint. In the harsh flood of the portable fluorescent lights, Terra noted fine lines fanning out from Detective Spencer’s eyes. Very blue eyes. Hard blue eyes.

He stuck out his hand.

She shook it and released it quickly. “Terra August.”

“I apologize for my comment earlier. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.”

She tamped down the slash of pain. Presley was still small enough that all police, including the detectives, worked solo rather than with a partner. Except in fire death cases like this. Procedure between Presley’s police and fire departments stated that when P.F.D. found a dead body in a fire, they worked to contain the blaze, then stopped and called Homicide. “I guess we’ll be working together.”

“Yes. Looks like murder.”

Struggling to keep a rein on the emotions swirling inside her, she pressed her lips together and nodded. “The bound hands and feet of the victim also indicate the fire as a probable arson. But why?”

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Spencer said. “Do you have any ideas?”

“No. I’ll concentrate first on confirming or eliminating arson. Then we’ll have a solid starting place.” She’d have to work with the detective until one of them proved the death was an accident, suicide or murder. If Harris’s death was an accident, Terra would turn over her part of the investigation to the insurance company. Otherwise, she and Jack Spencer were in this together. She could interview and interrogate, but she couldn’t arrest or serve warrants. Spencer could.

He glanced around the sooty, soggy room. “Can’t you already tell if it’s arson?”

“I approach all fires as if they are, but I need proof.”

“Well, something’s fishy. Why else would he have been tied?”

She curled her shaking hands into fists around the instrument she held. Her voice cracked as she asked, “Was he dead before the fire?”

“I don’t know.” Sympathy and an unidentifiable emotion flashed through his blue eyes before he turned toward the M.E. “Mason?”

“You know it’s too soon for me to have anything for you yet, Jack.”

Numb and still reeling, a part of her noted the cop’s clean soap-and-water scent she caught beneath lingering smoke. Someone had tied up Harris, but why? So he couldn’t escape the fire? Or for another reason?

This was too much. She couldn’t process it all right now. She needed to test for accelerants and the firefighters from Stations Four and One were waiting. If she wanted to unravel this puzzle, she had to start somewhere. She turned to scan her instrument across the most burned part of the wall above the nightstand.

Jack Spencer snagged her elbow; she looked sharply at him.

He released her, but his gaze lasered into her. “Since the victim was a friend of yours, I’ll need to interview you before I leave here.”

The victim had a name. Terra bit off the sharp words, resisting the urge to rub the place where he’d touched her. The cop was doing what she should be doing—putting his emotions aside so he could do his job.

His features were just as exacting as his eyes. The stubborn chin, rough-hewn cheekbones and shadow of whiskers did nothing to soften a jaw that looked as if it could take a few blows.

“I’ll also be conducting an investigation,” she said.

“I’ll notify the family, talk to the firefighter who found the body.” He scribbled in the small notebook he held.

“That should give you time to do some things you need to do, then you and I can talk.”

“Harris had only an ex-wife.” Thinking about Cecily Vaughn unsettled Terra’s stomach again. “His parents passed on some years ago.”

“Thanks. That confirms what I learned from his neighbor.” Jack Spencer tucked his notebook into the inside pocket of his lightweight tweed blazer. “Anything else you can tell me? Had he made anyone mad recently?”

She frowned. “He’s retired.”

Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug.

She shook her head. “I had dinner with him tonight. He was fine.”

Spencer’s gaze sharpened. “We can talk more about that when I see you again.”

“All right.” She flipped the switch on her “sniffer” and turned toward the charred wall.

“Should you be working this case? He was your friend, after all.”

Having her doubts voiced only served to tighten her jaw. “I am working it.”

“Look, I apologize for what I said when I first walked in, but seeing him obviously affected you. I don’t want anything to jeopardize this case.”

“Neither do I. And nothing will. What happened earlier was shock. I’m not used to seeing my friends burned to a crisp,” she said sharply.

“I know you’re the only fire investigator we have, but maybe someone else could help you out, give you some space.”

“What I need to do is my job, and I will. Maybe you could do yours.”

His lips flattened. “I’ll be by to talk to you once I finish my preliminary interviews.”

“You know where to find me.”

She wondered if his blue eyes were that hard all the time, then she pushed the thoughts away and focused her attention on piecing together what had happened to her mentor.

Chapter 2

He wished he hadn’t touched her, although he couldn’t have let her fall flat on her face. That was where Terra August had been headed when he’d first seen her. Jack could still feel the taut curve of her waist, smell the hint of sweet woman beneath the acrid burn of smoke.

Late the afternoon following the fire, he scrubbed a hand over his face. The setting sun glared through the windshield of his pickup as he drove back to the fire scene. He’d stopped in town to interview a possible witness in a car-jacking, one of his several active cases, but his thoughts were mainly on his newest case. A mix of appreciation and admiration still flared when he thought back to his earlier meeting with Presley’s fire investigator. Professional admiration was where he should draw the line, so he did. She’d put her personal feelings aside and done her job. Despite the raw pain in her eyes, she’d been careful and attentive at the scene. Now he needed to know how much, if any, progress she’d made.

Jack bit off a curse.

Terra August had been on the fringes of his mind like a shadow, not keeping him from his job, but a distraction he’d been unable to dismiss. Was it the vulnerability in her face when he’d first seen her at the fire scene? The agony in those jade-green eyes when he’d stuck his foot in his mouth about her friend? He rubbed at his eyes, scratchy from lack of sleep.

The reason she lingered in his mind had to be because she was still on his suspect list. Until he’d interviewed and cleared her, she would be. Still, his gut told him she was innocent. Which didn’t explain why he’d thought so much about her.

Why Terra August? What was different about her? Since Lori’s death three and a half years ago, Jack hadn’t noticed anything except work. Certainly not women. Not like this.

Some of his time today had been spent asking questions about Terra. She’d spent nine years fighting fires on the front line with Station Four. The last four had been spent as a fire investigator. Orphaned at age fifteen by the death of her parents in a car wreck, she’d moved in with her grandfather, a firefighter who’d died of smoke inhalation in a fire about ten years ago.

She was also divorced from Keith Garcia. Garcia was a sharp young defense attorney with a prestigious law firm making a name for himself in the state. Jack found himself wondering what had gone wrong between the two of them.

He turned into the Hunter’s Ridge subdivision. As he reached the yard squared off with fluttering yellow police tape, he noted a lone police cruiser. It appeared the fire investigator had finished here.

He stopped and rolled down his window.

Pope, the officer at the scene, stepped up to Jack’s truck. “Hey, Jack.”

“Hey. The fire investigator still inside?”

“No, sir.” The hefty, twenty-something officer checked his clipboard. “She left about noon. Said she’d probably be back later, though.”

“Thanks.” Jack waved and turned around in the neighbor’s driveway, then drove out of the neighborhood. He wasn’t wild about going to see her, but there was no way around it. They were as good as partners on this case. Even if Jack had argued about it, he would’ve been shut down.

Fire deaths were worked by both homicide and the fire investigator. He’d probably have to explain to a few people they interviewed that partnering up on this investigation was not only legal, but necessary. In cases like this, a fire investigator’s knowledge was invaluable in asking all the right questions. Jack had already been told by the captain that the victim was the mayor’s uncle. Mayor Griffin had called. He expected everyone to work in whatever capacity was needed. And probably twice as fast.

The more information Jack had, the quicker this case would be solved. Right now, Terra August had information. Regardless of the way she’d intruded on his thoughts all night and day, this was a job. His job. The one thing he could always count on.

Cool air streamed in from his open window, clearing out the cobweb of thoughts he’d been unable to escape all day. He was curious about her; that was all. Of course he’d known Presley’s fire investigator was a woman, but if he’d heard anything about her, he sure didn’t remember it.

Her picture could’ve been plastered on every billboard in town for the past three years running and he wouldn’t have even noticed. His job commanded all his focus. In the first six months after his wife’s death, his world had narrowed to minutes—making coffee, putting gas in his car, mowing the grass. Eventually, he functioned day by day, lead by lead, case by case.

Dating was a distant memory, just like sex. He knew what that said about him, but he didn’t care. His attitude drove his sister crazy, but Jack had found a place where his head—and his heart—weren’t stuck in the past.

He needed to get back on track. Once he interviewed Terra and got caught up on her investigation, he’d be able to go about his business, alone again.

He might admire the way she’d sucked it up at the crime scene, but that didn’t mean he liked this new awareness sizzling in his blood. Still, he’d worked with dozens of women over the years, a few of them very beautiful. There was no reason he couldn’t do it this time.

Jack pulled up in front of Presley’s original fire station, which now housed the fire investigator’s office. The redbrick firehouse, antiqued from years and wind, had held one fire engine and one rescue truck. A weather-scrubbed metal sign hung over the door identifying the old building as the Fire Investigator’s Office. Newer, crisp black lettering repeated the same on the glass front door.

When the city had experienced a population explosion ten years ago, the fire investigator’s office had been moved into the sturdy, but outdated, building. Recent renovations included new electrical wiring and plumbing, but no facelift to the exterior. Now Presley boasted four fire stations complete with engines and trucks.

Prodding himself to get out of his pickup truck, Jack gave himself a mental shake. Regret still flared that he’d made the crack about her reaction to Vaughn’s body. Jack shouldn’t have said what he did to her—he probably had less experience at fire deaths than she did—but she’d looked so out of it. Her peachy velvet skin had gone ash-white, making her green eyes even more vivid and huge.

He rubbed the taut stretch of muscle across his nape. There he went again. Thinking about her when he should be thinking only about what she could bring to this case.

Patting the pocket of his khaki sports jacket to make sure his notebook rested in its usual place, Jack pulled open the creaky glass door. The smell of chemicals and scorched air hit him full on, not overpowering, but strong and steady. The empty desk outfitted with a phone and neatly stacked files caused him to look at his watch. A little after six.

“Hello.” His voice echoed off the flat concrete floor. He let the door shut behind him and moved past a worn oak secretary’s desk.

Separated from the front area by glass walls was a small office. It was crammed with a squat oak desk, files piled ten-deep on its scarred top. Fresh, ruby-red roses spilled from a vase at the desk’s center. The flowers looked frivolous and out of place in the midst of records and a computer. Two wooden armchairs faced one side of the desk and a stuffed leather chair sat on the other. Scratched gray filing cabinets lined the wall adjacent to the desk. Photographs, some framed, of fires and ancient fire engines covered the wall above the files.

Opposite the open door stood a dry-erase board on wheels. He stepped over to study the pictures stuck there in meticulous precision and recognized them as being from Harris Vaughn’s bedroom. “Anyone here?”

When he received no answer, he whistled. Still nothing. He heard a muffled thud and peered down a short, dark hallway to a metal door. Seeing a thread of light beneath it, he made his way there.

A loud pop sounded, causing his pulse to spike. The burn of smoke filled the air. Panic stretched across his chest as he rushed the door and slammed down the metal tension bar. He sprinted inside and stopped dead in his tracks.

Terra August, wearing a turnout coat and hard hat, stood several feet away over the scorched base of a lamp. Jack could also see she had on safety goggles and gloves. Flames raced in a vee pattern up a large section of Sheetrock attached to wood, which was propped against the brick wall. As the fire spread, she made notes. Notes, for crying out loud!

Why would any man want to be involved with a woman in a job like this?

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled. He couldn’t help it. Just standing this close to flame caused his entire body to pucker, even if he wasn’t about to become barbecue. A wave of heat rolled past him.

Terra jerked around at the sound of his voice. Grabbing an extinguisher from somewhere near her feet, she doused the fire.

Relief seeped through him. He hadn’t been in danger, but he felt better with the fire out.

She set down the extinguisher, scribbled more notes on the yellow pad she held, then turned to him as she pulled off the hard hat. She wore the same ponytail she had at the crime scene. “I was right in the middle of something.”

“I noticed.” He’d forgotten that her gaze was nearly level with his, how long her legs were. “What happened?”

She frowned as she removed her goggles. “Nothing. I was testing my theory about how the fire started at Harris’s.”

“You’ve already figured that out?” The admiration he’d felt earlier slid up a notch.

She shrugged, sliding off the turnout coat and draping it over the back of a chair he only now noticed. A red-hot sweater snugged her full breasts, disappeared beneath the trim waistband of the faded blue jeans that gloved her long, lean legs.

Well. Presley’s fire investigator could start a few fires of her own. His gaze tracked over the curve of her breasts and the sleek flare of her hips. Jack knew now why a man would be drawn to a woman in a dangerous job. Terra August had the kind of shoulda-been-a-stripper curves he’d seen only on the wrong side of a badge. Hell, a man could get whip-lash trying to look twice at her.

At his scrutiny, her chin lifted slightly. Her warning stare snapped him back to the job at hand.

Shake it off, man. He cleared his throat. “You have a theory about how the fire started?”

“Maybe.” Cool wariness slid into her eyes. “I found a piece of evidence and wanted to test my theory.”

“Wanna share? That’s why I’m here.” He could tell she wasn’t wild about the idea, but after a brief hesitation, she nodded and walked past him, motioning for him to follow her out the door and back down the hall.

He did, trying to keep his gaze from tracing the slender lines of her back, the gentle rounding of hips his hands suddenly itched to span. A vague hint of woodsmoke drifted around her, but Jack was more aware of the scent of sweet, musky woman. Good hell, what was going on with him? “This building’s in pretty good shape for its age.”

“Yes. I like it—the history, the stories.”

They walked into her small office where the scent of roses merged with a metallic whiff of chemicals. Behind her desk sat a pair of firefighter’s boots, a shovel and a fire ax. Amid the stacked files on the cluttered desk were maps and newspaper clippings.

He gestured to the files. “Are you handling all this yourself?”

“My secretary, Darla, helps a lot.”

Jack gestured to the photographs covering the opposite wall. “Did you take the pictures?”

She glanced at them as she walked around the corner of her cluttered desk. “I took a few. Harris actually took most of them. Like that one.” She pointed at a framed black-and-white photograph in the middle of the wall. “That’s Presley’s first fire engine.”

Terra moved aside the vase of full-blooming flowers and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. After opening a small paper bag, she shook into her palm a piece of glass about the diameter of a pencil eraser.

Jack leaned forward to get a better look.

She lifted her hand toward him. “Lightbulb glass.”

“Yeah.”

“See the tape?” The pleasure in her voice had him glancing up before directing his attention to her palm as she pointed at what he now determined was a piece of clear tape on the glass.

He nodded.

Reaching to her left, she flipped on a lamp then adjusted the shade so the light shot across her palm. She pointed again. “See this hole? You can make it out if you hold the piece of glass up to the light.”

She did so gingerly.

“Someone drilled a hole in the lightbulb?” He frowned.

“Yes. The fire was deliberately set and this lightbulb plant is the incendiary device.”

“Lightbulb plant?” He straightened, his pulse revving. “How does that work?”

“Our arsonist drilled a hole in the top of the bulb, probably used a syringe to fill it with accelerant, covered the hole with tape then screwed in the bulb. He connected the lamp to a clock timer—” she picked up a blackened piece of metal sprouting a short wire “—and he left.”

“So the lamp wouldn’t come on until the timer tripped the switch?”

“Right.”

“The heat generated by the electricity caused the explosion.”

“Yes.” She smiled.

“And our guy was far away, establishing an alibi.”

“Yeah. Lightbulbs distort at a thousand degrees and will hold that temperature for about ten minutes. The explosion would’ve happened once the temperature climbed higher.”

“There was definitely an explosion? Not just a leak?”

“An explosion, probably close to what sounded a while ago back in the testing area. The bedroom door and windows were blown outward, not inward. That’s a sure sign.”

“So, it makes sense to think the victim was either immobilized or dead before the fire started.”

“Absolutely. Whoever did this probably tied up Harris then set the plant.”

“The killer and the arsonist might be two different people.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Still, the M.E. will be able to tell us if Harris died before the fire or as a result.”

Jack agreed. “Any ideas about the type of accelerant used?”

“Isopropyl alcohol. I think it was some type of cleaning fluid.” After carefully returning the piece of bulb to its brown paper bag, she closed it. She gestured to the pictures around her office. “I was able to recover some traces of the accelerant. No other lightbulbs exploded at the burn site. I washed down the lamp with the blown bulb and the bedside table holding it, and found a fluid pattern at the base of the lamp. I also took some samples from Harris’s darkroom. He was an avid photographer.”

“Right. I noticed a lot of photographs in his house.”

She nodded. “I scraped some samples from the charred wall around his bed, also from the lamp base, and ran them through my gas chromatograph.”

“Do you have a full lab here?” Jack glanced around, wondering if he’d missed another door.

“No. I have a few pieces of equipment, but until our budget gets a little more healthy, I have to use the lab in Oklahoma City for most of my analysis. My chromatograph showed an alcohol-based chemical.”

“So, none of the darkroom chemicals were used to start the fire?”

“No. A photo fixer in Harris’s darkroom did contain glacial acetic acid, which is also highly flammable, but that isn’t our accelerant.”

“This is great. You’ve really made some progress.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t have to start at the very beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen this before. Three times, in fact.”

“What? The lightbulb thing?”

“The alcohol-based solvent, the lightbulb plant, the timer.”

The little nerve on the side of his neck twitched, as it always did at any sign of danger. He narrowed his gaze. “What are you saying, August?”

She exhaled and reached up to release her ponytail, funneling her fingers through the reddish-gold fall of hair as it tumbled to her shoulders. The thick satiny curtain was an equal mix of gold and red, a true strawberry blonde.