Once Burned (Task Force Eagle)

by Vaughan, Susan

  She collected her keys, handbag, and a folder from the car’s front seat. She slung the bag onto her shoulder and held up the folder, stuffed with papers. “After I got here, I decided I should read those news articles myself, the coverage I couldn’t bring myself to look at back then. And I asked myself why a federal agent would check into a twelve-year-old tragic accident.”

  He opened his mouth to spout some inane answer but she held up a hand.

  “Possibly this agent—who I now discover is an arson expert—suspects the accidental fire might have been something more. Am I warm? Hot?”

  Her words seared him. “Lani—”

  “Wait, there’s more. I come home to find this expert digging for clues at the scene of the accident.” Cheeks pink with emotion—temper or excitement, who knew—she charged onward. “Jake, if you suspect arson or some other foul play, I want in. I want to help, to do something. Gail was my twin, identical DNA. I need to know.”

  “The fire was declared an accident.” Except what he’d read raised doubts of that as a fact. He wasn’t ready to speak that aloud to anyone, especially to this woman. He made it two more steps down the driveway.

  She huffed in disgust. “Remind me to invite you to my next Texas Hold’em game. I’ll clean up.”

  “I have no information that indicates it wasn’t an accident.” The less he said about it, the better. Another few steps and he could escape before she could talk him into deputizing her.

  “Official speak. Like that spokesman for the state police. ‘We have no information at this time pending the investigation.’ Bull crap.” She jabbed a forefinger his direction. “You’re the arson expert but I’m pretty good at research. I’ll read the rest of these news clippings and go from there.”

  “Let me do the investigating. Stay out of this.” Shit, he’d given away too much by warning her. “Okay, here’s how you can help. Tell me what you saw that night.”

  Pain flashed in her eyes. “I would if I could. I can’t tell you squat.”

  “But you must—”

  “I must nothing! Ever since I woke up in that hospital bed, I’ve tried to remember. I thought coming back here, living in this house would bring it all back.”

  “But not yet, I take it.”

  She shook her head. Her mouth quirked up on one side. “So why do you want to shut me out? What’s the risk in researching an accident?”

  “Man, I’d forgotten what a hard bargain you drive. I’ll share whatever I find with you.”

  “Good. Then we’ll plan our next move.” She beamed him a smile that rocked him back on the heels of his boat shoes. “Good to see you again, Jake. Don’t be a stranger.”

  He said goodbye and hustled into his SUV. Watched her trot up the porch steps and swing through the door into the mud room. Sat staring at the closed door.

  He shouldn’t let her get involved even in a small way. Every time he saw her—saw Gail’s face—would be another log on the burn in his gut. If someone had set the fire that killed Gail, the arsonist was a murderer and might do anything, anything to keep his crime secret. He wasn’t worried for himself but he couldn’t protect Lani. Not that she’d ask.

  A scream from inside the house yanked him from the Jeep. He raced to the porch and slammed into the house. “Lani, what’s wrong?”

  She stood as if planted beside the table in the center of the big kitchen. Hands at her throat, she trembled, wide eyed and mute, her cheeks pale beneath the veneer of light tan.

  The fire, she’s flashing back to the barn fire. Seeing her so vulnerable drew him in, tugged at something inside he thought had atrophied. He clasped her shoulders and turned her to face him.

  Underneath the sharp smell of pine cleanser, he registered a smoky odor. And more, a rotten stench that stirred nausea in his belly. Dread tightened his chest. When he pulled Lani into his arms, she made no resistance. Behind her, he spotted what had terrified her.

  A mangled form lay on the counter. A cat or a rabbit. Tendrils of smoke rose from its patchy, blackened fur. Jake dragged his gaze upward. On the cabinet door above the creature, someone had daubed crude lettering that dripped dark red.

  LEAVE OR THIS COULD BE YOU

  Talking softly to Lani, he led her away from the disgusting tableau and into the living room, where he lowered her onto the sofa. She blinked up at him as if roused from sleep or a hypnotic state but said nothing as he took out his cell phone and called the cops.

  A uniform arrived within fifteen minutes, a fresh-faced kid who looked to be barely out of high school. Jake waited while the officer asked questions, took photographs and samples from the lettering. The jagged warning seemed to have been written in a mix of paint and ashes—not blood. He stowed the burnt critter in an evidence bag. A cat, the cop surmised.

  “I’ll help you clean up the cabinet,” Jake said when the officer had left.

  “You don’t have to stay. I’m okay now the..thing is gone,” Lani said, embarrassment for her panic attack evidenced by the faint wash of pink on her cheeks. Understandable. So was her terror of fire.

  Rather than push her, he gave her his cell number and left. On the drive back to Dragon Harbor, he reflected on her reaction to the cruel warning. Given what she’d already been through, he figured she could handle almost anything, and did, alone.

  Except one.

  If the barn fire had been arson, his poking around and her return might have someone scared. Scared Lani’s visiting familiar territory would jog her memory. Scared she’d remember something incriminating.

  If her chagrin at his witnessing her panic kept her from inserting herself into his investigation, so be it. But now that she had the bit between her teeth, he doubted she’d give it up. Shit, he wanted answers, and her poking into the old case might stir her memory.

  If he dragged her in, he’d have to protect her. His gut clenched.

  *****

  The next morning Lani bought the same cabinet paint as in the old can in the attached barn, now a garage, matte enamel in an eggshell cream. She pried off the lid and stirred the thick mixture as she contemplated the reunion with Jake. Did his ATF work make him naturally suspicious or had he found something in those news stories? If it wasn’t an accident, why would someone set the barn afire? A pyromaniac, a drifter, maybe, not knowing Gail was there?

  Yesterday afternoon, once she’d recovered enough to talk to the policeman, sick revulsion morphed into anger. The cop reassured her the animal was an apparent road kill, and the crude letters were paint, not blood. After he and Jake left, she scrubbed the sink nearly through the enamel. But the message remained. And forged anger into determination.

  She would read the remaining printouts tonight and find out exactly what Jake saw in them. After she painted the ruined cabinet door. Unfortunately, it meant repainting the rest of the cabinets to match.

  The slam of a car door announced her expected company. Lani looked out the kitchen window to see Nora Meagher and her two sons. Her best friend from the old days had volunteered to help with the painting on her day off from nursing duties.

  Dressed in faded jeans and a blue work shirt, Nora gestured to her little boys to stay within sight. They wagged their heads as if to say, “Jeez, Mom, we know,” before carrying a baseball, mitts, and a bat from the car into the pasture.

  “Hey, girlfriend,” Nora called as she breezed into the kitchen. Her wild red curls were the same as always. Her rosy cheeks, along with the rest of her, were plumper than they used to be, although she claimed her boys ran her ragged. Ironic and awkward that Nora had married Lani’s ex-boyfriend, but for friendship’s sake, she hid her animus toward Kevin the wimp.

  “Hey, thanks for coming to help.” Lani hugged her friend, glad to have the support.

  Nora gaped at the lettered warning, LEAVE OR THIS COULD BE YOU, now smeared and faded, but still dramatic enough to send chills down Lani’s spine. “Gawd, no wonder you want this gone as fast as possible. And you think it was just a teenage prank?”<
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  “That’s what the nice officer said. What else could it be?”

  Nora rolled her eyes. “And the flaming dollhouse?”

  Three days before the painted warning, vandals had left a burning dollhouse on the front lawn. The last thing Lani wanted was for her mother to find out about this and the other reasons she’d returned to Dragon Harbor. The nightmares were one thing, but looking into the old fire? Hope Cameron Nash would pitch a hissy fit.

  On a sigh, she waved a hand in dismissal. “Bored teens, the first officer said. Same deal. But they’ll get tired of harassing me and give up. I’m going nowhere. Now do you intend to rag on me or help paint?”

  Nora spread the newspapers she’d brought on the table and poured paint into first one and then the other paper bucket. “Oh, I’m ready to work, but I don’t intend to let you get away with this blasé attitude. You could be setting yourself up for real danger out here alone. Did you at least tell Jake about the dollhouse?”

  The policeman hadn’t mentioned it and neither had she. She’d learned the hard way to depend only on herself. When things got tough, other people—read male species—wimped out. Whining to him would only arm him with ammunition to shut her out. So no, she’d keep to herself the burning dollhouse and any future stupid stunts. She had to press Jake to cooperate with her. Like him, she needed answers, and soon.

  “Course not,” she insisted. “The vandalism is my problem, not his. I’ll handle it myself.”

  “Until you can’t. Okay, where do you want me to start?”

  “How about you work from left to right, from the fridge toward the middle? I’ll do the ruined door? Paint remover ruined the finish but not the or-else memo. Sanding didn’t take it off. One coat or ten, I’ll slap on as much as necessary.”

  “You got it,” Nora said, dipping her brush into the bucket. “You know, you can paint over this obscenity, but glossing over your fears about what it might mean won’t work. Maybe Jake could help. He’s a trained investigator, not like our local yokels.”

  “So paint already.” Lani carried her paint container to the cabinet, dipped in the new brush, and swiped the first stroke over the mocking abomination.

  Chapter 3

  “Ma, you have that number. I-14, see?” Jake set his mug on the blue woven tablecloth as he pointed to the spot on her Beano card. If only he could communicate better with her, get through the fog that encased her mind.

  His mother said nothing, staring blankly at the marker she should put on the spot. Did she even see the card or hear the volunteer caller? Pine View was nice, as nursing homes went, clean and more homey than institutional. And less expensive than the swanky facility in Portland near his brother Hank. Relatives and local volunteers came in often to visit the patients, play Beano or checkers with them, and entertain. But Grace Wescott was becoming increasingly hard to reach no matter what anyone did.

  In her day, Grace had suited her name. She’d run the library and her all-male family with lively warmth, a steel backbone, and contagious humor. Seeing her now in this wheelchair, barely able to communicate, dressed in pink sweats that hung on her bony frame, tightened Jake’s chest until it might implode.

  “My boys don’t come to see me,” she said suddenly, her tone petulant. She peered at him with watery blue eyes that used to be the same color as his. “When’s Henry coming?”

  Jake’s heart thumped. “He was here this morning. He brought you this dog.” No sense telling her that her husband of forty years wasn’t coming to see her. Ever.

  His dad’s accidental death years ago had scraped him raw, but seeing early-onset dementia steal Ma away brain cell by brain cell ripped him bloody every time he visited her. She was only seventy-three.

  “I remember now.” She cuddled the stuffed hound Jake had placed in her lap. Ma used to love her dogs, the last one, a yellow Lab mix named Hilly, long gone. Her lips curved in a wistful smile and her eyes lost focus, turned inward. Maybe to old memories. Her hand fell away from the toy. Her mug sat untouched on the table.

  “Don’t you want your tea?”

  “Not my...” Grace faltered for the words, pushing away the mug.

  He heaved a sigh. His visit had taxed her energy. “That’s okay, Ma. I’ll come back tomorrow.” He’d pick up a tin of Earl Gray in Bayport.

  Rising, he wheeled her back to her room, away from the abandoned Beano game. He kissed her papery cheek and left her by the window where she sat most of the daylight hours. She liked to watch the bird feeders in the courtyard. At least, she appeared to. Hard to tell these days.

  She was slipping away little by little every day. If he’d been in Maine, could he have made a difference? The doctors said no but accepting that was hard. He could barely reach her now, and soon...

  His throat closed. If only he could do something to bring her back. He made a fist, but he had no target to punch but air.

  After climbing into his Cherokee, he opened his cell phone. When his brother answered, he said, “Just left Ma.”

  “I’ll try to get there on the weekend. How’s she doing?”

  “She knows me sometimes but today she’s confused. I’m not sure who she thought I was. Sometimes Dad. Yesterday she thought I was you. If it makes her happy, that’s okay with me.”

  A high-pitched squeal rose in the background. “Hold on a sec.” A clunk as Hank deposited the receiver on a table.

  The joyful sound would be Hank’s two-year-old son Zack. Jake had met him for the first time when he brought Grace to Pine View. The little guy was a pistol.

  His brother came back on. “Zack says hi to his uncle. He wants to show you his new truck. Nicole went out of town. An advertising conference in Boston. I get to take care of my big guy for a long weekend.”

  “Give Zack a hug from me.”

  “Will do. How are your projects coming along?”

  “Gram’s house, slow progress. Porch is shored up. I’ve started on the living room. On the Cameron fire, nothing yet.” His ATF connections had given him cachet with the state fire marshal. He’d gotten some reports by e-mail that morning and was waiting for the rest. But he wasn’t ready to talk about any of that. “Basically, I need a crystal ball.”

  Hank laughed. “I’d look into mine but the damn thing lets me down all the time. You’re on your own, bro.”

  An apt description of his situation. Especially with wild card Lani Cameron in the mix. Ma was never going to remember much, but if Lani would...

  *****

  The door of the Wheelhouse Bar and Grill swung shut behind Jake. He stood to one side adjusting to the dim glow. Plastic boat lanterns and lobster-shaped party lights shed a dim glow on the happy-hour crowd of fishermen and other working stiffs. Odors of ripe bait and the lather of hard labor mingled with those of beer and whiskey.

  He’d just left a half hour with DHPD Chief Galt, giving him a heads-up on a conversation he’d overheard, some guys plotting sabotage of another lobsterman’s trap line. After Galt said he’d advise the Maine Marine Patrol to keep an eye on the situation, the chief suggested Jake curb his interest in the Cameron fire.

  “With minor exceptions like fishing disputes, Dragon Harbor’s a peaceful town,” Galt said in his Down-East drawl. “Probing an old tragedy’s like dredgin’ the harbor. Raises old mud and old stink. Gossip won’t do much for folks’ peace of mind. Bad ambiance for the tourists.” He’d regarded Jake with the kind of level stare that must wring confessions from felons. “Take a little friendly advice and let the matter drop.”

  Friendly advice? Not likely. And less likely Jake would drop his probe.

  As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he spied Kevin Meagher around the side of the bar. The position suited him. Back to a wall, not to the crowd or the door, so he had a good view of the room.

  Kevin had been a teenage heartthrob in the old days. He was still burly but now puffy flesh padded what had once been an angular face and an athletic build. A paunch strained the buttons on his checked shirt
. He was running for Congress, like his old man. J.T. had lost. Maybe Kev would do better. Hard to think of him as a mover and shaker, but there it was.

  Kevin was talking to a ruddy-faced man in work-stained khakis. The pair seemed to be arguing.

  Tall tales and complaints swirled through the low-ceilinged room, about the day’s catch or engine troubles or the Red Sox as Jake made his way to the bar. Glasses and bottles clinked.

  “Hey, Kevin.” He clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder.

  “Jake! Man, great you could make it. Take a load off.” Kevin beamed the eager smile that had once charmed teachers and coeds.

  The ruddy-faced man said good-bye and melted into the crowd.

  “Didn’t mean to chase your friend away.”

  “Don’t worry about Brandon. He had to leave anyway.” Kevin waved to the bartender. “He drives a bulldozer part-time. Problem with his paycheck.”

  Part-time could mean this Brandon had another means of livelihood. Maybe sternman on one of the warring lobster boats. Jake gave himself a mental slap. Or any one of a dozen other part-time jobs. Hell, chasing bottom-feeders for the ATF had made him suspicious of everything and everybody. “Part of being the boss, huh?”

  Kevin’s brow clouded. “J.T.’s still the boss at Meagher Enterprises. You been in town for months and we’ve barely talked. Nora wants to see you.”

  “Nora’s too good for the likes of you. You’re a lucky man.” Jake meant it. He’d need more than luck to find the one. Long hours and hard days when you could trust nobody and they didn’t trust you made anything but short-term hook-ups next to impossible.

  Kevin grinned. “Don’t I know it! Come for supper soon. We’ll boil some bugs.” He sucked down the last of his beer.