Fatal Burn

by Lisa Jackson

  Shannon had practiced what she was going to say. “It’s Mary Beth, Mom. There’s been an accident.” She slipped inside the house where the odors of dust, Pledge, bacon grease and onions lingered. She was instantly awash with memories of growing up with all of her loud, boisterous older siblings: Shea and Robert sliding down the banister; Aaron surreptitiously seated on the back porch, his pellet gun aimed at the bird feeder; Neville and Oliver building a tree house in the apple tree out back, only to abandon it for a fort upstairs in the attic. And Shannon in the thick of it all. Though her mother had tried to interest her in cooking and quilting, gardening or even writing, she was the one begging to be the next in line to sit in a box at the top of the stairs as her brothers pushed it forward to bounce down the wooden steps, or to engage in water-balloon fights in which she inevitably commandeered the hose.

  How often had Maureen described her home as a “madhouse”?

  Now the place was tidy, not a book out of place on the shelf. The only noise came from the cuckoo clock mounted in the front entry hall as it ticked off the seconds of what remained of Maureen’s life.

  “What about Mary Beth? Is she hurt? What?” Maureen demanded.

  This was the bad part. “She’s dead, Mom. An accident.”

  “Dead! What? No!” Shock drained all the color from Maureen’s face.

  “Yeah, Mom, it’s true.”

  Maureen began to quiver. She braced one thin shoulder against the door frame. “But I just saw her…Oh, Lord…What happened?” she asked as the truth sank in. “The kids?” she asked as a new panic invaded her.

  “Elizabeth and RJ are fine. With Mary Beth’s sister, Margaret.”

  “And—”

  “Robert’s okay.” A lie. Physically he was fine, Shannon knew, but emotionally he was a wreck.

  “But what happened?”

  “A fire.”

  “Saints preserve us!” Maureen’s bony hand flew over her chest and quickly she made the sign of the cross. “Another fire?” she whispered, spitting it out as if it was an epitaph. “Jesus, Mary and Joseph,” she said, then unconsciously, with quick movements, making another sign of the cross. “It’s the Flannery curse.”

  “There is no such thing, Mom.”

  Maureen narrowed her red-rimmed eyes on her only daughter. “Tell that to Mary Beth.” She headed stiffly into the kitchen, snapping on a trail of lights in her wake. Shannon followed in time to see her mother rummage in a catch-all drawer for the pack of cigarettes she kept for emergencies. Maureen had quit smoking during each of her pregnancies, taking the habit up again once each baby had reached the third month of his or her life. She finally quit for good when Shannon was five, but, whenever a crisis developed, Maureen was quick to find the pack she kept “just for emergencies” and light up with the matches she hoarded for the same purpose.

  Now, fingers shaking, she unwrapped the cellophane, shook out a filter tip and managed to strike a match. “Tell me what you know.”

  “Nothing yet,” Shannon admitted.

  Maureen lit up, drawing the smoke in deeply as she waved out the match. “Where was Robert?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “With that Tallericco woman? Your lawyer?”

  “She wasn’t my lawyer, she just helped me with the adoption,” Shannon said and experienced a small shock as she connected the dots. She’d used the San Francisco law firm of Black, Rosen and Tallericco when giving her baby up for adoption and Cynthia Tallericco, a full partner at the time, had taken an interest in her case. Though an associate had helped her through most of the paperwork Cynthia had consulted and consoled her.

  Now, twice divorced, and no longer with the firm, Cynthia had moved to Santa Lucia and somehow connected with Robert. Their affair had been running white-hot for three or four months, and Robert had moved out of the home he’d shared with Mary Beth and the kids less than six weeks earlier.

  And now Robert’s wife was dead, killed in a fire, and the daughter Shannon had given up—through the law offices that Cynthia Tallericco had worked for—was missing. What were the chances of that being a coincidence?

  The doorbell rang and Maureen visibly started. “More good news?” She took a final puff, turned on the tap to douse her cigarette, then tossed the wet butt into the trash under the sink. As the bell pealed again, she maneuvered spryly through the long hallway, where the walls were covered with framed pictures of her children, to the front foyer.

  Shannon expected to find Travis on the other side of the wooden panels, but instead her brother Oliver’s face peered through one of the three small panes of glass that ran across the top of the door.

  “Thank goodness,” Maureen declared as she unlocked the door again. As soon as Oliver was inside, she fell to pieces. “You heard?” Maureen asked, tears raining from her eyes. “About the fire and Mary Beth?”

  “Aaron called and left a message.” Oliver managed a thin, patient smile without a trace of warmth. He glanced at his sister and something odd danced in his eyes for just a second, something out of place. He wrapped a comforting arm around his mother’s slim, now shaking shoulders. “I came as soon as I could.”

  “Thank you.”

  “Why don’t we pray together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Shannon?” He looked at her expectantly.

  Shannon couldn’t imagine kneeling on the old carpet in the living room while Oliver stood over them and prayed. It felt wrong, just as his embrace of the church had. He’d always had a religious bent—she’d known that—but after the fire that had taken Ryan’s life, and after losing his twin, Oliver had been sent to a psychiatric hospital, a broken man. He’d come out quoting scripture and talking about his calling, and even suggesting that he communed with God. Shannon had never gotten used to it. While everyone else in the family seemed to go along with Oliver’s new religious intensity, she’d thought it was just plain weird.

  Her brother Aaron’s assertion that Oliver’s fervor was “because of Neville—he misses his twin,” hadn’t offered a complete explanation, in Shannon’s opinion. “Those two, they were like half of a whole,” Aaron reminded her. “Then Neville disappears and Ollie, he can’t function, at least not right.”

  “Do you think he knows what happened to Neville?” Shannon had asked.

  Aaron just shrugged. “Doubt it.” He’d shaken his head. “It’s the damnedest thing.”

  On that, Shannon had agreed. She’d wondered if Neville had run off, like Brendan, or had an accident while out hunting or had been killed. It was so weird. Neville was just…gone. The press and the DA had been convinced that Neville had helped Shannon plot her husband’s murder. That together they’d found a way to drug Ryan, haul him out to the woods and set the fire that was supposed to cremate him and destroy all evidence of murder. But they’d been sloppy, hadn’t understood about modern forensics, had screwed up.

  Neville, the theory continued, disappeared so that he wouldn’t have to testify against his sister, nor incriminate himself.

  But it was all conjecture.

  Never proven.

  And a pile of garbage.

  But something had happened. Something Shannon didn’t understand. And whatever it was had eaten at Oliver until he’d snapped and somehow started conversations with God.

  “I’d better go,” she said now to her mother, wondering at the stranger her younger brother had become.

  “Is the man outside waiting for you?” Oliver asked.

  “What man?” Maureen turned to Shannon, who sent Oliver a look guaranteed to crucify him.

  “I had to get a ride over here. I was at the fire and my truck got blocked in.”

  “So why didn’t you invite him in? Who is he?” Maureen wanted to know.

  “His name is Travis Settler. It’s complicated and really, really late.”

  “Are you dating him?”

  Shannon almost laughed. Dating Travis Settler? Dear Lord, how much simpler that sounded than the truth! “No, Mom,
he’s just a fr—an acquaintance who offered to drive me over.”

  “A Good Samaritan,” Oliver said and Shannon felt a little sensation of disquiet. Hadn’t she mentally referred to Travis as a Good Samaritan after she’d been attacked? Now, knowing him a little better, she realized he was anything but. He’d come to Santa Lucia with a single-minded purpose. He’d hidden in the shadows of her house spying on her. He’d thought she’d stolen his child, for God’s sake. He’d saved her only because he’d been on the property, lurking, trying to ferret out the truth. She’d even thought he might have been the man who’d attacked her, but she’d changed her opinion of him in the ensuing days. Nearly trusted him.

  Nearly.

  But not quite.

  “Sure,” she said, eager to end the conversation. “A Good Samaritan. That’s what he is.”

  And then she left. Before her mother could ask any more questions and before she said or did anything she might regret.

  She let the screen door slap behind her and found Travis outside, leaning against his fender and staring at the house. The lights of the town splashed into the heavens and only a few stars peeked through the lingering cloud of smoke that hovered above the ground and tainted the air.

  “You had company,” he said.

  “My brother Oliver.”

  “The one who wants to be a priest. Yeah, I know.”

  “What is it you don’t know about my family?” she asked as he opened the door of the truck. He looked about to help her climb into the interior but she shot him a glance that said all too clearly: back off. The last thing she wanted was to rely on him, but because of the pain in her shoulder, she had more than a little trouble getting inside and once in her seat waited for the agony to subside. “Are there any secrets we Flannerys have managed to keep from you?”

  “More than your share,” he admitted. He smiled faintly, in a way that made him seem particularly attractive. Shannon looked away, disturbed by her own thoughts as Travis slammed the passenger door closed.

  She surreptitiously watched him walk in front of the truck: long strides, straight back, slim hips…the kind of trouble she didn’t want or need.

  She mentally shook herself. What was wrong with her? Why was she so aware of him?

  Strapping on her seat belt, she nearly gasped. The belt was tight. Binding. And when it gripped, it pushed painfully against her ribs. All of her pain medication had worn off hours before and she was feeling ragged around the edges, her ribs, shoulder and the back of her head hurting her enough to cause a dull ache to run through every inch of her body. She was exhausted, worried and grief-stricken.

  What else could go wrong?

  Don’t even go there!

  He climbed inside the cab, shut the door behind him. The dome light clicked off and she was suddenly, again, in a small confined space with him, so close that she could smell his scent, touch his jean-clad leg if she let her hand drop.

  His profile was visible in the weak light thrown off from the dash and the bit of illumination seeping through the windshield. Travis Settler was strong, even handsome, with a hard jaw, straight nose and deep-set eyes that seemed to miss little. His mouth was razor-thin, a scratch cut into the sharp angles of his chin. A bit of beard shadowed his chin. His hair was mussed and unkempt and all around him was a sense that he was pure, don’t-give-me-any-bullshit male—tough, coiled, ready for action.

  He rammed his truck into gear and pulled away from the street. She noticed the strap of his watch, nothing fancy, just a functional, no-frills timepiece on a sexy, strong wrist—a wrist that was currently poised over one taut, jean-clad thigh. She could imagine the sinewy muscles beneath the jeans. And the hard flatness of his stomach. And the strength in his hands and fingers.

  She caught herself.

  What the hell was she thinking?

  She must have been more tired than she realized.

  He cast her a quick look and in that heartbeat she knew he’d seen her checking him out. Wanting to melt into the cushions of the seat, instead Shannon straightened and arched a “so-what” eyebrow in his direction, hoping he didn’t notice the wash of heat flooding her face. But she had to roll down her window to get some air.

  So he was overtly male.

  So he was sexy.

  So it had been a long time since she’d felt a spark of interest in any man.

  So what?

  Hadn’t she learned her lesson about men? Or maybe the pain meds hadn’t quite left her system and her brain wasn’t functioning properly. Tonight, of all nights, with Mary Beth so recently dead, her own body not yet recovered from her recent attack and her daughter, his daughter missing, the last thing—the very last thing—Shannon should be thinking about was sex. Or sexy men. Or what it would feel like to have one of those big, calloused hands scale her ribs and touch her breasts.

  She shivered. Was this what being faced with one’s own mortality brought on? Sharpened awareness? Heightened desire for intimacy? She couldn’t feel this way about Travis Settler…especially not Travis Settler.

  Angry at herself, Shannon readjusted the band holding her ponytail away from her face and snapped the elastic into place. She needed some space from him, had to break the intimacy that the small environs of the cab seemed to create. Hopefully the open window and the rush of air would help to destroy any familiarity between them—imagined or otherwise.

  Do not trust this man, Shannon. Do not. You know nothing about him other than that he’s Dani’s adoptive father and he knows everything about you.

  As the rig picked up speed and the air whistled by, pulling some unruly hairs from the restraint of the hair band, she winced as she moved her shoulder, biting back the urge to swear. When the pain had passed, she slowly let out her breath. Surreptitiously she cast another glance at this stranger who had inserted himself into her life, this man who was her daughter’s father.

  His maleness swamped her senses. She felt weak and vulnerable. She inwardly groaned. It wasn’t right.

  His gaze was focused through the windshield as he drove, but he was as aware of her as she was of him. Twice he flicked a glance at his mirrors before changing lanes on the nearly deserted streets, but she guessed that he was observing her from the corner of his eye, that anything she did, any small gesture or movement wouldn’t go unnoticed.

  “Okay, so I know some things about you, about your family, but not everything,” he said into the silence that had enveloped them. Shannon turned to him, glad to be yanked from her thoughts. “For instance, I don’t know why whoever has my daughter wants to bring you into it. I don’t know why one of your brothers became a priest or why his twin disappeared. I have no idea why whoever has Dani has started setting fires and worse yet, I don’t know who the murdering bastard is or what he’s done to my kid!” All of a sudden his calm cracked. “Something’s going on down here, something that doesn’t make sense and something that scares the hell out of me. I’m sick with worry, feel impotent as hell, and yeah, I’d like to know everything about anyone remotely connected to you and your family since the son of a bitch who kidnapped Dani is interested. You’re my only link to her and by God I damned well want to know every little thing about you because it might help.”

  “But you don’t think I had anything to do with the kidnapping,” she clarified as he braked for a stoplight.

  “Not anymore.” Illumination from the traffic signal cast a red, unworldly glow into the truck’s interior.

  “Good.” She didn’t know if she believed him or not, figured it didn’t matter. She forced herself to look away from him and through the windshield to the night, still thick with smoke.

  At the turn to Robert’s house, Travis continued straight, on a beeline out of town. “Hey, wait! You missed the turn,” she said, her eyes swinging from the deserted street leading to her brother’s house to Travis’s profile.

  “You’re in no condition to drive.”

  “What? Are you out of your mind? I can’t just leave my truck. W
here the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “To your place. You can call one of your brothers to pick up the truck or get it in the morning.”

  “It’ll be towed by morning.”

  “The way I hear it you have connections in the police department.”

  “No way! Turn around. Take me to my damned truck and don’t go all macho on me, okay? I can’t do this. You don’t have to act like John Wayne in some bad flick from the fifties, telling the little woman what to do. I can drive my own truck home.”

  “Too late.”

  Shannon’s mouth dropped open. “You’re unbelievable!”

  “You look like hell and I’ve seen you wince and try to pretend that you’re not in pain, but it’s not working, okay? It’s been a long, hard night and I think you need a ride home.”

  “I don’t care what you think I need, Settler. This is my life! Mine!” Angrily, she poked a thumb at her chest. “And it’s my truck and my decision and…Oh…” A pain shot through her ribs, cutting off any further argument. Almost as if to drive home his point. She sucked in a sharp breath, squeezed her eyes shut and silently cursed her weakness. “Fine, all right,” she muttered when she could breathe again. Glancing up at him she looked for any signs of a smirk, but found none, just a serious gaze that cut from her to the road. “Take me home. Do your worst.”

  His lips faintly twitched.

  He almost smiled.

  Almost.

  Chapter 17

  What the hell had come over him?

  Who was he to tell her what to do, to refuse to take her to her damned truck, to boss her around?

  Travis, slowing for the turn into her lane, couldn’t believe what he’d done. There was just something about her that forced him to take charge. He’d known she was in agony, not only mental anguish but also pain from her injuries. Still, he had no right to take over her life.