Fatal Burn

by Lisa Jackson

  She was quaking, the cool metal of the flat side of the knife pressing against her skin so that she hardly dared draw a breath. Fear slammed through her body and she felt his heat as he pressed his muscular frame against hers. Sweat rose on her skin. Dread curled in her stomach. The fire crackled and popped.

  “Okay, now,” he suggested, his voice low and nearly sensual as he seemed to have regained some of his calm, “Let’s try it again…”

  Khan gave a quick bark.

  Shannon watched as Travis Settler parked near the garage, then unfolded himself from the cab of the truck. He appeared as intense as he had last night. His features were set and hard, his eyes shaded by aviator sunglasses, his hair less mussed, a few blond strands catching in the sunlight. He wore what looked like the same jeans as the night before, beat-up running shoes, a T-shirt that had seen better days fitting taut across his shoulders, and a take-no-prisoners attitude. He slammed shut the door of his truck and stretched, his T-shirt riding up enough to show off a tanned, flat washboard of an abdomen with a trail of dark hairs disappearing beneath the waistband of his low-slung jeans.

  Shannon wrenched her gaze away. She told herself that the sudden heat stealing through her body had more to do with the warm morning than any glimpse of Travis’s bare skin.

  Muttering at how silly she was, especially given the grim circumstances surrounding her life, she gave herself a swift mental kick, then headed out of the kitchen and away from the window.

  Pull yourself together, she silently chided herself as she opened the front door just as he stepped onto the porch.

  “Mornin’,” he drawled and again her stupid pulse raced.

  “Back atcha.” She managed a smile and held the door open. Khan shot through and wiggled energetically around Travis’s legs.

  “Not much of a watchdog,” Travis observed.

  “Maybe he trusts you.”

  “Maybe he trusts everyone.”

  “Nah, Settler, it’s just your winning personality. Dogs can sense these things, you know.”

  His eyes narrowed skeptically. “And dog trainers really know how to peddle BS.”

  “Sometimes,” she admitted, feeling the corners of her lips twitch a bit. After all the stress of the past few days a little bit of levity helped. “So, before we get started, how about some coffee?”

  One side of his mouth quirked up. Khan was still wriggling around his legs. Travis reached down to pat his head. “You must’ve read my mind.”

  “Yeah, that’s me, the psychic.” She led him into the kitchen, plucking mismatched mugs from a cupboard as Khan, glad for company, bounded ahead to survey his empty food dish. She picked up the glass carafe and poured the first cup. “I don’t think I have any cream or sugar. At least that’s what I ‘sense.’”

  He chuckled as he set his shaded glasses on the counter. She found herself staring into eyes as blue as a June sky.

  “Black’s fine.”

  “Good.” Noticing that her hands had begun to sweat, she managed to pour a second cup without spilling and hand him the larger of the mugs. “So have you heard anything new?”

  “About Dani?” His smile fell away. The lines of worry that had been momentarily erased returned as deep grooves near his mouth and eyes. “Not a word.” He tested his coffee before taking a long swallow and meeting the questions in her eyes. “Well, that’s not exactly true. I’ve talked to the Feds and the locals down here as well as the authorities in Oregon.” Frowning into his cup, he shook his head. “But as for anything concrete or new in the case? No. Nothing.”

  Her heart sank. Even though she’d expected his answer, a small part of her had wished to hear something, any little sliver of hope that might convince her that Dani was alive. Instead she witnessed a deepening sense of despair in Travis’s features. Beneath his facade of rugged determination lay both devastation and guilt.

  “You’ll find her,” she said, though she wasn’t sure she believed her own words. She just felt that if anyone could locate his daughter, it would be this hard-driven, no-nonsense man with the blade-thin lips, hard jaw and coiled tension evident in the cords of his neck and the way his right hand fisted nervously.

  “More ESP?” he asked, raising an eyebrow as he took a long drink and settled both hips against the lower cupboards.

  “More like faith.”

  He snorted. “I could use a tankful of that right about now.” Then, as if he’d heard the defeat in his voice, added, “But you’re right. I’ll find her.” He hesitated, looked her straight in the eyes and added with conviction, “Or I’ll die trying.”

  She believed him. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  “Amen.”

  “Have you talked to the police about Mary Beth?”

  “Well, since I’ve been in California, it’s more like they talk to me, but, yeah, I had a conversation with a couple of arson dicks this morning.”

  “Janowitz and Rossi,” she guessed. “They interviewed me at the hospital.”

  “So you haven’t met Paterno yet?”

  She shook her head.

  “You will. I had the pleasure this morning. Paterno’s a homicide detective. Since your sister-in-law was killed, this is his baby now and he believes that everything, including the fires and Dani’s abduction, is linked.”

  Her stomach clenched. “Do they know how?”

  He lifted one shoulder. “My guess is they’ll start looking at you. You’re the obvious connection.”

  She’d been lifting the mug to her lips again, but her hand stopped its upward movement in midair. “I don’t know what happened to her.”

  “Then we’ll have to figure it out, won’t we?” His gaze lost its hard edge and for the first time since meeting him, she felt that they had a chance of being on the same side.

  “Yeah,” she said, “we’ll have to try real hard.”

  “Then let’s get to it. We’ll start with your dogs.” He finished the rest of his coffee in one swallow and she left the remains of hers on the counter.

  Outside the day was already sweltering, the barest of breezes rustling through the dry leaves still clinging to the branches, shafts of sunlight dappling the ground. What was left of the shed scarred the landscape, the blackened rubble having dried out with the heat of the last few days, one end of the yellow crime scene tape catching in the breeze to wave tiredly.

  Travis surveyed the grounds. “You know, whoever set that fire could have done it just as easily in the kennels, or the stable or your house.”

  “I know. I’ve thought of that. The animals would have put up some kind of noise, though.”

  “My guess is that he would have found a way around that. He managed to skulk around here without much trouble.”

  “Like you.”

  Travis shook his head. “I never got close to the house.”

  “But he did,” she thought aloud, remembering that horrible night and feeling her skin crawl all over again. She caught Travis staring at her, and saw her own distorted reflection in his mirrored lenses. “And that wouldn’t be easy.” To underscore her point, she opened the door of the kennels and was greeted by a cacophony of barks, yips and bays. “The natives are restless,” she said. “Even though they’ve already been fed, watered and exercised. You’ll all just have to wait and then I’ll let you out again,” she said to the eager animals, rubbing each dog’s head as she passed.

  When she was in a serious training mode, especially with other people’s canines, she took each dog out one at a time and exercised him, then worked with the animal before going through the same routine with the next one. Only after each dog had gone through his or her lessons for the day would she let them join each other in a free-for-all play that a few trainers discouraged. She, on the other hand, believed that dogs, as pack animals, functioned better if they socialized. Business was business, of course, but play was play. And important. This morning, after she was finished working with Atlas, she would let them run, sniff, pee and cavor
t at will again. Just as she had earlier.

  “Only five?” he asked.

  “Six, counting Khan. But yeah, I’m not boarding any dogs right now. These are all my own.”

  “But they don’t have the elevated status of living in the main house?”

  “Not all the time. I take turns. But each of these guys…oh, and gals, sorry, Cissy,” she said, scratching her border collie’s shoulders. “They were all raised as puppies in the house. As I said they all come in from time to time, but it gets to be a little much,” she said and glanced at Khan. “He, of course, is spoiled horribly. I call him ‘the chosen one’ and he acts like it.” She petted Khan’s head and he immediately licked her palm. “See what a charmer he is?” To the dog, she said, “You’re really workin’ it today, aren’t ya?”

  Khan wagged his tail as if he understood.

  “A dog has to earn the right to sleep in my bedroom.”

  Travis eyed her. “Khan sleeps with you?”

  “Most of the time. Yeah. He’s supposed to stay in his bed, which I’ve got under the window in my room, but more often than not, in the middle of the night he slinks onto the covers of my bed and I’m usually too tired to argue. The worst of it is, he likes the middle of the bed, so I wake up on the edge, don’t I?” she asked and petted him again. Straightening, she glanced at Travis. “That a problem?”

  “I guess not, but…”

  “But what?” she asked, reaching for a leash.

  “I was just thinking that a dog in the bed might not be welcome if…”

  “If what? I want to watch television or…Oh, you mean if I have company?” she asked, surprised at the intimacy of the question. “You get right to it, don’t you?”

  “It just crossed my mind.”

  She lifted a shoulder. “I guess I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” She snapped the leash onto Atlas’s collar, then reached into a locker in the kennel where she’d placed the plastic bag containing Dani’s sweatshirt. “Come on, boy,” she said to the dog, then, glancing up at Travis, explained, “Atlas is my best tracking dog. So if there’s anything here, if Dani’s been nearby, he should be able to pick up her scent. But I’ve got to warn you it’s not likely.” She led the dog outside. “First, we both know there’s a very small chance that whoever has Dani brought her here. So that’s strike one. Secondly the area around my house has been contaminated with people, fire and tons of water. And thirdly, it’s been several days since we think the perpetrator was on the premises…and he’s not Dani. I don’t think that regular search and rescue guidelines would work here, but we’ll try tracking. I’m just saying you shouldn’t get your hopes up.”

  “It’s all I’ve got right now.”

  Shannon put on a pair of gloves, then, trying to stay clinical and shoving her emotions into a back corner of her brain, she removed her daughter’s sweatshirt from the plastic bag. Her heart ached as she let her dog sniff the clothing, and she silently prayed that Atlas would be able to come up with something.

  Anything.

  Some minuscule shred of hope.

  Beside her, Travis tensed.

  She gave the dog the command—“Find!”—and Atlas took off, nose to the ground, circling the area, moving quickly, lifting his head only to breathe.

  “How will you know if he’s caught her scent?” Travis asked.

  “He’ll let me know,” she said, but as she followed and watched Atlas move around the buildings and fields, she feared that the tracking was an exercise in futility.

  The shepherd tried.

  Atlas circled the kennels, garage, house, stable and burned shed. He slunk, nose to the ground, down the driveway, but never once did he return to Shannon and bark, nor did he indicate that he’d picked up Dani’s scent.

  He crisscrossed, doubled back, searching an ever-widening area. Across the paddocks and dry fields, through the woods, along a deer trail, under a fence and into the surrounding fields including the area that was posted with a huge NO TRESPASSING sign, warning that violators would be prosecuted. This very field, where Travis had stood and stared through his night vision goggles at Shannon’s house, was slated for development.

  But it was useless.

  There was just no scent for the dog to follow.

  “No go,” Travis said after nearly two hours of studying the dog’s movements through sunlight and shadow.

  He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed in bitter acceptance. “One more brick wall.”

  “I was afraid of this,” Shannon agreed. She was sweating and the pain in her shoulder had increased with the sun’s climb in the sky. She patted the German shepherd, told him how great he was and plucked a few burs and grass seeds from his thick coat before giving him a long drink of water from a hose she had connected to the horse trough and a big metal pan. Once the dog had drunk his fill, and with Travis beside her, Shannon returned Atlas to his kennel.

  “We knew it was a long shot,” she said, but couldn’t quell her own sense of despair. Things were spinning out of control, going from bad to worse and they both knew that with each minute that passed, the chances of finding the girl diminished.

  “Thanks for trying,” he said and when she tried to hand him back the sweatshirt, added, “Keep it. For now. We might get another chance if something breaks.”

  Her throat tightened. What other chance? she thought, but held her tongue and nodded. “Okay.”

  “I’ll be in touch…You sure you don’t need a ride to get your truck?”

  “I don’t think so. Oliver is supposed to be delivering it.”

  “The priest?”

  “Almost a priest,” she clarified as swallows swooped near the roof of the stable. “He hasn’t taken his final vows yet.” Seeing the question in his eyes, she said, “I don’t know why he volunteered to bring the truck back, but I imagine Shea’s tied up in the investigation, Robert’s a mess with Mary Beth’s death and Aaron…Who knows?”

  “If you’re sure.”

  She managed a smile. “I’ve got your number if I need help, but I doubt it. If all else fails, Nate should be back sometime.” She slid a look at the garage and felt a frisson of concern.

  Travis followed her gaze. “Where is he?”

  “Beats me.” She almost confided in him, told him her worries, but there was something in the way he asked the question that caused her to hold her tongue. After all, hadn’t Travis Settler come down here thinking she’d kidnapped his daughter? Hadn’t he been spying on her just the other night? Though she was starting to feel a kinship with the man, she silently warned herself to tread carefully. “I guess I’ll find out when he shows up.” She forced a smile that she was certain Settler could see right through.

  “Okay, I’ll let you know if I learn anything else.” He lifted a hand toward the kennels. “And thanks for trying to help me locate Dani.”

  “Anytime,” she said. She’s my daughter, too. But she didn’t say the words. She didn’t need to. They both were more than cognizant of the reason Settler had come to Santa Lucia in the first place.

  “Let me know if you hear anything.”

  “It’s a deal.”

  For a second he hesitated and, through the dark glasses, gave her a look that touched a forbidden part of her, searched deep into her soul. She had the sensation that he wanted to kiss her, that only his own reservations, his doubts about her, held him back.

  Which was just as well because she had no idea what she’d do if he reached for her and pulled her tight against him. The thought of it alone made her blood run hotter than it should, and she silently blistered herself with recriminations. So he’d looked at her. So what?

  Dear God, Travis Settler was not a man to be fantasizing about. In fact, she thought, standing in the parking lot and staring into the wake of dust his truck left behind, he was probably the last man on earth she should be attracted to. The very last.

  Chapter 19

  Anthony Paterno drummed his fingers and stared at the notes he’
d taken. Five pages of his thoughts were spread across the top of his desk in the Santa Lucia Police Department and he was trying to connect the dots, however frail, between them. The door to his office was ajar and he heard the noises he’d grown accustomed to: the ringing phones, buzz of conversations, kerchunk of printers and occasional burst of laughter over the steady rattle of the overworked and failing air-conditioning system.

  The squat brick building was nearly eighty years old, and though it had suffered through several renovations, none had really improved it, Paterno thought with an eye to aesthetics. Function over form, that was the motto of whomever had designed the ugly stucco wings that sprang from either side of the original edifice.

  The climate ran hot in this section of the wine country, which was decidedly inland from San Francisco, the place he’d called home for years. No views of the bay nor the Pacific Ocean, just rolling hills covered with vineyards between clusters of towns that catered to tourists. Pretty country. But warmer than he liked. Adjusting his internal thermometer had taken some time, and he found himself constantly relying on air-conditioning in his car as well as in his apartment and the office. This summer had been the worst, hotter than it had been in nearly three years, the heat never letting up, the temperature, even at night, rarely dipping below eighty.

  Water reservoir levels were dwindling, brownouts from the overuse of energy for cooling were common, and the threat of fire was ever-present—the bleached grass fields and arid forests ready, with the aid of a small spark, to burst into flame.

  He was often uncomfortable and supposed that dropping fifteen pounds would help, but so far he hadn’t so much as lost an ounce, hadn’t stepped foot inside the gym here at the station nor at his apartment complex.

  Yanking at his tie, he leaned back in his chair, the facts of Mary Beth Flannery’s death running through his mind in a continuous loop. It was how he worked. A puzzling case like this one would get under his skin, and he thought of little else, day and night. The cut-and-dried ones didn’t create the same itch in him, the same need to outwit the killer, the race against time to stop the murderer from striking again.