Fatal Burn

by Lisa Jackson

  “If it weren’t for bad luck we’d have no luck at all,” she said, sniffing.

  That had been her personal mantra for as long as Shannon could remember.

  “It killed your father, you know. Not just you getting pregnant or all that mess with Ryan. The assault charges, the restraining order, the accusations about that stupid Stealth Torcher, the damned murder, and Neville…sweet Neville…oh, dear God…”

  She stopped to cross herself and Oliver placed a hand upon her shoulder as his eyes met those of his sister. They didn’t have to say a word, just silently acknowledged that this woman was their mother and she wasn’t going to wind down until she was good and ready.

  Caught up in her own theatrics, Maureen started to quietly sob. Shannon, despite knowing better, felt sorry for her.

  “Not to mention Aaron being kicked off the fire department and now…Now the fires have started and Mary Beth is dead. Think of poor little Elizabeth and RJ. What will they do without a mother?”

  “I don’t know, Mom, but Robert will take care of them.”

  “I pray that he does.” She took in a tremulous breath. “He’s been so…distracted lately.”

  “He’ll be there for his children,” Oliver said. He stood with his hips resting against a cabinet, his fingers curled over the lip of the counter.

  “That horrible fire. What else could it be but a curse?”

  “Mother,” Oliver quietly reproached.

  Shannon’s headache thundered back with a vengeance. Maybe she needed those painkillers after all.

  “And what about the fire here, Shannon? Look at you! Your face still bruised, your arm and ribs.”

  “What’s happened has nothing to do with curses or demons or the devil,” Shannon said. “Bad luck, maybe…well, certainly…and stupid decisions and someone out to get us, yes, I’ll grant you that much, but really, not a curse.”

  Oliver put in his pious two cents’ worth. “At least we should be thankful that Shannon wasn’t injured any more than she was.”

  “But Mary Beth wasn’t so lucky.”

  After a few more minutes Oliver mentioned that he had to get back. Shannon tried not to show her relief as she walked them outside, watching as Oliver helped Maureen into the passenger side of her Buick.

  Before he left, he pulled Shannon aside, into the shadow of a black oak. “There’s something I think you should know.” His eyes shifted from one side to the other, as if he wasn’t exactly certain how to say what was on his mind.

  “What is it?”

  He hesitated.

  “Enough with the high drama. Please. We get enough of that from Mom, so what’s up?”

  He scratched his chin. Avoided her eyes. “Well, I’m not certain, at least not a hundred percent, but I think, no, I’m pretty sure that I saw Brendan in the congregation last Sunday.”

  “Brendan?” She was stunned. A dozen pictures of the father of her child flashed through her mind. Brendan in his tux as he’d picked her up for the senior prom, Brendan waving from the stands at her graduation, Brendan with her in the bedroom of his apartment, Brendan’s chalk-white face when she’d told him about the baby…

  “Yes, Brendan Giles,” he snapped, then visibly calmed himself. “Sorry…It’s just that I hate to bring this up in case I’m wrong. But I think I saw him, well, or someone who looked a lot like him, standing behind the last pew in the back of the church.” He shook his head. “I could be mistaken, of course. It’s been so long since I’ve seen him—what?—thirteen or closer to fourteen years? But…I think…Oh, who knows…?” Oliver swallowed hard, looked up at the sky, worry wrinkling his face. “Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”

  “No, of course you should have,” she insisted, still bowled over.

  His gaze came back to hers. “I just thought you should know.”

  “Did you try to speak with him?”

  “Yes, after the service, I hurried to the back of the church, greeting everyone of course, but…” Oliver lifted his shoulders as if the weight of the world had settled upon them. “He was gone. Vanished.” He snapped his fingers. “It was almost as if he hadn’t been there at all…like maybe I’d imagined him there.”

  “You mean hallucinated,” she said slowly.

  “Crazy, huh?”

  Shannon didn’t respond.

  The passenger door of the Buick opened. “Oliver?” their mother called. “Are you coming? It’s awful hot in here.”

  “Right there, Mom.” He looked back at his sister, his blue eyes tormented. “Gotta go.”

  “I know.”

  He gave Shannon a quick kiss on the temple, then left her standing beneath the branches of the oak. Brendan was back? Just when she’d found out her baby had been kidnapped—their—baby?

  Or had Oliver been mistaken?

  Or conjured up Brendan’s image?

  She stared after the bronze sedan as it rolled down the lane, kicking up dust in the hot afternoon.

  If Brendan was back in Santa Lucia, he certainly would have contacted his parents. Right? They would know if he was here on the West Coast, now, when, coincidentally the child they’d conceived together was in grave danger.

  The nightmare she was living was becoming stranger by the moment.

  Her guts churning, she hurried into the house and flipped through the pages of the local phone book. With trembling fingers she placed a call she didn’t want to make.

  Of course voice mail picked up. Feeling important minutes slipping away, she left her name, number and a plea that someone call her back.

  She hoped to God someone would bother.

  Chapter 20

  “It’s Dani’s,” Travis declared, his throat tight, fear and rage running through his blood as he stared at the backpack. “She had it with her when she went to school that day.” Stunned, afraid, he turned his eyes to the detective. “Where did you get it?”

  “It was left at the Flannery house, the murder scene.”

  “She was there?” he whispered, horror-struck.

  “I don’t think so. I think the killer left it, just as he left her burned birth certificate on Shannon Flannery’s porch.”

  “Why?” Travis asked.

  “I don’t know. But he wanted us to find it.”

  “You found no other trace of her, right?” Travis asked, forcing out the words. “She wasn’t…”

  “She wasn’t there,” Paterno quickly assured him. “No evidence that she’d been anywhere near the house.”

  Travis let out his breath. Maybe Dani was still safe…Oh, God, he prayed so.

  “I was hoping you could explain this.” Not allowing Travis to touch the backpack, Paterno flipped open the upper flap and upon it, drawn in what looked like charcoal, was a weird star symbol with numbers and broken lines. “You ever see this before?”

  “No. I have no idea what that is.” Travis gazed hard at the odd etching. “It wasn’t there the last time I looked.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Could your daughter have been into drugs or cults or—”

  Travis banged a fist on the corner of Paterno’s desk. “Listen, detective,” he snarled, rage thundering through him, “I’ve been over this with the police in Oregon and the FBI a million times. Dani did not do drugs. She didn’t trust strangers. She didn’t run away.” The muscles in the back of his neck were so tight they ached. Suddenly he wanted to strangle this presumptuous prick of a policeman. “My daughter is the victim, you got that? The victim. Don’t twist this around, just do your damned job and find her.”

  “I think every police agency in California and Oregon is doing just that.”

  “Then where the hell is she? Huh? With the pervert who did that?” he asked, jabbing an angry finger at the singed backpack. “The guy who killed at least one woman and attacked Shannon Flannery? Is that who has my little girl?” His fingers coiled in frustration. “You and I both know that all of this fucking mess is somehow connected, and my
daughter is at the center of it. We also know that every second that passes, her chances of survival diminish, so, Detective Paterno, instead of asking me inane questions about cults and drugs, why don’t you go out and find my kid!”

  Travis didn’t wait for a response. He slammed out the door. One fist was balled and he wanted like hell to slam it into someone’s face.

  The police were running in circles.

  Just like the son of a bitch who had his daughter wanted them to be. The goddamned bastard was playing games. With his kid’s life!

  But Travis was focused.

  Single-minded.

  And lethal.

  If that fucking freak show had so much as harmed one hair on his Dani’s head, the guy was a dead man. Travis would take him out. No questions asked.

  “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” Wasn’t that the old saying? Or was it geeks bearing gifts? At this moment in time, maybe either way worked, Shannon thought. Her neighbor, portly real estate agent Alexi Demitri, the man who had sold her the new property up in the hills, proudly handed her a chubby blonde puppy. Shannon had used the time since her mother and Oliver left to call Aaron with the news about Brendan Giles. Aaron had promised to look into it, and when she’d heard a knock on her back door, she’d expected to find Aaron. Instead, Alexi had arrived.

  “I just wanted to do something,” he said. “You’ve gone through so much lately.” He lifted a hand and motioned toward the space where her shed had once stood. “I heard about your sister-in-law. I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too,” Shannon said, flummoxed by his gesture of good will.

  “But you. You’re feeling better?”

  “Marginally,” she said with a smile as she held the wiggling little mass of fur. Her feet no longer hurt and her headache had been reduced to a dull throb, though her shoulder and ribs still reminded her of the fire. She still looked like she’d wound up on the losing end of three rounds with the current heavyweight champion.

  The puppy snuggled against her, and she immediately lost her heart to the soft fluff of taffy-colored fur. Khan, ever-present and jealous, looked eagerly up at the pup and whined.

  “Shh,” she said. “You’re still number one.”

  “When I heard that you had suffered so much bad luck,” Alexi said, “I thought I’d bring you something to cheer you up.”

  A dog? Shannon thought, disbelieving. Though since she’d been hurt she’d received plants, cards and flowers, no one had come up with an animal as a get-well gift. Until now. She thought of all the dogs she had on the property, animals who needed to be trained as she recovered and decided the last thing she needed right now was this pup.

  At that moment it licked the underside of her chin, melting her heart. It smelled like a puppy, of course, and was all warm and soft and cuddly. And cute as the dickens.

  Maybe Alexi was right. Maybe she did need this little Lab to lift her spirits.

  As if he could read her thoughts, Alexi grinned, showing off a bit of gold rimming one of his front teeth. “The pick of the litter, I tell you, and smart? This little girl is smart as a whip!” He handed her veterinary records proving that the pup had been inoculated.

  Shannon skimmed the papers, then stuffed them into her pocket.

  “So why didn’t you sell her?” Shannon asked, leaning against the doorjamb and feeling the heat of the day seep into her bones.

  Alexi’s dark eyes shined. “I did not sell this one, because I could not bear to give her to a stranger, no matter what the price.” He nodded, his nearly bald head bobbing up and down as if he was convincing himself. He fished in his pockets and came up with a set of keys. They glittered in the sunlight. Brand new.

  “What about the rest of the litter?” Shannon asked.

  “Oh, well, my daughter she took one, and my nephew, he, too, needed a dog. Two died at birth—such a shame—and so I saved this one, Skatooli, the best, for you.” He smiled broadly again as he handed her the keys. “These go to the back door, off the woodshed. I had to replace the lock and, as I told you, forgot to bring them to the closing,” he explained.

  The keys were to the property that she’d just purchased from him, a ranch with twenty acres attached to it, located fifteen miles up the county road. A perfect spot, she’d decided, to expand her working training ground for search and rescue dogs, a place to start over, a place with no memories of the past and now, she thought, glancing to the blackened side of the horse barn, a place that might be safer from whoever had decided to harass her.

  “What does Skatooli mean?” She pocketed the keys.

  “A Greek endearment.” He waved his hands as if the real meaning was inconsequential. “All grandmothers—yiayiàs—call their adored grandchildren Skatoolis…” Yet he was blushing, the skin stretched over his pate turning crimson in the heat of the afternoon.

  “Skatooli,” Shannon repeated as she held her new puppy, a golden Lab. “I don’t know what to say. You shouldn’t have…but thank you.” She stroked the pup’s soft coat as the tiny tail swept across her chest frantically. At her feet, Khan whined and circled.

  “Don’t mention it. And please, get better!” His dark eyes were suddenly worried. “This business with the fire and with your sister-in-law…it’s disturbing…no good.” Obviously he’d read the newspaper reports or seen on the local television newscast that arson was suspected.

  “Amen,” she agreed.

  “Take care, Shannon. Be careful.”

  “Always.”

  “I mean it, you could use a security company to come and set up some kind of system, complete with cameras. Here.” He scrounged in his back pocket, came out with a smooth leather wallet and withdrew a business card. “When I’m not selling real estate, I do security work with my brother-in-law.” He handed her the card for Safety First, a company with a Santa Rosa address.

  “So you sell houses and suggest that your clients invest in a security system?”

  He lifted a shoulder. “I do what I can.”

  “Nice gig.”

  His smile broadened. “You might consider a system for here and the new place. You can never be too secure.”

  “Safety first,” she said, fingering the card while holding the squirming little dog. She remembered the video equipment she’d installed at Aaron’s suggestion. The equipment Ryan had destroyed when he’d discovered it.

  “Yes…exactly.” He lifted a hand in a slow wave, then walked to his car, a white Cadillac that was probably twenty years old, gleaming in the sunlight. As he opened the driver’s door, he looked over the car’s roof and added, “You’ll never regret buying the new place.”

  “I certainly hope not,” she said, thinking his comment odd as she watched him climb into his Seville and throw it into reverse.

  After completing a quick turn, he nosed the big car out of the driveway. She stood on the porch and watched as it bumped along the rutted tracks that wound through the copse of live oaks shading the drive.

  “You know, Skatooli,” she whispered, “he’s more than a little weird. Good thing you escaped while you could.” Oh yeah, right. Like this was such a safe haven. She kissed the pup’s velvet-soft crown. Pure bred Lab? Unlikely since she was a gift. There was something about Alexi’s demeanor—a little bit of the overly clichéd oily used-car salesman—that bothered her. Yet she’d bought the property from him and signed the papers just the week before.

  Before everything in your life turned upside down.

  She watched the plume of dust rising from beneath the Caddy’s tires slowly dissipate and told herself she was borrowing trouble. “Come on inside,” she whispered, wincing as the pup wiggled against her ribs. “Careful.” With Khan nearly tripping her, she carried the little dog into the house.

  The puppy, suddenly aware of the new smells, sights and sounds of her surroundings, trembled and Shannon clutched the tiny thing more firmly. “It’s okay,” she said as she gently introduced the little one to Khan. With his mismatched eyes studying the fluff of fu
r, Khan nosed the pup and snorted, as if in disgust, then trotted off to his water dish. “See,” Shannon whispered to Skatooli as the old dog slurped noisily, “he likes you already.”

  She set the pup in the kennel she kept in a corner of her kitchen, saw that she had puppy food and water, then waited. The little dog whined and tried to climb the mesh as Shannon stuck its veterinary records into a file cabinet in the laundry room, then searched again for her damned cell phone.

  The last call she’d made was to 9-1-1 as she was flying out the door to the fire and from that point on she couldn’t remember what she’d done with it.

  If she didn’t find it soon, she’d have to cut the service and get a new one.

  Though she’d tried it once before, she picked up her home phone and dialed her cell number. It began to ring on the other end, but not anywhere in the house.

  Or did she hear something faint through her open window? On the fourth ring she heard her own voice and hung up. Then she hit redial and walked outside. The phone connected and this time she not only heard the ringing in her receiver, but also the distinct tones of her cell. She followed the noise to the open window of her truck before the voice mail answered again.

  She tore open the door and checked the interior…The phone wasn’t in its usual spot, which was the cup holder near the gearshift. Nor was it on the dash or front seat…She checked the glove box. Not there. Using a flashlight she kept in a pocket on the driver’s side door, she searched again, sweeping the flashlight’s beam under the seat and there, hidden beneath the seat-adjustment bar, was her phone, the battery nearly dead.

  How had it gotten there?

  She hadn’t used it since the fire, had dropped it during the attack.

  She’d been nowhere near her truck.

  Someone had put it there.

  Her heart nearly stopped. She had the eerie sensation that she was being watched. She looked around the grounds and saw nothing out of the ordinary. The horses were grazing in the pasture, Khan was nosing around the water trough, the dogs in their runs were sleeping undisturbed in the afternoon sun and Nate was still missing.