Fatal Burn

by Lisa Jackson

  “I thought getting close to you might help me figure out what was going on, give me an inside look,” he admitted, his face flushing angrily. “But it backfired, okay? Because what I discovered from being with you was that Dolores wasn’t the only woman in the world for me. She wasn’t ‘the one.’ Hell, I don’t even know if I believe that anymore because I fell for you. Hard.”

  “I don’t believe you!”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “Jesus Christ, Nate. You could have told me.”

  “If he told you, he’d blow his cover and then he wouldn’t get the information he needed,” Travis said. He stood near her, his eyes squinting against the sun, his hair showing streaks of gold, his mouth a thin, hard line.

  “You got that right,” Nate said, glaring back at him. “But then, you understand, don’t you? You’re using Shannon to get what you want.”

  “No.”

  Something in his denial rang false. Shannon took a step back. “You, too?” she whispered, thinking of their lovemaking, how she’d playfully teased him this morning. She’d known the reasons he’d come down here had to do with his child, the one he’d called “theirs.” Yet in the light of day it now seemed sappy, a ploy to get her to trust him.

  “It’s not like that,” Travis said.

  “Of course it is, Settler,” Nate cut in. “You came here because of your kid, met Shannon and thought you’d hang out, get close, figure out what she knows.”

  Shannon knew Nate’s words were true. Hadn’t she suspected as much from this man who had been lurking on her property, spying on her the night she’d been attacked? But she’d put those feelings aside, let herself believe, if only for a little while, that they cared for each other, could learn to love each other. What an idiot she’d been! Again. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the gut. “Go ahead, Nate,” she said, her gaze cutting from Travis, with his damned sun-streaked hair, bedroom blue eyes and solid jaw, to the man she’d worked with. “Tell me what else you think you know. Did all the time we spent together pay off?”

  He took the shot and didn’t flinch. “I think one or more of your brothers is involved in the fires.”

  “What!” she said in disbelief. “My brothers?”

  “Ryan Carlyle wasn’t the Stealth Torcher. He was just the fall guy.”

  “What the hell are you trying to peddle now, Santana?” Travis growled.

  “This is nuts!” Shannon couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You think that Aaron, or Shea or Robert is…the Stealth Torcher? That one of them started the current fires and is killing off other members of my family? That…that…what? That Aaron or Shea or Robert attacked me, killed Mary Beth and Oliver?” Her voice rose in fury and something near hysteria.

  “You’re out of your mind, Santana,” Travis agreed tautly.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “So how is this theory connected to my daughter’s kidnapping or Blanche Johnson’s murder? Did one of Shannon’s brothers have my kid send a plea to her in a tape?”

  “I haven’t figured it all out yet. That’s why I wasn’t going to tell you.”

  Shannon said through her teeth, “So you were just going to keep acting weird? Keeping odd hours. Showing up and leaving again in the middle of the night? For the love of God, Nate, where the hell have you been? In the newspaper archives? Or…the library? Or sneaking around my family’s houses? Running down leads on this Stealth Torcher? Playing detective? How in the world did you think you were going to ‘figure it out’?”

  “I haven’t been to the damned library,” Nate snarled. “The truth of the matter is that ever since I found out your daughter was abducted, Settler, I’ve been out looking for her.”

  “And you didn’t tell me?”

  “You would have just gotten in the way.”

  “Shit.”

  In the paddock a horse neighed and Nate glanced toward the animals before going on. “Look, it seems to me that Dani is the center of what’s happening here. The first clue was her birth certificate. Left here…at her birth mother’s home.”

  “And you think one of my brothers has her?” Shannon could scarcely credit it.

  “It’s definitely linked.”

  “No one in my family would hurt a child. Any child.”

  “You don’t know your family or what they’re capable of,” he shot back so loudly that the crow, still sitting on the roof of the stables, took off in full flight.

  “You believe my daughter’s alive,” Travis said.

  “Yes.”

  Shannon felt a bit of relief. “Because of the tape?”

  “No.” He shook his head, the black strands gleaming in the sunlight. “Because if he’d already killed her, he’d have no leverage on you and I think, with what’s happened here—the attack, the burned birth certificate—this has as much to do with you as anyone. I don’t know what the words written on Blanche Johnson’s wall in blood mean, and I haven’t figured out the star and the numbers, but I think it has to do with your family.”

  Shannon strode to the far end of the porch and watched as Khan sniffed around the burnt shed. “How could one of my brothers go to Oregon and…and Idaho, and not be missed around here?”

  “A person can drive to that part of Oregon in less than twelve hours, twenty-four round-trip. If he flew, say in a private plane, it’s only a few hours.”

  “None of my brothers is a pilot.”

  “But they have friends.”

  “This is getting crazier by the second,” she said, turning to face him, arms crossed over. “You’re trying to make it fit. It’s not some major conspiracy, like, like the Kennedy assassination or what happened to Princess Diana! Who would go to such lengths?”

  “Who would?” he agreed.

  “Not one of my brothers!” she said emphatically, wishing the conversation was over. “I can’t believe one of my siblings hates me so much as to have nearly let me go to prison! And all of this!”

  “What about Neville?” Travis asked.

  Shannon froze. “Neville?” A new, cold breath of fear swept across the back of her neck. “But he’s…He’s not even around.”

  “And why is that?” Nate asked.

  Travis didn’t want to buy anything Nate was saying, but there was something here. He could feel it.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you think, Shannon?” Nate stared at her.

  The day seemed to go from bright to gray as a lone cloud passed over the sun. “Look, Nate, don’t you go all weird on me, too, okay? I have no idea what happened to Neville, but he’s not skulking around knocking off the rest of my family.”

  “Why did he leave?” Travis asked.

  “I’ve asked myself that a million times,” Shannon said wearily. “I think…I have to assume that he’s dead.” Neither man said a word. “Wait a minute…No. Even if Neville is still alive, he would never kill Oliver. Or Mary Beth. That’s enough of this! You,” she said, pointing to Nate, “need to talk to the police, tell them what you know and please, for the love of God, try not to incriminate my family!” She started for the door, wanting this conversation to be over, when Nate’s voice stopped her short.

  “Didn’t Oliver tell you that he’d seen Brendan Giles recently?”

  “Yes, but so what?”

  “Brendan’s in Nicaragua,” he said as Khan trotted onto the porch.

  “Oh, please. How do you know that?” She was starting to think Nate was going off his rocker.

  “I talked to his parents.”

  “And they told you?” She remembered that neither of Brendan’s folks had bothered to return her calls. Or had they? Had they called and Nate picked up the phone? “They refused to talk to me.”

  “I visited them in person, told them I was a private investigator and that if they didn’t talk with me I would go to the police, have the cops come and start talking to them. So they decided to open up, tell me what they knew. I saw pictures and e-mails.”

  �
�Which anyone could create from anywhere,” Travis pointed out as he leaned against the panels of the front door. “Fake photos are easy to come by, and with all the digital imaging and computers that are available now, it wouldn’t be hard to create an e-mail address that looks like it comes from a third world country. Not if you were technically savvy at all.”

  Nate nodded. “That’s true, but I believed these people. I don’t think they were harboring their son. They told me that they haven’t actually seen him in over ten years.”

  “And suddenly he’s contacting them. At this time? Damned coincidental, don’t you think?”

  “They’ve been communicating with him for four years,” Nate said. “Even before Ryan was killed. Long before this new spate of fires. The Gileses just haven’t broadcast that they’ve been in contact with Brendan.”

  “And why would that be?” Shannon asked.

  “They didn’t say, but I think they’re worried that he’s involved in something illegal. Maybe drugs.”

  “Oh, great,” Shannon muttered, throwing up a hand. “This is just getting better and better.”

  “So the point is, why would Oliver lie to you about seeing Brendan?”

  “He didn’t say he was certain, just that he thought he saw Brendan in church.”

  “The Gileses aren’t Catholic,” Nate pointed out. “It was a smoke screen, Shannon. He was hiding something.”

  She felt the need to defend her brother. “He isn’t…wasn’t the Stealth Torcher!”

  “Agreed. Otherwise he’d still be alive. But I’m willing to bet that he knew who is and if Oliver knew, chances are that one of your other brothers knows as well.”

  “Again with the conspiracy. Maybe you should apply for a job with the CIA.”

  “Maybe I should.” Shooting her a killing glance, he reached into his pocket and yanked out his cell phone. “It’s a pretty simple matter to check out.” He held out the phone. “Let’s call Aaron.”

  “What’s your plan?” Travis asked.

  “Why Aaron?” Shannon demanded.

  “Because he’s the firstborn. The oldest. Probably knows what’s going on.”

  As he held the receiver toward her, Shannon could hear the dial tone. Her mind whirled. Firstborn. The oldest. Birth order. A cold sweat broke out on her skin and she felt a drip of dread. A recorded voice instructed the caller to hang up and try again, but what Shannon heard were the hushed whispers all the while she’d been growing up, the quickly stifled secrets. An icy chill sliced through her heart. Pieces that had been floating through her mind, teasing her, giving her headaches, started to tumble into place.

  “Hang that up,” she ordered Nate, and when he didn’t immediately disconnect, repeated herself. “Hang it up now!”

  Shaking inside, she walked into the house, grabbed a piece of paper from the notepad on the counter, then sat down and wrote down the names of her brothers, one below the other. As she did, she heard Nate and Travis walk inside, the floorboards creaking with their footsteps.

  “What’s going on?” Travis asked, a hint of concern in his voice.

  “Look.” She added her own name to the list, writing it below Neville’s.

  Aaron

  Robert

  Shea

  Oliver

  Neville

  Shannon

  “Oh, God…this…this is nuts,” she whispered as she stared at the names arranged vertically. Her throat closed so tightly she could barely breathe. She remembered hearing the rumors as a child, the nasty gossip that had slunk through the halls of St. Theresa’s. That her father was a bad seed, that he had intentionally set fires, earning awards and commendations for his bravery before the truth was discovered. Always the charges had been dismissed and he’d even laughed the allegations off, calling them “sour grapes” from some of his peers.

  Had they been?

  Her stomach turned sour.

  A memory of Mary Beth, wearing her St. Theresa’s uniform in the locker room of the school gym, sliced through her brain. Shannon had been in one of the stalls, changing. She’d looked through a crack between the edge of the curtain and the wall, which gave her a view of the mirror mounted over a row of sinks. Mary Beth had been leaning over a dripping sink, her nose nearly pressed to the mirror as she’d applied mascara to her already-thick lashes. She’d been confiding to Gina Pratt that her father, a member of the Santa Lucia Fire Department, had said that Patrick Flannery was a “firebug.” That everyone in the department knew it. Shannon had raced to get dressed and hurried after her “friend,” only to have Mary Beth insist she’d been “kidding.”

  And now…She swallowed hard.

  “What?” Travis said. His hand was on her shoulder, and she tried not to think about it, about the tenderness of the gesture. It was all a fake, she reminded herself. He’d gotten close to her for reasons of his own, just as Nate had. Shrugging off his hand, she slid her finger slowly down the page on the table, touching the first letter of each of her siblings’ names before stopping at her own. A-R-S-O-N-S. Coincidence? Her father had been known for his practical jokes, but this wasn’t funny. Not at all. In fact, it was downright hideous. “ARSONS.”

  Travis, his expression dark, stared at her. “What are you saying?”

  “I heard my brothers talking about ‘birth order’ and it being ‘Dad’s fault.’ If what Nate is saying is true, could…? Oh, God—” The thought was reprehensible. She thought she might throw up. “Could my father really have been the Stealth Torcher?”

  “Possibly,” Nate said.

  Travis said, “But he’s dead. And there are new fires that everyone thinks might have been set by the same arsonist.”

  “That’s right.” Nate stared at Shannon. “So who would be the most likely candidate to follow in Daddy’s footsteps? Literally take up the torch?”

  “No one,” she insisted, but for the first time she doubted herself.

  Travis’s cell phone rang and all speculation stopped. He flipped it open, and standing next to him, Shannon recognized the out-of-state number for the Sheriff’s Department in Lewis County, Oregon.

  She didn’t dare breathe.

  Travis pushed the phone to his ear. “Settler.” There was a long pause as Travis stared at Shannon, all the while listening to the one-sided conversation. Eventually, he said, “Thanks,” and flipped the phone shut. Stuffing the cell into his pocket, he said, “Another piece of the puzzle. Carter says they got a judge to unseal the adoption papers for Blanche Johnson’s second child. Turns out he was adopted by a childless couple down here named Carlyle. They named him Ryan.”

  Chapter 30

  “Okay, okay, so what’s with the stars?” Rossi asked as Paterno, carrying pages that he’d put in front of his fellow officers, secretarial staff, and even an alleged car thief who was being booked, returned to the office. He’d asked each one of them to draw a star without lifting the pen. To a one, they’d stared at him as if he’d lost his marbles, but they did as they’d been asked, some making him the butt of jokes about his sudden need to go back to kindergarten. He hadn’t listened or cared.

  “Here’s what it looks like,” he said to Rossi as he loosened his tie. Geez, it was hot in here. “Eleven out of thirteen people made the stars the same way you and I both did, starting at the left-hand corner, moving upward to a point, then drawing straight down at an angle, up again over to the left, then straight across to the right and finally down to the original starting point.”

  Rossi tried to look interested and failed. “There’s a point to this?”

  “I think so,” Paterno said. “Maybe more like five points. Let’s just say that if you draw a star this way, without lifting your pencil, the first point would be at the top, see”—he demonstrated—“where you start going downward after going up. So that’s number one, but as we continue down, we make the next point at the lower right-hand when we angle up sharply, so that point is number two. Got it?”

  “The lower right is number two. I ge
t it. But I don’t see what you’re trying to do.”

  “Hang on. You will.” With his pen still pressed to the paper, he glanced up. Rossi, focusing on the pen, was starting to slowly nod his head. “So then we go upward to the upper left-hand corner where we veer sharply right, creating the upper left-hand point, or…?”

  “Number three.” Rossi was taking note.

  “Right! And back to the right we go straight across, only to turn downward and so the upper right-hand point is four and”—he brought the pen back to the point of origin, completing the drawing of the star with a point in the lower left-hand corner—“so here’s number five down at the left and the middle is now complete, making it area number six.” He nodded to himself, as if double-checking his figure, then started writing names in the appropriate spots. “Now, if you correspond the numbers of the points as they were created with the birth order of the Flannery kids, you get something that looks like this:

  “And if you notice, the ones who were killed or are missing, numbers five and four, Neville and Oliver, are where the missing points should be. Because they’re already gone.”

  “So Neville’s dead.”

  “I would bet.”

  “Then what’s with the broken line, for number two?” Rossi pointed at the page.

  “It must mean that the killer took out Robert’s wife, Mary Beth. Why? On purpose? A mistake? To make a statement?” Paterno scowled thoughtfully. “I don’t know, maybe it’s to show her thin, failing connection to her husband, and if that were the case, then our perp would have to be very close to what was happening, privy to the inner workings of Robert’s love life. Or maybe he was pissed at her, too, and the line will only become solid when he kills Robert.”

  “If that’s what this is all about.”

  “Right.” Paterno was on a roll. There was a certain electricity—almost a smell—he experienced when he was about to break open a case. He felt it now, that stirring of excitement, the thrill of figuring out some sicko’s MO before he could strike again. “I don’t know what the star’s got to do with anything, but the killer wants us to know about it.”