The Private Bodyguard

by Cowan, Debra

  He cursed under his breath as he changed lanes. Meredith was riding the edge of numbness and fear. She wanted to curse, too. Or scream at someone.

  She still had a home, but how much of one? She felt completely lost, bereft. For an instant, on a lesser scale, she had an inkling of how alone and displaced Gage must’ve felt when he lost his home. His whole life.

  She began to tremble. “I can’t believe this.”

  “Are you okay?”

  The worry that carved lines in his face had Meredith trying to shake off her dazed lethargy. “Yes.”

  She was amazed at how calm she sounded. She wasn’t calm. She couldn’t even make herself release her choke hold on his big hand.

  It was a second before she realized he’d exited the parkway. “What are you doing?”

  “You sure you’re all right? You look pale.”

  “I’m okay.” Her voice quavered.

  Gage turned the car around and drove to the ramp going the opposite direction. Once again on the parkway, they traveled back the way they’d come.

  Meredith frowned. “Where are you going?”

  “To your house.”

  “But…What if someone sees us there?” Her grip tightened on his. She couldn’t stop trembling.

  “We’ll stay a fair distance away.”

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “We need to go there, baby.”

  “To check the damage? If it’s risky for you, we shouldn’t go.”

  “Partly to see the damage. We’ll lay low, stay out of sight.”

  After struggling to steady her racing heartbeat, she nodded. Having Gage with her helped managed this adrenaline free-for-all.

  With so many questions yet unanswered, she tried to figure out what might have happened. “It was probably an accident of some kind. Electrical. Sarah said she never saw anyone hanging around my place.”

  “Yeah, it could’ve been an accident.” The cynical brusqueness of his tone told Meredith he didn’t believe that. “That’s one reason we need to check it out. We need to know exactly what we’re dealing with.”

  Something in his voice had her considering another likelihood and her gaze locked in on him. “Do you think this is arson? Do you think it’s related to your case?”

  “I don’t know, but I seriously doubt it’s random. Julio or whoever tried and failed to kill us is nowhere to be found, and now a fire is set at your house? You’re still in danger. It can’t be a coincidence.”

  The hair on her neck rose.

  “I have to get inside and determine if the blaze was arson. I think it was, but I need to be sure.”

  Her hand felt cold in his. “How are you going to get in?”

  “I don’t know yet.” He linked his strong, warm fingers with hers and Meredith held tight. “We’ll figure it out.”

  Twenty minutes later, they pulled into her housing addition, able to get within only a block because of the police cruisers forming a border to keep people away from the fire scene. Red and blue lights strobed here and at the opposite end.

  Parked on the next curb were two SUVs bearing the names and logos of Oklahoma City television stations. A helicopter belonging to another station circled overhead. Gage intended to stay under the radar.

  He backed away from the cordoned-off area then parked on a side street half a block down. He and Meredith settled in to wait until the rescue personnel left her house. The acrid stench of smoke burned the cold air. The white-gray haze dissipating into the clouds told Gage the blaze hadn’t been caused by petroleum products. Otherwise, the smoke would be dark.

  Neither of them spoke. Waiting in the heavy silence, surrounded by Meredith’s frothy scent, turned Gage’s thoughts to them.

  He was trying to give her the space and time she needed to make up her mind about them, to see he had changed, but it was gnawing a hole inside him. He told himself to be patient, just as he would be in an investigation. But he had trouble reining back when Meredith was concerned. Still, he had to try.

  He couldn’t do anything about his situation with her right now, but he could focus on this fire, determine if it was arson and find out if it was related to his case.

  Finally, the police cruisers and fire trucks left the scene. As he and Meredith carefully made their way toward her house, midmorning sunlight speared ruthlessly into the shadowed corners of the established neighborhood. They stayed behind trees and kept an eye out for neighbors or anyone else they might see.

  She had bought this house after she and Gage had gotten engaged, and though he had been inside plenty of times, they had split up before he could move in.

  About a hundred yards from her cottage-style home, they stopped beside a gray brick house on the same side of the street as hers and Gage scanned her now-soggy front yard. Water from the fire hoses soaked the cold packed ground, streamed down the pavement and glistened on nearby trees. Yellow crime-scene tape stretched around the house and yard.

  A policeman watched the scene from his patrol car at the curb.

  After scanning the area again, Gage said in a half whisper, “I don’t think Presley’s fire investigators have shown up yet or they’d still be working inside. Since they aren’t here, it means they’re probably at another scene. A big one, if it required both Terra and Collier McClain to work it. That’s good for us.”

  “What are we going to do? That cop is looking this way.” Meredith kept her voice quiet. “It’s not as if we can just stroll inside.”

  “I’ll figure out something.”

  A few minutes later, they had a plan. Gage waited as Meredith returned for her car, then drove into the neighborhood as if just arriving. When she walked toward the patrol car, Gage took advantage of the officer’s distraction and slipped over a chain-link fence behind the gray house and then another, moving toward Meredith’s backyard through those of her neighbors.

  He encountered a basset hound inside one fence, then a mastiff inside another. Both dogs began to bark. They continued to make noise as Gage kept moving and finally climbed over Meredith’s taller wooden fence into her backyard. Though he couldn’t hear her, he knew she was doing as they’d agreed by telling the patrolman the damaged house was hers and asking to be let inside.

  Knowing the cop would refuse to allow her into a scene that hadn’t been processed, Gage used the key she’d given him to let himself in the sliding glass doors at the back of her house.

  He quietly closed the door and took in his surroundings, noting there was no odor of kerosene or gasoline. That, along with the absence of black smoke, told him another type of accelerant had been used.

  The center of the house was the open living room. An attached dining room looked out the front and the kitchen, which looked to have sustained the most damage, was to his left. He relaxed slightly, knowing the kitchen wasn’t visible from the front windows.

  The smell of wet ash hung in the air. Meredith’s light gray carpet was soaked, covered with soot. Grime streaked the white walls and boot prints clearly showed the path the firefighters had taken to douse the blaze. Among the many questions Gage wanted to ask was if they’d used the typical wide or “fog pattern” spray to kill the fire. But of course he couldn’t ask.

  Nor could he dig for answers since he was without his shovel. Even though he hadn’t performed fire investigations for a year, his hand still felt empty without his most essential tool.

  The firefighters had entered through the front door, moved into the charcoal-filmed living room then the kitchen. The room’s cabinets, counters and floors were blackened. At the kitchen’s back wall, the doorway that led to the laundry room was charred. The kitchen was the point of origin and the alligator-patterned frame was the low point, the specific place the fire had started.

  Using Meredith’s cell phone camera, Gage snapped pictures of the sooty foyer and living room before turning to the kitchen to search out more detail.

  He started at the kitchen’s back wall, his attention immediately s
nagged by a cloudy yellow blob of gel attached to the other side of the door frame. This was no electrical fire.

  His heart rate kicked into high as he moved closer.

  Bingo! Gage knew this signature. The gel block in front of him appeared to be exactly like those he’d made for his experiments. All the torch had to do was adhere the accelerant to where he wanted and light it. Just like what had been done to start the arson ring fires.

  He was barely able to stop himself from calling out to Meredith. Thank goodness for her neighbor who had gotten the fire department here in time to prevent major damage to the house, especially the kitchen. And to keep the evidence from burning and disappearing.

  A nice-sized chunk of gel remained, enough to test and maybe lead to the mastermind behind the arson ring. And hopefully prove that person was Larry James as Gage had suspected all along.

  Since there was no dead body at this scene, the fire department wouldn’t need to work with the police department, but seeing as how both a cop and Presley’s lead fire investigator were close friends of Meredith’s, Gage was pretty sure he could get information about anything discovered here.

  This fire was definitely arson, likely connected to Operation Smoke Screen. And this time, he had evidence to prove it.

  Meredith could feel frustration rolling off Gage in waves. An hour after leaving her house, they were driving away from the Oklahoma City morgue and back to Robin’s farmhouse. The man they’d been asked to identify had indeed been the man who’d tried to kill them, the one Gage said was the go-between who’d set the fires for the mastermind of the arson ring.

  Julio Garza. They had his whole name now, and that was all they had. No connection to Larry James, nothing on Garza’s body or in his effects to point to anyone. Disappointment was a sharp keening pain in Meredith’s chest. Judging by the way Gage’s jaw muscles bunched, he felt the same way.

  She drove while he used her cell phone to call Robin and take more notes. As he told the detective what he’d discovered about the fire at Meredith’s house, she regained her mental balance enough to sort through what had happened. She realized with a flutter of panic that the first thing she’d done upon hearing the news about her house was turn to Gage. It had been natural, but she couldn’t let herself depend on him. For anything. It would only lead to hurt.

  Forcing away thoughts about the two of them, she listened to his conversation with Robin.

  “We’re leaving the morgue. The scum we identified was the guy who tried to kill us in Broken Bow. Since he was lying on a slab at the time, I know he didn’t set the fire at Meredith’s.”

  He paused, listened, then continued, “He never left prints at any of his scenes, but whoever torched Meredith’s house might have. As thorough an investigator as Terra is, I’m sure she checks everything for prints at her fire scenes.”

  After answering a couple of questions and asking Robin to call with any news, he disconnected. Even though his voice had been steady while on the phone, Meredith heard the strain beneath his words. Recognized the stress that made his shoulders rigid and cut deep lines around his eyes.

  As far as evidence went, Julio was the end of the road for Gage unless Terra discovered something at Meredith’s house. Chances were high Gage would have to return to the Witness Security Program, and the possibility left Meredith feeling empty, sad.

  He stared out the window of her car as she drove north in the noon traffic. Glancing at her, he pinched the bridge of his nose. “Did I sound as desperate as I feel?”

  Meredith’s heart ached. “There has to be something else we can do, somewhere we can look.”

  “I don’t know what it would be.”

  His voice was gritty with exhaustion, his features haggard. The strain of the past couple of weeks rode him hard. She hated this. She might not know what she wanted for them, but she knew she wanted Gage to get his life back, wanted his grandparents to get their grandson back. Right now, it didn’t seem likely.

  “Maybe you could go through my house again,” she said. “Or give your test notes to Terra and see if she can find something you may have missed.”

  He was quiet for a long moment, then reached over and took her hand. “What I care about more than anything is that you’re safe. I want that for you, no matter what happens with me after the trial.”

  Tears stung her eyes. His going back into Witness Security would be the worst thing for him and his grandparents. It had cost him enough. Why did the person doing the right thing have to pay the price?

  “Robin’s going to keep me in the loop.” He dragged his free hand down his face. “She’ll let me know as soon as she hears anything from Terra.”

  Meredith squeezed his hand. “That’s all we can do for now?”

  “Yes.” And it pissed him off.

  His gut told him he’d uncovered something key at her house and it grated that he had to sit around on his hands and wait on someone else to find out what it was. Terra Spencer was one of the best fire investigators he knew, but Gage wanted to be the one working that scene. It was his life on the line.

  Between that frustration and the feeling Meredith was getting farther from him, he was ready to chew nails. It didn’t help that his damn shoulder was aching worse than it had in the past few days.

  His patience, already flimsy, only wore thinner as the hours passed. Hours spent between reviewing everything he’d found at Meredith’s house and thinking about his woman. Was it his imagination or was she spending most of her time in whatever room he wasn’t in?

  Irritation, resentment, bubbled up until his insides felt on fire. When his mood didn’t improve the next day, Gage went in search of more things to do. He entered the last of the results of his and Meredith’s experiments on the marshal’s laptop, then e-mailed the schematic he’d found to Ken Ivory.

  The ache in his shoulder had him looking on the Internet for some range-of-motion exercises. Sitting on the end of the queen-size bed he and Meredith had been sharing, he was about five minutes into the first set when her voice came from the doorway, startling him.

  “What are you doing? You know I should check your stitches before you do something like that.”

  “My shoulder feels fine.” He rolled it to demonstrate.

  Looking pale and concerned, she walked toward him. “Let me see.”

  He unbuttoned and slid off his dark green long-sleeved shirt then sat quietly as she examined his injury. He drew in the deep scent of woman and apricot.

  “It’s healed well. Well enough to take out the stitches.” She moved to the corner of the room where she had put the medical supplies she’d brought and returned with a small pair of curved scissors.

  As she carefully removed the stitches, he watched her face, the tiny line between her brows as she concentrated. Watery winter light streamed through the window. His skin pulled with the removal of each suture. When she finished, she ran a gentle hand across his scar.

  He looked at it. A healthy pink and healing scar. “Thanks.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He wanted to pull her into his lap, but didn’t. Normally, he would’ve touched her before she did him, yet for the past couple of days he’d felt as if he needed to wait for her to make the first move on everything. It bugged the hell out of him.

  Things between them were fine as long as he didn’t talk about anything other than what was in the moment. When he did, Meredith closed up.

  When she lightly ran her fingers through his hair, he settled a hand low on her hip, looking up at her.

  “Are you about to go stir-crazy?” She moved away to dispose of the sutures in a wastebasket the same navy as the other accents in the bedroom.

  He stood, pulling on his shirt and buttoning it. “Yeah. I’m trying to keep my mind occupied.”

  Before she could reply, her cell phone rang. She answered then handed it to Gage. “It’s Robin.”

  He took the phone, tamping down restlessness and a demand for the detective to tell him w
hat she’d learned.

  “Terra was able to get a couple of sets of prints, even one from the accelerant, but they were smeared,” Robin said. “No match points at all.”

  Damn! Gage felt as if a massive weight crushed his chest, cutting off his air. What the hell was he supposed to do? How was he supposed to walk away from his life again? From Meredith? Would he ever nail the mastermind behind the arson ring?

  His brain was churning so hard he almost missed Robin’s next words.

  “But we got something better.”

  He froze. “What?”

  As he listened, adrenaline shot through him. His gaze went to Meredith, who watched him closely.

  Whatever she saw on his face had her moving closer.

  Excitement mounting, he struggled to wait for all of Robin’s information. He wanted to be sure he had everything right. He could hardly wait to get off the phone. When he did, he grinned and scooped Meredith into his arms.

  Hooking an arm around his neck for balance, she ordered breathlessly, “Tell me!”

  “Terra found DNA.”

  “DNA! From what?” The elation in her voice matched his. “Blood? Hair?”

  “She managed to extract it from oil left behind by the fingerprints.”

  “I’ve read about that process. I didn’t know our lab could do that now.”

  Gage nodded. “The best part is that the DNA matches Larry James.”

  “Oh, how wonderful!” She hugged him tight.

  Saying the words out loud made it seem real. Gage could have the bastard locked up for years. He wouldn’t have to stay in witness protection. None of the task-force members would.

  He actually felt weak with disbelief. Sorting through a flood of emotion, he buried his face in Meredith’s thick fragrant hair. Finally, finally, he could nail that son of a bitch. He was going to close this case.

  His mind was so full it took him a second to register Meredith’s question.

  “How was Terra able to get his DNA to test against what she found at my house? Is he in custody?”

  “No. Robin said she’s trying to serve a warrant on him, but so far he can’t be found. Terra was able to match his DNA because it was in the system.”