by Jill Shalvis
He didn’t know how to tell her that the stats weren’t going to get better. Fine as her body was, and as much as he enjoyed it, he lived and breathed his work.
Except today. He couldn’t believe he was back. Here. Drawn now by something beneath the shelving unit, he put both his past and Cindy out of his mind and inched in a little closer.
There were no windows in the basement to let in the early sun. The electricity had been blown in the fire, which might or might not explain why the overhead sprinklers hadn’t gone off. There was nothing but the narrow beam from his flashlight guiding him as he followed a curious burn pattern underneath the large, heavy, unbudgeable metal shelving unit. He fired off a few more pictures, then swung the camera around his neck to lie against his back while he studied a particularly interesting find with his light.
“Anything?” his partner asked from behind him, still standing straight up, and probably nice and dry to boot.
“Yeah, I’ve got—” Joe broke off as his flashlight suddenly highlighted two glowing eyes only inches from his outstretched hand. Accompanying those feral eyes came an unwelcoming hiss. Shit. Jerking upright, he smashed his head into the metal shelf above him.
“What the hell is that?” asked Kenny from his helpful perch five feet back.
Joe waited until the stars faded from his vision, but his heart still raced, pounding his ribs as he eyed whatever was currently eyeing him right back. “I’m not sure.”
After the historic bushfires in the entire San Diego area two years ago, which had drawn rabbits, raccoons, deer, and even mountain cats into the suburbs, the gleaming, sorely pissed off gaze could belong to anything.
And nothing he wanted to be this close to.
“Well, don’t get bit,” Kenny said.
“Thanks.” Joe watched the animal as it watched him. Neither of them moving. “Helpful advice.”
“I try.”
Joe shifted his flashlight over the cornered animal, but it didn’t help because the shallow water covering the floor made a crazy reflection. “I can’t see.”
“Who needs to see? It’s growling like a wild possum on a bad PMS trip. Get the hell out of its way.”
“I think it’s hurt.” And Joe had spent enough years growing up as the underdog to be unwilling to just leave it. “Do you think you could come closer than the two miles you’re standing back and give me a hand?”
“I have a healthy fear of rabid, hissing animals.”
“We were just hanging off the roof staring a thirty-foot fall in the face as we studied the loft and you didn’t blink, but a little animal scares you?”
“I didn’t get enough love as a child. Are you sure it’s little?”
Joe eyed the decidedly not-so-little silhouette hunched over and miserable. “It’s shaking like a leaf, does that count?” But since he couldn’t see its teeth, he still didn’t move. “Come distract it so I can back out of here.”
Into Joe’s peripheral vision came Kenny’s two boots not caked in muck like Joe’s. Kenny’s boots rarely got dirty. In fact, Kenny rarely got dirty. It was just one of the strange little mysteries of life.
“I’m going to scare it out from the back,” Kenny said. “So watch yourself.”
“Wait.” Joe began to scoot out from beneath the shelving unit, his life flashing before the eyes he didn’t want to have scratched out. “Okay now,” he said, dirty water dripping off him.
Kenny banged his flashlight against the metal, and with a screeching howl, the hissing thing zipped out from beneath the unit and into the inky blackness of the basement.
Both Joe and Kenny whipped around, shining their twin beams across the wet, dank floor to the far corner, onto the large, orange…cat. She had white paws and a deep scratch down one side of her face, which held one green eye, and one brown.
“A cat.” Kenny shook his head, a few drops of dirty water marring his glasses. He removed them and wiped the lens with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket. “A damn cat.”
Filthy, wet, and overheated, Joe stripped out of the top part of his coveralls, letting the sleeves and torso hang off his hips. He wore a sweat drenched T-shirt beneath, but he left that on as he stepped closer in disbelief. “Socks?”
Unhappy and wet, the cat shook first one paw and then another, glaring at him the whole time.
Hunkering down, Joe outstretched his fingers. “Here, Socks.”
Above them the building rumbled ominously. He knew there was still an entire firefighter crew out there clearing hot spots and checking the soundness of the structure. Everyone knew he and Kenny were down here.
The ground shook again.
Kenny and Joe stared at each other. Kenny pushed up his glasses and gestured to the stairs. “Let’s hit it.”
“Yeah, but we’ll be back later.”
“Why, what did you find?”
“A rainbow-like sheen to the water beneath the unit.”
They both knew that could indicate an accelerant, such as gasoline or paint thinner. Since there was nothing in the basement but boxes of stock for a furnishings shop, the appearance of such a chemical was automatically suspicious.
Or was that simply because Joe had personally been in this very spot for another fire entirely? One that had ended in a terrible, tragic death?
Either way, he and Kenny would know everything there was to know by the end of their investigation. If it had been arson, they’d uncover it. Conviction, however, was another story entirely. That was because arson was a sneaky bastard of a crime, usually done quietly in the dead of the night, a solo act more fervent than masturbation. The evidence never lied, but being able to actually prove motive and cause, not to mention tying a suspect to the scene of the crime, had often proved frustrating.
Over the years, Joe had learned the hard way that the key to the job was detachment and an unflappable composure. But this case would test both because he had memories to battle here as well, memories strong enough to begin a low throbbing at the base of his skull.
Socks had been just a kitten on that long ago day when everything had gone so terribly wrong, costing Tim Abrams his life, costing Summer Abrams the rest of her adolescence, costing Joe the only bright spot in his life at the time.
But whether this cat at his feet was Socks or not, Joe couldn’t leave her down here, hurt and terrified. “Here kitty, kitty.”
“I wouldn’t,” Kenny warned as Joe reached for her, and sure enough, the cat turned into a wild thing in Joe’s arms, hissing and spitting, using both paws to swipe down his chest, making him hiss as well. He didn’t look down to see if the damn feline had yanked out his heart or if it only felt like it, because at that moment the building shuddered wildly.
Both their radios squawked to life. “Walker, Simmons. Get out,” came a booming voice in stereo. “Do you copy? Roof is going to collapse. Get out now.”
“Copy,” Kenny yelled as dust rained over them. He snatched up their evidence-collecting bag and Joe’s flashlight. “Let’s beat it.”
Joe still had his arms full of pissed-off feline. Chest burning from the scratches, he shook his head when Kenny turned toward the stairs that led up through the burned shell of the warehouse. “Not that way.”
“It’s our exit, Walk. Time to get off this train.”
“There’s a back door, and if it wasn’t destroyed in the fire, it’s a faster way out.”
“If we die down here, I’m taking that cat to hell with me,” Kenny vowed, following so close on Joe’s tail he could feel him breathing down his neck.
“We’re not dying, not today.” The dust and dirt falling on them turned to a cakey mud on Joe’s drenched body as they ran down a narrow hallway to a second set of stairs, leading up.
The set he and Summer had always used when they didn’t want to be seen.
“You weren’t here when they fought the fire last night,” Kenny said breathlessly as they began to climb the rickety wood steps. “And we haven’t seen the blueprints yet. How di
d you know—”
“Been here before. Keep moving—”
From behind them came another foreboding tremble, and everything around them began to shake as if they were in an earthquake.
Not an earthquake, Joe knew, just a warehouse that had taken more punishment than it could withstand. He hoped to God everyone was off the roof because this sucker really was going to collapse.
It wouldn’t be the first time. Horrifying visions rushed at him. Summer screaming for her father, as she raced up the other set of stairs to the main floor, yanking open the door before he could stop her, allowing the smoke and fire to overcome her…He’d torn up after her, through the licking, hot flames, just as the roof collapsed through the center. He’d stood there in the blinding smoke and dust, frantically yelling for her before finding her trapped in the rubble, unconscious and bleeding. He’d dragged her outside, next to where Danny had escaped without trying to help.
The fire department had come that day, and so had an ambulance, but it’d been too late to save Tim Abrams from the collapsed loft. It’d taken Summer two days to awaken from her head injury, and after a two-week hospital stay, during which time she’d missed her father’s funeral, she’d left town for the summer to join a river guide company in Colorado.
Joe hadn’t seen her again, she’d made sure of it. She’d taken her high school equivalency test that fall, graduating two years early, hiring on at a different expedition company after that. She hadn’t entered San Diego State with him as planned. In fact, they hadn’t exchanged a single word since that terrible, stupid fight in the basement.
Now he and Kenny charged up the last few steps, shoved open the door to the outside, and stepped into the early morning salty sunshine. In the parking lot in front of them were two fire engines and an assortment of fire personnel, all visibly relieved to see them.
“Everyone accounted for?” Joe asked their Chief, who nodded just as a huge, thundering crash had them all whipping around in time to see a section of the main roof cave in, shaking the ground beneath their feet.
“Jesus,” Kenny muttered, and removed his glasses with a shaking hand, leaving him standing there with a perfectly clear imprint of the lenses on his filthy face.
The rest of the building stood firm, though looking a bit like an accordion on one side. All around them firefighters were still checking the perimeter and the hot spots. A cop was helping to keep looky-lous at a distance and out of harm’s way, and on a summer’s morning near O.B. there were many of them, in a variety of dress. Joggers, construction workers, students, bums, rich patrons of the galleys nearby…
In the midst of all the chaos, Joe strode over to his city-issued truck, opened the driver’s door and set the cat on the seat. “Don’t tear up anything.”
Socks gave him her back and stuck her tail in the air.
Damn thing didn’t remember him, a reminder that when it came to his past, not many did. He slammed the truck door and put his hand to the front of his T-shirt, which not only came away muddy, but sticky with the blood now flowing freely from his deep scratches. “Nice,” he said to Socks through the window, and wiped his hand on the thighs of his coveralls before flipping through his clipboard.
“You looking for the owner info?” Kenny asked, coming up behind him. His face was already clean. Joe had no idea how he did that. “Two sisters,” Kenny said, consulting a sheet of paper. “You going to call, or should I?”
“I’ll do it.” Joe glanced at the names, though he already knew what he’d see. Tina Wilson and Camille Abrams—Summer’s aunt and mother.
“Chief says he spoke to both in the middle of the night when the fire was still raging. They mentioned they have a vagrant who sometimes sleeps here. The old guy’s been known to leave odd things, or to try to start a campfire. Camille Abrams was reportedly pretty shook up, and didn’t stay long. But I’m surprised she hasn’t made another appearance in the light of day.”
Joe knew exactly why Camille had been shaken up, and why she hadn’t made another appearance. She’d lost her husband here. With a heavy heart, he took his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed the number listed. She answered on the first ring. “Mrs. Abrams, this is—”
“Is this about the warehouse?” She sounded anxious. “Did you find my cat? She was there with me last night and then vanished, and finally I had to leave without her, but I’ve been worried sick—”
“I have Socks.”
“Oh, thank God. How’d you know her name?”
“I’m Joe Walker, Mrs. Abrams. Do you remember me?”
“Joe Walker…”
“I lived next door to you growing up.”
Silence.
He could have asked her if she remembered him sneaking into Summer’s window to escape his father’s fists. On the worst nights, Camille had brought him homemade healing tea and toast with cinnamon and extra butter. His first experience with basic kindness from a woman, and his first comfort food.
“Joe Walker?” she repeated softly.
“I’m a fire marshal now,” he told her. “I’m at your warehouse. With Socks.” If she gave any indication she found this as unsettling as he did, she gave nothing away. “The cat’s safe in my rig, though she appears to have a cut on her face. Your building—”
“I’ll have to get her to the vet.”
“Yes. Your warehouse—”
“I know. It burned again.” Her voice quivered, giving her away. So she did remember. “No one died this time.”
“No, ma’am,” he said gently, wishing he’d taken a seat to make this call because his legs felt a little wobbly. Whether from his own close call or the memories, he had no idea.
“Thank you, Joe.”
He hadn’t done much, but he wished he could. “Mrs. Abrams—”
She clicked off.
He stared down at the phone. “Yeah, and how are you? Me? Oh, I’m good. And Summer? Jesus.” The ball of memories lodged in his throat, he shook his head. “You fool.”
“So, fool. Who’s Summer?” Kenny handed over a first-aid kit, presumably for the scratches burning a slow path of fire down his chest.
“No one.”
Kenny eyed him thoughtfully. He was nine years older than Joe’s thirty, and he believed those years gave him license to know everything. They’d been partners for two years, and had grown close as brothers. Bickering brothers. That suited Joe fine, as he’d never had a smooth relationship in his life, starting with Summer. He rubbed his chest, not sure if it was the scratches or his heart that ached like a son of a bitch.
“You okay?” Kenny finally asked.
“Yeah. Why?”
“You look pale. Want to sit?”
“Do you?”
“I’m not pale.”
“I’m fine.”
“Okay,” Kenny said, sounding unconvinced.
“I am.”
“Whatever you say.”
A car pulled into the parking lot. A bright blue VW Bug with the windows down and U2 blaring out of the speakers. When the engine turned off, silence descended everywhere but within Joe, because he knew.
His heart took off again, just as Summer got out of her car. He’d heard about her career leading rafting, hiking, and biking treks all over the world for some big expedition company, but he hadn’t heard she was back. Why would he? He no longer lived next door to her mother’s house, and she’d never sought him out.
She stood there by the Bug, eyes covered in mirrored shades, head turned toward the warehouse. Twelve years ago she’d been a beanpole, long and too thin, with waist-length auburn hair Joe had thought looked like pure fire.
Now she wore some sort of gauzy sundress that clung to her body, still long and lean, but graced with the curves of a full-grown woman. Her hair was reined in. Sort of. It was piled on top of her head in a careless, precarious knot with strands escaping to brush over her bronzed shoulders. The eyes he knew to be a soft, dreamy jade were hidden, but seemed to take everything in with disbeli
ef, and even from his distance of twenty-five feet, he could see her breath catch.
Was she remembering the last time she’d been here? The smoke and flames and sirens wailing in the distance, in tune to her own screams?
She turned and unerringly caught his eye, and her sorrow shimmied through him so that he nearly staggered. He actually took a step toward her, with some idea of trying to comfort her, but a polite smile crossed her lips.
And if he’d thought Socks’s scratches had dug deep, it was nothing to this.
She didn’t recognize him.
Jesus, what a day. It wasn’t often he felt eighteen again, leaving him stupid, pathetic, and yearning for a doughnut, but she’d done it to him in a blink.
“Who’s that?” Kenny wanted to know.
“Summer.”
“Summer, the No One?”
“In the flesh.”
At his flat tone, Kenny looked at him. “You know her.”
“She’s related to the owners.”
“But you know her.”
“We grew up next door to each other,” Joe said.
“Ah. She’s the one you were in love with. The one who loved you back but only as a friend.”
Joe shot him a long sideways look and shook his head. “Thanks for the recap.”
Kenny placed a hand on his shoulder. “No problem, buddy.”
Having clearly decided the two of them were the closest authority figures, Summer shut her car door and started toward them, marching into Joe’s world the way she’d once marched out of it; like a wild, magnificent, deadly twister, leaving awe and destruction in her wake. Her hips swung, the soft material of her sundress molding to her thighs and legs, her breasts.
Joe let out a grim smile as his heart skipped a beat, then turned his back, the burning scratches providing a welcome distraction. “I don’t want to do this. Not now.”
“I’ll see what she needs,” Kenny said.
Joe nodded gratefully, and Kenny moved to head her off at the pass.
Joe got into the MAST truck, and while stripping out of the coveralls, glanced at an equally miserable cat.
