Opal Fire

by Barbra Annino

  Opal Fire

  Title Page

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  Opal Fire

  A Stacy Justice Mystery, Book 1

  By Barbra Annino

  Copyright 2011 Barbra Annino

  For George

  PRAISE FOR OPAL FIRE

  “A truly enjoyable and engaging read requires several ingredients: an intriguing protagonist, interesting, well-rounded supporting characters, a brisk pace, a hint or more of danger, a slew of story questions, and a satisfying end in which the bad dude gets his just reward. Opal Fire by Barbra Annino has all this and more.”

  ~Author E.J. Knapp

  “A tantalizing mix of witchery, mystery, dogs, bars and small town fun all embodied in fast and fun protag Stacy Justice. Opal Fire burns your page turning fingertips with twists, turns and tenacious plotting. Annino is a major new talent in the genre and a fresh new voice in fiction.”

  ~Tom Schreck, author of Out Cold

  “If you want a fresh new series by a talented debut author, get your hands on a copy of Opal Fire. You’ll laugh, you will shake your head but most of all you’ll adore it!”

  ~Wicked Little Pixie Reviews

  “Barbra Annino presents us with the gift of a very entertaining story. Lots of humor, wonderful character descriptions, great one liners and a plot that will keep you guessing. You won’t want to miss this book, it’s a keeper. And, don’t miss the next installment of the Stacy Justice mysteries, Bloodstone. I’m sure it will be just as good as Opal Fire.”

  ~Night Owl Reviews

  CHAPTER 1

  You might say everything was fine until the fire.

  I was back in my hometown and living in my grandmother’s guest cottage. I had a steady boyfriend, a steady job and a sturdy dog.

  Right now, my main concern was the dog.

  “Stacy!” Cinnamon yelled through the haze of hot smoke. “Are you still in here?” The panic in her voice matched the fear pumping through my veins.

  “I can’t find Thor!” I coughed back.

  “He’ll be fine. Just get out!” Cinnamon was about to step forward when a beam whistled, then cracked and plunged into the floorboards. A wave of sparks shot into the air, barricading her in the back room of the bar.

  I sure hoped that exit wasn’t locked and if it was, I prayed Cinnamon had the keys with her.

  “Cin,” I choked. I couldn’t see my cousin anymore through the thick fog and debris, so I stepped forward.

  A wave of fire licked the air—too close to my eyebrows for comfort. It forced me to lunge backwards into a beer barrel. I lost my footing, scrambling for anything to sustain a landing. My arm caught the edge of the brass foot rail as I went down—the searing pain instant and vicious.

  Then I saw him.

  My recently adopted Great Dane was wedged between the keg that toppled me, and another, set close to the bar. We hadn’t had a chance to hook them up before the fire erupted.

  “Thor! Come!” The desperation in my voice shook me to the core.

  His rear end was wiggling while the kegs blocked him like linebackers. I couldn’t figure out what was holding him there. My eyes flashed to the front entrance of the bar. The flames hadn’t reached it yet, but I was certain we had minutes, maybe only seconds to escape.

  Sirens screamed not far off.

  I flopped on my belly and skidded quickly to Thor, ignoring the burn. I managed to get my head around the first keg. The dog’s eyes met mine, pleading with me not to leave him there. Not to let him die as waves of heat threatened his long, tan tail.

  The foot rest was ornamental and one of the decorative loops had reached out and snagged Thor’s dog tag.

  “Hang on, buddy.” I heard another whistling sound and looked up. A second beam had caught a spark.

  Thor whimpered.

  My fingers crawled around the keg to grab the tag, but my arm wasn’t long enough.

  Thor yanked his head back, the muscles in his huge neck bulging as if they would burst right through his fur. The tag bent beneath his force, but he didn’t have enough leverage to move his head or I was sure that collar would have broken apart. It wouldn’t have been the first one that couldn’t contain Thor.

  I sure hoped it wouldn’t be the last.

  With one good arm, I shoved at the first keg, hoping for enough room to free him.

  It wouldn’t budge.

  The sirens screeched closer.

  Or was that Thor, wailing?

  The bottle opener! It was in my back pocket and it might get me just enough length to lift that stupid tag over the brass.

  Just as an ugly orange flame crept closer to Thor, I heard a familiar voice.

  “Stacy!” Leo yelled and a bottle burst.

  Then another.

  I kicked my foot. “Down here! Help me get Thor!”

  Leo covered me with a tarp and yanked me back by my ankles as Thor howled like a wolf beneath a full moon.

  “Get out!” Leo yelled and grabbed his utility knife. To cut the nylon collar, I guessed. There was no time for that.

  I grabbed the gun from his holster and fired three shots into the far keg. Beer shot up, then showered down on the bar, my dog and the floor. It was enough liquid to set the flames at bay.

  Leo shoved the first keg out of the way and cut the collar off Thor. The three of us sprinted from the Black Opal, spilling onto the street where a crowd had already gathered.

  Leo grabbed his gun from my hand and guided me through the red, white, and blue lights—a rare sight in the tiny tourist town where we lived. Firefighters zigzagged across Main Street, hosing down the nineteenth century building as volunteers ran around asking how they could help.

  It was late afternoon in February, but I wasn’t cold. We headed to Leo’s police cruiser and I leaned against it, coughing out a sigh as he handed me a towel to wipe my face.

  We stood there for a moment in silence and I felt a lecture coming.

  “Are you crazy?” he finally asked.

  I looked at him, pointedly. “Don’t call me crazy. You know that drives me nuts.”

  Leo set his incredibly sexy, always-stubbly jaw line.

  “You could have been killed,” he said in a low voice.

  “But I wasn’t, so let it go.” I was too pumped with adrenaline to let my guard down. Had I stopped and thought about what might have happened…I shivered at the possibilities.

  Leo ran his fingers through his thick black hair and sighed. He pulled me into him and rubbed my shoulders. I flinched as my arm met his leather jacket and he stood back to examine it. He snapped his fingers and an EMT promptly said, “Sure, chief,” and shoved an oxygen mask in my face.

  Leo is my boyfriend and chief of police of Amethyst, Illinois, where the pie is homemade, the pump is full-service and quirky is a compliment. He has a Mediterranean look about him and a slight temper to match. Mostly when I put myself in life threatening situations. Which was hardly ever.

  “Look at that burn too,” Leo said to the EMT.

  “Nah, it’s fine,�
� I said. “The aunts and Birdie will take care of it.” No co-pay when you lived with witches.

  Thor was leaning against me, licking the beer off his backside and I began to towel him off with my tarp.

  Leo said, “You two get in the car and stay warm. Give me a minute to straighten out this mess and then you can tell me what happened.”

  I looked over at the crowd. It had developed its own heartbeat.

  “I need to find Cinnamon, Leo.”

  Leo pulled out his radio and called to Gus, his right-hand man. He opened the door to the backseat and Thor and I slid in.

  A few minutes later he knocked on the window.

  “She’s fine. Not a scratch. Now sit tight, so I can ask you some questions before the Mayor has a coronary and I have to explain why my girlfriend is always caught up in the chaos that surrounds this town like the Twilight Zone on steroids.”

  He shut the door again and a firefighter approached him.

  I drank in the scene around me. Some people were directing traffic, some were throwing buckets full of water on the flames (the whole bucket too, not just the contents), some were snapping photos and one guy, I recognized as a regular of the Black Opal, Scully, was clutching a stool and crying.

  It was like the bleacher seats at a Cubs game when the beer gets cut off, but how was that my fault?

  Before Leo turned back towards the car, a small group of men, all dressed in purple polo shirts with plastic badges, approached him.

  “Chief, where did ya want me?” A man asked.

  “I can close off the streets,” another offered.

  “Hey, I called that,” said a third.

  I rolled down the window. “Leo, what’s this?” I asked as the three men neared the squad car.

  Leo turned back and said in a low voice. “Remember I told you we were hosting a citizen’s academy class?”

  I nodded.

  “Today was graduation.”

  I winced. In a matter of seconds, the rent-a-cops swarmed Leo like a group of bees in a bed of sunflowers. Actually, they weren’t even rent-a-cops. They were rent-a-cop wannabes. It was disturbing.

  While Leo fought them off, I seized the opportunity to slip away. Thor and I snuck out the other side of the car and headed down the street.

  I needed to find my cousin. See her. Touch her.

  We made it about a block when I noticed, displaced from the crowd, a pimply-faced teenager with hair like a Brillo pad staring at me, an oddly satisfied look on his face.

  I stopped and stared back. He smiled, wildly. Then he bolted like a cat attached to a firecracker.

  And a chill rumbled through my veins.

  CHAPTER 2

  I wasn’t in the habit of chasing after men half my age, but the circumstances seemed to call for it.

  The kid gave me the heebie-jeebies.

  My new cross trainers, which were white about thirty minutes ago, were getting quite a workout as I pumped my legs and sprinted through the thick crowd, the blanket falling from my shoulders. Thor was having a ball playing chase, not certain what we were running towards and not caring. His huge lips flapped in the cold air, as if he were smiling, happy to be alive. I couldn’t blame him.

  The smoke I had inhaled inside the building was catching up with me and the kid was getting further away. Why he even ran in the first place was a mystery but I was determined to find out.

  “Hey, stop!” I yelled.

  He was a block ahead of me. He turned and flipped me the bird, which I found completely unnecessary and more than a little irritating.

  I tapped Thor on the behind. “Get him,” I said and pointed to the little snot. Thor paused, uncertain what I was asking, but when the kid bolted again, he had his target. He took off at full speed and I followed close behind.

  Brillo-head turned a corner and Thor made a wide left turn the way a semi would, all four paws kicking up slush and salt behind him, looking like a mountain lion on the hunt.

  That was all I saw before I smacked face-first into something bulky and cold. The hit catapulted me through the air and into a snow bank. It wasn’t that soft fluffy snow that kids sled through in December. This was mid-winter, been-plowed-into-a-rock-formation snow.

  “Damn, lady, where’s the fire?” said a voice I didn’t recognize.

  If the wind hadn’t been knocked out of me, I would have punched the idiot who just said that.

  “Ehh,” was all I could squeak out.

  “Holy Hell! Stacy?” Cinnamon this time. Thank Goddess. She tried to help me to my feet but I raised a hand to stop her. I was pretty sure my left lung had deflated.

  “Stacy? You Stacy Justice? Damn, girl, you’re finer than your picture.” Okay who was the weirdo? Granted, I had on my size-six skinny jeans, which were blue before the fire, and a tight sweater that brought the ladies to attention, but I was pretty sure my mascara had melted all over my face and the best I could hope for the hair was that it smelled more like beer than barbecued dog tail.

  “Who the hell are you?” asked Cinnamon.

  That was my cousin, direct and to the point. I imagined her hands were parked on her ample hips and her jaw was set to pissed off.

  “Sorry, I’m Derek Meyers. I’m the new photographer at the paper. Just started today. Mr. Parker sent me down here to make sure Stacy was okay and to ask her to cover the story. Thought I’d bring my gear and maybe snap a few photos while I was at it.” His voice was chipper. Cinnamon hated chipper. She wrapped Chipper up in duct tape, pounded nails into it and used it to beat the crap out of Perky.

  “Oh, really? Well, Derek, I’ve already snapped a few photos myself and put them on my website,” said my cousin.

  I knew where she was headed with this so I tried to stop her. “Eh, eh, Cin, don’t.”

  “You did?” Derek sounded incredulous.

  “Sure did. It’s called shoveitupyourass.com.”

  I tried to close my eyes at that point but the lashes were glued to my eyelids.

  “Hey, that’s uncool! Who are you anyway?” Derek asked.

  My lungs had inflated during this little tête-à-tête, and I attempted to right myself. Both Cinnamon and Derek reached out to help me. Cin slapped Derek away and hoisted me to my feet.

  “Leave her alone you ass! Don’t you have a brain in that bobble-doll head of yours? We just escaped a burning building and now, thanks to you, my cousin is a Popsicle,” Cinnamon said.

  I wasn’t cold until she said that. Now, in between breaths, my teeth chattered, but the throbbing burn felt better.

  “You two are related?” Derek asked, completely missing the point Cinnamon was trying to make. “I don’t believe it.”

  Cin and I looked at each other.

  It was true we didn’t seem to sprout from the same family tree. Birdie, our grandmother, and I take after the Irish side of the family with red hair and green eyes. I’m a few years older and a few inches taller than Cinnamon at 5’8”. She’s a couple pounds heavier and a couple cup sizes bigger than me at “don’t squeeze the melons”. But her olive skin, mahogany hair, and chocolate eyes are all Italian, thanks to her mother, Angelica, whom my uncle imported from Sicily.

  “You saying I’m lying?” Cin jabbed Derek with her finger.

  Which side the feisty temper comes from is still up for debate.

  I stepped in between Cinnamon and Derek and assessed him for the first time. He was in his twenties, dark skinned, a bit taller than me. Ski jacket, blue jeans, enormous camera bag, which I assumed was what knocked me on my rump.

  “Hi, D-d-d-erek. Yes-s-s, I’m S-t-tacy and thi-s-ss is my over-protec-c-c-tive c-c-c-ousin, Cin-n-n-a-m-m-m-on P-p-p-a-n-z-a-n-o.

  “Hey, I’m really sorry about running into you. I didn’t see you.” Derek extended his hand and I shook it, then he offered it to Cin who feigned a hangnail.

  The cold air bit through my sweater and I felt like I was forgetting something.

  “You must be freezing, honey, I’ll get a blanket from a f
ireman.” Cin said.

  Derek didn’t need another hint. He dropped his camera bag and had his coat around me in a flash.

  “Th-th-anks,” I said.

  “Humph,” Cinnamon said and Derek was forgiven.

  Iris Merriweather, the owner of Muddy Water Coffee Shop, approached us then with three paper cups of coffee. Iris wrote a gossip column for the paper, which often entailed week-old stories because folks tightened their lips around her. She was in her sixties with light hair grown frizzy from forty years of using Clairol.

  “Here you go, kids. Maybe this will warm you up,” she said.

  We all thanked Iris and sipped the coffee.

  “I’m so glad you girls are okay. I saw the flames from across the street and called the fire department lickety-split.”

  “I’m okay, Iris, but Stacy here refused to leave that damn dog.” Cin turned to me. “Leo said you got a nasty burn. Did you let the EMT treat it?”

  “It’s fine, Cin. And he was your damn dog first.” Through a series of circumstances I still don’t understand, Thor decided he wanted to adopt me. Cinnamon, recently back with her ex-husband Tony, agreed to the arrangement.

  “A burn? Lemme see, honey,” Iris asked.

  “Really, it’s okay,” I said.

  “Stacy, where is Thor?” asked Cinnamon.

  Crap! The kid.

  “Oh my God. Don’t tell me...” Cin said.

  I shook my head and laid a palm on her shoulder. “He’s fine. We were—” I stopped. If Iris knew I sicced a 180-pound Great Dane on a high school kid, the phones at the paper would light up like a marquis.

  I nodded toward Derek. “Iris, have you met our newest recruit for the paper?”

  “Why, no, I sure haven’t. I’m Iris.” She smiled at Derek.

  “Pleasure to meet you,” said Derek.

  “And what is your position at our fine paper?”

  Guess the camera around his neck didn’t tip her off. Before Derek could answer, Iris launched into her welcoming speech.