"How long did you last?"
"Two weeks. I quit after I got my first paycheck and also realized how little I was getting paid to do work I hated."
"What did you do next?"
"Lots of different stuff. I've made coffee, scooped ice cream, babysat, walked dogs, led nature hikes, and did some boring office stuff. Callaways are expected to work from a young age. Everyone has to pull their weight. My mom and dad are super hard workers."
"Did your mom work outside the house?"
"Yes, she's a nurse. She loves it. My dad is retired, but he doesn't really know the meaning of the word retired. He still does construction for my uncle, who employs a lot of the firefighters on their off days. I don't know why my dad wants to climb on ladders and hammer up drywall, but somehow he does. He does manage to get in some golf, though. And, of course, during baseball season, he makes a lot of ballgames. Now, he's thinking about going on this crazy long bike ride. He has a lot of ideas."
"Like his daughter," he said with a grin. "There's nothing wrong with keeping busy. He'd probably be bored otherwise."
"Probably. He has always had a lot of energy and of course he loves the adrenaline rush."
"You take after him."
"I do in some ways, but I have to say that between my two parents, it's my mom's voice that is in my head. She's the wise one, the person who always seems to have the right advice at the right time. She's very smart and analytical, but she also is nurturing. She likes to remind me that the most important things in life are love and family and taking time to be happy."
"You sound happy when you talk about your family," he commented, the odd note in his voice telling her he didn't think of his family in the same way.
"I love them. They can be frustrating and exhausting and just too much at times, but that never changes the love. It's always there."
"You're lucky."
"I am lucky. Maybe when this case is over, you should visit your mom and sister—reconnect with your family."
He shook his head. "Don't try to fix that relationship, Kate."
"I couldn't do that; only you could."
"There's nothing to fix."
"You just implied there was."
"We're all fine. No one is unhappy with the way things are."
"I don't think that's true."
"I grew up and out of needing a family a long time ago," he said sharply.
"Did you? Then why did you spend so many holidays with the Parkers? Why did they think of you as their son? Why are you on the mantel of their family home?" When he didn't respond right away, she said, "I think you adopted them, and they adopted you, which means you might like family more than you think."
"Well, I like their family. Sam's mom is a good cook, and I enjoy eating."
"That's not why you spent so much time there."
"They are nice people," he added. "But while they might think of me as a son, to me they were always Sam's parents. They were hers, not mine."
"Fine, whatever," she said with a sigh. "You're a tough guy; you don't need anyone."
"Finally, we're on the same page."
"You like to win too much, Devin."
"I think it's just the right amount. You're mad because you're trying to win right now by changing my mind, and I'm not going along with you."
He had a point. "I hate to see people sad and in pain when there's a solution—if they just wouldn't be too stubborn to see it."
"I'm fine, Kate—at least when it comes to family. That old wound scarred over a long time ago."
"Well, one day you'll have your own family. Maybe that will change things, or maybe not…" An odd look flashed through his eyes. "What? You don't want kids?"
"I don't know. I haven't thought much about it."
"You've never thought about marriage and family? It's not like you're getting any younger."
He frowned. "I'm not that old."
"Really? Because you like to tell me how old you are quite often."
"Only when it comes to being an agent, not the rest of life."
"I'm glad you're able to see the difference, because you do have a lot of living still to do, and I hope once we put Sam's killer away, you can start doing that again."
He tapped his fingers restlessly on the steering wheel. "Believe it or not, I want that, too. It's been a long year and a half. That's why it's so important that I catch this guy now, within the next few weeks. If he lights two more fires and then heads back underground, it could be another year before he comes up again."
"I know. I understand that the stakes are high. I wish we had an entire team of people to put at every potential target, but we don't, and I also understand that, too. There are a lot of cases the Bureau is working on that need manpower and resources, but we're both good, right? We can figure this out, and we will catch this guy."
"We have to. There's no other alternative."
Her gaze narrowed as she saw flashes of light on the other side of the park. "Devin, do you see that?"
He turned his head. "What?"
"Looks like a flashlight, moving through the trees."
"Stay here."
"No way," she said, reaching for her door handle. As she got out of the car, she smelled smoke. On the street on the other side of the building, she heard a car engine start up and saw headlights come on.
Devin swore. "That's him," he said jumping back into the car.
"Go after him," she said. "I'll call 9-1-1."
Devin slammed the door, raced down the street and around the corner.
When he disappeared from sight, she headed into the park. She'd gone only ten feet when an explosion lit up the air. She was knocked back on her ass by the force of the blast. She was a hundred yards away from the building that was now ablaze with fire. She stumbled to her feet and pulled out her phone to report the fire.
The operator told her the fire department was on the way. Several neighbors had also called it in. She asked if there was anyone inside the building. Kate said she didn't know, but the building had been completely dark before the blast, and there were no cars in the parking lot.
As she ended the call, she saw neighbors rushing out to the street from the nearby houses. As the crowd got bigger, she wondered about the arsonist. Was the person who'd set the fire the one Devin was chasing, or was he somewhere in this milling crowd, admiring his handiwork?
* * *
Devin smashed the gas pedal to the floor as he tried to catch up with the fast-moving sedan. This could be his guy, the one he'd been chasing for a year and a half. He could not lose him now.
The sedan was very aware of his tail, speeding through red lights and up and down the narrow, twisting, steep hills of San Francisco.
Devin spun around corners and weaved between slower-moving cars. At one point, he caught a glimpse of the license plate but only registered two letters before the car sped around a corner.
He couldn't get a good look at the driver, either. He registered some type of ball cap on the head of the dark figure behind the wheel, but that was it. He wished he could call in the cops, block some intersections, do something more than just follow, but right now that's all he could do.
Two-way streets turned into one-way streets, and as the SUV cut through an alley and onto another street, Devin found himself going in the wrong direction.
He swerved to avoid an oncoming car and ran up over the sidewalk, smashing into a parking meter. The car came to an abrupt stop, and the air bag deployed, punching him in the chest. His head hit the side of the door, and all he could see were stars exploding in the black night.
The car had vanished. The arsonist had gotten away—again.
Fourteen
As the fire department arrived at the park, Kate looked for some familiar faces, but none of her family members were on the call. With the focus on putting out the fire, there was no time to speak to any of the firefighters, so she walked around the perimeter of the park, looking for anyone who stood out in the
crowd.
Most of the neighbors were in pajamas and bathrobes, and it appeared that they'd all come out of their homes. She was looking for someone who didn't belong, who might not have been woken up in the middle of the night and come running into the park to see what had happened.
Maybe one of the suspects on Devin's list: the author Dillingsworth, the wanna-be-firefighter, Price, the ex-firefighter and ex-husband Brad Connors. She'd mentally committed their images to her brain when she'd gone through the files, but no one in this crowd bore a resemblance to any of those men.
There were other suspects, too, that she didn't have an image in her head for: Baines's friend Alan Jenkins and the girls he'd gone to high school with.
And then there were any other number of people who might have never made the list who could be involved in this.
Frowning, she wondered why the hell she'd felt optimistic before. They really were still at the bottom of a very large mountain.
Working her way back to the line of firefighters, she saw Emma crossing the street. She was in uniform, so she'd obviously been on call tonight. Kate hurried over, wanting to catch her before she talked to the battalion chief.
"Kate," Emma said grimly. "Don't tell me this fire—"
"Was probably started by the arsonist Devin has been chasing," she finished. "We were staking out the park, because the recreation center was on Devin's list of potential targets. We were in a car on that street, and we saw a car take off on the other street," she said, using her hand to designate their positions. "Devin went after him. I was headed into the park when the building exploded."
"Is anyone hurt?"
"No, I don't believe anyone was inside. I was probably the closest to the blast." She shivered, remembering the heat of that explosion.
"Thank God you weren't any closer," Emma said.
"I don't know why it exploded."
"Probably accelerant inside the building. I looked up the building and programs on the way over here. They hold a lot of painting classes here. That means turpentine and other combustibles probably acted as fuel." She paused. "Did you get a look at the car? Did you talk to the police?"
"Yes. Unfortunately, I didn't have much information to give. I didn't see the person or the car. I've tried calling Devin, but he isn't answering. It's been almost an hour." Her stomach twisted with worry at the reminder of how much time had passed.
"If he hasn't come back empty-handed, that's a good thing."
"I hope that's true. I was going to call you, but I didn't want to wake you in the middle of the night until I knew more."
"I'm on call tonight. I need to get over there and do my job."
"You'll keep me posted?"
"I will."
As Emma walked away, Kate's phone buzzed. It was Devin. Thank God! "Where are you?" she demanded.
"Westside Medical Center."
"What? Are you hurt? What happened? Did you catch him?"
"No, he got away from me. I got a partial plate. That's it."
She could hear the anger in his voice. "Why are you at the hospital?"
"I wrecked the car. I'm fine, though. What's happening where you are?"
"The fire is almost out. It was big, Devin. There was an explosion. Apparently, there were paint supplies inside the building."
"Are you all right, Kate? I shouldn't have left you there."
"I'm fine. I wasn't that close when the explosion occurred. I just talked to Emma. She's here. She's investigating, and she'll keep us apprised. I'm going to get a cab and come and get you."
"I can just meet you tomorrow, Kate. It's the middle of the night. Nothing else can be done now."
His voice was too fuzzy for her to agree to that. "I'll be there as soon as I can. Just stay put, okay?"
"I'll be here." He paused and let out a long sigh. "I lost him, Kate. He was right there, and I couldn't catch him."
The despair in his voice made her heart go out to him. There were a million things she wanted to say, but she knew there was no way she could talk him out of the negative reaction he was having, and he was entitled to feel bad. She would, if their positions were reversed. And she wouldn't want someone telling her everything would be okay when there was no guarantee of that.
"We'll regroup and figure out our next move," she said. "We're going to get another chance. And maybe the partial license plate will help. It might match one of our suspects."
"That would be a miracle."
"Well, maybe you're due. We'll make a plan. The one thing I know for sure is that we're not done yet."
* * *
It was almost four in the morning when Kate and Devin got back from the hospital. Devin hadn't said much on the ride home. He had some bruising on his face, but apparently they'd ruled out a concussion and internal injuries. He hadn't told her much about the accident beyond the fact that the chase had led him down the wrong way of a one-way street, and he'd smashed the car into a parking meter and lost the suspect.
She thought he was extremely lucky not to have lost his life. Car chases were always dangerous, especially when done in a car with no siren and no way to clear the path of other vehicles. But she knew that excuse wouldn't sit well with Devin, so she kept her thoughts to herself.
"Do you want something to drink or eat?" she asked, as they walked into his den.
"No, I'm fine."
"You're not even close to fine," she commented. "You're probably going to hurt tomorrow."
He shrugged. "Whatever. It is what it is. Let's see if we can do anything with the partial plate."
"Now?"
"We don't have time to waste."
"We have some time. The third fire has never happened less than three days after the second one, and I'm guessing that the car the suspect was driving is hidden away in some garage right now. You need to go to bed."
"No, I need to find the suspect," he said, glaring at her. "I need to work."
"You're in no condition to work. I'll do it if you go to bed. I can access resources you can't. So you can let me do my job, or you can stand here and argue with me for a couple more hours."
"You're really pissing me off right now."
"I don't care. Go to bed."
He gave her another irritated look, then said, "You wake me up as soon as you find something. If that plate comes close to matching any suspect we've talked about, I want to know."
"Got it."
"I mean it, Kate."
"And I said yes."
He walked out of the room and down the hall. She moved over to her computer and ran the partial plate through the Bureau's database. She really did hope they would get lucky and find a match to one of their suspects.
The partial plate unfortunately resulted in thousands of matches across the country, several hundred in California alone. She turned her attention to the list of suspects and ran them through the DMV, almost holding her breath in the hopes that at least one of them had a license plate with the same three letters.
But there was no match—just hundreds of possible leads to check out, none of which could be done at this moment.
Stretching her arms over her head, she yawned. She was exhausted, but she was also wired from all the adrenaline.
Getting up from the table, she walked down the hall and into Devin's bedroom. The lights were out, but he hadn't closed the curtains and there was enough moonlight to see him sprawled on his stomach across the middle of the king-sized bed.
She turned to leave, but he called her name.
"I thought you were asleep," she said, as she moved into the room.
He rolled over and sat up in the bed, resting against the pillows and the headboard. "I can't sleep. I keep reliving every minute of the night, trying to remember if I saw anything that would be helpful. What did you find out?"
She shook her head. "Nothing. Sorry."
"Dammit."
"There are leads to check out, but no vehicles registered to anyone on our suspect list match the partial plate." S
he sat down next to him on the bed. "We'll start again tomorrow."
"We were right there, Kate. How did we miss him?"
"He came down the other street, probably with his lights off. Or he was there before we were and entered the building from the other side. He could have been in the building for awhile and just didn't have the lights on."
"We should have split up. We should have had you on one side and me on the other."
"That would have been a better plan," she agreed. "But it was a long shot we were even at the right location. And what about the other side of the park?"
"But we were at the right place, and he got away. I was behind the car, and I couldn't get close enough to see the person driving. I got nothing." He groaned and banged the back of his head against the headboard.
"Hey now, you've already bruised your head. Don't make it worse."
"It couldn't get worse."
"Yes, it could. You could have been killed tonight, Devin. But you weren't. You got the make of the car and a partial plate; that’s not nothing."
"It's not enough, and you know it."
"I'm not willing to dismiss it that quickly. We just need to work the problem. We go back to investigating. It's what we're trained to do, and that's what we're going to do. But we can't do that when we're both exhausted." She paused, knowing she needed to say the words that had been running through her head for the past several hours. "This is my fault, Devin. This is on me. I was talking my ass off in the car. I distracted you. I distracted myself. It was unprofessional and worst of all, not smart. We were there for a reason, and I should have stayed razor-focused. This wouldn't have happened if you'd been by yourself. I was not helpful tonight. I was not a good partner, and I am really sorry."
"So you're finally admitting you weren't helpful. That's a first."
"I can admit when I'm wrong. And tonight I was wrong."
He stared back at her for a long minute, his gaze still filled with angry shadows, but his tension was starting to ease. "It wasn't your fault," he said quietly. "It was mine."
"No, it wasn't. You got us to the right place. I should have had the foresight to think about splitting up."
"Why? I didn't. And I have more years than you on the job."
Tender Is The Night (Callaways Book 10) Page 15
