Burning Up

by Susan Andersen

  “Sounds good to me,” Bundy agreed. “Who knew you could get so played out just driving around?”

  They were approaching Cedar Street where the Feed and Seed was when his passenger suddenly said, “Holy shit. That’s them.”

  Gabe’s head whipped around. “Where?”

  “They just turned down Hemlock.”

  Cutting the lights, Gabe let the SUV drift over to the curb, where he shut down the engine. “I’d like to see what they’re up to. Let’s try to follow them without them making us.”

  It was easier than he’d imagined, since the boys failed to even glance behind them. They bumped and shoved each other as they ambled down the street, laughing and exchanging rowdy ripostes.

  Then, at the mouth of the alley separating A-1 Garage from Morgan’s Rent-A-Car, they paused and did shoot furtive looks over their shoulders. Gabe and Bundy melted back into the shadow of the retreads stack in the side yard of Kelly’s Tires. When Gabe eased his head back out to chance a look down the street, the boys were gone.

  “Must’ve gone down the alley,” he breathed, and he and Bundy cautiously emerged from their hiding place. Without discussion they sought whatever concealment they could find as they approached the mouth of the alley. Standing to one side, he craned his head around the corner of the building and was in time to see the boys toss burning twists of paper into a Dumpster. It ignited with a whoosh.

  “Shit. Call in the truck.” He started down the alley, but concealment here was zero. The boys, who’d been staring at the flames, spotted him and raced for the other end of the alley. He sprinted after them.

  Bundy pulled abreast seconds later. “Truck’s on its way. I’ll take the one on the right.”

  The boys looked over their shoulders but must have thought the men on their tails posed no threat, because they laughed and put on a burst of speed. It wasn’t for nothing, however, that Gabe had spent umpteen years humping hoses weighing over a hundred pounds empty—and considerably more when water pumped through them—up smoke-filled flights of stairs. It had conditioned Bundy as well, clearly, since the younger man pulled ahead of him.

  The kids shot out of the alley and hooked right. Gabe exited in time to see them scaling a chain-link fence into the lumberyard. Bundy was scrambling over it in their wake and Gabe cleared it twenty seconds behind his crewman. They began closing in on the teens.

  Casting ever-more frantic glances over their shoulders, the boys weren’t laughing now as they dodged between fragrant stacks of two-by-fours.

  One foot skidding on something, Bundy went down, catching himself on his hand. Gabe slowed marginally as he came abreast. “You good?”

  “Yeah, go, go!” The fireman was already pushing himself upright.

  Gabe caught up with one of the teens at the far fence. The boy was near the top, about to swing a leg over, when Gabe pushed off with the ball of his foot and took a flying leap, catching a toehold in one diamond-shaped link and grabbing hold of a couple of others with his fingers and thumb. The fence rattled as, reaching up with his free hand, he grabbed a fistful of the kid’s waistband and jerked. The teen started to fall sideways and had to scramble to find purchase for the foot still in the air.

  Without relinquishing his grip, Gabe dropped back to the ground, popping the boy’s grip from the links and hauling him down with him. Through the fence he could see the other punk racing down Cedar toward McFadden’s store.

  He transferred his grip from the youth’s Levis to a fistful of T-shirt as Bundy ran by and hauled himself up and over the fence. His crewman dropped to the other side and raced off after the fleeing adolescent.

  “Hey, perv, lemme go!” The sandy-blond boy in his grasp twisted and turned like a worm trying to avoid being threaded on a hook. “You gotta go into Wenatchee you want some that action,” he sneered. “I don’t swing that way.”

  “Kid, I doubt you have the balls to swing either way.”

  The teen put some extra muscle into trying to escape and Gabe gave him a shake. “Knock it off. I don’t want to hurt you—but I will if I have to. So which one are you, anyway, Atkins or Kaufman?”

  The boy went still, as if it had never occurred to him that Gabe might have tumbled to his identity. He snapped his mouth shut.

  Gabe gave him a don’t-screw-with-me look. “We can make this easy or hard—makes no never mind to me. So what’s it gonna be? You want to play games or are you going to tell me if you’re Atkins or Kaufman?”

  “Atkins,” the boy mumbled.

  “Well, Colin, you’re in some deep shit.” Fishing his cell from its holster, he thumbed in Johnny’s number. “Got me a bona fide arsonist,” he said when the deputy answered. “And Bundy’s seconds from laying hands on the kid’s partner in crime. We’ve got a Dumpster fire in the alley between Hemlock and Cedar just beyond A-1—my truck’s on the way. Clear out a room for me to interrogate them.”

  “You got it,” Johnny said, the same time as Colin said, “Dude, you ain’t no cop—you can’t interrogate us!”

  He snapped the cell closed. “Hate to burst your bubble, kid, but the county hired me because I’m licensed to do just that. They got a fire chief and investigator rolled into one.”

  In less than a half hour, Bundy had corralled the second boy, the fire had been put out by Kirschner and Johnson, and Gabe was ensconced in the sheriff’s department’s sole interrogation room with the two boys and Johnny, who had asked to sit in.

  Pulling out a chair and taking a seat, he clicked his pen and looked across the table at the teenagers. “First thing we need is your phone numbers,” he said, pushing the pen and his notebook over to them. “We’ll have to get your parents in here.”

  “No!” They said in unison.

  “You can’t tell them,” Jake added, sounding horrified.

  “I have no choice if you’re a minor.”

  “But we’re not!” Colin said. “Jake turned eighteen in June and I just had my eighteenth birthday last week.”

  “Yeah? Let’s see some ID.”

  Jake pulled out a driver’s license and Colin a Washington State ID card. Gabe studied them and nodded. “All right, then.” Sliding them back to their owners, he shrugged. “That’s kind of good news/bad news for you,” he said. “It means you can refuse to have your parents present. But if I find cause to ask the prosecutor to charge you, you could also be tried as an adult.” He looked at Johnny. “You have a Miranda card?”

  The deputy handed him one and he read the boys their rights. “Knowing and understanding your rights as I’ve explained them to you, are you willing to answer my questions without an attorney present?”

  They exchanged a glance, then gave a jerky nod.

  “I need that verbalized for the record.”

  “Yeah,” Colin mumbled and Jake Kaufman added his sullen agreement. “Like we got a choice,” he muttered.

  “You’re eighteen. That means you do have a choice. So if you’re changing your mind, call your attorney and we’ll wait until he gets here. Or you can talk to me now and see if we can straighten this out.”

  “I said no attorney, didn’t I?” Jake said.

  “Okay, let’s get down to it, then. Considering I witnessed you setting it, we have you dead to rights for tonight’s fire. What I’m more interested in are the others you’ve set this summer.”

  He could see the lie already forming in their expressions and hardened his own. “Do not give me any bull about this being your first, because I know better. We’ve had four garbage-can and three Dumpster fires in various businesses here in town this summer. We’ve also had to put out sheds that sustained serious property damage on two separate farms outside of town.”

  “What the hell?” Colin said indignantly. “We didn’t set no sheds on fire!”

  Jake gave his friend a shot to the shoulder. “Shut up, Colin!”

  Gabe looked at the slightly older boy. “Are you saying you did?”

  “Hell, no!”

  “Look, if you
’re trying to avoid incriminating yourself in the can and Dumpster fires, it’s too late to pretend you didn’t set them, because we know you did. You watch CSI?” At the young men’s sullen nods, he said, “I rock arson forensics, kid. I can establish a pattern that ties you to them.” If this were a TV show. “But the Dumpsters are fairly small spuds and we can probably work something out. The sheds, on the other hand—”

  “You gonna let them throw the book at us for something we didn’t do?” Colin demanded of his friend.

  “Okay, okay, it wasn’t us,” Jake said. “Those sheds. We didn’t touch ’em.”

  Gabe was skeptical by nature. But he was beginning to think that might be the truth. “But you concede the can and Dumpster fires, yes?”

  Jake looked at his friend, stared down at his hands, then flipped his shiny brown hair out of his eyes and nodded. “Yeah.”

  Gabe thought it over. His working assumption had been that the firebug was escalating, because what were the odds they’d get two separate arsonists in a town that until this summer had never seen one? Yet thinking about the lighted twists of paper he’d watched the kids use to set today’s Dumpster on fire and the more sophisticated candle-as-timing-device they’d found at the shed fires, he now had his doubts. He looked at Jake. “You’ve got your license. Do you have a car?”

  The kid made an as if noise.

  “I’ll take that as a no. How often do you get to drive your parents’?”

  “Goddamn never.”

  “Where were you on the tenth and the twenty-sixth?”

  Jake jumped to his feet. “Fuck I know?” he demanded. Then his eyebrows furrowed. “Wait. The tenth? I had a date with Hayden Stewart. We saw that chick flick with whatshername—Katherine Heigl—at the Majestic.”

  “Matinee or evening?”

  “Dude. It was a date. Evening.”

  And Colin didn’t drive. He thought about the addresses he’d read off their IDs. It’d be a helluva hike out to Bailey’s place. Doable, he supposed. But about a two on the Probability Meter.

  “All right. You can go for now. The PA likely won’t be charging you for the can and Dumpster fires. But you probably will be put in a program to determine why you felt compelled to set those fires in the first place.” His theory was too much time on their hands, too little supervision and limited funds. “But know this. Set another and we’ll toss your asses in jail and throw away the key.”

  He doubted they heard much beyond the “you can go now,” but the prosecutor’s office could catch up with them in a day or two to make the arrangements for them to enter the program.

  Johnny moved to take one of their seats as they clattered through the door—which slammed in their wake. He raised his brows at Gabe. “You really don’t think they set the Driscoll and Bailey fires?”

  “I’m starting to seriously doubt it.”

  “It kind of begs the question then, doesn’t it?” the deputy said.

  “Yeah. If they didn’t, who the hell did?”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THAT NIGHT MACY flipped from side to side in her childhood bed until Janna finally snapped, “For God’s sake—would you just do the guy already?”

  “What?” Rolling onto her side, she stuffed her pillow beneath her neck and, supporting her head in the crook of her elbow, peered through the darkness toward the other bed.

  “Please,” her cousin said. “Just do us all a favor and jump Gabe’s bones. Get it out of your system.” The bedclothes rustled as Janna turned toward her. “And what the hell were you thinking to troll Jeremy in front of him that way? The boy’s a minnow—why not just throw chum in front of a shark while you’re at it?”

  “I know, I know,” she agreed miserably, because she’d felt guilty about that—had known it was poor judgment on her part from the moment she’d seated Jeremy across from Gabriel. “He kissed me last Thursday—Gabe that is, not Jeremy.”

  “No duh. And…?”

  “And I nearly disintegrated from lust—but he was thinking of Grace.”

  “What? No. That can’t be right. I’ve seen the way he looks at you. He never looked at Grace that way.”

  “Well, he sure as hell went out of his way to ask me if I knew Jack had kissed her outside the Red Dog the night we were all there. Right in the middle of the most intense, scorching—” She swallowed, because it still hurt. No, not hurt! It still pissed her off, that was all. “He dumps Grace, gets me all jacked up, then makes sure I know he’s thinking about her? So, I guess when I met Jeremy I didn’t think the matter through very well. I mean, he’s really sweet and his admiration just felt…good, y’know? But you’re right, I shouldn’t have used him that way.” And not long after Gabe had taken off, she’d found the gentlest way possible to send the younger man on his way.

  She blew out a sigh. “If the situation were reversed and Gabe had dragged a woman back to the boardinghouse and rubbed my nose in her, I would’ve told everyone and their brother he was a pig. The fact that I’m a woman doesn’t make it more palatable.”

  “I wouldn’t go overboard beating myself up about it if I were you,” Janna said dryly. “I’d give odds nothing as exciting as being dragged home by a hot video star has happened to Jeremy in his life. You made the guy’s day. Not to mention probably raising his status with his cousin and all the cousin’s peeps.”

  The knot in her stomach was suddenly much more manageable and a small smile curled her lips. “He did have one of the Experimental boys take several shots of the two of us on his iPhone.”

  “There you go. But I stand by my advice. You and Gabe have got to quit dancing around each other and do the deed. There’s so much sexual tension surrounding you I’m surprised cats aren’t spontaneously yowling in the streets. As for the rest of us—” She heaved a sigh. “We need a break.”

  “Well, much as I hate to disappoint you, you’re not going to get one. This is the second time he’s kissed me only to turn around and shoot me down. I’m through. There’s not going to be a third.”

  “Crap.” Janna rolled over onto her back. “I was afraid you were gonna say that.”

  She rolled over, as well. “Sorry, Janna. But it’s just an all-round bad idea.”

  GABE THOUGHT A LOT during the next several days about hooking up with Macy and decided it was an excellent idea.

  He acknowledged that, up until now, he’d had a pretty screwed-up way of showing it. For some reason, every time he’d had a solid shot at the gold with Macy, he had instead shot himself in the foot. But he was tired of being such an idiot. Hell, he couldn’t even say why he’d resisted so hard. It was like a constant itch under the skin, he wanted her so bad. And it wasn’t as if she hadn’t fallen in with the program whenever he’d kissed her—she’d given, in fact, a damn fine impression of a woman who wanted him in return. Logically speaking then, there was only one conclusion to reach. He understood fires. Hell, he specialized in fires. And him and Macy?

  Major potential to burn down the town without ever touching a match.

  Having made up his mind, he was suddenly impatient to stroke her, kiss her, lay her down and bury himself deep inside her. Like now, if not sooner.

  The thing was, though, she was slipperier than an eel these days. He knew she was in and out of the boardinghouse, but half the time he didn’t even realize that she’d been there until she’d already left again. The only time he saw her was at dinner and then she was usually the last to sit at the table and the first to leave.

  But tomorrow was the first day of the county fair, and she’d said she’d lend a hand at the booth. They might have their differences, but he didn’t doubt that her word was golden. The woman had integrity. Just look at the way she’d put everything in her own life on hold to help her family.

  He was proved correct the next day when she strolled up to the booth with not only Tyler and his friend Charlie in tow but her aunt and uncle. Her cousin brought up the rear, picking her way on a pair of crutches over the uneven ground.
<
br />   “Hey.” He pulled out a chair and waved Janna into it. “Sit down. How you doing?”

  Swinging into the seat she smiled up at him. “Better. I’m finally starting to feel some real results from the PT.”

  “Janna’s going to stay with us,” Macy informed him. “Ty and Charlie have big plans for this fair and dragging Grandma and Grandpa around the grounds is their ticket to seeing all they can, isn’t it, guys?”

  “Yeah,” Tyler agreed.

  Charlie nodded enthusiastically. “We want to see it all.”

  “Good thing Lenore and I are spry,” Bud said, giving his grandson a fond smile. “You want to head up to the rides?”

  “In a minute.” The youth watched as, to the groans of female voices, a softball hit the net behind the trigger target. “We want to do that first.”

  “Yeah, we wanna knock you into the tank,” Charlie said, grinning up at Gabe. “Bet you’d make a big splash.”

  “I’ll arrange to be your target if you don’t mind waiting your turn in line.” He indicated the row of mostly young women. “Our tank has been doing a booming business.”

  “Hmm. Wonder why,” Macy murmured looking at the buff, wet fireman seated on the dunking platform.

  Gabe shrugged. Playing up the beefcake-firehouse-calendar look—board shorts in the tank, turnout gear with bare chests out of it—had been selling tickets like crazy. And that was the idea.

  But speaking of playing dress-up…

  He inspected Macy’s getup and shook his head. She was rigged out in a forties-style halter and tap pants, both of which appeared to be constructed from vintage floral curtains. Her amber hair was caught up in some sort of black net drawstring bag and she’d arranged her bangs in one of those WW II–style swoops. “I take it getting wet is not in your game plan.”

  Jack Savage strolled up. “Sorry I’m late, luv,” he said, bending his head to peck a kiss on Macy’s lips. “I got hung up signing a few autographs.” He turned to Gabe. “How’s it goin’, mate? We thought we’d be more effective to your cause acting as shills. Put our celebrity to good use by hauling in the paying customers.”