The sound of pills jostling against one another as he set the bottle down had Kansas opening her eyes again. She saw the bottle, then raised her eyes to his. “What’s that?”
“Modern science calls it aspirin. You can call it whatever you want,” Ethan told her, sitting down at his desk again. Because she was looking at the oversize bottle as if she wasn’t sure what it might really hold, he said, “You look like you have a headache. I thought a few aspirins might help.”
Picking the bottle up, Kansas shook her head in wonder. “This has got to be the biggest supply of aspirin I’ve ever seen.”
“We get it by the truckload around here,” Dax told her as he walked into the room, catching the tail end of the conversation. He raised his voice slightly to catch the rest of the task force’s attention. “I suggest you all take a few with you.”
Kansas swung her chair around to face Dax. A leaden feeling descended on her chest. There could be only one reason why he was saying that. “Another one?”
“Another one,” Dax confirmed grimly. “Just got the call.”
Ethan was on his feet, grabbing his jacket and slipping it on. “Where?”
“Down on Sand Canyon,” he answered. “The place is called Meadow Hills.”
Kansas stopped dead. She recognized the name instantly. “That’s a nursing home,” she said to Dax, but even as she said it, she was hoping that somehow she was wrong.
She wasn’t.
Dax nodded, holding a tight rein on his thoughts. He was not about to let his imagination run away with him. “Yeah.”
Kansas shuddered, trying to curtail the wave of horror that washed over her. She couldn’t get the image of terrified senior citizens out of her head.
“What a monster,” she muttered.
“It’s still in progress,” Dax told them as they all hurried out the door. “Luckily, the firefighters got there quickly again. They’ve been a regular godsend. They had a lot of people to clear out, and I’d hate to think of what might have happened if they’d delayed their response even by a few minutes.”
Kansas said nothing. She didn’t even want to think about it, about how helpless and frightened some of those older residents of the convalescent home had to feel, their bodies immobilized in beds as they smelled smoke and then having that smoke fill their fragile lungs.
Another wave of frustration assaulted her, intensifying the pain in her head.
“Why can’t we find this bastard?” she cried, directing the question more to herself than to any of the men who were hurrying down the hall along with her.
“Because he’s good,” Ethan answered plainly. “He’s damn good.”
“But he’s not perfect,” she shot back angrily.
“That’s what we’re all counting on,” Dax told her.
Reaching the elevator first, Kansas jabbed the Down button. When it failed to arrive immediately, she turned on her heel and hurried over to the door that led to the stairwell.
Ethan was quick to follow her. “Running down the stairs really isn’t going to make that much of a difference,” he told her, watching the rhythmic way her hips swayed as she made her way to the door. “In the long run, it won’t get you there any faster.”
Kansas didn’t slow down. Entering the stairwell, she started down the stairs, her heels clicking on the metal steps.
“I know,” she tossed over her shoulder. “I just need to be moving.” She hadn’t really meant to share that. What was it about this man that seemed to draw the words out of her? That seemed to draw out other things, too? “It makes me feel as if I’m getting something accomplished.”
“We’re going to catch him,” Ethan told her with quiet affirmation once he reached the bottom step and was next to her.
She looked at him sharply, expecting to see that he was laughing at her and being condescending. But he wasn’t. He looked sincere. Which either meant that he was or that he was a better actor than she’d initially given him credit for.
Kansas went on the offensive. “You don’t really believe that.”
“Actually,” he told her, “I do.” They went down another flight, moving even faster this time. “I just don’t know how long it’s going to take. The more fires there are, the more likely it is that he’s going to trip up, show his hand, have someone catch him in the act. Something,” he underscored, “is going to go wrong for him—and right for us.”
Reaching the first floor, Kansas hurried to the front entrance. Not waiting for the others, she pushed it open with the flat of her hand.
“Meanwhile, the bastard’s turning Aurora into a pile of ashes.”
“Not yet,” Ethan countered. They were outside, but she was still moving fast. Heading toward his car. He kept up with her. “I take it that you don’t want to wait for the others.”
“They’ll meet us there,” she said, reaching his vehicle.
His keys in his hand, he hit the remote button that disarmed the security device. Getting in, he shook his head. “Ever have a partner before?” he asked Kansas.
She got in and buckled up, tension racing through her body. She was anxious to get to the site of the fire, as if her presence there would somehow curtail any further harm the fire might render.
“I don’t have one now,” she pointed out glibly. As far as she was concerned, “temporary” didn’t count.
The look Ethan gave her did something strange to her stomach. It felt as if she’d just endured an accelerated fifty-foot drop on a roller-coaster ride.
“Yeah,” Ethan corrected, “you do. Better adjust,” he advised mildly.
Mild or not, that got her back up. “And if I don’t?” she challenged, unconsciously raising her chin as if silently daring him to take a swing.
“It’d just be easier on everyone all around if you did. We’re all after the same thing,” he reminded her not for the first time. “Nailing this creep’s hide to the wall.”
She began to retort, then thought better of it. The man was right. This was her frustration talking, not her. Taking a deep breath, she forced out the words that needed to be said. “You’re right, I’m sorry.”
He gave her a long glance. Had she just apologized to him? That wasn’t like her. “Don’t throw me a curve like that,” he told her, and she couldn’t tell if he was serious or not. “I’m liable to jump the divider and crash this beautiful car.”
She noticed that he put the car first. The man really was enamored with this cream-colored machine, wasn’t he?
“Very funny,” she cracked. “I admit I have a tendency to go off on my own, but it’s just that I’m so damn frustrated right now,” she told him. Then she elaborated: “We should have been able to find him by now. I should have been able to find him by now.”
“No, you had it right the first time,” he said quietly. “We should have been able to find this sicko by now.”
She was out of ideas and her brain felt as dry as the Mojave Desert. “What are we doing wrong?”
“I don’t know,” he admitted.
There was a long moment of silence, and then he became aware of Kansas suddenly straightening in her seat. He was beginning to be able to read her. And she’d just thought of something. He’d bet money on it.
“Talk,” he told her. “What just suddenly occurred to you?”
So excited by what she was thinking, she could hardly sit still. But she answered Ethan’s question with one of her own. “Do we have any footage of the crowds that gathered around to see the outcome of these fires?”
“We don’t, but I’m sure the local news stations do. This is the kind of story that they live for.” With each fire, the coverage became that much more intense, lasting that much longer. He’d never known that so much could be said about any given topic. The media were in a class by themselves.
She didn’t care about the press. Reporters who earned a living focusing on people in possibly the worst moments of their lives had always struck her as annoying at best. At worst they were vultur
es. But right now, they could unwittingly provide a useful service.
“Do you think we can get our hands on some of that footage?”
He personally couldn’t, but he figured Dax could. Or, if not him, then certainly the chief of Ds could. “Don’t see why not.” It didn’t take much to figure out where she was going with this. “You think our firebug’s in the crowd?”
She never liked committing herself, even though her answer was yes. “Worth a look.”
Ethan nodded. “I’ll ask Dax to requisition as much footage from each fire as is available. If he can’t, the chief can. I’ll tell him it’s your idea,” he added, just in case she thought he might be tempted to steal her thunder.
Because O’Brien was being magnanimous, she could return the favor, all the while reminding herself not to let her guard down. That would be a mistake.
“Our idea,” she corrected. “We were brainstorming. Kind of.”
Ethan grinned. “You just might make it as a team member yet, Kansas.”
“Something to shoot for,” she allowed. Although she damn well knew that by the time she’d adjusted to being “one of the guys,” or whatever O’Brien wanted to call it, she’d be back at the firehouse, working on her own again.
It might, she couldn’t help thinking as she stole a side glance at Ethan, actually take a little adjusting on her part to make the transition back.
Who would have ever thought it?
When they arrived at the site of the newest fire some fifteen minutes later, chaos had settled in. The rather small front lawn before the nursing home was completely littered with vintage citizens, many of whom, despite the hour, were in their pajamas and robes. A number were confined to wheelchairs.
She saw several of the latter apparently on their own, deposited haphazardly away from the fire. One resident looked absolutely terrified. There weren’t nearly enough aides and orderlies, let alone nurses, to care for or reassure them.
As she started toward the terrified, wild-eyed old woman, Kansas’s attention was drawn away to the almost skeletal-looking old man who was lying on the grass. There was a large and burly firefighter leaning over the unconscious resident, and she could tell from the fireman’s frantic motions that the old man’s life hung in the balance.
Kansas held her breath as the firefighter, his protective helmet and gloves on the ground, administered CPR. He was doing compressions on the frail chest and blowing into the all-but-lifeless mouth.
A distressed nurse was hovering beside the firefighter like an anemic cheerleader, hoarsely giving instructions as he worked over the senior citizen.
“Now that’s really odd,” Kansas muttered under her breath.
Before Ethan could ask her what she meant, Kansas was already working her way through the crowd and over to the scene. By the time she reached them, the firefighter had risen unsteadily to his feet. His wide face was drawn and he was clearly shaken.
“I lost him,” he lamented in disbelief. The anguished words weren’t addressed to anyone in particular, but more to the world in general. It was obvious that the towering firefighter was berating himself for not being able to save the old man. “I lost him,” he cried again, his voice catching. “Oh, God, I lost him.”
With effort, the nurse dropped to her knees. Steadying herself, she pressed her fingers against the elderly man’s throat, searching for any sign of a pulse. She didn’t find it.
The nurse sighed, shaking her head. Her next words confirmed what had already been said. “Mr. Walters is gone.” Looking up at the fireman, in her next breath she absolved him of any blame. “You did everything you possibly could.”
“I didn’t do enough,” the firefighter protested. He looked defeated and almost lost.
“Yes, you did,” the nurse said with feeling. She held her hand up to him and the distraught firefighter helped her to her feet. “Don’t beat yourself up about it. It was Mr. Walters’s time.”
The next moment, a reporter with one of the local stations came running over to the firefighter and the nurse. His cameraman was directly behind him. Thrusting his microphone at the duo, the reporter began firing questions at them, ready and willing to turn this tragedy into a human-interest sound bite in a blatant attempt to be the lead story of the hour tonight.
Kansas noted that the firefighter looked even more anguished than he had a few moments earlier as he began to answer the reporter’s questions.
She glanced over toward Ethan, who had caught up to her again. “What do you make of that?” she murmured in as discreet a voice as she could manage and still be heard above the din.
Ethan wasn’t sure where she was trying to go with this. “He’s obviously someone who takes his job to heart.” He saw the number on the engine and knew that she’d come from that fire station. “I take it that you don’t know him.”
Kansas shook her head. “He came to the house just when I got promoted to investigator. I hang out at the firehouse, but I have my own office, do my own thing. They answer the calls, I only go if arson’s suspected.” She pressed her lips together. “I’m really not part of that whole firefighting thing anymore.”
Ethan detected something in her voice. “Do you miss it?”
He had a feeling he knew the answer to that no matter what she said. He was prepared for her to say something dismissive in response. He’d come to learn that she was nothing if not a private person. Ordinarily, that would be a signal for him to back off.
But she intrigued him.
“Sometimes,” she murmured in a low voice, surprising him. “Other times, I feel I’m doing more good as an investigator. Or at least I was before this lunatic showed up, setting fire to everything in his path and driving me crazy. Us,” Kansas amended quickly. “Driving us crazy.”
Thinking in the plural was harder than she’d realized. It was really going to take practice.
Ethan grinned, appreciating the effort she was making. He couldn’t help wondering if she was just turning over a new leaf or if she was doing this solely because of what he’d said earlier.
“You’re coming along, Kansas. You’re coming along.”
She had no idea why his approval didn’t incense her. Why it had, oddly enough, the exact opposite effect. Maybe she’d been breathing in too much smoke these last few years, she theorized.
About to say something flippant about his comment, Kansas stopped as she became aware that the rest of the task force had just joined her and Ethan.
The moment they had, Ethan went to Dax and she knew without having to listen in that he was making the request for the available footage of the last dozen fires. She couldn’t help smiling to herself as she made her way over to the two men.
They looked alike, she caught herself thinking. Both dark, both good-looking. On a scale of 1 to 10, they were both 10s. With Ethan possibly being a 10.5.
And what did that have to do with the price of tea in China? she upbraided herself. She needed to stay focused and not let her mind wander like this.
When she was within earshot, she heard Dax ask her partner, “You think he stuck around to watch the fire department try to save the buildings?”
“The minute Kansas said it, it made sense. I’m sure of it,” Ethan told Dax vehemently. “He wouldn’t be able to resist. This is like an opiate to him. It’s too much of a draw for him to pass up.”
“Okay,” Dax agreed. “I’ve got a few connections. I’ll see what I can do.”
“I’ve got a smartphone,” Ethan suddenly remembered as Dax began to walk to his car.
Youngman looked at him oddly. “As opposed to what, a stupid phone?”
“No, you idiot,” Ortiz, years younger than the veteran detective, berated his partner in disgust. “He means he’s got a video camera in it.”
Ethan was already putting his phone to use, panning the surrounding area and committing the image to film. It was a very simple act. He sincerely hoped it would help in capturing what was turning out to seem like a very complex p
erp.
* * *
“I believe this comes under the heading of ‘be careful what you wish for,’ ” Dax announced the following morning as he walked up to Kansas’s desk and deposited a huge carton. The carton was filled to the brim with videotapes.
She had to rise from her chair in order to see inside the box. “What’s all this?” she asked.
“These are the tapes you asked for,” he reminded her. “This is all footage from the fires.”
“All these?” she asked incredulously, having trouble processing the information. There was an incredible amount of footage to review, she thought with a sinking feeling.
“No. That’s only a third. Youngman and Ortiz are bringing the other two boxes.”
She groaned as she took out the first tape. It looked as if her eyes were about to become tread-worn.
Chapter 9
“What are you doing?” Kansas asked in surprise.
On her feet, she’d picked up the first box of tapes that Dax had gotten for her to review. Braced for hours of incredible boredom, she was about to head to the small, windowless room where a monitor, coupled with a VCR, was housed. Her question, and the surprise that had prompted it, was directed toward Ethan, who had just picked up one of the other boxes and was walking behind her.
“Following you,” he said simply.
She immediately took that to mean that he thought she needed help transporting the tapes. It was inherently against her nature to allow anyone to think she wasn’t capable of taking care of herself in any fashion.
Kansas lifted her chin. He was beginning to recognize that as one of her defensive moves. He really needed to find a way to get her to be more trusting, Ethan thought.
“I can carry them.”
“I’m sure you can,” he told her in an easygoing voice, but he couldn’t help adding, “Probably with one hand tied behind your back.” He gave her a weary look. “For once, why don’t you just accept help in the spirit it’s offered? This isn’t any kind of a covert statement about your capabilities. I just thought I’d help you with them, that’s all.”
Kansas felt a flush of embarrassment. She supposed she was being a little paranoid. She was far more accustomed to put-downs than help. It hadn’t been easy, even in this day and age, getting accepted in her chosen field. It was still, for all intents and purposes, mostly an all-boys club. Female firefighters and female arson investigators were a very small group, their authority and capabilities challenged almost at every turn.
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