“Do you know what you’re saying?” Dax asked her incredulously.
Kansas nodded grimly. “I know exactly what I’m saying. But what other avenues are open to us?” She didn’t want to think this way, but it had been a process of elimination. “The way I see it, it has to be one of the firefighters.”
What she was suggesting was something no one wanted to think about or seriously consider.
“This is your own house you’re pointing a finger at,” Dax reminded her, clearly trying to wrap his mind around what she was saying.
The anguish was evident in her voice as she answered him. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t you think that I wish there was some other answer?”
“What makes you think this is the answer?” Dax persisted.
Telling him it was a feeling in her gut would only have the detectives quickly dismissing the idea. As far as they were concerned, she was the “new kid.” And the new kid wasn’t allowed to have gut feelings for at least a couple of years. So she cited the clinical reference she’d read about the condition.
“It’s the hero syndrome,” she replied simply.
Scratching the eight or nine hairs that still populated the top of his head, Youngman looked at his partner, who offered no insight. Youngman then looked at her.
“And the hero syndrome is?” he wanted to know.
To her surprise, Ethan took over just as she was about to explain. “That’s when someone arranges events in order to come running to the rescue and have people regard him—or her—as a hero,” he told the others. “Or like a nurse might fiddle with a patient’s medication, making them code so that she can rush in with defibrillator paddles to bring them back from the brink of death. People like that get off playing the hero. It makes them feel important, like they matter.” Finished, Ethan looked at Kansas. “That’s what you mean, right?”
He explained it better than she could, she thought. Had he come across this before? “Right.”
Dax seemed to be turning his cousin’s words over in his head before asking his next question. “And just which of these firefighters do you think is capable of something like that?”
She wished it was none of them, but she simply couldn’t shake the feeling that it had to be.
“I don’t know,” she told Dax honestly. She was aware that all four pairs of eyes were on her, with perhaps Ethan’s being the kindest. “Look, I hope I’m wrong, but if I am, then we’re back to that damn square one again.”
That suggestion was obviously more to Ortiz’s liking. “It could still be a pyromaniac who just hasn’t made the grid yet,” he pointed out.
Ethan shot down his theory. “That’s why Kansas and I just spent all those hours going over the news footage, looking for a face that might keep cropping up in the crowd shots. There wasn’t any. The most hits we got were five.” He repeated the information he’d already delivered once.
“So maybe these actually were just accidental, random fires,” Ortiz suggested hopefully. “That kind of thing does happen around here.”
“Then how do you explain the accelerants I found?” Kansas asked quietly.
“I forgot about that.” Ortiz’s shoulder slumped and he seemed to slide down a little farther in his chair. “I can’t.”
“You know those firefighters better than any of us,” Dax pointed out, turning toward her again. Crossing his arms before him, pausing for a long moment, he finally asked, “How do you suggest we get started?”
When in doubt, go the simple route. Someone had once said that to her, she couldn’t remember who. But she did remember that she’d taken it to heart and it had helped her see things through.
“Same way we’d get started with any suspects we’re trying to rule out,” she told the prime detective on the case. “Call them in and interview each of them one at a time.”
Ortiz shook his head. “They’re not going to cooperate,” he predicted.
“They might,” Ethan theorized. The others looked at him curiously. “If we ask the right questions, we should be able to get some idea of what’s going on.”
“Right questions,” Ortiz echoed. “Such as?”
She’d already started forming them in her head. “Such as if they remember seeing anyone suspicious in the vicinity when they arrived. Or if they saw anything suspicious at all—coming, going, while they were there. Anything.” She took a breath. This was the million-dollar question. “And if they thought that any of the other firefighters behaved with undue valor.”
“You’re going to question their bravery?” Ortiz asked in astonishment.
“Exactly,” she answered.
Youngman shook his head, evidently foreseeing problems. “That’ll make their radar go up immediately.”
“We’ve got five interview rooms.” Dax volunteered a fact they all already knew—with the exception of the fire investigator. “We divide and conquer and keep this under wraps.”
“For as long as it takes to interview the first five firemen,” Ortiz pointed out glumly. “After that, all hell’s going to break loose. They’ll talk.”
Broad shoulders rose and fell. “Still better than nothing,” Dax commented.
“I don’t like this,” Youngman protested. “Those guys risk their lives, running into a burning building when any sane person would run in the opposite direction as fast as they could—and now we’re pointing fingers at them? Accusing them of actually starting the fire?”
“Not at them, at one of them,” Kansas insisted.
Youngman frowned, clearly not won over. “I can’t believe you just said that. You know how united those guys are. You focus on one of them, the rest close ranks around him, forming an impenetrable wall that’s next to impossible to crack.”
She pressed her lips together and nodded. “Yes, I know.”
The older detective shifted in his seat, making direct eye contact with her. “And when they find out this is your idea,” he predicted, “they’re not going to be very happy.”
She knew that, too. But she refused to let that dictate how she did her job. “Nothing I haven’t encountered before,” she replied quietly, bracing herself for what was to come.
Ethan was perched against her desk, leaning a hip against the corner. He had been observing her for a few minutes and now finally commented: “You know, if you shrug your shoulders just the right way, that big chip you’re carrying around could very possibly fall off.”
If there was something she hated more than criticism, she couldn’t remember what it was. “I don’t have a big chip,” she insisted.
Ethan lifted his right shoulder in a timeless, careless shrug. “Then it’s got to be the biggest dandruff flake I’ve ever encountered,” he assessed.
Swallowing an exasperated sigh, she ignored him and instead looked at Dax. “I don’t want to be right about this.”
He could see by the look on her face that she was telling the truth.
“I know you don’t,” Dax commiserated. “For the time being, why don’t you and Ethan re-canvass the areas of the last few fires, knock on the same doors, see if any of the stories have been altered this time around.”
She saw through the suggestion. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Detective Cavanaugh, but I really don’t need to be shielded. I don’t break. It’s my suggestion, so I can handle my end of it.”
Dax couldn’t hide his concern. “I’m thinking about when this is all over and you have to go back.”
So was she...for about a second. Why borrow trouble? It would be there waiting for her once this was over.
“I appreciate that, Detective, but I really can handle myself. Captain Lawrence is a fair man, and I don’t really interact with the men on any sort of a regular basis anymore anyway.” Kansas didn’t realize at first that she was smiling as she looked around the squad room. “Not like I do here.”
Dax allowed himself a small smile as he nodded. “All right, then. Since this involves possibly getting on the fire department’s bad side, le
t me just run this by the chief of Ds and see what he has to say about it.” He looked around at the task force. “When he gives his okay, who wants to inform Captain Lawrence?”
She began to say that she would, but she wasn’t fast enough. Ethan raised his hand and beat her to it. “I will.”
“Hope you’re up on your self-defense classes,” Ortiz murmured.
Kansas swung around to look at her partner. “It’s my idea. I’ll do it.” He began to say something, but she held up her hand to silence him. “They won’t hit me. You, they just might.”
Dax laughed. “She’s got a point,” he said to his cousin.
Ethan wasn’t going to argue with him—and he knew better than to argue outright with her.
“Fine,” Ethan compromised. “We’ll both go.”
He was adamant on that point. There was no way he was going to let her walk into the firehouse with this new twist like some lamb to the slaughter. Whether she liked it or not, he was her partner for the time being, and that meant he intended to have her back at all times.
Kansas waited until Dax left to talk to his father. “I don’t need a keeper,” she informed Ethan indignantly, keeping her voice low.
“Yeah, you do, but that’s an argument for another day,” he retorted. “Besides, we send you alone, we look like a bunch of chickens hiding behind a woman.” He shook his head. “Ain’t gonna happen.”
She inclined her head. Much as she wanted to argue with him, she could see his point. “I didn’t think of it that way.”
And neither had he—until just now.
But Ethan merely nodded in response and kept his satisfied grin to himself.
* * *
Brian looked at his son thoughtfully. Dax had laid out the theory that Kansas had come up with and that Ethan had backed as succinctly as possible. Finished, his son waited for a comment.
Instead, Brian gestured for him to take a seat. Once Dax did, he asked for his opinion. “So what do you think of this idea?”
Dax knew that this was a giant step they were taking, one that didn’t allow for any backtracking. And if they were wrong, there was going to be hell to pay. There might be hell to pay even if they were right. No one took being a suspect well, and this would cause at least a temporary rift between the police and the fire departments.
All that considered, Dax said, “I think they might be on to something. We’ve followed up all the so-called tips that have been coming in from the public hotlines, and all we’ve done is go around in circles.” He sighed. “And meanwhile, buildings keep being burned. After each fire, we haul out all the usual suspects, all the firebugs out on parole and the known pyromaniac wannabes and come up with nothing. They all make sure that they’ve always got an alibi.”
“And the media footage?” Brian asked. It had taken a bit of persuading on his part to secure that from the various local stations. “Did that show up anything?”
Dax shook his head. “Different faces at different fires. If this firebug’s doing it to get a rush, he’s got some remote hook-up going to view the sites, because he’s not showing up in the crowds.”
They had no choice but to pursue this new avenue, Brian thought. They were out of options. “I’ll talk to Captain Lawrence. Go ahead and question the firefighters. Just try to do it as delicately as possible,” he cautioned, though he was fairly confident he didn’t really have to. Dax had a good head on his shoulders. All the younger Cavanaughs did. “I don’t want some yahoo getting it into his head to turn this into a feud between the Aurora police department and the fire department.”
Dax was already on his feet and crossing to the door. “Don’t worry, we’ll do our best to be discreet,” he promised.
“Oh, and, Dax?” Brian called out just as his son was about to walk out.
Stopping, Dax looked at his father over his shoulder. “Yes?”
“How’s Ethan coming along?” This was the first time that Dax was working with the other detective, and Brian was curious about the way things were going between them. As a family, the three O’Briens and the Cavanaughs were all still getting accustomed to one another.
And that didn’t even begin to take in the curveball that Andrew had thrown him the other week. That, Brian knew, was still under wraps as far as the rest of the family was concerned.
Dax grinned. “Just like you’d expect, Chief. Like a born Cavanaugh.”
Brian nodded his head. “Good to hear.” He had equally good reports on Kyle and Greer. At this point, it seemed as if the only one of them who had ever disappointed the family had been Mike, who’d ultimately never managed to conquer the demons he lived with. “Keep me apprised of the way the questioning is going,” he requested. “And give me a holler if you need me,” he added, raising his voice just before his son went down the hall.
Dax raised his hand over his head as he kept going. “Absolutely.”
Brian crossed to the door and closed it. He knew that Dax wouldn’t be coming to him with any problems. He’d raised them all to know that family was always there for them if the need arose but that they were expected to stand independently on their own two feet if at all possible. None of his sons, nor his daughter, had ever disappointed him.
And neither, he thought now, had Lila’s four kids, whom he’d regarded as his own even before he and Lila had exchanged vows.
All in all, he mused, getting back to the report he’d been reading just before Dax came in, he was one hell of a lucky man.
* * *
Arms crossed before his barrel chest, covering the small drop of ketchup that recalled lunch and the fries he’d had, Captain John Lawrence was one frown line short of a glare as he regarded the young woman who’d spent the last four years assigned to his firehouse.
“What do you want to talk to them for?” he asked suspiciously, grinding out the words.
The smile on his lips as he’d greeted her and the detective she’d walked in with had quickly dissolved when she’d made her request to interview each of his men. Eyes the color of black olives shifted from Kansas to the man standing beside her and then back again, waiting.
Kansas tried again. She’d been the object of Lawrence’s displeasure before, when she’d first been assigned to him. In time, she’d won him over. It looked now as if all her hard work and dedication had just been unraveled in the last couple of minutes.
“We’re hitting a dead end,” she explained patiently, “and we’re hoping that one of them might have seen something that we didn’t.”
“They were kind of busy at the time,” he pointed out. Lawrence didn’t bother trying to mask the sarcasm in his voice.
“We appreciate that, Captain Lawrence,” Ethan said respectfully but firmly. “But you never know what might help break a case. Sometimes the smallest, most inconsequential thing—”
Impatient, Lawrence waved a hand at him, dismissing the explanation. “Yeah, yeah, I know the drill—and the drivel,” he added pointedly. He looked far from pleased. Just as it seemed that he was going to be stubbornly uncooperative, the captain grudgingly said, “If you really think it can help the investigation, I’ll send them over to talk to you.” He looked at Kansas and his expression softened, but only slightly. Ethan could see that she had fallen out of favor. With any luck, it was only temporary. “You want everybody?”
She gave him a little leeway. “Everybody who was on call for the fires.”
The disgruntled expression intensified. “That’s everybody.”
“Wasn’t it just one shift?” Ethan asked innocently. Most of the fires had taken place under the cover of twilight or later.
“They overlapped,” the captain answered coldly. His attention was back to Kansas. “Okay with you if I send just three at a time—barring a fire, of course,” he added cynically.
Ethan ran interference for her, determined to take the brunt of the captain’s displeasure. “Of course,” he said. “Goes without saying. The fires always take precedent.”
There
was something akin to contempt in the captain’s dark eyes as they swept over him. “Glad you agree,” Lawrence finally commented. And then he asked Kansas, “Tomorrow okay with you? Most of the guys you want to talk to are off right now. It’s been a rough few days.”
In Ethan’s opinion, it had been a rough few months. And besides, it was getting late anyway. He and Kansas were both off the clock and had been for the last half hour. Lawrence had kept them waiting almost an hour before he “found” the time to see them.
“Tomorrow’s fine,” Ethan answered. Leaning forward, he shook Lawrence’s hand. “Thanks for your cooperation.” He managed to say the words with a straight face.
“Hey, we’re all on the same team, right?” It was hard to tell whether Lawrence was being serious or sarcastic, but Ethan was leaning toward the latter.
“Right,” Kansas agreed.
It had earned her a less than warm look from the captain. She was in the doghouse and she knew it. It was obvious that the man was annoyed with her because she hadn’t been able to somehow spare him what she was sure Lawrence saw as a major inconvenience.
She was equally sure that he didn’t realize that his men were under suspicion at the moment. Because if he had known, he would have said as much. Most likely at the top of his lungs while liberally sprinkling more than a few choice words throughout his statement. Lawrence wasn’t the kind to keep things bottled up and to himself. If he was angry, everyone knew he was angry. They also knew about what and at whom. The man didn’t believe in sparing feelings.
Taking their leave, Kansas and Ethan walked out of the fire station. Once outside, she turned to him and said, “You should have let me do the talking.”
He’d done the brunt of it for a very simple reason. “You’ve got to come back here. I don’t. I wanted Lawrence to think of me as the messenger in all this. When he realizes what’s going on, he’s not going to be a happy camper,” Ethan predicted. “I don’t want him taking it out on you.”
Kansas looked at him, curbing her natural impulse to shrug off any offers of help and declare that she could take care of herself. If pressed, she would have to admit, if only to herself, that it was rather nice to have someone looking out for her. It was something she’d really never experienced before.
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