Heating Up

by Stacy Finz

“Actually, a client and I are pulling a late one.” Dana reached for the bag, hoping to get away before Sophie asked any more questions. How they’d managed to keep Gia a secret this long was nothing short of a miracle.

  “Well, you tell that handsome friend of yours hello. Lilly’s looking forward to seeing him at the wedding.”

  “I’ll do that,” she said, and was beyond tempted to call him just to hear his voice—that deep Chicago accent that made her girl parts tingle.

  Instead, she brought dinner straight to Gia’s room, where they sat at the writing table and plowed through ribs, mashed red potatoes, and a nice Syrah.

  “Have you thought more about the Decker place?” Dana asked Gia about the forty-acre tree farm they’d looked at earlier. The house had been darling and the property had a smattering of cabins that just needed to be winterized if Gia wanted to use them as rentals.

  “I might be able to live with it.” Gia said.

  Dana didn’t think Gia should have to live with her next home; she should love it.

  “We’ll keep looking,” she said.

  Gia played with the remote control while they drained the remainder of the Syrah and started on the Merlot. No question, they were both depressed—and getting soused. It was kind of nice having a friend to get drunk with. She now had three: Gia, Harlee, and Darla. And Aidan. He was her best friend. That would obviously change with Sue back. Hopefully, he’d return to Chicago so she wouldn’t have to see them together every day.

  Dana got up to wash barbecue sauce off her hands, even though she’d used one of the wet wipes Sophie had included in their package. Gia’s bathroom was even more plush than Dana’s. She had to hand it to Maddy; for such a small town the amenities at the inn were top notch.

  “Do you smell that?” Gia called to her.

  “I know,” Dana said through the open door, “the fragrance in these soaps is fantastic.”

  “Not that. Smoke.”

  Dana immediately came out of the bathroom and sniffed. “Yeah, I do.”

  Before they could decide what to do next, an alarm sounded, and Gia’s room phone rang simultaneously. She answered, listened for a few seconds, and hung up.

  “The Inn’s on fire. They want us to evacuate.”

  They both grabbed their purses, ran for the door, and, like the other guests, took the stairs two at a time. In the chaos, Dana didn’t realize the sprinklers on the main floor had gone off until she noticed that Gia, who’d run out without her hat and sunglasses, had wet hair.

  Maddy and her brother, Nate, stood by the door, directing traffic. In soothing voices, they assured everyone that if they followed directions no one would be harmed. But a thick cloud of smoke had filled the air, making Dana’s eyes water and her throat scratch. Only a few feet to the door and she was finding it difficult to breathe.

  “You okay?” Gia grabbed her arm.

  Dana tried to respond, but her throat had constricted. It was as if she was going into anaphylactic shock or having an asthma attack. Her airway felt blocked. Gia started waving wildly as they followed the trail of guests out the front door, down the porch, and onto the front lawn. “My friend is having trouble breathing.”

  Maddy rushed over. “Dana? Oh God, her face is blue.”

  She and Gia helped Dana to the ground, where she proceeded to choke violently. In the near distance sirens rent the air. Help was on its way. Thank goodness, because Dana seriously felt ill, like she was on the verge of vomiting. Her head pounded like a bass drum, yet she was still cognizant of everything around her, even if it seemed to be moving in slow motion.

  Flames had engulfed the south end of the inn, possibly the kitchen. From a distance, she could see that some of the employees were trying to douse the blaze with garden hoses. Nate had joined a bucket brigade, and slowly but surely, the fire stopped spreading. Then, for a space of time, everything went hazy.

  All Dana remembered was Harlee running over with a camera slung over her shoulder, shouting, “Dana? Dana? Are you okay? The ambulance is here.”

  Dana looked up to see two paramedics and Aidan running toward her. She’d never seen him look so grim. Maybe the fire was worse than she’d thought.

  The paramedics started taking her vital signs and quickly slipped an oxygen mask over her face. A small circle of people started to gather around her. Aidan pushed his way in and took her hand. The medics moved him aside.

  “Ah Jesus, Dana.” He kept reaching under his helmet to scrub his hand through his hair. “You’re going to be okay, baby. It’s smoke inhalation.”

  She couldn’t talk with the mask over her face, so she nodded. The smoke had only been there a few minutes. How could she feel so bad?

  Rhys came jogging up, took one look at Dana, and frowned. “All right, people, give her some room.” He shooed away the crowd.

  “We’re taking her to Plumas District,” one of the paramedics said, and Aidan made eye contact with him. “She’ll be fine. But a doctor should look her over.”

  This time he took both her hands. “I’ll be there as soon as I can, okay?”

  “I’ll go with her,” Gia volunteered, and suddenly a dozen eyes fell on her.

  “Who are you?” Aidan asked.

  “Isn’t that the woman from TV . . . the financial wizard . . . Gia Treadwell?” came a murmuring from the crowd.

  It was then that Dana passed out.

  Chapter 23

  “Aidan!” Captain Johnson stood at the south end of the inn, waving his hands in the air. He’d obviously found something.

  Aidan watched the paramedics lift Dana onto a gurney and carry her to the back of the ambulance. She’d come to but was dazed.

  “I’ll go to the hospital as soon as I can,” he told her. One of the medics moved out of the way so Aidan could get closer. “Gia will meet you there.” Now he knew who Dana’s big client was. Dana had been good at keeping a secret.

  “I love you, baby,” he said as the paramedics closed the doors. It killed him that he couldn’t go with her, but the medics assured him she’d be fine. And duty called: He had to catch this son of a bitch.

  He jogged over to Johnson. “Whaddya got?”

  “Your girl okay?”

  “Yes, but I’d like to get to the hospital as soon as possible.”

  “Take a look at this.” Johnson walked him around the building.

  The flames had been knocked down to a few smoldering hot spots and the damage appeared to be limited to the kitchen area, thanks to Nate and his employees’ preemptive strike. Like the Nugget Realty blaze, the fire had been started from outside. Aidan could see that right away from the charring patterns near the back door. This wasn’t a cooking fire, which, given its location, would’ve been Aidan’s first theory.

  Again, there was a strong smell of gasoline, and someone had used a mound of garbage to get the party started. Rhys strode over to join them.

  “This guy is really pissing me off,” Johnson said.

  “This guy is beyond pissing me off. This is my wife’s business. She was here, for God’s sake, with an inn full of people, one of whom had to go to the hospital.” Rhys looked straight at Aidan. “Sam’s on her way. Maddy would’ve gone, but she has”—he gazed out over the lawn, where guests wandered aimlessly—“this to deal with.”

  “Her client went too,” Aidan said.

  “Yeah, I saw that. Apparently she’s some big celebrity. Harlee’s in reporter heaven. So what do we got here?”

  “So far not a hell of a lot,” Aidan replied. “I’ll take samples, but there is no question in my mind that this was intentional and that our perp used gasoline, just like the others. I’d like to talk to Nate, Maddy, the chef, or anyone who was around at the time the fire started.”

  Duke came rambling over in his turn outs. “I heard about Dana. Is she okay?”

  “She has smoke inhalation,” Aidan said. “Thanks for asking, Duke.”

  “We gotta get this SOB.” He shook his head. Another firefighter called h
im and he trotted away.

  “Let me see who’s available to talk,” Rhys said.

  While Rhys was gathering up potential witnesses, Aidan used his sniffer to find the area with the highest content of accelerant, got a few unused paint cans from his truck, and filled them with debris samples.

  Rhys returned. “Maddy is getting the guests settled back in and will meet you in the inn’s conference room. The chef is gone for the day and Andy, the reservationist, was out on his dinner break. So far, from everyone I’ve talked to, no one saw anything.”

  “Nate and Maddy own the property, correct?”

  “Yeah,” Rhys said. “I know I’m biased here, but they would never burn this place down. Too much love went into reviving it. The Victorian was a dump when they bought it.”

  Aidan held up his hands. “I was just wondering if Trevor might own it.”

  “Nope. Sloane is trying to reach Rigsby’s lawyer to see if he has an alibi for this fire. For the other three he was allegedly home with his wife.” Rhys rolled his eyes. “My money is on him.”

  “Hopefully the boot evidence comes back soon, before he winds up killing someone.”

  Aidan did one more round, combing for evidence while there was still light. This time no shirts or melted lighters. Not even a footprint similar to what they had. Their firebug was getting good at covering his tracks.

  Rhys showed him to the conference room and got them a couple of drinks while they waited for Maddy. Aidan quickly called the hospital to check on Dana. She was stable but resting, according to the duty nurse.

  “Hi. Sorry it took me so long.” An exhausted Maddy shuffled into the conference room.

  “You have an idea of the damage?” Aidan asked. The inn was filled with expensive furnishings, rugs, and artwork.

  “So far it looks like the kitchen took the brunt of it. The sprinklers only went off where the smoke was the heaviest.” She crossed her fingers. “So hopefully we don’t have too much water damage. The rooms upstairs are fine, thank goodness.”

  “You see anything suspicious? A person lurking around? Someone asking unusual questions?”

  “Nothing,” she said. “I was getting ready to leave for the evening when the smoke alarm went off.”

  “Where were you when that happened?” Aidan asked.

  “In my office. The wine and cheese had already been served for the evening and the kitchen had been closed.” That area of the building was hidden from the street. Aidan had already scoped it out. Someone could’ve easily slinked around to the south side of the property without being noticed, even in daylight.

  “Anyone unhappy with you or the inn?”

  “You mean like a vendetta?” Maddy shook her head. “This might sound out there, but I’ve been watching the news, and Gia Treadwell isn’t so popular these days. A lot of people believe she was part of her boyfriend’s Ponzi scheme. I had no idea she was a guest here . . . she used another name to check in and kept her face pretty well covered. But maybe that has something to do with why someone set the inn on fire.”

  “I doubt it,” Rhys interjected, and so his wife wouldn’t feel silly, flashed her a lopsided grin. “Especially because we had three others that had nothing to do with her. This is a serial thing.”

  Aidan agreed.

  Nate popped his head in. “I’ve got about ten minutes before the cleanup crew shows up. You don’t know what I had to pay to get ’em here so quickly.”

  “Grab a seat,” Rhys told his brother-in-law. “Aidan just wants to ask you a few questions.”

  He went through the same inquiry he’d made of Maddy, and Nate answered similarly. Nothing had happened that had been out of the ordinary. Like always, Nate had been in his office doing paperwork when the fire alarm went off and the main floor began to fill with smoke, he said. He couldn’t think of one person who had it out for him or the hotel enough to set the inn on fire.

  “It was like any other day,” Nate said. “Thank God we’d recently trained the staff with fire drills. Everyone performed beautifully, and the fact that people were willing to take up hoses and join the bucket brigade . . . it shows you how blessed we are.”

  “All right,” Aidan said, frustrated. “I know you’ve got things to do.”

  Nate got to his feet. “You guys at Cal Fire have been great. When I’m done cutting through the havoc, I plan on personally thanking you all. In the meantime, would you pass on our appreciation, especially to Duke. The guy went above and beyond.”

  Aidan jerked his head in surprise. “Duke?” Half the time the guy couldn’t find his equipment, fumbled with his hose line, and seemed more interested in talking about fires than fighting them. “What did Duke do?”

  “He was the first one on the scene,” Nate said, which Aidan found weird because Duke should’ve come on one of the engines with everyone else. “Helped us organize the buckets when we ran out of hoses.”

  “Was he here before the first engine arrived on the scene?”

  “Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of a blur, though.”

  “Was he fully turned out?” Aidan felt a trickle of unease. Rhys, too, from the way he’d suddenly sat up.

  “What does that mean?” Nate asked.

  “Was he wearing his gear?”

  “Yep. That I remember for sure. He even had an ax.”

  “Had you already made the 9-1-1 call?” Aidan wanted to give Duke the benefit of the doubt. Maybe he’d heard it come over dispatch and had been in the neighborhood. He was just the sort who carried his scanner and gear with him wherever he went.

  “Yes. I remember because Duke told me to call 9-1-1 and I told him we already had.”

  Aidan caught Rhys’s eye, then pulled out his phone and called Johnson, who was still outside doing the post control overhaul. Johnson appeared a few minutes later.

  “What’s up?”

  “Was Duke on shift today?” Aidan asked him.

  “No. Why do you ask?”

  “Did he say why he just happened to be here when the fire started?”

  Johnson appeared perplexed at first, but Aidan saw the minute his captain started putting the pieces together. “Ah, crap, it was the same way with the Bun Boy fire, the one where he had to go to the hospital. The little turd. How did I not see this?”

  “None of us did,” Aidan said. Sadly, it wouldn’t be the first time a firefighter had gone to the dark side. A hero complex, a morbid fascination with fire; there were all kinds of motives. “He was there that day when we got into it with Rigsby about confiscating the fireworks, wasn’t he? Perhaps in Duke’s warped mind the fires were a way to set up Rigsby . . . a little vigilante justice.”

  “Who knows?” Johnson said. “The kid’s never been right in the head as far as I’m concerned.”

  “Is he still out there?” Rhys wanted to know.

  “Last I saw, he was helping with the overhaul. You want me to bring him in?”

  “I’d rather bring him over to the police station.” Rhys turned to Aidan. “You ready to do this?”

  “Yep.”

  For the next two hours they interrogated Duke, who, by the time Aidan left, was singing like a canary.

  * * *

  When Aidan came into the room, Dana was propped up in her hospital bed, the oxygen mask gone.

  “Hi.” She broke into a smile. Just seeing him made her feel instantly better.

  He didn’t waste time responding, just crossed the floor in three giant steps and pulled her into his arms. “I’m sorry it took me so long to get here.” He brushed back her hair. “How you feeling?”

  “I’m good.” She tipped her head to the other side of the room. “My parents are here.”

  Aidan turned and nodded his head. “Mr. and Mrs. Calloway.”

  “Did you catch who did this?” her mother asked, sniffling. Her father lightly rested his hand on Betty’s arm.

  “We did,” Aidan said, and told Dana and her parents about Duke and how he’d set the fires to show the world his fi
refighting prowess. “He thought if he was the first one at the scene he could put the fires out quickly and be a hero. So he staked out the buildings to make sure they were empty, lit ’em up, and anonymously made the 9-1-1 calls himself. The problem was, he realized he’d left a boot print at the first scene. In order to throw us off course, he started leaving evidence at the other scenes to implicate John Rigsby. He was at the Rigsby farm the day we confiscated the fireworks and decided John would make the perfect fall guy. The truth was, it almost worked.”

  “Thank goodness you got him.” Betty covered her heart with the palm of her hand and quietly began to sob.

  Dana’s dad stood up. “We should go, Betty, let these young people have some time together so Dana can rest.”

  Betty reluctantly got to her feet, walked to the bed, and planted a soft kiss on Dana’s forehead. “I’ll call you tomorrow, dear. Sleep.”

  Her father came forward and gave Dana a quick pat on the arm. “Good night, bug.”

  “Good night, Dad.”

  When they left, Aidan cocked his brow. “Bug?”

  Dana beamed. “That’s what he used to call me, before Paul . . . he used to say I was cute as a bug in a rug.” She scooted over and patted the space on the bed next to her. “How are you? Tired, I bet.”

  “It was a hell of a full day.” There was a world of implication in that statement. Just this morning, Sue had shown up on their doorstep, and for all Dana knew she was still there. “It was nice your parents came.”

  “We’ve turned a corner,” she said. “They’re trying.”

  “I’m glad. Otherwise, they’d be missing out on an amazing daughter.” He kissed her gently. “Where are the others: Sam and Gia?”

  “They went back to Nugget when my parents got here.”

  “Gia Treadwell, huh? You managed to keep that under wraps.”

  She gave a half shrug. “I signed a confidentiality agreement. The whole town must know by now.”

  “Oh yeah. I think it beat out the fire for front-page news.” He tilted his head and looked at her, really looked. “Why didn’t you answer my calls or return any of my texts today?”

  She turned away, unable to maintain eye contact, afraid to address the big elephant in the room. “I thought we should have some distance.”