by Starling,Amy
Was I some kind of monster?
Just like dad used to be. I could still hear mom's screams as he “punished” her for burning dinner one night...
“You don't pay more attention, you're gonna drop that thing on your neck.”
Carter stared down at me. He was supposed to be spotting me, but seemed more interested in the news on TV.
“That's what I got you for, man. Would you stop looking at that thing and focus here?”
He sighed. “Okay, go.”
My hands curled around the thick metal bar. Then I steadied my arms and slowly, surely, raised the weights above my head.
My muscles burned. I didn't care. Took my mind off things for a while.
I lowered the bar and exhaled.
“One,” counted Carter. “You sure you can handle this? Looks like you're gonna burst blood vessels in your head or something.”
I ignored him and kept on. Normally, this worked great at keeping stress at bay. Today, worries of all sorts swirled in my thoughts.
What did I want out of Madison, Jayce had asked. The sex was great, but not just that. When that part was over, I still wanted to hang out with her.
That's what separated her from the rest – and to me, a guy who cherished variety in his conquests, that was huge.
“So I hear you got something going on with a cute police officer.” Carter chuckled. “Never could've imagined that. I guess opposites really do attract.”
I swore Jayce gossiped more than a teen girl. Still, Carter was the one of us who'd settled down the earliest. Figured he knew something about women.
The bar was suddenly too heavy. I set it back down with his help and dabbed my forehead with a cool towel.
“Hey, man. Has Alicia ever asked you to hit her?”
Carter blinked. “Um... No?”
I draped the towel over my eyes. “Madison asked me to. In the face.”
“Did you do it?”
“She practically begged for it. Who was I to turn her down?” I took a swig from the water bottle. “In the heat of the moment, it was so damn hot. Now I just feel like an asshole.”
The TV blared on about the recent string of “unexplained” fires cutting a path of destruction across Waco and Kingston. Arson, said the reporter, was being considered as a possibility.
“Maybe she's one of those, uh... What do you call 'em? Masochistic types. They get off on pain, being dominated, stuff like that.” He shook his head. “Don't ask me how I know.”
“How do you know?”
“Alicia read some stupid erotic romance novel and decided it'd be sexy if I tied her up with scarves or some crap. Instead, she complained the whole time that her wrists hurt and it freaked her out when she couldn't move.”
Bet if I pulled that with Madison, she'd be in heaven. Different strokes, I guess. Being with her was gonna take some serious tweaking of my technique.
“So it sounds like you actually like this girl,” Carter noted as we hit the locker room. “Is she just some new friend with benefits or what?”
“You know I'd never sleep with a friend. I don't let women get that close to me.” I stood under the cool water of the shower. “But I want to get close with her. Not saying I'm planning on settling down yet, but maybe it wouldn't hurt to try this dating game out.”
“Well, you are thirty years old. Racing, fights, screwing slutty girls, you can't keep doing that stuff forever. I mean, you're a good-looking guy, but looks don't last. Best you find someone you can trust and love regardless.”
I knew that he was right.
Obviously, however, Madison couldn't be that for me. She didn't trust me now, and I doubted she ever could. Probably thought I would always be one step away from destroying myself with one of my famous poor decisions.
All I could hope for with her was a good time until she got sick of my shit. Could be that's why I was still single; because I knew nobody would put up with me.
That realization socked me hard in the gut.
Carter threw me a towel over the wall. “It's good to have a day off, huh? With all the fires popping up recently, feels like we've been working around the clock.”
“If the police would put more effort into capturing the arsonist behind them, we could finally take a real break.”
“Thought your girlfriend was the one leading the hunt?”
“It's all bullshit.” I pulled on clean socks. “The chief, Victor Patterson, also happens to be her ex-boyfriend. He's a crazy misogynist who's got his head rammed up his ass.”
“Oh,” Carter said quietly. “That sucks.”
“Yeah. Despite evidence that those fires are arson, he insists they're all accidents. He put Madison on the case to 'catch' the guy though he keeps claiming he doesn't exist.”
He scoffed. “Obviously, he does exist. Why would he do that? Soon enough, everyone in the city will know the truth. They find out he allowed the culprit to continue burning stuff down, they'll be calling for his badge.”
“Madison thinks he's benefiting from keeping the guy around. I fail to see how, though. If anything, it just makes him look like an incompetent moron.”
“Must be a pretty big benefit, then, if he's willing to risk it.”
Then there was the unnerving matter of that creep hanging around her house. She could handle herself; she had a gun and the training to take out any bad guy.
Even so, the thought of someone hurting her made my blood boil.
Carter and I said goodbye and went our own way. I was off to the grocery store – thought maybe I'd grab some things for dinners since Madison liked the first one so well – when the radio came alive.
I kept a radio in my car that linked up to our station's dispatch, just in case. There had been times when the fire was so bad, they needed folks to come in even on their off days.
Not really wanting to do any work today but still feeling the nasty pull of obligation, I turned the thing up.
“Units, we've got a house fire at nineteen twenty-nine Starlight Lane. A neighbor reported the whole house is already up in flames. All units, respond immediately.”
I almost ignored it, but that hint of desperation in the dispatcher's voice gave me pause. Something wasn't right here.
With my phone out, I searched for the address online. The name came back to me instantly, and my stomach flip-flopped.
Freddy Ventura, the arsonist's next target.
The murderer who had killed five innocent women.
Time seemed to freeze in my car right then. It was my job as a firefighter, and my moral duty, to save people who needed saving. Normally, whether they actually deserved saving or not never factored into my thought process.
But it didn't take a genius to figure this one out. Freddy was definitely better off dead.
“Ten-four, dispatch. We got a truck en route right now.”
I slammed on the gas, made an illegal U-turn, and floored it to the highway. That was the quickest route to the south side of town.
“What are you doing, Brett? Where do you think you're going?”
I had no idea how to answer.
The arsonist could still be there, ready to taunt me, to threaten and tell me to stay away from Madison. I should have called her to let her know.
But right now, it wasn't the guy who set the fire on my mind. It was Freddy.
The legal system had failed those five girls he'd killed. Money got him out of jail when he should have been behind bars for the rest of his miserable life.
The law had no teeth, maybe.
But I did.
Madison would hate me for this, but I didn't care. This could be my only chance to do something good in the world. Something that mattered. If she cared about me one bit, she might understand.
Even if she didn't, I had to do the right thing.
My tires screeched as I pulled off the exit ramp, cutting off several incoming cars in the process. Drivers honked, but instead of flipping them off, I drove faster.
Had to get there f
irst. Had to beat the trucks.
And what would I do when I got there?
I didn't need a GPS to find the asshole's house. There, up on the hill, his mansion was a big orange ball of fire. Dispatch hadn't been exaggerating; it looked like it'd been burning for quite a while.
This was our pyromaniac's doing, no doubt. But how did he pull it off?
Not far off, the sirens howled. I had maybe five minutes, max, before my boys showed up to save the day.
People who lived in mansions often isolated themselves from the rest of the world, where the lower-class plebeians lived. Evidently, Freddy had done the same.
There was one long road up the hill to his house, surrounded on both sides by thick forest. At the very beginning, near the intersection of Starlight Lane and Cockerel Hill, some construction crew had been doing roadwork.
A bulldozer stood empty by the stoplight. Yes, perfect.
I parked across the way and sprinted for it, praying its driver had been dumb enough to leave the keys in the ignition.
No such luck, of course. Could a bulldozer be hot wired? I'd certainly done my fair share of that back in my juvenile-delinquent days.
Then something shiny overhead caught my attention. Dangling from the rear-view mirror was a single key on a bottle-opener keychain.
I grabbed the key, jammed it into the ignition, and turned.
My prayers were answered as the vehicle roared to life. Now what, though?
I was used to driving large trucks, but this was nothing like that. What did that lever do over there? Oh, it made the shovel thing go up and down.
“Gas... Steering wheel... Maybe it's not that different from a typical car,” I reasoned.
I slammed on the pedal; the dozer lurched forward. People at the stoplight were watching me with baffled expressions. Had to hurry this up before someone figured out what was up and called the cops.
Yeah, Madison would not be pleased if she got sent out here to arrest me.
Parking this thing in the center of the narrow road would be enough to block the firetrucks from getting up there. They'd likely go with extinguishers on foot, but by the time they reached it, it would be too late.
Just what I wanted to happen.
Getting the vehicle to move wasn't the hard part. It wasn't easy to turn a machine of this size.
“Come on, you slow piece of crap. Just a bit further.”
My foot slipped; the bulldozer hurtled down the hill before I could force it to stop. I collided head-on with a huge pecan tree, with the shovel taking the full force of the impact.
What followed was a horrible cracking noise. I sat still for a moment, trying to figure out what it was.
Then the pecan tree began to sway and topple.
I launched myself out of the driver's seat into the road just as the tree plummeted to the ground. It fell atop the still-running bulldozer, branches smashing through the windshield where I'd sat only seconds ago.
People in the street stopped to point and take pictures. I got the hell out of there before they figured out it was my doing.
“Well, that didn't go exactly as planned,” I muttered. “But it will do.”
I parked in the drugstore parking lot across the road and watched Freddy's mansion burn. The flames were high and violent, probably fueled by lighter fluid or some sort of chemical starter.
Minutes later, a truck showed up. Several of our guys piled out and gawked at the mess blocking the street.
“Damn it,” yelled Billy. “What is this doing here? No way can we get the truck past this.”
Oliver gazed up the hill at the burning mansion. “Stop wasting time. Grab whatever gear you can carry and get your asses up there. There could be people inside.”
They grabbed their equipment and rushed up the hill. Hopefully, they were too late to save that piece of human trash.
My thoughts were dark then, and I was powerless to stop them. I hoped that Freddy suffered the way he made his victims suffer. Those innocent girls didn't deserve to die. I'd get revenge for them. I would do what the worthless legal system wouldn't.
I watched the fire for a few minutes, then headed off for home.
Chapter 14 - Madison
The arsonist had struck again.
“Sixty-five-year-old Freddy Ventura lost his home yesterday in a blaze thought to be purposely set. He is unharmed but his girlfriend, Melody Carr, suffered minor burns and damages from smoke inhalation.”
I found Jenna watching the news with wide, freaked-out eyes. Oh, no.
“This is the latest in a string of unexplained fires that the Waco Fire Department believes are related,” continued the reporter. “Police investigation is pending.”
I swiped the remote off the couch and shut down the TV. Jenna's gaze shifted to me.
“Mad, did you know about this?”
I'd hoped to shield her from reality, but that couldn't be possible forever. Ugh, if only Victor put more effort into the case, we might have caught the culprit by now.
“We've been... looking into it, yeah.”
She curled her arms around her legs and rocked back and forth. I put a hand on her back in sympathy. It had taken years for her nightmares to cease, and now this?
“Is he going to come after us next?”
“No. That's not going to happen.”
“But how do you know? Just like the guy who burned down our house, and they never caught him. What if it's the same person, and he's coming back to finish the job?”
She was working herself up into a panic. I wanted to fix it, to make her pain go away, but I couldn't.
“It's not the same guy,” I said calmly. “And there's no need to be afraid. It seems the arsonist only goes after criminals, not good people like you.”
She nodded, clearly not believing me.
The ringing phone called me away from her side. Brett?
“I assume you heard the news,” he said when I picked up. “Our man is at it again.”
“Yes, I know. This has to stop.” I went out on the porch where Jenna couldn't hear. “It's one thing for the bastard to go after the bad guys. But when innocent people get put in harm's way...”
He hesitated. “Innocent? Who do you mean?”
“The fire at the Ventura mansion yesterday. He got out, but his girlfriend was trapped inside. She's alive, but didn't escape without injuries.”
“Oh,” he muttered, his voice wavering. “That's awful.”
“I'm going to give Victor a piece of my mind. That idiot's head has been on backwards for long enough.”
Brett didn't reply for a moment. He just breathed heavily into the phone, as if distracted.
Not by another woman, I hoped. Not after the other night, when somehow, against all logic, he'd actually managed to impress me.
A little bit, anyway.
“Hey,” I said, trying to get his attention. “Victor's the chief of police and my shitty ex. Confronting him with being wrong is like signing your own pink slip.”
“Yeah, I suppose it is.”
“You think I should go through with it, or just sit down and shut my mouth like he expects women to do?”
He laughed. “I dunno about him, but I prefer you when you're being demanding. Makes it that much more fun when I finally get to take control in the bedroom.”
“Uh, now is not a good time for that kind of talk.”
Even though I wanted him again, right now. Sleeping with him somehow made me feel as if everything in the world would be right again. Nonsense, yet...
“Listen, Maddie,” he said softly. “You're a total badass. Don't let Victor get under your skin.”
“Thanks, I guess. Um, did you just call me Maddie?”
“I thought it sounded nice. You don't like it?”
I thought for a moment. “Actually, I do.”
One of his firefighter buddies yelled for him to get the truck. He cursed back at them.
“Guess that means our time is up. I'll be heading down
to the Ventura house to inspect. With what evidence we find, shouldn't be hard to prove arson. Maybe that will be enough to get Victor's attention.”
Someone was dialing me on the other line. It made me sad. I didn't want to stop talking to Brett. His voice calmed me, made me believe this mess would be over soon and Jenna and I were going to be okay.
But the call was coming from the station, so I told Brett goodbye and switched over to it.
“Hey, Harvey. What's up?”
“You gotta get down here. Victor's on one of his rampages, and you know how that'll end up if you don't talk sense into him.”
“What, me?”
“He cares about you. Maybe he'll simmer down if you show up.”
I laughed about that on the way to the office. Victor didn't really care about me; he just wasn't accustomed to anyone telling him no.
When I arrived, the station was a hotbed of activity. Phones rang off the hook with folks reporting a “suspicious person” who they thought was the arsonist, and could we please come and check because they were scared?
“There's no covering this up anymore.” Harvey gestured to the TV. “People are paranoid. Afraid of some shadowy figure burning their houses to the ground.”
“Indeed. It seems we have ourselves a serial arsonist after all.”
The room hushed. Victor stood in the doorway, an imposing figure to everybody but me.
“I told you this was happening,” I muttered. “You didn't want to listen. Assured me there was no arsonist. Now this guy is on a witch hunt and everyone in this area knows it.”
The other officers gaped at me. Some whispered. I knew they were talking crap about me, but didn't care anymore.
Victor smiled. “Good to see you could make it, dear. I'd like you and Harvey to step into my office, please.”
I hated when he called me dear. It was condescending and embarrassed me in front of the guys. Still, I kept my mouth shut and followed Harvey.
Victor shut the door with a sigh. “This madman is out of control,” he said. “Since you're incapable of finding the culprit on your own, Madison, I'm assigning Harvey to help you.”
Harvey refused to look at me. Judging by the expression on his face, he'd known this was coming.
I stormed up to Victor. “Incapable? You're the one who told me the arsonist didn't exist. That the fires were accidental. To lay off the investigation.”
