Fire Angel

by Susanne Matthews

  Jake nodded and did as he was told, removing everything but his underwear, sitting there shivering with a cold that affected not only his body but filled his heart. When Glen finished wiping him down, he still stunk, but at least he wasn’t ready to go up in flames.

  “What about Alexis and Jackson?” he asked, pointing to where the other two ambulances had been parked. “Did they strip them down, too?” Alexis hated the cold, but maybe she hadn’t felt it.

  Glen shook his head. “They put them inside body bags, leaving only their faces exposed. The ER staff will strip them in the ambulance bay when they get there. Come on, let’s get you inside where it’s warmer.”

  He helped him into the ambulance and over to the stretcher. Jake looked up and saw Ev and Andrew Shillingham approaching. Where had the doctor come from? How long had he been here?

  “I won’t kid you, Jake; she’s unconscious, but alive,” Andrew said. “She’s asthmatic, and the dust from the ceiling and the thick smoke have done a number on her breathing. She took a heavy blow to the head; the main beam came down on her and dented her hard hat. She’d have been dead for sure without it, but the door frame protected most of her body. If she pulls through, she’ll be sore for a while.”

  “What do you mean, if,” Jake asked, his heart beating double time.

  “Calm down. I can’t be sure how bad her internal injuries are. They’ll do X-rays and scans at the hospital.” He shook his head. “I need to get back to the clinic. I’ve contacted my friends at MIT, and they’ll have the leg ready to send by the end of the week. It’ll take that long before you can wear it anyway, but the ER doctor will make that call. I can check on you both later if you like.”

  Jake nodded, not sure whether he could trust the man who’d been his doctor and friend.

  “I’ve put Alexis into protective custody,” Ev said, watching Andrew move toward his vehicle—not a black SUV but a dark blue sedan.

  He looked up and down the street. Where was the one he’d seen earlier?

  “Instead of going to the main hospital, they’re taking her to Vaca Valley,” the chief continued. “It’s a smaller facility, easier to guard. If they have to, they’ll airlift her elsewhere. She’ll be registered under an alias, too. The ambulance has orders to drive as if they were going to the main site, but will veer away from that route once they’re sure they haven’t been followed. She’ll be under twenty-four-hour guard. Pierre and Tomkins have offered to take the first shift. The medics will take you there, too. No one gets in to see her without your say-so. I’ve called her uncle. I know things aren’t great between them, but he’s her only living relative.”

  Jake understood why a family member, even a distant one, would have to be there. He hoped it wouldn’t come to that. There had been enough deaths attributed to this killer.

  “I’ll call her boss. Go to the hospital. I’ll check in with you as soon as I can. I’ve called Minette; she knows that you’re a little banged-up but otherwise okay. She’ll get a bag together for you and for Alexis. She and Mia will leave Sunday as planned. The security guys you hired will stay on at the inn.” Ev glanced at the fire. “This will burn all day. Let’s hope the wind doesn’t get any worse.”

  Jake agreed and lay back on the stretcher.

  “Are you ready?” Glen asked.

  He nodded. His head hurt like the dickens, but the pain wasn’t anywhere near as severe as the one in his heart.

  “Oh, I found this in your coat pocket.” The paramedic handed him the baggy with the butts in it.

  “Ev, have the lab test these. Maybe we’ll get lucky.”

  Ev reached for the baggy and handed it to Matt.

  “I’ll get right on it,” the man said.

  Jake turned to the men lifting him into the ambulance. “Do me a favor. Don’t use the siren. I have a bitch of a headache.”

  Before the door closed, Jake took one last look at the fire. The Fire Angel was here now. He had to be. It was no coincidence that Alexis had been in the house when the ceiling had come down. Somehow the killer had managed to tamper with it during the storm, which meant that it was someone who had been able to get around under those driving conditions. Andrew Shillingham had a snowmobile as did many others in the community and he’d also been out at the inn, as had Frank and half a dozen others who were part of the Good Samaritan crew. He remembered what Alexis had said about Frank being too helpful.

  Who had shoveled the walk? He would call Matt from the hospital and have him question the neighbors. Someone had to have seen something this time. Crap! His cellphone was still in the car.

  Closing his eyes, he tried to figure out what had happened. How had he known they would be here today? How had he rigged the ceiling? It could have been a dead man switch triggered to go off if someone entered the kitchen. Alexis had said something when he was bringing in her coffee. Something about a clicking sound? The horror of that thought slammed him in the chest.

  My God! The ceiling had collapsed after he had elbowed the door wide open. Had it been rigged to collapse all along waiting for someone to open the door wide enough to set it off? Could he have planned to stop her from going inside in the first place? If that was true, he’d been the one to drop the ceiling on her.

  But the fire had started later. He would never forget that tune. The “William Tell Overture,” better known as the “Theme from the Lone Ranger,” was the music that had heralded the first blast. Why had he waited so long? If he’d set it off sooner, Alexis, Jackson, himself, and who knew who else would be dead.

  The smell of gasoline from his hair and body was strong in the back of the ambulance, nauseatingly so. Glen moved as far away from him as he could get. Poor guy, the fumes were getting to him, and Jake was used to them. He needed a shower, several of them in fact.

  “I don’t usually wear this much cologne,” he joked.

  Glen laughed. “I can understand why.”

  The vehicle came to a stop inside the ambulance bay and the paramedic quickly opened the door. The nurse was waiting with a wheelchair.

  “Hello, I’m Marla Daniels, remember me? Dr. Jasper is in with the woman in custody. Let’s get you cleaned and fixed up, and I’ll bring you up to her.”

  Two men unloaded the stretcher and helped him move from it to the chair.

  “I hope everything works out, Jake,” Glen said, before moving away to clean and disinfect the ambulance.

  Marla helped him transfer from the wheelchair to the shower stall and remove the scrubs Glen had given him and his underwear. It shouldn’t bother him to be naked in front of the nurse—it certainly wasn’t the first time someone he knew had seen him au naturel—but it did.

  “Shampoo and soap are over there,” Marla said, her tone professional. “If you need help, holler. I’ll be outside.”

  When Jake was satisfied that he no longer smelled like a service station, he rang the buzzer. As Marla had promised, she appeared with towels and a fresh hospital gown.

  “I’ll get you some pants as soon as the doctor finishes with you.” Marla’s face sobered. “I saw your interview on TV earlier. I have family in Paradise. Is someone local really doing this? So many have died already. Did he try to kill you guys today?”

  Jake shook his head. “I’m sorry, Marla. I can’t answer that.”

  “You just did. You always were a lousy liar.” She pushed the wheelchair into a small room. “The doctor will be with you shortly.”

  Jake nodded. All he wanted was a quick patch job so that he could be near Alexis again. She had to be okay. He would never be able to get over the guilt if she wasn’t.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “How is Jackson?” Jake asked Ev as soon as he entered the room where he’d been sitting, waiting for Alexis. They were still examining her.

  “His left leg is badly broken in two places. In addition, he has a fractured pelvis and his right shoulder was dislocated. He’ll be out of work for a while, but he’ll be fine. He’s in surgery right now. The
media feeding frenzy has started. So far, our only comment is that both you and Alexis are in serious condition.”

  Jake paled and turned to him, “But she’s fine, right?”

  “As far as I know,” Ev admitted. “The doctor should be here soon.”

  On cue, a tall, balding man in his early-forties wearing OR scrubs entered the room.

  “Chief Lewis?”

  “That’s me.”

  “”I’m Dr. Lee. The young lady in custody should be here soon. I understand she’ll be sharing a room with Mr. McKenzie.”

  “It’s Lieutenant McKenzie,” Jake corrected. His official rank carried more weight than being a civilian would. “But yes. That’s right.”

  The doctor nodded. “I’ve had a look at the ER report. The cut on your head didn’t need stitches and it’s unlikely that you have a concussion, but since you’re staying with us, we’ll monitor it in case. While the slash on your leg is quite high up, there’s too much damage and swelling to the stump for you to strap on another prosthesis just yet. I was on the phone with Andrew Shillingham. We can’t risk infection getting into the wound, and I’m sure you don’t want to lose any more of it than you have. Give it a few days. If there’s no swelling, you can try wearing it again on the weekend.” He paused. “You do have another one?”

  “I do,” Jake said. “But I’ve got a biometric one on the way, too. How is A—your other patient?” He’d almost said her name.

  “I’ve sedated her and we’ll keep her that way for at least twenty-four hours. The helmet did its job, but she has a two-inch laceration on the top of her head where the material cut her. We’ve stitched it, but she will have a scar at the hairline. Despite the trouble she’s had breathing, her lungs are good, but we’ll continue administering oxygen as an additional precaution. She’s got a lot of minor cuts and contusions, badly bruised ribs, but nothing’s broken, and there are no internal injuries. She’ll be sore when she wakes up, but from what I’ve heard, she’s damn lucky to be alive.”

  Jake nodded. The longer she was out of commission, the longer it would take to find the killer, and they had less than twenty-five days to go.

  “Thanks, Doc.” He turned to Ev. “Did you bring my cellphone?”

  “Your phone wasn’t in your truck and the truck wasn’t locked. Some kid probably saw it lying there during all the excitement and walked off with it. Since it has GPS, I’ll have the boys set up a trace as soon as I get back to the station.”

  “Great,” Jake sighed. What else could go wrong? “Hand me yours? I want Matt to start canvassing the neighborhood to find out who shoveled that driveway. By the way, I’m pretty damn sure I’m the one who brought the roof down on her.”

  * * *

  The next morning, Jake, dressed in blue pajamas, sat in the sleeper chair beside the bed where he had spent the night. Two OPP officers stood guard outside. This morning, Pierre and Tomkins had returned to their posts since not having them at work might raise suspicion.

  Listed as Jane Smith, absolutely no information was to be given out to anyone about her. All calls were to be referred to him. By now, Fire Angel probably knew she wasn’t at the primary trauma site. He would be combing the area looking for her. The only time Jake intended to leave her side was to allow the doctors and nurses to tend to her. As long as she was here, so was he.

  On the table beside him were the remnants of the breakfast he’d been given. Next to the tray sat the report and death certificate Everett had brought in earlier and a new cell phone. Whoever had taken his was smart enough to disable the GPS. The techs were correlating cell signals in the area to see if they could identify the phone that had made the call detonating the pipe bomb in the house. The lab had worked through the night, and all of the samples that Alexis had collected had been examined and categorized.

  Jake glanced at the report he’d requested on Andrew Shillingham. There had been no full moon the night his daughter had died, and those responsible had been prosecuted to the full extent of the law. They wouldn’t be getting out of jail any time soon, which meant he probably had no reason to go after Slaney.

  The doctor had traded in his black SUV in August, and now drove a midnight blue Mercedes. Ev had mentioned that Lynette had filed a report with a license plate that turned out to be registered to Slaney. Had that been the one he’d seen outside the house? If they found that SUV, they would find Fire Angel.

  The Children’s Hospital in Ottawa confirmed that Andrew had been in the city the week before Alexis had arrived, just as he’d said. Jake should be happy his friend had been cleared, but he was back to square one with no viable suspect.

  The rest of the report was equally depressing. Neither the electrician nor the Temagami plumber had been in town since August; the electrician was in BC, and the plumber had moved to the other side of the province. The Temagami youths who’d been into trapping and taxidermy in their youths were all dead ends as well.

  Jake reached for the notebook Alexis kept in her kit, the one where she tracked her thoughts and theories, as well as the evidence she collected. He shook his head. He’d seen chicken scratch that made more sense. The answer was in here, but without her to decipher the notes, they were stymied. He had theories, but he needed Alexis’s insight. Getting rid of her seemed to have become the killer’s mission, and he appeared ready to do whatever it took to do it.

  How would Alexis react when she learned that he’d unwittingly dropped the ceiling on her?

  He finished the last of his toast and washed it down with the glass of milk that he’d requested. His leg still ached and one of the nurses applied a lidocaine cream to the stump to numb it and ease the soreness. He had given him a couple of extra-strength analgesic tablets. It wouldn’t stop all of his discomfort, but it would make it a bit more bearable.

  The door to the room swung open.

  “Morning, Jake,” Nick Pruett said. “How is she today?” The man looked as if he hadn’t slept all night.

  “They say she’s resting comfortably,” he answered.

  It was hard to tell with the forest of machines and tubes surrounding her. The constant beeping and the hiss of oxygen had become familiar sounds.

  Jake looked at Alexis, her face pale against the deep blue pillow case. Her head had been stitched, a tiny section shaved for the process, and the bruises on her face were an angry blue, but she was still the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen. He turned to her uncle.

  “Can you stay with her while I go and get myself cleaned up? I know there are two guys out in the hall, but ... I can still smell the gas in my hair.”

  “Go, do what you have to do. I’ll watch over her. I won’t let anyone hurt her again,” he vowed. “She’s had enough monsters in her life to deal with, and I was one of them.”

  He pulled up the chair on the opposite side of the bed. “If my Lord is as forgiving as I believe him to be, then perhaps He’ll listen to this sinner’s prayers.”

  Jake got up on his crutches and moved to the bathroom. He turned around to look at Alexis and was struck by the tears rolling down her uncle’s cheeks. He held her hand, his eyes closed, lost in urgent prayer.

  Alcohol changed people; it often made them do terrible things even to the ones they loved. Nick would regret his actions for the rest of his life. There had been no alcohol involved yesterday. Would he ever be able to forgive himself?

  ***

  Jake sat next to the bed in the chair he’d occupied most of the last two days. Now that information was coming in, it was an almost steady stream. After examining Alexis, the doctor had opted to keep her sedated one more day for the sake of her lungs and her ribs.

  Nick had been here again this morning, giving Jake time to shower and change. Unexpectedly, Dave had arrived yesterday, two weeks earlier than Minette had expected him, and given the situation, Min had refused to leave. In fact, his parents would be arriving any day, too. Like Alexis, they weren’t going to allow the Fire Angel to scare them away.

&n
bsp; The forensic team, under the watchful eye of Captain Peters himself, had just confirmed all of Alexis’s suspicions. As impossible as it sounded, the man could read her writing. Careful examination of the doors at Providence House had revealed the presence of super glue, just as she’d said it would. They had begun a thorough inspection of the similarities in the fires. Despite the means of ignition, the parallels were amazing. As Alexis had said, he’d left a piece of himself at each scene.

  When Matt went door to door, one of the neighbors admitted seeing a firefighter in full gear go in and out of the semi-detached house during the storm. He’d often carried materials in with him, but she’d assumed he’d been making the house safe.

  Discovering the call that set off the pipe bomb that started the fire had come from his missing cellphone was a low blow. It infuriated him to think that the creep had taken it right under their noses. If this guy wasn’t a manidoo, he should be. The DNA on the samples that were not too degraded to test had yet to come back. DNA testing took time—too damn much time.

  The waxy residue had come from a vanilla scented paraffin wax candle, and Lynette was checking with the craft stores and candle shops, not only in Paradise but within a hundred-mile range. As Alexis had predicted, there’d been no Rohypnol used at Providence House, but the bikers had cannabis in their systems—not surprising since they’d given the teenaged boys the joints in the first place.

  He leaned forward and took her hand. She was as pale and as vulnerable today as she had been twenty years ago. In spite of everything, Ev maintained he wasn’t to blame for her current condition. That might be true on one level, but he couldn’t forget the fact that he’d opened that door or that his phone had started the fire.