The mass spec probably had to work twice as hard in the icy atmosphere Giada was throwing off. She’d been giving him the cold shoulder ever since he’d decided he had to shut their romance down two days ago.
He wondered yet again whether she was hurt or just pissed. She wouldn’t talk to him even when he tried to broach the subject, so he had no idea.
It’s for the best. It certainly makes it a hell of a lot easier to stay away from her.
Yeah, right.
Logan was still watching her cool, elegant profile when his cell chirped. He plucked it out of its belt clip. “MacRoy.”
“Saddle up, CSI,” drawled Hillsborough fire chief Jordan Gray. “I got a fire for you. Looks suspicious as hell.”
Logan unsnapped one of the pouches on his fatigue pants and pulled out his notebook and pen. “Where?”
Gray rattled off the address, then hung up. Logan promptly called Mark Davis, who helped him work arson scenes. “Hey, Mount? MacRoy. Hillsborough Fire Department just called. They’ve got a fire they want us to check out.”
“Gotcha. Mind giving me a ride? My cop car’s in the shop.”
“Sure. Meet me at mine.” He headed for the lab door.
“Wait up.” Giada strode after him. “I’m going with you.”
Logan gave her a tense nod, though inwardly he groaned. He’d been hoping for a break from the Frost Queen, but evidently she had no intention of letting him off that easily.
It’s your own damn fault, his conscience told him. You know better than to get involved with a mortal.
He told it to shut the hell up.
Mark “Mount” Davis picked up on the tension between Logan and Giada two minutes after getting in the car with them. He promptly tried to fill it like the good Southern boy he was, telling them about the latest adventures of his three-year-old. “That young’un’s a pistol. My mama loves to run out her lower dentures at the grandkids. Tara said, ‘Don’t be so uncouth, Grandma.’ Uncouth! Ha! Now, where the hell did she get a word like that?”
“Bright little girl,” Giada observed.
“Girly girl, too. Loves walking around on her tippy-toes and wearin’ frou-frou dresses. Probably gets it from that Ballet Barbie DVD she watches all the time.” His besotted grin made him look even more boyish. “We’re gonna get her in ballet class. Lori, her mama, studied dance for several years when she was little. Tara takes after Lori a lot, which is a real good thing. Wouldn’t want her to take after me, that’s for damn sure.”
He fell silent, probably contemplating some brilliant imaginary future for his child. Logan turned the Impala cautiously down a narrow gravel road that snaked between the trees, barely wide enough for a fire truck. Several hairpin curves later, they spotted the red and white whirling lights of emergency vehicles parked on the side of the road.
To the right of the trucks, a black plume of smoke writhed sullenly into the air from one of those small brick ranch-style houses so common in the South. Holes gaped in the roof where the firefighters had vented the blaze with their axes. Several thick yellow hoses snaked across the house’s front yard, past a pink Big Wheel and a swing set.
Kids. Giada felt her stomach clench in dread. “We got any fatalities?”
“Don’t know,” Logan said shortly, pulling in behind a massive red fire engine with the words “Hillsborough Volunteer Fire Department” painted in gold across the rear.
Giada got out and went to help the two men unload their equipment from the trunk—half-face cartridge respirators, leather workman’s gloves, a camera, shovels, hard hats, and a bottle of Dawn dishwashing liquid. Logan handed her the pair of fire boots she’d been issued, and she quickly changed into them, all the while praying the civilians had gotten safely out of the house.
At last, booted and equipped, she tromped across the yard at Logan’s heels as he went in search of the fire chief. The sound of glass breaking made her jump, and she looked up to watch a firefighter heave an armchair through the broken window.
“They’re overhauling the house,” Davis grunted.
Giada frowned. “They’re what?”
“Overhauling.” He gave her a smile. “Means throwing out anything that might catch fire in a flare-up later.”
“They call it overhauling. We call it evidence eradication.” Logan watched with disfavor as a set of drapes sailed after the chair. “It’s hell investigating a fire scene. Half the evidence goes up in flames, and the other half gets doused with water and tossed out on the front yard.”
“Hey, CSI!” a hearty voice called. “You gonna catch me a firebug?”
“That’s the plan,” Logan said as a heavyset man in turnout gear strode across the yard toward them. Balding and ruddy-faced, Jordan Gray had an impressive belly and bloodshot hazel eyes. Logan introduced Giada, who presented her hand for a firm shake.
After giving Davis a slap on the shoulder, Gray sobered, his soot-smeared face going grim. “If this ain’t arson, I’ll eat my boots. Bastard wasn’t subtle about it, neither. Looks like multiple points of origin in the kitchen.”
“Anybody at home?”
“No, thank the good Lord. Neighbors said the family just left for Disney World.” He sighed. “Only good news in this whole mess. I called the daddy’s cell, told them they just lost damn near everything they got. They’re on their way back.”
“Who called it in?”
“Passerby saw the smoke. Called on his cell.”
“Passerby, my ass.” Logan snorted. “There is nothing on this road but this house. Ten bucks says Dispatch talked to the arsonist.”
“I wouldn’t take that bet. I thought the same thing when I got out here.”
Logan looked over the house with grim eyes. “Homeowner pissed anybody off lately?”
“Not that he knows of.” Gray scratched his sooty forehead. “Crossed my mind to wonder if he or the wife’s got something goin’ with somebody on the side.”
“A jealous somebody? Could be.” Logan put his fire helmet on and gestured for the others to do the same. “Noticed there’s a natural gas hookup on the side of the house. You turn it off?”
The chief snorted. “Do I look like a fuckin’ idiot to you? I got no desire to get my fat ass blown into orbit. First thing we did when we rolled up was turn off the power and turn off the gas.”
“Good to hear. Can we get started?”
“Yeah, it’s out, mostly. Wet as hell in there, though.” Gray shook his head. “Sure hope you find something the detectives can use to catch this fucker. I don’t need no firebug in my town.”
“You and me both.” Logan nodded at Giada and Davis, and all three started toward the house.
Comfortably settled on a camouflaged deer stand midway up a leafy oak, Terrence watched through his binocs as MacRoy led the blonde and one of his fellow arson techs into the house.
A smile on his face, Terrence pulled out a cell phone and dialed.
This’ll rock your world, MacRoy.
On the opposite side of the house, deep in the stand of thick trees that surrounded it, an oval of air sparked and wavered, as if with swirling heat.
Smoke hopped through the cat-sized gate and sniffed the air. He’d spent the last week trailing around after Giada and Logan, determined that if anyone took another shot at them, he’d be there to do something about it.
He started toward the fire scene, soundless and dark as a shadow moving over the leaves. Hope the bad guy is still hanging around. I’m going to give that bastard a very ugly surprise.
With the help of one of the firefighters, Logan, Giada, and Mount Davis washed their boots down in a bucket with the Dawn detergent.
“The idea is to avoid tracking petroleum products onto the scene,” Logan explained when Giada questioned him about it.
She frowned. “But there’ve been a dozen firefighters wandering in and out of that house. God knows what they’ve tracked in.”
“They’re them. We’re us. And we have to contend with defense attorn
eys looking for any excuse to tell a jury we’re sloppy.”
“You know why lawyers wear ties?” Davis asked the Hillsborough firefighter, a thin man whose face was seared red by radiant heat.
“Nope.”
Deadpan, Davis explained, “Keeps the foreskin from rolling up over their heads.”
Logan nodded. “Be hard to bullshit a jury otherwise.”
A wicked light sparked in Davis’s eyes. “They’d be all, ‘Ummmph! Ummmph!’ ”
“We can only fantasize.”
As the firefighter guffawed, Giada eyed the three. “You guys are bent.”
Logan grinned and started up the brick steps. “It’s taken you this long to notice?”
The door had been kicked open and hung half-off its hinges. The air was heavy with the greasy, acrid scent of smoke and the reek of half-burned upholstery. Coughing, Giada stared around cautiously as she followed the men inside. The place was dark, the only light coming through the broken windows. The walls were black with soot, and the floor was piled with tattered pink insulation and chunks of board covered in something white and slimy. The carpet squelched underfoot, so soaked she wondered how it would ever dry.
“What the heck is all this stuff?” She played her flashlight over a pile as she stepped across it.
“They call it ‘fall down.’ ” Logan caught her elbow to help her across the pile. “Chunks of the ceiling. Firefighters cut a hole in the roof to douse the fire from above. All that water hits the wallboard, and it just crumbles into chunks of wet gypsum.”
Looking up, Giada realized she could see the house’s rafters. Daylight streamed through a ragged hole in the roof. “They don’t fool around, do they?”
“Nope. We’ll start in the kitchen. Watch your step. Floor might not be solid.”
Carrying their gear, the three tromped across the piles of fall down, past a couch burned down to its metal springs and wooden frame. The area around it was seared black.
“Not liking that couch,” Davis said to Logan. “Looks like a point of origin to me.”
Giada studied it, wondering what had led him to that conclusion. “Why?”
“Fire does not burn downward,” Logan explained. “The only way you get a low burn—like that couch—is if the blaze started there or something burning falls on it. It’s an interior wall, so no burning curtains. Ceiling could have caught, but there’d be more searing on the fall down, and that looks like it was caused by water damage.”
She fell silent, digesting that, as they climbed over the debris and headed into the kitchen.
The damage there was extensive—cabinets burned to carbonized shells of wood, table and chairs blackened. A coat of greasy soot covered every surviving surface, and fall down littered the floor with slimy piles of insulation and wallboard.
Logan surveyed the devastation and grunted. “Yeah, he got busy in here. Let’s take a look at the rest.”
They headed back through the living room and into a short, blackened hallway. Giada noticed lighter swirls through the soot, then a handprint planted in the middle of the wall. She nodded at the marks. “Firefighters?”
“Yeah.” Mount gave her an approving smile. “During a fire, the whole house is pitch-black with smoke. Only way you know where you are is to find a wall and follow it.”
She frowned. “Doesn’t the fire provide some light?”
Logan shook his head. “Not once the smoke gets thick enough. Inside a burning house is a damned scary place to be, even with a breathing pack and turnout gear.”
Which is saying something, Giada thought. Especially coming from a man whose idea of a good time involves acid and high explosives.
They walked through an open door. In contrast to the chaos in the rest of the house, the room beyond was almost completely undamaged. A frilly pink canopied bed occupied one side of the room, under a pile of stuffed animals. A child-sized pink flowered couch dominated the other end, next to shelves crammed with picture books. Dolls peeked from a plastic toy box, all big eyes and tangled polyester hair.
Giada wandered over to examine the couch. A Tickle Me Elmo sat there in lone splendor, looking oddly mournful. She winced, imagining what would have happened if the little owner of all these toys had been home.
“Why is there no damage—” She stopped, putting the evidence together. “The door was closed.”
“Exactly.” Logan nodded at a black palm print on the cream-painted wall. “Firefighter opened the door and came in hunting a window to vent the smoke through. It was still pitch-black in here, which was why he followed the wall.”
“So since there was no fire at this end, the firefighters didn’t bother venting the roof.”
“Right. No holes, no water, no fall down.”
They found the bedroom across the hall just as undamaged, though the reek of smoke was everywhere. The homeowners would have a heck of a time ridding their surviving belongings of the stink.
Giada’s gaze fell on a framed photograph sitting on a gleaming cherry bureau. Compelled, she moved over to study it. The family of three was achingly young, dressed in their Sunday best for the portrait. The father had a long, raw-boned face and short-cropped blond hair. One big-knuckled hand rested on the shoulder of his wife, who smiled at the camera, her little daughter in her arms. Like her husband, she was blond, but her features had a delicate prettiness that was echoed in her daughter. The little girl grinned in pure joy from the safety of her mother’s arms.
Giada winced. Just a day ago, they’d walked through this house, had breakfast in the kitchen, watched cartoons in the living room. She could almost see the little girl dancing at the thought of meeting Mickey Mouse.
Instead they were coming home to blackened chaos. All because of some arsonist who’d wanted to see their house go up in flames.
Assuming it wasn’t more sinister than that.
Giada frowned, suddenly uneasy. Could this be connected to the attempts on Logan? An arson fire, designed to draw him out, set him up. Kill him.
Her stomach twisted into a knot. Whether or not he was a player with a taste for seducing coworkers, he didn’t deserve to die at the hands of some assassin with a grudge against the Magekind.
Damned if that would happen on her watch.
They returned to the kitchen to start clearing away the fall down so they could see whether there was any sign of pour patterns on the floor—trails of accelerant leading to a doorway, ignited by a tossed match. Giada shoveled through her assigned pile of debris, listening absently as the men talked points of origin. Even as she worked, she scanned with her magic, searching for psychic impressions left by the arsonist.
And sensed absolutely nothing.
Giada frowned, puzzled. She should have found something, some mental shadow, even during the day. Especially with Morgana’s necklace amplifying her powers. But there was nothing.
Which strongly hinted that either the arsonist wasn’t the assassin she was hunting—or he was the same guy, and had powers of his own, enough to block her scan.
But how? The Magekind had just fought a war to drive all the evil magic users from the planet. The magical barrier that kept out the Dark Ones had been re-erected so the aliens could never return.
Could be a Sidhe criminal, though. King Llyr had killed his vicious brother, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t some new magical player.
Probably not a Dire Wolf, though. Merlin’s werewolf creations didn’t have the ability to work spells beyond shape-shifting. Besides, they were good guys, created to keep the Magekind from going rogue.
Could be a dragon. A lot of them don’t much like humans . . .
A breeze blew through the kitchen door, bringing a whiff of petrochemicals. She frowned. “Do you smell gas?”
Logan looked around at her, a line forming between his thick brows as he sniffed. “Yeah, I do.”
“Thought the chief said he’d had the gas turned off.” Davis wiped a bead of sweat from his temple with a gloved hand, leaving a s
treak of soot.
“I think I’ll check it again.” Logan rested his shovel against the blackened wall and headed out the kitchen door that had been half-splintered by a fireman’s axe. He returned a few minutes later, looking unhappy. “Chief’s right. Valve was shut off.”
Maybe, but Giada still smelled an unmistakable gas reek, even through the lingering odor of smoke. She looked down at her shovel to hide her concentration as she scanned with her magic once more.
The blast lifted the roof right off the house, blowing out the last of the glass and lighting up the twilight with a hellish glow.
Shit! Giada’s stomach wrenched in horror. Another booby trap. The bastard must have sabotaged the gas shutoff. Which meant he was probably getting ready to trigger some kind of incendiary device that would blow all three of them right to hell.
NINE
Giada grabbed for the natural gas line with her magic. Just as she’d suspected, the assassin had disabled the needle inside the valve, preventing it from closing off the flow of gas. Yet the valve control would still turn, so Logan and the firefighters would have no way of knowing it had been sabotaged.
Conjuring a vise of magical force, Giada clamped the line closed. A second spell sent a cold wind blowing under the house, carrying away the gas that had been building under the house’s foundation.
A scan found the incendiary taped to one of the house’s concrete supports. It was a simple enough device, designed to produce a single spark. Just enough to detonate the gas.
If she’d been a couple of minutes later finding it . . .
Giada leaned against her shovel, sick and nauseated from the close call.
“Hey, you okay?” Logan asked, crouching beside her, concern in his dark eyes. “You look pale.”
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