Dead Man District

by Julie Miller

  But he hated the idea that this guy had a link to Corie. What were the odds of another one of their neighbors showing up at the place where she worked? Of that same guy knowing Harve and Jordan? Of that man living in the apartment directly below hers?

  “Ow.”

  For one fuzzy moment, Matt wondered at the change he saw in Corie’s eyes. They were darker. Her pale brows were arched with a question.

  Too late, he realized how much his grip had tightened and quickly released her hand. “Sorry.”

  “You didn’t hurt me,” she assured him. “But you went away somewhere. I’d say ‘penny for your thoughts,’ although I’m worried they’re not good ones. Is this the spooky quiet side of you that you mentioned?”

  His phone dinged with another text from Cole.

  Without last names, it will take longer to ID Harve and Jordan. A buddy of mine, Sawyer Kincaid, just walked over from his desk and asked if I knew you. Said you got rid of the riffraff at his wife’s restaurant. You’re not thinking of switching sides and becoming a cop, are you? :)

  I’ve attached Caldwell’s license photo.

  If you need anything else, let me know.

  Stay safe.

  He thanked his uncle and pulled up the photo. Although the man looked vaguely familiar, Matt couldn’t place Jeff Caldwell as anyone he’d seen at their apartment building.

  And though brown hair and brown eyes like his own were a fairly unremarkable look, he knew he’d seen this guy. But where? Matt splayed his thumb and forefinger across the screen, enlarging the picture to look for anything uniquely discernible, like a scar or crooked teeth. Beyond a spatter of brown freckles across his cheeks, he saw nothing to make this guy stand out in a crowd.

  “Matt?” Now Corie’s hands were both on top of the table, scooting aside their coffee mugs and reaching across to grasp his. “What’s wrong? You’re scaring me a little.”

  Right. This was the part where he usually lost the woman he was interested in—when he got locked up inside his head and failed to communicate.

  But as he struggled to find the right words to say what was necessary without alarming her, Corie picked up his phone and flipped it over, hiding the screen. Her skin blanched as she sneaked a panicked glance at Evan. As soon as she saw her son was distracted, she leaned across the table, dropping her voice to a whisper. “Why do you have a picture of Kenny?” she whispered.

  “Your ex?”

  And just like that, all the niggling bits of information swimming through his brain made sense. It took every ounce of strength Matt possessed not to leap across the table and pull Corie and Evan into his arms.

  He picked up his phone, turning the image away from Evan and texting the information to his uncle. “His driver’s license says Jeff Caldwell. This man is Kenny Norwell?”

  “Yes. He’s gained some weight and his hairline’s receding a little, but that’s him. Now answer my question. Why do you have that picture?” He followed the muscles contracting down her long, pale throat as she swallowed hard. “Spooky quiet isn’t going to cut it tonight, Matt Taylor. I’ve worked hard to erase that man from my life. You need to talk to me.”

  Matt’s gaze swiveled around the restaurant and landed on the reflections of the three of them in the window. He silently cursed that he couldn’t see much beyond the glass besides traffic lights and streetlamps. How was he supposed to protect this family from a threat he couldn’t see? “Have you seen him around any of the places you frequent? Here? Home? School?”

  “No. Have you?”

  He glanced across the table at Evan. “Maybe we shouldn’t discuss this here.”

  She pulled her hands up inside the cuffs of her sweater and hugged her arms around her waist. Painfully aware of not wanting to alarm her son, Corie turned slightly in her seat. Although little more than a whisper, her tone was precise. “Ten words or less, Taylor. Tell me something before I get scared completely out of my mind.”

  He heard the sound of breaking glass in the distance and wondered if that was his hopes for a relationship with Corie crashing and burning.

  “He owns the car Harve and Jordy drove off in.”

  For a moment, he thought she was going to pass out, there was so little color on her face. Matt reached clear across the table to cup her alarmingly cool cheek.

  “Breathe, sweetheart. I’m not sure what’s going on yet. But I will not let him hurt you.”

  Corie started to shake her head, her disbelief in his vow or his ability to make good on it evident in her hopeless expression. But then Evan suddenly rocketed to his feet, standing on the seat beside her, and her indomitable maternal instinct kicked in. “Whoa, sweetie. What are you doing?”

  Ignoring her hands at his waist, Evan pressed his face to the glass, peering into the night. “Matt? Is that your truck?”

  And then Matt realized he’d heard it, too. The breaking glass hadn’t been in the restaurant or his imagination.

  He spotted the flames shooting up from the windshield of his truck. Someone nearby was screaming. Others ran, both toward and away from the fire. He heard the squeal of tires spinning on the icy pavement, speeding in place until they found traction.

  “Call 9-1-1.” Matt grabbed his coat and rushed out the front door and into the street to deal with the blaze. “KCFD!” he shouted more than once, ordering pedestrians and vehicles out of harm’s way as they slowed or stopped completely to watch the glowing liquid and the flames it carried with it spread across the hood and plop onto the pavement like a lava flow. He caught a glimpse of a white van racing away in the opposite direction as he vaulted into the back of his truck and pulled the fire extinguisher from the steel storage box there.

  From his higher vantage point, he quickly assessed the potential hazards of the situation. The broken whiskey bottle and charred rag on the ground indicated someone had tossed an old-fashioned Molotov cocktail at his truck. Possibly the driver of the white van. Or Jeff Caldwell/Kenny Norwell or whatever he wanted to call himself. But he didn’t see any dark muscle car racing away from the scene. Maybe Harve and Jordan had come back to exact revenge for the public humiliation of being bested in a one-sided fight.

  And maybe he needed to be the firefighter he was and think about preventing personal injury or property damage. The vehicles were parked tightly together here. And traffic was becoming a slow bumper-to-bumper parade as concerts at bars or games on TV ended, and the patrons who’d been enjoying them left for home or their next entertainment destination. A lot of gas tanks in a confined space was a chain reaction fire waiting to happen. And if that flammable, tar-like substance got on anyone’s clothes or skin, the slow-burning gelatin would be difficult to wash away, leaving horrible, painful wounds.

  “Feel free to call 9-1-1,” Matt yelled to the group of young twentysomethings circling closer, filming the fire. “Stay back!”

  Traffic was backing up into the next intersection now, as drivers were too curious or frightened to pay attention to where they were going. If he didn’t get control of this situation fast, he’d have a traffic accident to deal with, too.

  Matt jumped down from the bed of his truck, shielded his face from the worst of the slowly expanding flames and laid down a layer of foam over his windshield and hood. While the driver parked in front of him thankfully arrived and moved his car out of harm’s way, Matt continued to spray the extinguisher. But he was running out of juice fast because the viscous goop that was clearly the arsonist’s weapon of choice was spreading faster than he could contain it.

  Then he felt a hand at the small of his back. “Where should I spray this?”

  What the hell? Matt whirled around on Corie. “Get back inside!” Instinctively, he circled an arm around her waist and walked her back toward the diner. Then he snatched her off her feet and spun her out of harm’s way as a car swerved around them. She hadn’t even stopped to put on a c
oat or gloves. “What are you doing here?”

  She twisted out of his grasp and held up the small fire extinguisher she’d brought from the diner. “Enough atonement. You need help.”

  “You think this is about me needing to be a hero?” Her cheeks were chapped with the cold, and the only thing she had on over her polyester uniform was that navy-blue cardigan. “You’ll freeze out here.”

  She completely ignored his arguments. “I called 9-1-1. They said they’d be here in a matter of minutes.”

  Shouts and honking from vehicles down the road who couldn’t see what was happening this far up the road forced them to raise their voices. “What about Evan?”

  “Melissa is with him. At least let me divert traffic.”

  “It’s dangerous out here. And I’m not just talking about the fire.”

  “You can’t face Kenny alone,” she warned him, her gaze boldly searching his for understanding.

  So, she thought her ex was responsible for this fire, too. She wasn’t running or hiding. She was here to fight.

  He shouldn’t be turned on by that.

  Matt tunneled his fingers into the silky hair at the base of her ponytail and dipped his head to capture her mouth in a quick kiss. Gratitude and understanding and something far more primal burned between them in the short seconds of that kiss. Then he peeled off his coat and draped it around her shoulders, taking the second extinguisher from her while she slid her arms into the sleeves.

  “I’ll handle traffic.” He was tall enough to be seen over several vehicles down the road. He pointed to the flames dripping beside his front tire and pooling against the curb. “Lay down some foam along the edge of the sidewalk. We can’t let this spread beyond my truck. Stay where I can see you. The guy who started this fire could still be part of this crowd somewhere. Evan needs you.”

  “And I need you.” With a nod, Corie went to work. “Be careful.”

  She was soon joined by two men who’d brought fire extinguishers from one of the local businesses. Matt heard her repeating his orders, directing the other volunteers as he stepped into traffic and warned the next vehicle to slow down and give the burning truck a wide berth. He directed the oncoming cars into a single lane and urged the eastbound vehicles to cross the yellow line and keep moving.

  As soon as he saw the B shift crew from Firehouse 13 turn the corner, Matt exhaled a sigh of relief. Once the police arrived and took over traffic duty, he jogged forward to meet the team and give them a sit-rep. One of them threw a bunker coat around his shoulders, identifying him as the firefighter he was. He shooed away the medic who wanted to check him for injuries and directed her to the civilian volunteers who’d helped them fight the fire. The threat to his truck had been neutralized, but he was more concerned about the puddles of incendiary goo still burning inside the perimeter Corie and the two volunteers had laid down before running out of suppressant foam. They’d need a hazmat unit to clean up whatever chemical had been inside the bottle. And they’d need to secure a sample to send to the crime lab to compare to the samples from the other fires.

  As a police officer approached him to take his statement, Matt turned to watch Corie huddling inside his coat, watching his crewmates go to work. There was little more than that wheat-colored ponytail showing above the collar. Every cell in his body wanted to go to her, but he needed to make a full report before the perp or perps went to ground and couldn’t be located until the next fire or something worse.

  It was that something worse that was turning him inside out with a sense of impending doom. This fire had been personal. A message to him—the clock was ticking, Corie belonged to another man, he’d never be able to protect her. Or something as crudely prophetic as the fire that had destroyed Enrique Maldonado’s car—stop talking to the cops...or die.

  The problem with an arsonist working as an enforcer and sending graphic messages like this one was that there was a huge risk for collateral damage. Jobs stolen. People injured. Lives lost.

  Matt wanted an APB out on Kenny Norwell, Harve and Jordy, and that muscle car, along with the white van.

  He wanted Corie and Evan in his arms now. Brave, beautiful Corie who wasn’t afraid of hard work or of him, and her brave, smart son who missed no detail and cared so much about others. Matt needed to know they were safe. He needed to see Corie’s smile again. Every day of his life.

  He needed to admit that he was long past falling in love with the family who lived across the hall. The family who needed him.

  The family who made him need things that no bullying wiseacres, ex-hubby arsonist or killer was going to take from him.

  Chapter Eleven

  “I want to stop on the sixth floor.” Corie had her keys out as she and Matt waited for the elevator. “Knock on that bastard’s door and look him right in the eye.”

  Matt cradled Evan’s sleeping weight against his chest. “It’s after one in the morning, Corie. What if it isn’t him?”

  “Then I will apologize profusely and come upstairs to live the rest of my life in shame and paranoia.”

  He didn’t even try to hide that hint of a grin that creased the chocolatey-cinnamon stubble of his late-night beard. But the grin vanished as suddenly as it had appeared by the time they stepped onto the elevator. “What if it is your ex-husband? Do you have a plan for what you’ll say or do when you see him? Do you really want him to see Evan?”

  “I’m sure he already has!” she snapped, then immediately dropped her voice back to a whisper. “Evan is the only thing he ever wanted from me. If he’s stalking me and you, then he’s seen Evan with one or both of us. If Jeff and Kenny really are the same person, I want to know it. He was in my apartment, Matt. He sabotaged my kitchen to start a fire. He could challenge me for custody of Evan if a judge heard about that.”

  “He’s a felon with a criminal record. No one is going to take your son from you legally. You’re too good a mother for that. And I won’t let them do it any other way.” He loosed one arm from around Evan to hug her to his side and dropped a quick kiss to her lips. “All right. I’ll go knock on his door. You get Evan to bed.”

  “No. I’m coming with you. Either I’d be alone with Evan upstairs or I’d be alone down here. I don’t want to be alone if Kenny has found us.”

  His shoulders lifted with a stalwart sigh. “I don’t want that, either. But you’ll take Evan, and I’ll take point so he has to get through me first. If he’s there, you take Ev and run. Call 9-1-1. Ask for Cole Taylor. Ask for any Taylor. Help will come.”

  “What will you be doing while we’re running?”

  “Having a conversation. Your ex ever have a penchant for guns or knives I should worry about?”

  She shook her head. “But he knows how to set fires in a dozen different ways.”

  “I know how to put out fires in a dozen different ways.”

  No doubt. “He’s strong, Matt. He knows how to fight.”

  Matt glanced down the straight line of his nose and over the jut of his broad shoulder at her. Right. Matt was strong and knew how to fight, too. He’d made short work of Harve and Jordy tonight. And though she knew Kenny would be more skilled and aware than either of those numb nuts had been, she had a feeling Matt could hold his own in any situation.

  She leaned into him, hoping she wasn’t asking too much of this good man. “I just want to live a normal life. Raise a healthy, happy son who isn’t always worried about the monster coming and him losing me. I want friends and more children. I want to teach and love and live the life that Kenny and my mother cheated me out of. I don’t want to be afraid anymore.”

  “Evan’s a smart kid. Stronger than you think. You’re stronger than you think. Besides, you’ve got that cool plastic dragon to protect you.”

  She giggled, patting the backpack that held Evan’s creation, but her laugh was a wry sound that revealed more despair than humor. “You’r
e our real protection dragon, Matt. You’re big and strong and can harness the fire.”

  “I thought dragons were the bad guys until I met you two.” His big yawn seemed to startle him. But Matt shook off his fatigue and stood up straighter, reaching across the elevator to push the number six button. “All right. We’ll knock on our neighbor’s door. If he was near the diner when we were and threw that Molotov cocktail, he won’t be asleep, anyway.”

  A minute later, Corie was hefting her sleeping boy into her arms, along with his backpack and hers looped over either shoulder. Although he was slenderly built, Evan was a growing boy. She knew what a treat it was to have Matt literally shoulder some of the parenting burden from her. “I’ve got him,” she assured him, reaching around Matt to knock on the door and start this meeting that was making the nerves roil in her stomach.

  No answer.

  Matt knocked. “Mr. Caldwell? It’s Matt Taylor from the fire department.” He put his ear to the door and knocked again, each time a little louder. “I don’t think he’s home.”

  A door opened across the hallway behind them and a woman in her pajamas and robe and a hot-pink scarf wrapped around her head peered through the gap between the door and jamb. “I know it’s Friday night, folks. But do you know how late it is?”

  Matt tipped the brim of the KCFD ball cap to her. “Yes, ma’am, I do.”

  She huffed at that answer and pulled her flowery robe more securely around her. “Well, some of us have to work on the weekend. Keep it down out here.”

  Corie stepped in when Matt’s straight-to-the-point communication technique failed. She pointed to number 612. “Do you know Mr. Caldwell? Mr. Stinson’s part-time super? I’m Corie McGuire, your neighbor from upstairs.”

  “Jeff keeps to himself. I like that about him.” Not-so-subtle hint noted. The woman tipped her gaze up to Matt and frowned. Then she looked from Corie to her son dozing on her shoulder and frowned again. “He’s up a little late, isn’t he?”