The Closer He Gets

by Janice Kay Johnson

  DESPITE AGONIZING PAIN in her head, Tess struggled to open her eyes.

  Have to.

  A different kind of pain licked at her arm. Burning.

  Fire! The word exploded in her head and she opened her eyes a slit. She lay on the floor and saw flames leaping across it. Now her quilt caught. Oh, God. Oh, God. She hurt. Her stomach heaved. She clumsily lifted a hand to her head where she discovered her hair was...wet.

  She pushed herself under her bed to what looked like sanctuary, then kept squirming even though starbursts in front of her eyes told her she was about to lose consciousness. But...she wasn’t safe under here, even if it felt safe. Dark and protected, but... Fire! That was it. The bed would burn. Was burning.

  Have to keep moving.

  Her stomach heaved again and this time she gagged on whatever she’d brought up. Bile tasted sour in her mouth.

  Keep going.

  By the time she wriggled out from the other side of the bed, flames had started to crawl up the wall above it.

  Could she get to the door if she went around the foot of the bed? But when she peeked, all she saw was fire. He must have crumpled newspapers all over the floor.

  He.

  Tiny frightened sounds broke from her throat. For comfort, she reminded herself that, if he hadn’t come in the front, at least he’d be captured on camera. Zach would know what happened. Nobody would believe she’d knocked over a candle.

  Except...the receiver was in here with her. Did the cameras store digital images or were they only in the receiver? She had no idea. Couldn’t think.

  But she was already crawling toward the bookcase where she’d set the receiver. She could break the window. Throw it out onto the grass, even if she didn’t have the strength to stand and climb out.

  * * *

  ZACH TOOK THE couple steps in one leap, wishing she’d given him a key. He realized belatedly he still had the garage remote in his truck...but going back for it would take too long and he’d still have to pick the lock on the door into house. Or kick it in. Either way, too slow. Instead he slammed a booted foot through her front window, then did it again and again until he could climb through. Inside, he could smell the fire.

  As he ran down the hall, glass shattered somewhere in the house. From the heat?

  Please, God, no. Let me be in time.

  Fire showed beneath her bedroom door and smoke seeped out. Placing himself to one side, he cautiously opened the door. Flames climbed her bedcovers and the wall above her bed, eating the wooden frame and the bedside stand. A dozen or more smaller fires burned on the floor, too, which struck him as unnatural. Can’t smell gas, though. Smoke filled the room. The window was broken and the night air coming in was feeding the flames.

  “Tess!” he roared then saw movement beyond the fiery bed, just beneath the window.

  She was trying but failing to pull herself up, her hands gripping the windowsill.

  There was too much fire and heat between them.

  Zach bolted back across the hall and yanked the comforter from the guest bed. No time to wet it down. He took in a deep breath and held it before plunging into Tess’s room. For a terror-filled second he couldn’t see her at all, but a few feet in he saw that she had collapsed and lay completely still now. He flung the comforter open over the flames crawling across the floor and then ran across it even as he felt searing heat rising around his legs.

  He reached her as he heard sirens in the distance.

  He put his mouth up to the hole in the window and sucked in a desperate breath. Then, using his shoulder and forearm, he knocked out more glass. Jagged edges sliced through his sweatshirt, but the knowing meant nothing, not right now.

  He bent and scooped her up. God. He didn’t want to toss her out, but he might have to.

  The sirens screamed right outside now. Zach had Tess half resting on the windowsill when a firefighter in full gear appeared right outside.

  “I’ll take her,” he called above the roar and the sirens, reaching for her.

  With help, Zach maneuvered her to fit through without coming into contact with the shards of glass still clinging to the window frame. When her weight left his arms, he took his turn. Another pair of gloved hands reached out to help.

  The minute his feet touched the ground he fell to his knees, gagging and coughing.

  * * *

  ZACH SAT, SLUMPED, in the small waiting room. His own minor burns and cuts had been treated, although they still hurt. He wasn’t about to take a painkiller that might knock him out. His eyes burned, too. A fireman had found him a T-shirt, which he wore in place of his bloody sweatshirt. It was his racking coughs that scared him most. He’d only been in there for a matter of minutes. Tess’s exposure had been so much greater. What if her lungs were damaged?

  When he heard footsteps in the hall, he raised his head.

  Tess’s father limped into the tiny room, his face transformed by fear. “Tess?”

  Zach had called from the ambulance, figuring she’d want her dad there.

  “All I know is that she has a concussion,” he said hoarsely. He had to hack some more before he could go on. “They put a few stitches in, too. She was...” He stopped. Unconscious and bloody, she’d been a ghastly sight. Her father didn’t need to know how bad she had looked. “She has some burns, too. I don’t think they’re that bad.” He hesitated. “She inhaled smoke.”

  After a moment John Granath lowered himself heavily into a chair one seat away from Zach’s. “Have the police made an arrest?”

  “Not yet, but they should be able to. I know the bastard went out her back door. The camera should have caught his face if he wasn’t wearing a ski mask.” He coughed until he felt as though he was being turned inside out. When he could talk again, he said, “Tess broke the glass in her window so she could throw the receiver out into a shrub. She wanted to make sure—” His throat closed up. He doubted she had expected to escape herself, but, by God, she had been determined to ensure the arsonist was caught.

  If he hadn’t gone back to her house—

  Something else he couldn’t think about yet.

  More steps in the hall had him stiffening. But instead of a doctor, Bran appeared. His alarmed expression eased when he saw Zach.

  “Isaac called me. Damn. They’re not keeping you?”

  Zach shook his head. Isaac was the firefighter friend who had helped with the roofing. Zach hadn’t noticed his presence tonight.

  “I’m all right.” After a bout of coughing, he lifted his head to see worry on his brother’s face. “It’s Tess—” His voice broke.

  “But you got her out.” Bran sat in the chair on the other side of Zach and rested a hand on his shoulder. “No reason she shouldn’t be fine.”

  He couldn’t say anything.

  Bran looked past him. “Bran Murphy,” he said. “I’m Zach’s brother.”

  “John Granath. Tess’s father.” The slur in her father’s voice was more apparent than it had been the first time Zach had met him.

  “Have the doctors told you anything yet?”

  “I only know what Zach told me.”

  Bran nodded. His hand stayed on his brother’s shoulder. “I talked to Easley. It was Hayes. His face was hard to see when he went in, but when he let himself out the back door, the camera caught him dead-on. They found the license plates you’d jotted down, right where you said they were on your console. It so happens, one of those SUVs belongs to Hayes’s brother. City and county cops are looking for both of them right now.”

  Zach heard a raw sound. It took him a minute to realize it came from him. He felt too much, but not what he’d have expected. Probably rage and satisfaction were there, but deeply buried beneath the fear for Tess that his heart pumped out with every beat.

  “I’m sorry,” h
e heard himself say. The time seemed right. “For what I said the other night. I was an idiot.”

  “Yeah,” Bran said quietly, huskily. “But I was, too. We can work it out. I...missed you. All those years.”

  Zach nodded. Words were beyond him. He had to squeeze his eyes shut against the sting of tears.

  They all sat in silence for a long time after that. He was finally able to straighten and wipe his eyes with the hem of the T-shirt. He caught Bran’s quick glance, but his brother didn’t say anything, and if Tess’s father noticed, he didn’t comment, either.

  Eventually, Bran went to get Zach something to wet his throat. He brought back a cup of coffee for Tess’s dad and a cold bottle of water for Zach.

  A few swallows eased his sore throat, but not the hard grip of fear compressing his chest.

  As bad as waiting was, though... He mulled over a strange awareness. Having Bran here made a difference. Their shoulders brushed each time either shifted in his seat. Zach flashed back to that long-ago, terrible morning, after his father had pulled him into the house and yelled, “Call 911, Gayle!”

  Mom had done so, then pushed past her husband to look out the back door. Zach could still hear her screams.

  It was Bran who had put an arm around Zach and taken him to the living room, where they’d huddled together, mostly invisible, as the police and medics and eventually a medical examiner came and went. Bran had never left Zach. Not once.

  This felt...a little like that. As if he had a grip on sanity only because of the man at his side.

  “You have a brother,” Tess had reminded him.

  Now he thought with faint amazement, I guess I do.

  Footsteps came and went in the hall outside the small waiting room. There were other patients here, after all. He’d heard an ambulance not long ago, after which someone had been rushed by on a gurney. It had gotten so he had quit stiffening each time. But suddenly a doctor dressed in green scrubs filled the doorway. He introduced himself, though two seconds later Zach couldn’t remember his name.

  He was smiling. “She’s awake. She has a heck of a headache, which the coughing isn’t helping, but she’s lucid and remembers what happened.”

  He kept talking but Zach had slumped forward, elbows braced on his knees, trying to deal with the flood of relief. She’s awake. She’s lucid.

  “She keeps saying, ‘Tell Zach the receiver is outside.’” The doctor shook his head. “Whatever that means.”

  “We found it,” Bran said after a quick glance at Zach. He stood and held out his hand. “Detective Bran Murphy, HCSD. I’m Zach’s brother. This is Tess’s father.”

  “Ah.” The doctor shook hands first with Bran then with John. “I can’t let all of you back there, but I think your daughter would be glad to see you, Mr. Granath.”

  Her father shook his head. His smile was wry, maybe an after-effect of the stroke, but...maybe not. “I suspect it is Zach she needs to see most.”

  Zach shot to his feet. “You’re sure?”

  John nodded, his eyes wet now, too. “Yes.”

  “Then follow me,” the doctor said.

  * * *

  TESS FELT AS if her head had been split open by an ax. Every time she coughed, she came close to blacking out from the pain. She wanted to black out.

  Moaning, she remembered she was supposed to push a little button for pain relief. She did. Maybe her head didn’t feel like a melon that was about to fall into two separate pieces afterward, which was a minor improvement.

  “Tess.”

  Hearing the ragged, deep voice, she forced her eyes open. “Zach,” she whispered. “It was you.” Somebody—she didn’t recall who—had told her he was the one who’d gotten her out. “You came back.”

  “I did.” His expression was anguished. “I wish I hadn’t left.”

  She reached out for him and their hands met, his clasp careful. “They’d have waited until I was alone,” she said in a small, rough voice. “Would have happened—” a coughing bout wrung her out “—sooner or later.”

  “God,” he said. He looked around and found a chair, letting her go long enough to pull it closer to her bed. Then he took her hand again. “I’ve never been so scared.”

  “Me, either.”

  “Your dad’s here,” he said.

  She licked dry lips. “He...okay?”

  “Scared, too.”

  She’d have nodded if she didn’t know what that would do to her head. “It was Hayes,” she managed to choke out. “He turned on the light so I could see him. Told me what he was going to do. ‘Sorry, babe, you’re gonna knock over this candle.’”

  Zach did some serious swearing, which caused him to start coughing.

  Tess focused enough to see the array of tiny cuts on his arms, colored by disinfectant, and the bandage that added bulk beneath the T-shirt on his shoulder. “You’re hurt.”

  “Nothing major. It’ll take a day or two for my lungs to clear. But you—” His voice broke.

  “Head hurts,” she said fretfully.

  “I know. I know, sweetheart.” He stroked her cheek and temple, the bridge of her nose, his fingertips gentle, comforting.

  She let her eyes sink closed.

  “I shouldn’t ask,” he said softly, as if he thought she might have nodded off, “but I will. Give me another chance, Tess. Please.”

  Tess opened her eyes. He was leaning over her, a different kind of anguish darkening his eyes and making his voice shake.

  “I...got scared. I’ve never felt anything like this before. Please,” he repeated. “Maybe I don’t deserve it, but I need you to forgive me. I...figured out a lot of things after I left you.”

  “Because I could have died?”

  “No. God. I was already plotting what to say to you.”

  “What were you going to say?” Tess whispered.

  “I love you,” he said hoarsely. “That’s what I needed to tell you.”

  Relief and an astonishing feeling of joy filled her until she wondered if she was still touching the bed at all or had floated upward. Her head still hurt, but, for this minute, her awareness of pain became unimportant. “Oh.”

  Zach’s laugh was shaky. “Oh? That’s the best you can do?”

  “I love you, too.” Looking up into his very blue eyes, she remembered the first time she’d done so, when she’d felt an instant, powerful connection. If that had been the beginning, it had only gained strength.

  “I kind of hoped so,” he admitted. He leaned over and pressed the softest of kisses to her lips. “I don’t want to let go of you,” he murmured, “but I think your dad needs to see you, too.”

  She did want to see her father but... “You’ll come back, won’t you?” Begging made her feel a little pathetic.

  “Yeah. I’m not leaving you tonight.”

  Tess fumbled for the button and pushed it again, sighing at the relief. “Wait,” she said when Zach stood. He hadn’t released her hand, but he was leaving. “Hayes. Has he been arrested?”

  “Not last I heard, but he will be.” His voice had hardened, reminding her that he was a cop.

  “Good.”

  He smiled, bent, kissed her again and then said, “I’ll be back.”

  * * *

  BRAN CAME BY the hospital midmorning the next day to let Zach know that both Andrew and Tyler Hayes had been arrested and were still being questioned.

  “Lieutenant MacLachlan joined Easley. They let me observe. Christine Campbell was there, too,” he added.

  Tess was sleeping, so Zach had taken a break to grab a bite in the cafeteria. Her doctor had decided to keep her for another twenty-four hours, to be sure the blow to the head didn’t have further consequences, and until she was breathing better.

  Zach had piled the food
on his tray, while Bran had only taken a cup of coffee and a pastry.

  “We’ve got him for attempted murder, when he might have dealt down the Alvarez killing to manslaughter,” Bran said with obvious satisfaction. “Idiot.”

  Zach could think of a few stronger words but left them unsaid. “The manslaughter would have kept him from ever working as a cop again, though.”

  “Sheriff Brown stopped to ask me how you are.” Bran’s mouth quirked. “Wanted me to tell you that the entire department is behind you. Take as much time as you need, he said, but they’ll be glad to have you back at work.” Grinning at his brother’s expression, he added, “He held a press conference. I recorded it for you. His sincerity is deeply moving.”

  Zach snorted.

  “Delancy is keeping his head down and not saying a whole lot. I’m seeing some chagrin on a few other faces. Everyone else is genuinely concerned.”

  “Somebody put that threat in my mailbox.”

  “I’m with you. Somebody else is involved in this.” He drained his coffee. “Easley and MacLachlan are leaning hard on both the Hayeses. One will crack.”

  Zach pondered that and agreed. Poor impulse control seemed to be a familial trait. “Hayes has a big mouth when he’s mad.”

  Bran made an acknowledging noise. “The brother is backtracking frantically. Claims he had no idea his brother was going to assault Tess and set the fire. He thought Andy was just going to try to scare her again. ‘Something harmless.’ I quote,” he said dryly.

  “Hard to buy that when Andy had a bundle of newspapers under his arm and a candle and stand.”

  “Yep. Even harder to argue with camera footage. Plus, he still had a book of matches in his pocket when he was picked up.”

  Zach knew this grin was fierce. “The DA is still going for second degree murder for Alvarez, isn’t she?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  The two men looked at each other. Zach pushed his tray away.

  “We won’t give up on Sheila,” Bran said after a minute. “We need to know now.”

  “We do,” Zach agreed, “but Tess got me to thinking. I...really don’t believe Dad would have done anything like that. I haven’t said that, and I should have. I held on to too much anger, for a lot of reasons.”