On Fire

“She stopped by my house one night. Dressed like you, smelling like you. She came on to me like a freight train. I couldn’t help but think of you.”

“Oh my God…” Darcy turned away, feeling sick.

“I know you don’t believe me. You’re thinking Dani wasn’t like that. She was the quiet one, the good girl. But she wasn’t that way after you left. It was as if she wanted to be you.”

She barked out a humorless laugh. “Please. Dani was perfectly happy being Dani.”

He grabbed her by the arm, squeezing hard enough to bruise her, yanking her back around. His face was so hard and furious she recoiled from it.

“Hey,” Jim yelled from the porch. “Watch it, Miller.”

“I wasn’t the only one banging her,” Chris bit out, releasing her. “Because I’m not the one who knocked her up.”

She slapped him before she knew she was going to.

“You won’t want to do that again.” His voice was low and deep, his gaze dark and hot. The imprint of her hand glowed red on his cheek, intensifying the look of fury on his face.

Her tummy quivered with fear.

“There was someone else,” he insisted. “I gave her what she wanted that night and once more afterward. That was enough for me. She wasn’t you, couldn’t even come close. It was done and over long before six weeks prior to her death.”

“You’re an asshole. A Grade A prick.”

“For taking what was thrown in my face? Repeatedly? Does it make you feel better to lie to yourself?”

“Nothing can make this better.” She backed away.

“Don’t fucking look at me like that.” He stepped closer. “You know me. You know I couldn’t do what was done to her.”

The awful thing was, she couldn’t imagine anyone she knew hurting Darcy the way she’d been hurt. But what did she really know about anyone, if Chris could’ve hidden this from her?

Jim came up beside her, his hand gently gripping her elbow. “You should go now, Sheriff,” he said grimly. “Go find Deputy Cameron and tell him what he needs to know.”

“Darcy…” Chris stared at her for a long minute, then cursed under his breath. “We’re going to talk about this. We need to talk about this.”

She turned her back on him and walked to the house.

“THAT’S THE WACKIEST theory I’ve heard in a long time,” Trish said bluntly. “Maybe ever. You’re trying to pin first-degree murder and arson on the same subject, with years in between crimes. It’s highly unlikely.”

Jared met her gaze and nodded grimly. “I know. But there are connections. After looking over Kelley’s notes, I found out Danielle’s obstetrician’s office is catty-corner to the phone booth where the tip came in for the shelter fire.”

“Could be coincidence.” She sat back in her chair at the small table in her motel room and rubbed the back of her neck, her dark eyes capped with a frown. “Think of the premeditation required to copy both the Prophet’s and Merkerson’s MOs.”

“I’ve requested a cross-check of library lendings of true crime stories on both. It’s a long shot, but at least we’ll tie off that thread.” He looked at his laptop screen and the case files Kelley had sent his way. “There was DNA from the fetus, but not one man in this town—regardless of age—volunteered a sample to rule himself out. Not one? And no probable cause on anyone to justify a warrant, because no one pointed a finger anywhere. Everyone knows everyone’s business in this town, but not who’s intimate with the vet, a woman who’s lived here her whole life?”

“They don’t believe he’s one of them. Everyone’s innocent, so there’s no one to be guilty.” She sighed and grabbed another slice of pizza out of the box they’d tossed on the bed. “Small towns. When everyone knows everyone else’s business, they can’t believe there’s something they don’t know.”

“You sound like you speak from experience.”

“I grew up in a small town. Some things are universal.”

He filed that information away for further pondering. “Our subject has no imagination. He hasn’t been thinking about killing and burning for years, as we’d expect, or he’d have his own pattern, his own style. Instead he has to borrow someone else’s, right down to the tiniest details. And when he’s done what he set out to do, he puts the urge away. Goes back to being himself. Forgets about it. Because he’s crazy as a loon, but his crazy doesn’t eat at him every day. Something has to set it off.”

“So we need to figure out what set him off. Maybe it was the baby the first time around. Maybe the guy’s married. That’s why they kept the relationship under wraps. I’ll look up the men in this town who were married at the time and see what shakes loose.”

He looked up at her. “We also need to find out what happened in the last year or so that set off the fires, with a cushion for the learning curve required to build those incendiary devices. Then we can try and tie that back to the murder. I’ve already started searching through the local paper’s archived articles on the web, but they didn’t have a website three years ago, so I’ll have to hit the microfiche at the library if we need to go back further.”

“It’s a wide net we’re casting.” Trish wiped her mouth with a napkin.

“Inspector Michaels is working on drafting a list of locales in town that had some special tie or significance to her sister. All three locations so far met that criterion.” He closed his laptop. “We’ll need Miller to cover surveillance on the best options.”

She snorted. “That may be asking a little too much from our friendly sheriff. He didn’t take it well when I mentioned your theory.”

“He’ll get over it.” Jared pushed back from the table and stood. “I’ll meet up with him tomorrow and get him on board.”

“You going back to the inspector’s place?”

He shot her a look.

“Hey.” Grinning, she held up her hands. “Just surprised is all. You’re different with her, in a good way. I hope it works out.”

He’d do whatever was necessary to make sure it worked out.

He was shoving his laptop into the padded sleeve in his workbag when a faint hiss caught his awareness. He stiffened as the hairs on his nape prickled with warning. His nose twitched; his gaze darted to the door, then to the vent in the wall near the ceiling. Sleek tendrils of smoke reached into the room like skeletal fingers, curling sinuously. He yanked the bedspread off the mattress, sending what was left of the pizza flying, and tossed the floral material over Trish’s head.

“What the hell, Cameron?” she gasped as the fire sprinklers in the ceiling sputtered to life. She lifted the comforter over both their heads, shielding the table as he swept everything into his open bag.

He’d barely yanked the door open when the room exploded.

Chapter eleven

Darcy forced herself to loosen her white-knuckled grip on her phone. “How could no one know about Chris and Dani, Nadine?”

“Hell if I know. I can’t believe it. How could I not know? I didn’t even suspect.”

“God.”

“But Chris is the sheriff. If anyone would know how to cover their ass, I guess it’d be him. Not because he killed her. I could never believe that. If anything, he hid it because he knew he’d blow any shot at getting back together with you if you found out he’d tagged Dani.”

Inhaling a deep shaky breath, Darcy swiped at the tears coursing down her cheeks. It was impossibly painful hearing that Dani had changed so much. She still couldn’t quite believe it, couldn’t in any way picture it. “What the hell was she thinking? Did she love him? She had to have…How long had she loved him? And if he’s telling the truth about ending it long before she got pregnant, who else was in her life?”

Nadine sighed. “I don’t know. Maybe she missed you. Or maybe she’d been jealous of you for a while. Jealousy can make a woman lose her mind. Or maybe she was just stretching her wings and she took your example to the extreme. I’m not a shrink, doll. Or a psychic. I don’t have the answers for you. I’m sorry.”

“I have to go.”

“Want me to come over? Or is your hunky deputy with you?”

“I’m fine. Thank you, Nadine. I’ll talk to you later.” She hung up, gasping for air and drowning in grief as if she’d lost Dani all over again. She’d sent Jim off on his date, then she’d locked herself in the house, feeling too exposed to associate with anyone but Jared, who’d already seen her bared to the soul.

Clinging to the receiver, she paced, fighting the urge to call him. He had more important things to do than listen to her breakdown. Besides, their relationship was so new and had already been weighted by heavy issues. The least she could do was give him a little time to get away from her and do his job in peace.

She jumped when the phone rang in her hand. Glancing at the caller ID, she saw it was dispatch and her stomach clenched.

Another fire goddamnit.

“Michaels,” she answered. “Where is it?”

Her heart missed one beat, then stuttered back into a panicked rhythm. “My God…”

DARCY SAW THE smoke and flashing emergency lights long before she reached the scene. She parked her work truck on the street and hopped out, her heart racing as it had been since she’d received the call from dispatch twenty minutes prior. Not having a car had held her back, forcing her to beg the use of one from a neighbor to get to the fire station.

Jared.

She climbed out of the department’s truck and grabbed her field kit, forcing herself not to run or appear as panicked as she felt. It wouldn’t be fair to lose him now. It was too soon. She’d had only a taste of what he could bring to her life. Not nearly enough…

Her attempt at decorum was forgotten the moment she saw him sitting on the back of an ambulance with an EMT examining him. Her pace picked up.