Wild Heat (Hot Shots: Men of Fire #1)(56)
Author: Bella Andre

A row of gas cans was waiting for them. “Start on that side and work your way back to me.” She massaged one bicep with her free hand. “Lighting Logan’s house on fire was hard work. I should probably go to the gym more often.”

Maya saw red. This bitch had killed a hotshot and all she cared about was lifting weights? “How could you do it?” she asked in a low voice.

She wanted to launch herself at Jenny and wrap her hands around her throat, but a moment’s satisfaction wasn’t worth a bullet in her chest. She wanted to be alive to witness Jenny’s life sentence, to watch the handcuffs clip into place over her bony wrists.

Jenny didn’t reply as she shoved the gun into Maya’s breastbone. “Get to it, already. I’m working the afternoon shift and I don’t want to be late.” She shoved Maya back to work with the gun’s cold metal barrel.

After everything she’d done—after everything she was about to do—Jenny was worried about clocking in late to work? But then, hadn’t she served them their sandwiches yesterday, knowing that Robbie was in critical condition in the hospital, knowing she’d likely killed him with the explosion?

Maya’s hands were numb as she picked up a heavy gas can and hefted it over to the far corner of the house.

“Don’t try to run,” Jenny warned. “I’m a great shot.”

After everything Jenny had done so far, Maya didn’t doubt it. She possessed a strange group of talents for a waitress, and clearly could have done so much more with her life if she weren’t so deranged.

Maya’s heart clenched as she uncapped the can and started pouring fuel onto the redwood decking and shrubs surrounding Joseph’s cabin. Logan had grown to manhood here, had started his life anew in this house. It wasn’t enough for him to lose one home today, Jenny had to take everything from him in one fell swoop.

“Feels good, doesn’t it?” Jenny’s words were carefree and happy as she watched Maya do her sick bidding, liberally sprinkling fertilizer pellets in her wake.

“No,” Maya said. “This is a horrible thing to do.”

“Actually, if anyone ever asks, I’m going to tell them that I tried to stop you from setting dear Joseph’s house on fire. He was such a sweet man, after all.”

Maya was this close to throwing the empty red gas can at her. Silently, she completed the atrocious task, her shoulder and arm muscles burning from picking up so many cans of gas. All that mattered now was staying alive as long as possible. She prayed Logan was on his way back.

“Now for the really fun part,” Jenny said when Maya was done. “Here’s a box of matches. Start lighting.”

Maya’s eyes widened. With this much fuel on the dry grass, and with the wind blowing a gale, even one match could instantly combust and burn her. “You’re crazy.”

Jenny raised an eyebrow. “Guys sometimes say that, but it’s just because they can’t handle a girl like me.” She jammed the gun into Maya’s skull, making her wince. “Start lighting.”

Maya’s hands trembled as she lit the first match. Silently asking for forgiveness, she threw the match against the house. A path of fire lifted off the grass and goose bumps of horror covered her flesh, head to toe.

“I can’t do this,” she said, backing away from the house.

She heard Jenny c**k the gun. “Sure you can. Especially since it doesn’t look like lover boy’s coming back any time soon to save you. He and Joseph are probably already dead.”

No, Jenny was wrong. Logan was alive. She’d know if he was dead, would feel it deep in her bones, in the center of her heart.

Temporarily out of options, she dropped one lit match after another against Joseph’s cabin, and then, suddenly, Jenny’s cold hands were on Maya’s wrists and she was duct-taping them together behind her back.

Maya clasped the half-full box of matches tightly in her palm. They were all she had, her only potential weapon.

“Good job,” Jenny praised. “Now let’s go for a hike.” Jenny pushed her forward with the gun, then picked up a chainsaw. “Move it.”

Maya felt her eyes go wide as she looked at the machine and forced herself to speak calmly. “You don’t want to do this, Jenny.”

“Sure I do. I couldn’t believe how lucky I was when you showed up to investigate. Here I thought I was only going to f**k with Logan’s life by lighting the wildfire and calling the tip line, but now I get to take you down too. This is going to be superfun.”

Fumbling with the matchbox at Jenny’s straightforward admission of guilt, Maya forced herself to calm down so that she could slide it open and slip out a match. She let it fall to the ground for Logan to find.

“If you get caught for starting a wildfire and burning buildings, you won’t be in jail too long,” she lied. “But if you murder people—”

“Too late,” Jenny said cheerfully. “That young hotshot is already dead. Which is really too bad, because he was kind of cute. You know what’s really sad, though? I hadn’t gotten around to f**king him yet. The young ones are always so energetic and eager to please.”

Maya stumbled over a rock, stunned by the woman’s cruelty. She dropped another match to the ground, praying her trail of bread crumbs wouldn’t catch fire and disappear before Logan found them.

“How many hotshots have you slept with?”

She’d need to know these things when she got away, when she was testifying against Jenny in court, even though she couldn’t stand the thought of Logan or any of his men in bed with this horrible woman.

“Not as many hotshots as I’d like. It’s a pain that they’re gone for so many months every year. But most of the guys in town.”

Maya’s skin went cold and clammy, even though they moved closer to the heat of the fire with every step up the trail. Ignoring the push of metal against her ribs, she spun around.

“Did you know Tony Jackson?”

Jenny’s lips curved up. “Oh yeah, I knew Tony.”

Her words snaked around Maya’s heart like a huge, deadly anaconda. “Did you sleep with him?”

“Of course I did. He was one of the best I ever had. Too bad he had to die.” Jenny poked her head closer to Maya’s and asked, “Why, did you know him or something?”

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

HOLY SHIT.”

Logan nearly barreled into Joseph, who’d cursed and then gone dead silent as he stood in the center of the trail. What now? Logan moved out of the shade of a baby oak and that’s when he saw that Joseph’s cabin was engulfed in flames. His heart stopped cold.

“Maya’s inside.”

Joseph grabbed Logan’s shoulders as if he were still seventeen years old. “Goddamn it, go save her!”