Sparking His Interest

The mayor settled his hands on his hips, which pushed back the white cape attached to the jumpsuit, and highlighted the large, rhinestone-studded belt buckle imprinted with the letters TCB, which stood for Taking Care of Business, if her Elvis lore was on track. Even through the sunglasses, Cara could sense his measuring gaze. She waited in silence imagining what he was thinking while he looked his fill. Who are you? What would drive a woman to do this? Why aren’t you home raising babies or teaching school like a decent, small-town Southern woman? Many a foster parent and supervisor had questioned her idiosyncrasies over the years. She was long immune, and it was always interesting to see where each person categorized her.

Elvis the Mayor chose to ignore her.

“Baxter is a safe town,” he said to Wes. “I don’t need this in the papers in the morning.”

“It’s still safe,” Wes said, his deep blue eyes full of a violent restraint that was no doubt lost on the mayor.

Cara, however, found his emotional state fascinating.

She could all but reach out and touch the suppressed need for respect, success and, ultimately, acceptance on his face. Since she understood those emotions probably better than anyone, they were easy to spot in other people. Wes wouldn’t likely be thrilled that she suspected his secret, but then she never intended to get close enough to tell him. And maybe she’d just read too much into the moment.

“I see we’ve all met,” Ben said as he approached them in a full turn-out of fireproof coat, pants, hat and gloves. He barely glanced at his brother, though he’d bragged earlier about what an excellent liaison he’d make for her. Then again, he didn’t pay much attention to the mayor. Of course, that could be because he couldn’t keep a straight face and talk to the mayor at the same time.

“Yes, sir,” she said, “but I’m anxious to get inside the building.”

“Go ahead. Start on the right side of the building, the entrance to the office. It’s untouched over there. I’ve still got men checking the building’s stability in the warehouse section. They’ll give you clearance when they can.”

Cara nodded, pulling the architectural drawings of the building from inside her jacket pocket.

“What are your first impressions?” Ben asked.

“No mistaking the gas. Like last time, I expect.” She glanced briefly at the mayor. She didn’t make snap judgments about fire scenes or—usually—people, but she wasn’t sure how in the loop Elvis was. “I’ll know more in a day or so.”

Ben nodded and smiled slightly, his teeth glowing white behind his soot-stained face. “Fine.” He paused, turning to Elvis. “Mayor Collins, I know you’re anxious to let these two get to work.”

He nodded at Cara and Wes. “Of course. Mr. Addison and I both expect solid leads right away.”

“I understand Mr. Addison is here at the scene?” Cara asked.

“He was, but he left. He’s a busy man, you know.”

What pressing business he could possibly have at this hour of the morning, Cara couldn’t imagine. He had to have realized the investigators would want to talk to him, leaving her to wonder why he’d avoided them.

The mayor turned away with Ben, muttering about the wisdom of outsiders and rebels in the middle of the most important investigation of the year.

“You must be the outsider,” Wes said.

“Ah, then you’re the rebel,” Cara returned in mock surprise. “I’d wondered.”

Wes extended his hand toward the building. “Shall we?”

She regarded him closely, the loose gray sweatshirt and jean jacket covering his chest, the worn jeans caressing his legs, the wildness in his eyes, the dark shadow of a closely cropped goatee surrounding his sensual mouth, the windblown hair. He added up to trouble with a capital T. She rarely noticed the men she worked with. Why him? Why now?

She shook aside the desire fluttering in her belly. Her single-minded focus on her job would obviously serve her well during this investigation. “Lead on.”

They walked maybe fifty feet to the still-smoldering building, Cara consulting her diagram along the way.

“The manager’s office is through here,” she said as they approached the door, which was fully intact and propped open by a rock. “Not much of an office. The building’s mostly warehouse space.”

Wes held open the door. “After you, Captain.”

Over her shoulder, Cara glanced at him, noticing the amused but exasperated look on his face. “Damn titles,” she muttered. “Makes me feel like saluting.”

He smiled widely, and she felt a sudden kinship with him, as if he, too, thought all the posturing of most people in public service was ridiculous. “Hmm. Ms. Hughes, then?” He paused. “Or maybe…Cara.”

Hearing her name fall so easily and seductively from his lips gave her a jolt she hadn’t expected. Her name had never sounded exotic. Intimate. Warmth spread through her body before she could stop it.

Still, she narrowed her eyes as she said, “Too bad we have to stick with the titles to maintain professional integrity.” She returned her attention to the diagram, determined not to let him know he’d rattled her.

“And the saluting?”

She glanced back up. He was still smiling—just barely, but seductively, invitingly.

She couldn’t imagine Wes Kimball saluting for anyone, so the question seemed irrelevant. And just why was the lieutenant flirting with her?

Usually she expended little effort holding people at a distance. Yet somehow, he’d managed to step into her personal space with a couple of words and without moving physically closer.

“No sal—” She stopped as she crossed the office’s threshold. Water squished through the carpet beneath her boots. Small puddles covered the beige steel desk sitting just inside the door. The ink on the desk calendar had smeared to nearly unrecognizable scrawls. Water still dripped from the sprinkler heads mounted to the ceiling.

“He’s not a very thorough arsonist, is he?” Wes said dryly from behind her.

Picturing the damage to the outside of the building, the half-dozen firefighters still battling the aftereffects of the blaze, the stress and suspicion that was likely to overwhelm the mayor, the town and the investigators, Cara sighed. “Looks like he’s two for two to me.”

2

CARA’S GAZE slid around the room, taking in the water damage and the complete absence of smoke and fire damage. Her mind clicked through the possibilities of a destroyed warehouse, but an intact emergency alert system and working sprinklers—at least in this part of the building.

“There’s more than one control valve,” she said slowly, glancing down at the architectural plans in her hands for confirmation.

Wes wandered around the soaked room, shaking his head. “So he dismantled the sprinklers in the warehouse, turning off the water valve in there, but left the phone lines intact and this valve on?”

“Makes sense to me. Maybe he didn’t know about this one.”

“Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

Maybe was fine with Cara for now. Questions without answers were fine. She’d interpret once she had more facts.

“Check to see if the door leading to the warehouse is locked,” she said as she headed toward the supply closet door near the back left corner of the room. “Be careful not to smudge any prints,” she added, tossing him a pair of surgical gloves from her jacket pocket.

“I have done this before,” he said, sounding annoyed.

“Doesn’t mean you’ve done it right.”

“Oh, I can do it right.”

She paused in the process of slipping on her own pair of gloves. The man had totally messed with her mind, since his innocent words had sparked a carnal angle. She had to get him back into his spot as professional assistant—fast. “Just check the locks, Lieutenant.”

She flung open the closet door, noting the supply closet was big—about twelve by twelve—nearly the same size as the office. It was full of file cabinets mostly. But against one wall sat a bright, orange-red, floor-to-ceiling pipe that was connected to the wall via a few small pipes.

Heart pounding, she strode towards the pipe, her gaze zeroing in on the pressure gauge window, then to the chain fastened to the water control valve knob, which was about the size of a car steering wheel. The chain held the knob in place, so the water pressure couldn’t be turned off accidentally. Cutting it, unfortunately, was easy—a pair of wire clippers would do. Newer systems had an antitamper device so that if the chain was cut an alarm went off. Until she examined the main security panel she wouldn’t know if that was the case here.

“Found it, huh?” Wes said from behind her. “Works, I guess.”

“There’s plenty of water pressure. The chain’s intact. What about the door?”

“Unlocked, but shut. Why?”

Still studying the pipe system for anything unusual, she replied, “I’m not worried about why yet. I’m still absorbing.”

“Absorbing?”

She drew in a quick breath, and her thought process shut down. She hadn’t realized he was so close. She even thought she could feel his breath against the back of her neck. Impossible. Her hair and the collar of her jacket kept any skin from exposure. She was imagining things. Dreaming.

“Not that I’m an expert or anything—my last fire investigation involved some dingbat woman who set fire to her house to get the insurance money….”

At his tone, Cara turned her head to look at him. Big mistake. He rolled his pretty blue eyes—a description he would no doubt hate—and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, drawing her gaze to the breadth of his shoulders, which tapered to a lean waist—

She forced her gaze immediately back to his face. She wasn’t some chick on the make, drawn to the moodiness and danger that rolled off Wes Kimball in waves. The aura of confidence and vulnerability—

She stopped her thoughts again. What the hell was wrong with her?

“…caught on to her scheme after about two and a half minutes,” Wes continued, seeming not to notice her straying concentration. “But doesn’t all this seem like overkill?” He frowned. “Or just confusing? If I’m setting a fire in a warehouse, I toss out the gasoline, cut the chain, turn off the water. No water, no sprinklers. The fire will spread rapidly. Then I go to the system panel, bust it open, pull out every wire I can get my hands on and hightail it out of there. Fire rages. Property’s a dead loss. No fire department to get in the way.”

Cara had several problems with that theory, but she jumped on to the most obvious one first. She really liked running through the possible scenarios with him. Usually, she had to play devil’s advocate with herself. “And how would you know to cut the chain to the water valve?”

“The Internet. There’s probably a damn Web site—www dot set-a-fire dot com.”

“And that step-by-step instruction would leave out the smoke detector, the fire department alert system—which is useless without telephone wires—and the possibility of a second control valve? And then, of course, we have the motive to consider. Was the fire department’s arrival a mistake? Twice? Why this warehouse, why the office last week—”

Wes raised his hand to stop her questions, then rubbed his temples. “There are dozens of angles, aren’t there?”

“Even angles that don’t involve Addison’s guilt?”

He said nothing for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t see any.”

She was dying to ask him what had made him so biased against Addison, what past they had forged, but, following her own advice, she kept her suspicions at bay. They were gathering evidence. Interpretation came later.

“So what do we know?” she asked. “For instance, the day-to-day operations.”

“It’s an office supply warehouse. Lots of crates and boxes moving around. Trucks arriving to deliver inventory ordered from manufacturers. Trucks arriving to pick up and distribute supplies to various businesses in town and out.”

“Exactly.” She paced along the far wall, more in an attempt to escape the enticing scent of his cologne, or soap, or something than the need to move. “Kind of a humdrum existence. Items come in, items move out. Then inventory a few times a year. So who are the people who do all this moving about?”

“Some warehouse people, a manager…”

Cara tucked her map away and pulled her PDA from her jacket pocket, handing it to Wes, knowing the info regarding this particular property of Robert Addison’s was displayed on the screen.

Wes stared at the screen. “This is the background check I ran after the first fire.”

“Ben e-mailed it to me.” She continued pacing. “So, employees consist of the manager, his assistant and five warehouse personnel. All work a day shift. After five o’clock, the property is deserted. The only other people with access to the building are the cleaning service, which comes once a week. The property is protected by a decent security system, which is connected to the fire alert system.”

“Captain Hughes?” someone called from the other room.

Cara strode from the closet and saw a firefighter, who was unmistakably a Kimball, peeking around the door between the office and the warehouse. “Yes?”

The man nodded. “It’s safe for you to come out here now, though I wouldn’t delay too long. The steel reinforcements are holding things up for the moment. They seem solid, but with the heat of the fire…” He shrugged his broad shoulders.

“Thanks. I’ll hurry,” she said.

“We’ll be around a while still. Holler if you need us.” Then he grinned, his Kimball blue eyes twinkling. “And Wes says he gets all the lousy assignments.”

He strode off, and Cara turned, nearly bumping into Wes. The man was forever sneaking up on her. She extended her hands to keep her balance, encountered Wes’s chest, then pulled back just as quickly and swayed on her feet.

He grabbed her shoulders. “That’s my younger brother, Steve.”

Still a little dizzy by the idea of nearly being held in his arms, Cara simply nodded. “I figured. Monica said there were three of you.”

His hands, still resting on her shoulders, tensed. “I didn’t realize you knew my sister-in-law.”

“We met a few months ago when she redecorated several firehouses in Atlanta.” She stared up at him. She knew Monica had briefly dated Wes, though everyone seemed to agree the match had been a mistake. “Problem?”

“No. I just can’t picture the two of you as friends.”

“We’re certainly different.” But outrageous Monica made her smile, and her new friend was always talking about shoes or wallpaper—a nice change from gasoline and matches. She wondered, however, if the tension she’d sensed between Wes and Ben had something to do with Monica. “I understand she and Ben eloped in Vegas.”

“They were all googly-eyed about it. Weird.”

Okay. Strike one with that theory. Wes obviously wasn’t pining after his sister-in-law. The brothers probably just had a personality conflict. Wes seemed to share little with Mr. Professionally Reserved Fire Chief Ben.

When she turned, Wes had to drop his hold on her. She didn’t like being that close to him, touching him. She had a job to do, which didn’t involve examining the personal lives of her colleagues. She’d taken several steps toward the door to the warehouse when he asked, “How, exactly, does a sprinkler system work?”

She glanced back, noting he stood by a large, black file cabinet on the other side of the manager’s desk. “When it detects fire, it shoots water everywhere.”

“Not exactly. It detects heat. And it’s the water flow that actually triggers the alarm.” Confidence suffused his face as he met her gaze. “Right?”

“Right.”

“And here we have water flow, so the fire department came, just like the first fire.”

“Right again.” She paused. “He obviously didn’t know about the possibility of a second water valve.”

“I don’t think so.” He pointed at the ground, and she walked around the edge of the desk to see what was so interesting.

A metal trash can was filled with ashes and sitting on the floor beside the file cabinet. “What the hell…”

“Look up.”

She tipped back her head, focusing on the sprinkler head just above them. “He set the sprinklers off on purpose.” Her gaze met his. “He wanted the fire department to come.”

“Interesting, don’t you think?”

“Oh, yeah.” She paused, trying to minimize the sweet thrill of discovery coursing through her veins. They still had a lot of investigating to do, but she definitely had a feel for this arsonist. What he wanted, what turned him on. It was this part of the job that she liked, the part that made her so successful. She headed toward the door leading to the warehouse. “Let’s see what else we find.”

She snagged two hard hats from a rack on the wall, handing one to Wes. “You know the drill, I’m sure. Safety first. Keep your eyes and ears open for any shifting debris.”

A half smile hovered on the lieutenant’s lips. “It’s not so bad working with you, actually.”

“So glad you think so. I’ll be sure to pass that along to my CO.”

“Who is your CO?” he asked as she gingerly turned the doorknob.

“Technically, the state fire marshal, but the governor’s put me in charge of several task forces lately.”

“The governor? Of the state?”

She laid one hand on her hip. “He likes working with me.”

His gaze raked her figure, somehow communicating admiration without insolence. “I imagine he does.”

Her face heated. She was blushing? Oh, man, that was too much. “Come on, hotshot, let’s find the security panel.”

Thankfully, he fell into step beside her and didn’t comment on the personal turn the conversation had taken. “Any idea where to look?”

Cara glanced at the ruined space surrounding her, then consulted her map again. “Looks like we have a sprinkler room toward the back, closer to the left side.”

They headed in that direction, picking their way around the boxes reduced to near ashes. With smoke still lingering in the air, water dripping off most everything, the ceiling partially collapsed in some places, they had a hard time figuring out what was what.

After several minutes of winding through collapsed and melting rows of giant metal storage shelves without any luck, Wes said, “I’ll find Steve. Maybe he knows where the room is.”

“Good idea. I’ll keep looking.”

She headed off again, stepping over boxes and piles of still-smoldering paper, wondering just how many tons of supplies had fallen from upper floors and how much had actually been down here to start with. It was all a blackened, ashy, damp mess.

But just as she was about to turn a corner partially blocked by a fallen beam, she saw a glint of gold. A doorknob maybe?

She squinted, picking up a crumpled box and moving it aside. The outline of a door was definitely visible just behind a group of boxes. Moving them aside one by one, she finally made a small path for her to squeeze through.

Sweat rolled down her face as she struggled toward her goal. She bent over a bit, dusting the soot from her jeans. As she straightened, she saw the body.

The slumped, badly burned figure against the wall. It was a man. It used to be a man.

She turned her head, swallowing the urge to gag. She’d seen it before, would no doubt see it again. The man wasn’t there anymore. Just his body, the flesh that used to contain him. Still, she had to draw a few deep breaths through her mouth before she knew she could look back.

Her gaze slid back to his face, charred and ruined.

Was this how the investigator had felt when he’d found her parents? Revolted, yet full of pity, praying they hadn’t suffered?

“Lieutenant!” she called, then let her head fall back as she stared at the blackened ceiling, trying to calm her breathing.

“Not far behind you,” he called. “You’re nearly on top of the security system room.”

She knew the moment he’d made it past the boxes. He sucked a breath; the air stilled.

“This thing just got a whole lot more serious,” he said.

She glanced at him over her shoulder. “It certainly did.”

WES STARED OUT his truck’s windshield as he drove himself and Cara through the predawn light.

They’d said very little to each other in the past three hours. Words were certainly beyond him, though he did wonder how often she found something as horrible as what they’d just witnessed. His thoughts went to his father, of course, tragically killed in a fire when Wes was just a teenager. He thanked God he’d never seen him like that.

As he turned off the deserted highway and headed into town, he also realized he could be thankful he hadn’t disgraced himself or embarrassed Cara. Seeing the shock and horror on her face, he’d swallowed hard. He’d let the part of him that had always been a cop take over. He hadn’t drawn her into his arms the way he’d wanted. He’d relied on stark professionalism as they examined the body for evidence and identification and waited for the coroner and ambulance.

Unable to find ID, Cara had ordered the victim be sent directly to the hospital morgue for autopsy. Poor old Doc Moses, who served as the town’s coroner, had never seen anything like this horribly disfigured body. He’d mumbled and stumbled, and Cara had pulled him aside while the paramedics bagged the body for transport.

Then, patting Doc’s hand, she’d told him to go on home. She’d call one of the state’s forensic experts to do the autopsy and have him rush to Baxter immediately.

She’d been brave and lovely, and Wes found himself falling even more thoroughly under her spell.

“After you drop me off at the hospital, go home and get some rest,” she said quietly. “I’ll call you when I have news.”

“I’m going to the firehouse.” At least they’d have food and company. “Why don’t you come with me? You can shower, get some coffee…”

But she was already shaking her head. “I told the pathologist I’d meet him at the hospital. Hopefully, he’ll have preliminary results sometime tomorrow.”

He simply nodded.

“You mind if I roll down the window a bit?” she asked, not looking at him.

“Go ahead.” With the scent of smoke still permeating his clothes, some fresh air would no doubt do them both good. The crisp air hit him, shocking his thoughts and senses into clarity. Her hair billowed away from her face, highlighting her pale skin and watery eyes. Again, the need to touch her washed over him.

He gripped the steering wheel tighter. She was a colleague, not a date. “You want some company at the hospital?”

“No, thanks. I need to be alone. I need to think.”

Wes didn’t argue, though he wanted to leave her about as much as he wanted to find another body in the warehouse rubble.

So it must have been self-preservation that made him press harder on the gas.

HOURS LATER, Wes found himself staring out another window. This time it was Ben’s office window at the firehouse. The sky blazed a brilliant October blue. Not a cloud floated on the horizon. The sun was bright, almost stark white, so powerful he had to squint to look at it.

If he stared intensely enough would he forget the sight of the body? He hoped so, since every time he closed his eyes that’s all he saw.

As a result, he’d never gone back to sleep. It was three o’clock in the afternoon, and he still had no desire to lie down, even though Ben had tried to push him to get some rest. The only concession he’d made was to shower and borrow some clean clothes.

Cara had just called Ben from the hospital. She had some preliminary results, and she was on her way to see them.

In the hours they’d been apart, Wes had managed to rebottle his emotions. They’d been through a charged and shocking situation together; it was only natural he’d felt a certain kinship with her. Their thought processes and dispositions were similar so, of course, he’d been drawn to her. They were virtually in the same business so, of course, they understood each other. But in a normal situation, if he’d spotted her at the grocery store or in a bar, he wouldn’t have done more than smile politely. This clawing, aching need to see her again, to finally, fully touch her skin was nothing more than a human reaction to a stressful situation.