Deadly Heat

Page 7

“Didn’t get your name…” Hyde said, but the words were a definite demand.
“Gentlemen, you’re looking at Chief County Arson Investigator Seth MacIntyre.” The husky words came from behind them.
Kenton spun around. Ah, there she was. Right on time.
Lora had on a black T-shirt, faded jeans, and a pair of tennis shoes. Casual, but damn, still sexy.
The woman always was.
As he watched, Lora pulled on a pair of gloves. One blond brow rose as she turned her gaze on Kenton’s boss. “And you’re Keith Hyde.”
Hyde turned his head slowly and locked his eyes on her. “Spade.”
Her head inclined, just a bit.
“What? Hold on, just hold on a minute here!” Seth snapped. “I don’t need any Bureau boys coming in, telling me how to do my job. Clear my scene, now. I haven’t even had time to check for—”
“Seth, you’ve been here for five hours.” Lora’s cool-as-you-please voice. “Forget the pissing match. They’re taking over because we’ve got to stop this bastard.”
The man’s face flushed red. “I’ve got this, Lora. I can—”
“We’re all in over our heads. They’re the SSD—this is what they do. They stop the serials.”
“W-we can’t even prove all the cases are linked,” Seth sputtered. “With Jennifer Langley—”
“Let us worry about the links,” Hyde told him, stepping into the charred house. “You just worry about collecting arson evidence from the scene.”
The scent of smoke burned Kenton’s nostrils. Two of the walls were all but gone, leaving blackened studs struggling to hold up part of the roof. Ashes covered the floor. Burnt insulation hung from the sagging roof.
“The SSD. I heard about y’all but…” Seth’s jaw clenched.
But you didn’t call us in. You had a serial hunting and you thought you could handle him on your own? Kenton stared at the guy. Just stared.
Seth swiped his hand over his face. “What are you hoping to find here?”
Kenton didn’t answer as he headed inside. Lora followed close behind him, then she swept past them all, going to study the partially intact wall in the back.
Seth took a deep breath. He’d come in behind them. “There’s no signature, okay? With the arsonists, there’s always a tag. They like to start ’em the same way. Same place. Origin’s usually fixed.”
Not with this guy.
The arson investigator shook his head. “I know these guys. They have a pet accelerant. One they always use to get the burn just right—”
“I told you, Seth. This jerk likes to change his fires.” Lora tossed this back without looking over her shoulder.
Seth’s shoulders sagged a bit. His face didn’t look quite so tense and angry then. Fear flickered in his eyes. “Another call came in?” A little bit of fear there, probably because the guy knew.
“Yeah,” Kenton told him. “It did.”
A rough sigh slipped past Seth’s lips. “I didn’t—I wasn’t told—”
“Your fires might be different, son, but the victims are all trapped and the killer—he wants to make sure we know he’s the one behind the flames.” Hyde stalked around the interior, being careful not to touch any of the evidence. Like the chunk of radiator that still had a handcuff closed around one blackened pipe.
Poor bastard.
“He’s a serial,” Hyde said. “And he’s ours.” Pissing match over. They’d take these cases, and Seth could work with them, or not at all.
Seth’s fingers clenched. “The first two—they were so different. A woman in her apartment. A guy in his garage. Not tied. Not bound. Not…” His gaze darted to Hyde and the radiator. “Cuffed.”
“And then the third kill came.” Kenton watched him, curious about the investigator’s reaction.
“His own body trapped him.” A hard swallow. “If the bastard hadn’t called us in on Hatchen…”
“He wanted us to know.” Lora turned around and put her hands on her hips. “The guy gets off on the fires, but he wants attention, too. He didn’t claim the first kill, but he’s claiming them now. Every one.”
“He wants the world to see how good he is.” Hyde’s eyes were on Lora. Studying her, weighing her.
“He wants the world to see that he’s f**king better than we are.” She shook her head. “Maybe Jennifer Langley was some kind of test, to see if he could do it. And when he torched her…”
He saw he could get away with murder.
Lora exhaled. “He sets it up as a race, the fire versus the firefighters, and every time, we lose.”
And sometimes, they died.
“That’s sick, Lora.” The arson investigator’s lips twisted.
“That’s what we’re dealing with here, Seth. I told you after the second kill—before Carter went into that fire—he’s setting us up. Getting us all to play his way.”
He frowned. “I checked. Those two—Langley and Hatchen—didn’t seem linked.”
The guy’s voice was gruff, and his shoulders couldn’t drop much more. The attitude was gone now, finally, so maybe they could get someplace. It sure looked like the arson investigator knew he was in over his head now. “But after Creed died, you knew what was happening, didn’t you?” Kenton asked.
“We all knew about that call.” Seth’s chin came up. “But there weren’t any more fires, everything seemed to stop after that, and I thought—”
“There have been two fires within the last few days.” Kenton stared him down. “Both claimed by the arsonist. I think it’s safe to say our boy is back in business.”
Seth exhaled. “Yeah, yeah… aw, Christ. I thought it was over!”
Kenton figured that it was just getting started. Two fires, so fast…
“What do you have on the vic?” Hyde demanded. “Cuffed to the radiator? That’s one hell of a way to go.”
He would have seen the flames coming at him. Probably nearly ripped his own wrist off trying to get free.
“D-dental records. The cops will have to ID him with dental records.”
No big surprise.
How is he picking the victims? The question was driving Kenton crazy. If he was going to link all the crimes, the victims would be the key. He needed Monica down there, yesterday.
Lora went back to pacing the perimeter. Part of the roof had fallen, a large chunk of wood and shingles. She bent down, inching along the remains of the tiled floor. “Ghost marks,” she whispered.
Kenton frowned. Ghost marks?
Lora glanced back up. “You can tell a liquid accelerant was used here because the gasoline bled under the tile.” She pointed to the stained outlines. “Like a ghost leaving a trail behind.”
“We already took samples, Lora,” Seth rushed to say.
“Glad to hear it,” she muttered and turned to head deeper into the hull of the house.
“That’s not too stable!” Seth lunged after her, his right leg sagging a bit behind him. “You need to—”
“I see something.”
Kenton crossed to her instantly, barely beating out the other guy.
“Small bag… looks like coc**ne,” Lora said.
“It’s a drug house.” Seth bent toward her. “No big surprise—”
“The bag’s half-full…” She pulled it out, holding up the small, plastic bag. “That’s real unusual for a place like this.”
The victims… it’s all about them.
An image of Larry Powell flashed before Kenton’s face. The guy had been shaking, sweating—
Jonesing for his drugs.
Looked like their vic had been jonesing, too. Only he hadn’t gotten to enjoy his stash.
Death had come first.
Shit, if the vic was Larry…
Larry Powell had seen someone at that fire scene on LeRoy.
And maybe, just maybe, the other bastard had come back. “I’ve got to make a call.” The ME would have the body. Maybe he could cut down some of that IDing time if he gave Heather Jennings a nudge in the right direction.
Maybe. Maybe not.
Keith Hyde intimidated the hell out of her, and normally, Lora wasn’t intimidated by anyone or anything.
“So you called my office.”
They were outside. A few more techs were sweeping the scene. Maybe they’d do a better job and not—oh, overlook the evidence. The techs should have found that coc**ne bag long before she did.
She glanced at him. “The cases needed to move faster. I was pretty sure the SSD could give them an ass-kicking to the top of the priority list.”
Seth headed to his van, limping slightly, his head bent as he talked with a tech, a petite redhead with very animated hands.
“You risked pissing some folks off by going over their heads,” Hyde told her.
And she knew he was right. She could immediately think of two men who would fall into that pissed-off category: Seth and Jason Lawrence, the police captain who’d refused to acknowledge the link between the arson murders.
“I piss folks off every day.” She’d never been Miss Congeniality. One shoulder lifted. “You can’t please everyone.”
“So you try to please yourself?”
She blinked. Ah… “You know, don’t you?”
“About you and Creed?” His lips firmed. “Yes. Trust me, if I’m on a case, there’s little I don’t know about.”
“It’s not… just about wanting justice for him.” Or making the screams stop.
Her screams because Carter hadn’t even had the chance to scream. Or to call for help or—
“Revenge can twist you up. Destroy you from the inside out.” He wasn’t looking at her. His eyes were on Kenton as the guy paced back and forth, talking fast to someone on his phone.
Revenge. “But sometimes it’s the only thing that keeps you going.” When you thought about lying down in a grave with someone, you needed something to live for.
“I want the bastard to pay.” She wouldn’t lie or spout some high moral crap. “I want him to burn.”
“I suspected you did.”
And she suspected there was a whole lot more to Keith Hyde than met the eye.
She turned toward him, really saw him. Perfect suit—hell, he and Kenton must shop at the same place. Short black hair, cut close to his scalp, faint lines around those black eyes, the barest hint of gray at his temples, and skin a deep, dark brown.
The guy was older, but his body looked strong and hard. This wasn’t a man who sat at his desk, shoving papers around and dicking away his day.
This was a man who could look and know people.
“I don’t want anyone else to die.” Another honest comment from her. Because she could be honest. Just as she could be selfish. “If he’s not stopped, he’ll just keep burning and killing.”
“True.” His smile flashed. A lot of sharp, white teeth. “That’s why I’m here.”
Kenton shoved his phone back into his pocket. When he whirled to face them, she saw the butt of his gun.
“Watch your step with my agent, ma’am.” Hyde’s warning surprised her.
She blinked and dragged her gaze back to him.
Hyde’s smile had dimmed a bit. His brows lowered and he said, “When folks go after revenge, they can lose control. Sometimes, those people can become as dangerous as the killers I hunt.”
She wasn’t dangerous. She just wanted some peace. Was that so much to ask?
“Good job finding the bag.” Hyde adjusted his jacket. Not that it really needed adjusting. “Frank was right. You do have a good eye for the details.”
He’d been talking to Frank?
Of course he had. Hyde knew the name of her last lover. The guy could probably tell her what kind of toothpaste she used.
“I never go into a situation blind.” Hyde’s eyes bored into her. “If you’re the contact here, I have to make sure you’re clear before we bring you on board.”
Lora wet her lips. “You can trust me.”
Hyde laughed. “No, I can’t. But we can still use you.”
Ah, at least he was being honest, too.
Kenton stopped beside them. His brows were drawn low. “What’s so funny?”
“Not a damn thing,” Hyde assured him.
Kenton’s eyes narrowed, but then he asked, “When’s Monica getting here?”
Hyde glanced at his watch. “Probably a little after sunset. I’m gonna get Ramirez to come down, too. I want a strong team working this one.”
“We’ll catch him.” Kenton sounded certain.
“I’ll be flying to Colorado tonight. Kim’s found four graves out there.” Hyde took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Every time I turn around, there’s another one…”
And they hunted the freaks every day. Day in, day out, seeing the worst that humanity had to offer. “You ever get to save anybody, Hyde? Or is it—” What had he said about the woman? Kim? She’d found four graves. Is it just dead bodies?
Most days, she saved lives, and Lora liked that. Seeing a family safe—best damn part of her job.
Not the adrenaline, though sure, that rush could make you feel fifty feet high. But it was more.
Getting someone out safe—a hell of a lot more.
“I put the killers in cages, and they don’t hurt anyone else.” His head cocked. “That’s saving lives.”