Buch lesen: «Melting Point»

“What’s the matter, Russell? Afraid you might like me in spite of yourself?”

It was already too late for that. Kiley Russell faced him. “Don’t misunderstand. I think we can work together just fine, but let’s keep things strictly business.”

“All right.”

“Which means we probably shouldn’t be dancing.”

Collier released her arm. “Gotcha.”

Ignoring the sinking feeling in her stomach. Kiley watched as he turned and made his way through the crowd toward the bar. Good. Now there would be no misunderstandings, no more dancing, no more touching.

Her gaze traced the broad line of his shoulders, the slightly ragged edge of his dark hair as she recalled the seductive feel of his hard body against hers.

Who was she kidding?

What she felt for him was hotter and more dangerous than mere “like.”

Melting Point
Debra Cowan

www.millsandboon.co.uk

DEBRA COWAN

Like many writers, Debra made up stories in her head as a child. Her B.A. in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel, there was no looking back. After years of working another job in addition to writing, she now devotes herself full-time to penning both historical and contemporary romances. An avid history buff, Debra enjoys traveling. She has visited places as diverse as Europe and Honduras, where she and her husband served as part of a medical mission team. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband and their two beagles, Maggie and Domino.

Debra invites her readers to contact her at P.O. Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmond, OK 73003-0003 or via e-mail at her Web site at: www.debracowan.net.

This book is dedicated to firefighters.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

My deepest gratitude to David Wiist, retired Chief of Fire Prevention, Edmond, OK, a true gentleman who patiently answers countless questions; to Jack Goldhorn, PIO, Norfolk Fire Rescue, Norfolk, VA, whose enthusiasm always makes me smile. Both of you go beyond the call to help me with accuracy. Any errors are mine. To Linda Goodnight, nurse, writer and friend, and her wonderful son, Dr. Travis Goodnight. Finally to my agent, Pattie Steele-Perkins. Thanks for never giving up.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

A gunshot exploded in the frigid night, the sound cutting sharply through the thunking of the hydrant valve and the water gushing through the fire hose. In full turnout gear, Presley firefighter Collier McClain threw himself to the ground. A few yards in front of him, at the door of the burning warehouse, Dan Lazano wobbled and fell. The nozzle flopped. Collier automatically moved his hand up the line to gain control and shouted, “Mayday! Firefighter down!”

Keeping the nozzle on and water streaming into the building, he belly-crawled forward. Light from the flames illuminated Lazano’s steel-soled boot. Collier wet down the surrounding space, making a “safe area” for him and the injured man as the two-man Rapid Intervention Team from the Presley Fire Department followed the hose line straight to him.

The moon was a bloodless white, the January air brittle. Black smoke and hot water wrapped around Collier like a thermal blanket, burning his neck. He sprayed water on the safe area until Pitts and Foster reached Lazano, then he pushed the lever forward to turn off the nozzle.

As two other firefighters dragged in another line already shooting water, Collier moved out behind Lazano and the rescue crew. Pitts and Foster, firefighters and medics, dragged the injured man into the grass, yards away from the building. While they began administering basic life support, Collier yanked off his helmet and Nomex hood, his heart hammering in his throat.

“Damn,” Pitts yelled. “He’s gone.”

Collier followed the other man’s gaze and saw a dark wetness spreading over Lazano’s chest through a ragged hole in his turnout coat.

“McClain, is that Lazano?”

Through the stomp of feet and hiss of water and grunts of effort, he recognized Captain Sandusky’s voice and nodded. He stared down in disbelief at the black stickiness on his glove. Blood?

“What happened?”

Collier shook his head.

Sandusky knelt, reaching toward the downed man. “Is he out?”

“He’s dead.” Collier’s gaze locked with his captain’s.

The other man blinked, alarm rising in his voice. “Where did that gunshot come from?”

Collier jerked a thumb over his shoulder. Pitts and Foster looked away, their throats working.

“This is four.” The captain’s tortured words mirrored Collier’s thoughts.

Since October, three other firefighters had been murdered. Tonight’s victim and one other were from Station House Two.

Sandusky flipped on his flashlight, then cursed. “I’ll call the police. Your new boss, too.”

Collier stood there stunned, only one thought circling through his head. If he’d been first on the nozzle tonight, as he usually was, as he had tried to be, he would be the one lying dead in the grass.

A firefighter had been killed at a fire scene. Not by smoke or burns but by a gun. Murdered.

Detective Kiley Russell wished she didn’t have experience with anything like this, but she did. All of three months’ worth. Lieutenant Hager had paged her tonight because of the other firefighter murders she had been working since October. His grim announcement of another victim had balled a cold knot of dread in her gut. Serial killer. A sniper.

The first victim had been killed during a fire call at the gymnasium of Presley’s oldest high school. The second victim had been murdered five weeks later at a motel he’d checked into with a mystery woman. Number three, the only female, had been shot in her home garage.

Somebody was after the firefighters in this Oklahoma City suburb.

Kiley gathered her mass of wild red hair into a ponytail, stuffed her feet into sneakers and grabbed her heaviest coat out of the hall closet. Moving out of the house, she clipped her badge and holstered Taurus onto the waistband of her jeans. The new year was starting off with a bang. Literally.

January cold pressed the air like a thick layer of batting. As Kiley maneuvered her late-model Mustang through the streets of Presley, she called her sister’s cell phone and left a message so Kristin would know Kiley would miss their weekly Saturday breakfast just a few hours from now.

She headed for the south side of town and Benson Street, an industrial area that housed several warehouses. The fire was at Rehn’s Coffee Warehouse.

By the time she arrived, patrol officers had blocked off the area. Red and blue lights flashed from the police cruisers book-ending the scene. She showed her badge to the uniformed officer posted at this end of the street, then parked beside the ambulance crouched in front of the curb with its back doors open, its empty gurney raised and waiting.

Scanning the massive building, Kiley stepped out of her car and pulled on her fleece-lined gloves. The blaze appeared to be out. Large scene lights, attached to two fire trucks, shone on the warehouse. Gray-brown smoke swirled into clouds. A concrete drive, wide enough to accommodate two semi trucks side by side, led up to a heavy metal door. Docking doors and offices opened into a large parking lot on the side.

Shards of glass glittered in the dusky white light put off by bulbs shining from under the eaves of the flat-topped building. Black sooty water ran down the concrete drive and into the streets, sloshing over the tops of her tennis shoes.

Kiley’s breath frosted the air. Thank goodness this wasn’t a residential area and there were no bystanders. Three fire engines, one ladder truck and one rescue unit lined the curb in front of the warehouse. Stations One, Two and Four, she observed. More than one Presley station house responded to fire calls, mainly to ensure enough manpower. House fires typically had two stations responding as well as the station that housed the rescue truck. The size of this warehouse had probably warranted the response of three stations. Tonight’s victim was the second one from Station Two. Did that mean anything?

Three black-and-whites, two trucks from local utility companies and the M.E.’s wagon crowded the width of the street. Two vans sporting local news logos pulled up to the barricade blocking traffic behind her. Kiley moved around the rear of her car and stopped at the curb to give her name and rank to the cop logging in personnel with his clipboard. A sharp wind pulled tendrils of her hair across her face, and she shoved them back.

Having checked in, she started up the flat drive, sidestepping deflated canvas hoses. Firefighters moved around the scene, the short browned grass now soggy and black. A length of yellow crime-scene tape stretched down the left side of the drive, across the entrance and up to the back corner of the shipping dock. Although she expected to find nothing, she sent two officers to search the area and the area across the street for the gun.

There were no windows in the front of the building, but there were several on the side, a few panes now shattered and saber-toothed in the darkness. A male firefighter stood in the center of the football-field-size drive, aiming a video camera at the scene. Kiley had recently learned that the Presley Fire Department videotaped eighty percent of their scenes, especially if they appeared suspicious.

About seventy-five yards from the door, a lone fireman knelt on the ground next to a body. Other firefighters gathered around him.

“Detective!”

Kiley turned to see Captain Martin Sandusky from Station Two.

“Here. You’ll need to put on some boots.” The barrel-chested man, sweating despite the freezing temperature, caught up to her. “That way you won’t have to worry about any hot spots or sharp objects.”

Debris littered the grass and the cracked concrete drive. From what Kiley could tell, the trash appeared to be mostly ash, glass and fiberglass insulation, but nails, screws and pieces of metal could easily be scattered as well.

“Thanks.” She took the steel-soled rubber boots and pulled them on over her tennis shoes, then walked with the captain up to the circle of firefighters.

Frigid air stung her cheeks and nose. She burrowed deeper into the lining of her coat. Presley was small enough that all police, including the detectives, worked solo except in fire death cases. Procedure between Presley’s police and fire departments stated that when PFD had a dead body at a fire scene, they contained the blaze then stopped and called Homicide. Tonight, the victim was again one of their own.

“What can you tell me so far?” she asked the captain.

“We rolled up. Lazano and McClain both headed for the nozzle. I thought McClain had it until I heard a boom and saw Lazano being dragged over by the rescue crew.”

So, Collier McClain was working tonight. Peachy. “How severe was the fire?”

“It was going great guns when we arrived and powered up as soon as Lazano got the door open, but it was out in less than twenty minutes. It was a sniper shot again, came from behind us across the street.”

What was going on with this lunatic? As she approached the tight circle of firefighters with their captain, the five men and two women eased back enough that Kiley could see the body.

Captain Sandusky cleared his throat, drawing the gazes of the firefighters except the one guarding the victim. “Guys, here’s Detective Russell.”

They greeted her with solemn nods. She’d come to know most of them over the past three months.

“Where’s Investigator Spencer?” someone asked.

“She’s on her way.” Kiley took in the soot-streaked yellow hats, the wet, grimy turnout gear, smoke and tear-reddened eyes on all the firefighters, but her attention homed in on the man lying motionless at their feet.

Still wearing turnout gear, the man’s handsome face and dark eyebrows were unmarred from smoke. The glinting darkness of blood on his chest had Kiley swallowing hard.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “Who moved the body?”

“We did.” Two firefighters raised their hands.

“Pitts and Foster,” Sandusky supplied. “They’re our Rapid Intervention Team tonight.”

“We retrieved him and started working on him,” one of them said.

“It’s standard procedure.” The kneeling fireman raised his head and looked at her.

The air seeped out of her lungs. After Sandusky’s mentioning that Collier McClain was here, she had expected to see him, but she hadn’t been prepared.

In this light, his eye color was impossible to discern, but Kiley remembered the stormy green that was now glazed with shock. That wasn’t all she remembered.

She’d spent the past four weeks trying to forget the Christmas party at the Fraternal Order of Police club. That knee-melting dance. His nerve-tingling drawl. Why did he have to be here?

He gestured to the body crumpled on the frosty grass. “Lazano had on all his protective gear, but they had to get him out of the danger zone, see the extent of his injuries. There was no way of knowing if the building was going to come down, if the fire was going to swallow us up.”

She glanced over her shoulder at the warehouse, ignoring the sudden hitch in her pulse. Collier looked ragged, but he was as darkly compelling as ever. The concrete building was streaked with black, and glass littered the east edge of the driveway. “Looks like the fire was contained pretty quickly.”

“It was,” the captain put in, staring down at Lazano’s body.

“I’m sorry about your man, Captain. I’ll be able to piece the scene back together with firefighter statements and those from your RIT.”

“Good.”

She refocused her attention on Collier. His helmet rested beside him.

“Here comes Investigator Spencer now,” someone said.

“I’ll see how she wants to handle this.” Kiley broke away from the others and went to meet Presley’s fire investigator, needing a moment to gather her composure.

After that dance at the Christmas party, she had asked her sister what she knew about Collier McClain. Kristin had told her that he had broken his engagement about eighteen months ago and since that time he had dated and dumped half the women on the city’s payroll. Hearing about Collier’s playboy reputation had immediately thrown up the walls Kiley had built while growing up with a man just like that.

She had dated a lot in her thirty-one years, but she’d made it a rule to never date guys like Collier, guys she had come to refer to as “hit-and-runs.” Thanks to her father, Kiley knew to keep a distance from men whose relationships didn’t last as long as it took to spell the word. Whatever reaction she’d had to the rangy firefighter during their dance had been nipped in the bud. She needed to shake it off and get her head in the game.

Kiley had been working with Terra August Spencer since the first firefighter murder in October. Even if it hadn’t been city policy, Kiley needed the expertise of a fire cop. The clue to solving these murders might be something found at a fire scene. So far, all their leads had fizzled out, which frustrated them both.

They had four firefighters who had been murdered—shot. Two of them during calls and two who had been killed while off duty.

The willowy fire investigator moved with the slowness of her advanced pregnancy. Kiley knew from their recent work together that Terra Spencer was due in a month’s time. She gave the other woman a smile of recognition. “How are you feeling?”

Terra grimaced. “Like a blimp. And I’m moving about as fast as a turtle. Sorry y’all have to wait on me.”

“No problem.”

Concern darkened her green eyes. “Who’s down?”

“Dan Lazano.”

“I didn’t know him very well,” Terra murmured. “What can you tell me?”

Just as she started to fill the other woman in on what she knew so far, the investigator’s cell phone rang.

Terra reached into her pocket and flipped open the phone. “Hi, honey.” She looked at Kiley and held up a finger as she stepped a few feet away, reassuring the person on the other end.

Probably her gorgeous husband, Kiley surmised. Terra had married Presley detective, Jack Spencer, a couple of years ago. She’d been glowing ever since. The impending birth of their child made her radiant.

Kiley felt a twinge of envy. She’d kissed plenty of frogs during her thirty-one years on this planet, but never her Mr. Right. She wasn’t sure what she wanted in a man, but she knew what she didn’t want. Her gaze slid grudgingly to Collier McClain. She knew exactly what she didn’t want.

“Sorry about that.” Terra walked back over to her, sliding her cell phone into the pocket of her heavy coat. “The closer the due date gets, the more Jack checks on me. Now, what’s happened?”

Kiley smiled, giving the woman her full attention as she answered.

When she finished, the other woman shook her head, horror streaking across her face. “I guess we haven’t had any luck finding the weapon?”

“I’ve got a couple of uniforms searching the area, but there’s nothing yet.”

Terra gave a start and patted her stomach with an apologetic look. “The baby doesn’t like being dragged out of bed.”

Kiley grinned. “Neither do I.”

“I guess we’d better begin. Maybe we’ll turn up something here.”

“Maybe so.” Kiley shared the fire investigator’s frustration over the cold trail of leads on their other homicides.

As they moved toward the group of waiting firefighters, Terra said, “I’ll go ahead and do the walk-around with the guys then meet you back here. Once we determine the structure is secure, you and I can go inside and begin our investigation there.”

“All right. I’ll start interviewing witnesses.” And she would start with Collier McClain.

Presley had seen a serial arsonist before, but not a serial killer. A little over two years ago, a cameraman for one of the local news channels had started setting fires to get Terra’s attention, then murdered anyone who he perceived as distracting her attention from him.

Kiley had been promoted to detective ten months ago and in October had happened to catch the call involving the firefighter who’d been shot in the back as he ran into a fire at Presley High School’s gym.

Terra lifted the camera around her neck to snap pictures of the building and surrounding area. Two firefighters unloaded portable floodlights from Terra’s SUV and set them up inside the warehouse. The daylight-strength power of the scene lights outside brightened the area.

When the other woman started toward the building, Kiley walked over to the body again. The group of firefighters had scattered. Dan Lazano’s facial features were recognizable. Since he had been wearing all his protective gear, there were no visible burns on what she could see of his body.

Ken Mason, the Oklahoma County coroner, knelt beside the body.

“What do you think, Doc?”

“No soot around or in the nose or mouth, no burns at all. Like Sandusky said, Lazano never made it into the building. The only injury I’ve noted so far is the gunshot wound. It’s a through-and-through.”

In through the back, out through the chest. “Thanks.” She turned, searching for Collier McClain and saw him near the warehouse’s front door talking with Terra.

The man was rangy, strong and built with the lean lines of a baseball pitcher. His hawkish features were sharp in the unstinting white light from the megawatt bulbs illuminating the scene. He wasn’t her type at all, which was exactly why she’d danced with him. And why her over-the-top physical reaction had rocked her. Might as well get this over with.

Taking a deep breath, she started toward him. He left Investigator Spencer to meet her halfway.

“I need to ask you some questions,” she said quietly.

“All right.” He looked tired and dazed.

“Tell me what happened. Or what you remember.”

He dragged a hand down his face, his turnout coat wet, his breath curling in the cold air. “I went for the nozzle.”

“Was that usually your spot?”

“Whoever got there first, but yeah, it was usually me.”

“Go on.”

“I was off the truck and ahead of Lazano when this stupid cat tripped me. By the time I got around the dumb thing, Dan had the nozzle and was on his way into the building.”

“And you were how far behind him?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Four, five steps. He was at the door.”

Collier had long legs; his stride was easily over a yard. “And then what?”

“He started in, then I heard the gunshot.”

“You knew right off what it was?”

“I reacted more from reflex at first. We’ve all been jumpy since Miller’s murder,” he said grimly.

Gary Miller was the first firefighter who’d been killed by the sniper three months ago. “Then you went for Lazano?”

“Yes.” He stared over his shoulder at the warehouse. “The padlock was cut. We didn’t have to use force to open the door.”

She followed his gaze to the door, now open. Terra’s floodlights illuminated the inside of the big concrete cave.

So the sniper had time to aim for the best shot while Lazano took those two heartbeats to open the door. Kiley scribbled the note in her notebook. “How long before you heard the shot?”

“I’d guess maybe two seconds, three. It was quick.”

“Did you work the scene where Miller was killed?”

“No, but I was there.”

“Why?”

He shrugged. “I heard the call and went by. Turned out they needed another pair of hands so I stayed for a while. Don’t you cops do that?”

Yes, they did. “Do you remember seeing anyone hanging around that night? Anyone you might’ve noticed here, as well?”

“No.” He thought for a moment. “There may have been people walking or driving by tonight, but I didn’t see a thing besides that stupid cat.”

“Okay.” Kiley glanced over at the victim, now being transferred into a body bag. “How long did you know Dan Lazano?”

“Twelve years. We went through firefighter academy together, then he was assigned to Station Two about five years ago.”

A tightness in his voice made Kiley switch her focus to him. “Were you friends?”

In the glaring, smoke-hazed air, she thought she saw his mouth tighten. “Not really.”

Was there resentment under his words? “Enemies?”

“Not exactly. We had a tug-of-war going on over the nozzle.”

“About who would get it first?”

He nodded.

“Know anyone who would want to hurt him?”

Collier’s gaze bored right through her. “No, but you’ll probably hear different.”

“Okay,” she said expectantly. At five-nine, Kiley didn’t have to look up to very many men, but she did with the six-foot-plus firefighter. A tiny sliver of awareness shimmied up her spine. What was it about this man? She dismissed the giddiness he put in her stomach, but allowed herself to search his eyes. She saw a rawness there before he shuttered them against her. What was he not telling her?

Oh, yeah, she was really getting somewhere with this guy. “McClain—”

“Lazano and I were friends once.” He glanced away, clearly reluctant to talk.

“It’s better if I hear it from you.”

He stepped closer, the odor of smoke swirling around her. “He and my fiancée were—” He broke off and dragged a hand down his smoke-buffed face. “I found them together.”

She drew in a sharp breath. That was brutal. Now she understood the emotion that had flashed through his eyes, and her chest tightened. She really didn’t want to continue this line of questioning, but she had to do her job. “So you had a reason to hate him.”

“But not kill him.”

“Your fiancée cheated on you with one of your friends.” Kiley could only imagine the pain. “If my ex took up with one of my friends, I couldn’t find it that easy to forgive.”

“Not forgiving is a long way from murder, Detective.”

“Not to some people.” Just because Collier had broken his engagement didn’t mean he wasn’t still in love with his ex. And maybe angry and hurt enough to kill the man who’d betrayed their friendship.

Anything was possible and he could’ve hired a sniper and been here to fight the fire, but Kiley had a good sense of people. Collier McClain didn’t seem to be the kind of man who would hire someone else to take care of his problems. He would do it himself, face-to-face. The fact that he could’ve easily been the one killed tonight also helped in settling her questions about his involvement. Once she checked his alibis for the nights of the other murders, she could probably mark him off her suspect list officially.

A glance over her shoulder showed Terra stepping inside the warehouse, but Kiley had more questions. She looked back at her witness. “I may need to talk to you again later.”

“I’ll be around.” He tucked his helmet under his arm and tunneled a hand through his short, wet hair.

Annoyed at the way his cool voice knotted her nerves, she moved over to Pitts and Foster, the safety crew who had been sent by Captain Sandusky to talk to her.

She needed to put aside her personal feelings. The memory of that dance, the feel of Collier’s large hand curled warmly on her hip, the hard length of his body against hers. She had a job to do and she would focus on that. Looking for commonalities between the victims had Kiley asking the same questions she had asked at the other three murder scenes.

Did tonight’s victim socialize off duty with any of the others? Did he go to the same doctor or church with the other victims? High school or college? Had he been involved in a side business with any of the victims? Again all answers were no.

About thirty minutes later, she joined Terra outside the front door of the warehouse where the fire investigator again stood talking to Collier McClain. Three firefighters had backed up his story about the cat as well as vouching for him on the other nights in question.

And the firefighters she’d interviewed had confirmed that he and Lazano did have an ongoing rivalry regarding who would get the nozzle first.

“The structure is secure enough for us to go inside,” Terra said when Kiley reached her. “It’s lucky the next warehouse is at least three hundred feet away or this whole side of the street might’ve gone up.”

It appeared this fire, like the others, had been set to lure the firefighters here and kill one of them, but they needed proof. “Did you see anything that hinted at arson?”

“Not yet. The window was blown out from the inside, probably from heat, but that doesn’t mean we’re looking at arson.” She glanced at Kiley’s feet. “Good, you have on some of our boots. You need a helmet, too.”

“Is there falling debris?”

“We want to be prepared.”

Kiley took a helmet from the firefighter who held one out at Terra’s request and slid it onto her head.

Collier McClain stood silently to the side. He had cleaned the ash from his face, but there was strain around his gray-green eyes and the same guardedness she hoped he saw in her eyes. She shut off further thoughts of him and followed Terra inside the cavernous concrete and metal building. It smelled of burned coffee, wet ash and the searing odor of charred insulation and chemicals. Light glanced off white burlap bags of coffee stacked on row after row of wooden pallets.

Strong light streamed from the portable floodlamps, and Kiley stopped, taking a quick look around the soaked floor, wet wooden pallets stacked with now-sopping white bags of coffee.

“I bagged the padlock so we can check it for prints.”

Startled to hear McClain’s voice, Kiley spun. “What are you doing?”

He frowned. “Going through the building.”

“Why?”

“He’s my new fire investigator,” Terra said absently. “You know he’s been working with me on his days off. For about the last year and a half.”

“Yes, but he fought this fire.” She looked away from his level gaze, wishing she’d had a little warning about his more significant involvement in the investigation. She’d known their working together would happen eventually, but she wasn’t ready. “How can he investigate and work the scene as a firefighter?”

“It’s happened before. Besides, this is his last shift. When he reports to work on Monday, it will be for me.”

Kiley knew displeasure and sheer panic showed on her face.

“What’s going on, Kiley?” Terra looked slightly irritated.

“I…just didn’t expect him to also investigate.”

“Is he a suspect?” Collier asked tightly.

“No.” Curling her hands into fists at her sides, her gaze shot to Terra. “This isn’t a conflict of interest?”

“No.” The other woman glanced at Collier then back at Kiley.

“Can you handle it, Detective?” His smoke-roughened voice challenged her.

She wasn’t about to let him see how off balance she really felt. She flashed a smile at Terra. “Let’s go. I’ll try to keep up.”

“Whew, good. I’m going on maternity leave in two weeks. I want Collier to know everything I know about this scene.”

“Is he going to take over this case?” Had she just squeaked?

“Unless we clear it before I have this baby, and I don’t foresee that. So, you’ll have to partner up.”

Kiley gave a forced smile, avoiding Collier’s gaze.

“Let’s get started, then,” Terra said.

The three of them began a slow walk, sloshing through dark water, with Collier beside Terra and Kiley slightly behind. Her eyes narrowed on his broad shoulders. Collier McClain wasn’t just Presley’s newest fire investigator, and her partner for the time being. He was the one man she’d sworn to avoid like the Ebola virus.