Bear The Heat (Mating Call Dating Agency Book 3) (6 page)

“No, it’s not that,” Breaker said, “I’d never propose to go over her level of expertise and make a request. It’s just that when we
BEAR THE HEAT

got into things, I found myself describing that girl.” Captain Daniels just watched while his old friend rubbed his temples deeply with his thumbs. “It was the weirdest damn thing. I just couldn’t stop myself. Eve kept asking me what I saw in a mate for myself, what kind of woman I was looking for, that kind of thing.”

“You don’t know her, though. How could you be describing someone you don’t know?”

“I mean at first it was just physical traits. I described her sort of crinkly, ringlet, black hair. You know what? This is stupid.

You’re just gonna use this to make fun of me next time we have a station party.”

Daniels chewed his chili slowly. “Why the hell would I do that? It isn’t even a funny joke. That’d be like someone at a roast of Dean Martin saying he was successful with women and very rich.” He stood up and mimed having a mic in his hand. “Ladies and gentlemen, our hero, our favorite fire bear, Breaker Hart.

You know what he did? He got a
date
! Ha!” He sat down heavily.

“See? Not much of a joke. I’d much rather make fun of you for snoring like a goddam lumber saw, or perhaps, for your penchant for hoarding comic books.”

As though he hadn’t heard any of that, Breaker just looked off in the distance. “What if I’m getting sick?”

“Huh?”

“You know how you hear about people getting all weird and lonely when they know they’re about to die? Maybe there’s an aneurysm building up in the back of my head so I’m just looking for someone so I don’t die alone.”

“You smell any burnt toast or almonds lately?” Daniels took another bite, and then wiped the red remains out of his mustache. “I hear that’s a good way to know about an impending aneurysm. If not, then I think you’re probably just lonely.”

After a slight break for grumbling, Breaker looked up from his chili. “You really think that?”

38

“How long did you spend yammering on and on about a family? At least ten minutes? Maybe twenty?”

Breaker looked back at his chili. “Yeah, well, that’s different. I always get a little maudlin after fires. And anyway, there was something weird about that one.”

“Weird?” Daniels seemed fairly happy to be talking about anything other than dating. He’d had a long streak of marital mistakes, so even though he was willing to chat about relationships from time to time, it wasn’t his favorite subject.

“Looked like a normal electrical fire to me.”

“Yeah, but it looked
too much
like an electrical fire.”

“Oh great,” Daniels said with a sigh. “Time to break out the
X-Files
, huh? I’ll call the FBI.”

“Hell,” Breaker grunted. “No, I’m just saying. Electrical fires start from the middle of a house and go out.”

“Usually, that’s right,” Daniels said. “But they can sometimes go outside in, depends where the fuse box is. And anyway, the PD

already has their forensics lab rats poking around into all that mess. It ain’t our problem anyway, they’re the ones with all the fancy machines and telescopes and whatever.”

“Telescope? What’s that going to do for an arson investigation?”

“Shit,” Daniels grunted, “I dunno, look in some attractive young mink-shifter’s window? That’d help me out of a whole lot of weird situations that I can’t exactly quantify. The fuse box on this house was outside. Old as hell building, too. Built in the 20s.

You know as well as I do that if any place is an electrical fire waiting to happen, it’s right there. Quit looking for things that ain’t there, Breaker.”

“Breaker,” the big bear repeated. “Breaker... breaker...”

“Oh good, he’s going nuts. I’ll go get my white coat and butterfly net and—”

“Where were the breakers? Did anyone actually check the fuse box? Were they old breakers or new ones? If they were GFI and
BEAR THE HEAT

halfway recent, they wouldn’t have gone up like that. At the worst, you’d have one of them go and a real slow fire would start at one outlet, but that place went
up
. We got there... eight minutes? Nine minutes? After Angie called us from dispatch?”

“Sweet girl,” Daniels said. “Nice figure too.”

“Watch it, I know her mate,” Breaker said out the side of his mouth. “He might play the piano but he’s also about three times your size.”

The old Captain cracked a smile. “Yeah, yeah. I guess about eight, nine minutes. But that house was really going by then.”

“Right,” Breaker said. “If it was electrical, they
had
to have old breakers in the fuse box. Otherwise, it couldn’t have been.”

“Ah damn,” Daniels growled. “Why do you have to have a point? Wait, where the hell are you going?”

“To check the breaker. And anyway, I got off eight minutes ago. I’m not on department time.”

“Yeah, but you’re about to break the law. Hell below, Breaker, what am I gonna do if you get arrested and suddenly I’m out of bears to break down doors? No pun intended. Or maybe it was.

It’s hard
not
to pun your name.”

“I won’t,” he replied. “I’ll just say I lost something out there if anyone asks.”

“You really think that’ll work?” Daniels asked, curling the left corner of his lip up into a smile. “Like, really? Why not just take the thirty minutes to file a request and get an escort out there so you don’t get up to any drama?”

“Thirty minutes to file, maybe, a day more to get it back. I just have a hunch that needs checking. It won’t be any trouble anyway. With how few cops there are walking the White Creek beat?”

“Yeah, probably. Well, be careful either way.”

“I will boss,” Breaker said. “I’ll let you know if I find anything.”

“Yeah, tell me if you get laid.”

40

Breaker grabbed the old, brass door handle and froze for a second, then turned around. “I will, boss,” he said with such intense gravitas that it could have sunk Atlantis. “I promise.”

“Hello? Who is this?” Rory prodded the screen of her phone.

“Shit. Hello? Oh Goddam thing. Shit!” She swiped furiously at the phone. “Answer you stupid son of a bitch, answer!”

“You kiss your mother with that mouth?” It was a familiar voice, but the owner of it didn’t immediately spring to mind.

“Well, no, she and I have been on the outs for a pretty long time. Wait, you’re there?”

“Nothing gets past this one.”

“Eve?” she realized. “Is that you? Please tell me it’s you and not my aunt Vera or someone who is going to lecture me first about swearing and then my lapse in church-going. Right now I just can’t take that.”

Eve snorted, which gave her away. There are only so many owls in White Creek anyway, and that particular sort of inward laughing snort combination was particular to the species. Rory didn’t know any other owls, so that sort of narrowed it down.

“I’m just worried you might need to go to some sort of anger management class before I feel safe matching you with someone.

If you get that angry over a phone being a dick, I can’t imagine what you’re like if you get into it with a boyfriend.”

“You’re laughing, right?” Rory asked. “Please tell me you’re laughing. You’ve never had your phone’s touch screen just not respond when you were trying your best to answer a call?”

Eve stayed quiet.

“Come on,” Rory said. “Seriously, don’t leave me hanging like this. Please!”

She heard what she thought was a snicker, but couldn’t be sure. “You’re killing me!”

BEAR THE HEAT

“Okay, okay,” Eve finally said. “I was just seeing if you’d let me hear another of those tirades. By the way, I’m really impressed with your ability to string together swear words. That’s not a skill many people have, you know.”

“Ugh, thanks. I guess? Anyway, what’s up?”

“Well, I think I’ve found someone for you, but I’m not sure it’s the best idea. Dora assures me that it is, but... I’ve never second guessed myself before, but this time I am.”

“But why? I mean I can’t be
that
bad. I’m a little weird, and sort of sarcastic, but plenty of people like being up in the middle of the night because it’s peaceful. Right?”

Eve was quiet for a moment. “It’s not that. I actually kinda like you. And I don’t like many of my clients personally. I mean, I don’t
dislike
them, but... I think you know what I mean. Right?”

“This changed around quickly,” Rory said. “But yeah, I think I do. Tell me why you’re having second thoughts though. That doesn’t sound promising? At least I don’t think it does.”

Eve sighed audibly. “Look, here’s the thing. I have always done my job a certain way. I put the girl on file, I interview men, and then match them that way. But I think you might have accidentally skipped a step.”

“Er... how?”

“Well, I think you already met him.” Eve cleared her throat, obviously nervous. “This is a terrible idea. Listen, I’ll get back to you when—”

“No,” Rory said. “I kinda already made my mind up too. Even if you didn’t match us.”

There was a moment’s silence, long enough for the light to change to green. “What?” Eve finally asked.

“Can I tell you something and not have you think I’m crazy?

Well, crazier than you already know I am for screaming at my phone?”

“Sure thing,” Eve said.

42

“I’m going to see him right now,” Rory said. “He’s a firefighter and I’m investigating an arson. I’ve never done this before in my life. I’ve always stuck to protocol and never... well, never really broken the law very hard.”

“What on earth do you mean?”

“Well we had a fire the other day, and I’m pretty sure it was arson. But I have to prove it, and to do that I have to find accelerant in the carpet fibers. Anyway, I was going to the station he works at to try and get him to come with me because... hell, I don’t even know why I’m doing it, it just seems like the only thing I
can
do.”

Another pause of substantial length. “It... is?”

“Yeah,” Rory said. “I can’t stop thinking about him. About the way he was laughing, and how that made me feel. Just go ahead and tell me I’m crazy.”

“No,” Eve said. “I am. But I may as well tell you. It
was
him.

Maybe I’m not wrong after all. Because he just called looking for you, too.”

I should probably go check the house first before I go hunting for
boyfriend bear
, Rory thought, blushing a little at her thought of the firefighter as a boyfriend.
I’d hate to get all distracted and
forget what I was doing, where I was going
.

Something plucked at the tentacles of nerves in the back of her brain. She felt prickles on the back of her neck, the hairs stood up stiff and tall, like she’d just walked into a freezer with a pack of ghosts living in it. Rory looked around her car, not entirely sure what sent that chill squirming down her neck.

She was just... alone. But not alone in the normal sitting somewhere by yourself way. Alone in the existentially, terrifyingly, dying alone because no one remembers you exist way.

BEAR THE HEAT

Just as she thought that, another shiver worked down her back. “Why the hell do I keep having these morbid, horrible thoughts for no good damn reason?” she asked the inside of her car. “Why can’t I just think about sitcoms and popular books, or, god forbid, sports?”

She sighed heavily and gripped the steering wheel, squeezing until the tendons in her knuckles stood out white against her slightly knobby, sausage-like fingers. Without realizing what she was doing, she pulled to a stop in front of the burned out husk of the house. As she climbed out of her Acura, Rory nodded to a passing patrol car, then remembered to put the FORENSIC

INVESTIGATION UNIT magnet decal on her car to avoid any sort of unwanted attention.

The intent to go get Breaker before she showed up at this charred husk of a building went through her mind briefly. She thought maybe that would have calmed her somewhat, but what she couldn’t figure out for the life of her was
why
she was nervous. She’d been to a thousand crime scenes, many of them far more gruesome than this one. After all, the only corpse here was the house. She sighed, and shrugged her shoulders up to her ears, stretching her back until it popped softly. Another deep breath, another sigh, and she was collected enough to stop shaking.

If only she could figure out why she kept shaking.

The thought hung over her head as she ducked the yellow tape stretched between the trees, and crouched down by the front door, immediately absorbed into a world of charred carpet fibers, accelerants and scorch marks.

As though nothing had happened to get her confused and worked up, she immediately felt comfortable as she plucked a black knot of what used to be carpet, and dropped it into a small, plastic evidence baggie.

Her eyes swept side to side, cataloguing details one after the other – the change in color on the wood sweeping from golden brown to black and thickly scaly; the way chips of old paint
44

curled up, dark in the center and charred on the ends. Everything around she took in like she’d become one with the fire, one with the scene.