Talent to Burn (Hidden Talent #1) (4 page)

“You’ve never traveled?” Jamie twisted himself around in his seat to look at my face.

“I didn’t say that.” I wriggled, uncomfortable under his scrutiny. In this luxury plane, I felt like a total hick.

“Where, then? And how?”

“I think I’ve been to half the no-account towns west of the Mississippi. And lived in a good number of those, if you can call it living.” I didn’t even know the names of some of the towns anymore. They all blurred together. I could have told him a lot more about living in trailers and rented rooms and survivalist communes, occasionally sleeping in tents or cars for weeks at a time. Dad always tried to make it fun, but I knew what we were. Indigents. Jamie didn’t need to know any of that.

I plastered the semblance of a smile on my face and continued. “We drove from place to place when we had a car, caught buses or rides when we didn’t. Nothing as fancy as this.”

Jamie returned my smile, although his seemed genuine. “Now we’ve got you on a plane, you’ll be globetrotting in no time. I love to travel.” He leaned back in his seat and put his motorcycle boots up on the seat opposite. “And this is doing it in style. A good way to start.”

The plane’s engines fired up and I gulped as we taxied down the runway. Jamie tried to distract me by chatting away in my ear and pointing out the features of our aircraft. “Mind you,” he said, “Taking off is really the only good part if you’re on a commercial plane. These little jets are much more fun. They’re like a sports car.”

“I wouldn’t know,” I said. As takeoff pushed me back in my seat, I was reminded of rollercoasters, which I loved, and the fear turned to a smile. Maybe he was right, although it probably wasn’t normal or acceptable to put your hands in the air and scream on the way down on a plane.

After some time had passed I said, “It’s not that different from a bus. But it sure smells better in here.”

“Now you’re getting the hang of it,” Jamie said, laughing.

A few hours later, the hot Nevada sun blasted down on us. We had camped out in an anonymous tan rental car across the street from what was left of the Coconut Palms, the bar Eric had supposedly burned down.

It hadn’t burned to the ground, but scorch marks around the doors and windows told a sad tale. Yellow crime scene tape blocked the front door. The formerly garish neon signs remained attached to the front of the building, proclaiming the bar name and the various brands of beer that had been sold within. Their gray tubes were empty of light now. Beneath the burn marks, the building was flamingo pink. How Vegas.

Not that I’d been here before, but dive bars seemed to be pinker in this town than they were in the places I usually spent my time. The whole thing still gave me a sense of déjà vu—was I destined to spend my life in dives?

“I don’t see any cops around,” Jamie said.

“You’re not worried about Ryder and his men?”

“I don’t see them, either. Let’s go now while the going’s good.” He started the car and pulled around the back into an alley. Crime scene tape also covered the back doorway, but the door had been reduced to a few burned teeth at the top and bottom of the opening. Somebody had added a temporary steel gate and a padlock.

We climbed out of the car. As soon as I opened my door, the odor of urine and garbage in the heat struck me like a fist. Swallowing back a gag, I walked to the gate.

“Out of luck,” I said, flicking at the padlock with my fingers. “I guess we’ll have to settle for walking around the outside.”

“Just a sec,” Jamie said. He pulled a little case from his pocket, and began twiddling a piece of metal in the lock.

“Are you picking it?” I hissed, looking around in case anyone was watching.

“Yep.”

“Where did you learn to do that?” I hopped from foot to foot. Dad’s training hadn’t covered lock picking, focusing more on defense and survival. For someone who lived below the law, breaking it made me pretty damn nervous. Jamie, on the other hand, apparently took this completely in stride. More of a bad boy than I’d thought. “Do you break in to a lot of places?”

“Don’t be silly. I learned from the internet. Gotta keep myself entertained now I’ve got an honest job.” The lock clicked open and Jamie swung the gate wide.

I wondered what he meant by that, but he disappeared into the doorway before I could ask. Crime scene tape still blocked the entrance, but he ducked under it.

Standing on the street, I bit my lip, not knowing what to do. Living undocumented was one thing, but this was breaking and entering. I’d never actively broken the law.

Jamie stuck his head back out. “Are you coming?”

“I…isn’t this trespassing?”

He shrugged. “It’s investigation. Don’t you want to know what happened?”

I looked at the rental car, and then back at Jamie.

“Come on. If you stand there, someone will probably see you. It’s not like we’re going to steal anything.” One corner of his mouth quirked upward.

“Are you laughing at me?”

He wisely said nothing, but lifted the crime scene tape so I could enter.

Damn him. I took a deep breath and stepped into the building.

The smells of the place confronted me: damp and burned, like a campfire the morning after, and underlying it all an unpleasant hint of melted plastic and something resembling barbeque. I shuddered as I stepped into the debris, imagining the building in flames. Too close to last night’s dreams for my liking.

With the windows boarded up, the room was dark except for the rectangle of sunlight in the doorway. A small blue-white light appeared, floating in space. It turned out to be an LED flashlight in Jamie’s hand, and I could see we stood in a kitchen. The stainless steel benches and grill appeared undamaged, but shadowy smoke marks covered the ceiling. Abandoned, half-made food lay across the counter tops, adding another layer to the stench. Jamie led the way into the main bar room.

The place held echoes of a thousand other bars, although the fire had painted everything black. The cheap tables looked worse for wear, lopsidedly melted. The bar still stood, and was toward the back of the venue, with a line of bar stools in front of it.

“Do you know much about fires?” Jamie asked.

“Nothing technical.”

“Look, here,” he said gesturing at the remnants of what had been bar stools. “See how these have melted, but this one at the end is intact?” I looked where he pointed. A fan of burn marks spread out from the untouched stool.

“I guess Eric must have been sitting there.” I rubbed at my arms, which were covered in goose bumps. Thinking about what had happened here made my stomach twist. God, I hoped I wouldn’t vomit. People had died here, right where I stood. I cringed inwardly. “You think he burned them where they sat drinking?”

“That adds up with what we heard in the initial reports. One minute it’s a normal night out, and then everybody—and everything—is on fire.” He paused, looking around, but his expression was neutral. “I wonder what happened then. I guess Eric took off.”

I tried to imagine what could have caused my brother to start the fire. Had someone attacked him? Was it some kind of freak accident? “If you’d started this fire, what would you do next?”

Jamie looked directly at me. “I’d run like hell and hope the cops never found me. Do you see anything else?”

“A lot of mess and water and charcoal.” I closed my eyes. I couldn’t close out the smells, or the images of horror filling my mind. I could never un-see this.

“I mean, do you
see
anything?”

I fought the urge to punch him. “I never
see
anything. I’ve told you before.”

“Sorry,” Jamie said. “I know this must be harrowing for you.”

His hand landed on my bare arm, hot against my skin, and my mind plunged me into a waking dream.

Chapter Five

“Cat? Are you okay?”

My mind filled with fire, as it had in my dreams. Flames leaped from man to man down the bar in an inferno of horror. Screams filled the room, from both the victims and a more familiar voice. Eric. He was screaming, screaming at the top of his lungs. Then I was back in the bar, my eyes flinching open. I gasped, doubling over. The world moved away from me, the edges of my vision graying out.

“You saw something?”

I fought not to drop to my knees, but I knew I didn’t want to kneel in the muck and burned blood that covered the floor. Sweat prickled down my back. The cold void in my gut somersaulted.

“Cat. Cat, are you okay?”

My chest throbbed with a sharp pain like I’d been stabbed. I couldn’t catch my breath and my head was pounding.

“Did you see something?”

His words brought me back to earth. “I want to get out of here. Now.”

Jamie seized me by the shoulders, hard. “Cat. Did you see something?”

“No!” I yanked myself backward out of his grip, and nearly fell over a pile of twisted metal. I didn’t have a Talent, and I didn’t want to see what my imagination showed me. It had to be my imagination. Didn’t it? “I want to get out of here.”

He nodded, watching me with those dark eyes, inscrutable. I felt naked, sure he could see all my insecurities written on my face. “I think we’ve seen everything there is to see here.”

Our next stop took me by unpleasant surprise. “Why on earth are we at a police station,” I said when I realized where he had parked the car. “What are you thinking? We broke into a crime scene! We need to get out of here.”

“I’m thinking they know more about this than we do. They won’t know about the crime scene.” He rolled his eyes at me. “How could they?”

I couldn’t believe how cool he seemed. He didn’t seem to care if we were caught. “They won’t tell us anything. Let’s get out of here. Please.” I put my hand on his arm, trying to ignore the way my fingers trembled.

Jamie covered my hand with his. I’m sure he intended it to be comforting, but memories of last night in the Bates Motel flooded back instantly, a rush of heat, and the memory of the smell of his skin against my face. I pulled my hand back into my lap in order to concentrate on the conversation. His touch evoked a whole bunch of reactions and emotions I didn’t have time for right now.

 
“On the contrary, you’re Eric’s next of kin. I’m sure they’ll be fascinated to hear from you. I understand the cop taking the lead on the case is a Detective Brian Jackson. Go find out what he knows.” He pushed his seat back and settled in, hands behind his head. “I’ll see you soon.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Have you gone completely insane?”

“Why do you say that?”

I threw up my hands. “I stay away from cops.”

“I don’t understand that one little bit. It’s not the cops you ran from all those years.” Jamie folded his arms and set his jaw, the first time I’d seen him adopt that particular pose of masculine obstinacy. “Besides, you said you’re tired of running. If you want to change your life, you may as well start right now.”

I opened my mouth to argue further and couldn’t think of anything intelligent to say. No doubt four or five witty retorts would come to me as soon as I got out of the car.

“Are you brave enough to do this or what?” His eyes glittered in challenge.

I snapped my mouth shut, fought the urge to smack that smug look off his face. “I’m not a coward.”

“Then why do you keep running away from yourself?”

Bastard. “How dare you.” That did it. I smacked my palm against his upper arm. He didn’t flinch. “Wait here.”

“Why?”

“I’m going to talk to the police. Alone.”

His eyes twinkled at me but he seemed to know better than to gloat. “How about I wait at the Starbucks over there for you? You can look forward to that as your reward for being brave.”

“Right.” I got out of the car and marched into the police station. As I entered the building, I left the stark desert daylight that was in extreme contrast to the Northwest gloom to which I’d become accustomed. The entrance led to a dimly lit foyer smelling faintly of stale coffee.

The man behind the desk gave me the cop once-over as I walked in—checking for intent and weapons, I suppose—and found nothing to concern him. “Can I help you?” he said.

A few minutes of grilling later, he showed me to a gray windowless room to wait for the detective. The hard metal chair made my backside hurt. I shifted from one hip to another, running my gaze over the room, finding nothing to focus on except my own thoughts. This seemed like some kind of interrogation room, and they kept it almost as hot as the desert in here.

After enough time for a small ice age—how I wished for an ice age—a beige, middle-aged man entered the room. He had a sandy moustache, a quiet bearing and no aura of Talent. That ought to make this slightly easier. He offered his hand. I rose.

“Detective Jackson. Pleased to meet you, Miz Wilson.”

I nodded. His hand was warm and dry until it met mine. At least one of us was calm.

“Please, sit down.”

Fighting the urge to run, I acquiesced.

“I understand you have information about the Coconut Palms arson case.”