The Protector (14 page)

Rachel had driven her over to the fire scene, where they had just missed Cole. Cassie had been forced to follow him here to the fire district offices. She had passed Jack in the equipment bay replacing air tanks aboard Engine 81. She had not stopped to answer his questions, leaving that to Rachel. Cassie was on a mission.

Cole was in the process of taking off his fire boots, had rolled out a thick sheet of plastic to keep the ash off his carpet. He’d been up all night, but other than looking a little more grim than she remembered, he didn’t show it.

Eight hours ago she had left this office relieved to get out of it, and now she was closing herself back in. She was crazy to be doing this. The tension in her gut was incredible. If she were smart she would turn around and leave. Cassie planted her feet and refused to let herself turn.

Cole looked at her in that inscrutable fashion of his. “Sit.”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.” He pointed to the chair.

She complied, staying on the edge of the seat. “You didn’t need to send a doctor to make a house call.”

“Cassie, if I’m hiring you again, I get to do whatever I like. Your hair’s wet.”

“Rachel helped me wash it.” She scowled at him for the distraction. “I want back in. So what do you need done? Name it. I want to help. You think Jack’s a target. We’ve got to do something.”

“Slow down.”

She got up to pace. “Your office makes me feel like I’m back in the principal’s office.”

“Spend a lot of time there, did you?”

“Cole—”

He held up his hand. “I didn’t say no. How’d you like the pumpkin pie?”

He took her enough by surprise she stopped to smile. “You made it.”

“Yes.”

“Not bad.”

“I miss having you take turns on K P. You still owe me a raspberry cobbler.”

“I’ll deliver eventually.”

“How’s the hand?”

Rachel had done a good job with the new bandage. In a week it would still be sore but would have begun to heal. That didn’t help today. “It hurts like crazy. Now can we talk?”

“If we have to.”

“We have to.”

He set aside his boots. “I sent Rachel because I figured you had a right to know.”

“I came close to seeing that spray painted word while it was still cooking into the plaster.”

“Be glad you didn’t. If you want in, you’re welcome. I need a spy.”

“No.”

“Listen.”

“No. It’s not Ash. I don’t care what I thought. It’s not him. And it’s not someone else from Company 65.”

“You’re talking to the former chief of Company 65. Now sit, and quit jumping to conclusions. I am not suspecting your partner…yet,” Cole growled.

She sat.

“Two grass fires, two trash fires, two empty houses, this last one with a message. Whoever this man is, he’s setting the fires with a great deal of thought. He’s got an escalation plan he’s implementing. And you may be our best chance of catching him.”

“I can’t give you a description, Cole. All I’ve got is an impression.”

“I understand that. What I need is someone who can roll out with Gold Shift and look for him. We know this guy is a watcher. Anyone who strikes you as a possibility, you let the police on the scene deal with it. What I need to know is if you can handle going back on shift.”

The hours would kill her. Twenty-four hours on, forty-eight off would be exhausting. But she’d do it if that was what had to be done. “Somehow.” She rubbed her eyes.
“Murderer
. He’s blaming the department for someone who died.”

“A car accident, a fire, a medical rollout that wasn’t able to make a difference. We know two things: He called the chairman of the fire district a murderer and he’s ringing fires around the boundaries of this district. That makes the focus of his anger the bureaucracy in this district.”

“And specifically Jack?”

“Gold Shift fought the first five fires. This fire Jack went on duty early and the arsonist hit again. I’ve got to conclude from that pattern that he’s targeting Gold Shift, specifically Jack, and take what precautions I can.”

Cole yanked open his desk drawer that had warped and stuck. He found a new roll of Lifesavers. “Maybe it’s because he’s got a problem with Jack. Maybe it’s the opposite. Jack is the best lieutenant we have. If you wanted to set fires and yet not hurt anyone, who would you ask to put them out?”

She was startled at the suggestion. “The man with the safest reputation.”

“Exactly.”

“He’s setting fires, yet you think he doesn’t want to hurt anyone.”

“I don’t know. This man puzzles me. The locations and times of the fires, how they are set—this arsonist is being very careful. That would suggest the guy has something driving him, an objective in mind. It just doesn’t ring true as a thrill seeker. The pattern to the fires suggests he will escalate until he finally gets whatever it is he’s after.”

“What does he want?”

“Rachel thinks he has already told us and is incredibly frustrated that no one is listening, so he’s setting fires to get attention. Rachel is also sure that he will start hurting people if he has to, which is why we’ve got to stop him very soon.”

“Jack doesn’t have enemies.”

“He’s got a few, but no one who strikes me as a firebug,” Cole corrected. “For a man to be setting fires out of frustration and anger, either he feels he has no voice or that his voice is not getting heard.”

“The guy I saw was confident, self-assured.”

“He thinks we’re not going to do what he wants and is trying to force it.”

“There will be another fire.”

Cole nodded. “And soon. Likely targeting Gold Shift. The problem is, accidents happen. Ask Jack to face so many fires and it’s not a matter of if he gets hurt, it’s when. Jack likes you, Cassie. Use it. Watch his back.”

She would have qualified his assumption about Jack’s interest if something more obvious had not just occurred to her. “You’re not going to tell him, are you?”

“Tell him what? About the word
murderer?
The fact this guy will probably strike harder next time? Cassie, you know Jack. Think about it.”

“He’d quit a job he loves if he thought he might be responsible for someone getting hurt in one of these fires.”

“Exactly.” Cole rubbed the back of his neck. “In this case, Jack’s habit for doing the noble thing is more of a headache than a help. You and I are going to make sure it doesn’t come to him even thinking about making that decision. You saw the guy. You’ll recognize him. And when you do, point him out to the cop on the scene and let us handle it.”

“How do I explain my presence to the guys on Gold Shift?”

“Since the department consolidation, we’re required to file an efficiency report every ninety days during the first year. You just became the captain’s scribe.”

“Paperwork.”

“You always did love it.”

“Like a case of the flu. I need to see the fire reports.”

“The red folder on the table. I already had the secretary print the reports for the suspicious fires. There are some items being kept silent regarding the arson methodology and signature; they’ve been blacked out in the reports.”

Cassie wasn’t surprised at that; ongoing investigations were always restricted. “How does he know when Jack is working?”

“He’s at least got inside access to information, which is why you and I are going to keep this low key. I’ll put you on the administrative payroll rather than add you to the duty payroll. You’ll do it?”

That decision had already been made at her kitchen table looking across at a worried Rachel. “When do I start?”

“A week give you enough time to figure out how to juggle your bookstore? Gold Shift will be on duty on Thursday. Consider yourself on rotation. Shift starts at 8
A.M.
”

She groaned. He smiled. “Be here early.”

Twelve

C
assie paused the movie when the phone rang that night and struggled to sit up.

“Would you stay put and let me get it?” Jack protested, getting to his feet. He’d shown up after his shift got over, he said to check on her hand, but Cassie suspected it had a lot more to do with trying to figure out why she rushed over to see Cole earlier in the day.

He arrived with three videos and an offer to buy the pizza. Since she had been reading the fire reports Cole had given her, she was more than ready to set aside the work and accept unexpected company. She hadn’t realized what that meant. About the only thing Jack had let her do tonight was hold the TV remote—not that that was minor, but still…“It’s m y phone.”

“And you only know everyone in the state. I can say you are fine as well as you can. And you’ve talked to enough reporters for the day.” Jack put his hand on her forehead and pushed her head back on the pillow as he passed the couch. “Stay.”

“I’m not a puppy.”

“You act like it for all you listen.”

“Get me another piece of pizza while you’re up.”

“I didn’t come over to spoil you.”

“Sure you did.”

He answered the phone in the kitchen. “Cassie’s.”

It wasn’t fair that someone was starting fires and either out of anger or strategy was choosing Jack to put at risk. It must make him miserable to go to work knowing that the odds of a fire being set during his shift were high.

If Cole was right and the fires would likely escalate to put people in danger— In the passion of the moment she knew how high adrenaline surged. No firefighter wanted to back away when someone was trapped in a fire. Jack would take unreasonably high risks to try and rescue someone. Cole had warned her to stay on the sidelines no matter what fire they faced, and she knew that directive was going to be incredibly hard to follow.

Jack reappeared in the doorway. “Luke’s Linda. Want to chat?”

She held out her hand for the phone, amused at Jack’s way of placing her caller’s identity. Luke was the fire department’s volunteer chaplain and his wife Linda worked for her at the bookstore. Jack stretched the cord to its limit and handed it to her. She’d talked at length with Linda earlier in the day about the fire.

“Hi, Linda.” She glanced over at her guest disappearing back into the kitchen. “Oh yes, he’s enjoying himself. He’s bossing me around. But since he brought the movies I’m letting him stay. Did we have many customers at the store today?”

An object, which sounded like her phone book, hit the floor in the kitchen.

She covered the phone. “Drop something?”

“Deliberately,” Jack called back.

She laughed at that.

She turned her attention back to Linda. “I’ll be at the store tomorrow. I wanted to check and see if you could switch schedules with me for this next month.”

Jack reappeared a few minutes later in the doorway with a bowl of ice cream. He should be out on his feet from lack of sleep; instead he’d spent the last two hours sprawled on the living room floor laughing over the movie. He said he caught a nap that afternoon, and having worked the twenty-four-hour shifts for years, she knew he probably had. Still, she was surprised to find him so ready to spend an evening with her on the spur of the moment.

When she had her work schedule shuffled around for the coming month, Cassie said good night to her friend and pressed the off button on the phone. “Hang this back up?”

“Sure.” Jack took the phone from her.

She nodded to his ice cream. “I’d like some of that too.”

“I thought you would. I fixed you a bowl. Do you want this along with or instead of the pizza?”

“I’ll wait on the pizza.”

“Back in a sec.” Jack returned to the kitchen to hang up the phone. He came back with her ice cream.

With chocolate syrup he drew a smiley face on the ice cream and had given it a cherry for a hat. “Nice.” And fitting. Jack liked to make people smile.

“Tastes good too.”

He dangled a black plastic spider on a string over her face. The things he had in his pockets… She captured it, tugged, and he let go.

“That one is smaller than the one I just killed under your sink. You need to move.”

“Don’t you start too. Moving is work. I’m not moving.” Winter was coming. It meant she had to kill a few more unwanted guests as the building superintendent tried but could only do so much to keep the problem of pests under control.

“How many people owe you favors?” Jack asked.

“More than I can count.”

“So collect. This place doesn’t have room for a Christmas tree. You definitely need to move.”

“It’s a waste of time to drag a dying tree up to a second floor apartment, stuff it in the middle of the room, and never be there to see it. Then haul it out three weeks later and spend a few months picking pine needles out of the carpet. I’ll do a Christmas tree at the store. That’s plenty.”

“You need more Christmas spirit.”

“Not of the commercialized kind,” Cassie countered. “Besides, you know how many fires are started from dried-out Christmas trees overloaded with lights.”