The Protector (21 page)

The phone rang shortly after ten. It was Cole’s public versus private line. She’d been answering phone calls and handling messages for him for the last week. She hesitated to answer it at this time of night. Someone would have paged Cole if it were urgent. Remembering Cole’s growl about the voice-mail system’s habit of cutting off long messages with its set cutoff time, she reached for the phone. “Hello?”

“I was trying to reach Cole. Is this his assistant or did I dial the wrong number?” The voice was raspy and deep and at first she thought it was being done intentionally, and then she realized why it was also familiar. She sounded much like that during the early days in the hospital. The man was recovering from an injury to his vocal chords.

“This is Cassie. I’m working for Cole, borrowing his office at the moment. Can I take a message for him?”

“Please. Leave him a note that it’s Chad returning his call.”

Chad. Her pen slowed as she wrote the note, finally placing him and feeling guilty that she hadn’t immediately done so. He’d been hurt in the paint factory fire last year. Ben had been by to see Cole early that day to talk about when his nephew Chad could come back from disability, if there would be an opening in the arson group available.

“I’ll get him the message,” she promised.

“Ask him also to check for an incoming fax.”

She tucked the phone against her shoulder and reached for the phone book. “Do you have the fax number or can I get that for you?”

“I have it. You are working late.”

“Paperwork,” she replied ruefully.

Dispatch tones sounded and jolted her. “I’ve got to go; we’ve got a dispatch. I’ll be sure he gets the message.” She pushed back the chair, still scrawling the note as she stood. She said good-bye and dropped the phone. She rushed through the district offices back into the bays.

Men were suiting up. More tones sounded as additional units were called up. Around her was a controlled rush. The ladder truck, two engines, a rescue squad—dispatch was acting based on a confirmed structure fire, not a report of smoke.

She slid on the pants, stepped into the boots, and reached for her fire coat. She tried to hurry. The men around her were already swinging up into vehicles. The ladder truck kicked on lights to warn traffic on the street they were about to roll out.

The new fire coat fought her as she tried to secure the buttons; she abandoned trying. She’d do it on the way. She grabbed her helmet and gloves.

Nate had Engine 81 running. She moved around to the passenger side.

Jack was there, standing on the running board, one hand on the dash, leaning down to have a hurried conversation with the communications dispatcher. She met his gaze.

The rescue squad to her right moved out.

Jack extended a hand and offered her a hand up.

She stepped up and slid to the back bench next to Bruce.

Jack slid inside and slammed the door. One final sweeping glance around the cab and he nodded to Nate. Sirens and lights came on. Engine 81 rolled out.

Nineteen

J
ack had known the address, but he hoped the dispatcher had been wrong on the street number. As they pulled down the street it was clear there had been no mistake. The fire station closed in the consolidation was burning. Flames showed in the burst windows of the dorm wing and smoke spewed from the back of the building where the ventilation system began. The training tower behind the structure glowed like a spire torch.

“This is adding insult to injury.”

Jack agreed with Bruce’s shouted observation. Jack was willing to bet this would turn out to be their popcorn arsonist. What wood there was within the concrete structure was limited, and yet it was feeding flames well beyond what the normal load would trigger. The smoke was black to the point of ebony and was rolling down suggesting an incomplete burn. The flames had flickers of blue and green indicative of a fire too hot for simply a wood source.

More than just their company had been dispatched. Company 21 had arrived first, thus would have command and control responsibility. Jack reported in to the scene commander via radio and got their assignment.

“We’ve got the tower along with Ladder Truck 81,” Jack called over to Nate. The tower was in danger of collapse, and by virtue of its height it was spreading embers over the surrounding area. It was going to be a difficult fire to fight as it presented a severe containment problem, but at least they wouldn’t have to worry about fighting it from the inside with a roof ready to come down.

Jack looked back at Cassie. Her expression was focused ahead on the scene. He’d hurt her with his decision earlier. It would have been easier to ask Cole to make the decision, but doing so would have abdicated his own responsibility as the lieutenant in charge.

He had to admire how Cassie had accepted and dealt with it. She’d wanted his explanation, and even though she did not agree with it, she had not gone over his head to Frank to try and see if it could be changed.

Nate paused the engine long enough for Bruce to step down and pull the five-inch supply line. Nate then rolled the engine forward to join Truck 81, using the vehicle movement to lay hose behind them.

Jack tightened his gloves and swung down to the ground. The lieutenant of Truck 81 already had the aerial ladder moving. The hose line on that ladder would be able to tackle the height of the fire. Jack picked up the radio and linked up with his fellow lieutenant. The truck crew could manage the structure; it looked like the best place for their resources would be fighting to keep the building from collapsing. “We’ll take the east face first,” Jack shouted over to Nate, who was bringing down the three-inch hose.

Jack caught Cassie’s arm and leaned in close to make sure he was heard. “Stay close to Cole.” He was convinced this was one of the arsonist’s fires. Cassie was going to be looking for the guy. He did not want her wandering around on her own.

She nodded.

He searched her face, worried about how she was going to proceed. She wanted to be fighting the fire; restricted from that, she would want to do anything she could to find the man responsible. And he was comfortable with her doing neither.

“Trust me.”

He squeezed her arm, then released it. He had no choice.

He turned to face the fire. The rain earlier in the day was a saving grace as embers landing on roofs of nearby buildings were quenched in the moisture. This was manageable, but it was going to be a vicious firefight.

Was he here?

Cassie kept her back to the fire as she walked around the scene, for it was a personal assault that a fire station had been torched. It would save so much time if she could just find the man. It would release her from the weight of the obligation she faced. It would end the threat to Jack. Cassie stayed within the circuit of the responding units. The fire lit the area and cast flickering shadows.

The roar of the fire and the rush of water mingled with the sound of the men and women fighting it. The smoke had a sharp smell of varnish within it.

She started when someone grabbed her arm. Cole. She hadn’t heard him, his grim expression told her that. “Stay with me.”

Subdued, she joined him.

“Have you seen anyone at all you consider suspicious?”

“No.”

Cole read his watch in the light from his flashlight. “Thirty minutes since the initial dispatch. If he’s still watching he’s moved back. I want us to systematically canvass a two-block area.”

She’d been thinking about it as she walked, trying to find the place where someone would be able to stand in the shadows and have a line of sight to the scene. “What about the high school football field bleachers? That would be a good place to watch from.” It was a block away from the fire, but at night with a hot fire raging…that would be a very good vantage point.

“Good suggestion. We’ll start in that direction.”

“Cole, did you call me and I didn’t hear you?”

He didn’t speak until she turned to look at him. “I did. And if you get upset about the fact it happened, I’m going to get upset with you. No one holds being hard of hearing against you. We will accommodate you, not the other way around. And if that means getting your attention before we ask you something, we’ll do it.”

“I should have never put you in this place when I said I wanted to come back. Jack’s right. I can’t do the job.”

“If there was a way Jack and I could remove the obstacles to your being on active duty, we would make it happen. We just haven’t been able to find it. And I seem to remember I opened this conversation five months ago asking you to come work for me. I’m not losing years of valuable training by setting you on a bench if I can convince you to get back in this game. I can’t put you back on active duty, but you are well qualified to join my investigation team.”

“As much as I have enjoyed doing your paperwork, you can’t afford me.”

“You haven’t seen the budget swap Frank and I would make if you ever did say yes. It’s a serious offer, Cassie. You know the job. I’d be honored to have you working for me full time.”

She knew he meant it, and there was some reassurance in that. “I’ll think about it.”

He was sweeping the ground with his light as they walked.

“What are we looking for?”

“Anything out of the ordinary.”

They walked away from the fire passing spectators heading toward it.

When they reached the football field they found it deserted.

The mud was thick. Cassie stepped up to the bottom row of the bleachers to walk on it, shining her torch over the bleachers and under it while Cole swept the ground with his. If someone had been watching the fire from the bleachers he would have probably sat up high to get a better view.

Her torch picked up something white trailing down the bleacher seats and on the ground underneath. At first she thought it was someone’s band music sheets that had blown away during a halftime presentation. “Popcorn.” She whispered it as it registered…and the implications hit her like a tidal wave.

She fell off the bleachers and Cole grabbed her arm.

Why hadn’t he told her? Why hadn’t Cole told her?

“Sit.” He turned her and with a smooth motion put her down on the bottom bleacher seat.

She lowered her head toward her knees as it sunk in what she had found and she shuddered with the memory.

Popcorn had also been left at the scene of the nursing home.

Twenty

W
hy didn’t you tell me?” Cassie whispered. “Has there been popcorn left at all of these fire scenes?”

“It’s a copycat. I swear it, Cassie. A copycat.” Cole rubbed her back, worried at the reaction he had frankly not expected. The information had been concealed, not to keep it from her, but because it was part of the restricted information in the files regarding the arson signature, and he had already determined it was unrelated to her.

“The man who started the nursing home fire died in New Jersey in a car accident two months ago. I’ve got the proof, and I went back to the New Jersey police to confirm it.” His gloved hand tightened on her shoulder. “Someone else is copying that popcorn signature. He’s mocking the arson group, Cassie. This isn’t personal to you.”

“It is personal against me, just like the fires have been set against Jack.”

“No. It’s not personal to you. He’s using the popcorn signature as a taunt, just like he’s been using locations at the edge of the fire district as a way to mock us. The popcorn is the symbol of the worst fire on record. It’s just cruel luck that you were the one who chanced into seeing him.”

“Then are you sure this isn’t Ash? He was very hot about the nursing home fire. He left. Then these fires started.”

For her to formally blame her partner…the popcorn had really shaken her up. Cole forced her chin up so he could see her face. “It is not Ash,” he replied emphatically.

“I’m not so sure.”

“I am.”

“You know something else I don’t?”

She asked it with such hope that he wished he could give her something. “I believe what I know in my gut. There is no way Ash would let you enter a building fire again.”

“You said this arsonist didn’t want someone to get hurt.… “

Cole had wrestled with the implications of the word
murderer,
o f the possibility Ash had been called a chicken. They were taunting words. It was very much like a schoolyard fight. The more he knew about this man, the less he felt he understood.

“He’s hitting empty buildings, but he just obviously escalated again.”

“Who is he? Do you have any idea?”

Cole rubbed the back of her cheek with his glove, wishing he didn’t have to answer. What he had to say he had been trying to avoid concluding for weeks. “I don’t think it’s Ash, but I’m now convinced it probably is a firefighter.” It felt a bit like a death sentence for the department to say it. If he was correct the public implications would resonate for years.

“Then what’s the trigger? What set him off this year?”

“I wish I knew. Come on, Cassie. This was one of his. It’s going to be a long night.” Cole gave her a hand up.