Fire Angel (19 page)

“Minette, that won't happen,” interjected Jake. “As Alexis has said they aren't close — you know how you feel about your Uncle Alphonse? That's the way it is with Alexis and her uncle.”

“I'm so sorry; Alphonse and I are better off apart,” said Minette. She stood and began to clear the table.

“Here, let me help,” said Alexis.

“Oh, no,” Minette answered. “Thank you for offering. Can I get you anything else?”

“No thank you; it was a wonderful meal; you're an excellent cook. If you'll all excuse me, I want to look at my notes and have an early night.”

“You're welcome, I hope you sleep well.”

Alexis thanked her hostess once again, said goodnight to Mila who insisted on a kiss, and told Jake she would see him in the morning.

He was disappointed that Alexis was leaving so soon, but he understood that she must be exhausted — two late nights and the shoot-out today was enough to drain anyone. Once Mila and Minette went upstairs to their quarters, this apartment would be lonelier than ever, but he would feel better knowing she was safe in the room next to his.

“If you want to talk about anything later before you go to bed, I'll be working here for a while.” He indicated a laptop computer on the desk near the entrance door. “I need to update my analysis and profile, and if you have anything to add, I'd appreciate it.”

“Thanks, I'll see, but I'm really bushed.” She turned to go. “Oh, what time is breakfast?”

Minette answered, “Whenever you like; Mila probably won't have school tomorrow, so I'm flexible. If the roads are really bad, you may not be able to go anywhere before noon, so feel free to sleep in.”

“Okay; good night then.” She went down the hall to her room.

Jake turned to Minette. The sympathy in her eyes was almost his undoing.

“Any word from David?” he asked.

Minette nodded. She turned to her daughter.

“Upstairs with you, sweetheart; Uncle David will be able to Skype in ten minutes.”

“Yes! Come on, Maya,” she called to the little dog. “We can talk to my almost daddy tonight.” She opened the door next to the kitchen and raced up the stairs, the little dog slowly making her way up behind her.

Minette laughed. “I don't know when she started calling him that,” she said, “probably after we got engaged when he was home at Easter. David thinks it's funny. He says it's her way of telling him to hurry up and get home, so we can be a real family.”

She took off her apron and placed it on the back of the chair. She pushed the buttons and started the dishwasher.

“I'll bring the dog back down as soon as I have Mila in bed. David emailed me earlier today; he may be home for good instead of just the holidays. We aren't telling her in case it falls through. She'll be thrilled to have her ‘almost daddy' home; it's what she's been asking Santa to bring her this year.”

“Mommy, are you coming?” the child called down the stairs.

“In a second; it's made it hard to know what else she'd like, but we're getting there. Will you go online and say hello?” She asked pointing to the laptop.

“Yes. It'll be good to see Dave again. With Sally, Ryan and the kids, and Mom and Dad, it will be a real family Christmas.”

And I'll be the only one alone.

His thoughts turned to Alexis, but he quickly stopped himself. A relationship with her was a pipe dream; she had made her feelings clear this morning when she had gotten all upset at the thought of sharing his bed.

“See you on Skype,” he said to Minette as she walked towards the stairs to her apartment. She stopped.

“Jake, I'm sorry if I said anything wrong at dinner, anything to upset Ms. Michaels. I can see that you really like her; for what it's worth, I like her too. Just let me know if there's anything I can do to make things easier. Mila and I owe you so much.” She turned and closed the door.

He limped over to the desk and sat down in the ergonomic chair that Dr. Shillingham had ordered for him. He booted up the computer, typed in his password and opened the arson file he had started last month. He checked that Skype was not active yet and reread the profile he'd created. After last night and what they'd learned today, much of it would have to be rewritten.

• • •

The tap, tap, tap of the ice pellets hitting the window was the only sound in the room, and it was driving Alexis crazy. She closed the document on which she had been working and walked over to the window. She pulled open the drapes, but the only thing she could see was her own image mirrored in the blackness of the window. Frustrated, she yanked the curtain closed, cursing when it snagged on the rod.

She pulled the desk chair over, stood on it, released the curtain and sighed, grateful that she hadn't torn it or broken anything. She was angry with herself and taking her annoyance out on her computer or the drapes would not help. Never before had she found it so hard to concentrate on her work. She munched a potato chip from the bag she had taken out of her closet stash and returned to the desk. If she kept eating this way, she'd go home to California with nothing to wear.

As much as she hated to admit it, she needed to talk to Jake. She looked at the clock. It was only a little after nine; maybe he was still up. She resented the fact that she felt compelled to seek his advice. She had never needed anyone's help before, and it annoyed her that she needed it, him, now. She was going up in flames and seemed unable to prevent it. Damn! She set the bag of chips on the desk beside the computer and went into the bathroom.

Automatically, she fixed her hair and added lipstick. She smiled ruefully at her image.

She picked up the folder that had been exasperating her, opened the door, and walked down the hall towards the main room. Jake was sitting at the computer, a head set on, listening to something. Drawn to him against her will, like a moth to a flame, Alexis walked up to stand close behind him. Expecting to see an open document, she was surprised to see a familiar man's face on the main screen and her image and Jake's in the lower corner. He sat up straighter when he saw her image join his, and when he turned around the welcoming smile on his face was genuine.

“David, this is Alexis, I told you about her. Do you remember her?” He laughed at something the man said. “Down boy; you're almost married; how do you think your fiancée would act if she heard you say that? Yes, she does look a little different, but it's all good. Listen, I'll let you go; send me the details of your arrival. It'll be our secret.”

Alexis looked at the blurry image of the man on the screen. He was dressed in scrubs, a mask hanging around his neck. The connection was a poor one with the image digitalizing repeatedly. She knew David was three or four years older than Jake, but she did not remember him at all. He only looked familiar because she'd just seen his picture.

She watched as his lips moved, but since lip reading was not one of her skills, she had no idea what he had said. Whatever it was, it made Jake laugh.

“Yeah, well, we can always hope,” Jake answered. “Take care of yourself.” He terminated the connection and turned to Alexis, removing the headset as he did.

“That was my brother. Did you want to see me about something? Is there anything you need?”

“I came to see you for two reasons. First, I'd like a cup of hot milk; it helps me relax and fall asleep when my brain won't shut down. And secondly, I need your opinion — a couple of ideas struck me earlier and have been bugging me ever since, and I can't seem to get past them.”

“I'm yours to command. Fire away.”

Since Alexis wanted his company, his spirits rose quickly, and if she only wanted to talk about work, so be it. Nobody said being in a relationship was easy, and he wanted to take things slowly.

His heart had almost stopped earlier today when he'd heard that gunshot. He'd reached for his rifle automatically, but when he couldn't see her he had panicked. When she'd yelled back, he'd started breathing again. All the fears he had of failing as a partner had come rolling back with a vengeance. He'd failed Andre and the rest of his squad; he couldn't afford to fail Alexis, but as Everett had said, they were both safe, and that was what counted.

As he shut down the Skype application, he thought back to the incident earlier in the day. Would he have taken her observation of a flash any differently if she'd mentioned it at the time? Probably not! It was hunting season, and the woods were full of hunters. Unfortunately, now he knew that there was one of them determined to shoot illegal game.

Jake walked over to the sofa and sat, motioning to Alexis to join him on the couch.

Hesitantly, she did. They sat close together so that they could keep their voices low. The apartment seemed well-insulated from the inn, but you could never tell. Besides, Mila did not need to hear the grisly details; however, being this close and being reluctant to touch Alexis was torture. Jake forced his thoughts back to the case.

“This Dr. Shillingham you mentioned, the one who was here the night I came in, how well do you know him?”

“Andrew? I know him the same way I know any of my doctors; he's good at his job, but we aren't buddies, if that's what you mean. He's a few years older than David, and his family has had a cottage up here for years; he was up this way almost every summer, and continued to come back after he was married. When Roberta and Bethany were killed in that gang shootout, he left Toronto. He moved his practice up here. He spends a lot of time in Ottawa; he volunteers at the Children's Hospital there. Why?”

“Well, it seems to me that the doctor makes an excellent suspect. He has motive: his wife and child were collateral damage and drug dealers and bikers are often fronts for gangs. Maybe the handymen and the mechanics cheated him in some way. He has access to Rohypnol — it's still used as a legitimate anesthetic, and if he wanted to get it off the street, he could get it easily in Ottawa. You just said he goes there often. And, if he lives around here, then he'd have known about the cabin, and he'd understand the dangers of forest fires. As a doctor or volunteer, he could have come and gone from Providence House, and no one would have noticed. Was he at the scene Sunday night?”

“Andrew? I think he was there with one of the ambulance crews; he usually goes out when the hospital is in disaster mode. I hear what you're saying, and I see where you're going with this, but I don't buy it. He's a great guy; he'd never kill women and children. Besides, he doesn't even know you.”

“But if he works at the hospital he may know my uncle. We know there is an information leak, so he might have heard something from his source. Maybe he sees me as a threat — the unknown entity that could ruin all his plans. You just said that he spent his summers around here, so he might have heard something back then. Too much fits to dismiss this. Can you think of anything more traumatic than having your wife and daughter gunned down? What if this Fire Angel is the manifestation of his reaction to that shock? Who knows what he would or wouldn't do? Does he have a rifle? Does he smoke?”

“You can't smoke anywhere near the hospital or most public places these days, so I honestly don't know. And I think just about everyone around here must own a rifle, but I don't know for sure. What I do know is that this just isn't his style, but I will ask Everett to look into it. I'd do anything for you; you know that, don't you? I'm only asking one thing in return. You said the other night that it was dangerous to make assumptions, so I'll ask you to give him the benefit of the doubt until we know otherwise. Deal?”

Alexis nodded. He placed his arm along the back of the sofa, close enough to her that he felt her magnetism; she leaned back into it, accepting the warmth and contact he was willing to share.

“Is there anything else?”

“Yes, there is,” she answered. “I remember that one of James' so-called friends liked to play with dead animals, I just can't seem to remember who it was. I was forever finding creepy things in my desk or on my window ledge at home. I can't put my finger on it, but the owl reminds me of that.”

“Sure. I'll go through the yearbooks and see what I can find. There were a couple of other creeps on the fringes. I'll look specifically for someone with ties to the Temagami. I was going to start visiting taxidermists to see if it were a professional job on the owl.” He hoped that she wasn't ready to leave just yet, and was relieved when she seemed to settle more deeply into his arms.

“I have one more thing, Jake. The first fire, what information did they use to date it? The report says on or around the middle of August.”

“It's a middle of the road estimate based on the coroner's report. At the time the police found the body, they didn't know the cases were connected. Luke had told them that he'd been to the cabin at the end of July to do some minor repairs, so they figured mid to late August. Why?”

“When I checked the reports, I noticed that the date of the second fire was September 30, the third was October 29 and last night was November 28. Could the first fire have taken place around August 31; would that fit the timeline?”

“Yes, it would; the date was give or take two weeks. I can see where you're going with this; the fires are almost exactly a month apart.” He shook his head. “I can't understand why I didn't notice that.”

“You're too close. Actually, if you look, they are exactly a month less a day apart. There's more to it, though. I found this clipping of an editorial written by Jack Willard after the second fire.” She opened the folder and pulled out a sheet of paper. “Listen to this.” She read aloud:

“Are witches responsible for the increased violence in our area? Are the pagans to blame for the destruction of our town? It may be a coincidence, but Luke James's hunting cabin burned down in August, a rare month with two full moons. Last week's firebombing took place on the night of the full moon. What unknown forces are at play? We won't be sure until the next fire.”