Fire Angel (3 page)

Jake walked over to the police chief.

“Everett, I think we need to consider bringing in someone else on this, someone who can solve this kind of puzzle. My gut tells me this is the arsonist's work.”

Alexis Michaels cursed again, the sound of her voice loud and unnerving in the empty vehicle. The heavy rain had stopped, but as night had fallen, driving conditions on the Trans-Canada had not improved. A dense fog settled into the region, limiting visibility. The beams from the headlights of her rental car encroached timidly upon the murky darkness, but gave little light. She wished that she had chosen a heavier, sturdier vehicle;
a tank would have been nice
, she thought. She white-knuckled the steering wheel, as she drove as fast as she could along the deserted road, scolding herself again for not finding a place to stay the night when she had stopped for gas.

“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” she uttered into the silence. She should have known better; after all, she had spent over fourteen of her thirty years in this area, the last four of which would haunt her forever. She hoped that she would be able to finally lay those ghosts to rest.

She turned off the radio in an effort to concentrate on her driving, but the silence played havoc with her nerves. Too many garish horror movies danced through her head. She gave herself a shake and screamed as the fog came alive in front of her.

She slammed on the brakes just as a large moose stepped out onto the highway less than twenty yards ahead of her, on the very edge of what little illumination her lights provided. A piercing squeal shrieked in her ears and caused the massive bull to turn towards her. The car swerved into the opposite lane, scraped along the road-side rail, and spun around to face the enormous creature. Her heart thundered in her ears.
Great,
she thought
; that'll leave a mark. What a way to find out that the brakes aren't in the best of shape!

Alexis shuddered as the vehicle came to a stop. The huge animal stood in the glare of her headlights, staring at the foreign object that had invaded his domain, puffs of vapor coming from his nostrils, reminding her of the enraged bulls in Saturday morning cartoons. She watched in horror as the gigantic beast took two steps in her direction.

What had she been thinking? The problem was that she hadn't been thinking — as usual. She had been focused on getting to the crime scene as fast as she could before any more evidence could be destroyed. She had seen the signs warning of moose in the area, but she had assumed that even moose had enough common sense to stay put on a night like this.

She stared in awe at the strangely magnificent beast before her. It was so big, much bigger than she remembered. The bull, almost black in color with palmate antlers, stood at least six feet tall at the shoulder and must have weighed well over 1,200 pounds. Its body weight was centered above its long, spindly legs which made it particularly dangerous for low-slung cars like hers. Heaven knew what would happen to her if he decided to charge.

Alexis watched as the gigantic animal continued his slow progress towards the car and then, less than a yard away, he veered right, raised his legs to cross over the rail, and tramped down into the low ditch. She sat immobilized, watching him until he disappeared into the fog. She slowly released the breath she had been holding, and pushed her hair up off her forehead.

“Holy cow, I mean bull,” she said and whistled. “That was way too close for comfort.”

Once she was certain that he was not going to turn around and come back, she drew a deep breath, put the car into low gear, and thanked the powers that be that the engine had not stalled. Cautiously, she moved her car back onto the highway and into her own lane. She had not seen another vehicle in at least an hour, but it would be just her luck to avoid the moose and get hit by an oncoming car — probably driven by the only other person stupid enough to be driving in this weather.

As she drove slowly through the wilderness, hazard lights blinking steadily in the gloom, she carefully watched the roadside. Where there was one moose, there was probably another. Finally, escarpment edged both sides of the highway, and she relaxed.

When Captain Peters, her supervisor, had begged her to take this assignment, he had warned her about the dangers of night driving. Conflicted, she had resisted the urge to tell him that she had lived in the region years before. She wished that she had paid more attention to what he had said, but no, she had dismissed his warning and blundered ahead as she usually did. Alexis Michaels, Wonder Woman, not! When would she realize that she was not indestructible?

The adrenaline shot she had received from her potential brush with death had worn off, leaving her anxious and frustrated. As one of North America's finest fire and arson investigators, a woman in a man's world, Alexis pushed herself to be the best. She had an exceptional understanding of fire and its behavior. Driven by her own demons, she understood the purpose and actions of the various accelerants and ignition devices used by arsonists.

Usually called in when local fire and police officials requested help, Alexis did double duty: first, she identified the origin and cause of the fire, tracked its progress, and if there was one, identified the common threads that tied multiple blazes together. Captain Peters claimed she had a sixth sense concerning fire, and in some ways he was right. She had the ability to see beyond what other inspectors could see and frequently found that missing link to solve the crime. She had an uncanny way of seeing the fire through the eyes of the firebug and to think the way he or she did. If they were nearby, she could feel them, and know what they were feeling. It was that gift that was needed here. Once she concluded the fire part of the investigation, she would change hats and help the rest of the arson team narrow the list of suspects and nail the culprit.

Three fires by themselves would not necessarily call for her services, but unfortunately, bodies had been found at each scene, and with each fire, the number of bodies rose — at the moment it sat at twelve. From past experience, she knew it would only go up unless this maniac was caught.

She practiced her deep breathing exercises, the ones she had learned to control her asthma and settle her nerves. Despite her best intentions to concentrate on her driving, she could not stop her thoughts from wandering to what little she knew about the fires. Having been given such slight information was maddening in itself.

In the first case, spoliation, the intentional and unintentional destruction of evidence, would be high since the fire had occurred at an isolated hunting camp and the owner had set about clearing the debris to rebuild. He had stopped cold and called the police when he had found the body.
No doubt he barfed all over the place,
she thought in disgust.

The second one, a cheap boarding house, or flophouse, as they'd termed it, on the edge of town had taken place late in September, and five bodies had been recovered. Both police investigators and curiosity seekers would have contaminated the scene. As well, the very act of putting the fire out would have destroyed evidence.

The last fire at the end of October, a Friday night poker game at a popular service station, had turned deadly when a cigarette had ignited gasoline, solvents, and other flammable materials that had been improperly stored. Six bodies had been found — three poker players and three young men from the university in North Bay who had been doing an environmental study, and apparently had camped out in the garage's main office for the night. Because of the extensive damage, it had taken over a week to stabilize the area. When the local arson team had gone in, they had found evidence that linked this fire to the others.

There had been a fire in August; the exact date was unknown, a second one late in September, and now a third in late October. It was almost the end of November. If the pattern held, there would be another fire within days; hence her need for speed.

Time was running out, and she had to identify this guy quickly. The sooner she examined the fire scenes, the faster she would be able to get into this maniac's head. If she were lucky, the photographs and evidence collected by the forensic team would be complete enough to help her narrow her search at the crime scenes themselves.

The least savory aspect of the assignment was that the locals were supplying her with a partner. She preferred to work alone, and just hoped that he had the good sense to stay out of her way; she would provide him with the evidence he needed to do his job, but he had better not interfere with hers.

She wondered again whether taking this assignment had been a huge mistake. Yes, the promised raise and promotion would be welcomed, moving her higher up the corporate ladder, but what price would she have to pay? Did she really want to revisit painful memories she had repressed for so long? What was it Thomas Wolfe had said about never truly being able to go home again?

Sixteen years ago, she had run as fast and as far away from this place as she could get, from one hell into another. She had left part of her heart and soul behind, but time had passed and she had survived. She was going to Paradise to do a job, one no one else could do, and she would do it. She would find this serial killer, arsonist, what have you, and then she would deal with the rest of her baggage.

So why do I feel like a lost little girl hiding from the boogey man?

She straightened her shoulders. No, fear gave them power, and no one would ever make her feel powerless again.

Frustrated, she slapped the steering wheel.
Rats!
Thanks to the weather and her run in with Bullwinkle, she would not be able to do anything tonight. She was no better off than she would have been if she had waited for the storm to end.

Half an hour later, her fingers almost embedded in the molded plastic of the steering wheel, she pulled the car into the parking lot of the Paradise Motor Inn and got out in front of the office, resisting the urge to get down on her hands and knees and kiss the pavement. The scratch on the side of the car was a bad one; so much for her security deposit.

The fog was lighter here, lower to the ground, eerily covering the pavement to knee-depth, slithering as if it were alive, reminding her of the wisps of smoke that often accompanied her initial visits to fresh fire scenes.

The sky was black — no stars, no moon to light the way for a weary traveler. Not even the inn's flashy neon sign could dispel the gloom. The trees, naked this late in the fall, shook their skeletal branches in the wind; the rattling strained her already jittery nerves.

She looked around at the busy parking lot and sighed. She wondered fleetingly if her assigned colleague's vehicle were among those here. He knew she was arriving today; if he were as good at his job as she had been led to believe, then he should be as anxious as she was to get started.

Alexis bit her lip; anxiety and regret drove her thoughts. How many people would recognize her and see her as the ungrateful niece who had run away from her benevolent uncle?

What would she do if she were recognized? She would be forced to let Captain Peters know; he might be annoyed with her for not saying anything earlier, but he had pleaded with her to take this case.
Probably because no one else wanted to go to this remote place so close to Christmas,
she guessed. He would have to accept it; after all, he had been adamant that she was the only one who could do this particular job.

The Paradise Motor Inn hugged the shores of the Amable du Fond River, upstream from the timber slide that bypassed the nearby rapids. The slide had been built around 1850 to accommodate the logging industry in the area. The river cut through the igneous rock of the Canadian Shield, dropping over 800 feet along its 52 mile route to empty into the Mattawa River near Calvin. The area sported three provincial parks and was popular with canoeists and campers.

Alexis stared at the escarpment that edged the gorge. The first fire had been located in the forest just upriver. It was lucky that the fire had not spread to the trees — forest fires were as dangerous in Canada as they were in California. The locals said it was arson, but until she saw the scene herself, she would not know for sure. Accidental fires had been mistaken for arson in the past by inexperienced fire inspectors, and innocent men and women had been jailed because of misinterpreted evidence. Dismissing the idea from her mind, she walked towards the reception office of the motor inn.

She opened the door and entered. She wanted a drink, a meal, and a hot shower — in that order. The desk clerk, a handsome man in his early thirties, looked over his shoulder at the sound of the bell. There was something familiar about him that tickled her memory; she wondered fleetingly if they had met years ago. Even though she had sworn off men after her last disastrous relationship, she felt a flicker of interest for this one, a familiar coil of heat teasing her, as if her body remembered something her mind had forgotten. She chose to spend most of her time alone, but she could be flexible for this guy. He stood, limped over to the counter, and smiled at her.

He was gorgeous, tall, topping her five foot nine inches by at least six inches. He was muscled, but not in that overblown bodybuilder way. His short chestnut hair spiked gently on top. He was clean-shaven with a Kirk Douglas dimple in his chin under sensuous full lips. What struck her most about him were his eyes, familiar eyes that she couldn't place, deep blue like Moraine Lake, the popular glacier-fed lake in the Rockies, the kind of eyes in which a person could drown.

“Hi,” she said surprised by the catch in her voice. “Alexis Michaels; I have a reservation. I'm a little late.” She winced — three hours was more than a little late.

He stared at her a few moments as if he'd lost the ability to speak. She tilted her head, giving him a quizzical look.

“Sorry,” he stammered. “We've been expecting you; not to worry, your reservation was guaranteed.” His voice, once he'd found it, was as smooth as fine whiskey.