Heaven's Fire (13 page)

Simon sat down on the corner of her desk and straightened the "Investigative Assistant" name plate.
"
Howdy, ma’am. Anything from the lab yet?
"

"Please." She gave him a look over the top of the reading glasses she'd recently adopted. She didn't need them, but she liked the way they made her look. "It's Saturday, and you dropped the samples off maybe ten hours ago. You're lucky
I'm
here."

"
You won't
get an argument from me on that,
" Simon
said wearily.

"I do have the
preliminary
cause of death on Pasquale Firenze," she offered
hesitantly
.
Kathy knew
Pasquale was a friend, and Simon didn't have many friends. Not because he wasn't good, or funny, or clever. Simon was all of those things. It was because he didn't attach himself to people easily or lightly. But once he did--once you were his friend--it was for life. Kathy liked that about him, and she hated to see him hurting. Though no one but Kathy would probably notice.

"
It looks like heart failure from the concussion of the explosion," she said. "There was no water in the lungs.
"

Meaning Pasquale hadn't drowned, but had died instantly.

"Good," Simon said softly, then changed the subject.
"
So how’s by you, Kath. All well with the doc?
"

She followed his lead to the lighter side.
"
You are absolutely transparent, Simon. You want me to be a nun or what?
"

Simon gave her a slack-jawed leer.
"
What.
"

She smacked him
lightly
.
"
Get off my desk, you cretin.
"

Simon and Kathy had
started with ATF the same year, Simon,
twenty-eight
, and Kathy, just
eighteen.
U
nbeknownst to Kathy
at the time, he'd
warned off all the other guys in the office
, not because he was interested in her himself, but because he felt protective of the young woman barely out of high school.
After two
dateless
years,
Kathy finally realized what was going on and told her protector
to
mind his own damn business.

Now--at twenty-eight herself--she was officially engaged to a doctor. A pediatric cardiologist. But it didn't stop her from loving Simon.

The ATF agent rubbed the shoulder she'd hit and
stood up
, smiling
.
"
Just watching out for you, Kath."

She shook her head.
"
When are you going to find yourself a nice gal, Tex, and settle down?
"

"
I did that once,
"
Simon said, heading into his office.
"Remember?"

"
I said a nice gal,
"
Kathy muttered under her breath.

*****

Neal:
  "
...has taken its toll on the Firenze family. Francesco Firenze was killed two years ago in an explosion, and just last night we saw, live on TV8, his brother Pasquale
suffer a similar fate.

In addition, Pasquale Firenze's son-in-law is still missing in last night's blast and is presumed dead, leaving only the patriarch's son, Pasquale Jr., and daughter, Angela. A sad ending, some say, for the Firenze Fireworks dynasty."

Brett:
 
"Neal, I understand the Firenzes are scheduled to fire next week's Fourth of July fireworks in Liberty. Any word
--
"

Jake
swiveled away from the monitor in her control room and
took a hit of the latte she'd picked up
en route
from the lakefront
.

Even on a Saturday, the energy at the station
was palpable. Talk about luck,
the general consensus seemed to be. TV8, t
he exclusive Lake Days Fireworks station
,
as
catastrophe struck. Oh, sure, the other stations had one, maybe two cameras down there to film the finale. But nobody else had anybody on the barges or the seawall.

News programs
from all over the country were clamoring for
tape
and
even
to interview Luis
Burns
. Luis
, for his part,
was clamoring for
footage, too--the
close-up
Jake had buried under "F" in the file cabinet
.

Speaking of tapes...
Jake
sipped
her latte
, eyeing a different
tape,
this one
containing the footage
Luis
shot
after
the mic
rowave van went down.

The tape
had been in his camera
, though
Jake didn't
quite understand why
Luis
was recording to that
when he was
already
hard-wired to the microwave van
. A backup,
in case something happened to the truck or to the signal? That should have been Jake's call, and not a bad one in retrospect. But for Luis to have done it--for Luis even to have
thought
of it--would mean he was a belt-and-suspenders kind of guy. And Luis was anything but.

Besides, with
Luis
on the barge
, Jake wouldn't have access to the footage
in his camera for the live show anyway. It was worthless unless later coverage was required for some reason, and Luis would have no way of knowing
,
when he'd put that tape in the camera, that--

The phone rang, bre
aking her train of thought.
Jake picked up the receiver. "News."

Silence. Probably j
ust another yahoo
thinking
the newsroom number
would ring in the studio and, therefore, on
air.
"Get a life," Jake said into the phone, before replacing the receiver.

She stared into her now empty coffee cup
. Running on latte vapors and
still with
nearly five hours to go.

The producer
watched the monitor as Neal diagrammed the accident on a chalkboard. Even Neal--a genuinely nice guy--was eating this stuff up. Now if only there were criminal negligence on Firenze’s part, this story could go on for months. The gift that just keeps on giving.

Vultures. Feeding off Pasquale’s body. And probably Ray’s. And worst of all,
Jake
was right down there with them, elbowing her way to the dinner table.

****

Finding TV8's front entrance locked,
Simon
Aamot
pushed the after-hours buzzer
to the right of it
. A voice over the intercom answered a moment later.

Simon
identified himself
. "I have
an appointment with Wendy Jacobus.
"

"Who?"

"Jake," Simon tried.

"
Just a second. I’ll get her.
"

Five minutes later
Wendy "
Jake
" Jacobus
was leading him through a labyrinth of laminate half walls to a real one with a real door in it. Inside was a windowless room that looked like an enlarged version of the production van, but with even more monitors.

The editing suite
, as Jake called it,
included a small studio, now dark. The whole suite--walls, floor and ceiling--looked to be encased in some sort of sound-deadening insulation. Most of the monitors were black, but one showed a studio somewhere else in the building--the news set, with Neal Cravens was sitting at the desk talking. The sound was off.

"
Sorry I’m a little early,
"
Simon said.

She smiled.
"
They're done. Neal’s just jabbering to the guys. Come on in and sit down.
"

"
Is Cravens your weekend anchor?
"

Jake went to the console and pushed a button, then looked over her shoulder at him.
"
Don’t tell me you don’t watch our news.
"

"
Nah, I’m too busy reading the newspaper and Newsweek.
"

"
Slum and watch us instead. I need my job.
"

Simon looked around. The light in the room was subdued and, like any sound they made, seemed to be sucked in by the walls and ceiling. The space felt dead, like an isolation chamber.

In the midst of all that isolation, Jake was plainly alive and in her element. She looked tired, though, with small dark thumbprints under her eyes.

"
How long have you been working?
"
he asked.
"
You were on until two last night, then here to make the tapes for me this morning. Lake Days at noon, then back here again. Did you sleep at all?
"

She flopped into the chair in front of the editing console and tucked her feet up under her as the chair swiveled.
"Time to sleep when I'm dead."

When Simon didn't respond, she sighed. "
Okay
, a
bout three hours,
maybe
. I finally gave up and went to swim laps, thinking it would relax me.
"

"Did it?" Simon asked. He was a runner when he had the time, but the thought of paddling up and back the same narrow strip of pool over and over again sounded like nothing short of torture to him. Water torture.

"No." Jake folded her arms across her chest.
"
And w
hat abo
ut you? Did you sleep
?
"

He nodded, feeling a little guilty about it.
"
I’ve gotten to the point where I can just turn it off. I have to.
"

"
Yeah, I suppose you do. How long have you been with the ATF?
"
She gestured for him to sit in the chair next to hers.

He did, setting the box of videotapes he'd brought along on the console.
"
About as long as you've been here, ten years.
"

"
You like it? Or is that a silly question?
"

He shrugged.
"
No more than my asking if you like your job. There are good days, and there are bad days.
"

She thought about that.
"
I suppose. But I’ve experienced just a part of one of your days, and it has kicked the living daylights out of me.
"

"
It's...you get used to it. And when it gets too bad, you move over to the Secret Service for a while.
"

"
The Secret Service?
"
She was laughing.

"
Seriously. Both ATF and the Secret Service are under the Treasury Department. At ATF, we deal with motorcycle gangs, illegal arms dealers, bombers--not exactly the upper rungs of society’s ladder. After a while, it drags you down, too.
"

"
Must be hell on a home life.
"

"
It’s hard to leave your work at the office. Or your mood.
"

"
Are you married?
"
Jake asked.

Simon shifted in his chair.
"
Not anymore. She’s an attorney, a partner in a good firm. The marriage didn’t last long.
"

"
Your job? Her job?"
Jake’s hair was back-lighted by the glow coming off the monitor behind her. It looked like a tangled halo around her white face and dark, dark eyes. She looked very fragile all of a sudden.

He cleared his throat, reminding himself that during lunch she had been about as fragile as a fox terrier. Little in stature, but wiry and, he was willing to bet, tenacious.
"
Both. Days spent in my world and nights in hers. Dinner parties. Benefits. I’d come home feeling like I should check my shoes to make sure I didn’t drag the crap from my life into hers.
"