Incandescent (8 page)

“You’re not my friend, Marshal Tahir,” she
said retreating, her back against a door.

Her jasmine perfume made him rethink his
concept of the afterlife. “You’re right about that.”

Aaron zeroed in on Anna’s mouth, capturing
it. A whimper bubbled from her lips and he greedily swallowed it.
Swamped by the intensity of his kiss, her knees buckled and she
clutched at him for support.

“I want to hold you all night,” he said. He
circled her wrists and lifted her arms around his neck. “Come to my
motel.” He swept feverish kisses down her shoulder.

God she wanted to, but she wasn’t eager for
another rejection. The last thing she wanted was a guy who ran hot
and cold. “That’s not a good idea,” she said.

“Yes it is,” he argued, his mouth against her
cheek. “It’s a great idea.”

She ripped her mouth from his, turning her
head to the side. “No,” she said, her voice ragged in torment.
“This is not going to happen.”

Aaron backed away. “I’m sorry,” he said. “For
last night and now for tonight. It won’t happen again.” The
reserved and distant Marshal Tahir was back.

She couldn’t bear his penetrating gaze, so
she bowed her head trying to control her breathing. She focused on
the one thing that dampened the burning in her chest. “What’s going
on with the investigation? Have you found the source of the
fire?”

Aaron crossed his arms, and his face
shuttered. “Yes. Candles. I’m afraid your local chief was
correct.”

Anna pushed away from the door, moving past
Aaron into the living room. “That can’t be right,” she said, her
voice rising in alarm. “Gretchen’s already told you Lacey was
asleep when she left. No candles were burning.”

Aaron shook his head. “Lacey must have woken
after she left. Or maybe Gretchen lit them and won’t admit it. We
found several candles in the downstairs bathroom, arranged around
the bathtub. We also found charred remnants of bath towels and the
path of the fire as it swept from the bathroom, igniting the
carpets first and then the curtains. The bath and hallway are the
flash point and the smoke detectors didn’t work. The batteries were
dead.”

Anna stared at Aaron as if he had two heads.
“You’re wrong. Lacey is the most careful person I’ve ever known.
She wouldn’t have lit candles before going to bed. And she had her
own bathroom upstairs. Why would she use the downstairs tub?”

“I’ve been investigating fires all my adult
life, Anna. I know what I’m doing. It was an accident. There is no
indication of foul play,” he said. “If it wasn’t Lacey who lit the
candles, it was Gretchen, and she’s too afraid to admit it.”

Anna shook her head stubbornly. “I’m telling
you, you’re wrong. Gretchen wouldn’t lie about the candles and
Lacey wouldn’t have forgotten to change the batteries. You don’t
know them like I do. They’re my best friends.”

“According to your statement, everyone had
been drinking. Perhaps the women were inebriated and made mistakes.
It happens more often than you think.”

Anna sat on the edge of the sofa. “Gretchen
did have a lot to drink,” she said, her voice subdued. “She
finished our drinks and when she left the bar, she had a small
bottle. She said they were going to keep partying.”

Aaron leaned against the wall, his face in
the shadows as he listened.

Anna wrapped her arms around her stomach and
leaned over, a strangled sound in her throat. “You think Gretchen
may have done this and now she’s too afraid to tell the truth?”

Aaron remained silent, letting Anna recall
the night of the fire.

Anna shook her head, with determination. “No,
you’re wrong. Gretchen isn’t lying. I’d swear on my Mother’s grave,
she’s telling the truth. She is as angry and devastated by Lacey’s
accident as I am. If she were responsible, I’d know. I’d be able to
tell. She isn’t blaming herself. She isn’t hiding anything.”

“The evidence says otherwise.”

She scowled at Aaron. “You’re going to have
to do better, Mr. Fire Marshal,” she said, her voice heated. “Don’t
look for a scapegoat. Look for the truth.”

Aaron frowned. “The last thing I want to do
is blame this on someone innocent,” he said. “I always look for the
truth.”

She strode to the door and opened it. With a
curt nod, she indicated he should leave. “Look harder.”

The door slammed behind Aaron and he stood on
the porch, fists clenched at his side. Was there some piece of
evidence he’d missed? Was he becoming complacent? He wished it
weren’t an open-and-shut case. All the facts indicated the fire
started in the bathroom, as he said.

He knew how to read the clues. The fire
worked its way from the lit candles to the towels on the bar. From
there, it spread to the shower curtain and all the clothes piled on
the bathroom floor. The flames leapt to the hallway rug. From
there, the fire engulfed the living and dining rooms.

If Lacey Martin had monitored her fire
detectors, chances are she would have walked out of the fire
unscathed. He shook his head wearily. Too many people failed to
keep fresh batteries in that one small device and it often meant
the difference between life and death.

Chapter Fourteen

The man walked out of the truck stop diner
and paused between several parked vehicles to light a cigarette. He
cupped the matchstick and sucked, drawing the tobacco through the
filter and into his lungs. He tossed the match aside, and pulled a
folded yellow paper tube from his pocket. He removed the rubber
band, slid the lit cigarette into the tube, then snapped the band
back in place.

He slid the incendiary device in a small gap
between bales of hay on the back of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer
truck.

He didn’t wait to watch for the smolder.
Instead, he walked towards the one-story concrete building next
door with its promise of exotic dancers and triple x-rated movies.
He stepped into the obscurity of the adult bookstore. He heard
music and whistles from the back of the building, partitioned by a
black curtain and guarded by a bald man. The bouncer sat in a
wooden chair, one blue-jean leg crossed over a knee, his stained
and faded T-shirt straining against layers of fat. He raised his
eyes from the magazine in his lap, nodded once and went back to
studying the photographs.

Instead of heading for the lounge where nude
women danced, the man walked towards the store and its pornographic
movies. He monitored the parking lot through the tinted front
windows. He timed his movements carefully, and watched the
red-capped driver climb into the cab of the truck. A minute later,
the truck ferrying straw bales pulled onto the highway and headed
north into the twilight. He squinted and could make out wisps of
smoke mingling with exhaust at the back of the trailer.

Several minutes later, he paid cash for three
DVD movies and exited the shop. He pulled onto the roadway and
accelerated into the dark. It took him ten minutes at speeds close
to eighty miles per hour, before he caught sight of the flames. The
driver had pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and ran from one
side of the truck to the other. He slowed his car and made a
U-turn, parking on the far side of the highway. He became one of
several onlookers who watched, in fascination, as flames licked and
leaped from one hay bale to the next, until the entire cargo was
afire. The truck driver ran towards the growing crowd calling for a
cell phone. “Help! Someone call 911,” he begged. “I can’t get to my
radio!”

The man sneered as heat radiated from the
inferno. Unlike the others, he didn’t flinch at the thumping sound
and blinding light as the truck cab erupted into a fireball. He
glanced at his watch. From start to finish, he destroyed the truck
and its contents in less than twenty minutes.

Fifty miles away, lying on his motel bed,
Aaron thought about the Martin report and how it compared to others
he’d been researching. Could it be connected? Evidence the Martin
fire could be arson was non-existent, flimsy at best. He had no
doubt of the fire’s origin and its track through the house. But
that was the modus operandi of the Bronx Blazer. This cunning
criminal knew how to cover his tracks and leave enough evidence to
create doubt. Evidence indicated the victim had caused the fire.
And there always was a victim, often, more than one.

Aaron closed his eyes and conjured the
dossier he’d been compiling on the firebug. The first fires had
been set in the Bronx. From there, the arsonist spread out and
defined his signature. Aaron discovered the pattern when he created
a spreadsheet with multiple variables, sorting data and studying
the percentages.

He enjoyed numbers. His father had been an
accountant. Every night he came home from his office exhausted, yet
never too tired to play with his son while Aaron’s mother prepared
dinner. The games they played were always puzzles to challenge the
little boy’s intellect.

Aaron’s heart thudded in his chest as he
recalled his parents. It always hurt to think about them, to
remember the fear and confusion he felt after they were killed.
They left Aaron at home with an elderly neighbor while they visited
Lebanon to bury his grandfather, a casualty of the Lebanese Civil
War. They became casualties, themselves, when Palestinian
guerrillas in a speeding car fired on the church.

At the age of five, Aaron became a ward of
the court and shuttled through a series of foster homes. He was
frightened, sad, and seldom spoke. As a result, his foster families
often ignored or assaulted him. By the age of seven, the beatings
and abuse had taken their toll and the angry little boy rebelled.
He’d started playing with matches, his green eyes mesmerized by the
promised power in the dancing small flame. He closed himself in
bathrooms and closets and lit one match after another, the
sulfurous fumes filling his lungs, his little body shivering at the
crackling sound of the match head as it slid against the sandpaper.
Of course, he was often found with his matches, and beatings and
other forms of punishment resulted. These fed into the cycle of
abuse.

Sometimes, demons are made. They spring from
the tortured hearts of children fractured by monsters, posing as
guardians.

Aaron was on his way to becoming a demon, a
fanatic who burned and killed to experience power and excitement.
Then, he set his first fire, the shed in the woods. He was saved
that night, in a baptism of flames and sirens and flashing lights.
The angry men found him hiding, his eyes wide and wild.

Fire Chief Cooper West recognized something
in the little boy, something he knew in his own self. Instead of
returning Aaron to his current abusive foster family, the man took
Aaron home, to his wife, Maria, and his children, Tom, Darlene and
Pam.

Aaron’s life changed overnight. It took
longer for his soul to heal, and his broken heart to mend. For
once, he was the older child in the family and it gave him a sense
of responsibility. His new parents were kind, patient with his
fears and his compulsive behavior. Instead of denying him his
obsession, his new protector encouraged Aaron to learn more about
fire and its uses, both positive and negative. He took the little
boy to work with him on occasion, letting him eat at the firehouse
table along with the crew, help wash the fire truck, and slide down
the brass pole. For his tenth birthday, Aaron received a pair of
boots and overalls, and his own locker to stow a new jacket,
emblazoned with his name and rank: Junior Fire Chief Aaron
Tahir.

Cooper included Aaron when showing training
films and scheduling exercises, giving Aaron the ultimate power:
how to control himself with fire.

Cooper sent Aaron to college and after his
adopted son graduated with honors, gave him the ultimate gift: his
first paying job as a fire fighter.

An experienced fire fighter and sworn
law-enforcement officer, Aaron worked alongside his father for
several years, until the Pennsylvania state fire marshal’s office
recruited him. Despite Aaron’s new career, he remained close to his
family and tried to never to miss a holiday or special event at
their New York brownstone.

Cooper knew about Aaron’s research and theory
about the Bronx Blazer, and he didn’t dismiss it. He listened with
attentiveness each time Aaron called and they talked about the
cases, unusual because they were ordinary. So many cases within the
200-mile periphery were textbook fires, and with fatalities, they
should not be ignored. Yet so many fire departments did.

Aaron worried about closing the Martin case.
Was it too quick? Too easy? Could this fire be one of the Blazer’s?
If so, it was the first he’d investigated. Was he allowing himself
to join the ranks of duped fire officials? Or, was he letting a
sloe-eyed woman with full pouting lips misdirect him?

Aaron knew better than to doubt himself, but
he doubted Anna. How well did she know her friend Gretchen? He’d
seen countless people lie through their teeth to avoid paying for
crimes they’d committed, either on purpose or by accident. Gretchen
could be liar, motivated by guilt and fear. He still hadn’t been
able to pin her down.

As he closed his eyes, he resolved to read
through the report again tomorrow and reinterview everyone
connected. He decided to revisit the burned house and sift through
the ashes until he had every scrap of evidence he needed. Evidence
Anna needed to believe him.

Chapter Fifteen

Anna knocked on the office door and waited.
She heard the muffled response “Come in,” and turned the knob.
Behind the towering stacks of textbooks, Dr. Phoebe Allen sat at
her desk, her head wrapped in a colorful turban. Phoebe gestured
for her to enter.