Into the Fire (14 page)

Nate kept his silence for a long
moment before speaking. “Then Charly’s idea about offering us as
bait makes more sense than ever. She’s already hit Charly’s place.
There’s nowhere else to hit but mine, if she hasn’t hit it
already.”

“
No worries, Andrews. We’ve
had your place under surveillance since we first saw the writing on
the wall, so to speak. We’re covert,” Reynolds said before Nate
could raise a protest. “There’s been no activity to speak of. We
can get a picture of your ex from the missing person’s report, but
a here-and-now would be good for the time being, even if it’s just
what you remember.”

Nate nodded, acceding to the Captain’s
request. “She’s about five-ten in stocking feet. Brown and blue.
Slight build, good body, kept in shape, at least back
then.”

Reynolds nodded. “We’ll put a BOLO out
on her, but I expect, given her activity to date, she’ll be
slippery. We’ll also get a description from CC, see if it
matches.”

Charly felt Nate tense beside her. If
she’d been intimate with CC but not with him, then the girl he’d
known had gone in an empirically different direction than he’d
implied. In his mind, she was still his high school sweetheart, one
whose memory would never had been sullied if not for
this.

“
He was a means to an end,”
she whispered, so only he could hear.

His body relaxed a fraction, but he
still felt like a soldier on alert next to her. As much as the
concept of a former girlfriend--whether they’d been intimate or
not--piqued her, she had to give him props for owning up to
everything so selflessly.

“
So are we bait or not,
Captain?” she asked, laying everything out on the table. Nate had
done it, and he deserved no less on her part.

Reynolds regarded her for along
moment, before dipping his head in response. “Given the rate she’s
escalated, with the variable of violence, we can’t do anything
else. Go set yourselves up, leaving a bread trail she can’t help
but follow. We’ll have people in place to deal with it when she
shows. It’ll just be you two inside the house, so we don’t tip her
off. We all know she’s not stupid, so this may not work, but my gut
tells me she’ll have to take this opportunity because she’s passed
her personal point of no return.” He paused, then pulled open a
desk drawer and extracted a Glock.

Charly felt her eyes widen but forced
her mouth to stay closed. She knew what the captain was offering,
even as he pushed the gun across the table to Nate.

“
This is
my stash gun. Yeah, it’s registered to me, and I’d really
appreciate it if you didn’t use it.” Reynolds’ face creased in a
rare smile. “I don’t want you going in there unarmed, and I know
you’ve used something similar, in your time overseas. Just let
Charly use sanctioned force, if necessary, and this, if
it’s 
absolutely
 necessary.”

Nate’s strong fingers closed over the
stock. “I understand what you’re saying, Captain, but if I need to
protect Charly, myself or any of the other officers, I won’t
hesitate.”

Reynolds leaned back in his chair. “I
know, son. That’s why I gave it to you. If either Jim Ryan or I
thought any differently, you wouldn’t be holding a piece. Just use
it judiciously.”

Both Charly and Nate stood, the
session clearly at an end. Beside her, Nate felt solid, true, as if
he’d given his past over to the present. She hoped the illusion was
more than a mirage. Nate had faced several hard facts about his
past today; none of them were pleasant. As inappropriate as it
might be, she wondered where she’d fit into everything once this
was all said and done. But, damned if her heart didn’t want to
continue down the road they’d plotted, regardless of their current
circumstances.

She
was 
so
 screwed.

Chapter Twelve

Charly sat across from him, her body
ramrod straight. Her Beretta sat on the coffee table between them,
a mate to the Glock Captain Reynolds had loaned Nate. Outside,
darkness had fallen, and the silence was complete, save the
monotonous ticking of the clock on the mantle.

Nate figured the time for feigning
disinterest was long past, and they had time to burn,
so...

“
How angry are
you?”

She jerked in response to his words,
as if she’d been somewhere else in her head. “Mad as hell. That
bitch tried to torch my house. Touched my things. Ruined them. I
feel violated, Nate.” She shook her head slowly. “Now I understand
what people like Marie Wilkins feel.” Her smile was bitter. “If
nothing else, it’ll make me more empathetic to future
victims.”

Nate propped his elbows on his knees
and studied her. Yeah, she was pissed. “I didn’t mean about your
house. I meant me, us. Did this kill what we started?”

She stared at him for a long moment.
“I honestly don’t know, Nate. We agreed this was just about
sex.”

He snorted in response, even as her
words made his heart feel lighter. This was his Charly, stubborn to
the end. “It’s always been about more than the sex, and you know
it, but I can wait. I just need to know if I’ve got a fighting
chance, after all this.”

She leaned forward, as if challenging
his words. “The sex was phenomenal, but we always knew that. The
rest we’ll have to play by ear, after this is over.”

With that statement, he knew he had
her. Charly always said it like it was, always had. If his past or
their present had sunk them as a couple, then she’d have said it
straight out. When this was over, he’d begin courting her the way
she deserved.

“
Fair enough, but I’m not
going away this time, Charly. I’m here for the
duration.”

Anything else he might have said was
silenced by the sound of his back door opening. His locked back
door. He was the only person who had a key to the back door, or so
he’d thought. Nate’s heart thundered in his ears as adrenaline
spiked through his system. This was it, for good or bad.

Where the hell were the cops stationed
outside?

Both of them stood, weapons in hand,
and took flanking positions on either side of the doorway leading
into the kitchen. The smell of kerosene was as strong as a punch to
the gut. He heard it splash as it hit the kitchen floor and looked
at Charly. She was the cop here, the lead. She met his eyes, nodded
once, and they swung into the kitchen with their sidearms
raised.

“
Stop, police,” Charly
shouted; her voice was strong and sure in the tiny confines of the
room.

The woman standing in the middle of
the kitchen smiled, but in that smile, Nate saw nothing of the girl
he’d once known as Audrey. Before she’d been shy, almost mousy.
Today, she was striking; her blonde hair cascaded down her back,
and the cut and color almost matched Charly’s. She wore a dark
sweatsuit, and in her hand, she held an empty one-gallon container
of kerosene. How in the hell was it empty? She hadn’t had enough
time to pour it all yet.

“
Nathan!” her voice was
pleased, as if they were meeting again at a cocktail party. “I knew
you’d come after you figured out all the clues.” Madness laced her
tone.

“
This is my house, Audrey,”
he said gently. “Put down the kerosene, and we can
talk.”

“
Oh, we’ll talk,” she said,
almost gaily. “We’ve got so much to catch up on.”

Nate hazarded a glance to Charly. She
stood in a classic shooter’s pose, feet spread apart, solidly
planted, both hands wrapped around the stock of the Beretta. Her
expression was deadly, focused, and he knew she’d drop Audrey if
the other woman made a move.

Audrey continued. “I was so excited
when I bumped into your mom a few months ago and she said you were
returning. I made her promise not to tell because I wanted to
surprise you. But you didn’t come back to Detroit, like you were
supposed to,” she pouted, the empty plastic jug still dangled from
her fingers. “I made myself into just what you wanted, and you
didn’t even bother to say hello.” She smiled brightly again, and
the expression made Nate’s stomach roll. “So I did what I could to
get your attention.”

“
A phone call would have
sufficed,” he said gently, chilled to the bone that she’d spoken to
his mom. “How about we sit down and talk?” He lowered the Glock,
knowing Charly had them covered and hoping against hope Audrey
would see it as a gesture of trust.

“
You know,
I didn’t understand your fascination with fire, but once you left,
I studied and studied. Came to see you once, but you were
with 
her
.” Audrey’s mouth curled into a sneer. “Doing things you’d
never done with me, never even tried to do with me. Then you left
again. So I waited and waited, learned about what you loved, what
you liked to do in bed. Now we can be together forever.” She set
the container on the counter and it was only then Nate saw she held
a Zippo in the other hand, the top already open.

Beside him, Charly stiffened as she
saw the same thing. Nate felt, rather than saw, her fingers
tightening around the trigger.

But Audrey beat the bullet. She
stepped forward, flicking the Zippo as she did. Flames mushroomed
around her entire body, licking over the sweatsuit. She didn’t
scream as the fire consumed her, just took another purposeful step
forward and raised her flaming arms to embrace Nate.

The first bullet pushed her back; her
face creased into a surprised expression. Nate dropped the Glock,
dove to the left and yanked the fire extinguisher off the wall. He
pulled the trigger as cops began to pour into the kitchen with
their weapons drawn.

White foam and smoke filled the room
as Audrey went down hard beneath one of the plainclothes officers
and began to wail; her high-pitched keening overpowered even the
strident shriek of the smoke detector. Nate dropped to one knee and
emptied the extinguisher on Audrey and the officer. The sickening
smell of burned flesh filled the room, overpowering everything
until Nate wanted to vomit.

Instead, he scrambled to Audrey; his
paramedic training kicked in as he assessed the damage. Then Charly
was beside him and the other officers crowded around him to pull
the plainclothes away for triage.

Audrey writhed beneath his hands,
screaming in earnest now. “Get a fucking ambulance!” Nate shouted,
though as he tried to peel away the still-smoldering sweatsuit, he
knew it was a lost cause. Charly held a set of dishcloths to the
front and back of Audrey’s shoulder, staunching the flow of blood
from the bullet wound.

Then Audrey went quiet beneath them
with one last word ghosting from her lips. “Forever.”

Chapter
Thirteen

Charly hunched over her desk, the
mother of all headaches pounding at her skull. Though she’d
showered in the locker room, she still reeked of smoke, kerosene
and burned flesh, as if it were burned into her memory.

Nate sat slumped in the chair across
from her; fatigue and grief lined his features.

They were playing the waiting game
now, though Charly knew what came next. Administrative leave while
the mucky-mucks reviewed the case and determined if she’d had cause
to discharge her firearm.

Captain Reynolds plopped into the
chair next to Nate, looking just as tired as Charly
felt.

“
You know the drill,
Davis.”

She nodded and pushed her Beretta
across the desk. “One shot to the shoulder. I know you can read our
statements, but figured you’d like to hear it too.”

His head dipped in assent.

“
She doused herself in the
kerosene, for all I can figure. She was wearing dark clothes... We
couldn’t tell she’d made herself into a freakin’ human torch. Then
she lit herself up and went after Nate. I did what I had
to.”

“
For what it’s worth, I
think the review board will see it the same way. I doubt we’ll ever
know how she got into the buildings, or why she chose the ones she
did.” He shrugged. “Don’t know how it matters anyway. Now get out
of here, both of you. You’re both on administrative leave for the
foreseeable future. Say a week or so.” He stood. “Your friend Emma
has been riding my ass for the last hour. She’s got you set up in a
hotel downtown, didn’t think either of you would want to go home.
Your call.”

Charly felt tears well behind her eyes
and forced them back. Yeah, that sounded like something Emma would
do. “Thanks, Captain,” she whispered, wishing her voice were
stronger. That she was stronger. But tonight had taken everything
out of her.

“
I’ll get a uniform to drop
you off. I don’t trust either of you behind the wheel.”

Charly struggled to her feet; fatigue
weighed her down more than any other time in her life. Nate stood
as well and stepped around the desk, keeping a careful distance.
His expression was couched in cautious lines.

“
I’ll get a second room,” he
said, his voice hollow.

Charly knew that what she said and did
right this second would impact her for the rest of her life. If
Nate took a separate room, the wedge between them would be
invisible, and probably insurmountable. If they stayed together
tonight, it would be a commitment, a declaration, at least on her
part. Was she ready for that?