Sizzle and Burn (35 page)

Zack’s hand closed abruptly around her wrist, stopping her. Startled, she turned toward him, mouth open to ask why he did not want the lights.

He shook his head once and put his fingertips to her lips.

Then she, too, heard the faint sound from downstairs. Someone had opened the kitchen door. Tension sizzled through her. Instinctively her parasenses opened wide.

“Miss Tallentyre?” Doug Spicer called. “It’s me, Doug, from Spicer Properties. Where are you?”

Zack took his fingers from her mouth. Raine didn’t realize how tense she had been until she suddenly went limp with relief.
Too much stress lately
, she thought.

“My real estate agent,” she explained.

She took a couple of deep breaths, trying to calm her overhyped nerves, and went out onto the landing. Gripping the railing, she looked down. Zack came to stand beside her. Doug Spicer was at the foot of the stairs, one hand on the newel post. His leather briefcase was clutched tightly in his other hand.

“Hello, Doug,” she said. “We just came to collect a few things of my aunt’s.”

He gave her a genial smile. “Saw Chief Langdon at the café this morning. He mentioned that you and a companion had phoned and told him you were on your way up here today.” He switched his attention to Zack. “I don’t believe we’ve met. Doug Spicer.”

“Zack Jones,” Zack said.

Doug nodded and turned his attention back to Raine. “I thought I’d drop by and let you know that I’ve had a nibble on the house. It’s not a very impressive offer, I’m afraid, but under the circumstances, I strongly recommend that you consider it.”

“Are you kidding? I’ll take it, whatever it is. I can’t tell you how relieved I am to hear that someone actually wants to buy this place.”

“The buyer is from the Seattle area,” Doug said. “Looking for a weekend house in the mountains. I was going to fax the offer to you today but since you’re here, we might as well deal with it now.”

“I’ll be right down.”

“Fine. We can work at the kitchen table. I’ll get the papers ready.”

He tightened his grip on his briefcase, turned and walked briskly toward the kitchen.

“Looks like this is my lucky real estate day,” Raine said, starting down the stairs.

Zack caught her wrist, halting her on the top step.

“Wait here,” he said softly.

She looked at him in surprise as he went quickly past her. When he reached the bottom of the stairs he flattened his hand on the newel post where Doug’s palm had been a moment earlier.

He snatched his fingers away from the wood. He swung around and started back up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered. “Not my lucky day, after all.”

He grabbed her wrist again with one hand. He used the other to take his gun out of his shoulder holster.

“The bedroom,” he said into her ear. “Hurry.”

Gritting her teeth against the pain radiating from her weak ankle, she struggled to keep up with him.

They made it to within a foot of the bedroom doorway before her ankle betrayed her. She lost her balance. Zack’s grip on her wrist kept her from sprawling but she nevertheless went down hard on one knee.

She glanced over her shoulder and caught a glimpse of Doug Spicer through the opening between two of the banister posts. He was just inside the kitchen, using the doorway for cover.

“
Witch!
” he screamed. He raised one hand.

Before she could process the scene and make sense of it, Zack fell on top of her, crushing the breath from her lungs. She registered a loud staccato drumbeat of noise and felt a violent shudder go through Zack.

Cold fire splashed violently through her senses. She knew intuitively that she was sharing Zack’s psychic reaction to the bullet that had slammed into him.

“Zack.”

He was moving, rolling with her into the bedroom. A second flurry of shots crashed through the house. She heard wood splinter.

The sensation of icy fire dissipated. She knew Zack had somehow clamped down on his senses.

Flat on his belly, he leaned through the opening and fired twice.

“Can’t get a clear shot from here,” he said, his voice low and harsh. “Have to wait until he comes up the stairs.”

There was a long pause from down below. Then Spicer’s voice, unnaturally shrill, reverberated up the staircase.

“Only one way to kill a witch,” he yelled from the kitchen.

Raine glanced at Zack. Beneath the open edge of his leather jacket she could see a terrible red stain on the side of his shirt.

She started to move toward him.

He motioned her toward the window. “We’ll go out that way.”

“You’ve been hit. I need to stop the bleeding.”

“Not now. Got to prioritize here.”

“What are you talking about?”

Then she caught the stench of gasoline.

“Dear God,” she whispered. “He’s going to burn the house down with us inside. Just like he did to all the other witches.”

“Move,” Zack ordered. Somehow he was on his feet.

She grabbed the edge of the bedside table and staggered upright. Adrenaline made it possible to ignore the pain in her ankle. Somehow her purse had made it back into the bedroom along with her. It was lying on the floor. Age-old feminine instinct and reflex made her scoop it up.

The sight of the painting on the wall stopped her. It was an ominously smiling mask. She reached up and took it down. There was a small safe set into the wall.

Zack had the window open now. Cold air blew into the bedroom. “What the hell are you doing? Get over here.”

“Just a second.”

The safe was a simple, inexpensive one. She punched in the date of her own birth.

“Leave it,” Zack said, throwing the emergency rope ladder over the windowsill. “Whatever is in there isn’t worth your life.”

But she had the door to the safe open now. She pulled out the only object, a leather-bound volume, and stuffed it into her purse.

There was a great, roaring whoosh of sound from the hallway.

“
Burn, witch!
” Spicer screamed.

Vella’s many smoke alarms began to shriek.

She ran for the window. Zack practically shoved her through the opening. She got a foot on the first rung of the emergency ladder and started down. The ladder shook and trembled but it held.

Zack followed swiftly.

She reached the ground and scurried back.

“This way.” Zack stumbled a little when he stepped off the ladder. He put one hand to his side where the crimson stain was growing.

Together they half limped, half staggered toward the shelter of the small shed that had originally been built to hold firewood. Vella had used it to store garden tools. Raine gritted her teeth against the pain in her ankle, aware that Zack had to be in agony. If he could keep going, so could she.

When they reached the back of the shed they stopped. Raine could see flames and black smoke surging up into the damp sky. The fire was roaring now, a huge tyrannosaurus rex come to life and busily devouring everything in sight.

“Sit down,” Raine ordered. “Before you fall down.”

Zack obeyed reluctantly, unclipping his phone while he sank onto the cold ground. He leaned forward slightly, watching the burning house, gun in hand, while he talked to the 911 operator.

Raine reached inside his jacket and unfastened his blood-drenched shirt. His right side was a gory mess. It was difficult to tell exactly where the wound was. Using her fingers, she tracked a steady, welling stream of blood back to its source. When she found the raw edges of the wound that had ripped open his flesh she felt him suck in his breath.

She jerked off the long scarf she wore and wrapped it snugly around his rib cage. By the time she finished they were both covered in blood.

The house was fully engulfed now. The speed of the fire was terrifying. If it hadn’t been for the phobic fear that had led Vella to install emergency fire ladders in the upstairs rooms—

No
, Raine thought.
Don’t go there
.
Thank you, Aunt Vella
.

“Spicer must have left,” she whispered.

Zack shook his head once, never taking his attention off the house. “Don’t think so. He can’t leave. He has to be sure.”

“He’s crazy.”

“Oh, yeah.”

A few seconds later she heard Spicer’s voice again.

“Die, witch. Die like she died.”

“He just noticed the rope ladder,” Zack said quietly. “He’s going to come unglued now.”

Spicer’s high, keening scream of rage rose above the thunder of the fire.

“You can’t escape!” Spicer shouted. “You have to burn. It’s the only way.”

“He’s just noticed the shed,” Zack said. “He’s coming this way.”

She could hear sirens in the distance now. Spicer seemed oblivious, however.

“The demon always wins!” he yelled. “The demon is more powerful than you, witch.”

Zack rose slowly, back pressed to the wall of the shed.

“Put the gun down, Spicer,” he called. “The cops are on the way. It’s over.”

Spicer’s response was a flurry of shots followed by an abrupt pause. She didn’t know much about guns but she knew enough to realize that they occasionally needed to be reloaded.

Zack leaned around the edge of the shed and fired once.

Doug Spicer was still alive when Wayne Langdon and a deputy pulled into the drive. A fire truck followed by an aide car appeared next.

Raine didn’t wait for the medics to do triage. She limped toward them, waving her arms to get their attention.

“Take care of him first,” she said, pointing to Zack. She put every ounce of authority she possessed into the command. “He’s the good guy.”

Fifty-seven

T
wo hours later she sat in the reception area of the Shelbyville Community Hospital. Wayne Langdon was with her.

She was still waiting for Zack. He had been in the emergency room for what seemed an eternity. A doctor had appeared briefly to assure her that the wound looked a lot worse than it was. He explained that the bullet had passed cleanly through skin and tissue, not striking any vital organs on the way.

“A lot of stitches and some antibiotics and he’ll be fine. Mr. Jones will end up with an interesting scar but no permanent damage.”

Easy for him to say,
she thought. She would remember the moment that Zack took a bullet for her for the rest of her life. The terrible fear that had flashed through her when she knew he’d been hit would haunt her nightmares, just as the voices did.

Someone had re-taped her ankle and provided her with a pair of crutches.

“Got a full confession out of Spicer before they took him into surgery,” Langdon said. “Hard to shut him up, to tell you the truth. Kept babbling about how he had to burn the witches.”

“Uh-huh.” Raine fiddled with her crutches, trying to get the hang of using them.

Langdon grimaced. “I appreciate that you’re not saying
I told you so
.”

“Hard to resist, though.”

“I’ll bet.” Langdon whistled softly. “Got to say, Spicer’s confession couldn’t have come at a better time, and that’s a fact.”

“Why is that?” Raine asked, glancing at her watch.

“The case against Burton Rosser was starting to unravel pretty fast. Turns out he’s got an ironclad alibi for at least one of the Bonfire murders. He was doing time for burglary when the first girl was killed.”

“I assume Spicer was the one who set him up?” she asked.

“Yeah. Evidently you scared the, uh, crap out of him after you discovered the girl still alive in your aunt’s basement.” Langdon cleared his throat. “Got the feeling that something about you made him real nervous.”

“I have that effect on people sometimes. It’s a gift.”

Langdon looked as if he didn’t know how to take that. He turned a little red and then acted as if she hadn’t said anything. He cleared his throat again and hurried on with his story.

“Spicer figured the best way to protect himself from becoming a suspect was to give us a solid perp. He left the belt in Burton Rosser’s house. Then he copied the photos of the victims off his own computer onto a flash storage device and loaded them onto Rosser’s computer. We found the same photos on Spicer’s computer a few minutes ago.”

“How did he know that Rosser would make a likely-looking suspect?”

“Spicer deliberately picked someone who was even newer in town than himself. Rosser also looked good because he was a loner and there were rumors that he’d done jail time.”

Her phone rang. She reached into her purse and glanced at the incoming number. Blocked.

“Hello,” she said warily.

“Is this Raine Tallentyre?”

A man’s voice, or maybe the voice of a really irritable bear. It was hard to tell.

“I think you have the wrong number,” she said.

“Fallon Jones,” the bear rumbled, sounding even more annoyed because he’d had to identify himself. “Just tried to call Zack. His phone’s off. What the hell is going on?”

She gave Langdon a brief, bright smile. “Excuse me, Chief. I have to take this call.”

“Sure, no problem.”

She got to her feet, grabbed the crutches and limped through the sliding glass doors out onto the brick entranceway. It was cold outside, but she didn’t care. She was suddenly generating more than enough heat to keep herself warm. Leaning on one of the crutches, she managed to get the phone back to her ear.

“How do you do, Mr. Jones,” she said, making her voice glassy smooth. “So you’re the head of the firm that ripped my family apart all those years ago.”

“Huh?”

“I can’t begin to tell you how pissed off I am by the sneaky, underhanded way your agent Wilder Jones conducted his so-called investigation.”

“What the hell? Lady, I had nothing to do with that investigation. It went down long before my time here at J&J.”

“I don’t want excuses, Jones, I want abject apologies. Wilder Jones broke my aunt’s heart.”

“You’re mad because those two had an affair?” Fallon sounded bewildered. “Are you crazy?”

“No, fortunately. No thanks to J&J or the Arcane Society.”