The Protector (27 page)

“Come because your family wants me to?”

He caught her off guard by sliding his hand along her cheek. His laughter turned serious.
“I
want you to come. Please.”

Her gaze held his. The last thing she wanted to do was hurt him. But if she said yes, it would just complicate a friendship. She leaned against his hand, appreciating this man’s strength, and tried to calculate the cost of a yes.

The radio on the counter sounded dispatch tones. The conversation stopped as a fire dispatch came across. The address was given.

Cassie paled. “Cole—”

Jack surged to his feet, pushing back wrapping paper and packages. He caught her hand to pull her to her feet. “Get your jacket. A call will find out if he was working late at the office.”

The dispatch address was Cole’s home.

Thirty

S
moke was curling up behind his house, and Cole didn’t have to see the source to have a good idea of what was burning. As soon as he opened his car door he got confirmation. It smelled like what it was: the stench of burning garbage. Someone had set his trash cans on fire.

He had a big backyard with his garage set to the back of the lot, the trash cans along the side of the garage next to the alley. It wasn’t the first time someone had set fire to his trash and it probably wouldn’t be the last. At least this time it hadn’t dropped sparks and spread to the grass.

Engine Crew 21 had been able to pull into the alley to within fifteen feet of the fire. Under the distant streetlight there was some light to work with, but most light at the scene came from the engine’s own halogen spotlights. “There’s a garden hose and water hookup on the east corner of the garage,” Cole called over to the lieutenant as he reached in the back of his car for his fire coat. Two men had just about suppressed the fire with fire extinguishers, but the area would have to be wet down to handle any smoldering remains.

A car pulled in behind him, headlights briefly lighting the scene. Cole turned and recognized Jack’s car. Cassie was with him. Cole wasn’t surprised that his address in the dispatch would have caught attention. He was surprised to see them together.

“Cole?” Cassie called, worried.

“Everything is fine. It’s a nonevent.” He’d have to replace some boards and repaint his garage in the morning, then do some digging at the local school after the Christmas break to find out who had thought tossing a match would be a fun thing to do, but it wasn’t a crisis. It was the typical complication that showed up when he least needed another problem on his plate.

Cole slipped his hands into his back pockets and watched the firefighters do their jobs. He was tired enough he was willing to stand back and let others take care of it.

“Who called it in?” Jack asked.

The breeze changed and Cole gave a rueful smile. “I suspect anyone downwind.” His pager went off. Cole glanced down and saw the return number for the office. “Come on up to the house if you like. I need to call the office.”

Cole walked around the curving stone walkway through the trees up to the house. “Watch your step. There’s wandering ivy across the stones.”

He dug out his keys.

“Cole.” Jack caught his elbow, stopping him. The alarm in Jack’s voice would have halted him without the hand reaching to stop him. “Back of the house.”

Cole looked up. Jack swept his flashlight over the area.

The back door was hanging at an angle from its hinges, wood from the door frame torn open.

“Cassie—” Cole waited until she looked his direction and held up his keys. He tossed them toward her. “The phone in my car. Get me the arson squad coordinator and the police liaison.” It would keep her out of the way, which was nearly as important as the task he gave her. She nodded and turned back toward the cars. “Jack, come with me.”

The floor was littered with popcorn.

“Wait for the police,” Jack cautioned.

Cole took a careful step around the shattered door. Someone had taken an ax with at least a five-inch blade to it. The door frame had been shattered at the lock and at the top security bolt.

Murderer.

Cowards.

Cole wondered cynically what he was going to get tagged with.
Trash man?
The guy had torched his garbage cans. But why the vandalism? Had there really been a change in MO? The popcorn said it was the same guy. “Jack, get back to Cassie and clamp a hand on her. He may still be in the area. When the cops get here, you two can look around.”

He expected Jack to do it. Instead, his hand came down hard on Cole’s shoulder. “Outside.”

“This may be set to burn. I need to know where and how.” He was not letting tar and some spark mechanism send his home up in flames when they were early enough to prevent it.

Jack muscled his way in front of him and got in his face. “Outside. Now. Or so help me, Cole, I will take you out.”

Jack was furious.

And it drew Cole up short.

“It’s your home…but it’s not worth people’s lives. Get out, and tell the firefighters coming up the walk to stay out.”

And in that moment the man facing him moved from being a friend to being a lieutenant correctly reading the scene and flexing his right to take charge and assume authority. “We’ll wait for the cops.”

Thirty-one

C
ole shone his bright torchlight around the living room walls.

Jack swept his light across the floor behind him.

“Somebody doesn’t like you,” Jack said tersely.

“Now whatever gave you that idea?”

The word
liar
was sprayed repeatedly across the walls. They had waited forty minutes after the cops arrived to make sure the house wasn’t going to explode on a timer before entering to begin the arson sweep. The room where he relaxed to watch a football game, read a book, make his regular Sunday afternoon phone call to his aunt in California now looked like a whirlwind had blown through. Bookcases had been dumped, tables overturned.

“He didn’t bother to torch your place; he just trashed it.”

“He knew if it burned down, I’d get compensated.”

“Annoying little man.”

Cole silently agreed.
“Liar.
It’s an interesting word choice.” The man had hit out at him. It could have been worse. He could have lashed out at someone else.

“You’re an honest man.”

Cole chuckled at the fact Jack felt the need to say it. “Nice to know you think so.” He studied the words and the way they were spray painted literally from floor to ceiling. The letters were huge. It wasn’t necessary, and thus it probably meant something, but he had no idea what. “Who’s going to be next? And what does he want?” Cole murmured, thinking aloud.

“You need to ask Rachel to profile this.”

“No.” He rejected that suggestion immediately.

“Cole, if you reject what she does, you implicitly reject her.”

“She’s got enough on her plate.”

“Give her a chance to get back on her feet. It will help her to have work to look at over the holidays.”

Cole didn’t want to add another burden on her. He already felt guilty about seeking Rae’s opinion over the word
murderer
and telling her of his suspicion regarding Jack being a target. Had he understood what else was going on in her life, he would have never added that pressure. “I’ll think about it,” he replied noncommittally. “Did you notice that this time Gold Shift was off duty?”

“We’re losing the ability to predict his behavior.”

“A wonderful thought.”

“Cole?” The faint call came from outside.

“Cassie, stay outside. I’ll be right there.” Cole looked at Jack. “Who’s with her?”

“One of the cops. He knows we’ll be having words if she gets out of his direct reach.”

Cole nodded. Jack and Cassie had spent an hour looking around the area, and Cole was relieved their search had come up blank. If he did continue to allow her to rollout to fires to look for the man, and he hadn’t yet decided if he would, there would have to be someone assigned to stay with her. This had moved from just an arsonist they needed to spot, to someone who took an ax to a door. There was too much violence here.

Cole stepped around the men working to get plastic sheeting in place to cover the broken windows and exited the house through the destroyed back door.

Cassie was waiting at the turn in the walkway.

The police officer standing literally a foot behind her cast a nervous glance at Jack. Cole bit back a smile. There had clearly been a rather frank warning given. Cole couldn’t blame Jack. Whoever had trashed his place, set a fire, and scrawled the word
liar
was not someone either one of them wanted Cassie ever again coming face to face with.

“Gage is here,” Cassie told him.

The press. It was the last thing Cole wanted to hear.

“Do you want me to talk with him?” Jack offered.

Jack and Gage were oil and water. Cole didn’t need that tension brought into the situation. He needed the press limiting how much they said. Gage knew how to dig for facts, and the details of this fire and the fire station would be in his sights. “I’ll talk to him.”

Cole glanced from Jack to Cassie and decided it would be best not to have her seeing what had been done inside the house. She was worried enough about Jack as it was. “Jack, do me a favor. Would you go over to the station and start clearing my calendar for tomorrow? There’s a couple court hearings that will need to be postponed. And Cassie, if you can print out another copy of that draft budget for Frank he can cover the finance meeting. It will be several hours here before I’ll be able to do anything more constructive beyond watching the investigating officer do his job.”

“I’ll take care of it,” Jack agreed.

Cassie looked troubled at the thought of leaving. “You’re sure?”

“Cassie—this is bad, but it’s stuff. I’ll deal with it. I’m more concerned with who is next.”

“How many popcorn arson fires does this make?”

“Eight.” Cole followed the investigating officer as the vandalism was cataloged. They had worked cases together many times; Joe was an old friend. It was five in the morning, and at this point Cole wasn’t sure he was drawing reasoned conclusions after being up most of the night. To keep some perspective, he was using his friend as a sounding board. “It’s strange that he goes from creating a huge fire at the station to now settling for burning trash.”

“Any odds this was a copycat?”

“Slim to none. Neither the popcorn nor the words are known signatures to the public.” And unless Gage was snowing him, the reporter didn’t have either of those facts yet.

“Then it’s not the fire that he’s impassioned about. It’s the message.”

A very interesting conclusion. “The words have got to be the key. Murderer. Cowards. Liar—they intersect somehow to make clear who this is.” Cole picked up an autographed baseball which now had its seams slit. For the first time he felt sick. It had been a gift from his dad. He rubbed his thumb over the gash in the ball that scored through the autograph. The ball could not be restored. “Do the words suggest someone to you?” he asked Joe.

“Not really. But it does sound like there was an event that occurred.”

“I’ve searched the cases we’ve worked for the last two years and I’m still drawing a blank.”

An officer appeared at the doorway. “Sir, there’s someone out here to see you.”

“I’ll be right there,” Cole replied. He looked to his friend. “If there is anything here that would suggest a possible suspect, I could really use something to put my hands around.”

“You’ll get anything I can find as fast as I can,” Joe promised.

“I appreciate it. I’ll be on my pager if you need me.”

There was nothing he could do here beyond watch. His possessions had been trashed. His home turned into a crime scene. And he was tired enough that it was hard to even get angry. Exhaustion overrode the emotions. Cole left his friend to the task of finding evidence and went to see who needed him. It was setting up to be a very long day.

He ducked under the plastic sheeting put up to stop the snow flurries swirling in through where his back door had once been. His steps slowed when he realized who it was. “Rachel.”

She was waiting just inside the police tape.

He wasn’t surprised to see her here. For Rachel not to respond when something like this happened to someone she knew would be contrary to her nature.

That said, she’d had a rough few days, and he was distressed to see her here. At this time in the morning she should be asleep, not standing outside his home on a cold late December morning. She wore a long black dress coat and black leather gloves, a deep red scarf setting a bold splash of color. She was dressed up and he wondered briefly if she hadn’t also been hit with the unexpected and a call that was going to take her away over the holidays.

She gestured to his house. “How bad is it?”