What Burns Within (2 page)

He’d even let him work alone. It had been the only thing Daly had hesitated over. In the end he’d agreed, as long as Tain understood that at the first sign the case was snowballing he’d have to deal with a partner.

Tain had hoped that wouldn’t be necessary, although he had to admit it didn’t look good now. He filled Daly in on how Nicholas Brennen got to the police station.

Daly’s eyes narrowed. “Some guy drove him here?”

“Apparently he didn’t want people to think he was abducting the boy. He didn’t come inside. Just wrote this note and gave it to the boy. Kid came in on his own. We’ll have to check the tape and see if we can get an ID.”

“Now I’ve heard everything,” Daly said.

“Not quite.” Tain told him about the missing girl.

Something about the way Daly’s cheeks sagged made him look like he’d aged ten years in that moment. “How old is she?”

“I was just about to ask when Mommy Dearest flew off the handle.”

“Do we need to bring in social services?”

“Already called them.”

Daly blew out a deep breath. “Talk to the mother. I’ll have Sims handle the background check. Report to my office as soon as you’re done.”

Tain nodded as he went to interview Mrs. Brennen for the second time.

When Tain reached Sergeant Daly’s office twenty minutes later, Inspector Hawkins was already there. “Sir.” Tain nodded.

Hawkins had a few years on Daly, but he was as fit as any man on the force. He was the poster boy for the respectable RCMP officers, the kind of man who embodied confidence and authority. Clean cut, with nothing more than a few laugh lines around his eyes and his rank to hint at his age. Few things rattled the inspector, but the fact that he was in Daly’s office suggested to Tain that he was worried.

The inspector didn’t acknowledge Tain’s arrival. “What’s the status?”

Daly answered. “Patrols are out canvassing now. We’ve got uniforms at every exit point from the fairgrounds, taking statements.”

Hawkins frowned. “And the girl is the right age?”

Daly glanced at Tain, then nodded.

“Shit.” Hawkins muttered the word under his breath, but not so far under that Tain didn’t hear him.

Tain looked at Daly. “There’s usually a news crew on the grounds filming, right?”

Daly nodded.

“We should get their tape, double-check it. Look for any known pedophiles, any sign of these kids in the background, anything.”

“I’ll call the patrols.”

“I think we should reassign this case,” Hawkins said.

“Respectfully, sir, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Daly said.

Hawkins turned to look at Tain. “Last month we recovered the body of Julie Darrens from a burnt-out shack at the industrial park near the Mary Hill Bypass. Isabella Bertini is still missing. The press will have a field day with this.”

“I decided to have Tain respond to every arson fire since we found Julie Darrens,” Daly said. “He’s been working ’round the clock on the Bertini girl. No solid leads.”

“Just crackpots and dead ends,” Tain said. “We’ll be getting more of the same when this hits the news.”

Hawkins kept his gaze on Daly. “You can have Tain assist, but I don’t think it’s in the best interest of this department—”

“What about the best interest of this case?” Daly’s eyes pinched with uncharacteristic anger. “Tain has been working in conjunction with Burnaby. He knows all the particulars. Pulling him off—”

“I didn’t say to pull him off.”

“No, just have him take a backseat so that Burnaby will think we softballed them, gave them a body just to shut them up because we don’t take finding dead kids on our patch seriously.”

Hawkins pointed at Daly. “Julie Darrens and Isabella Bertini may have gone missing from Burnaby, but Julie was found here, in Coquitlam, and now a child’s been snatched from within our borders. I want our department handling this case.”

“Then Tain will take the lead.”

The two men stood staring at each other for a moment, until Daly’s phone rang and he grabbed it. “Yes. No, I…Thank you.”

He hung up the phone and leaned against his arms, his hands planted firmly on the desk in front of him before he looked up again. “Industrial area just south of the Trans Canada Highway, right on the Fraser River. Not far from the fairgrounds where Taylor Brennen went missing. Another suspected arson fire.”

For a moment the room was silent, Hawkins and Daly still locked in a match of visual chicken, waiting to see who would blink first.

It was Hawkins who turned, glanced at Tain, then looked back at Daly. “I sure as hell hope you know what you’re doing.”

He crossed the room, pulled the door open and slammed it behind him.

Constable Craig Nolan was familiar with the image of his partner, all business, from the straight skirt to the pressed shirt, straight brown hair clipped back in a ponytail looking like it knew better than to dare fall out of place, the touch of makeup that somehow emphasized the icy eyes.

She stopped at the steps to the house and turned to look at him. “You should let me handle this.”

Craig unclenched his jaw. “Did I miss the memo?”

Her forehead wrinkled for a second. Lori Price was as pushy as she was tall, and she met Craig’s gaze steadily.

“The one about your promotion, putting you in charge,” he said.

Lori folded her arms across her chest. “It might be better for her if she deals with a woman. I didn’t know you were so touchy.”

Craig shook his head as he watched his partner turn, march up the steps, pause, then yank the door open. He counted to ten before he followed her silently, clenching his fists.

“I already told them,” the low, hollow voice murmured from just beyond the hallway where Craig stood.

“Yes, but I need you to tell me now.” Lori’s voice failed to sound sympathetic. Instead, it sounded pushy. As usual.

Her words were met with silence.

“Mrs. Parks, it really would be best—”

“No. I don’t think so.”

Craig heard movement, which told him that either Mrs. Parks was preparing to flee or that Lori was trying to corner her. He walked into the living room.

Mrs. Parks was standing, but Lori towered over her. Craig’s partner looked like she was ready to tackle Mrs. Parks if the woman tried to leave.

Craig stopped just inside the room. Mrs. Parks looked at him and blinked.

“For a second I thought you were Carl. Except your hair’s a bit longer.”

A quick glance at the prominent wedding photo on the mantel showing Mrs. Parks and a blond, fit man was all Craig needed. “Your husband?”

She nodded. “Three years. He’s at work.”

“Would you like us to phone him, have him come home?”

Mrs. Parks nodded again. She sank back down on the sofa across the coffee table from where Lori Price stood, arms now crossed.

“Perhaps you could locate her husband.” Craig glanced at Lori. Her eyes pinched partially shut, and her nostrils flared. He turned his back to her, approached Mrs. Parks slowly and knelt down until he was below eye level with her. When he finally heard Lori march out of the room he spoke. “Is there anything else we can get for you, Mrs. Parks?”

“Cindy.”

Craig frowned, glancing back at the photos for a clue. “Cindy?”

“Call me Cindy. Please.”

“Okay. Is there anything else we can do, Cindy?”

She continued sitting rigidly, her hands clasped together on her lap, her face long and cold, without a trace of a spark in her eyes. Then she lifted a trembling hand to wipe away an unbidden tear that had escaped, before tucking her blond hair back behind her ear. She looked at Craig. “You can find the man who did this to me.”

Craig swallowed. He felt like he’d been punched in the gut, winded. The look in her dark eyes sent a chill down his spine.

How’s she supposed to look? What do you know about how it
feels to be raped?

“We’re going to do everything we can to catch him and put him away, but I’m not going to lie. This won’t be easy.”

Her face didn’t move, but her gaze shifted to the right, as though something on that side of the room had caught her attention. Then she took a deep breath and looked him in the eyes. “You need me to tell you what happened.”

He nodded.

“Carl got a call just before four pm.”

“From his work?”

“From the fire department. He’s a volunteer.” Cindy Parks leaned back against the sofa, pulling her cardigan tight as she wrapped her arms around her body.

Craig eased himself onto the couch across from her, listening as she told her story.

Constable Ashlyn Hart parked her vehicle, the sting of smoke already burning her eyes. She flashed her ID and ducked under the barrier. With the spate of arson fires in the area lately the police weren’t taking any chances. They were being cautious about protecting the scenes.

Not that it had done much good. Officially no leads. Arsons were notoriously hard to bring to trial, and so far their arsonist hadn’t given them much to work with. That was the reason she was handling every scene personally. She had to find a different way to pinpoint the culprit.

“Maybe we should get you some gear, have you work out of our station.”

She looked up and offered the firefighter who’d spoken a smile as she accepted a helmet from him. Ashlyn recognized Adrian Vaughan, the man under the layers of soot, but he’d barely stopped to offer the remark and hat before he disappeared again. She watched him move toward the thick plume of smoke billowing from the building. Flames were already licking the exterior from windows on the upper floors.

“Not much we can do now but hope to contain it.”

She turned. Paul Quinlan, the battalion chief, was standing beside her. “Arson?” she asked.

“What color’s that smoke?”

Dense dark clouds swirled out of every opening she could see. She’d been getting an education in fire ever since she got this assignment, but Ashlyn still hadn’t learned everything. “And black smoke means what?”

“Petroleum-based accelerant. Likely gas.”

Gas. Not too helpful. Only about a thousand local places where
someone could get their hands on that
.

Paul passed her the object he was holding. “We found it on the door, just like before. Could this help you?”

Ashlyn pulled a bag from her pocket, wrapped the angel quickly, then put it in the trunk of her car. “Generic materials found in hundreds of stores in the province, virtually untraceable, handmade. We haven’t turned up anything so far.”