Fire Born (Firehouse 343) (27 page)

A gathering crowd inside the complex slowed their progress as Rick was turning into the drive. Chris reached over and
blared
the siren
, watching the gawkers scatter like rats deserting a
sinking
ship with satisfaction.
When they made it to the back of the complex at last, they got their first glimpse of the car, what looked to be a mid-size SUV. It was fully engulfed already, likely due to whatever accelerant had been poured on it, but the absence of twisted metal was proof that neither the engine nor the gas tank had been compromised—yet. They were lucky that they’d been alerted in time, but if they didn’t hurry, Chris mused, his relief would be short-lived.

“Let’s get a hose
on those flames pronto,
fellas
,” he said as Rick brought the truck to a stop.

“Roger that, Boss,” Tim said as he dropped out of the jump seat. Chris and Rick quickly followed, Chris looking up at building 1095 and the windows that belonged to Kara’s—Ronnie’s—
apartment. The blinds were drawn, he noted, and he prayed that meant that she was simply shielding Jessica from further trauma by not making her face another fire.

Shaking off the irrational panic that had gripped him the moment he had heard the address over the speakers, Chris turned to Rick and Tim
, who were readying one of the hard line reels. He reached into one of the storage compartments and pulled out a fire extinguisher, saying, “Tim, you got that line?”

“Got it,” Tim replied as Rick flipped the valve to start the water flowing. Tim then moved toward the front end of the car, directing the flow to hit the engine block, where the flames seemed to burn higher. Rick grabbed a second fire extinguisher and he and Chris hurried to stand on each side of the car, opening up their canisters simultaneously.

It took about 20 minutes for their three-pronged attack to put
the fire down, and even when there was nary a single flicker of flame to be seen, Chris directed Tim to saturate the entire wreck for another ten. He breathed a sigh of relief as he watched the other man for a moment, then joined Rick in putting away his extinguisher. He’d panicked for nothing, he knew, but even though the fire was out now the unsettled feeling in the pit of his stomach wouldn’t go away, and he glanced up at the windows of apartment H a second time.

“Chris, if you want to make sure they’re okay,
go
ahead. We got this,” Rick said.

Turning to him, Chris nodded his thanks and headed for the building. As he was stepping onto the sidewalk, he was surprised by the appearance of Kara and Sam at the edge of the barricade set up by the police.

“Chris!”
Karalyn
called out, waving her hand in the air.

The cops standing guard turned to him. “Let ‘
em
through,” he said, and waited as the cop nodded, then held up the yellow crime scene tape for the two E
MT
s to duck
under it. As they jogged toward him, splashing through the water
still flowing across the asphalt
, he asked, “What are you doing here?”

“Kara insisted,” Sam said. “We heard about the fire on the radio, and seeing as she was driving the rig today, I could hardly argue.”

“I had to come,” Kara said. “I technically lived here up until this morning. Have you checked on Ronnie and Jessica?”

Chris grinned. “I was just about to do that. Why don’t you join me
?”

She nodded and he led the way up the stairs to her old apartment. He stopped short, dread returning in full force at the sight that greeted them: The door to apartment H was ajar, standing open about an inch, and there were dark droplets on the threshold that even he could identify.

“Ronnie!” Kara cried, starting toward the door.

Sam grabbed her. “Kara, no!” he said. “We can’t go in there. This is a potential crime scene. We
gotta
call the cops.”

“There are plenty of cops down on the ground, call one of them, then!” she insisted. “There’s a young mother and a little girl that could be injured in there!”

As her partner nodded and moved to the railing to call one of the police officers up to them, the shock that had held him frozen suddenly released Chris, and he glanced at Kara. “Ronnie doesn’t have a car. We had to drive them here, remember?”

Kara nodded. “Yeah, I remember.”

He moved to the railing. “So whose car was on fire? Something tells me this isn’t a coincidence.”

A uniformed police officer came up the stairs then. “What’s the problem?” she
asked,
her tone crisp and businesslike.

Chris turned and pointed to the door of apartment H. “Look at the door—it shouldn’t be open like that and there’s what looks like blood on the threshold.”

The officer studied the partially open door, then stepped closer and crouched down to look at the dark droplets on the steel strip underneath it. A moment later she stood and asked, “Do you know who lives here?”

“Yes, we just came to check on them. Ronnie Thompson and her daughter Jessica,” Kara replied.

“They’re victims of the
Breckon
Apartments fire from last week,” Chris added. “Kara used to live here, but she offered the apartment to them because she’s moving back into her dad’s house. Lt.
Liotta
of the Bureau of Fire Safety believes that Ms. Thompson and/or her daughter were targeted by the arsonist behind the
Breckon
fire.”

The
officer nodded and unsnapped
the strap of her holster as she turned back toward the apartment
,
placing a hand on
her gun as she used an elbow to push
the door open. “Stay out here,” she said over her shoulder as she stepped through, maneuvering around the droplets on the ground.

From what he could see from his position outside the door, Chris noted there was more blood on the carpet
just inside it. Concern for Ronnie and Jessica settled into his already churning stomach as he watched the officer walk through the apartment. She disappeared for a moment into one of the bedrooms,
then
appeared briefly before vanishing again into the other. When she came out of the second bedroom, she poked
her head into the bathroom, then turned to them and said, “There’s no one here. If you want you can come inside, but don’t touch anything, and don’t step on that blood.”

They stepped inside as she turned her head, reaching up to key the mike on her radio. Chris absently noted she was calling for a detective as he looked around. Kara had just asked for permission to look in the closets for Jessica, because that’s where she liked to hide when she was afraid, when he spotted something that sent rivers of ice flooding through his veins:

There was a digital recorder sitting on the
dining
table.

He stepped closer and reached for it,
stopping just short of picking it up
when the cop yelled at him
, “Don’t touch that!”

He stopped, his hand hovering over the device, his mind whirling. The only person he knew that carried digital recorders around was Martie. To him, this was proof that she’d been here…and realizing that caused the ice water in his blood to form a block around his heart.

Martie drove a Kia
Sorento
. A
Sorento
was a mid-size SUV.

Spinning, he hurried out of the apartment and flew down the stairs. Tim was winding the hard line back on its reel as he walked up to the back end of the
burned-out wreck
and crouched down,
furiously wiping at the partially melted
, blackened license plate. He could no longer read the state name on it, but it didn’t matter. He knew.

Fighting the panic that was clawing its way up his throat, he fished for his cell phone as Rick stepped up to him. “What’s wrong?”

Chris said nothing as he dialed Martie’s number. “Pick up.
Pick up, pick up…baby
please
pick up,” he muttered as the ringer sounded in his ear.

One ring.
Two.
As the third started its trill, he began to pray she wasn’t ignoring him. Could he be mistaken about the car? Was Martie simply screening her calls because she wanted nothing to do with him?

No. Martie was too outspoken for that. She might have
snuck
behind his back and looked into his past without telling him, but she’d been open about it when they’d argued. She hadn’t denied it or offered flimsy excuses for her behavior. If she no longer wanted to speak to him, she’d pick up the phone long enough to say so.

After the fourth ring her voicemail picked up. Chris growled as he hit the end button. “Boss, what is it?” Rick asked as Tim joined them.

It was an effort to force the words from lungs that no longer enabled him to breathe. “The car is Martie’s. She’s missing.”

***

“You know, Lawrence,” said a voice, “when you said there was a problem, I was ready to have your head. But now that I see what you’ve brought me, I might just let you live. Of course, you did damage her, so you must be punished for that.”

A sound that could be nothing other than flesh striking flesh accompanied
a cry and
the heaving of her stomach as Martie slowly regained consciousness. She tried not to move as she did so
—not that she really wanted to,
given how much her head was hurting. Keeping her eyes closed for the moment, she merely concentrated on breathing
and tried to get a sense of her surroundings.

She was tied to a chair, her hands bound behind her. Her feet were loose, she noted, which might come in handy. But without opening her eyes, she couldn’t really tell where she was, save for a dank, smoky scent in the air. She knew there were at least two other people in the room, both of whom were male, based on the voice of the speaker and the name that was used.

Lawrence. Larry? Ronnie had said the name Larry as she was blacking out. And where was Ronnie? Where was Jessica? Were these the men who’d started the
Breckon
Apartments fire? Was the man who’d spoken the mysterious Kenny
Stillman
? His voice was familiar but she couldn’t place
it
just yet, having heard it as though headphones muffled the sound as she was coming to. She needed to hear him speak again.

“Kenny,
please,” came Ronnie’s voice, confirming
her suspicion
that she’d been taken as well
. The other woman was frightened. Martie could tell she’d been crying.

“Please what?”
came
the harsh reply, and she felt her heart stop.

It
was
Graham. Dear God, Jessica’s father was Graham.

“Why are you doing this? It’s been more than ten years—I haven’t asked for one thing from you. Never tried to look you up, never asked for your help with Jessica. How could you still want to hurt us?” Ronnie asked.

Graham snorted derisively. “I don’t want to hurt you, you stupid cunt. I want you dead. You’re
a blight
on my otherwise spotless record, one that I have no choice but to wipe out. I’ve got plans for the future, big plans, and if anybody discovered I had a bastard child out there it could ruin everything.”

“But no one will find out,” Ronnie insisted. “I don’t see how anybody would find out about us. Everything was in my name when we were together—the apartment, the utilities,
the
car. You said you pa
id for everything else in cash.
”

She paused and took a breath. “Kenny, no one will know—
I swear. I’ll take Jessica and leave the state if that’s what you want, just please let me go. Let me go find her and we’ll leave. It’ll be like you never found us.”

Go find her?
Martie wondered. That meant Jessica wasn’t here. Whoever Larry or Lawrence was hadn’t grabbed her as well.

“That reminds me.
Lawrence, where is that
fucking brat?
You managed to grab the lovely Martie but not a ten-year-old girl?”

“I…I didn’t see the kid,” Larry said haltingly. “I wasn’t expecting the other woman, and when she opened the door I panicked.”

“Well then get your fucking ass back to the apartment and find her!” Graham yelled. “A stupid, retarded kid can’t be too hard to find.”

“There will be cops everywhere! I set that woman’s car on fire.”

“
You
what?!
”
Graham roared, and Martie could hear him hitting Larry again. Several punches were th
rown; Larry pleaded with him to stop
and she could hear Ronnie sobbing across the room.

“You fucking idiot! Starting a fucking fire means not only the police are involved, but the fire department too! That fucking Indian will be looking for her now!” Graham yelled, hitting Larry one more time.