High School Reunion (6 page)

But something must have triggered it. Had someone tried to break into her car?

After a few seconds, she got out and inspected the vehicle. There were no scrapes or dents. No sign of fo
rce on the windows or doors. Maybe a kid had tried the door to see if it was unlocked.

With a last look around the deserted street, she walked back up the steps to the house. She opened the door cautiously, watching to be sure she didn’t let the cat out.

Just as she closed the door behind her, a blast of cold stinging spray hit her in the face. Surprise and burning pain streaked through her like lightning.

After a split second’s shock, she ducked and rolled but it was too late. She’d been maced. Her face burned like fire. Her eyes wouldn’t open. The pain was agonizing.

Then a blanket was thrown over her head and a shoe kicked her in the ribs. She curled into a fetal position. It was all she could do. She was blinded by the Mace.

Her attacker kicked her again, this time in the kidney. She grunted. Then the front door opened and slammed.

Laurel fought the suffocating blanket. She finally got it off her. Pulling herself up to her hands and knees she felt for her weapon. It was gone. She crawled blindly toward the bathroom, feeling around the hardwood floor. The gun must have slid farther than she’d thought.

Finally, her fingers encountered cold ceramic tile. Her eyes leaked tears, even though she had them squeezed tightly shut. She crawled to the bathtub and felt for the cold water faucet.

Taking a deep breath, she splashed her face. The water made everything burn twice as badly, but it eventually washed away the sticky pepper spray.

Laurel leaned over the tub and kept sluicing her face and eyes. After what seemed like hours, the pain lessened to a manageable level.

She sat on the floor, her chest heaving with huge sobs. But there was no time to indulge herself. She had
to find her Glock. If whoever had attacked her had taken it—alarm squeezed her chest like a giant fist.

She pulled herself up using a towel rack. She was wobbly, and her eyes still burned. She felt her way out of the bathroom, alert to any sound. She’d thought she’d heard the front door slam, but she’d been in such pain she couldn’t be sure.

The intruder might still be inside the house.

She took a deep breath and coughed. Did she smell smoke, or was the Mace affecting her sense of smell? Forcing her eyes open, she saw a red, flickering glow coming from the den.

Fire!
She lunged for the door. She rounded the frame and met the flames engulfing the dining room tabletop. They licked at the drapes.

“No!” Laurel cried. Misty’s pictures! She had to stop it. But before she could move, the drapes caught. In an instant the ancient fabric was swallowed up by flames and a tongue of fire licked out toward a damask-covered easy chair.

Helpless against the fast-growing inferno, she backed away from the rising heat. She had to call the fire department.

But her cell phone was back in the bedroom in her jacket pocket. She never had her damn phone when she needed it. She turned and headed for the door and ran into a hard body. Her instincts took over and she doubled her fists. She swung as hard as she could.

“No!” she yelled. “No!”

“L
AUREL
,
IT’S ME
, Cade.” Cade dodged Laurel’s fists and pinned her arms. He whirled and thrust her toward the front door, his brain registering relief that she seemed unhurt.

“Stay on the porch,” he shouted, tossing her his phone. “Press 8. Fire department.”

Then he ran up the hall to the kitchen. Where did Misty keep her fire extinguisher? He glanced quickly ar
ound the old-fashioned kitchen. Nothing. He opened the cabinets under the sink. There—in the back.

Grabbing it, praying it worked, he headed for the den.

Half the room was engulfed in flames, and the heat was nearly unbearable. He sprayed, but the little fire extinguisher wasn’t up to such a big job.

Just as he had emptied the canister, he heard the sirens. The advancing flames forced him out of the room.

Laurel stood on the porch holding his cell phone in one hand and Misty’s cat in the other. The cat was squirming and yowling.

“You can let her down. She’ll be okay,” Cade said.

Laurel let go and Harriet took off into the darkness.

“What about you? Are you hurt?”

She shook her head jerkily and he put his arm around her waist and led her down the steps into the yard.

“What happened?” he started, but the arrival of the fire truck interrupted him.

He pulled her out of the way as the town’s volunteer firemen rushed inside with the fire hose. The roar of pressurized water drowned out the roar of the fire. Within a few minutes, the fire was out.

But as Cade knew from experience, the excitement was far from over. He enlisted his patrolman Fred Evans, who’d shown up with his hair sticking straight out in back, to maintain crowd control and told him to call Officer Shelton Phillips.

If possible, there were more people milling around than a few hours earlier when Misty was hurt. He answered the same questions at least two dozen times.

No, no one was hurt.

Yes, it was odd that Misty was attacked and her house burned on the same night.

No, he didn’t have any leads.

No, he didn’t need any help pulling sodden furniture or charred items out of the house.

Yes, it
would
help if everyone would just go on home to bed.

Finally, Fred and a couple of other men managed to disperse the crowd and Cade went to speak with Kit Haydel, the fire chief.

“That could have been a bad one,” Kit said, pulling off his gloves. “I wish people would get rid of all the fire hazards in these old houses.” He wiped his forehead with his forearm. “Bad wiring, rotting fabric and dried-out wood all over the place.”

“But bad wiring didn’t cause this fire.”

Kit shook his head. “There was a stack of papers and photo albums in the middle of the dining room table. Preliminary investigation indicates that the fire started there. And it wasn’t an accident.”

Cade nodded. “I figured that. How do you know?”

“It’s an amateur setup. The smell of lighter fluid is all over the place.”

“I didn’t smell anything but smoke.”

Kit grinned. “You work enough fires, you eventually learn the different smells. Lighter fluid’s different than electrical or gasoline or a cigarette.”

One of the firemen hollered at Kit, who waved at him.

“How’d you get here so fast?” he asked Cade.

“I heard the car alarm, and since we’d already had one situation tonight, I thought I’d better check it out.”

“Car alarm?”

Cade frowned. “Didn’t you hear it? Your house is about as close to Misty’s as mine is.”

“I was asleep.”

Cade had been, too—he’d thought. But when the faint sound of the car alarm had reached his ears, he’d immediately thought of Laurel.

“Need me for anything else tonight, Cade?”

“God, I hope not. We’ve had plenty of excitement for one day.” He nodded toward the house. “Can I get inside? Check for damage and evidence?”

“Yeah. I think we got all the hot spots.”

“Great. Thanks. You’ll get me a copy of your report, right?”

Kit sent him a mock salute as he climbed onto the fire truck.

Cade looked around. Thank goodness the rubberneckers had dispersed. Over by their cars, Fred and Shelton stood talking with a couple of neighbors. Every so often, one of them would gesture or point toward the house.

He didn’t see anyone else. A tremor of alarm streaked through him. He stalked over to Fred. “Where’d Laurel go?”

Fred frowned and glanced at Shelton, who shook his head. “Haven’t seen her since the firemen got here.”

“She must have gone back inside. Thanks, guys.” Cade sprinted toward the house.

“Hey, you want some help?” Fred called.

“Nope. Y’all head on home.”

He took the front steps two at a time and burst through the front door. The smell of wet, charred wood and fabric permeated the house.

He heard a cough coming from the den.

Laurel was standing just inside the door, facing the sodden mess that had been her friend’s living room. Her arms were folded and her fingers were white-knuckled.

“You shouldn’t be in here.”

She shrugged without turning around. “Where else should I be? Look what they did. Misty will be devastated.”

He took her arm and turned her around. “You need to—God, Laurel. What happened to you?”

Her face was red and her eyes were nearly swollen shut. He grabbed her other arm and squinted at her in the pale light shining in from the street lamps. “Were you burned? Why didn’t you tell me?”

She shook her head. “No. The fire was after.”

“After what? What are you talking about?”

He studied her more closely. Only her face was red. Her bare arms and shoulders were as smooth and peachy-pink as he remembered them.

And she was soaking wet. He slid his palms up her arms, feeling her skin shiver at his touch. He clenched his jaw and dragged his gaze back to her face. “Tell me, Laurel. What’s wrong with your face—your eyes?”

She wrapped her arms around herself. “Is everyone gone? I really don’t want the whole town to know what happened. We need to keep this information quiet.”

He frowned at her. Her voice didn’t go with her words. The words were those of an investigator working a crime scene. Her voice, however, was small and scared.

He walked over to the window and peered outside. Everyone had gone. There were no cars on the street except for his and hers. A couple of houses down, where Kathy Adler lived, a light went off as he watched.

He turned back to Laurel. “They’re all gone. Now tell me what happened here.”

She kept her eyes closed while she talked. “My car alarm went off a little while ago and I ran out to reset it.” She rubbed her temple. “As soon as I stepped back inside the house, I was blasted with pepper spray. I went down.”

Alarm arrowed through him. “
Inside
the house?”

She nodded. “They threw me down in the hall, tossed a blanket over my head and kicked me. Then I heard the front door slam. I can’t believe I didn’t see them when I went out.”

“Obviously whoever it was hid in the shadows,” Cade said as he wrapped his fingers around her upper arm. “Come here. I want to see your face.”

“It’s okay. I need to put more cold water on it.”

He pulled out a mini-flashlight and shone it on her cheeks and nose, and then in her eyes. Her face looked sunburned and her eyes were red and swollen. “You should have told me.”

“When? In the middle of the fire?”

He growled in frustration. She could be annoyingly rational. “I’m calling the doctor.”

“Cade, no. Please. We learned all about pepper spray at Quantico. I know how to treat it. This looks a lot worse than it is.” She gave him a little smile. “Most of the redness will be gone by morning. Besides, like I said, I don’t want anyone to know about this. Misty’s attack and the fire are bad enough.”

“What are you hoping to accomplish by keeping it quiet?”

“Maybe whoever’s doing this will think they’re getting away with it. Or get mad because nobody’s making a big deal about it. Either way, I’m hoping we can catch them off guard.”

Made sense, in her irritatingly rational way. But other, more pressing matters held his attention. He was still rubbing her arms, but what was supposed to be a comforting touch had turned into a caress.

She looked slender and delicate in her pink pajamas. He couldn’t keep his eyes off the tight peaks of her breasts hidden by a thin layer of silk. Her breasts, her slim waist, that perfect behind. Everything about her attracted him.

Not even her splotchy red face and swollen eyelids spoiled her allure. To his chagrin, his body began to react. Suddenly he was as turned on as a randy kid. Except right now, his primary feeling wasn’t horniness. He felt protective and caring.

He touched her cheek, where the redness almost hid her freckles. “Does it hurt?”

She gave him a sheepish little smile. “Please do not hand me that old joke.”

“What joke?” He frowned at her.

“You know—does your face hurt? Because it’s killing me.”

He laughed. “You think I’m that mean?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. A lot of folks in this town are.”

He pushed a stray hair back from her forehead. “Not me.”

He couldn’t believe how many colors danced in her eyes, even surrounded by pink, swollen flesh. Hazel eyes had always seemed sort of flat and uninteresting to him. But Laurel’s were green and amber, with a touch of blue and a few specks of an odd rust color.
Fascinating.

His arousal stirred even more as he moved his gaze from her eyes to her mouth. Her lips were moist and looked infinitely kissable.

“Cade?” she whispered.

“Hmm?”

Her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips and he felt a groan start deep in his throat. Suddenly, he realized just how close he was to kissing her.

He had a crime scene—another crime scene—to deal with. He needed to focus.

Besides, she was only here for the weekend. He could rein in his inconveniently raging libido for two days.

Right now, he needed to know exactly what had happened. “When did you notice the fire?”

Laurel moistened her lips. “When I came out of the bathroom, I smelled smoke and saw the flickering light. Whoever was in here must have started it while I was outside dealing with the car alarm. They didn’t have time once I came back inside.”

“So they set off the car alarm, sneaked in and started the fire while you were outside, then maced you when you came in, and ran.”

She nodded. “I think they were trying to find and destroy the pictures. Misty’s and mine.”

“Or trying to kill you.”

Laurel stared at him. “Kill me? No. I just got here. No one has a reason to kill me.”

“Think about it. Everything was fine until you showed up. You’re stirring up things someone wants to keep buried.”

“So you think I’m right about Wendell’s death?”