Fireproof (34 page)

Beyond the barricades blue, red, and white lights flashed but farther up the street she could see flames shooting up over the pine trees. She grabbed her cell phone and tried calling Patrick, letting it ring while she sat paralyzed behind the steering wheel. Over the pounding of her heart she heard his voice mail pick up. She pressed End and tried again.

Maggie tried to calm her breathing. Maybe it wasn’t her house. She stopped Patrick’s voice mail and punched in the number again.

Maggie’s badge got her past the first set of barricades. She stopped herself at the second set, fear turning her knees to mush and panic making it hard to breathe. So much smoke, and the flames kept swallowing more and more. She could see that the house next door was completely engulfed. Her house was filled with angry black clouds of smoke.

“Ma’am, you can’t go any farther.” A firefighter stood in front of her.

She held up her badge.

“It’s still not safe for you to go any closer, Agent …” He bent down to look at her ID. “Agent O’Dell.”

“It’s my house.” It came out in a whisper. She wasn’t even sure she had said it out loud.

“O’Dell.”

She didn’t look up at him but she could tell he was putting it together. Every firefighter in the area probably knew all the details about these arsons.

“The CNN piece,” he said. “Good God, he came after you, too.”

“Please, can you tell me if anyone made it out?” Her voice cracked over the lump in her throat. She had been so frantic about Patrick, only now did she realize Harvey and Jake had been inside, too. In a matter of one night, all her prized possessions and companions gone. Up in smoke.

“No one’s come out. We’re still trying to get inside both houses.”

“The house next door is for sale. I believe it’s empty.”

“That’s what we thought, too, but we heard a dog barking, insisting someone was inside. We’ve got a crew trying to bust in the back.”

“Wait a minute. A dog?”

He nodded. “Big black shepherd.”

“Jake,” she said, and smiled. “Jake made it out.”

She saw two firemen carrying a body from the backyard of the empty house. Just then a blast of flames shot through Maggie’s roof.

“I’ve got to go,” the firefighter told her, already racing up her lawn.

She sat, actually collapsed onto the curb. She could feel the heat of the flames even from back here. She buried her face in her hands and tried to drown out the tromping of boots, the yells of the rescue crews, more sirens.

She had been worried about shadows following her in the parking garage and all the while the bastard was here. Right here at her house, setting it on fire.

She felt the hand on her shoulder at the same time a wet muzzle pressed under her chin.

“I couldn’t save the front. But I sprayed the hell out of the back.”

She looked up to see Patrick, his face smeared with soot, his white T-shirt torn and gray, his eyes watery and red. Both Harvey and Jake were with him.

Maggie stood on wobbly knees. “It’s just a house,” she said and hugged him. “The most important things I have are right here.”

Maggie and Tully sat on opposite sides of the conference table. Assistant Director Kunze sat at the head.

“There seems to be no evidence to support Samantha Ramirez’s claim that Jeffery Cole is a serial arsonist,” he told them.

Maggie couldn’t believe that no one was taking the woman seriously. She was in intensive care, barely able to speak, and yet she was insistent that Jeffery Cole had lit the fire that almost killed her. That he had admitted setting all the other fires.

“What about the fact that he used to teach high school chemistry? We now know the chemicals used were potassium permanganate and glycerin. Ms. Ramirez said she saw a jug of swimming pool cleaner in his SUV. She saw him pour something on purple crystals. Potassium permanganate is a crystal-like chemical found in swimming pool cleaners.”

“This is your evidence?”

“Okay, what about Cornell Stamoran? He recognized Jeffery Cole as the guy he saw pouring gasoline in the alley right before the warehouse fires.”

“You said yourself, Agent Tully, that the man appears to be an alcoholic schizophrenic.”

“Why not let us question him?” Tully persisted.

“Cole’s on assignment in the Middle East.”

It was useless. Maggie sat back and let out a sigh of frustration. The man had almost killed her brother, and Kunze was tying their hands. Several days ago he had pushed her and Tully to catch him an arsonist. He was in political hot water if they didn’t do so. She worried that now suddenly it wasn’t politically correct for that arsonist to be Jeffery Cole. She wanted to tell Kunze that he couldn’t pick and choose his madmen.

“How about the fact that the arsons have stopped?”

“Agent O’Dell,” he said while he avoided eye contact and shook his head. “We all know that doesn’t necessarily mean a thing.”

“We have sufficient reason to question him. Even on foreign soil,” Tully said.

Again Kunze shook his head. “That’s not going to happen. The Justice Department won’t allow it.”

So he had checked
, was Maggie’s first thought. Someone was shutting him down again. And Kunze was shutting them down. He stood and picked up a pile of file folders from a credenza behind him. He dropped the foot-high stack on the table between Maggie and Tully.

“This is where I want your focus to be.”

“What is this?”

“Both of you, along with Keith Ganza, have told me that Gloria Dobson and Zach Lester were not murdered by the same person who set fire to the warehouses. Isn’t that correct?”

“There’s not a way to connect them, that’s correct,” Tully admitted. “Neither of us believes Jeffery Cole committed those murders.”

And neither one of them believed that he had followed Maggie down a manhole or sneaked around behind her house. Cornell Stamoran said a man had been following him, too. He thought he was the same man who dumped the body in his cardboard box, the man who killed Dobson and Lester.

Kunze ignored the mention of Cole and continued, “Ganza’s found three similar murders at other rest areas. Different parts of the country. One of the bodies was just found about a mile off the interstate in a roadside culvert. We think this guy has killed more—many more. You both have heard of the Highway Serial Killings Initiative?”

Maggie and Tully nodded. She remembered Ganza’s mentioning it when he talked about prostitutes and truck drivers.

“More than five hundred unsolved murders near interstate rest areas in the last ten years. And that’s only the ones we’ve entered into our initiative’s data bank. I think you two may have stumbled onto one of the murderers.”

Kunze’s phone interrupted them. He looked at the ID and answered immediately.

“This is Director Raymond Kunze.”

He was quiet and listening, his face expressionless, and Maggie found herself thinking the man would be excellent at poker. After several nods Kunze said, “I understand.” Then he ended the call.

“It appears CNN has just announced they’ll be airing an interview with Jeffery Cole.”

“About what?” Maggie asked.

“He’s confessing to eight counts of arson. He’s giving them the exclusive.”

He pulled down the bill of his ball cap and walked against the wind. He was glad to have gloves today. Back here along the stream it felt colder. The weather was changing again and he’d be glad to get back on the road. He’d stayed too long as it was, reluctant to leave her behind.

Over the top of the privacy fence he could see parts of the two beautiful houses ravaged by fire. It was a shame the way things turned out. He found a trail in between the two properties. No one was around today. The houses looked abandoned but he knew she came back every day to recover what the fire or the water hadn’t damaged.

He actually hated leaving her. He was convinced they were kindred spirits. But he needed to get back home. This magpie was definitely an omen, but not a bad one. Now that her life had been turned upside down he figured she would need something—or someone—to keep her mind off her own troubles.

He made his way up to the front door, or what was left of it. He climbed over the yellow
DO NOT ENTER
tape and took a look around. There was a good spot—on what used to be a kitchen
counter. He set down the torn piece of a map with a red circle in the middle. Then he anchored it with a rock from the stream back behind her house. The map would help her find the garbage bag he’d left there for her.

And when she did find it, he knew he’d see her again.

Fireproof
is my twelfth novel and the tenth in the Maggie O’Dell series. Quite a milestone considering I never intended to write a series. But sometimes being a writer is as much about listening as it is about writing. You might say Maggie prevailed because you readers demanded to see more and more of her. I must confess that I needed to be pushed and prodded in the beginning. I had never read a series and hadn’t a clue how to write one. I wasn’t thrilled about being saddled with a character I hardly knew. For those of you who have stuck with Maggie and me from the very start, I am forever grateful. You’ve made an incredible difference in my life. I hope Maggie and I can continue to repay the favor.