Against the Fire (34 page)

He didn’t remember much after that, just the grateful tears, the laughter and the hugs.

He was exhausted and so was Mattie, who didn’t protest when he told her he was taking her home.

Angel was alive. Some of the guilt he’d been feeling slipped away.

Still, the madman who had nearly killed the boy remained at large. The danger hadn’t lessened. None of them would be safe until the arsonist was stopped.

Thirty-Two

Mattie took a rare sick day and didn’t go in to work. After their exhausting night at the hospital, she and Gabe went back to his condo, crawled naked into bed, and fell soundly asleep, too tired even to make love.

At least until later. Dev’s call awakened them. He was staying in Austin, doing a little background research on the man he was investigating, a former tenant of Greenwood with a criminal record and a timeline that made him viable as a suspect. So far he had found nothing to link him to the fires.

“By the way,” Gabe said as he emerged from the shower, looking like a big, dark, satisfied cat, “I talked to Captain Daily about those calls you were getting.” A towel rode low on his hips. The bandage was gone from his arm, but a nasty red welt still marred his skin. “He says he can get the number of the guy who’s been calling. He says it won’t be a problem.”

Mattie felt the blood draining out of her face. She should have known Gabe wouldn’t let the matter drop, and now he had involved the arson squad!

He walked over and caught her shoulders. “What is it? You’ve gone pale as a ghost. What’s wrong?”

“Oh, Gabe. I’m sorry…I…I…meant to tell you. I found out who was making the calls.”

“What?”

“I should have said something, I know. I didn’t realize you would get Captain Daily involved.”

“You didn’t think I’d want to follow up, find out if you were really in danger?”

She glanced away. She’d wanted to stay at his apartment. She’d wanted to sleep in his bed. It was only a little lie, a lie of omission. “I’m sorry. I just forgot.”

Gabe eyed her darkly. “When did you find out?”

“Um…yesterday morning.”

His frown deepened. “You’re staying here because both of us were worried about those calls. If you found out who was making them, letting me know should have been your first priority.”

She tried to look repentant. “You’re right, I should have called and told you.”

His jaw hard, he tipped his head back and studied her down the length of his nose. Then a gleam entered those crystal blue eyes. “Maybe there’s another reason you didn’t tell me. A far more interesting reason.”

The heat rushed into her face and she glanced away. “It must have been all the excitement with Angel.”

“Try again. You’re a terrible liar, Mattie.”

She opened her mouth, closed it again and simply lifted her chin.

Instead of the tirade she expected, his mouth curved up at the corners. “You wanted to stay. That’s it, isn’t it? That’s why you didn’t tell me. You wanted to stay here with me.”

She straightened, thought about denying it. She hated to give him the upper hand. But she hated lying to him even more. “Fine. All right, I wanted to stay. I needed time to think things over, figure things out.”

His mouth swooped down over hers in a fiercely possessive yet tender kiss. Mattie made a soft little sound in her throat and relaxed against him, kissed him back.

“You could have just told me the truth,” Gabe said as he nibbled the side of her neck.

“Would you have let me stay?”

“Probably not, but you could have admitted you wanted to.”

“I could still be in danger,” she said, planting soft little kisses on the corners of his mouth.

“Yeah, I suppose you could be.”

“So I’m staying, right?”

He drew away, took a steadying breath. “You’d probably be safer at home.”

“Or maybe not.”

He was frowning again. “Or maybe not.”

“So I’m staying. At least for a while.”

“Yeah.” He bent his head and softly kissed her lips. “Who was it, by the way? If it’s one of Lena Sterling’s secret admirers, I am going to kick his ass.”

Mattie laughed. “He’s a friend. He’s been working through some problems. He’s okay now. In fact, he’s great. He’s dating someone he really likes.”

“It’s that guy from your office. Aaron. The one you had dinner with? I knew he was going to be a problem. He called because he was jealous you’re sleeping with me.”

He was far too perceptive to suit her, and yet his intelligence was one of the things that made him so attractive. “Aaron got a little mixed up, is all. He admitted to making the calls. He said he was sorry.”

“I’d still like to kick his ass.”

“He’s in a wheelchair, Gabe.”

“Oh.”

Mattie almost smiled. Instead, she went up on her toes and kissed him very softly on the mouth. A little yelp slipped from her throat as his towel fell away and she felt his heavy erection pressing against her. Gabe scooped her up in his arms and carried her back to bed.

It was another hour before he called Captain Daily.

Friday night arrived, the date of Enrique’s opening at the Zigman Gallery. In the days after the truck explosion, Gabe had been extremely cautious, taking extra care whenever either of them left the house, staying in touch during the day, checking and verifying their arrival times wherever they went. It was beginning to drive Mattie crazy, and yet she understood.

Until they caught the madman stalking Gabe, everyone he knew was in danger.

And so she was looking forward to tonight. For the occasion of Enrique’s first gallery opening, Mattie had chosen one of her favorite black dresses, low-backed, with a narrow, black fabric belt, a string of pearls and matching earrings, and very high black heels.

Dev had returned from Austin two days ago, with the news that the former Greenwood tenant’s alibi had checked out. He wasn’t the guy they were after. The police were still checking other names on the tenant list, but so far nothing useful had been discovered.

Gabe walked out of the bedroom, looking gorgeous in a dark blue pinstripe suit, a crisp white shirt and a red-flecked blue tie. Mattie let her gaze wander over him. The man looked good in everything—even better in nothing at all.

He said something and she noticed the cell phone he held against his ear.

“Dev’s friend Chaz came up with something,” he said to the person on the other end of the line. “He’s checking it out. I’ll let you know if it goes anywhere.” Gabe glanced over at her and rolled his eyes. “I know you want to come down here, but I’m asking you not to. Give us another week, okay?”

It was Jackson, she realized. Gabe’s brother was champing at the bit—as Gabe would have said—to come out and catch the arsonist. If he didn’t have a wife and daughter he adored and a ranch to run, there would have been no keeping him away.

Gabe closed the phone. “That was Jackson.”

“So I gathered.”

“He’ll be here on Monday. I tried to tell him there’s nothing he can do that we aren’t already doing, but—”

“But he loves you and he’s worried.”

“Yeah.” His gaze ran over her, that brilliant blue that never failed to make her stomach lift. “You look gorgeous.”

“Thanks, so do you.”

His mouth edged up. “I’d prefer incredibly handsome.”

“Too weak a word for how beautiful you are.”

He grunted but he was smiling. “I guess we’re ready.”

Though Angel was still in the hospital and unable to attend, Gabe had promised to drive the boy over to see Enrique’s work, which would remain in the gallery till the end of the month, as soon as he was released from the hospital and strong enough to make the visit.

The party didn’t start until eight, so she and Gabe were going to catch a quick bite at a little place she knew called Stone Cellars before they headed over to the show.

“I’ll just get my purse.” She walked into the bedroom, which had begun to feel far too comfortable even though she had to share a closet with Gabe. Picking up her black silk bag, she returned to the living room.

Gabe was back on the phone. “What did you say your name was? Ryan Franklin,” he repeated. “Hold on a minute, Ryan.” Walking over to the desk, he picked up a clipboard, flicked through a couple of pages, checked something and set the board back down. “All right. I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

Gabe hung up the phone. “That was the security guard at the warehouse. There’s a broken water line. I guess the pipe is flooding pretty good. I need to stop by on our way to dinner and turn off the main valve.”

“The warehouse? What about the arsonist? How do you know this isn’t some kind of trick to get you over there?”

“I checked the security roster. Atlas provided a list with each guard’s name and their corresponding shift. Ryan Franklin is on from four to ten. That’s who called on the phone.”

She still didn’t like it. The arsonist hadn’t given up and both of them knew it. He was just waiting for the right time to strike. “Couldn’t you just call a plumber?”

“I’d still have to go. The guard doesn’t have a key to the equipment room. That’s where the main valve is.”

“So I guess you’ve got no choice.”

“It won’t take long. Maybe you should stay here and I’ll come back and get you when I’m finished.”

“No way. We don’t want to be late, and besides, I’m really getting hungry.”

“Me, too.”

“You’re always hungry.”

He flashed a wicked grin. “Yeah, but not necessarily for food.”

Mattie laughed.

“I’ll be right back,” Gabe said.

She watched him walk into the bedroom and when he came out, he was holding the pistol he’d been keeping in a drawer in his nightstand.

“Glock 9 mil. I’m not expecting trouble, but it never hurts to be prepared.”

Mattie didn’t argue.

“We’ll have to take the SUV,” Gabe said as he tucked the gun into the back of his waistband and let his suit jacket fall over it. “My tools are in there.”

She eyed his perfectly tailored suit and the black lizard boots he was wearing, and her eyebrows went up. “That’s kind of an expensive outfit for a plumbing job.”

He chuckled. “With any luck, all I’ll have to do is turn a knob. Then we’re out of there.”

She took his arm and let him lead her to the door. “You think Dev will show up at the opening?”

“He said he would. First he wanted to run down something Chaz turned him onto.”

“Did he say what it was?”

“Something about social security checks. He said he’d fill us in when he saw us tonight.”

Us. Until lately, she wasn’t used to hearing the word. The way Gabe said it made it sound as if they were really a couple. The kind of people who grew old together, the kind it was hard to tell where one of them started and the other one ended.

She was staying with Gabe, practically living with him. Instead of feeling trapped or frightened, instead of worrying about what would happen if she let down her guard and allowed herself to love him, she felt as if she were exactly where she should be.

Of course she wasn’t sure Gabe felt the same. He had mentioned marriage that one time, but only in general conversation and he’d never brought up the subject again. And he had certainly never said the word love.

It was early evening, the sun beginning to weaken into soft yellow rays, when Gabe’s rented SUV turned onto Cadiz Street and pulled up in front of an oversize lot where a dilapidated three-story building with a rusty metal roof sat badly in need of repair. The core of the wood-framed structure looked solid, but several crude additions had been built on over the years.

Large paned windows provided light to the interior, though a number of the panes were broken and the rest too dirty to see through. A security guard wearing a black uniform and an Atlas cap stood near the front of the building, a holstered weapon on his heavy belt, along with a flashlight and a ring of keys.

Mattie caught the reflection of evening sunlight on the badge pinned to the pocket of his shirt. The Atlas Security Company truck was parked at the side of the warehouse.

“Everything looks okay,” Gabe said. “Wait for me here. This shouldn’t take long.”

She watched as he walked to the back of the SUV, opened the rear door and dragged out his heavy leather tool belt. “I probably won’t need this, but you never know.”

Tool belt swinging from his hand, he strode toward the guard, who waited on the walkway leading to the steps up to the front door. Reaching behind him, Gabe checked his pistol then let his coat slide back down over it, concealing it once more from view.

It occurred to her that the guard fit what little description they had of the arsonist: white male, average height, lean build, but there were a lot of lean white males in Dallas. The men spoke briefly, then walked together up the wide, wooden front steps and disappeared inside the warehouse.

There was something about Ryan Franklin. Nothing Gabe could put a finger on, but the skin at the back of his neck had begun to tingle the way it used to when he was in the marines.

As they crossed the rough planks of the raised warehouse floor, he could hear the rush of water coming from underneath where the pipes were located. If the water ran unchecked too long, it could damage the foundation.

The main part of the warehouse was big and open, but the rear had been chopped into storage rooms and offices, all strung together by long, narrow halls.

A small amount of sunlight made its way through the dirty windows, but the corridors remained shadowy and dim. Franklin flicked on his flashlight and pointed it toward the floor. Following the beam, they reached the cement stairs leading to the equipment room, partly below ground, and started down, the guard walking beside him. From the corner of his eye, Gabe noticed the slightly sunken eyes, the hollows in Franklin’s cheeks and the tingling started again.

Careful not to let the man get behind him, he reached into the pocket of his slacks and pulled out a set of keys. They jangled as he stuck one into the lock on the heavy steel door, then turned the knob and shoved it open.

A row of windows up near the top of the walls allowed weak rays of sunlight into the room. The weight of the gun at his back felt comforting as Gabe stepped inside and set the tool belt down on the rough cement floor.