Firefly Mountain (5 page)

The woman shook her head and covered her mouth with a shaky hand as she coughed. “N-no. My daughter and her family are at a friend’s house.”

Patrick nodded. “Okay. You’re safe now. This nice paramedic will take you to the hospital. Tell them how to contact your family.”

The woman clamped a bony hand onto Patrick’s coat. She let loose another round of hacking before she could talk.

“Thank you. I could have died in there.”

The color had returned to her face, and Patrick knew she was going to be okay. Probably wouldn’t sleep for a while, but she’d pull through. She was safe and so was her family. That’s all that mattered.

Patrick turned back toward the house. Fighters crawled around it like ants. The hoses were spraying full blast, and one truck’s ladder had been extended to cut ventilation holes in the roof. Thick, black clouds of smoke plumed out of the holes, but most of the flames had been extinguished. Some of the fighters were pushing neighbors back from the scene, gently encouraging them to go home.

Jonah clapped Patrick on the back, his helmet wedged under his arm as Patrick’s was.

“I was right about you,” Jonah said.

“Excuse me?”

“You followed protocol in there like a pro. You stayed calm. I knew my first instincts about you were right.” He walked off before Patrick could say anything.

If Jonah thought he knew him, he was mistaken. Hugely mistaken.

“Suspicious.” Patrick leaned his elbows against his truck as he examined his map and notes. He’d made an initial sweep of the burned raised ranch with Midas.

“How so?” Detective Mason Rivers patted the dog at his feet.

“I’ll have to comb through it again,” Patrick said, “but newspapers and cotton rags were stuffed under the back porch door.” He tapped his meticulously drawn map of the site. “Midas definitely picked up a trail of gasoline leading into the house too.”

Mason nodded. “Okay. I’ve called in our photographer to document the scene. Should be here any minute. Once that’s taken care of you can bag up any evidence you think is relevant and we can have it tested.”

“That’d be good.” Patrick put his papers in the folder he’d brought and dropped it on the driver’s seat of his truck. He turned to face the ashy remains of the house.

“Shame, isn’t it?” Mason folded his arms across his chest. He angled his head at the skeleton of surviving beams and let his brown eyes settle on the blackened cherry tree at the corner of the house.

“Any fire is a shame,” Patrick agreed. “Especially if it isn’t an accident.”

“What happened to the times when parents told their kids not to play with fire?” Mason shook his head.

“Like kids ever listened.”

“True. Something seductive about fire to some people.”

“She’s a dangerous lover.” Patrick shrugged and grabbed his notebook. “I’m going to interview some of the neighbors. See if they saw anything unusual.”

“I’ll go with you.”

With Midas trotting ahead of them, Mason fell into step beside Patrick, but stopped when a car honked behind him. After turning around, he said, “The photographer’s here. Let’s hold up on questioning the neighbors until she’s done.”

Patrick turned around as well. His notebook dropped from his hands as he watched Gini get out of her SUV. She shouldered her camera strap and started to walk toward them. Patrick bent to pick up his notebook that Midas pawed at and when he stood, Gini froze.

What was that flitting across her face? Fear? Anger? Both? Patrick regretted the way he’d had to speak to her at the station, but he had to protect himself. No way he was going to take his shirt off for her stupid calendar. Didn’t matter how fantastic she’d looked in that blue dress and those sandals. He wasn’t going to give in. She’d think him grotesque once she saw what he was hiding under his shirt anyway. Definitely not picture-worthy.

“I think I’ll get a head start on the neighbors,” Patrick said. “Catch up with you later.”

Before Mason could agree or disagree, Patrick nudged Midas and marched away from Gini, who had changed her course as well to head toward the house. He couldn’t deny he had more questions for her than he did for the neighbors, but he’d made the decision to stay away from Gini Claremont. Planned on sticking to that decision. Apparently, she had come to a similar conclusion. The way she’d looked at him before turning toward the house told him she didn’t want to see him either.

Made sense. He’d acted like a first class jackass to get her to drop the picture-taking request. He wouldn’t want to be around him either. Not a great first impression but necessary. Calling her
Blondie
probably was over the top, but he couldn’t take it back now.

For the next two hours, Patrick buried himself in conversations with the neighbors of Cloudson Drive. None of them said anything helpful. No one saw anything out of place. No suspicious people had been milling about that they’d noticed. The family who owned the house was a model family. No known enemies. He’d have to go through the house again and study the photos.

Photos Gini took. Hopefully, he could get the pictures from Mason. Back in Rhode Island, the photographer the Providence Police Department used had been an old man with a face like a squirrel. No nonsense and obsessed with capturing every facet of the fire scene. He certainly didn’t have the legs Gini had.

Patrick let out a breath, disgusted about catching himself thinking about Gini’s legs, and walked back to his truck. Both Gini and Mason were gone. Excellent. He fished around in his evidence collection kit and extracted a flashlight and some evidence bags. One more peek before it got too dark. He could review his map and notes at home tonight.

As he walked to the back of the house, Midas sniffing along the way, his cell phone buzzed in his pocket. Patrick pulled it out and read the text message Mason had left him.

PHOTOS TAKEN. CAN BAG EVIDENCE AT SCENE. MEET ME TOMORROW MORNING. MY OFFICE. WILL SEND COPIES OF PHOTOS WHEN GINI DEVELOPS.

When Gini develops.
Why did that phrase have his mind wandering?

Didn’t matter. He was on the job, and she had obviously done hers. After flipping the phone off, Patrick started at the back porch door where he’d found the newspaper and rags. Pushing aside what remained of the door, he stepped inside. He’d entered from the cleared front door earlier with Midas. The dog had found the remnants of a gasoline trail through the first floor and leading upstairs. Someone had been inside to get the blaze to travel throughout the house.

Midas detected the gasoline again and paced along it as he’d been trained to do.

“Yep,
bon
. Good boy. I see it. Again.” Patrick scratched the dog’s big black ear.

After donning a pair of plastic gloves, he used his pen to sift through the soot at the threshold of the porch door. He collected some of the charred cloth although he’d seen enough like it to identify what it was. Still, in a new town, he’d play by the rules, do it by the book. Didn’t want the first case he consulted on to not hold up in court if that’s where it ended up.

While on his knees, bagging debris samples, his gaze fell upon something blue and oddly shaped under what remained of a wicker rocking chair on the porch. He shuffled back outside and shined his flashlight on the object.

A blue candle. At least it used to be. It had lost its rounded edge, reduced to a glob of melted wax, the wick totally spent. Patrick slid it out from its hiding spot and put it in a fresh evidence bag. He got a whiff of cinnamon as he sealed the bag. Certain the candle was the point of origin, he scrawled some notes in his notebook and gave the rest of the house another run-through with Midas.

Content he had enough to work with, Patrick headed back to his truck. Midas jumped into the passenger seat and after a quick stop at Maury’s Pizza Haven, the two of them were on their way home to dine and work. As he drove, Patrick mentally composed his official report—the one he’d turn over to Mason in the morning. Cut and dry. Someone poured a line of gasoline, stuffed newspapers and rags under the door, lit a candle, and poof.

The questions that remained were why and, more importantly, who.

****

Gini finished the last of her dinner and dumped the dishes in the sink. She’d get to them later or con Jonah into doing them the next time he stopped by. Tonight, she didn’t have time for dishes. She had to develop the fire scene pictures for Mason. Not for Patrick even though Mason said he’d need a copy too.

No, she’d develop them for Mason. She’d known him a hell of a lot longer than Patrick Barre, and he never caused her to have an incident. Polite, sophisticated Mason. Upstanding citizen and intelligent detective. She’d put aside whatever else she had planned to do tonight for Mason.

Not for Patrick.

He’d certainly scurried off in a hurry at the scene this afternoon. Just as well. Made the stay-out-of-Patrick’s-path plan easier to follow. She didn’t even know why it bothered her so much that he didn’t want to help her with the calendar. She would have been short a fighter if she’d hatched the fund-raiser idea last week before Patrick had joined the Burnam Fire Department. So why did his refusal scratch at her skin like thorns?

Breathe.
She had to remember to breathe. A night in her home darkroom would settle her. Make her forget what Patrick had pushed her to do.

A bush at the fire department.
How ridiculous. At least it had been at a location where people qualified to handle a spontaneous blaze were on hand. No one had gotten hurt. Not this time.

Gini shook off the chill rippling through her and shut off the kitchen light. She padded down the hallway on her bare feet and scooped her hair up into a loose bun. As soon as she opened the door to the darkroom, she let the shadows swallow the darkness inside her. In the silence of that room, she could focus on her work and not worry about anything else.

She developed the two rolls of film she’d used at the fire scene and uploaded the digital photos she’d taken as well. After scanning the traditional photographs into her computer, she emailed them and the digitals to Mason. Usually she didn’t pay much attention to the details of the pictures she took for Mason. Freelancing for the police department wasn’t art. It was business. She didn’t have the same reaction to photos of footprints in mud or a pile of burnt debris as she did to a beautiful bride all smiles on her wedding day.

Gathering the hard copies now, however, Gini’s gaze settled on a blue blob under the wicker rocking chair in the top photo. She turned the picture around and looked at it from all angles. Had to be a candle. Must be the fire’s starting point. Mason would be glad to find that in the photos. Would make solving his case easier hopefully. Anything she could do to help made her feel a little less like a beast. Less like an anomaly that probably shouldn’t exist.

Gini shook her head. “Enough, Claremont. Positive thoughts only, girl.”

She cleaned up her workspace and went outside. The purple dusk kissed the mountaintops in the distance, and she breathed in the fragrant summer air. Lavender, mint, roses, and peaches combined to clear her head. Fireflies twinkled in the tall grass by the barn, and Gini had to smile.

Firefly
. Her daddy had called her that when she was a little girl. He didn’t realize how fitting the nickname would be until Gini was seventeen. That was the year she’d fallen in love. Fallen pretty hard too like all seventeen-year-old girls do, she supposed.

Gini sat on the arbor swing overlooking the west field. The sun had put itself to sleep, and the moon cast a white spotlight on the little pond bordering the field. Saber jumped onto her lap and circled until he found the perfect spot. As she rubbed the cat’s silky fur, Gini closed her eyes.

****

“God, Gini, you’re so beautiful,” Cameron said. “I could look at you forever.”

Gini blushed at Cameron’s words. He always said just the right thing. She was a fairy tale princess whenever she was with him. He was her prince.

“We’ve been together for a long time now.” Cameron slipped his hand over Gini’s shoulders and squeezed her closer. He’d parked his dad’s car by the river, and all the stars were out, ready to take wishes.

“It’s been wonderful, Cameron.” Gini leaned her head on Cameron’s shoulder, and he kissed the top of her head. She soon found herself angling her face to him, seeking his lips, finding his familiar spearmint chewing gum taste, and getting lost in it.

Cameron broke away and slithered into the back seat. He dragged a giggling Gini into the space next to him, and his lips sought hers now. The seat beneath her was sticky with something she couldn’t identify in the dark, but she pushed that aside and focused on Cameron. His scruffy black hair complemented the fact that he played electric guitar in a small band. His blue eyes always reminded Gini of a perfect summer day, one where the water and sky made a perfectly blue sandwich of anything between them.

Cameron’s arms encircled her waist, and he tugged until her long legs could only separate to either side of his body.

“Your hair smells like peaches.” Cameron burrowed his head into the curve of Gini’s neck. “I love peaches.”

“I know.”

Gini’s favorite pastime was making out with Cameron. His lips were so full, so soft. Whenever he kissed her, she felt as if she were flying. Time stood still. Her blood pumped like liquid fire when his breath tickled her neck, when his hands slid under her shirt, brushed over her skin.

She felt like a woman in Cameron’s arms, not like the awkward teenage giraffe she usually felt like.

“I love you, Gini.” Cameron’s voice was a hoarse whisper. “I want to see you. I’ve got to see you.” He lifted her T-shirt, prepared to take it off.

“Wait.” Gini curled her fingers around Cameron’s wrists.

“I can’t wait, Gini. I don’t want to wait anymore.”

Cameron had been saying things like this for a few weeks. Each time Gini had been able to distract him or give him enough that he backed off. A quick fondle here and there. She was pretty sure his friends were giving him a hard time about not having sex with her. She didn’t care what his friends thought. Most of them were morons anyway. Cameron was smarter, cuter, funnier, better than they were.