The Perfect Match (22 page)

“He did?” Dan’s throat thickened. “I didn’t know that.”

Sam nodded. “Said Guthrie got him a job at Smoky Joe’s. Night shift. He seemed in high spirits.”

“He didn’t commit suicide.”

Sam frowned. “No. I don’t think so. He didn’t have any alcohol in his blood either, according to the ME report.”

Dan hung his head in his hands. Leo had a job. A future. A family. “I don’t get it. Who would want to kill Leo?”

Sam shook his head. “Who would want to set fire to the Garden?” He turned to his computer, began to type.

Dan thought back to the Garden fire. He’d been outside, walking the strawberry gardens with Joe, discussing funding for the next year. The wailing siren sent them back to the lodge in a panic. From there, he only remembered the chaos, Ruby screaming, a number of the patrons trying to gather the residents into a huddle.

Sam looked over at him. “According to the incident report Ellie filed, you and Joe and Guthrie were the first on the scene.”

“Guthrie was part of the catering committee.” Dan said it quietly, a cold realization running through his veins. “He works for Smoky Joe’s.”

“Yes,” Sam agreed slowly as if evaluating Dan’s state of mind.

“Listen,” Dan said, hating that his next words would betray a confidence, “a couple months ago, someone at Smoky Joe’s caught Bonnie in a romantic clench with one of her employees. She never told me who the man was, but she denied it, said it was one-sided and that nothing happened. Unfortunately, her marriage had been on a downward slide for months so Matt didn’t buy her denials. She and Matt didn’t show up for their last counseling appointment.” Dan cupped his hands over his mouth, thinking. “What if Guthrie had an affair with Bonnie?”

Sam frowned. “Oh, c’mon. I highly doubt that. Guthrie wasn’t—”

“Wait. What if it wasn’t an affair? What if Leo caught Guthrie, um . . . getting too friendly with Bonnie? Guthrie loves his job. Next to firefighting, he spends all his time at Smoky Joe’s, cooking barbeque and tending the bar. Maybe he thought he’d lose his job? Maybe he set the fire to frighten his brother-in-law into silence?”

Sam seemed to sift through his words, looking for evidence. “Guthrie is a churchgoing man. You know that.”

Sam’s words caught him in the chest. Dan shook his head. “You’re right. I shouldn’t do to Guthrie what Ellie’s doing to me.”

“But . . .” Sam turned, typed into his computer, and sat back, arms crossed. “Yep. I thought so. Guthrie had a string of arson charges in his teenage years. Burned his father’s pickup, torched a field behind their house, and I caught him and two other boys burning a shack just up Highway 61.”

“Was he ever punished?”

“No. We wrote it off as childhood pranks.”

“But you kept a record of it.”

“Incident reports. I keep all my files.”

“Could he be up to his old tricks?” Dan asked, not wanting desperation to push him back toward accusation.

Sam turned back to the computer, running the mouse, clicking. His face tightened. “I forgot about this.”

Dan’s heart fell about thirty feet and landed hard. “What?”

“Guthrie had an assault charge when he was seventeen. Did some community service.”

Dan wanted to dive over the table and strangle the chief. “Assault?”

“Yes. I remember now. He stalked a girl in his school. Said she’d agreed to go to prom with him, then stood him up. She claims he made it up. Anyway, he assaulted her right outside her house, nearly in full view of the neighborhood. Her father stopped him before she was seriously hurt. Let’s see here.” He moved his mouse, clicking open new files. “Emilee Kingsly. I think I have a picture.”

“Emilee, Bonnie’s sister? The one who died in an auto accident a few years ago?”

“Yeah. Real shame. Poor Mitch. I don’t think he ever got over losing her. As I recall, they were a pretty hot item while she was in college.” Sam reached over and pulled out a photo from his file. “Senior picture. A real cutie, huh?”

Dan stared at her photo, a sick feeling of familiarity rushing over him. Braids, freckles, a smile that could light up a room. “Yeah,” he said slowly. “Sorta reminds me of Ellie.”

“If I remember correctly, we had to take a restraining order out against Guthrie. Finally ended up admitting him to a psych ward in Duluth. I think he was even hospitalized down in Minneapolis for a time. Some sort of chemical imbalance.”

Dan sat very, very still. “A chemical imbalance that is brought on by stress? loneliness? fear? Maybe exacerbated by grief?” His hands clenched into fists as he fought panic. “Would you say that Guthrie might direct his frustrations toward women who reject him?”

Sam frowned.

“As in a fire chief who he’s had a crush on, who he sees kissing, say, the town pastor?”

Sam’s expression became pained. “Or one that reminds him of the girl he could never have?”

Dan closed his eyes, seeing Guthrie’s face when he’d barged into Ellie’s office.

“We’ll warn her as soon as she gets here,” Sam said quietly.

“Which will be—?” Dan said, his heart already out of the chair, out of the building, and down the road to the fire station. “Page her.”

“It’s too late.”

Dan turned, stared. Horror had him by the throat.

Mitch braced his timber arms on the doorframe, as if holding himself up. He was breathing hard. “Someone took her.”

Dan jumped to his feet. “Why didn’t you go after her?”

Mitch’s look could have blistered skin from ten feet away. “He took my truck.”

E
llie awoke. At least she thought she’d awoken—it was difficult to discern consciousness when pitch darkness pressed her eyeballs, teasing her with bulky forms, shadows, then nothing. A cold so thick it filled her nose with icicles made her gasp, pulling at the tape over her mouth. She fought back nausea at a sweet, slightly cloying smell she couldn’t place.

She must be on a cement floor. Pain speared through her hips, her shoulders and, combined with the chilly air, saturated every muscle in her body. When she tried to move her hands, she discovered bonds slashing through the skin of her wrists. Her legs were bound too, although the binds affixed over her pants proved less biting. She concentrated hard, moving her extremities, horrified to realize little feeling remained.

Where was she? As the first rush of panic settled into a bone-deep terror, she tried to quiet her pounding heart and listen. A low hum, perhaps a generator or a refrigerator, rumbled in the background. Her own breath sounded
labored, thick. And the cold—so cold it invaded every pore like the spikes of a sixteenth-century iron maiden—pulled at her concentration, willing her to surrender to the moan roiling in the center of her body.

Mitch had gone to a lot of trouble to make sure she didn’t escape.

Why hadn’t she seen through Mitch’s veneer, his “aw shucks” apology? Because she’d wanted to believe that he had done an about-face, that his chagrin and regret intoned authenticity. She wanted to be the one left standing when the smoke cleared.

Instead, he’d showed her again that she was not only easily duped but hadn’t earned a morsel of respect. Tears wet her eyes, and she blinked them back. No, she would not cry.

She could get herself out of this. She just had to stay alert. Not panic.

Opening her mouth, she worked her tongue out between her teeth and lips, then licked the glue. Her tongue seized, recoiling against the taste, but she forced it out, moistening the tape until it eased from her lips. Her neck ached as she worked. Then while she rested, she twisted her hands, forcing her wrists apart until she whimpered.

Feeling light-headed, she leaned her head back, hoping that she wasn’t lying on fleas or roaches. She felt them crawl up her body even as she told herself nothing multi-legged could live in this temperature. She shook away the creeps and fought another wave of tears.

Well, this confirmed one thing. Dan was innocent.

She closed her eyes, listening to his pleas echo through her thick head. How could she have accused him?

Because she was desperate, just like he’d said. Desperate to leave behind a legacy in Deep Haven. In life. Desperate to be worth the price her brother had paid for her life.

She lay on her side, her tears running like melting ice over her nose, into her ear, wetting her dirty hair. But she wasn’t worth it. She’d leave no marks in the surface of the world when she left. She’d die in this damp, freezing . . . wherever she was, and not a soul would even blink when she didn’t clock in at the firehouse in the morning. Or worse, they’d think she’d slunk out of town, showing herself to be the skunk she was for accusing the town good guy of being a criminal. Mitch would win. He’d slide into the position as fire chief—good riddance, Ellie—and life would resume without a hiccup in this town.

Until, of course, the day they found her rotted, skeletal remains. And even then they’d remember her as the scoundrel who’d tried to send the town pastor to the clink. The town outcast.

He had leprosy.
The words flashed through her memory. She held her breath, searching her mental files. She could hear the voice and knew it wasn’t one that she knew well. Someone had spoken those words recently, and even then they’d been embedded in her mind.

The missionary who had spoken in church a month prior. Of course. Even then his story had rocked her, left an impression on the soft tissue of her soul. “Let me tell you a story,” he had said. He stood barely taller than the podium, work-worn hands gripping its sides. The morning breeze had mocked his attempts to disguise his slightly balding head and instead tossed his hair without
compassion. But his bright eyes reached out, even from the distance of ten rows back, and caught Ellie around the heart. She’d sat next to Liza, who’d reached over once and touched her hand. She dredged up his words again, realizing now why they’d resonated.

“There once was a king named Uzziah. He was sixteen when he became king and Second Chronicles tells us he did right in the eyes of the Lord.” He’d held the spine of his Bible in one hand; it flopped over his open palm. “Don’t miss, folks, the way the Bible, when talking about the kings, always gives us a description of their relationship with God before it gives us a rundown of their successes or failures.”

He went on, that thought hovering over the one-hundred-plus congregation. “Uzziah sought God . . . and as long as he sought God, God gave him success. Chapter 26 lists his feats. He defeated armies that came against him, increased the wealth of Judah, built towers, and increased his army. Then . . . he got proud.

“He stopped praying. Stopped seeking the Lord. The Bible says he became ‘unfaithful.’ His pride in his own accomplishments took ahold of him. Thinking he’d earned God’s respect, God’s attention, he marched right into the holy place to offer sacrifices, with about eighty horrified priests on his tail.”

Ellie had grabbed her pew Bible and paged to the chapter, running her finger along the verse when he read, “And they said to him, ‘Leave the sanctuary, for you have been unfaithful; and you will not be honored by the Lord God.’

“So, this man, who’d accomplished so much for God, had forgotten the secret of his success. Seeking God.” The
missionary set his Bible on the podium, then braced his hands on either side, leaning into his sermon and lowering his voice. “That moment, right in front of the priests, God afflicted him with leprosy. From that day forward, he had to live separately from his family. He forfeited his kingdom to his son to rule, and when he died, the people said only one thing about this king who had been great.

“He had leprosy.”

Ellie had closed her Bible, and was smoothing her hand across it as his low, soft, even dangerous words burned her.

Even now, she remembered trembling.

Oh, Lord, how will I be remembered? As a leper? An outcast? Someone to run from?

She curled into a ball, drawing up her knees. A leper.

No, my child, you are not a leper. You are lost.

She felt, more than heard, the words, and a sob racked her.

But I’ve let my pride rule me, my desire to be someone special.

You already are. You are Mine. The greatest love is shown when people lay down their lives for their friends. I’ve already proven My love for you in the sacrifice of My beloved Son. Now embrace it and know Me. It is My greatness and My grace that make you special. Because I, the Almighty God, chose you to be Mine.

Ellie stilled, letting that truth settle into her bones.

Abide in Me, and you will find peace. You will find hope. You will find purpose.

Liza’s words, so gently spoken, in the Deep Haven park, drifted through her mind like a fragrance.
The more we work for Him, the more we seek Him. The circle of joy.

She’d been running in circles most of her life, one step behind joy. Because she hadn’t stopped to abide. To let His love settle in, fuel her steps. It wasn’t that her job wasn’t important; she simply hadn’t let God make it meaningful.

Because she’d refused to believe she was important to Him. She’d been trying to get His attention, but she already—
always
—had it.

Ellie had God’s attention in a sweltering fire shelter, and she had it while freezing on a cold cement floor. She had it sitting on the shore of Lake Superior with Dan or alone while she searched a smoke-filled building. She had it whether she had logged miles for the gospel and saved hundreds of lives, or if she simply wiped toddlers’ noses and did mounds of laundry.

She had God’s attention because she was His child.

Ellie closed her eyes.
Oh, Lord, I want my life to make a difference, but I’m not sure where to start.

Me. Start with Me.

Alone, shivering, dirty, and frightened, Ellie bowed to the command, tears flooding her eyes.
Yes, Lord. Forgive me for trying to go it alone. For not believing in Your love for me. Help me see my worth in Your eyes. Help me not to base it on my accomplishments but on my relationship with You. As Your child.

His child. His beloved.

As she lay there, bound and broken, she felt the first wisps of that truth, that
immensity.
Getting a tight grasp on it would change everything, just like Dan’s friend Katie had said.

Warmth, radiating from the inside of her body, swept through her veins, her pores, her soul, making her trem
ble. Oh yes, His child. Nothing more. Nothing less. All the days of her life. However long it might be.

A time frame, she thought as she lay there, breathing in and out under a supernatural calm, which might have an ending sooner than she wanted. Not only could she not feel her feet, but fatigue seemed like a sweet, enticing blanket against the cold, and her breathing required new effort, heavy as it was to draw into her lungs.

She closed her eyes and in the back of her mind decided that the new redolence filtering into her dark coffin smelled faintly of smoke.

Dan raced Mitch and Sam to the parking lot of the city municipal building. The night had turned black, the wispy clouds that remained of the day’s deluge pushed north, and a new storm front headed in from the west, drawing a shadow over the stars, the moon.

Dan stopped, stood still, adrenaline burning through him, helplessness raging in his veins. Rounding on Mitch, ten steps behind him, he shot him a silent plea.

“I don’t know, Preach. It was dark. I think he wore a mask. All I saw was him throwing her into the back of my pickup. I missed him by twenty feet.” Mitch was still breathing hard, and the man looked genuinely stricken.

Sam opened his car door. “I put out an APB for her, and I’ll have a cruiser run through the neighborhoods.”

Dan slid into the front seat. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know.” Sam shoved his key into the ignition. “I thought we’d start with the firehouse.”

The door to the fire station was open, a yawn of
darkness where the engine took up daily residence. “Where’s the pumper?” Mitch asked in a voice that matched Dan’s horror. “I didn’t hear a siren or a call.”

“Is it still at the church?”

Mitch shook his head. “I thought Guthrie brought it back to the house.”

“Guthrie,” Dan growled. “What about Smoky Joe’s?”

Sam radioed in their destination, while Dan braced his feet against the floorboard. Perhaps Sam had done time as a state trooper. He zipped up the highway at a speed that shed tears.

They saw the blaze a block away. A glow of flickering light against the haze of night. Dan’s mouth opened, and out of him came a noise that sounded painfully like a groan.

Sam grabbed his radio. “Structure fire. Smoky Joe’s. Highway 61. We need all crews.” He faced Dan, a hollow, pained look as he finished. “The engine is already here.”

Dan was out of the car before Sam stopped, a step in front of Mitch, who caught his arm. “You can’t go in there.”

The restaurant, a stand-alone wooden building a stone’s throw out of town, billowed out ugly black smoke like a coal furnace. Flames licked out of the back windows; smoke tumbled out of the front door.

“It looks like a grease fire from the color of the smoke, lots of fuel, burning fast.” Mitch had turned into a captain. He gripped Dan by the shoulder, half dragging him to the engine.

“Ellie!” Dan ripped out of Mitch’s grasp, ran for the house.

Mitch had to tackle him. Dan landed, chin in the rutted weeds. It peeled a layer of skin.

“It’s too hot, man! Wait for your gear!”

Dan twisted and shrugged the man off, eyes tearing against the smoke that scraped the air. “What if Ellie’s in there?”

Mitch pulled him back to the engine. “Help me get out the hose.”

Dan’s hands shook as he unlatched the door, unhooked the hoses. Ellie couldn’t survive that inferno. But maybe . . . okay, so maybe she wasn’t in there. Maybe it was a coincidence.

“There’s my truck,” Mitch growled under his breath and nodded toward the back.

Dan tightened his jaw, feeling like he might lose his supper, and rushed to the truck. It was parked behind the building, the tailgate still ajar. “Ellie!”

Dan heard movement and whipped around the truck.

Guthrie. The man sat, knees up, curled into a ball, hands over his helmet. He wore his turnout gear and air pack.

When he looked at Dan, his face wasn’t his own. Wild fear ravaged his eyes, whitened his color.

Dan stood in paralyzed shock a second before he snapped. He seized Guthrie by the collar, yanking him to his feet, not caring that he had a reputation or that this man was a member of his flock. Not caring that Guthrie obviously hovered on the raw edge of hysteria. “Where is she?” he yelled.