Up in Flames [The Heroes of Silver Springs 10] (Siren Publishing Everlasting Classic) (30 page)

Max’s hold on her loosened as he pulled back, his expression turning livid. “Why are you here instead of out there catching this bitch?”

Regina felt her jaw drop before she quickly slammed her mouth shut. She stilled herself and bit back every scathing retort that sprang to the tip of her tongue. His anger wasn’t really directed at her despite the fact that it seemed to be at that moment. She understood that, understood him, and refused to take it personally. “I wanted to check on Dean. I—”

She broke off when every firefighter in the room pushed to their feet. She saw Max stiffen, watched as his gaze sliced over her shoulder, and turned to find a tall, dark-haired doctor with a movie-star-worthy face filling the doorway of the waiting room. Her attention dropped to the badge pinned to his white coat. Dr. Owen Banks. She recognized the name in an instant as being the same name she’d heard a few times in conjunction with Terri’s at the firehouse.

“Owen?” Terri said the doctor’s name questioningly as the woman quickly walked across the room toward him.

“Captain Wolcott’s vitals are stable,” the doctor said, talking to the room at large rather than just Terri. “His burns have been treated. He has a concussion and several bruised internal organs, but we haven’t found anything to indicate internal bleeding.”

“Oh, thank God.” Regina’s hand flew to cover her mouth, but not before the words spilled out. Relief rushed through her so fast and furious it made her momentarily lightheaded.

Owen Banks held up a hand, palm out. “I’m not going to say he’s out of the woods yet. He’s been admitted. We’re going to keep him under close observation for a few days. His bruised liver is our biggest concern now. There’s no evidence to show a further injury beyond a contusion, but we will continue to run blood tests, ultrasounds, and CT scans to make sure no new signs of a deeper injury or internal bleeding start.”

“Owen, what about Veronica, Dean’s wife?” Terri asked. “Do you know if she’s going to be all right?”

Regina jerked her head to Terri, her eyes wide. “What happened to Veronica?”

“Magee went to her store to tell her about Dean and bring her here,” Max answered, his voice tight. “She went into labor on the way.”

Regina briefly closed her eyes, opening them when the doctor spoke again.

“I checked on her on my way here. I knew you would be asking about her condition as well. She’s fine. She’s calm and the labor has stopped. She’ll be kept under observation for a while, too, just as a precaution.”

Max whirled on Regina, the muscle ticking a rapid staccato in his jaw as he glared at her. “You’ve got the status on both of them,” he said, his tone so cold it turned the blood in her veins to ice. “Now get out there and catch that fucking bitch so she can pay for harming my family.”

Regina’s grip on the phone at her ear tightened as she propped her elbows on the desk and cupped her forehead in her free palm. Her head had started pounding too many hours ago to count, no doubt a repercussion of the sheer exhaustion setting in after being up for nearly twenty-four straight hours.

“How do I catch her, Dad? SSPD has been combing the streets even before yesterday morning’s fire. We tried to head her off and failed. Unless she starts the chain all over again, she’s done now.”

“But you don’t really believe that.” Her father made it more statement than question in a voice far stronger and less laced with pain than she’d heard him use in a very long time. “If you’re right, she’ll hit again, likely in a few hours.”

Regina lifted her head and stared at the clock hanging on the wall across her office, watching the second hand as it ticked off each moment of the next passing minute. She sat back in her chair, swiveling it around to gaze out the window behind her desk. The sun had already started to set, bringing in a new day, the day that symbolized the anniversary of the fire that had claimed the life of Joyce Randolph’s mother.

“If I’m right, I have even less of a clue where she’ll strike next than I did before.” Regina closed her eyes as she tipped her chin to the ceiling, her mind reeling. “She ended the chain in Kingsford with the daycare. She started it with the MVA both there and here.” She lifted her head, drawing her eyebrows together. “Which is something that hasn’t made sense to me. Why start it with the MVA? If she were really following the pattern of events the way they happened, the automotive shop would be first and then the accident.”

“She was seven years old when the events were planted into her mind, Red,” her father reminded her. “She could’ve catalogued the car as the first demon. If there hadn’t been anything wrong with the car in the first place, her mother wouldn’t have taken it in for service.”

“And the mechanic at the automotive shop wouldn’t have had the chance to do his careless work under the hood,” Regina concluded and then puffed out a hard breath. “That’s really irrelevant anyway. She’s either done and she’ll go back into hiding if I don’t catch her now, or she’s got a different finish in mind that’ll happen today.”

“I’d put my money on the last one. She’s gotten careless with you, Red. She’s wanting to get caught this time. Putting that old newspaper on your front porch, leaving that woman and child to die in that daycare, speeding up her timeline the way she’s done, those are all signs she’s not being careful anymore. She’s looking to truly end this.”

“She’s still being careful enough to stay off radar. She hasn’t been spotted anywhere in this city, in Billings, or in any of our surrounding cities. SSPD has expanded the APB across the coast, and no one has seen her.”

“Where are you now?” An unmistakable concern filled her father’s voice.

Regina smiled, albeit weakly. “I’m at the office. I’ve been at the office since I left the hospital yesterday morning.”

“Making yourself an even bigger target. Christ, Red, what are you thinking? This woman has no qualms about torching businesses, and you’ve been holed up in your office alone throughout the night?”

“Dad, I’m next door to the police station. There have been officers in and out of here all night. I’m probably safer here than I am at home. And all that is assuming she’d even come after me, which I seriously doubt. She wants me to catch her. I think she wants me to give her credit for her work and to let the world know what she’s done and why. She blamed you for not getting it right the first time, for not seeing she was the one responsible for the fire that killed her mother. Now, she’s expecting me to do it. I can’t do that if I’m dead.”

“And here you are with the nerve to think
I’m
the one who needs a babysitter.”

Regina sucked in a sharp breath at her father’s mumbled words. “What did you say?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, young lady. I know exactly what’s been stuck in your craw for months. I know what you’ve been planning to do about it, too.”

“How did you—” Regina started, but her father bulldozed over her.

“You think I can’t take care of myself anymore, that I need someone under my ass round the clock. I thought you knew me better than to believe I would let something like a little arthritis pain turn me into an invalid.”

“You have severe arthritis, Dad,” Regina argued, “and I know you’ve been in far more than a little pain. Gage said you have trouble getting around sometimes, that he’s had to come over there frequently to do things for you because you were in too much pain to do them yourself.”

“See if I ever ask for help from that little snitch again,” her father muttered.

“Dad,” Regina groaned and heard her father chuckle. It was quite possibly one of the greatest sounds she’d heard in months.

“Listen to me, Red. I won’t deny that I’ve been in a lot of pain for a lot of months, but this new medication the doctor has me on is doing the trick. It doesn’t take it all away. I doubt anything will do that before you lay me in my grave.”

“Dad!” This time, Regina nearly shrilled the word.

Again, her father chuckled. “Don’t worry. I’m not looking for that to happen any time soon. I’m also not looking for my favorite daughter to move back into my house when she should be living on her own somewhere building her own life.”

“I’m your only daughter, Dad.”

“Which is why you’re my favorite.”

Regina had to laugh at that. “Gage told you I was planning to move back, didn’t he?”

“I’m telling you, you can’t tell that little snitch anything.” An almost comical warning sounded in her father’s tone.

“But you don’t want me there?”

All playfulness left her father’s voice. “Red, you don’t want to be here any more than I want a babysitter. If you did, you never would’ve left. You’ve made a life for yourself in Silver Springs, one that has nothing to do with my service in the fire investigation office. You’ve got friends and, from what I hear, a new man taking up a good chunk of your time, too.”

Regina felt her cheeks heat. “You’re absolutely right. Gage is not to be trusted any longer.”

The laughter returned to her father’s voice. “Stay where you are. I promise if I need anything, anything at all, I won’t hesitate to pick up the phone.”

Regina knew better. He’d hesitate, put it off for as long as he could, and then prolong it some more before he’d admit he needed her. But in the end, if he really needed her he would call. She heaved a heavy sigh. “All right. I won’t put in for the transfer.”

“It wouldn’t have done you any good anyway. I told them not to accept it.”

“You did what?” She straightened in her chair and spun back around toward her desk. “No, you didn’t.”

“Yes, I did. Now, when are you going to bring this man to meet me? I have to see if he’s worthy enough to date my favorite daughter.”

Bring Max to meet her father? Jeez, she hadn’t even considered it. Not to mention, everything was going to be different now. How was Max going to react when she told him she wasn’t moving after all? Would what they had going on continue or would it end anyway? Hell, it might already be over. She hadn’t spoken to him since she left the hospital yesterday.

As if summoned by fate, a knock sounded at her office door.

“Um, Dad. I need to go. Someone’s here.”

“Are you still at the office? Aren’t you still alone?” Alarm made her father’s voice shake. “Regina, don’t you hang up this phone until you find out who that is.”

“I—” She started to argue when the door to her office slowly opened. Max poked his head inside, his gaze immediately slamming into hers. “It’s okay, Dad. It’s just Max.”

“Is he the guy?”

Regina couldn’t help but smile even as she wondered exactly how to answer him. She didn’t see the anger in Max’s eyes that she’d seen yesterday at the hospital. He looked as exhausted as she felt, his steps slow and fatigued as he moved into the office and closed the door behind him.

“Yes,” she finally told her father. “I love you. I’ll call you later.” She hung up the phone, biting back a grin when one of Max’s brows inched up after hearing her tell her caller she loved him. “That was my father.” The eyebrow returned to its normal place as he walked toward her desk.

“How is he?”

“Hardheaded as ever.”

The corners of Max’s lips twitched. “I guess that runs in the family. What are doing here so late, Gina?”

Regina pushed a hard breath from her lungs. “Trying to do what you told me to, catch this bitch.” She dropped her gaze to the desk and shook her head. “I’m not having much luck.”

“Have you been here all night?”

“Since I left the hospital.” She lifted her gaze to find he’d walked around the edge of her desk and now stood beside her. “I don’t how to catch her, Max. I don’t have anything to go on. She’s apparently paid for everything she’s done in cash. There’s no credit-card trail to speak of. She hasn’t been spotted anywhere. She’s like a fucking ghost that only comes out when it’s time to torch a place.”

Max reached for her hands, pulled her to her feet, and wrapped his arms around her.

It felt so good to be in his arms again she simply melted against him. He’d ditched his bunker pants at some point, but he still wore the same SSFD T-shirt he’d had on at the hospital and the jeans he’d likely been wearing beneath his turnouts. She knew it was the same shirt because the scent of the fire still lingered in the material.

She looked up at him, searching his eyes. “Have you been at the hospital all this time?”

He nodded. “Veronica is going to be fine. The baby has decided it’s not quite time to grace the world with its presence just yet.”

Relief had tears rushing to Regina’s eyes. “Thank God. And Dean?”

“Still under observation, but still no traces of deeper internal damage.” He pulled on arm from around her waist and brought his hand to the side of her face to lightly graze the pad of his thumb down her cheek. “He’s going to have a long recovery period, but the predictions of him making a full one are pretty damn bright.”

Regina blinked back the tears and smiled. “If anyone can make a full recovery from something like this, it’s Dean.”

“You’re damn right it is,” Max agreed, pure confidence in his tone. He thumbed a tear from beneath her eye that had managed to escape, his expression softening as he gazed down at her. “Come home with me.”

Regina shook her head. “Max, I—”

“I’m sorry for the way I treated you at the hospital. I was pissed, and I’m not too macho to admit I was scared, too. I took it out on you, and I had no right.”

Dear God in heaven, if she hadn’t already been soul-deep in love with this man, that would’ve done it her. “You don’t have to apologize. I understood, but I can’t—”

“Come home with me,” he said again, his tone just a little more commanding and desperate than it had been. “Take an hour or two, step away from this, recharge your batteries, and we’ll get right back at it.”

She could think of a dozen reasons why she shouldn’t and only one why she should. She wanted to. She needed to be with him, to be close to him, and to know he was there. She needed to tell him about her change of plans, too. This might be her last chance to be with him.

“Give me another hour.” She glanced down at her desk, at the mountain of information she’d gathered on Joyce Randolph that so far hadn’t done her a bit of good, and then met his gaze again. “If I get held up, I’ll call you.” She needed to pore over everything some more. Her gut was telling her the Flame Jumper wasn’t done, but she couldn’t for the life of her figure out where Joyce Randolph would strike next.