The Protector

  Jack couldn’t find much sympathy for the driver of the van who had broken his leg. The guy had been doing forty on a downtown street.

  The side door into the bay opened. Jack glanced over, hoping to see Cassie. He couldn’t believe it was closing in on dinner and the day had passed with no more than a brief chance to say hi to her.

  Cole came in. “Good run?” He must be out of Lifesavers, he was eating a piece of red licorice.

  “Fine.”

  “The grill is fired up. Pork chops are coming off soon. Cassie appropriated your chair.”

  His chair—the metal patio chair he had picked up at an auction was huge and swallowed up whoever sat in it. Jack smiled at the mental picture. He got up to begin storing gear in his locker. “Did she?”

  “She looks settled in for the night too. Don’t hassle her about the foot cramps. The boots weren’t broken in and she’s paying for it.”

  “Cole.”

  “My error. Her feet are up; she’s off them for the night short of us getting a dispatch. And she’s sensitive about the entire matter.”

  Jack got the message. Sympathy wasn’t the right response. “Feel guilty enough you want to do paperwork for me?” Jack backtracked with a grin on seeing Cole’s expression. “Just checking. I’ll take it outside with me.”

  “Snag her a drink on the way.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Cole headed toward his office, tossing a question over his shoulder. “Is insubordination contagious?”

  “I’m going to respectfully not answer that,” Jack called back, slamming the locker closed.

  “Smart man.”

  Cassie was lost in a book. Jack slowed as he approached for it was clear she didn’t hear him. She had escaped into her favorite pasttime.

  A folded newspaper and a spare book were tucked by her side in the big chair. Over the arm of the chair hung a pair of black tube socks. Cassie was soaking her left foot. Muscle cramps were a common problem and he wasn’t surprised that a full day wearing fire boots had left her fighting them.

  Jack leaned over the chair and dangled the item he carried.

  “What?” She caught it, turned to look up at him. “Hi.” She glanced at the chain.

  “Keys to the station. I meant to get them to you earlier. Sorry about that.”

  Carrying keys in a pocket when entering a fire scene was a bad move. Most firefighters carried them on a belt clip or a chain that could easily be removed. He’d guessed which she would prefer.

  She slid the chain on. “I was rather hoping to get locked out.”

  He tweaked a curl as he took the seat beside her. “Sorry. You’re on call like the rest of us.” He offered the soda he carried. “Bruce said you were drinking orange today.”

  “Thanks.”

  “You’ve had an interesting first day.”

  “An understatement.” She cracked open the soda.

  “You might want to try and get a nap in after dinner. This guy has been hitting around midnight.”

  Cassie nodded. “I’ll do that.” Peter lifted the lid on the grill. “There are some things I really missed about station life and this is one of them.”

  “Good food?”

  She shook her head. “A guy fixing it.”

  Jack stretched out his legs and crossed his ankles, feeling like the Thursday had been going on forever. It was great to finally have a chance to have her full attention.

  “How was this last callout?”

  “Routine.”

  He glanced at her, caught an edge of frustration in her expression, and realized he had made a mistake by not covering the details. It had been routine, but she hadn’t been on it.

  She changed the subject before he could expand his comments. “I’ve read the reports of the earlier suspicious fires. It was unclear if there has been any indication of someone watching those fires. Is there reason to think he might be staying around to watch every fire he starts? Or am I going to be rolling out with just a fifty-fifty probability of him being there?”

  Jack wasn’t surprised that Cole had stricken the popcorn signature from the records. Until an arsonist was apprehended any information that might suggest a way to identify him was restricted so that a news report would not reveal it and the arsonist react by changing his MO. Cole would tell Cassie when she needed to know it. “We think he watches all of them. He’s got a couple signatures.”

  He was still frustrated with the underlying decision that she should roll out with them to try and find the man. It was dangerous. If this conversation continued he’d probably say it again. He changed the subject rather than risk it coming up. “Could you use any help at the bookstore finishing the Christmas decorations? My schedule for the next couple days off is free.”

  “Sure. I’ve also been intending to build shelves in the storage room. Would you be interested in swinging a hammer?”

  “Will you make me one of those super subs I’ve heard Cole talk about?”

  She reached over and patted his stomach. “I’ll make you half of one. You’d never manage a Cole-sized one.”

  He caught her hand and held it up to study her fingers with interest. “What’s this?”

  She curled her fingers down into a fist.

  “Cassie, have you been working on the popcorn chains without me?” She had Band-Aids on her first fingers and thumb. The needle had to be difficult to handle with her stiff hand.

  “Don’t go there, Jack.”

  “You’re cute when you’re embarrassed.” Her hand felt rough as the scars had healed in ridges. She didn’t need someone to cry for her, and he tapped down the regret he felt. He soothed his fingers around the back of her fist and set her hand down in her lap. He would have held on to her hand, but Peter was watching. “What kind of shelves do you want built at the store?”

  He needed to find a good place to watch this fire that would let him linger without being seen. But where? The fire would be huge, multialarm. And perfect—this destruction would embarrass them.

  He didn’t need Cassie Ellis getting a better look at him. He’d been keeping periodic checks on her since she’d almost stumbled into him, then had determined after the first week she was no threat to his discovery. She’d seen him, but she didn’t know him. He’d even crossed her path, said hello, and there had been no recognition.

  He’d get one break in his favor but probably not two. He would go for broke with this fire and push hard. He’d get his point across.

  His family wouldn’t thank him, but then they didn’t have to carry the burden of paying the bills. Thanksgiving had been frustrating, but Christmas…

  This time he would make sure the newspapers got the message, even if he had to tip someone off to the signature. There was an arsonist loose, and the fire department wasn’t up to the job. There would be changes. One way or another, he would force them.

  Seventeen

  Cassie, are you sure you want to do this?”

  “I’m doing it, Gage. If Ash wants to complain, he’ll have to show up to do it.” She pushed against the back door of Ash’s home and found it had very little play in the door frame, but it did have some. She pulled out a laminated video store rental card, slid it into the crack, and started working it around the frame.

  “You could just ask his cousin for another copy of the key you lost.”

  “She’s in California for the month.” She worked the card downward while she kept the doorknob turned. “You are not printing in your paper an allegation of what I said that I can prove to you is wrong.”

  Gage ran a hand through his hair. “I already said I wouldn’t print it. Would you stop? A cop is going to come by.”

  “Then I’ll tell him exactly what I’m doing. That it’s my partner’s home, I lost my key, and I am doing what I feel the circumstances warrant. There was a natural gas leak two houses down yesterday that caused a dispatch, and this house needs to be checked.”

  She wasn’t taking this step lightly, but she was frustra
ted with the idea she had seen Ash, and that the fact lingered in her mind. If Gage hadn’t gone probing like a pit bull, her suspicion would not have become known to the press. “And you will print it if you think you can find supporting evidence; I know you.” She owed it to her partner to kill the idea now. It was Friday and Gage was in the process of writing his next article.

  “I’m not going to apologize for a factual story. The Weekend Focus article last Saturday was accurate.”

  “Then consider this insurance to remove the basis for your assumption Ash was somehow involved.” She gave up on the card and looked around the porch for something else to use.

  Ash’s home had a decidedly neglected look. His cousin collected his mail from the post office, where it was being held, and paid his bills. His neighbor kept the grass mowed, but it showed the evidence of its vacancy in the weeds that grew, the lack of any Christmas decorations, and the closed window blinds.

  She picked up a brick.

  “Hold on. Put it down.” Gage headed back to the car. He came back with a thin metal strip. “I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

  “You owe me.”

  “You’re the one who asked me to run a background check on your partner. You’re not exactly showing confidence in your stated position. Either you think you saw him or you didn’t.”

  “I’m worried about his continued absence. That is all that is behind my request,” she insisted. At this point she would love to hear Ash had received a speeding ticket somewhere. It was coming up on Christmas, and she needed to find him.

  Gage took her place and popped the lock in a matter of moments. He opened the back door. “Rachel is going to have my head for this.”

  “Then don’t tell her.”

  Cassie stepped over the threshold and entered Ash’s house. It smelled musty. She had been braced to smell natural gas or more precisely the chemical added to it to create a sharp odor. The house had been closed up for months. Her need to check the house was real. During the early months of winter, natural gas home explosions happened more often than most people realized as the ground grew cold and froze, stressing buried lines.

  She walked through to the kitchen. The counters were clear. Her note to Ash from her last visit was still on the kitchen table. She opened the refrigerator and found it cool and empty. Ash’s cousin had cleared it out after four weeks. Cassie checked the living room. The only thing that appeared to have changed was the formal clock on the mantel had stopped at 7:04.

  “He’s really not here. I believe you. Satisfied?”

  “No.” She headed to Ash’s office.

  Sitting down at his desk, she turned on his computer.

  The password was backdraft; the same one he had used at the office. She suggested it to him years before and he had never changed it. She brought up his e-mail. It took twelve minutes for all the pending messages to transfer from the server. She should have changed his discussion groups to nomail as she watched all the nightly digests flow in.

  The fact so many messages flowed over suggested he was not going on-line to check his messages. There was a chance if in his travels he’d visited friends, someone might have dropped him a note. There were several individual messages. She recognized names of his friends.

  The message with the subject line FIRE caused her pause. It was anonymously sent. She checked the date. It had been sent over eight weeks ago.

  She opened it. Flickering flames appeared, and the word CHICKEN emerged from the flames, flashed, then disappeared.

  “What was that?”

  She closed the message. “A firefighter’s joke,” she told Gage and resumed her search through the messages.

  Had Ash been a target before the first fire had been set?

  Where was he?

  Nothing else in the e-mail suggested anything. She shut down the machine. “Okay, Gage. We can leave. Now what are you writing about this weekend?”

  “I hate to burst your bubble, but a suspicion that a firefighter might be starting fires—read the FBI November 1995 report: 66 firefighters set 182 fires in the brief review of cases they looked at. When I can prove who this arsonist is, that will be news. The Weekend Focus article I’m writing at the moment is a devastating look at the manipulation of gas prices at the start of the winter heating season.”

  “My bills are going up?”

  “I strongly suggest you sit down before you open your next bill.”

  Eighteen

  If the arsonist was going to strike again, he was taking his time about it. And having learned her lesson, Cassie was wisely keeping her nose out of the investigation. It was Saturday, December 9, her fifth shift, and so far she had rolled out only once. Rather than be a suspicious fire as first reported, it turned out to be a chimney fire caused by the home owners’ first use of their fireplace this year.

  Cole had heard her rather nervous statement about the e-mail message Ash had received, the word chicken, and the fact Gage knew about her suspicion. He’d accepted the news with a growing frown, noted down the date she said the e-mail had been sent, and told her not to worry about it. But he had done it with an implicit suggestion that she stop chasing ideas and let him do his job.

  Cole believed she had scared off the arsonist. She had seen him, and since then his behavior appeared to have changed. Cassie was quite willing to go along with that supposition if only because it bought her a few weeks to get back into Cole’s good graces. No one seemed to think the arsonist would quit setting fires, but as shift after shift passed, there was a growing sense that his MO might change.

  Being back on shift work, it was as if she had never left. The twenty-four hour on and forty-eight hour off pace had a rhythm to it, and she adapted back to it much easier than expected.

  Cassie opened the oven to check the raspberry cobbler. As promised, Cole had arranged for her to have kitchen duty for the day. He was getting his requested meal. She was fixing lasagna, hot bread-sticks, Caesar salad, and raspberry cobbler for the eighteen firefighters on duty. She promised to make enough cobbler so there would be leftovers for the next shift.

  “Cassie, do you have a minute?” Cole asked.

  She glanced over to the doorway. “Of course.”

  “I know you’re off duty…”

  She smiled at the hesitation. He was being unusually deferential because he wanted to keep in her good graces as well. Technically she went off the clock at 5 P.M. “Bring the paperwork. I know you’ve got a finance meeting on the eighteenth.”

  She found working with Cole fascinating. Getting involved in the efficiency reports and the budget paperwork had radically opened her eyes to the scope of his job. She’d thought she would find watching him wrestle with the numbers boring, but instead it was a very big challenge.

  “I’d like to try changing these budget figures.”

  “Which ones?” She held the spoon she was using over the sink, so the grease wouldn’t drip on the stove top, and leaned over to see the report.

  Cole held it steady while using his pen to highlight a line. “Paid oncall class I. Let’s shift the increase to salary class III. And I want to cut the administrative budget another 3 percent and move it to training.”

  “Given the increase in grounds and maintenance, I don’t know if there’s another 3 percent that can be cut from the admin figures. You can barely afford a box of paper clips as it is.”

  “We’ll have the fire station auxiliary sell cookies, sponsor a car wash, have another chili cook-off…something. I can beg and cajole the community for things; I can’t do that for people. And we’ve got to squeeze another paramedic and firefighter in under the budget caps.”

  She agreed with him on the hires. After watching five shifts Cassie would consider the need acute. The guys were getting run ragged with the dispatch rate. If they got back from this last rollout by seven o’clock she would be surprised. She was doing her best to slow dinner preparations so they wouldn’t have to come back to rubbery lasagna from overcooking.
“I’ll get as creative as I can.”

  “Figure out how to do it and I’ll owe you a big one.”

  “Let me roll out to the next car accident.”

  He leaned over and pinched some of the grated cheese for the lasagna. “No.”

  “Cole, I know the job, and you just said you needed the help. I know I can’t do everything at a scene I once could, but you know how valuable an extra pair of hands would be. And it’s not like you’re not already paying me.” It was killing her to have the dispatch tones sound and at times be the only member of Gold Shift left at the station. It wasn’t the first time she had asked. She didn’t understand why he wouldn’t agree. “If you think it’s a liability issue, could I request a finding from the personnel board?”

  “It’s not my decision,” Cole said quietly.

  “Should I talk to Frank?”

  “It’s Jack’s decision to make.”

  Jack was the one choosing to leave her behind. She blinked as that registered. She had worked hard to show him she was not only up to speed with the status of the rig and the equipment, but also to prove she was not a liability to him on Engine 81. Finding out he was the one blocking her request…it felt like she’d been betrayed. How could he hurt her this way?

  “I support his decision.”

  “Cole—” She needed to understand. “Why?”

  “Talk to Jack.”

  It was the only answer she was going to get. She slowly nodded. “Okay.” Cole wasn’t going to explain, but she heard what sounded suspiciously like sympathy in his voice. She looked back to the dinner she was fixing. Sympathy ran close to pity. She didn’t need either.

  She pushed away the hurt. Her issue was not with Cole; it was with Jack. “Leave the budget on the table and I’ll do some work on it tonight, if you don’t mind my using your office.”