“Burning Love was a fabulous read from start to finish. From the serial arsonist turned killer to the growing attraction between the hero and heroine, it was hot, hot, hot! I loved it.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Sharon Sala

“I’ve been working on three cases very similar to this. I think this is his fourth fire.”

Jack’s spine stiffened. “You’re saying we have a serial arsonist?”

“I think so,” Terra said, exhaling audibly.

“There haven’t been any other fire deaths,” he said bluntly. “I would’ve heard about that.”

“If this is the same guy, last night was the first time he’s killed.”

“Why now? And why Harris Vaughn?”

“I have no idea.” Her voice was even, but the glimmer of brightness in her eyes reminded him that the arsonist’s first victim had also been her friend.

Dear Reader,

The days are hot and the reading is hotter here at Silhouette Intimate Moments. Linda Turner is back with the next of THOSE MARRYING MCBRIDES! in Always a McBride. Taylor Bishop has only just found out about his familial connection—and he has no idea it’s going to lead him straight to love.

In Shooting Starr, Kathleen Creighton ratchets up both the suspense and the romance in a story of torn loyalties you’ll long remember. Carla Cassidy returns to CHEROKEE CORNERS in Last Seen…, a novel about two people whose circumstances ought to prevent them from falling in love but don’t. On Dean’s Watch is the latest from reader favorite Linda Winstead Jones, and it will keep you turning the pages as her federal marshal hero falls hard for the woman he’s supposed to be keeping an undercover watch over. Roses After Midnight, by Linda Randall Wisdom, is a suspenseful look at the hunt for a serial rapist—and the blossoming of an unexpected romance. Finally, take a look at Debra Cowan’s Burning Love and watch passion flare to life between a female arson investigator and the handsome cop who may be her prime suspect.

Enjoy them all—and come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

Burning Love
Debra Cowan

DEBRA COWAN

Like many writers, Debra made up stories in her head as a child. Her B.A. in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel, there was no looking back. After years of working another job in addition to writing, she now devotes herself full-time to penning both historical and contemporary romances. An avid history buff, Debra enjoys traveling. She has visited places as diverse as Europe and Honduras, where she and her husband served as part of a medical mission team. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband and their two beagles, Maggie and Domino. Debra invites her readers to contact her at P.O. Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmond, OK 73003-0003 or via e-mail at her Web site at http://www.oklahoma.net/~debcowan.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge and thank Jack Goldhorn, Public Information Officer, Norfolk Fire Rescue, Norfolk, VA, and David Wiist, Chief of Fire Prevention, Edmond, OK, for their invaluable and generous assistance. You have my word that my small arson knowledge will be used only between the covers of a book.

All liberties taken in the name of fiction are my own.

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 1

“Body found in blaze at one-sixteen Sorrel Lane.”

The dispatcher’s voice crackled across Terra August’s car radio. As the sole fire investigator for Presley, Oklahoma, she was already on her way to the two-alarm fire in the established Hunter’s Ridge subdivision, jarred out of a deep sleep minutes ago by her pager.

In the past ten years, the Oklahoma City suburb’s population had grown to nearly fifty thousand. The police department had hired enough officers before the growth spurt, but not the fire department. These last few weeks had doubled Terra’s wish for another investigator in her office, but until next year’s budget was approved, she was it.

Her mentor lived on Sorrel Lane, but she didn’t know the house number. Their frequent meetings had never taken place at his home or hers, and usually involved a meal somewhere. Please, don’t let it be Harris’s house.

After flashing her badge for the uniformed officer stationed at the neighborhood’s entrance, she maneuvered her Explorer down a neatly kept residential street. The older brick homes were bathed in a mix of moonlight and shadow. Red and blue lights strobed from a police cruiser at either end of the block. Fire trucks, engines, police cars and two vans bearing the names and logos of the nearby Oklahoma City television stations crowded both sides of the street. The frantic swirl of lights spiked her blood pressure. Less than five hours ago, she and Harris Vaughn had enjoyed a Sunday night dinner and put their heads together about a case that had her stumped.

Fighting to calm a sudden flicker of panic, Terra eased her SUV past three police cruisers, around Station One’s rescue truck and squeezed to the curb just behind an ambulance. The paramedic raised a hand in greeting and shut the door. Terra glimpsed the empty gurney inside. No survivors.

Her heartbeat stuttered, but she uncurled her death grip from the steering wheel and stepped out. The blaze was out, but gray smoke streaked across the midnight-black sky. Water from the firefighters’ hoses ran down the streets, gurgled into grates and glistened on trees, yards, nearby cars. Smoke still hung heavy in the air. Police and fire radios crackled into the night. Yellow crime scene tape squared off the house and yard. Officers stood guard at each of the four corners and probably in the back yard where Terra couldn’t see.

At one time, the single story, traditional redbrick home had been inviting. Now it looked cold and bleak. Dead. Still mostly intact, the brick was streaked with soot, burned black on the west side of the house. The one front window on the west side was blown out; the trio of windows on the east side looked untouched except for the dripping ash and water as the firefighters from Stations One and Four, her old station house, stood amidst snaking hoses and a now soggy lawn. In a neighbor’s yard, a firefighter stood videotaping the scene. Terra would get the tape from him later.

The blaze appeared to have burned only one area of the home before firefighters managed to douse it.

Urgency had her slamming her door and looking around for the police officer who held the log book to check people in and out of the scene.

The familiar sharp odor of burning wood and engine fumes wrapped around her like the wet midnight. This fire was different. It had taken more than a home, more than memories. It had taken a life. And she had to know whose.

Ash swirled through the air, clung to her cheeks. The Oklahoma County Medical Examiner’s wagon eased past her and found a spot farther up the crowded street.

She opened the back door of her Explorer and grabbed her boots. Stumbling out of a dead sleep when her pager buzzed, she had automatically pulled on jeans and a heavy flannel shirt with sleeves she could roll up. She’d sleeked her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail. Hoping like crazy that the victim’s identity would be someone other than the mentor whose company she’d enjoyed earlier in the evening, Terra toed off her tennis shoes and tugged on her rubber, steel-soled boots.

The ambulance pulled out and ambled down the block. Trying to steady her racing pulse, she grabbed her hard hat and slid it on.

Her thick, well-worn gloves were in her pockets. She slung her camera around her neck, picked up her shovel and a tackle box containing her hand tools. Stepping around the back of her truck, she racked her brain for any memory of Harris’s house number. She came up empty, which only sharpened the dread pricking at her.

Her gaze swept the knots of people moving around the scene. Several uniformed officers wound through the crowd of reporters, cameramen and neighbors. At the sidewalk which led to the front door, Terra spotted a cop holding a clipboard. She started toward him, dodging the hood of a police car, stepping over a hydrant hose.

This neighborhood had probably never seen anything more traumatic than a bicycle wreck. Farther up the street, uniformed officers were directing passersby to keep moving and news vans to park at the end of the block.

As they’d finished dinner, Harris had mentioned taking in a movie after running some errands. Terra had grabbed a swim at her gym before heading home to turn in early. She hadn’t been asleep two hours before her pager went off.

Four years as a fire investigator and nine years on the job had taught her to level out her emotions so she could objectively do her job, but tonight she failed. Tonight she was terrified of whose body the firefighters had found.

Her nerves snapped tight as she continued to walk toward the slightly built policeman with the clipboard, standing at the curb in front of the victim’s mailbox. Water dripped from the mature maple trees in the front yard, their yellow and red leaves glimmering red and blue in the flashing lights from one of the police cruisers. Firefighters walked past dragging hoses back to their engines. Perhaps the officer in her sights would know the victim’s identity.

“Hello, Luscious.”

Ugh. Terra knew the smooth, practiced voice, but kept walking. Dane Reynolds was an investigative reporter for one of Oklahoma City’s television stations and seemed to always beat her to the scene. “No time, Reynolds.”

“Just one minute, Angel Face.” The local newsman with spray-stiff hair hurried toward her. “Just one?”

Terra kept moving, drawing up sharply when the reporter suddenly appeared. Flashing too-perfect teeth, Dane Reynolds planted his impressively trim self in front of her. He probably spent hours at the gym, and more time on his hair than she did on hers.

She stepped around him. She wasn’t about to let Reynolds see the cold sweat that clung to her nape. Or get a glimpse of nerves that were raw with uncertainty. Dane Reynolds would jump on that like a rat on a Cheetoh. “I’m working here, Dane.”

“I know.” He fell into easy step beside her as if he’d been invited. “Just wanted to ask if you’d talk to me about this case when you’re finished here?”

“Station Four caught this one. Captain Maguire is around somewhere.”

“But I want to talk to you.” He lightly skimmed his fingers over her shoulder as if brushing away something. “You know you want to.”

What she wanted was to pop him with her shovel. “I already told you—”

“And what about that interview we talked about? Surely you’ve changed your mind by now. The guy’s set three fires and you’re no closer to—”

“How’s that camera working out, Investigator?” A pleasant male voice interrupted firmly.

“It’s great, T.J.” Terra smiled over at T. J. Coontz, Dane’s cameraman, who had played the buffer before. A few months ago, she’d asked the cameraman to recommend a place to buy a good used camera for the advanced photography class she’d enrolled in this semester. The city’s current budget didn’t support further education so Terra had signed up on her own time and money. She would have borrowed a camera from Harris, but she needed to learn how to use a newer model. T.J. had generously offered one of his cameras in order to save Terra some expense. “Thanks for loaning it to me. I’ll get it back to you as soon as the class ends.”

“Keep it as long as you want.”

She eyed his dark suit and tie. “You look nice.”

“I was at my cousin’s wedding when I got the page for the fire.”

Dane shot T.J. a withering look before saying to Terra, “Come on, Luscious. What about that interview?”

“Dane, you’re not helping your case,” T.J. said.

“Good point.” Terra stepped past the men. “Please excuse me.”

She had to make sure it wasn’t Harris inside that torched house.

“How about a drink tomorrow night?”

“Sorry,” she called to Reynolds over her shoulder as she moved up to the cop. The guy couldn’t take a hint. She’d refused every time he’d asked her out in the past two months. Just as she’d refused his requests for an interview.

“What about Thursday?”

Ignoring him, she flashed her badge at the thirty-something officer who stood eye-to-eye with her five-foot-nine frame. “Terra August, Fire Investigator.”

He nodded and held the log out for her to sign her name and record the time.

Her gaze going to the brass nametag he wore, she swallowed around the painful knot in her throat. “Officer Lowe, do we know the victim’s name?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He skimmed a finger up to the top of the page. “Officer Farrell spoke to a neighbor who said a man named Harris Vaughn lived here and the neighbor saw him come home around nine-thirty.”

No! A sharp pain pierced her chest and Terra struggled to absorb the shock, tried to keep her wits about her.

“Hey, you okay?” Lowe peered at her.

“Do they know for sure that it’s him?”

“No, ma’am. Just that this is his residence.”

She shook her head, urgency and dread fusing inside her. What had happened? Electrical fire? Arson? She could already rule out cigarettes. Harris didn’t smoke, never had.

“Ma’am?” The policeman had lifted the tape and now waited expectantly.

Her knees wobbled, but she moved forward, partly out of reflex, partly out of denial. No, it wasn’t Harris. It couldn’t be.

Wait for facts. Harris’s ingrained instruction played through her mind and she hung on to it with single-minded focus as she sidestepped the labyrinth of hoses on the sidewalk. Sooty water splashed over the toes of her thick rubber boots. The cops knew only that this was Harris’s house. No one had identified him, only a male victim.

Out of habit, she reached for the camera around her neck, but rather than stop for her first set of pictures, she moved inside.

The smell of wet ash settled over her like a cloud of fog. Gripping her tackle box, she nodded to the firefighters coming toward her. The somber, whipped look on their faces sharpened the knot in her throat. They’d contained the fire, but lost someone. She knew from her nine years fighting fires that no one would sleep tonight.

In the living room to her right, Terra spotted Don LeBass and Rusty Ferguson from her old station house. Rusty’s eyes were red rimmed and Terra knew it wasn’t strictly due to the blaze he’d battled. The two men were deep in conversation with Captain Maguire.

She absently registered moving across slick tile then soggy carpet past a couple of firefighters, down a long hallway to her left. The wall’s creamy paint was hidden beneath streaks of soot and ash. Wood and glass littered the floor. A clump of men and women stood in the doorway at the end of a hall and Terra knew the body was there. The bedroom door had been blown out from its hinges. Was this room the point-of-origin?

She’d need to check every room for that, ask if anyone had discovered any sign of forced entry, anything that might indicate arson, but all she cared about right now was seeing the body and making sure it wasn’t Harris.

Three firemen stood against the wall just outside the door, nodding soberly as she reached them. She recognized the oldest of them, Jerry French, a twenty-year veteran from Station Four. She stepped into the room, leaning her shovel against the nearest wall.

The bedroom was now a skeleton of burned rafters and support beams, studs peering out from gouged and blackened Sheetrock. She automatically noted those details as her gaze went immediately to the body lying on the bed.

She drew in a deep breath and moved closer so she could see the body. The face was too severely heat-bloated to be recognizable, but her gaze snagged on the victim’s cowboy boots. Water-gray, Australian sharkskin.

No! Her vision grayed. Dizzy and nauseous, she turned and stumbled blindly toward the door. Harris. Harris. Harris.

Her heart clenched painfully. Those boots had cost a pretty penny. Terra and the other Presley firefighters had pooled their money to buy Harris the pair for his retirement, along with an Alaskan fishing trip. The M.E. would have to use dental records for a positive identification of the body, but for Terra the boots were a macabre dog tag.

Trying to breathe without keeling over, she reached for the nearest wall, grabbed only air and pitched forward.

An arm, solid and thick, caught her at the waist. “Easy there.”

The deep masculine voice commanded rather than soothed. Reflexively she clutched at the arm bracing her waist, her stomach rolling. For an instant, she let herself lean into the steel-hard strength, tried to absorb the pain slashing through her. Her entire body throbbed with it. In another few seconds, her vision cleared and she registered dark brown hair, hard blue eyes and a mouth that meant all business.

Cop. She saw the gold badge clipped to the waistband of his faded jeans at the same time she realized he still held her. She felt steadier and managed a thank-you.

He frowned, his lips flattening. “This your first body at a fire scene? Something like this isn’t for a rookie.”

Irritation flickered through the smothering pain. She mumbled thanks only out of politeness and pushed her way out into the hall.

“Cut her a break, man,” Terra heard Jerry French say to the cop. “The victim’s a friend of hers.”

She ducked into an empty bathroom, boots squishing through ashy water and crunching over glass and splintered wood. Wet smoke and the rotten smell of death weakened her knees as she dragged in deep breaths of cold, rancid air. The bloated, unrecognizable mass of Harris’s face floated through her mind. She closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against the wall and focused on breathing. She’d thrown up twice in her adult life; she battled to keep from doing it a third time.

Tugging off one of her gloves, she pushed back her helmet and wiped at the cold sweat on her forehead, her nape. Tears burned her throat and she thumbed off the strays falling down her cheeks. The cop’s disapproval of her pricked, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was what had happened to Harris and she meant to find out.

Despite how difficult this case was, fire investigation was her job, what Harris had trained her to do. What she would do. For him.

Terra waited there until her stomach settled. She had to focus on her job, not Harris. You can’t make it personal. That had been one of the first things he’d taught her. A sob ached in her throat, but she swallowed it. After another minute, she pulled her glove back on, adjusted her helmet more comfortably and returned to the bedroom.

The medical examiner, Ken Mason, handled bodies for Oklahoma County, which included the town of Presley. He now stood beside the bed waving off a young man who approached with a body bag. “Wait until Investigator August is finished.”

Ken, who’d worked with Harris during his last year as the fire investigator, turned to Terra with compassion in his dark eyes. “Take your time.”

She nodded, fighting down another swell of emotion. Her mind still couldn’t accept what her eyes had seen. For a moment, she made herself stare at the body. There was nothing of the shy grin, the trimmed beard shot with gray, the kind brown eyes. All traces of the man she knew—loved—were gone. Except for the boots. Bit by bit, she let in the pain until she felt she could control it. When she began to tremble, she bit her lip and looked away.

Someone, probably Jerry and the guys from Station Four, had set up her portable floodlights while she was gone. Putting herself on autopilot as best she could, Terra decided to record the body first, get it over with. She lifted her camera with shaking hands and snapped pictures from several angles. After each photo, she dictated a brief memo into her microcassette recorder. Tears blurred her vision, but she had a job to do. Harris, of all people, wouldn’t have cut her any slack.

She moved to the right side of the bed. The hallway, guest bathroom and living room only had smoke damage, but fire damage was severe in this room. Especially on the wall beside the bed where destruction was the heaviest.

This could very well be the low point—the place where the fire started—for this room. There could be other origins. She would double-check and verify every room before making notes to that effect. Her initial guess was the bedroom as the point-of-origin, but she would make no conclusions until she finished her investigation.

“Where did you come from?” she murmured to the fire, staring at the charred wood that moved in an upward-spreading vee from the bedside table. “Here? Or another room?”

She forced herself to look a second time at Harris’s body. She wanted to scream, to run, but she didn’t. Her heartbeat thundered in her ears and her breathing went shallow, but after a minute, she was able to detach a bit. That’s when she noticed his hands and feet were tied. She froze as the implication sunk in. He wouldn’t have been able to escape.

She jerked her gaze away. Rage swept over her until she shook with it. She stared blankly at the blackened wall and counted to ten as she struggled to level out the tide of emotion battering her. Do your job, she mentally reminded herself. Do your job.

She should take measurements of the body’s position, compare them later to the ones taken by the lab tech who’d already put away his tape measure. And as quickly as possible, she needed to determine what, if any, accelerant had been used before any remaining indication vanished due to the areas ventilated by the firefighters.

She’d always been able to scent kerosene or gasoline at a scene; she smelled neither here. She could call Vicki at the State Fire Marshal’s office and request the use of their German shepherd. Pyro was trained to sniff out accelerants, but Terra didn’t want to wait for the dog to arrive. Besides, her portable “sniffer,” an instrument that detected combustible gases, would confirm the presence and identity of the accelerant. After that, she would take samples if necessary.

Urging herself to get started, Terra turned. For the first time, she noticed her tackle box at the foot of the bed and realized she must’ve dropped it upon first seeing Harris.

Jerry French picked it up and handed it to her. “You okay?”

“Yes, thanks. I just needed a little time.”

He nodded, his smoke-reddened hazel eyes sympathetic. “The guys from Four and One are waiting to begin overhaul. That way, you can move them away from where you think the fire started.”

“Great. That will save a lot of investigation time.”

“The walk-around’s finished. The structure appears sound enough for you to begin.”

“Your guys were first on the scene, right?”

Jerry nodded. “We had some trouble putting out the blaze. It took a small spray pattern to finally do the trick.”

Terra noted that in her tape recorder. If the typical wide or “fog pattern” spray was inefficient in putting out the fire, that was a clue to the type of accelerant used. “Thanks, Jerry. I’ll come out in just a minute to talk to your crew, walk through overhaul with them. Right now, I need to check for accelerants before they evaporate.”

“Gotcha.”

Still off balance and slightly disoriented, she set her tackle box down on the soggy, debris-covered carpet.

Soot streaked Jerry’s weathered, leather face. Concern darkened his eyes. “You sure you’re okay?”

She nodded, giving him a small smile. “I can do this.”

“I’ll see you outside.” He squeezed her shoulder and motioned to the two firefighters she’d barely noticed earlier. One woman, one man, both pale and wide-eyed. Probies. Had she ever been that green?

The cop who’d kept her from planting her face in the floor watched her coolly from a few feet away. Uneasy with the knowing steadiness in his eyes, her gaze slid away. She opened her tackle box and took out the small, boxlike “sniffer.” The wooden footboard for the queen-size bed was still intact, but the headboard was a crumbling screen of ash. Charred mattress. Closed, scorched closet door.

Rubbing her temple where a headache had started, Terra walked to the far side of the bed. Bedroom fires were typically caused by three things: frayed lamp circuits, electric blankets or smokers. Harris had never smoked so she dismissed the possibility that he could’ve started the fire that way. Though fires due to frayed lamp circuits and electric blankets were rare, Terra checked anyway. There was no electric blanket on this bed. At the bedside table, she noticed a blackened brass lamp and knelt to check the electrical cord. No frayed lamp circuit here.

Intent on checking the same things on the opposite side, Terra edged around the foot of the bed. An identical bedside table held another brass lamp, now soot-black. This lamp’s electrical cord wasn’t frayed either. The fire hadn’t been caused by faulty electric wiring. Glass fragments sprinkled the sodden carpet. The shattered base of a bulb still screwed into the lamp testified that at least some of the shards belonged to an exploding lightbulb.

“You the fire investigator?”

She remembered the rough velvet voice. Standing up, she had to tilt her head a bit to look him in the eye, something she didn’t have to do with very many men. “Yes.”

“Detective Jack Spencer. I’ll be the primary on this case.”

His gaze scoured her face. What was he looking for? She wasn’t going to faint. In the harsh flood of the portable fluorescent lights, Terra noted fine lines fanning out from Detective Spencer’s eyes. Very blue eyes. Hard blue eyes.

He stuck out his hand.

She shook it and released it quickly. “Terra August.”

“I apologize for my comment earlier. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.”

She tamped down the slash of pain. Presley was still small enough that all police, including the detectives, worked solo rather than with a partner. Except in fire death cases like this. Procedure between Presley’s police and fire departments stated that when P.F.D. found a dead body in a fire, they worked to contain the blaze, then stopped and called Homicide. “I guess we’ll be working together.”

“Yes. Looks like murder.”

Struggling to keep a rein on the emotions swirling inside her, she pressed her lips together and nodded. “The bound hands and feet of the victim also indicate the fire as a probable arson. But why?”

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Spencer said. “Do you have any ideas?”

“No. I’ll concentrate first on confirming or eliminating arson. Then we’ll have a solid starting place.” She’d have to work with the detective until one of them proved the death was an accident, suicide or murder. If Harris’s death was an accident, Terra would turn over her part of the investigation to the insurance company. Otherwise, she and Jack Spencer were in this together. She could interview and interrogate, but she couldn’t arrest or serve warrants. Spencer could.

He glanced around the sooty, soggy room. “Can’t you already tell if it’s arson?”

“I approach all fires as if they are, but I need proof.”

“Well, something’s fishy. Why else would he have been tied?”

She curled her shaking hands into fists around the instrument she held. Her voice cracked as she asked, “Was he dead before the fire?”

“I don’t know.” Sympathy and an unidentifiable emotion flashed through his blue eyes before he turned toward the M.E. “Mason?”

“You know it’s too soon for me to have anything for you yet, Jack.”

Numb and still reeling, a part of her noted the cop’s clean soap-and-water scent she caught beneath lingering smoke. Someone had tied up Harris, but why? So he couldn’t escape the fire? Or for another reason?

This was too much. She couldn’t process it all right now. She needed to test for accelerants and the firefighters from Stations Four and One were waiting. If she wanted to unravel this puzzle, she had to start somewhere. She turned to scan her instrument across the most burned part of the wall above the nightstand.

Jack Spencer snagged her elbow; she looked sharply at him.

He released her, but his gaze lasered into her. “Since the victim was a friend of yours, I’ll need to interview you before I leave here.”

The victim had a name. Terra bit off the sharp words, resisting the urge to rub the place where he’d touched her. The cop was doing what she should be doing—putting his emotions aside so he could do his job.

His features were just as exacting as his eyes. The stubborn chin, rough-hewn cheekbones and shadow of whiskers did nothing to soften a jaw that looked as if it could take a few blows.

“I’ll also be conducting an investigation,” she said.

“I’ll notify the family, talk to the firefighter who found the body.” He scribbled in the small notebook he held.

“That should give you time to do some things you need to do, then you and I can talk.”

“Harris had only an ex-wife.” Thinking about Cecily Vaughn unsettled Terra’s stomach again. “His parents passed on some years ago.”

“Thanks. That confirms what I learned from his neighbor.” Jack Spencer tucked his notebook into the inside pocket of his lightweight tweed blazer. “Anything else you can tell me? Had he made anyone mad recently?”

She frowned. “He’s retired.”

Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug.

She shook her head. “I had dinner with him tonight. He was fine.”

Spencer’s gaze sharpened. “We can talk more about that when I see you again.”

“All right.” She flipped the switch on her “sniffer” and turned toward the charred wall.

“Should you be working this case? He was your friend, after all.”

Having her doubts voiced only served to tighten her jaw. “I am working it.”

“Look, I apologize for what I said when I first walked in, but seeing him obviously affected you. I don’t want anything to jeopardize this case.”

“Neither do I. And nothing will. What happened earlier was shock. I’m not used to seeing my friends burned to a crisp,” she said sharply.

“I know you’re the only fire investigator we have, but maybe someone else could help you out, give you some space.”

“What I need to do is my job, and I will. Maybe you could do yours.”

His lips flattened. “I’ll be by to talk to you once I finish my preliminary interviews.”

“You know where to find me.”

She wondered if his blue eyes were that hard all the time, then she pushed the thoughts away and focused her attention on piecing together what had happened to her mentor.

Chapter 2

He wished he hadn’t touched her, although he couldn’t have let her fall flat on her face. That was where Terra August had been headed when he’d first seen her. Jack could still feel the taut curve of her waist, smell the hint of sweet woman beneath the acrid burn of smoke.

Late the afternoon following the fire, he scrubbed a hand over his face. The setting sun glared through the windshield of his pickup as he drove back to the fire scene. He’d stopped in town to interview a possible witness in a car-jacking, one of his several active cases, but his thoughts were mainly on his newest case. A mix of appreciation and admiration still flared when he thought back to his earlier meeting with Presley’s fire investigator. Professional admiration was where he should draw the line, so he did. She’d put her personal feelings aside and done her job. Despite the raw pain in her eyes, she’d been careful and attentive at the scene. Now he needed to know how much, if any, progress she’d made.

Jack bit off a curse.

Terra August had been on the fringes of his mind like a shadow, not keeping him from his job, but a distraction he’d been unable to dismiss. Was it the vulnerability in her face when he’d first seen her at the fire scene? The agony in those jade-green eyes when he’d stuck his foot in his mouth about her friend? He rubbed at his eyes, scratchy from lack of sleep.

The reason she lingered in his mind had to be because she was still on his suspect list. Until he’d interviewed and cleared her, she would be. Still, his gut told him she was innocent. Which didn’t explain why he’d thought so much about her.

Why Terra August? What was different about her? Since Lori’s death three and a half years ago, Jack hadn’t noticed anything except work. Certainly not women. Not like this.

Some of his time today had been spent asking questions about Terra. She’d spent nine years fighting fires on the front line with Station Four. The last four had been spent as a fire investigator. Orphaned at age fifteen by the death of her parents in a car wreck, she’d moved in with her grandfather, a firefighter who’d died of smoke inhalation in a fire about ten years ago.

She was also divorced from Keith Garcia. Garcia was a sharp young defense attorney with a prestigious law firm making a name for himself in the state. Jack found himself wondering what had gone wrong between the two of them.

He turned into the Hunter’s Ridge subdivision. As he reached the yard squared off with fluttering yellow police tape, he noted a lone police cruiser. It appeared the fire investigator had finished here.

He stopped and rolled down his window.

Pope, the officer at the scene, stepped up to Jack’s truck. “Hey, Jack.”

“Hey. The fire investigator still inside?”

“No, sir.” The hefty, twenty-something officer checked his clipboard. “She left about noon. Said she’d probably be back later, though.”

“Thanks.” Jack waved and turned around in the neighbor’s driveway, then drove out of the neighborhood. He wasn’t wild about going to see her, but there was no way around it. They were as good as partners on this case. Even if Jack had argued about it, he would’ve been shut down.

Fire deaths were worked by both homicide and the fire investigator. He’d probably have to explain to a few people they interviewed that partnering up on this investigation was not only legal, but necessary. In cases like this, a fire investigator’s knowledge was invaluable in asking all the right questions. Jack had already been told by the captain that the victim was the mayor’s uncle. Mayor Griffin had called. He expected everyone to work in whatever capacity was needed. And probably twice as fast.

The more information Jack had, the quicker this case would be solved. Right now, Terra August had information. Regardless of the way she’d intruded on his thoughts all night and day, this was a job. His job. The one thing he could always count on.

Cool air streamed in from his open window, clearing out the cobweb of thoughts he’d been unable to escape all day. He was curious about her; that was all. Of course he’d known Presley’s fire investigator was a woman, but if he’d heard anything about her, he sure didn’t remember it.

Her picture could’ve been plastered on every billboard in town for the past three years running and he wouldn’t have even noticed. His job commanded all his focus. In the first six months after his wife’s death, his world had narrowed to minutes—making coffee, putting gas in his car, mowing the grass. Eventually, he functioned day by day, lead by lead, case by case.

Dating was a distant memory, just like sex. He knew what that said about him, but he didn’t care. His attitude drove his sister crazy, but Jack had found a place where his head—and his heart—weren’t stuck in the past.

He needed to get back on track. Once he interviewed Terra and got caught up on her investigation, he’d be able to go about his business, alone again.

He might admire the way she’d sucked it up at the crime scene, but that didn’t mean he liked this new awareness sizzling in his blood. Still, he’d worked with dozens of women over the years, a few of them very beautiful. There was no reason he couldn’t do it this time.

Jack pulled up in front of Presley’s original fire station, which now housed the fire investigator’s office. The redbrick firehouse, antiqued from years and wind, had held one fire engine and one rescue truck. A weather-scrubbed metal sign hung over the door identifying the old building as the Fire Investigator’s Office. Newer, crisp black lettering repeated the same on the glass front door.

When the city had experienced a population explosion ten years ago, the fire investigator’s office had been moved into the sturdy, but outdated, building. Recent renovations included new electrical wiring and plumbing, but no facelift to the exterior. Now Presley boasted four fire stations complete with engines and trucks.

Prodding himself to get out of his pickup truck, Jack gave himself a mental shake. Regret still flared that he’d made the crack about her reaction to Vaughn’s body. Jack shouldn’t have said what he did to her—he probably had less experience at fire deaths than she did—but she’d looked so out of it. Her peachy velvet skin had gone ash-white, making her green eyes even more vivid and huge.

He rubbed the taut stretch of muscle across his nape. There he went again. Thinking about her when he should be thinking only about what she could bring to this case.

Patting the pocket of his khaki sports jacket to make sure his notebook rested in its usual place, Jack pulled open the creaky glass door. The smell of chemicals and scorched air hit him full on, not overpowering, but strong and steady. The empty desk outfitted with a phone and neatly stacked files caused him to look at his watch. A little after six.

“Hello.” His voice echoed off the flat concrete floor. He let the door shut behind him and moved past a worn oak secretary’s desk.

Separated from the front area by glass walls was a small office. It was crammed with a squat oak desk, files piled ten-deep on its scarred top. Fresh, ruby-red roses spilled from a vase at the desk’s center. The flowers looked frivolous and out of place in the midst of records and a computer. Two wooden armchairs faced one side of the desk and a stuffed leather chair sat on the other. Scratched gray filing cabinets lined the wall adjacent to the desk. Photographs, some framed, of fires and ancient fire engines covered the wall above the files.

Opposite the open door stood a dry-erase board on wheels. He stepped over to study the pictures stuck there in meticulous precision and recognized them as being from Harris Vaughn’s bedroom. “Anyone here?”

When he received no answer, he whistled. Still nothing. He heard a muffled thud and peered down a short, dark hallway to a metal door. Seeing a thread of light beneath it, he made his way there.

A loud pop sounded, causing his pulse to spike. The burn of smoke filled the air. Panic stretched across his chest as he rushed the door and slammed down the metal tension bar. He sprinted inside and stopped dead in his tracks.

Terra August, wearing a turnout coat and hard hat, stood several feet away over the scorched base of a lamp. Jack could also see she had on safety goggles and gloves. Flames raced in a vee pattern up a large section of Sheetrock attached to wood, which was propped against the brick wall. As the fire spread, she made notes. Notes, for crying out loud!

Why would any man want to be involved with a woman in a job like this?

“What the hell are you doing?” he yelled. He couldn’t help it. Just standing this close to flame caused his entire body to pucker, even if he wasn’t about to become barbecue. A wave of heat rolled past him.

Terra jerked around at the sound of his voice. Grabbing an extinguisher from somewhere near her feet, she doused the fire.

Relief seeped through him. He hadn’t been in danger, but he felt better with the fire out.

She set down the extinguisher, scribbled more notes on the yellow pad she held, then turned to him as she pulled off the hard hat. She wore the same ponytail she had at the crime scene. “I was right in the middle of something.”

“I noticed.” He’d forgotten that her gaze was nearly level with his, how long her legs were. “What happened?”

She frowned as she removed her goggles. “Nothing. I was testing my theory about how the fire started at Harris’s.”

“You’ve already figured that out?” The admiration he’d felt earlier slid up a notch.

She shrugged, sliding off the turnout coat and draping it over the back of a chair he only now noticed. A red-hot sweater snugged her full breasts, disappeared beneath the trim waistband of the faded blue jeans that gloved her long, lean legs.

Well. Presley’s fire investigator could start a few fires of her own. His gaze tracked over the curve of her breasts and the sleek flare of her hips. Jack knew now why a man would be drawn to a woman in a dangerous job. Terra August had the kind of shoulda-been-a-stripper curves he’d seen only on the wrong side of a badge. Hell, a man could get whip-lash trying to look twice at her.

At his scrutiny, her chin lifted slightly. Her warning stare snapped him back to the job at hand.

Shake it off, man. He cleared his throat. “You have a theory about how the fire started?”

“Maybe.” Cool wariness slid into her eyes. “I found a piece of evidence and wanted to test my theory.”

“Wanna share? That’s why I’m here.” He could tell she wasn’t wild about the idea, but after a brief hesitation, she nodded and walked past him, motioning for him to follow her out the door and back down the hall.

He did, trying to keep his gaze from tracing the slender lines of her back, the gentle rounding of hips his hands suddenly itched to span. A vague hint of woodsmoke drifted around her, but Jack was more aware of the scent of sweet, musky woman. Good hell, what was going on with him? “This building’s in pretty good shape for its age.”

“Yes. I like it—the history, the stories.”

They walked into her small office where the scent of roses merged with a metallic whiff of chemicals. Behind her desk sat a pair of firefighter’s boots, a shovel and a fire ax. Amid the stacked files on the cluttered desk were maps and newspaper clippings.

He gestured to the files. “Are you handling all this yourself?”

“My secretary, Darla, helps a lot.”

Jack gestured to the photographs covering the opposite wall. “Did you take the pictures?”

She glanced at them as she walked around the corner of her cluttered desk. “I took a few. Harris actually took most of them. Like that one.” She pointed at a framed black-and-white photograph in the middle of the wall. “That’s Presley’s first fire engine.”

Terra moved aside the vase of full-blooming flowers and pulled on a pair of latex gloves. After opening a small paper bag, she shook into her palm a piece of glass about the diameter of a pencil eraser.

Jack leaned forward to get a better look.

She lifted her hand toward him. “Lightbulb glass.”

“Yeah.”

“See the tape?” The pleasure in her voice had him glancing up before directing his attention to her palm as she pointed at what he now determined was a piece of clear tape on the glass.

He nodded.

Reaching to her left, she flipped on a lamp then adjusted the shade so the light shot across her palm. She pointed again. “See this hole? You can make it out if you hold the piece of glass up to the light.”

She did so gingerly.

“Someone drilled a hole in the lightbulb?” He frowned.

“Yes. The fire was deliberately set and this lightbulb plant is the incendiary device.”

“Lightbulb plant?” He straightened, his pulse revving. “How does that work?”

“Our arsonist drilled a hole in the top of the bulb, probably used a syringe to fill it with accelerant, covered the hole with tape then screwed in the bulb. He connected the lamp to a clock timer—” she picked up a blackened piece of metal sprouting a short wire “—and he left.”

“So the lamp wouldn’t come on until the timer tripped the switch?”

“Right.”

“The heat generated by the electricity caused the explosion.”

“Yes.” She smiled.

“And our guy was far away, establishing an alibi.”

“Yeah. Lightbulbs distort at a thousand degrees and will hold that temperature for about ten minutes. The explosion would’ve happened once the temperature climbed higher.”

“There was definitely an explosion? Not just a leak?”

“An explosion, probably close to what sounded a while ago back in the testing area. The bedroom door and windows were blown outward, not inward. That’s a sure sign.”

“So, it makes sense to think the victim was either immobilized or dead before the fire started.”

“Absolutely. Whoever did this probably tied up Harris then set the plant.”

“The killer and the arsonist might be two different people.”

“Maybe, but I don’t think so. Still, the M.E. will be able to tell us if Harris died before the fire or as a result.”

Jack agreed. “Any ideas about the type of accelerant used?”

“Isopropyl alcohol. I think it was some type of cleaning fluid.” After carefully returning the piece of bulb to its brown paper bag, she closed it. She gestured to the pictures around her office. “I was able to recover some traces of the accelerant. No other lightbulbs exploded at the burn site. I washed down the lamp with the blown bulb and the bedside table holding it, and found a fluid pattern at the base of the lamp. I also took some samples from Harris’s darkroom. He was an avid photographer.”

“Right. I noticed a lot of photographs in his house.”

She nodded. “I scraped some samples from the charred wall around his bed, also from the lamp base, and ran them through my gas chromatograph.”

“Do you have a full lab here?” Jack glanced around, wondering if he’d missed another door.

“No. I have a few pieces of equipment, but until our budget gets a little more healthy, I have to use the lab in Oklahoma City for most of my analysis. My chromatograph showed an alcohol-based chemical.”

“So, none of the darkroom chemicals were used to start the fire?”

“No. A photo fixer in Harris’s darkroom did contain glacial acetic acid, which is also highly flammable, but that isn’t our accelerant.”

“This is great. You’ve really made some progress.”

“Unfortunately, I didn’t have to start at the very beginning.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve seen this before. Three times, in fact.”

“What? The lightbulb thing?”

“The alcohol-based solvent, the lightbulb plant, the timer.”

The little nerve on the side of his neck twitched, as it always did at any sign of danger. He narrowed his gaze. “What are you saying, August?”

She exhaled and reached up to release her ponytail, funneling her fingers through the reddish-gold fall of hair as it tumbled to her shoulders. The thick satiny curtain was an equal mix of gold and red, a true strawberry blonde.

“I’ve been working on three cases very similar to this. I think this is his fourth fire.”

Jack’s spine stiffened. “You’re saying we have a serial arsonist?”

“I think so.”

“There have been no other fire deaths,” he said bluntly. “I would’ve heard about that.”

“You’re right, but the other fires involved a janitorial supply store, a photography studio and a dental office.”

“All places with the same accelerant?”

“Yes. The first fire was about ten weeks ago, mid-July. The photography studio was torched in August and the dental office about a month ago. Our guy is a professional. He uses as little accelerant as possible and something that might be used in the course of cleaning any building. If this is the same guy, last night was the first time he’s killed.”

“Why now?” Jack drummed his fingers on the edge of her desk. “And why Harris Vaughn?”

“I have no idea.”

Her voice was even, but the glimmer of brightness in her eyes reminded him that the arsonist’s first victim was also her friend. “I’m sorry.”

“We’ve got to catch him.”

“We will.”

“I’m not sure if I’m—we’re—dealing with an emotional firesetter or a pathological one. Revenge, attention, concealment of a crime are all motives I’m considering. I’ve eliminated juveniles, who often start fires out of curiosity or vandalism. And of course, these fires didn’t start during a riot.”

“What about insurance fraud?”

“That’s also been ruled out. So far, I don’t find that any fire was set in order to conceal a crime, but the revenge and attention angles will take more digging.”

Jack nodded, surprised by a growing urge to offer some sort of comfort, a promise that went beyond his usual dedication. Since when had he even noticed anything about people besides how they fit into his investigation? “I got a call from Mayor Griffin.”

“I thought you might.”

“Since you know Mr. Vaughn was the mayor’s uncle, you probably also got the same…encouragement about solving this case.”

She nodded.

“A good start to that would be you answering my questions.”

For a heartbeat, raw pain stressed her features then it disappeared. “Oh, yes, go ahead.”

Jack swallowed the apology on the tip of his tongue. She wanted to get this slimeball as much as he did. Taking out his notebook, he flipped to a blank page. “How long did you know Mr. Vaughn?”

“Twenty years. He was a good friend of my grandfather’s.”

He searched her softly sculpted features. “So you knew Harris when he was the fire investigator?”

“Yes. He trained me. I apprenticed under him for two and a half years before he retired.”

“And you had dinner with him last night?”

She nodded.

“Did you do that often?”

“Lately, we’d done it once a week.”

“Lately? Does that mean the last month, the last year?”

“The last couple of months, I guess. Since the second serial fire. I was bouncing ideas off him about this arsonist.”

“What time did you meet for dinner last night?”

“Seven. We left the restaurant about a quarter to nine.”

“What restaurant was that?”

“Charlie’s Steakhouse.”

“Can anyone there vouch for you?”

“The waitress, I guess. Charlie, too. We always speak…spoke to Charlie.”

She didn’t react to her slip other than to swallow hard, but Jack felt an unfamiliar burn in his chest. Despite her willowy height, he remembered how wobbly she’d felt in his hold last night and wondered how she was really doing. She put on a good front. “Is there anyone who saw you after you left the restaurant?”

“I went to my gym for a swim and when I got home, I called a friend. Robin Daly.”

“Lieutenant Robin Daly, Presley P.D.?” Jack’s eyebrows arched.

“Yes.”

He jotted a note. Terra’s friendship with one of the best female cops on the Presley P.D. was something he hadn’t uncovered. “And then?”

“Another friend, Dr. Meredith Boren, called. We talked for about twenty minutes then I went to bed,” she said in a wooden voice. “My pager went off a little before 1:00 a.m. You know where I was after that.”

The crime scene. Discovering that the victim was her friend. She didn’t lose her composure, but he saw the bleakness in her eyes. Jack gave her a moment. “You said Harris was divorced.”

“For about six months now.”

“And were the two of you more than friends?”

“No.”

“Ever?”

Her jade gaze leveled into his, but her voice was tired, not angry. “Friends only, regardless of what you may have heard from Cecily.”

Jack felt an unexpected relief upon learning Terra hadn’t been romantically involved with the victim. “His ex-wife thought the two of you had something going on?”

“She thought Harris had something going on with a lot of women.”

“Did he?”

“No.”

“There was no girlfriend at all, no other women?”

“He wasn’t ready. Besides, he loved Cecily, despite her jealousy. If she hadn’t been so obsessed, they would still be married. He just couldn’t live with it anymore.”

“With what?”

“She followed him everywhere, accused him constantly of lying to her. That was before the divorce. Even afterwards, she wouldn’t leave him alone.”

“Does she still believe you were involved with him?”

“I don’t know.”

He flipped through his notebook unnecessarily, giving her a moment to control the emotion swimming in her eyes. Understandably, women might be jealous of Terra August’s perfectly molded features, the classically straight nose and peach-tinted skin. Her moist, plump lips looked as if they could leave a man weak. “Do you know what contact, if any, Harris had with Cecily recently?”

She hesitated, chewing on her bottom lip. “He said she’d been calling, leaving messages on his answering machine. He’d also seen her following him.”

“Did she follow the two of you last night?”

“If she did, I didn’t see her.” She sighed, stroking nervous fingers down the long, elegant column of her neck. She had a beautiful neck.

“Did Cecily ever threaten you?”

“No.”

She paused and his eyes narrowed. “It’s better if I hear it from you rather than her.”

She contemplated a moment, then said, “One time, she blamed me for their divorce. She never threatened me, but for a while after they split up, she would show up here or at my house. She also left messages on my answering machine.”

“Saying what?”

“Just…none of it was true.”

He stared at her.

Protest flared in her eyes, but she finally spoke. “Saying I couldn’t have him, that he didn’t want me, things like that. There were never any threats against me. And she stopped bothering me altogether about a month ago. Didn’t she tell you this herself?”

“I haven’t been able to talk to her yet.” Sounded like Terra had a motive to kill Harris’s ex-wife, but so far, Jack hadn’t found one to explain why she would want to kill Harris. “When I stopped by her house, she’d taken a sedative.”

Terra’s gaze held his. “When you go back, I’d like to go with you.”

Which was perfectly legal and within her rights as the fire investigator on this case. He had no grounds to refuse, but he wished he did. “Okay. I plan to try again after I leave here.”

“Great.”

He wondered if she would confirm the information he’d learned about her earlier. Watching her closely, Jack said, “I thought firefighters who were interested in investigations could move into the job with a lot less years on the job than you had.”

She arched a brow. “How many was that?”

“Nine.”

She cocked her head. “You’ve been checking up on me.”

He could read nothing in the midnight-soft voice. He wondered what she was thinking, then asked himself why he cared. “It’s my job.”

She crossed her arms, putting an invisible wall between them. “You’re right. Firefighters can move into investigation whenever they pass the tests. I wasn’t sure until then that I wanted to be a fire cop.”

There was a story there; he could read it in the way her eyes shuttered against him. That old familiar itch to solve a puzzle, dig out every secret kicked in.

What kind of training had she had? From what he remembered, there were no formal courses for fire investigation offered at their local universities, just on-the-job training. Jack found himself wanting to ask Terra questions that had no direct bearing on the case, only on her. The realization irritated him as did the anticipation thrumming in his blood. He felt as if he were losing his focus and his voice came out hard.

“Is there anyone else who could be jealous of you seeing Mr. Vaughn?”

She stiffened. “I already told you about Cecily.”

She still looked a little disoriented. Again, he felt the same clench in his gut that he’d felt upon seeing her so torn up at the crime scene. He knew this had to be hard on her, but didn’t think she would appreciate the observation.

“I meant whoever you’re seeing.” For some reason, he really wanted to know who that man was. Jack fingered the velvet-soft petals of the rose nearest him. “Like whoever gave you these flowers.”

Her gaze skipped away and she rubbed at a spot just below her collarbone. Jack found his gaze trailing down the sweet line of her neck, the hollow in her throat where her pulse fluttered softly.

“I don’t know who those are from. I’ve got a…secret admirer.”

“A secret admirer?” He couldn’t keep the surprise from his voice. “These aren’t from someone you’re dating?”

“I’m not dating anyone at the moment.”

He ignored the sharp jab of adrenalin that hit his system. “So you can’t think of anyone who might be upset by your seeing too much of Harris Vaughn?”

“No.”

“What about your ex-husband, Keith Garcia?”

“Only if it interfered with something he wanted to do.”

Whoa, he’d hit a nerve there. “How long have you been divorced?”

“Two years. As if you didn’t know.”

He wondered if her quiet anger was due to pain over the breakup of her marriage or his blatant digging into her past.

“That’s a long time to go without dating.” Not that he had any room to talk.

“I didn’t say I hadn’t dated,” she responded coolly. “Just that I wasn’t dating anyone now.”

A grin tugged at his lips. “Did your relationship with Vaughn have anything to do with your marriage breaking up?”

“No.”

Her curt answer indicated that was all he’d get on the subject. Good thing he believed her. “Any ideas about the identity of your secret admirer?”

“I think it’s one of the local news reporters. I figure if I ignore him, he’ll eventually give up.”

Shifting his weight to the other foot, Jack squashed an unexpected—and unwanted—flare of jealousy. Maybe her divorce had been caused by Garcia’s having another woman. Or if not, could their breakup have been related to the dangers of her job?

He supposed some men might find a woman exciting who battled fire, who risked her life, but Jack didn’t. Women in perilous jobs were as unappealing to him as working as a crossing guard.

He didn’t have a problem with women in dangerous jobs—combat, police work, fire fighting. He just had a problem with his woman being in such a line of work. His wife’s job had seemed low-risk and she’d been gunned down by a pissed-off social work client. Since her death, his work had been his world. Not much penetrated, but Terra August certainly had.

“What about you, Detective?”

“What about me?” He stuffed his notebook into the inside pocket of his khaki jacket.

“Are you dating anyone?”

Sliding his hands into the pockets of his navy slacks, he arched a brow. He was the one who asked the questions.

“Not married, are you?”

This was a job, not The Dating Game. Jaw tight, his gaze locked with hers. “I’m heading over to talk to Cecily Vaughn. Are you coming?”

Her gaze measured him, sending a lick of fire through his belly. She tucked her hair behind her ears, the movement stretching the red sweater taut across her lush breasts.

Jack looked away, trying to ignore the way his body hardened from his shoulders to his calves.

She walked around the desk toward him. “Before I left the burn site, I picked up the videotape.”

“Of the scene?” He opened the door, then followed her out. As his mother would say, Terra August was a handful.

“Yes, inside and out. Also the ones from the other three fires. An arsonist almost always returns to the scene.”

“Wants to see what he’s done?”

“Yes.”

Again he caught a faint whiff of smoke, overlaid by the clean sweetness of her skin. His pulse drummed low and hard. Clenching a fist, he tried to stem the awareness shifting through him. “I’d like to watch those tapes with you later.”

“Sure.”

Her agreement came readily enough, but he sensed the same reticence he’d had all during his visit. Maybe it was due to the wariness that had clouded her eyes since he’d first met her. And maybe he was imagining things. Hell, his mind had certainly worked overtime doing just that since he’d met her.

That had to stop. Now. The only reason his awareness of her was a big deal was because she was the first woman he’d given more than passing attention to in three years. And more important, because Terra August represented everything he didn’t want.

Forget those are-you-man-enough eyes and killer lips. The woman chased fire for a living. No thanks. No way. No how.

Chapter 3

No man had ever made Terra’s head spin. It was spinning now. Jack Spencer looked at her as if he wanted to get inside her head, inside her.

His penetrating, midnight-blue gaze gave her the same spine zap she got at a fire. Except she understood fire. She did not understand this at all. When she’d taken off her turnout coat and caught his gaze on her breasts, a sizzling awareness of him, of her own body, had hit her fast and hard. The force and heat of it exploded like a fire that had fed for hours.

At the crime scene, she’d been too numb to register anything except shock and grief, but she did so now. During the ride to Cecily’s, sitting only a foot away from the hollow-eyed cop, Terra had to admit Jack affected her. Even Keith had never gotten to her like this.

She breathed in the scent of clean male, a tang of aftershave. His heat settled over her like a second skin. She gripped the armrest, fighting to push away the thoughts. She should be thinking about Cecily and the questions she needed to ask, but this guy crowded out everything else.

Her gaze followed the slant of streetlight across a chiseled jaw and cheekbone. Huge hands palmed the steering wheel and Terra felt a flutter in the pit of her stomach.

She and Keith had enjoyed good sex and wonderful intimacy, but getting there had been a process. Two years of distance and resentment about her job had whittled away the closeness of their marriage. Since the divorce, she hadn’t come close to wanting that again. Wanting, period. She’d learned she couldn’t trust what she thought she knew, who she thought she knew. Which meant she absolutely couldn’t trust this quick flare of attraction.

She’d never been this curious about a man. Or this aware. She wanted to know whether the shoulders beneath Jack’s khaki jacket were as broad as they appeared to be, whether the thighs covered by neat navy slacks were as powerful as his stride hinted as they walked from the car to Cecily’s door.

His not answering the personal questions she’d lobbed earlier only made her want to figure him out the same way she figured out the burn path of a fire.

Whether or not he was married was none of her business and it bothered her to admit it, but she hadn’t stopped wondering about that either. The desire to know more was like an itch she couldn’t reach.

Whatever a woman had with him wouldn’t be casual and probably not brief. Harris and Granddad had always urged her to listen to her instincts. Right now those instincts screamed at her to nip this fascination with Jack in the bud, and focus on finding the arsonist and whoever had murdered Harris.

Jack Spencer was the man who could help her do that. She couldn’t, wouldn’t, let things get personal between them. Do your job. Keith had always said she did that to the exclusion of everything else. She wondered if Jack Spencer would feel the same.

Telling herself to knock it off, Terra slid her gaze to the tall man standing beside her on Cecily Vaughn’s sweeping porch.

Jack jabbed the doorbell button, shoving his other hand through his thick, seal-brown hair. While darkness edged the sides of the house, light glowing from fixtures flanking the door highlighted the whisker stubble that shadowed his jaw, giving him a rumpled, dangerously sexy look. A woman would have a hard time resisting him when the lights went out. She knew she would have a hard time.

She had an investigation to run and information about Jack Spencer was not pertinent to that. She needed to think about the coming interview with Harris’s ex. “I need to warn you, Cecily probably won’t be too happy to see me.”

Jack slanted her a look just as the door opened.

Cecily Vaughn, wrapped in a candy-pink peignoir, stared dully at Terra and Jack for a moment. Her unfocused brown gaze told Terra the woman was still under the influence of the sedative Jack said she’d taken earlier.

Pulling together the thin edges of her robe, Cecily’s gaze registered recognition. “I guess I should’ve expected you.”

“I’m sorry we have to meet again under these circumstances, Cecily.” Terra’s throat tightened as a fresh wave of pain rolled through her. Shoot, she couldn’t lose it now.

Jack stepped into the pool of light, flashing his badge. “My condolences, Ms. Vaughn. I’m Detective Spencer and we need to ask you a few questions.”

She studied his badge for a moment, then cut her gaze to Terra. “Is she with you? Is that allowed?”

“Yes, ma’am. Investigator August is working this case with me, so her being here is perfectly legal. And expected,” he added.

“Remember that Harris used to work with the police from time to time?” Terra asked quietly.

The other woman’s stare flattened, but she stepped back to allow them grudging access. Her filmy pink robe trailing, she led them into a small, formal sitting area with matching moire Queen Anne love seats and a high-sheen cherrywood coffee table. She stopped behind one of the love seats, her long manicured nails curving onto the muted tan-and-black striped fabric. “How did the fire start?”

“We’re not sure yet,” Jack answered.

Dark shadows ringed Cecily’s eyes. Her usually flawless makeup couldn’t hide her wan skin or the tight lines around her mouth. She looked at Terra. “Maybe that’s where you need to be.”

Terra told herself the woman was upset. Who wouldn’t be? For the moment, she let Jack take the lead. Cecily was on the edge. Easing into asking questions of her own seemed the best idea to Terra.

Jack flipped open his small notebook. “Harris Vaughn was your ex-husband?”

“Yes.”

“How long were you divorced?”

“Six months.”

“Any children?”

Terra noted that Jack kept his voice low and soothing. Evidently he had plenty of practice with distraught people. She wondered how long he’d been a detective.

“No children.” Tears welled in Cecily’s heavily made-up eyes and she grabbed a tissue from a box on the glass-topped end table next to the love seat.

Jack gave her a minute before continuing in the same soft tone. “When was the last time you saw him?”

“A week ago Sunday. Our divorce was final and I wanted to talk to him.”

“About getting back together?”

“Yes.”

“Did you see him here?”

“At his house.” She dabbed her eyes again with the tissue.

Terra planned to confirm that with Harris’s neighbors. Edging a step away from Jack and the power he exuded like heat, she asked, “Did he indicate he was worried or upset about anything?”

Cecily stared at her flatly. “He was upset about our divorce.”

Anger streamed through her, but Terra reminded herself that staying calm was the only way she and Jack would get anywhere. She focused her gaze on Cecily’s diamond ring, a huge butterfly. Terra had never liked that ring. It was gaudy.

“Ms. Vaughn?” Jack drew Cecily’s attention back to himself. “Was there anything else that might have upset him?”

“He really didn’t talk to me about other things,” she answered with a meaningful look at Terra.

“Do you know anyone he’d argued with or might’ve been angry with? Did he talk about anything like that?”

“No.”

“He never mentioned any enemies at all? Anyone who may have threatened him or had a reason to harm him?”

Cecily frowned, crumpling the tissue in nervous hands. “Wasn’t this fire an accident? What’s going on?” She seemed to struggle to focus, her gaze bobbing from Terra to Jack. “Are you a homicide detective?”

“I do investigate homicides.”

“Was he murdered?” she shrieked.

“Ma’am, please try to stay calm.” Jack stepped around the love seat toward Cecily.

Despite her feelings about Harris’s ex, Terra’s heart ached for the agony she read in the woman’s eyes. “Cecily, can I get you something?”

Hatred flashed across her face and she pushed past Jack to stalk around the love seat toward Terra. “He told me he was helping you on a case. That’s why he’s dead, isn’t it? It’s your fault.”

“Ma’am.” Before Terra even saw him move, Jack planted himself in front of Cecily, his face and voice stern. “We don’t know that Ms. August’s job has anything to do with this.”

“I do.” She glared, stepping around him. “Harris wouldn’t be my ex if it weren’t for you, Terra. He wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for you, because he would’ve been with me. All I ever wanted was to take care of him.”

There was a difference between taking care of someone and smothering them, Terra thought. “Cecily, I didn’t come here to upset you. We’re trying to find out who would do this to Harris.”

“My marriage was fine until he started spending so much time with you.” She poked a finger in Terra’s chest.

Fury erupted, but Terra stepped back, fighting to rein in the hurt and anger crashing through her. Her hands curled into fists. “Don’t do that again, Cecily.”

Jack firmly gripped the woman’s elbow. “Ms. Vaughn, please try and calm down.”

“You’re the reason he left me in the first place.” The woman’s voice rose high and brittle with anger.

Terra wasn’t going to be drawn into an argument, but she let out a sigh of relief when Jack guided Cecily to the love seat. “Here, take a seat. Let me get you a glass of water or something.”

“No.” She glared through her tears at Terra.

He studied her for a moment, then walked over to Terra. Keeping his back to Cecily, he pitched his voice low. “How do you want to play this?”

His shoulder brushed hers, sparking an unexpected warmth. She forced herself to read his eyes, appreciating the earnestness in the blue depths. “I don’t want her calling a lawyer. I’ll wait for you outside.”

“You don’t have to.”

“It’s for the best. She’ll talk to you. I’m only upsetting her.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.” She kept her voice low, her stomach knotting at the sound of Cecily’s sobs. Terra felt like doing the same thing. The whole situation was horrible enough. Antagonizing Harris’s ex would only prolong things.

She moved toward the door.

“Where’s she going?” Cecily demanded.

“Outside—”

Terra closed the door on Jack’s soothing tone. As she made her way down the sidewalk toward his pickup truck, anger at Cecily and whoever had killed Harris burned through Terra. She paced from the hood of the blue pickup to the tailgate.

She had to calm down, shake it off. Leaving Cecily’s house was the best thing for the investigation. Terra would be no good to anyone if she were angry. After a few minutes, her anger subsided. The cool night air skipped over her, raising goose bumps on her arms.

She hugged herself against the chill.

Crossing her arms, she walked the sidewalk to the end of the block, then back. She hoped Jack was getting somewhere with Cecily.

A sudden vibration at her hip had Terra grabbing for the cell phone clipped there. “August.”

“Hey, it’s me.” Robin Daly’s normally sunny voice was subdued. “How are you doing today?”

“Okay.” Terra leaned against the truck’s door, grateful for such a good friend.

“Did you eat?”

“Yes, Mom.” Terra laughed, though she couldn’t remember how long ago she’d finished the cheese and crackers she’d grabbed on her way to the office earlier that day.

“Were you able to stop by your place and shower?”

“Yes. I was at the office until just a while ago.”

“I’m off duty and so is Meredith. She doesn’t have to be back at the hospital until tomorrow night. Want to meet us for dinner?”

“I wish I could, but I’m still working.” She, Robin and Meredith Boren had been friends since both the other girls had moved to Presley in junior high. “I came over to interview Harris’s ex.”

“Ugh. How’s that going?”

“I’m outside and she’s inside. What does that tell you?”

“So, who’s interviewing her?”

“Jack Spencer.”

“You’re with Detective Yummy?” Robin squeaked.

It wasn’t her friend’s incredulity, but the nickname, that had Terra grinning. “Detective Yummy? I guess I can see that.”

“I should hope so, since you’re female and still breathing. Well, well, no wonder you don’t want to meet your two best friends for dinner.”

“Hardly.” Terra would rather be with them. She knew what to expect from the two women who’d been her closest friends since eighth grade, who’d seen her through the deaths of her parents and her grandfather, and had been there for her immediately upon hearing about Harris last night.

“…pretty sad.”

“What’s that?” Terra snapped back to Robin’s conversation.

“His wife. She was murdered by one of her social work cases.”

“Murdered? How awful.” An image of Jack’s impenetrable blue gaze flashed in her mind. Was the loss of his wife the reason his eyes were so hard, so old? “When was this?”

“Three or four years ago, I think. He hasn’t dated since then. At least not that anyone knows about.”

“Can’t say I blame him.” Terra’s divorce had left her raw and skittish. The only reason she dated was to keep Robin and Meredith from pulling any matchmaking stunts. She made sure to date men who were interested in temporary fun, just like she was. The instincts she’d honed over the years told her Jack Spencer would be no casual dinner or last-minute movie.

At the sound of a masculine voice, Terra straightened. “Here comes the detective now. Gotta go.”

“Call me when you get home,” Robin said.

“Okay.” Terra disconnected and clipped the phone to the waistband of her jeans.

The light from Cecily’s porch haloed Jack from behind, a hazy outline of broad shoulders and long legs. He moved down the sidewalk toward her, shadows shading the hollows of his cheeks, making his eyes dark and intense.

As he rounded the hood of his truck and opened the driver’s side door, Terra glanced back at Cecily. The woman stood in the doorway. Even from here, Terra could feel the heat of her glare.

Terra climbed into Jack’s truck. Only then did Cecily go inside and close her front door. Terra looked at Jack, jolted by the penetrating stare he aimed past her. “What did you find out?”

“She has my favorite alibi.” That laser-sharp gaze shifted to Terra and she was glad she had nothing to hide. “She was home alone all night.”

“So, we’ll check out her story about her last meeting with Harris.”

“Do you know anything about it?”

“No, but hopefully his neighbors do.”

“We can go there now, if that’s all right.”

“Yes.”

He turned out of the subdivision and headed north on Keller Avenue.

“What else did you learn?”

“Just like you said, she was obsessed with the man.”

“Do you consider her a suspect?”

He paused. “I got a definite read of ‘if I can’t have him, no one can.’ Do you agree?”

“Yes, but do you think she’d kill him?”

“Nothing surprises me anymore,” he said in a weary voice.

Terra now understood the bleakness in his eyes. The loss. Knowing what had happened to his wife tangled something deep inside her.

Keeping things professional was going to be a lot harder than she’d thought. He rattled her and she couldn’t pretend otherwise.

A cell phone chirped and Jack slid it out of his jacket pocket. “Spencer. Hi, Lieutenant.”

After a brief conversation, he hung up. “We just got a call that there’s a homicide about three blocks from here, just south of Tenth.”

“I thought you were off duty.”

“I am, but the other detective on call just started a case on the east side of town by the water tower. I’m next on the on-call list. I really need to check this out. Do you mind?”

She wasn’t about to tell him that she’d welcome anything that got him out of the truck and farther away than the foot that separated them right now. “No, not at all.”

“Thanks.”

As they made a U-turn in the middle of Keller and headed through the light at Tenth, Terra shifted her gaze out the window.

Two police cruisers, lights flashing, marked the apartment complex’s parking lot where Jack parked his pickup truck. Terra got out when he did, wanting some fresh air and some distance between her and the warm scent of him lingering in the cab.

The news vans were already parked a few yards away and setting up. From the corner of her eye, Terra saw Dane Reynolds head for her. Brother.

Jack moved in front of her, paused. “If it looks like I’m going to be a while, one of the patrolmen can take you back to your office.”

“Thanks.” She wrapped her arms around herself to ward off the cool night air. Reynolds moved up next to Jack, who cut him a sharp look.

The news reporter kept on moving and Terra bit back a smile. T. J. Coontz settled a large camera on his shoulder and gave her a thumbs-up as he hustled to catch Reynolds.

Jack’s gaze bored deep into hers. “Are you okay?”

“Sure.” Was that concern in his eyes? “I don’t mind.”

“I meant about Cecily Vaughn. She was brutal back there.”

Taken aback, Terra found herself unable to look away. “I’m all right. Thanks for asking.”

“He was your friend. I can only imagine how hard this is,” he murmured.

The connection she had felt to him snapped tight. Was he thinking about his own experience when his wife had died? How difficult not only to lose her, but to be a cop and not be able to prevent something like that.

“I just want to find whoever killed him.” A shiver shot up Terra’s spine and she hugged herself tighter. “If I have to deal with Cecily, so be it.”

Jack nodded, taking off his khaki jacket. Surprising her again, he slipped it around her shoulders. “Here, wear this.”

“I’m okay. Really.” The jacket smelled of him, clean and male and mysterious. She reached to take it off.

His hands covered hers, keeping the jacket in place. “It’s starting to get cold out here. Wear it, okay?”

She nodded, blinking at the slow spread of warmth in her belly. She wanted to tell him to stop touching her, but she couldn’t get her voice to work. Or anything else, for that matter.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“Sure.” Her voice was a raspy whisper.

He released her, but his gaze stayed locked on hers. A long moment arced between them and Terra swallowed around a knot in her throat. She was suddenly aware of gripping the edges of his jacket with unsteady hands.

“See ya.”

“See ya.” She watched him walk away, power and purpose in his smooth, long strides. Trouble. Big trouble.

Hadn’t she told herself not to let things get personal? When he touched her, it was nothing but personal. She’d never backed away from a challenge. Joining a profession that traditionally employed only men didn’t allow for it, but she wanted to back away now. She wanted to run.

Chapter 4

Late the next morning, Jack walked into the fire investigator’s office as they’d agreed on last night. The trim blonde sitting behind the oak desk looked up from her computer. This must be Darla, Terra’s secretary. The woman, who Jack judged to be in her late-twenties, gave a smile that didn’t quite warm the sadness in her eyes and asked if she could help him.

He flashed his badge and told her he was supposed to meet with Investigator August. Anticipation that he’d been trying to ignore tightened his body. This was a job, he reminded himself. That’s all it would be.

Just as the secretary rose, Terra walked out of her office and said, “Darla Howell, this is Detective Spencer.”

Jack shook her hand, noting that the lush flowers he’d seen in Terra’s office yesterday had been moved out to the secretary’s desk.

“You’re working with Terra on Harris’s murder?” Darla asked quietly.

“Yes.”

“I was Harris’s secretary for a year before he retired. If there’s anything I can do to help you guys find this sicko, just ask.”

“All right. Thanks.” Jack smiled, noting the affection in the squeeze Terra gave the other woman’s shoulder.

His gaze shifted to the leggy fire cop and he wondered how she was holding up. “How’s it going today?”

“Busy.” As she stepped back into her office, she smiled tiredly and waved him in behind her. “You’ve got good timing. I just returned from a safety inspection so as soon as Darla brings me the last videotape, we’ll be ready to go.”

“Okay.” Moving inside Terra’s space-at-a-premium office, he hitched a thumb over his shoulder. “I noticed you moved the flowers from your secret admirer.”

“It seems a little strange to keep them when I’m not interested.”

“Between safety inspections and fire investigations, you must have your hands full.”

“Yes, and then some. The city also provides fire safety classes for the public and I teach training classes whenever they’re needed.” She moved around her desk and picked up a jacket from the back of her chair. His jacket.

She handed it to him. “Thanks for letting me borrow this last night. I hope you didn’t freeze after I left.”

“I was fine.” Immediately the delicate scent of flowers and soft woman drifted to him. He remembered the slight shiver in her shoulders when he’d draped the jacket across them. Remembered, too, the way he’d wanted to curve his hands around them and pull her closer. His fingers clenched on the camel hair and he asked gruffly, “Were you warm enough?”

“Oh, yes. It was great. Were you at the scene late?”

“About three hours.” He’d had a patrolman drive her back here, but that hadn’t meant she’d been out of his thoughts. Standing this close to her, inhaling her warmth, brought back the uncomfortable reminder that her green eyes had been the last image in his mind last night before going to sleep. And the first when he woke up. His nerves pinged.

“Can you talk about what happened there?” she asked.

“A shooting, the result of a domestic dispute.” Jack rubbed his neck, not liking the tension that settled there. Trying to ignore the provocative scent stealing up from his jacket, he kept talking. “A neighbor heard the victim threatening his wife and came over after calling the police. The neighbor walked in on the victim beating his wife and jumped him. He wrestled the gun away from the victim and it went off.”

“Will charges be filed?”

“No, the wife declined. Said she knew her husband would’ve killed her if the neighbor hadn’t stepped in.”

Darla appeared in the doorway with a videocassette and a green folder. “Here you go. Want me to shut the door?”

“Thanks.” Terra took the items and checked the date on the labeled tape case. She placed the cassette atop four others, which all sat on a filing cabinet tucked into the corner of the full office. Perched on top of the metal filing cabinet was a television with a built-in VCR.

The anticipation that had coiled in Jack’s gut earlier now settled tightly in his shoulders. Terra’s hair was pulled back in a sleek ponytail, revealing the elegant curve of her neck. Today she wore the long-sleeved, white shirt and navy pants of her uniform. A red-and-white patch, embroidered with the words Presley Fire Prevention, was sewn over her left breast.

The regulation clothing emphasized her long legs and trim waist. Not that they needed emphasizing. Her arms and legs, lean and slender, were perfectly suited to a swimmer. She walked with a flowing grace reminiscent of skimming through water. Jack had no trouble at all imagining her in a swimsuit, those legs bare and wet and glistening.

He hadn’t seen her in uniform before, had seen only her badge. Nor, for that matter, had he noticed a fire department insignia on her vehicle. “You drive the red SUV, don’t you?”

She nodded.

“Don’t you have a fire department vehicle?”

“No, just my red truck. It’s not marked, in case I need to go stealth in an investigation.”

“Go stealth?”

“Undercover.”

“Or a stakeout?”

“Yes.”

He grinned, getting a mental picture of her skulking around in the dark. Skulking was not what he would want to do with her in the dark. The thought darted in and out, but he didn’t need this kind of distraction. They had a case to work.

As she made a notation in a file, his gaze rested on a framed photo on the wall. He recognized her and Harris Vaughn in full turnout gear, appearing to walk straight out of a fire. Blood-orange flames swallowed the sky and walls of black smoke billowed around and behind them. Jack could almost feel heat pulsing from the picture.

At the sight of her walking out of those flames, a cold knot congealed in his gut. Jack didn’t need the photo to remind himself that he wasn’t interested in a woman in a high-risk job, but he sure wished his body would get the message.

“I stopped by your gym on the way over here,” he announced. He had no intention of acting on any of the damn crazy impulses that shot through him whenever she was around. “Your swim two nights ago checked out.”

“So, you’re marking me off your suspect list?”

“Yeah.” He grinned. He hadn’t really considered her a suspect, but he was glad to have his instincts backed up. “Records from the phone company detailed the times of your phone calls, and both the waitress and owner at Charlie’s Steakhouse confirmed the time you were there night before last. Three gym employees also remembered seeing you enter the gym or leave the pool. Now we can focus on who really did this.”

“Great.” She pulled over one of the chairs in front of her desk and turned it to face the television in the corner behind him. “Have a seat here and we can get started.”

She flipped on the set and slid in a videotape. The picture flickered then images filled the space—flames and smoke and a storefront. “This is the janitorial supply store,” Terra explained.

Just then the door opened and Darla stuck her head in. “Sorry to interrupt, but I think you should see this, Terra.”

“What’s going on?”

“I found a card with those flowers.”

“The ones delivered yesterday?” Terra frowned. “I didn’t see a card. There’s never been one before.”

“It was stuck down inside the stems and greenery. If I hadn’t started to water it, I wouldn’t have seen it either.”

“Is it signed?”

“No.”

Jack’s lips twisted. “Guess your secret admirer still isn’t ready to ’fess up.”

Terra sighed. “Just throw it away.”

“I really think you should take a look,” Darla insisted.

Jack noted the strain around the secretary’s mouth, the worry in her eyes. And the fact that Darla had on a pair of latex gloves. Evidently, Terra noticed that, too, because she rose quickly from her chair beside him.

He stood as well, his shoulder grazing hers. From the corner of her desk behind him, she plucked up a pair of gloves and pulled them on before handing him a pair to don, as well.

Darla reached across and handed the card to Terra, who took it carefully. She glanced down at it and Jack saw her lips tighten.

Were the flowers from Dane Reynolds? Jack recalled the homicide scene last night when the pretty-boy reporter, his faithful cameraman on his heels, had headed straight for Terra. At Jack’s flat look, Reynolds had possessed the good sense to steer a course away from the willowy fire investigator, but Jack had seen the glint of emotion in his eyes. Avid interest. Or was it obsession?

Just thinking about the hungry look the reporter had aimed at Terra and the lush roses she’d removed from her desk put a hard knot in Jack’s chest. The same knot he’d felt the night before when he’d draped his jacket around her slender shoulders.

Something in him had responded to the vulnerability in her face, a vulnerability she hid pretty well. That’s what it was about Terra August which drew him to her. That, plus he’d been in a similar situation once—called on to do a job after losing a loved one. Called on to be a cop while the man, the husband in him, nearly shattered.

He suspected Terra had at least some of those feelings. Torn between trying to do her job and not give in to the grief.

She passed the note to him and Jack noticed that her hands were unsteady. This time it was concern that had him wanting to reassure her.

The words jumped out at him first. “This is between you and me.” But it was the flames drawn around the words that had him narrowing his eyes.

An instinct he’d only ever felt for his mom, his sister and his late wife roared to life—a fierce possessiveness. He told himself to rein it in even as his jaw tightened.

“How did I miss this?” Irritation etched Terra’s voice.

“I didn’t see it either,” Darla said. “Besides, this is the first time there’s been a note. It didn’t occur to me to check for one.”

“Do you have an evidence bag?” Jack asked.

Darla nodded and retrieved a plastic baggie from a shelf behind her desk, then gave it to Jack.

Jack gestured for Terra to carefully slide the card inside. “Before now, there have been no cards with the flower deliveries. There also haven’t been any murders.”

“You think this is related to the arsons?” Shock widened Terra’s eyes.

“Well, the murder shows the arsonist’s acts are escalating. You said so yourself. Why not a note, too? This could definitely be meant as a threat.”

“It sounds like a threat to me,” Darla agreed. The phone rang and she hurried back to her desk.

Terra’s green eyes clouded. “Could all the flowers I’ve received been sent by the arsonist?”

“Good question. Can you remember when the other deliveries were made? We know you received the latest one yesterday.”

“The day following the fire at Harris’s.” A slow horror unfolded across her refined features. “I received the others on the day after each fire set by the serial arsonist.”

“Are you sure?”

She closed her eyes for a moment. “Yes, fairly certain. That’s about the time Dane Reynolds started showing interest. I assumed all the bouquets were from him. I didn’t connect them to the arsons at all!”

“They still might be from him,” Jack pointed out quietly.

Terra froze. “Are you kidding?”

“Isn’t it possible Reynolds could be the arsonist?”

“Anything’s possible, but…yuk.” She shivered. “Why? What would be his motivation?”

“Didn’t you say the desire for attention was a motive?”

She nodded, her fingers stroking down her throat in what Jack was beginning to recognize as a sign of nervousness. Was he the one making her nervous? Or the topic?

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