Sparking His Interest. Wendy Etherington

Small puddles covered the beige steel desk sitting just inside the door. The ink on the desk calendar had smeared to nearly unrecognizable scrawls. Water still dripped from the sprinkler heads mounted to the ceiling.

      “He’s not a very thorough arsonist, is he?” Wes said dryly from behind her.

      Picturing the damage to the outside of the building, the half-dozen firefighters still battling the aftereffects of the blaze, the stress and suspicion that was likely to overwhelm the mayor, the town and the investigators, Cara sighed. “Looks like he’s two for two to me.”

      2

      CARA’S GAZE slid around the room, taking in the water damage and the complete absence of smoke and fire damage. Her mind clicked through the possibilities of a destroyed warehouse, but an intact emergency alert system and working sprinklers—at least in this part of the building.

      “There’s more than one control valve,” she said slowly, glancing down at the architectural plans in her hands for confirmation.

      Wes wandered around the soaked room, shaking his head. “So he dismantled the sprinklers in the warehouse, turning off the water valve in there, but left the phone lines intact and this valve on?”

      “Makes sense to me. Maybe he didn’t know about this one.”

      “Maybe,” he said, though he didn’t sound convinced.

      Maybe was fine with Cara for now. Questions without answers were fine. She’d interpret once she had more facts.

      “Check to see if the door leading to the warehouse is locked,” she said as she headed toward the supply closet door near the back left corner of the room. “Be careful not to smudge any prints,” she added, tossing him a pair of surgical gloves from her jacket pocket.

      “I have done this before,” he said, sounding annoyed.

      “Doesn’t mean you’ve done it right.”

      “Oh, I can do it right.”

      She paused in the process of slipping on her own pair of gloves. The man had totally messed with her mind, since his innocent words had sparked a carnal angle. She had to get him back into his spot as professional assistant—fast. “Just check the locks, Lieutenant.”

      She flung open the closet door, noting the supply closet was big—about twelve by twelve—nearly the same size as the office. It was full of file cabinets mostly. But against one wall sat a bright, orange-red, floor-to-ceiling pipe that was connected to the wall via a few small pipes.

      Heart pounding, she strode towards the pipe, her gaze zeroing in on the pressure gauge window, then to the chain fastened to the water control valve knob, which was about the size of a car steering wheel. The chain held the knob in place, so the water pressure couldn’t be turned off accidentally. Cutting it, unfortunately, was easy—a pair of wire clippers would do. Newer systems had an antitamper device so that if the chain was cut an alarm went off. Until she examined the main security panel she wouldn’t know if that was the case here.

      “Found it, huh?” Wes said from behind her. “Works, I guess.”

      “There’s plenty of water pressure. The chain’s intact. What about the door?”

      “Unlocked, but shut. Why?”

      Still studying the pipe system for anything unusual, she replied, “I’m not worried about why yet. I’m still absorbing.”

      “Absorbing?”

      She drew in a quick breath, and her thought process shut down. She hadn’t realized he was so close. She even thought she could feel his breath against the back of her neck. Impossible. Her hair and the collar of her jacket kept any skin from exposure. She was imagining things. Dreaming.

      “Not that I’m an expert or anything—my last fire investigation involved some dingbat woman who set fire to her house to get the insurance money….”

      At his tone, Cara turned her head to look at him. Big mistake. He rolled his pretty blue eyes—a description he would no doubt hate—and shoved his hands into the back pockets of his jeans, drawing her gaze to the breadth of his shoulders, which tapered to a lean waist—

      She forced her gaze immediately back to his face. She wasn’t some chick on the make, drawn to the moodiness and danger that rolled off Wes Kimball in waves. The aura of confidence and vulnerability—

      She stopped her thoughts again. What the hell was wrong with her?

      “…caught on to her scheme after about two and a half minutes,” Wes continued, seeming not to notice her straying concentration. “But doesn’t all this seem like overkill?” He frowned. “Or just confusing? If I’m setting a fire in a warehouse, I toss out the gasoline, cut the chain, turn off the water. No water, no sprinklers. The fire will spread rapidly. Then I go to the system panel, bust it open, pull out every wire I can get my hands on and hightail it out of there. Fire rages. Property’s a dead loss. No fire department to get in the way.”

      Cara had several problems with that theory, but she jumped on to the most obvious one first. She really liked running through the possible scenarios with him. Usually, she had to play devil’s advocate with herself. “And how would you know to cut the chain to the water valve?”

      “The Internet. There’s probably a damn Web site—www dot set-a-fire dot com.”

      “And that step-by-step instruction would leave out the smoke detector, the fire department alert system—which is useless without telephone wires—and the possibility of a second control valve? And then, of course, we have the motive to consider. Was the fire department’s arrival a mistake? Twice? Why this warehouse, why the office last week—”

      Wes raised his hand to stop her questions, then rubbed his temples. “There are dozens of angles, aren’t there?”

      “Even angles that don’t involve Addison’s guilt?”

      He said nothing for a moment, then shook his head. “I don’t see any.”

      She was dying to ask him what had made him so biased against Addison, what past they had forged, but, following her own advice, she kept her suspicions at bay. They were gathering evidence. Interpretation came later.

      “So what do we know?” she asked. “For instance, the day-to-day operations.”

      “It’s an office supply warehouse. Lots of crates and boxes moving around. Trucks arriving to deliver inventory ordered from manufacturers. Trucks arriving to pick up and distribute supplies to various businesses in town and out.”

      “Exactly.” She paced along the far wall, more in an attempt to escape the enticing scent of his cologne, or soap, or something than the need to move. “Kind of a humdrum existence. Items come in, items move out. Then inventory a few times a year. So who are the people who do all this moving about?”

      “Some warehouse people, a manager…”

      Cara tucked her map away and pulled her PDA from her jacket pocket, handing it to Wes, knowing the info regarding this particular property of Robert Addison’s was displayed on the screen.

      Wes stared at the screen. “This is the background check I ran after the first fire.”

      “Ben e-mailed it to me.” She continued pacing. “So, employees consist of the manager, his assistant and five warehouse personnel. All work a day shift. After five o’clock, the property is deserted. The only other people with access to the building are the cleaning service, which comes once a week. The property is protected by a decent security system, which is connected to the fire alert system.”

      “Captain Hughes?” someone called from the other room.

      Cara strode from the closet and saw a firefighter, who was unmistakably a Kimball, peeking around the door between the office and the warehouse. “Yes?”

      The