Playing with Fire. Rachel Lee

be dead on their feet, probably.

      Fighting a fire took a lot out of person, she’d learned. Not just the weight of all their equipment, but the heat inside the protective gear, the inevitable adrenaline rush, a lot of hard labor... Fatiguing. This hadn’t been a terrible fire—they’d only battled it for an hour or so—but they were guzzling water from bottles as if they’d spent a week in the Sahara.

      A door to one side of Donna opened and Chief Wayne Camden stepped in. He was swigging from a water bottle, too, and his hair was damp. He must have just showered, because the soot was gone.

      He wore the simple blue uniform of this department, with black work boots on his feet. Apparently he didn’t always follow the custom of white shirt for higher-ranking members. For the first time she noted that he was tall, lean and muscular. Staying in shape was important in this job for a variety of reasons, and he apparently knew it. His hair looked almost black, maybe because it was still wet, but his eyes were a silvery gray that reflected some of the blue in his uniform.

      “Ms. Atkins,” he said. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”

      Charity rose, smiling. “For good reason, I think. You took quite a risk going for that baby.”

      He shrugged it off. Of course he’d taken a risk. That was what firefighters did. She felt almost stupid for even saying it. “Come into my office. It’s not the neatest place in the world, but it works.”

      She saw what he meant as he ushered her through the narrow door. Files were stacked everywhere, as if the filing cabinets had run out of space. They were neat stacks, but still stacks.

      “It’s all on the computer,” he said, gesturing to the machine on his desk. “Eventually the paper goes to the archives.”

      “How many years does that take?”

      He glanced at her as he motioned her to take a seat, then sank into his own chair on the other side of the desk. Battered leather, it had clearly seen better days, and it creaked beneath his weight. “Seven years,” he answered, then laughed. “You’d be surprised how often the paper is needed.”

      “Probably not,” she said, returning his smile. “Bureaucracies.”

      “At every level.” He leaned back and the chair creaked some more. “So you want to examine the Buell place.”

      She nodded, wishing his gaze was less steady. Something about it made her aware that he was a man. She didn’t want it, didn’t need it, and she wouldn’t be here long anyway. The sting of her last breakup was still fresh. She needed to focus on the task at hand, not this man. “You said it was arson.”

      “It most definitely was. You ever walk into a building a day after a fire?”

      “Quite often.”

      “Then, you know. You can sometimes smell the accelerant. I always thought that was odd, that it can leave behind an odor when it should all burn up. The aromatics should be gone.”

      “Aren’t they usually?”

      “True. But the stench of kerosene and gasoline cling for a long time. If you use too much and some of it doesn’t burn...” He shrugged one broad shoulder. “Of course there are some you can’t smell.”

      She wondered why he was schooling her. She was the arson specialist. She might have gotten annoyed at being patronized, but somehow he didn’t give her that feeling. It was more as though he was trying to shift mental gears and get into the groove on the Buell fire. He drank more water and offered her a bottle from the small fridge beside his desk. She accepted it gratefully. Flying always left her parched.

      Suddenly he zoomed in on her and on the subject at hand. He leaned forward, as if he had finally fully switched mental zones. “It was arson, all right. I don’t think the Buells did it, and you can’t smell accelerant in the house—just in the barn. More important, it went up too hot and fast. Who the hell around here would know a different way to start a fire?”

      He had her full attention now, too. And now she understood why he’d mentioned aromatics, the things you could smell. He hadn’t been schooling her. He’d been working up to something.

      “Do you think the Buells did it?” he asked her.

      “I haven’t seen the site.”

      He shook his head almost irritably. “Don’t fence with me. You’re the insurance carrier, you know their coverage. Do they stand to gain from this?”

      “It’s always possible,” she said truthfully. “Even the minimally insured have been known to set fires in order to get aid. But really, I have to see the extent of the damage and evaluate some other things before I can say.” And if that made him feel protective of people he knew, too bad.

      “Black bones pointing to the sky and some dead livestock,” he said shortly. “There isn’t a whole lot left except the herds out in pasture. Amazingly, we didn’t get a grass fire. It was hot, it was too fast and the Buells were damned smart to have alarms. Now Fred Buell is out there every day trying to tend his cattle from the back of a truck with the help of neighbors. He didn’t gain a thing that I can see except a whole pack of new problems.”

      She nodded, willing to accept his judgment for now. Her own would come later.

      He stood up and went to stare out his own plate-glass window at the men who were finishing the cleanup. “We got us a firebug, Ms. Atkins. Bad and mean. I want him.”

      “Your inspector mentioned this was the third arson in a year.”

      “Close to. Less than a year, to be specific. The first two were definitely gasoline, but this one is different. If they’re the same perp, then we have a huge problem. He’s getting smarter.” He turned and looked at her. “And more dangerous. The first two didn’t go up like a bomb. We had time to get out there, and the ranchers are pretty good with a hose themselves. This time...” He shook his head, a dark frown on his face. “Are you gonna help me?”

      She started. She hadn’t expected this. She had come to assess one situation, not hunt for an arsonist. But something in her quickened, and she felt a touch of his fury.

      “I hate arsonists,” she said finally. “Passionately. I’ll do what I can, what my job allows.”

      After a moment he said, “Fair enough. You’re an expert. I’m not really. I can recognize arson, can usually tell where the fire started and what caused it. But this is different. I need some expertise around here. I sent for a state investigator, but they’re shorthanded. I’ve covered the points of ignition I could find, but with every passing minute, evidence is disappearing.”

      She completely understood and shared his concern. While she had no stake in any of this, she did indeed want to help figure out what had happened and who had done it before this creep managed to kill someone. Still, given her job, there were definite limits on what she could do. She also liked that Wayne Camden cared this much. She’d known some who didn’t.

      “All right,” he said. “We’ll go out first thing in the morning. Where are you staying?”

      “There’s a motel...”

      He shook his head sharply. “You won’t catch any diseases there, but you’ll be right across the street from the truck stop. It’ll be noisy and it’s probably not what you’re used to.”

      “I’ll survive,” she answered, but just from the way he’d objected to the idea, she already felt her skin starting to crawl.

      He returned to his desk and picked up his phone, dialing a number from memory. “Hank? Wayne. Listen, I got an arson investigator in town for a few days. You wanna do me a favor? She needs a place to stay, and I don’t mean the La-Z-Rest. Yeah, okay.”

      When he hung up he said. “Solved. A friend of mine has a furnished house for rent. You can use it, no charge.”

      Astonishment filled her. “Why would he do