Burning Love. Debra Cowan

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