Up in Flames Page 7

  “Maybe faulty engine or something,” Black suggested. “We’ll have a team analyze the car.”

  “I want to talk to the woman who called it in.” Bradford strode toward the middle-aged brunette sitting by the ambulance, looking shaken. A chocolate Lab lay panting at her feet.

  He knelt at her eye level. “Ma’am, I’m Detective Walsh. Can you tell me what happened?”

  She fidgeted with the collar of her shirt. “I was walking Sylvester and saw this guy rush out from his house. He was in such a hurry, he almost knocked me down. And he was nervous, kept looking around as if he was running from something.”

  Bradford frowned. “Did you see anyone else, maybe someone he was running from?”

  “No,” she said with a nervous laugh. “I was too busy trying to keep Sylvester under control. He started barking and tried to take off toward the house. It was the oddest thing. Sylvester’s a softy. He never barks.”

  “Then what happened?”

  “Why, the man climbed in his car, and locked the doors, his eyes wide like he was scared to death. Then he cranked the engine and the car burst into flames.”

  Her voice broke. “It was awful,” she whispered. “Just awful. He screamed and tried to unlock the doors but the car erupted before he could escape.”

  Bradford swallowed. Obviously the fire had reached the gas tank and the man hadn’t had a chance. But what had caused the car to burst into flames in the first place?

  And what had spooked the man before he died?

  ROSANNA STARED at the morning paper in horror. Another fire—this one a car on E. Taylor Street.

  She’d met the man who’d died—Terrance Shaver.

  She blinked, studying the photo with a sense of trepidation. She’d seen him before, from the CIRP experiment. He was the mind reader.

  Her hands shook and she set her coffee cup down with a thud, then dropped into the kitchen chair to read the article. Natalie had died in a fire and was part of the experiment. She had nearly died in the same fire. And now another man who belonged to the group had lost his life.

  It couldn’t be a coincidence.

  Detective Walsh and another officer, Captain Black, had both been present at the scene interviewing possible witnesses. A middle-aged woman reported that Terrance had run outside to his Toyota Camry looking spooked, climbed inside, locked the doors and started the engine. Then the car had mysteriously caught fire.

  The man had tried to claw his way out, but the gas tank exploded and he hadn’t had a chance.

  A lump welled in her throat. She didn’t really know Terrance Shaver, but the fact that she’d just met him made her feel connected to him somehow.

  Connected to this whole mess.

  She had to tell the detective that she knew him.

  But what would he say? Would he jump to the conclusion that she had hurt the man?

  She checked the time of death mentioned in the article and realized the detective must have driven straight from the funeral to the fire. She had gone back to her shop, so at least she had an alibi.

  But how would she say she’d met Terrance? Should she tell Detective Walsh about CIRP?

  She’d signed that confidentiality clause…

  Besides, so far the people she’d met in the project had seemed normal. A nervous laugh bubbled in her throat. Well, normal except for claiming to have powers. But none of them had seemed dangerous.

  She pushed away her coffee, unable to stomach it now, not when her nerves were still in knots. She bunched her hair into a ponytail, grabbed her purse and hurried to her car. A few minutes later, one of the officers showed her into the detective’s office.

  His eyes widened when he saw her. “Rosanna? What are you doing here?”

  The newspaper rattled in her hands as she laid it on the desk. “I saw the story about that car fire last night.”

  He glanced at it, then back at her. “Yes?”

  She wet her lips, her throat suddenly dry. “I met that man Terrance.”

  His eyebrows shifted. “Really? When? Where?”

  This was the tricky part. Telling him about the experiment meant revealing too much. But didn’t she owe it to Natalie to help if she could?

  “Rosanna?”

  “He was interested in paranormal occurrences, too,” she said.

  “That again?”

  “Just hear me out. I know you may not believe in the supernatural,” she began, “but I’ve seen things, people who have ESP, psychic abilities, the ability to do things other humans can’t.”

  “Like your grandmother and her black magic?”

  “Yes. She was a true healer.” She paused, the disbelief in his eyes tearing a path of destruction through her bravado. Tormented by her own destiny, she felt cursed by her past and the heritage she’d only begun to explore, much less claim.

  He folded his arms, a sheen of perspiration glistening on his stern brow. “And you’ve seen evidence of paranormal occurrences?”

  “Yes.”

  He gave her a look that made her want to wilt. “So, tell me about them.”

  She licked her dry lips. “I met a woman who communes with the dead. And this guy Terrance claimed he could read minds.”

  A muscle ticked in his jaw. “There are a lot of people who claim to do things they can’t do, Rosanna. Believe me, I know. I once worked a case where a so-called psychic insisted she could help us find a missing person. The victim died because we were chasing that fraudulent lead….”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can understand your skepticism. But this case is different. I read that eyewitness’s statement.” She took a deep breath, then continued, “She said the fire just sprang up out of nowhere. And yesterday I was…sitting on a park bench, and a fire suddenly started in the trash bin next to me.”

  His mouth thinned. “There are logical explanations for these things, Rosanna. We’re checking the car to see if the engine was faulty. And someone probably dropped a cigarette butt into that trash.”

  “Maybe. But when I looked up I thought I saw someone disappearing around the corner.”

  He sighed. “Did you get a good look at him?”

  “No. Then when I got home, I went online and researched paranormal behavior.”

  He gave her a deadpan look but she forged ahead.

  “What I found was really interesting. I read about some guy whose body had such a strong electrical current that it threw off electricity in the house. He could touch things and make electricity spark to life.”

  “Rosanna.” Disgust laced his voice. “I really don’t have time for this.”

  She had to make him believe her. “In another case, a young boy had an unusually high body temperature—so high that heat radiated off of him. Sometimes he burned people with his touch. He was struck by lightning when he was younger.”

  She sighed, then continued, “When I was little, my grandmother also told me a legend about a firestarter, a Native American boy who had flaming hands. The energy from his body consumed him. He could pull upon the heat’s power to start a fire. He could also throw fire with his hands, which helped save his tribe from a vicious attack. And researchers—”

  He paced across the room, hissed, then faced her again. “Rosanna,” he said, cutting her off, “I think you need to see a therapist.”

  Hurt splintered through her. “I don’t need a therapist. Just consider the possibility. Research is being conducted at different hospitals on the subject of paranormal phenomenon. There are Web sites everywhere with stories of incidents that can’t be explained—”

  “Those are fiction, evidence of people’s overactive imaginations.”

  “No more so than people’s belief in religion, in God or angels.”

  “But I deal in facts.” He looked as if his patience had worn out.

  She had to tell him about the project at CIRP.

  But as soon as she opened her mouth, he stopped her with an upheld hand. “How about this theory—you’re making up stuff to
distract me. You’ve been present at three fires, and you’re telling me about another one you saw yesterday that you failed to mention before. Maybe you know who this firestarter is and are trying to protect him.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “I would never do that. Not and let Natalie’s killer go free.”

  He pulled a hand down his face. “Look,” he said softly, more compassionately, “I understand that your father was killed when you were four, and you were traumatized. Maybe that past has made you unstable, but you should talk to someone. Get some help, Rosanna.”

  She’d been insane to think he might believe her.

  If he saw your telekinetic power, he might.

  But she couldn’t expose that much of herself. Couldn’t trust him with the truth, not with the way he was looking at her now. He’d obviously checked into her past, knew she’d been in counseling.

  Did he know the reason? That the teachers had sent her to counseling because of drawings she’d done depicting scenes with witches and supernatural occurrences? That news would only feed his conviction that she needed mental help.

  Besides, she had no idea if she was right, if a firestarter really existed or if one was here in Savannah and had killed her friend.

  Still, it pained her that he didn’t believe her. That he thought she might be covering for a killer…

  BRADFORD MUTTERED an obscenity as Rosanna rushed from his office. Dammit, he hated to hurt her, but he really didn’t have time for such nonsense.

  He needed distance from her and lots of it to wrestle his libido back in control. Because in spite of her ridiculous theories, he was attracted to her.

  And he liked that spitfire determination in her, the way her eyes smoldered when she tried to persuade him of her beliefs, the way her breath caught and her voice grew raspy with conviction.

  Why the hell did the only woman he’d been attracted to in the past year have to be a nutcase?

  Disgusted with the day’s events and still contemplating how the car fire started, and even more curious, how the fire surrounding the grave had originated and created that odd circular pattern, he strode to his car, climbed in and drove to the hospital. Dark clouds hovered low in the sky, obliterating any sun and painting a gloomy picture that mirrored his mood.

  At the information desk, he requested Parker’s room number, and was informed that Parker was heavily sedated, but he was allowed visitation, limited to five minutes.

  The bandages on his partner’s face, hands and arms along with the machines pumping fluids and oxygen into him caused Bradford to hesitate at the door. Parker was a damn big guy, almost as big as Bradford. Seeing him lying in bed incapacitated sent a spasm of nausea through him.

  Sucking in a deep breath, he forced his leaden feet forward. Parker deserved to be kept updated, in the loop on the investigation. He had a lot at stake in this case, and in spite of Bradford’s mother’s belief that he had no loyalty, that he would only disappoint those who counted on him, Bradford refused to let his partner down.

  “Hey, buddy,” he said in a low voice as he approached the bed.

  Parker’s eyelids twitched, but he didn’t open them. Instead his deep breathing reverberated through the room, the drip of the IV steady and slow, as if that drip ticked off the seconds of Parker’s life like sand through an hourglass.

  “Okay, here’s what we have so far,” Bradford said, bracing his feet apart. He told him about the car fire and death the night before. “I’m not sure it’s related to the other cases, but we’ll see. So far we haven’t connected the fires and can’t prove arson, although with the bar, there’s no doubt in my mind that the fire was set intentionally. According to the witnesses and CSI team, there was more than one point of origin.”

  He frowned, paced to the window and stared out at the ominous cloud cover. “Problem is there’s no sign of an accelerant. My guess is that the alcohol served as one in the bar.” He relayed what had happened at the cemetery. “That was the strangest thing I’ve ever seen, man. The way the flames burned in that circle around the grave…”

  He hesitated, tried to regroup his thoughts. “And I have a feeling this arsonist was there, that he set that fire right in front of my eyes and I didn’t see him set it.” He ran a hand over his beard stubble. “But I don’t see how that was possible.”

  Frustration underscored the breath he expelled. He wondered if Parker could hear him.

  “But you’re going to get a kick out of this. Rosanna Redhill, the girl I rescued from the bar fire, runs this New Age shop called Mystique. She carries books on witchcraft and voodoo, ingredients for magic spells, crap like that. Her grandmother was a witch doctor.” He explained about her past. “She actually tried to convince me that our arsonist is some kind of freak who can start fires with his hands.”

  Parker’s eyelids twitched again. This time his eyes slid open, although they looked dazed, disoriented. Probably the pain or meds.

  Or maybe he was warning Bradford to write the woman off as a kook and solve the damn case. But what if she had something to do with the fires?

  He didn’t think so, and his instincts usually were right.

  Another possibility teased the back of his mind, one he couldn’t dismiss. She had been present at three of the fires. And she had known two of the victims.

  What if someone really was targeting her, and had meant to hurt her?

  Just because she didn’t know who it was, didn’t mean she didn’t have a stalker. He could be a stranger, someone she’d barely met who’d developed an obsession with her…

  Chapter Nine

  Rosanna was shaken by the detective’s reaction and battled tears all the way to her shop. She’d been ridiculed before, but for some reason Bradford Walsh’s opinion cut her to the bone.

  Did he really believe she was capable of starting the fires to get attention? That she was crazy…

  Maybe she was letting her imagination get away from her. Maybe the fires had been simple acts of vandalism, or some form of gang initiation. Or perhaps a new group like the Santeria cult that her grandmother had spoken of when Rosanna was little had congregated in the area.

  Maybe he would find the answers without her assistance, and she’d never have to see him again.

  She choked on a sob, parked in back of her store and hurried inside. The scents of the candles, herbs and roots in the store filled her nostrils, soothing her nerves. Yet the books on magic and voodoo mocked her from the shelves.

  Maybe the fires had been started by another form of magic, not someone possessing firestarting abilities. Someone could have concocted a spell or read one from a book or off the Internet. She even carried items in her store that could be used to create a potion.

  Driven to find the answer, she spent the rest of the afternoon and evening in the shop reading about voodoo, witchcraft practices, magic and paranormal phenomenon in between helping customers.

  According to her research, many magicians believed that magic came from a person’s will, and involved the knowledge of power over evil. She found magic spells for both good and evil. Spells on how to make a man fall in love with you, protective spells for your house and family, ridding a place of evil spirits, as well as spells for medical practices like curing a disease, easing a headache, caring for a burn and reversing the aging process.

  Others were more disturbing. One voodoo spell could make you go insane, and another would put live things like snakes, frogs or worms inside your body. Burning black candles, photographs, graveyard dust and coffins were used to make someone go away.

  The dreary hot temperature seemed to drive customers inside, ensuring she had a steady business all day. By the time she closed the store, her head was spinning. The detective would think the reading material complete fiction, but since she’d learned that the origins were based in spirituality, and witnessed the way her grandmother had saved countless people, even reversed what they thought were tricks and spells cast upon them, she found the books fascinating.

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nbsp; Thunder rumbled outside, the threat of rain a welcome reprieve from the insufferable humidity. Anxious to get home in case a storm hit, she locked the door, closed down the register and tidied the store. Exhausted, she walked over to the front display windows to pull the shades, but the hair on her arms suddenly stood on end.

  The feeling of being watched returned, and she glanced through the window, her heart hammering when she noticed someone standing in the shadows of the awning. She couldn’t see his face, only the silhouette of a tall dark frame hunched against the corner.

  Then suddenly one of the candles in the window display lit up.

  She gasped, then took a step backward when the wick of another one flamed up. One by one, the row of candles adorning the table came alive, their yellow flames flickering against the darkness.

  She glanced through the window again and started to rush to the door, to call to the stranger, but he disappeared into the shadows around the corner. For a miniscule of a second she considered chasing after him, but that would be stupid.

  If he was dangerous or had started the fires, what would he do to her if she caught him?

  WHEN BRADFORD arrived at the station, Captain Black called a meeting to discuss the investigation. Bradford reported on Parker’s condition—he had been taken off the critical list and was stable now, although he still wasn’t cognizant enough to discuss the fire—then explained about the fire at the cemetery. He didn’t have the CSI report in hand but would follow up.

  “We found two guys present at the bar with police records,” Detective Fox stated. “I’m checking them out this afternoon.”

  “What kind of rap sheets?” Bradford asked.

  “Silas Meters is twenty and was arrested for vandalism in his teens. Nothing lately, but who knows?” Fox consulted his notes. “And we traced Dugan Glacier to a local gang. They’re into drugs, gangbanging, violence.”

  “Sounds like two viable leads,” Black said. “Walsh, I want you to do some research, see what you can find nationwide on arsonists. Maybe we have a guy who relocated from another city.”