Deadly Heat (Deadly 2)

“Your fires might be different, son, but the victims are all trapped and the killer—he wants to make sure we know he’s the one behind the flames.” Hyde stalked around the interior, being careful not to touch any of the evidence. Like the chunk of radiator that still had a handcuff closed around one blackened pipe.

Poor bastard.

“He’s a serial,” Hyde said. “And he’s ours.” Pissing match over. They’d take these cases, and Seth could work with them, or not at all.

Seth’s fingers clenched. “The first two—they were so different. A woman in her apartment. A guy in his garage. Not tied. Not bound. Not…” His gaze darted to Hyde and the radiator. “Cuffed.”

“And then the third kill came.” Kenton watched him, curious about the investigator’s reaction.

“His own body trapped him.” A hard swallow. “If the bastard hadn’t called us in on Hatchen…”

“He wanted us to know.” Lora turned around and put her hands on her hips. “The guy gets off on the fires, but he wants attention, too. He didn’t claim the first kill, but he’s claiming them now. Every one.”

“He wants the world to see how good he is.” Hyde’s eyes were on Lora. Studying her, weighing her.

“He wants the world to see that he’s f**king better than we are.” She shook her head. “Maybe Jennifer Langley was some kind of test, to see if he could do it. And when he torched her…”

He saw he could get away with murder.

Lora exhaled. “He sets it up as a race, the fire versus the firefighters, and every time, we lose.”

And sometimes, they died.

“That’s sick, Lora.” The arson investigator’s lips twisted.

“That’s what we’re dealing with here, Seth. I told you after the second kill—before Carter went into that fire—he’s setting us up. Getting us all to play his way.”

He frowned. “I checked. Those two—Langley and Hatchen—didn’t seem linked.”

The guy’s voice was gruff, and his shoulders couldn’t drop much more. The attitude was gone now, finally, so maybe they could get someplace. It sure looked like the arson investigator knew he was in over his head now. “But after Creed died, you knew what was happening, didn’t you?” Kenton asked.

“We all knew about that call.” Seth’s chin came up. “But there weren’t any more fires, everything seemed to stop after that, and I thought—”

“There have been two fires within the last few days.” Kenton stared him down. “Both claimed by the arsonist. I think it’s safe to say our boy is back in business.”

Seth exhaled. “Yeah, yeah… aw, Christ. I thought it was over!”

Kenton figured that it was just getting started. Two fires, so fast…

“What do you have on the vic?” Hyde demanded. “Cuffed to the radiator? That’s one hell of a way to go.”

He would have seen the flames coming at him. Probably nearly ripped his own wrist off trying to get free.

“D-dental records. The cops will have to ID him with dental records.”

No big surprise.

How is he picking the victims? The question was driving Kenton crazy. If he was going to link all the crimes, the victims would be the key. He needed Monica down there, yesterday.

Lora went back to pacing the perimeter. Part of the roof had fallen, a large chunk of wood and shingles. She bent down, inching along the remains of the tiled floor. “Ghost marks,” she whispered.

Kenton frowned. Ghost marks?

Lora glanced back up. “You can tell a liquid accelerant was used here because the gasoline bled under the tile.” She pointed to the stained outlines. “Like a ghost leaving a trail behind.”

“We already took samples, Lora,” Seth rushed to say.

“Glad to hear it,” she muttered and turned to head deeper into the hull of the house.

“That’s not too stable!” Seth lunged after her, his right leg sagging a bit behind him. “You need to—”

“I see something.”

Kenton crossed to her instantly, barely beating out the other guy.

“Small bag… looks like cocaine,” Lora said.

“It’s a drug house.” Seth bent toward her. “No big surprise—”

“The bag’s half-full…” She pulled it out, holding up the small, plastic bag. “That’s real unusual for a place like this.”

The victims… it’s all about them.

An image of Larry Powell flashed before Kenton’s face. The guy had been shaking, sweating—

Jonesing for his drugs.

Looked like their vic had been jonesing, too. Only he hadn’t gotten to enjoy his stash.

Death had come first.

Shit, if the vic was Larry…

Larry Powell had seen someone at that fire scene on LeRoy.

And maybe, just maybe, the other bastard had come back. “I’ve got to make a call.” The ME would have the body. Maybe he could cut down some of that IDing time if he gave Heather Jennings a nudge in the right direction.

Maybe. Maybe not.

Keith Hyde intimidated the hell out of her, and normally, Lora wasn’t intimidated by anyone or anything.

“So you called my office.”

They were outside. A few more techs were sweeping the scene. Maybe they’d do a better job and not—oh, overlook the evidence. The techs should have found that cocaine bag long before she did.

She glanced at him. “The cases needed to move faster. I was pretty sure the SSD could give them an ass-kicking to the top of the priority list.”

Seth headed to his van, limping slightly, his head bent as he talked with a tech, a petite redhead with very animated hands.

“You risked pissing some folks off by going over their heads,” Hyde told her.

And she knew he was right. She could immediately think of two men who would fall into that pissed-off category: Seth and Jason Lawrence, the police captain who’d refused to acknowledge the link between the arson murders.

“I piss folks off every day.” She’d never been Miss Congeniality. One shoulder lifted. “You can’t please everyone.”

“So you try to please yourself?”

She blinked. Ah… “You know, don’t you?”

“About you and Creed?” His lips firmed. “Yes. Trust me, if I’m on a case, there’s little I don’t know about.”