26. So Much More
SO MUCH MORE
The crackling of the scanner in the other room had him rolling over to hear what came across it. If it was a punch out—an extreme situation— it was another sound. One loud enough for even his neighbors to hear above and below him.
Ash wondered if they had heard Skye shouting out earlier.
The smile filled his face in the dark over that thought.
“What’s going on?” she asked and snuggled close to him.
“A call,” he said. “I wanted to see if it’s a fire or a false alarm.” His arm wrapped around her, holding her tight.
“If it’s a fire, we should go.”
He sighed. He knew she’d say that. “Let’s see what it is and where. There is no reason to go out if we don’t know for sure.”
It wasn’t like it was a vehicle fire. If it were that, it’d be different, but it seemed to him the person might be moving on.
Not exactly what he wanted to hear. That they were changing their MO.
It only made them harder to catch.
But ten minutes later, he was swinging his legs over the side of the bed.
“We’re going?” she asked.
“Against my better judgment.”
He reached for his phone to see what time it was.
Fuck. Barely midnight.
They hadn’t been sleeping that long, but it sure the hell felt that way with the way she’d worn him out.
Crazy how what started out as a game turned into so much more for him.
He just hoped it was for her too.
He hit the light switch and the two of them blinked a few times while they got dressed.
“I’ve got to pee. Do I have time?”
“I’m not rushing,” he said. “There is no reason for it. Do what you need to. And we aren’t staying long. Not the whole time for you to get your story.”
“What if it’s the same person though? Wouldn’t he want that?”
“He’s not getting it,” he said. “I’m sorry. You want to do this, we have to play by the rules.”
She shut the bathroom door in his face. He supposed he deserved that.
When she came out, he went in and brushed his teeth, pissed, then went to the kitchen.
“Do you want one?”
She was making coffee and opening his cabinets.
“No. What are you looking for?”
“A travel mug.”
He moved over to the fridge where she wouldn’t be able to reach and pulled one down. “I don’t drink a lot of coffee and sure the hell never in a travel mug.”
“Then why do you have one?”
She dumped her cup into that and went to his fridge for the creamer he picked up a few weeks ago. They took turns staying at each other’s places.
“Isn’t it a rite of passage or something to own at least a few? Someone gave it to me as a gift.”
She slapped the top on, then set it down and went in search of her shoes, which were still in his room where he’d yanked them off her last night.
He’d much rather go back to doing that now than going out in the mid-November night air to chase a fire starter.
If that was even the case tonight.
He hoped to hell not.
When they arrived fifteen minutes later, the crowd was light. No gawkers. No sirens. Just neighbors with porch lights glowing, a few of them sitting on their steps watching in uneasy silence.
It wasn’t hard to spot the homeowners standing beside the police cruiser, their shoulders hunched and wrapped in blankets that did little to hide the shock etched across their faces.
“Tate’s working,” she said quietly.
“So I see.”
Her gaze stayed fixed on her brother. “Let’s see what he can—or won’t—say to me.”
Ash drew in a slow breath. Burnt wood and melted plastic filled his lungs, sharp and acrid. The kind of smell that clung to you long after everything else was gone.
Normally it was a scent he had after he’d battled the beast down, not when he was watching someone else do the work.
It didn’t look too out of control, but the house was highly damaged. At least the front of it, and the upstairs was going to have water damage on top of it where they were trying to make sure it didn’t spread.
It wasn’t going to be livable for the foreseeable future.
“Why am I not surprised you’re here,” Tate said.
“She’s not alone,” Ash pointed out.
“Thankfully.”
Skye pulled her phone out. “What can you tell me?”
Tate lifted his eyes to Ash. He just shrugged. He was going to do what he’d said and look around for anything out of the ordinary. See if something, or someone, caught his eye.
“The homeowners said they heard glass breaking and woke up immediately. They went down the stairs and there was a fire in the living room. The stairs are in the back, the wife ran back upstairs to get the kids while her husband tried to put it out with an extinguisher.”
“Didn’t seem to work,” he said.
“No. The wife called nine-one-one while she was getting the kids out of bed and everyone got out okay.”
“So, arson for sure,” she said.
“Not the same thing,” Ash argued. “Not even close.”
“I’m going to talk to the homeowners.”
He wanted to tell her no, but she was going to argue that she was doing her job. A fucking sucky job in his mind, but he knew enough to keep his lips sealed.
She stepped away but close enough that he could still see her. “What do you think?” he asked Tate.
“I think it’s not the same thing. The one girl, the daughter, she was screaming at her brother saying it was his fault or something. This was one of his pranks gone too far.”
“What does that mean?”
“From what I can gather, the kid is a bully, kind of terrorizing weaker kids. Maybe someone is getting back at him. We’ll be questioning them more, but giving them some space just now.”
“Hmm, sounds like things never change. We had our fair share of assholes growing up.”
His mind went to Skye’s brother, Sean.
Tate knew what he was saying without the words coming out.
They wouldn’t say it either.
“So it’s just finding out who it could be.”
“They don’t have cameras, but the neighbors do. I’ve already talked to them and they showed it to me. We’ll have people go through the footage, but the face was covered with a mask. On foot, running, no cars up or down the road. Almost looks like the body of a teen or young adult.”
“Which doesn’t mean it’s not our person, but I don’t think so.”
Tate shook his head. “Highly unlikely. This house is newer, so the smoke alarms were going off almost immediately. The last fires, they are steering clear of that. That arsonist wants to see it go up in smoke, not be caught fast.”
“So this is something else.”
“Yeah. Maybe they didn’t even mean to go through the window. From the video, the person looked shocked. Like an ‘oh shit’ moment. Almost as if they wanted to try to go back and get it. A lit rag in a bottle.”
“Guess we’ll find out some more tomorrow,” he said.
“What’s the news on this one?”
His body stilled when he recognized the voice, turned, and saw Alan behind him.
Not close in location to the others so not close to Alan’s house.
“What are you doing here?” he asked.
“I was going to say the same to you. Normally you’re only here fighting these babies, not coming to check it out.”
Ash debated for a minute on what to say, but might as well put it out there.
Alan and just about everyone else knew Skye was Tate’s sister. In this small area and with the same last names, it was easy to put together.
They knew who her family was. The reputation and weight the Lancasters carried in this community.
Though he didn’t want to doubt the man next to him, he had to start to wonder if his judgment might be wrong.
“I’m dating Skye Lancaster,” he said. “You know she’s been covering some of the fires lit by an arson, and we didn’t know if this was one of them or not. I wasn’t letting her come alone.”
“Dude,” Alan said. “You’re dating someone who has two brothers in law enforcement. More power to you.”
He wasn’t sure where the humor was coming from.
Nothing about this night or this situation was funny.
“It’s not like I’m leaving her home alone to come out and watch others work,” he threw out. Didn’t even add a smile to it.
Alan got the hint fast. “My wife and kids are visiting her parents this week. My mother-in-law had surgery yesterday. I heard the scanner go off and thought I’d come down and look around and see if I noticed anything. You know, like we all have been doing.”
He didn’t want to accuse the guy of anything else. It made sense.
He supposed.
“Hey, Ash. Tate.”
“Keegan,” Tate said. “Sirens get you up?”
“I’m around the corner,” Keegan said, playing it off. Ash didn’t know exactly where Keegan lived so couldn’t argue it.
But the family was doing exactly what they’d said they would.
Might as well honor the rest.
“Ash and Alan were just chatting about this fire. It’s not like the rest,” Tate said, throwing it out there easier than he would have been able to.
The shift in Keegan’s eyes said everything he needed to know.
Skye’s brother had a face and he’d be watching closer now.
“Hey,” Skye said, coming back. “That’s kind of sad.”
“Did they say the same as Tate said?” he asked.
“They did. The son looked at the tapes again, said he thinks he knows who it is, but his parents wouldn’t let him give the name.”
“As they shouldn’t,” Tate said. “You don’t need to run with a story like that without proof. Let the police do their job.”
Tate called out on the radio to bring another officer down to get the statement. The one who’d taken it earlier had to leave on a call.
“Do you think they will make an arrest tonight?” she asked.
Both Keegan and Tate sighed at the same time.
Ash was right there with them.
She was getting ahead of herself.
“The police will question them to find out if they know who it is. The boy wasn’t talking earlier.”
“Well, the thought of everything he owned being destroyed now is making him talk. His sister is bawling, his mother right there with them. I know what it’s like as a kid. Maybe he knew all along and didn’t want to get in trouble, but now he might not have a choice.”
“What am I missing?” Alan asked.
Tate filled Alan in on what happened, Keegan hearing the same.
“Not saying whoever threw the bottle is justified in the least,” she said. “But maybe if the son hadn’t been a bully none of this would have happened.”
“All speculation,” Tate said. “And none of that goes in your article. Do you hear me?”
“Yeah, yeah. I’m not stupid. I’m going to leave it with the facts and let the police do the rest.”
“Then we can leave,” Ash said, “because I get enough sleepless nights fighting a fire, the last thing I want to do is stand around when I don’t need to.”
He was looking at Alan when he said it, but didn’t get much of a response other than, “I don’t have much of a life.”
“That was strange,” she said, climbing back into his truck. He was glad she waited to talk until then. “Don’t you think so?”
“I do,” he said.
“And do you believe me now? Do you think it’s him?”
“Just because I think it’s odd he showed up tonight doesn’t mean I believe it’s him.”
Being bored with your married life and wanting to get out when you can was a far cry from starting fires for fun. It wasn’t like Alan was even working to put it out.
To be a hero.
Wasn’t that what firemen who were arsonists wanted? He didn’t fucking know.
It wasn’t as if his mind even went there.
“Did he say why he was there at midnight? Like his wife never questions it? Shit, if it were my husband, I’d wonder if he used that as an excuse to have an affair.”
Ash laughed. “Who knows? Maybe he is. Maybe he’s saying he’s at the fire, showing up so people can say he was there, then fucking some other chick smelling of smoke and dirt before going back home to climb in with his wife.”
“It made sense until you said it sarcastically like that.”
“I don’t know what to tell you, Skye. You got your story and it’s not the one you wanted. Which is fine with me. I’m sure you want to go home and write it now. You don’t have your laptop at my place.”
“Yeah. I’m sorry. I should. Kyle would like it first thing. That’s how he expects it now. Guess he’s come to rely on that fact.”
He wasn’t going to take offense that she was putting this part-time job before him.
It couldn’t be that way. Not for either of them.
Instead, he went to his place, let her in so she could get her things, then gave her a kiss at her car. No way he was letting her walk out alone.
Hell, he wanted to follow her to her place and go in with her, but he caught her look, like she knew what he was going to suggest, and bit his tongue.
Things were good with them now. They’d been that way for weeks, and he couldn’t let this get in the way.
Which meant keeping his feelings secret yet again.