Baptism In Fire

A.J. waved a dismissive hand at Luke. “Suit yourself.” He opened a file folder and began. “In a nutshell, the three victims are women, one separated and two divorced, single moms living alone, ages twenty-eight to thirty, small children. Two blondes, one brunette. The fires were set at night and when each victim was alone. The kids were with relatives or friends. All were rendered unconscious with a rag soaked in chloroform. The first fire was set about six months ago. Cause of death in all three cases was smoke inhalation.”

He took a glossy photo from the folder and tossed it on the desk. “Marsha Adams, married but legally separated, bound with a lamp cord.” Other photos taken of the women at the fire scenes followed. “Jane Madison, bound with a lamp cord. Colleen Winston, tied up with duct tape. Both divorced.” He wiped a hand over his eyes. “This bastard wanted them to suffer, and they did. One other thing—” He took a deep breath, glanced at Luke, then back to her. “We found all of them in a closet with a Bible beneath them.”

Rachel stared at the photos. Instantly she saw the similarities to her own fire, which A.J. had alluded to on the phone. The closet. The lamp cord. The chloroform. The Bible.

The color photos swam before her eyes. Cold sweat broke out on her forehead. She was sure she’d prepared herself for this part. She’d been terribly wrong.

Rachel closed her eyes to shut out the images, but the same frustrating, disjointed memories that had been torturing her for years, memories that she could never put definition to, flitted in and out in snippets like a badly edited movie. No face to put on an arsonist. No one to tell her what happened to Maggie. Just a blur of indistinguishable events.

Sleeping peacefully. Something on her face. A sweet smell filling her nostrils. Sleep. Then waking in a closet.

Her bedroom engulfed in flames. The smoke. Choking.

Closet too small. Can’t move.

Hands tied behind her. Bible cutting into her chest.

Helpless to escape.

Helpless to save her baby.

Heat. Intense heat. A voice calling to her.

“Mommy. Mommy?”

Maggie?

Blackness.

Then fresh air seeping into her burning lungs. Wet grass beneath her, soaking into her thin nightgown. A fireman standing over her. Luke, cradling her close to his chest, crying, calling her name and Maggie’s.

“Rachel? Rachel? Are you okay?” Luke’s voice called her back from that terrible place she’d hidden inside her for so long.

Rachel snapped her eyes open. The images, images that mirrored a periodic dream she’d been having since that night, faded.

She blinked. Luke and A.J. were standing over her, their faces twisted in concern. She searched her mind frantically for something to excuse what had just happened. She knew her ex-husband too well. If she told him the truth, he’d send her back to Atlanta despite what A.J. said. And she made up her mind in that instant that she wasn’t going anywhere until she nailed this bastard.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine, just a bit…dizzy. I was so eager to get here that I skipped lunch.”

Luke exhaled a huff of air. He crossed his arms over his chest again and glared down at her, eyebrow arched so high it almost disappeared in his hairline. He hadn’t believed a word of her explanation.

Determinedly, she squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and forced her gaze toward the photos again. Silently, she employed a system she’d used when she’d started in the firefighters’ academy and was confronted with her first horrific fire scene.

You’re a professional. Detach yourself. You’ve got to prove to them that you can do this. If they send you home, you won’t be able to help anyone. Detach yourself. This can’t be personal. You are a professional. This is your job.

Slowly, the tension eased from her body, and her stomach settled. When she felt calm enough, she picked up the pictures. All three women were curled in the fetal position common after exposure to the high temperatures of a fire. Most of their hair had burned off, and the intense heat had split their skin in several places. In all three cases, their arms curled behind them, most of their bonds burned in the fire. Because they had been facedown, the underside of each body had escaped the heat. She could just make out the corner of a book beneath each woman.

She pushed the photos toward A.J. Quickly, he gathered up the pictures and shoved them inside the folder. Instead of handing her the file, he held on to it, glanced at Luke and then to her.

Doubts that hadn’t been there before lurked in his eyes and colored his expression. “Maybe this wasn’t such a great idea.”

“Amen to that,” Luke grumbled behind her.

Rachel leaned toward A.J. “If you take me off this case now, I swear I’ll stay and work it without the police department. He almost burned me alive, then he took my baby and—” Her voice broke. She glanced at Luke. The concern she’d seen in his expression before had been replaced by a pain she knew well. That of a parent who had lost a child. “And, though we never found her body, it’s been almost two years, and I know now that he killed her. I want this sick bastard.”

A.J. studied her for a long moment. Her gaze held his without wavering. He nodded and handed her the file folder. “Everything we have is in there—interviews with relatives, spouses, boyfriends, friends. If there’s anything else you need, just give a yell.”

“How about the arson investigator’s photos, the firefighters’ narrative reports?”

“They’re in there, too. I’ve designated a room in the annex out back for your office and a place for the task force to meet. The names of the two officers I’ve assigned to the task force are in the folder.”

Stiffening her spine, she clutched the folder. When she looked up, both Luke and A.J. were staring at her.

“What?”

“You okay?” A.J. asked.

Rachel knew she couldn’t wiggle out of answering him, but she refused to be treated like a porcelain doll. “Stop worrying about me, dammit.” A.J. seemed surprised at her sharp tone, but satisfied. Luke continued to study her. “I told you, I’m fine,” she said with much more confidence than she felt.

“Is anyone ever fine with crap like that?” Luke hitched a finger toward her briefcase, where she’d stowed the files.

Was he doubting her or goading her? His complexion seemed to have paled, and she wondered if they were fighting the same demons.

“No, never, but if I’m to do this job right, I need to be able to look at everything as dispassionately as possible.” Including you. She swung back to face A.J., who’d been watching them closely. “I’ll need to walk the fire scenes.”

“When you’re ready, I’ll walk them with you,” Luke said.

Another emotional mountain to climb. “No need. I can do it alone if someone will clear me to enter them.”

“I said, I’ll go with you.” Luke stared unflinchingly at her.

Rachel knew that fixed expression and his adamant tone. There would be no more discussion. She hated that he thought she needed to be babysat, but something deep down inside was glad he’d be with her. “I want to study all the notes and the photos first. I should be ready in a day or two.”

Putting off the walk-through was not going to make it any easier, but she swore she would do it before the end of the week. Now that she was here, there was no way in hell she would let Luke see her back down. More important, she had to see it through to the end. The time had come to exorcize her demons and what better way than to catch the maniac who was responsible for creating them.

“I’ll call you,” she said, deliberately leaving it open as to who she was addressing and avoiding eye contact with Luke.

It didn’t escape Luke’s notice that she conveniently forgot to ask for his phone number, nor that she quite obviously hoped he’d back down from his offer.

Luke knew that she’d envisioned herself and Maggie in those photos and not their victims, just as he had. He’d had to have been blind not to see the way they’d affected her. God knew, he was familiar enough with the sick, helpless feeling, the way it made his gut come up in his throat, the huge empty hole inside him that nothing and no one could fill.

He’d seen those photos innumerable times and still couldn’t look at them without seeing his beautiful daughter, without having to fight down the guilt eating a hole in his soul for not being home to stop any of the events that had torn his family and his life apart.

Knowing this could head into territory he faithfully avoided, he closed off that part of his mind. Turning his attention back to Rachel, he watched her closely. Though she hadn’t lost one ounce of her beauty, her shoulders didn’t seem as square as he remembered them. Her head lacked the proud angle it had always had. Her body had shed a few pounds and appeared, though he knew there was not a delicate bone in Rachel’s gorgeous body, almost fragile.

Self-disgust washed over him. Damn A.J. for bringing Rachel here and reminding her. Luke couldn’t change the past, but he could and would be there for moral support when she went through the fire scenes. And at the first sign she was breaking under the emotional strain, he’d ship her back to Georgia, kicking and screaming, if necessary.

“What about motive?” Rachel asked.