Up in Flames

A chant her granny used to say echoed in her head. She whispered it into the darkness.

Suddenly the poker flew off the hearth and slammed into her father’s head. He bellowed and fell to his knees, blood dripping down his forehead.

“You’re a devil just like your granny,” he said. “I told your mama that. That’s why she run off. She was scared of you.” He staggered toward her. “Now, you’re gonna be sorry.”

He dug his fingernails into her skin, but a loud roar split the air. Then the deer head dropped from the wall and slammed against his skull.

A loud cracking, like the sound of thunder, followed, and she saw the bookcase falling. She screamed and jerked free just as it crashed down on top of her daddy’s legs. He bellowed like a wild animal. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he passed out.

She gulped back tears, saw the firepoker with blood on it and knew that she had caused it to move. Shaking all over, she laid her hand on the deer head. It was staring back at her, but it wasn’t crying anymore.

It was smiling.

Chapter One

Twenty-four years later, July 4—Savannah, Georgia

Detective Bradford Walsh was starving. Starved for food.

Starved for a woman.

Starved for a reprieve from the sweltering heat in Savannah, and a break from the recent crime wave terrorizing the citizens.

But as he watched the blazing fire engulfing Cozy’s Café on River Street, the possibility of satisfying any of those hungers that night quickly went up in smoke just like the building had minutes ago.

Dammit. How long had it been since he’d had a good meal? A decent night’s sleep?

A night of hot sex?

A Fourth of July without trouble?

His partner, Parker Kilpatrick, joined him, soot darkening his jeans and shirt, sweat beading on his forehead. He and Parker had arrived first on the scene and had rushed in to make sure everyone escaped the blaze unharmed. In fact, his captain, Adam Black, knew about Bradford’s history and had handpicked him to spearhead investigations into the recent arson crimes in the city.

Bradford was determined to prove that a screwup with his brother hadn’t cost him his job.

Which was the only thing he had left since his family relationships disintegrated with his brother’s arrest.

Dragging his mind back to the current situation, he assessed the scene. A half-dozen patrons milled around the edge of the sidewalk watching the building deconstruct. Thick plumes of gray smoke curled toward the sky, the orange, red and yellow flames shooting into the darkness. The owner, a pudgy Southern woman named Hazel, flapped her hands around, waving smoke away in between bouts of crying in her coffee-stained apron.

Bradford walked over to her and patted her shoulder. “I’m sorry about your business, ma’am. But at least everyone escaped safely, and you can rebuild.”

“We worked so hard to get this place going, to have a clean business. Then my husband died,” she said between sobs. “I don’t think I can start over by myself.”

Compassion for the woman bled through Bradford. “How did the fire get started, ma’am? Was it in the kitchen?”

“No,” she cried. “I was in the back, making my peach pies, when I heard someone shout that smoke was coming from the bathroom.”

“All right, we’ll check it out.” He turned to his partner.

“This is the third fire in three weeks in the Savannah area,” Parker said.

Bradford nodded. “Any signs of an accelerant?”

“No, but the fire chief just arrived. I’ll make sure he checks for arson.”

“Tell him to start in the men’s room. Someone may have lit a match or dropped a cigarette in the trash.” And paper towels would go up in seconds.

“It is a holiday,” Parker said. “Maybe some kids starting their fireworks a little early.”

Bradford once again scanned the crowd. “Yeah, and the night is still young.”

Parker strode toward the fire chief, and Bradford mentally ticked over the facts they had so far on all three fires. The first one was set at a cottage on Tybee Island not far from the one he was renting, and appeared to be accidental, a fluke with old wiring. The second, an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town had aroused questions, but there had been no evidence of accelerant present. The firemen had speculated that a homeless person staying inside might have dropped a cigarette butt, and with old paint thinner stored inside, the building had caught fire.

This one—smoke in the bathroom, not the kitchen—could have been accidental, but on the heels of the others, it definitely struck a chord of suspicion.

Could there be a connection?

He scanned the spectators who’d gathered to gawk. An elderly couple walking their Yorkie had stopped to console a young mother. Three teenage girls wearing short shorts huddled next to a couple of gangly boys taking pictures with their cell phones. A teenage prank? No, they looked curious, but not like arsonists or vandals.

Two men in suits stood chatting quietly. A gaggle of tourists with cameras and souvenirs from the gift shops on River Street hovered around, enraptured by the blaze, but no one stuck out as suspicious looking.

The hairs on the back of his neck prickled. An older black woman in voodoo priestess garb watched, her colorful clothing highlighted by the firelight. Beside her stood a nondescript blond man in his early twenties.

A movement to the left caught Bradford’s attention, and he spotted a woman with flaming-red curly hair. She was slender, wore a long, flowing skirt, peasant blouse and beads around her neck. A short brunette leaned near her and said something, but they were out of earshot.

Although the redhead looked like some kind of throwback to the seventies, his gaze met hers, and something hot and instant flared inside him. She was so natural, so earthy and untamed-looking, that his baser primal side reacted immediately. Her eyes were the palest green he’d ever seen, and looked almost translucent. For a moment, he felt as if she’d cast some kind of spell on him.

Then she darted away, through the maze of onlookers as if she’d sensed the connection and couldn’t get away from him fast enough.

He started to follow her. But heat scalded his neck, wood crackled and the sound of walls crashing shattered the hushed silence. The owner of the café cried out, other onlookers shrieked and he halted. He couldn’t go chasing some woman during an investigation, not unless he thought she was a suspect. And he had no reason to think that.

After all, ninety percent of firestarters were men, not women. Bradford had studied the profiles. A large percentage were out to collect insurance money or exact revenge. But there was another percent that had a fixation. To them fire was a living, breathing monster. The obsessive compulsion to watch something burn escalated with each fire set.

He knew because his little brother had been one of them.

Shaking off the troubling memories of his past, he squared his shoulders. If an arsonist was playing havoc in Savannah, Bradford damn well wouldn’t rest until he found the son of a bitch and put him behind bars.

FINGERS OF TENSION crawled along Rosanna Redhill’s nerve endings as she passed the graveyard with its tombs and granite markers standing at attention, honoring those who’d passed to the other side. Death surrounded her, as did the stories of witches, voodoo and sin in the city.

Smoke painted the sky in a hazy gray, floating across the tops of the graves like ghosts whispering to the heavens. The pungent smell of the blazing building followed her, chasing away the lingering scent of the therapeutic herbs and candles in her gift shop, Mystique.

At least no one had died in the fire.

Still, the blaze left her with the oddest feeling that something supernatural was happening in Savannah. That something dangerous and evil was lurking nearby. That someone in the crowd was not quite normal.

Like her.

But it was that cop who had her rattled so badly that she was trembling as she rushed toward the apartment she’d rented in one of the Victorian row houses. Her friend Natalie, a girl she’d met at the Coastal Island Research Park, CIRP, three months ago, hurried along beside her.