Up in Flames

As he left town, the city gave way to narrow country roads sprinkled with sea oats and small weathered shacks and cottages. He crossed the bridge and inhaled the salt air and smell of the marshland.

Though the island was only a few miles from downtown Savannah, the celebration had drawn a large crowd. Traffic was a bitch, and it took him over thirty minutes to reach the small house he’d rented. He killed the engine, climbed out and walked up the shell-lined driveway.

Wiping sweat from his brow with the back of his arm, he unlocked the door, flipped on a light and welcomed the churning sound of the air conditioner. A frozen pizza, a shower and some shut-eye before the next shift would rejuvenate him.

He only hoped the holiday didn’t bring out more crazies tonight. After all, it was a full moon. And celebrations meant boozing, which often led to trouble.

His own past proved that to be a fact. His little brother, Johnny…

A drunk. An arsonist. A murderer.

In jail now.

And he hated Bradford for it. Blamed him for everything. His screwups. His father’s death.

His arrest and sentencing.

One reason Bradford had relocated after leaving Atlanta. That and the need for a detective here in Savannah.

He’d thought he’d seen it all over his years, had worked special ops in the marines, had been assigned to a missing persons unit in Atlanta, but the bizarre cases with CIRP and Nighthawk Island topped the list of stranger-than-fiction and had piqued his interest.

Tonight’s fires had nothing to do with that, though. But they did make him wonder.

He heated up the pizza, grabbed a beer from the fridge, then took them outside on the patio to eat. The earthy smell of grass, ocean and sea oats helped to cleanse his lungs of the smoke, but the images in his mind refused to disappear.

The blazing building. The dead man on the floor with his jugular sliced. The pale face of Natalie Gorman in death. The redhead Rosanna beating the flames off of her, yet worried about her friend.

And his partner, seriously injured.

Parker…he would survive, the doctor had said. But would he ever recover? Would he walk again? Be able to go back on the street?

He closed his eyes, wondering how he would feel if he had been in Parker’s place. He lived and breathed his job. He’d be lost without it.

Yet lately he’d been filled with restless energy. With the need for something more.

Hell, he just missed having a family. A father who was alive. A mother who spoke to him. A brother who didn’t hate him.

A woman who…wanted him. At least for a night.

Rosanna’s face materialized in his mind, and his body hardened. She had felt so light and fragile in his arms, her voice raspy, but as whispery soft as an angel’s. And those eyes, they had mesmerized him and turned him inside out. When she’d touched his hand to comfort him about Parker, a hot feeling had splintered through him.

Hunger.

Even with her face and hands stained with soot, and her red hair tangled and smoky, he had thought naughty things.

Like how the soft silkiness of her hair would feel against his belly. The way her delicate hand had felt pressed against his chest, holding on to him. Clutching him. Needing him. How it would feel if she’d moved it lower.

He hadn’t wanted to leave her, not with the way she’d cried in his arms when he’d had to reveal the awful truth that her friend hadn’t survived.

He’d seen guilt in her eyes, too.

Guilt he understood. Guilt he related to. Guilt forced him to get up in the morning and keep fighting criminals.

A life that had robbed him of morality, female companionship and a future that evolved around nothing but dealing with other bastards.

Still, like the bastard he was, when he closed his eyes again and inhaled the salty air, he saw Rosanna reaching for him, stripping naked and climbing into his bed.

Begging him to take her.

But she had nearly died tonight. Was a material witness in a possible arson case. A case he had to crack.

He could not get involved with her. Not even for a quick, one-night interlude. Not even if visions of her naked taunted him for the rest of his life.

He gripped the edge of the chair as a disturbing thought struck him. Rosanna Redhill had been present at both fires tonight.

So had her friend Natalie.

He needed to question her again. One motive for arson was revenge. If she wasn’t involved in the arson, she or her friend might be connected to the man who’d started it. And she definitely might have seen the man who’d set the fires…

GHOSTS ROSE from the grave stalking toward Rosanna, their hollowed, brittle bones rattling in the wind, their bulging eyes staring at her with accusations, their screams of terror echoing through the rows of tombstones.

Natalie was there. Shocked and searching, wondering what had happened, still not ready to accept that her young life had ended so unexpectedly.

Her voice whispered for help, pleading with Rosanna to save her, to bring her back to life.

To find her killer.

Rosanna jerked awake, perspiration soaking the hospital nightgown, her breath rushing from her chest in erratic puffs. She blinked against the darkness, and a tingle of alarm rippled through her. She felt someone’s presence in the room, felt an undercurrent of a spirit’s energy charging the air. Smelled the lingering fragrance of Natalie’s jasmine perfume.

Crazy. She might have thought she’d made that firepoker move years ago, but she hadn’t. And she certainly had never communed with the dead or had visits from ghosts. She’d never even felt a spirit’s presence before.

Well, except for Granny Redhill…

Inhaling to calm herself, she detected another odor. Masculine. Sweat. Smoke.

Danger.

She jerked her head around, certain she’d find a man lurking in the room, but only shadows hovered in the corner.

The door stood slightly ajar though.

It had been closed when she’d finally succumbed to exhaustion and fallen asleep.

Perhaps the nurse had come in to check on her. Or could someone else have been in her room?

Ridiculous. She did not have a stalker, ghost or otherwise. It was just her overactive imagination.

The room smelled like smoke because she hadn’t showered since being pulled from the blaze. The masculine scent probably lingered from Detective Walsh’s visit.