out of your mind,” she said, trying to match the evenness of his tone, and almost succeeding. “I hate fire, McQueen. It’s the enemy. It’s the thing I go up against. I don’t start fires, for God’s sake—I spend most of my life running around putting them out.”
“You can’t put them all out.” A corner of his mouth lifted humorlessly. “You’d better learn that fact before it’s too late.”
“You sound like you’re talking from experience.” Her voice was ice. “You were a jakey once, too, weren’t you?”
He didn’t answer, but she took the slight flicker in his gaze for affirmation and went on, her tone edged. “Maybe you’re the one with an unresolved conflict about fire, McQueen. Except you just gave up the fight—gave it up so totally that today you were only minutes away from surrendering completely.”
She brought her face to within inches of his. “You’re the one who’s burning up,” she ground out. “What I’d like to know is who or what struck the match with you. Was it a woman? Is that how you were destroyed, Stone?”
With a slight sense of shock she saw her random arrow had found a mark. At her last words he froze.
“You got it a little wrong, honey,” he said woodenly.
Without making a move he seemed somehow to be looming over her. But his size wasn’t the most overwhelming thing about him, Tamara thought. What would strike even the most casual observer was the impression of power held just barely in check that appeared to be an integral part of him. Coupled with the aura of self-destructiveness she’d already noticed, the combination of the two seemed perilously volatile.
“The job destroyed me.” That velvet voice wrapped itself around her like an invisible snare. “But yeah, a woman struck the match, and I’ve been burning ever since. Maybe I could have done something about it once…but after all these years I think I like it.”
His smile was crooked. “You might find yourself liking it, too. Why don’t you try it and see?”
“You’re officially discharged, McQueen.” Lieutenant Boyleston was standing beside them, her expression quizzical. “Now all we have to do is find you somewhere to sleep tonight. Here, put this on before you get a candystriper all hot and bothered.”
She was holding out an orderly’s jacket to him, but as she spoke her eyes narrowed on Tamara’s set features. “I’d offer you a bed at my place, but for some reason Hank’s not real crazy about you.”
Without glancing at it, Stone took the jacket. His eyes were still locked on Tamara’s, and for one illogical moment she thought she saw the hard light in that smoky gaze replaced by a flash of regret. He looked away.
“Your husband?” Impatiently he wrestled into the jacket. “I don’t remember meeting him. Hell, Chandra, I can’t wear this thing.” Glaring at the white sleeves ending inches above his own wrists, he tried half-heartedly to pull the front edges across his chest.
“It was in a bar downtown last year. You were a little the worse for wear,” Chandra said tiredly. “The jacket’s a loaner, Stone, so don’t rip it. King, while I was at the desk—”
“Tell Hank I’m sorry.”
Boyleston’s lips tightened at the interruption. “What?”
Stone started to shrug, and stopped as a seam gave way. “Whatever I said, whatever I did—apologize for me, would you? You’re one of the few who stuck by me.” His voice dropped. “Hell, Chand, I wouldn’t want to think I’d lost your friendship, too.”
“You’ve come close a couple of times, Stone.” Boyleston held his gaze steadily. “But we go back a long way, you and me…back to before everything fell apart for you. I told Hank you were a jerk, but that deep down you were still one of the good guys.”
Her smile wavered. Sighing, she turned back to Tamara. “Like I was saying, King, your uncle Jack called. Apparently he dropped round to the stationhouse to chew the fat with some of his old buddies and some fool told him you’d been taken to the hospital. I told him it was nothing serious but that I was giving you a few days off to let that shoulder mend.”
“You’re putting me on sick leave?” Tamara shot the other woman a glance. “Come on, Lieut, it’s just a pulled muscle.”
“Until you can swing an axe or carry a hose you’re off the roster, and that’s not negotiable.” Boyleston frowned. “Count your blessings, King. Joey might never return to work. When will we get the message through to the public, dammit—smoking in bed is like drinking and driving. You just don’t do it.”
“What’s your point?” McQueen’s thumb was on the call button of the elevator. He looked impatiently over his shoulder.
“My point is that if the dead woman had exercised some common sense, her little girl would still have a mom, Stone. She was smoking in bed. The only reason her room didn’t go up in flames first was because a previous tenant had punched a hole in the drywall, and it acted as a kind of crude chimney.”
Boyleston raked a hand through her cropped hair. “That’s a preliminary assessment, of course, but I doubt the official investigation’s going to find different. The bed smoldered just enough so that the woman died from asphyxiation, but the fire itself went into the walls and the attic.”
“Nice theory.”
As the elevator doors slid open Stone planted one hand solidly against them. Lieutenant Boyleston stepped in, but Tamara paused, alerted by something in the big man’s tone.
“Nice theory but what?”
He shrugged. “Nice theory but it’s crap.”
The elevator doors started to close and he slammed them back into place. This time Tamara heard the seam in the borrowed jacket give way completely, but his next words drove everything else from her mind.
“That fire today was arson—and whoever set it was targeting your friend and her child.”
Chapter Three
“I thought you knew who the kid was! I didn’t know I was the only one she’d talked to.”
Stone swung his gaze from the woman sitting beside him in the waiting room. He was handling this all wrong and he knew it, he thought. It would have helped if Chandra had come with them but the child’s attending physician had stood firm on that, so it was just him and the woman.
And already it wasn’t working.
Tamara was sitting as stiffly as a statue, her face white, the strands of auburn hair escaping her braid like tiny flames flickering around her. He began again, aware that beyond the swinging doors was a ward full of sick children.
“Like I said, she was in the bathtub when I got to her. She already knew her mother was dead.”
And when I tried to lie about that, I just about lost her trust right then and there, he added silently, remembering the almost adult note of scorn in the childish voice.
“If Mom’s only sleeping, why isn’t she breathing?” He’d had an arm around the
