Читать книгу Kindling The Darkness - Jane Kindred - Страница 14

Chapter 5

Lucy was gone in the morning. Oliver hoped to God she’d gotten some sleep. His sleep, on the other hand, hadn’t been good. He couldn’t get her off his mind. For an instant last night, when he’d caught her from falling, she’d looked at him with what he could have sworn was naked desire. It had shocked him. And the next instant, the look had been gone, leaving him wondering if he’d imagined it.

He worried the ring on his right hand with his thumb. Vanessa’s ring. She’d been gone for more than five years, but he still couldn’t take it off. Transferring it from the left hand to the right was the most he’d been able to do. It reminded him not only of his loss but also of his part in it. He was responsible for Vanessa’s death.

Oliver imagined what she’d say to him. You can’t take credit for the failures and ignore the successes. But the raid that day had been more than a failure. Darkrock had no business going into an unsecured nest without doing the proper reconnaissance first. And Oliver had gotten cocky, imagining that despite the disadvantage of not knowing how many vampires were holed up in the meth lab or how organized the vamps were, he had what it took to handle whatever they found. Darkrock had sent him, so Oliver had gone.

Vanessa had been his partner, in life and on his Darkrock team. Their team was first, positioned in a side alley near the den, and Oliver and Vanessa had scaled the fence into the weeds and garbage. Oliver had kicked in the back door while the other members of the team made a frontal assault. They’d expected a handful of meth addicts sharing needles and sharing each other’s depleted blood. They’d expected any vampires, at least, to be sluggish with the daytime hour. What they hadn’t expected was an ambush.

A very sophisticated operation had been overseeing the nest—a nest of donors, not vamps. They’d fed Darkrock an anonymous tip about the place, one that seemed reasonable on its face. It was a known hangout for meth heads, and meth heads were often mixed up in the trafficking of blood. Because of that symbiotic relationship between addicts and vampires, a house full of addicts often ended up breeding a house full of low-rent, weak vamps. And those that remained donors had only a short shelf life, so the siring vamps would move on once the supply dwindled.

When Oliver and Vanessa and the rest of the team had busted into the house, they’d expected to round up the victims and vamps with little resistance. Instead, they’d been set upon by very healthy, bloodthirsty vampire lords. One of them had Vanessa before Oliver even knew what had hit them, and the rest of the team was dead. The vampire lord holding Vanessa had smiled at Oliver, reading his mind, knowing what Vanessa was to him, before taking a drink.

Oliver slammed his fist down on the counter, jarring the coffee cups. He didn’t need to go down that road again. That was a dead end. In more ways than one. As he got the coffee started for the morning, his phone vibrated on the counter beside him, skittering across the slick shellac. He was on call for the Jerome Volunteer Fire Department this week, and they were calling him in.

After shutting down and locking up, he headed over to the firehouse, expecting some cat in a tree or a kitchen fire at the burger place, but a two-alarm fire was in progress at the newly built storage facility off State Route 89A on the road down the mountain toward Verde Valley. Oliver’s crew was assigned to search and rescue while the first crew fought the blaze. The storage units were brick and metal, but the summer had been dry, and maintenance hadn’t been kept up to clear weeds and brush from around the facilities. And some clever asshole had thought treated wood-shingle roofing would be a good idea for a storage facility on a mountainside. In a town that had burned down more than once.

Since most of the units were locked up, scanning for occupants was simple enough, but after calling in the all clear on his section, Oliver caught movement out of the corner of his eye. He thought at first that he’d seen a coyote or a stray dog, but it had withdrawn into the shadows among the trash bins at the back of the rear units where the yard ended in a high cement fence. An animal might have been skittish around humans, but animals weren’t generally good at hiding—particularly when they were trapped near fire.

“Hey,” he called. “Anybody back there?”

Silence answered, but there was movement behind the bins.

Oliver moved closer cautiously. If it was a trapped animal, it could be dangerous. And if it was a person, it could be an arsonist. Why else would someone hide nearby during a blaze? He switched on the flashlight on his shoulder strap as he stepped around the industrial bin, illuminating the dark corner. Huddled beside the bin, a wide-eyed, sandy-haired youth stared up into the beam of his light, frozen in terror.

Instinctively, Oliver knew the boy was “family.” It was the term he used in his head for Jerome’s not-quite-human residents. And just as instinctively, he knew better than to call this in. No one helpful was looking for this boy.

He made sure his radio was off before crouching down to the boy’s level. “Hey.” He kept his voice neutral, his body relaxed. “I’m Oliver. You need some help?”

The kid’s eyes widened a bit farther, as if he hadn’t expected kindness. He shook his head, lowering his eyes under Oliver’s continued scrutiny.

“You hungry?”

The dark eyes darted up once more, the answer obvious in them, though the boy didn’t speak.

Oliver took a protein bar from his pocket and offered it to him. After glancing past Oliver as if to see if this was some kind of trick, he snatched the bar from Oliver’s hand and tore it open, gobbling it down in two bites. As the boy looked up hopefully for more, Oliver took inventory of the dirty T-shirt, torn jeans and bare feet. The kid had been living on the street—or in the wild—for a while.

The boy jumped and scrambled back at the sound of Oliver’s radio crackling with an announcement from the team leader that the fire was contained.

“It’s okay,” Oliver assured him. “Everybody’s going to be leaving soon. I won’t tell anyone you’re here.”

Looking only slightly less mistrusting, the kid nodded.

“So you can understand my language, yeah?”

Another nod.

“Can you speak it?”

No answer.

“Okay, forget about that for now. Do you have a name?”

The kid blinked at him, understanding but clearly having no words. Whether it was because he didn’t have a name or simply couldn’t speak at all, Oliver wasn’t sure.

“Can I give you one? Just to make it easier for me to talk to you.” When the boy didn’t shake his head, Oliver pondered it for a moment. “How about Colt?” He reminded Oliver of one, skittish and wild.

The boy considered it and seemed to recognize its meaning, as a shy smile spread slowly across his face, and he nodded.

“Okay, Colt. I have to go right now, but I’m going to come back in a little bit. Will you stay here and wait for me? I can bring you some proper food and some water, give you someplace warm to sleep—but I’m not going to take you anywhere, don’t worry,” he added as Colt looked alarmed at the last bit. “I’m not going to bring anyone, either.”

Colt’s demeanor relaxed to his previous level of vigilance, and he hugged his knees, resting his chin on them with a slight, wary nod.

Oliver’s radio went off again, his partner wanting to know where he was.

He straightened and responded before nodding to Colt once more. “Be back in a bit.”

As he arrived at the front of the lot, a little zing of dismayingly pleasant recognition went through him at the sight of Lucy Smok conversing with one of the other firefighters. When she turned her head as if feeling his gaze on her, he smiled. And then felt like an idiot. What the hell was he smiling about? They weren’t friends. He tried to look nonchalant and let the smile fade naturally. Lucy’s expression made it pretty clear that he’d only succeeding in pulling off “idiot.”

She took in his uniform as he came closer and managed a perfect Spock eyebrow lift. “So now you’re a firefighter, too?” The words sounded like an accusation, like she thought he was messing with her.

“It’s a volunteer fire department, and I’m a volunteer. So, yeah, I guess. I mean, yeah.” Jesus. Why was he on the defensive all of a sudden? Something weird had happened last night. With that one little look from her as he’d kept her from falling, he’d lost his own mental footing with her.

The eyebrow was still halfway up. “Okay.” She seemed to be waiting for him to say something else.

Oliver cleared his throat. “What brings you here?” Jesus.

“The fire. I got a tip that someone had seen a wild dog out here right after the fire broke out. I thought I’d check and see if our...” She paused and glanced at the crew packing up around them. “If there was any connection to the case. Did you see it?”

Oliver had been watching her lips move, the dark lipstick she favored mesmerizing, and he’d forgotten to listen to the words she was saying. “Sorry, see what?”

Lucy gave him that inscrutable look once more. “The wild dog.”

He shook his head, and even as he said no, a certainty struck him in the gut. Of course he had. Colt.

“Well, it sounds like it wasn’t big enough to have been...the animal in the other reports, but your chief says this fire looks suspicious. Definitely arson, but I’m getting another vibe. Like the origins don’t make sense. No incendiary devices, no clear starting point, just combustion out of nowhere. Which is right up my alley. With Smok Consulting, I mean.”

“Smoke.” He was just blurting out dumb-ass shit now. So they sounded the same. Smoke/Smok. This wasn’t news.

Lucy squinted at him. “Right.”

“Well, I’ve gotta run. I’ll see if I can get any more details about the cause.” Halfway to the truck, he paused and glanced back. “How are those stitches? You look rested.”

“I... It’s fine. Yeah, I did. Get some rest.” Now Lucy was stumbling over her words, too.

He tried not to smile. “Okay, I’ll check in with you later?”

She nodded, and Oliver climbed onto the truck, avoiding looking at her as they pulled out of the lot, because looking at her made him feel warm. God, he was completely regressing to an adolescent state.

He shook himself mentally, remembering that Colt was waiting for him.

* * *

He gave it an hour before heading back in his regular clothes, a few boxes and a small rolled-up carpet loaded into the back of his pickup. The storage facility attendant didn’t bat an eye. They hadn’t had any direct interaction when he was here in uniform, so Oliver hadn’t expected him to, but he still felt guilty, like he was doing something illicit. Which, of course, he was. But not because of the fire. At least, he hoped it wasn’t because of the fire.

He asked for a unit in back, saying he didn’t want his stuff to smell like smoke, and the attendant accommodated him without question. The unit was just two down from the trash bins where he hoped Colt was still waiting.

After unrolling the carpet on the floor of the unit and moving his boxes into it, Oliver unpacked the inflatable mattress and pump and set it up before heading to the trash bins. At first glance, he thought Colt had taken off, but the boy scrambled out from between the bins and the wall after evidently seeing that it was Oliver. It had probably taken Colt a moment to recognize him out of uniform.

“Hey, Colt. So I brought you some stuff, and I’ve put it in that storage unit over there, see?” He walked back to the opening between the rows and pointed, waiting until Colt moved forward cautiously to see where he was pointing. Oliver held out the key. “You can use it if you want. It’s not meant for living in, but you can stay here overnight if you promise to stay out of sight if anyone comes around. Can you do that?”

Colt stared at the key and eyed the open door again warily.

“Come on. I’ll show you what I brought.” Oliver walked back to the unit, and in a moment, Colt followed, skittish and scuttling, moving in short bursts. He had definitely learned to stay out of sight in however long he’d been on his own.

Inside the unit, Colt gaped at the bed and blankets, but was even more impressed by the cooler of food and cold water Oliver directed his attention to.

“There’s more water in here.” Oliver showed him the box. “And some hand wipes. And there’s a lantern that works on batteries. There’s also some stuff to read if you want it. I don’t know if you read.”

Colt was already busy tearing into the sandwiches and fruit in the cooler. In a few minutes, he’d settled on the little bed, eating his lunch and looking with curious interest at one of the comic books Oliver had taken out of the box. It looked like the makeshift hideout was a hit. Now he just had to figure out a longer-term plan. And determine exactly what Colt was—and whether, as Oliver suspected, he was the cause of the morning’s fire.