Читать книгу Up in Flames - Rita Herron - Страница 9

Rosanna Redhill’s tortured, tearstained face haunted Bradford as he drove back to the bar. The firefighters were still battling the remnants of the blaze, the arson investigator from the county surveying the scene.

He strode toward Adam Black, the captain of the department.

“How’s Kilpatrick?” Black asked.

Bradford shook his head. “Alive, but critical. Burns, a crushed leg and lung.”

Black frowned, anger darkening his eyes. “How about you?”

“Pissed.” Bradford gestured toward the ashes and embers of the bar, then around at the crowd still watching. “This one can’t be accidental.”

“I agree, that’s why I called the CSI team out here immediately. I think we’re dealing with a serial arsonist. And he just upped the stakes.”

Bradford nodded in agreement. So far, he liked Captain Black. He was fair, smart, commanded respect and knew the innerworkings of Savannah and the Coastal Island Research Park. “You’re right. And he’s going down for murder,” Bradford said, thinking about Rosanna’s friend Natalie.

“You’re done tonight. Go home, get some rest,” Black ordered.

“No, I want to help here. I have to.”

Ignoring Black’s scowl, he joined the other officers questioning the spectators, and spent the next two hours trying to get a lead on what had happened. But everyone he questioned shared the same story. They hadn’t seen anyone set the fire. Flames had suddenly shot up from behind the bar. Then near the doorway, and on the stage.

Possibly faulty lighting? He didn’t think so. Someone had set the fire; he just had to figure out who and how they’d done it.

The owner of the bar, a big guy named Benny, looked shaken and furious. “I can’t believe this damn mess. I just opened the bar this month.”

Like Hazel, the man had invested all his money into the establishment. He was insured, but the labor costs and time spent rebuilding would mean more money lost.

If Benny had intentionally set the fire for insurance purposes, why do so when the bar was filled to capacity? He would have waited until it was empty, wouldn’t have chanced injuries or deaths, which would stir more questions and bring more serious charges against him if caught.

Two hours later, Black informed him that they had everyone’s contact information and again ordered him to go home. They would meet in the morning with the CSI team, then officers would be dispersed to requestion the people who’d been in the bar.

Exhausted, the adrenaline and anger that had fueled Bradford to keep working waned as he drove toward Tybee Island.

He’d thought living near the ocean might provide a few days of relaxation in between shifts. That the sea air and warm weather might improve his mood swings and help him regain his control over a temper that had nearly cost him his job back in Atlanta. But so far he’d yet to have a day off to enjoy the beach or to go fishing.

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.

Shivering in spite of the heat, she rolled to her side facing the door, but she couldn’t bring herself to close her eyes. She didn’t want to have another nightmare, to see ghosts or Natalie’s tormented expression, or hear her voice begging for help.

She wanted to turn the clock back and talk Natalie out of going to the Pink Martini.

And she wanted to see Detective Walsh again.

God, she was crazy.

But she would see him again, she thought with another frisson of panic. He’d ask questions. Want to know what she’d been doing at the club. Where she worked.

What if he looked into her past? What if he discovered the truth?

Her hands shook as she clutched the sheet to her chin. She’d have to be prepared. Answer curtly. Keep it to the point, focus on Natalie and what she’d seen at the bar.

Which had been nothing.

She’d tell him that, then he would leave and she would never have to see him again.

Then she would be safe.

And alone again just as she had always been.

Then she could explore this gift, if she really possessed one, and learn how to control it so she would never hurt anyone else again.

Determination gave her courage, and she finally relented to the fatigue draining her and fell asleep.

But when she awakened hours later, she was dreaming about the detective who had saved her from the burning building. This time he was making love to her, and she moaned in pleasure as he caressed her body with his hands, with his hungry kisses, and drove her into oblivion with the sweet lapping of his tongue across her nipples and inner thighs.

When she stirred awake, she saw him sitting in the chair beside her bed, quietly watching her. She could still feel the intense pounding of his body inside hers, the feel of his lips on her skin, the tremors of her orgasm from her dream. His eyes darkened as if he’d read her thoughts, knew the nature of her dreams.

The realization sent a flush to her face. In the next second, that flare of coldness settled back into his eyes, and she had the sudden urge to run from his scrutiny.

If he made her feel so rattled in her sleep, how would she react if he ever really touched her? And if he could turn cold in seconds flat, what would happen if he knew the truth about her?

BRADFORD STARED into Rosanna’s sleepy gaze, his body hard from watching her sleep and hearing those tiny moans she’d elicited. When she’d first begun to sigh and claw at the covers, he’d thought she was having a nightmare about the fire. Reasonably so and expected.

Then that glass of water had tipped over, and spilled and he’d wondered what the hell had happened. She hadn’t touched it and neither had he.

She must have bumped the table when she was twisting in the bed.

When he’d looked back at her, a slow smile had curved that delicate, pouty mouth, and she’d run her hands over her breasts and thighs. He’d realized then that her dreams were more gratuitous. Sexual maybe.

And those moans…they whispered of pleasure. Satisfaction. Arousal.

Which had excited the hell out of him.

Irritated at his body’s traitorous response, he stifled a growl, shifting to hide the painful erection pressing against the fly of his jeans. Dammit. He was here to interrogate her, not drool over her body.

A very voluptuous, sexy body, he noted, thanks to that damn hospital gown coming untied and riding down her shoulder to reveal the delicious curve of one breast.

She cleared her throat, looking shaken. “Detective, how long have you been there?”

Long enough to know she was having sexy dreams. Who had been her lover?

Mentally shaking himself for wondering, he bit the inside of his cheek to keep from asking. He’d had no rest the night before. And seeing her, realizing how attracted to her he was, wasn’t helping his mood.

He had no time for his libido. Not now.

Not with her.

“A few minutes,” he said quietly, a little too gruffly for comfort. Then unable to help himself, he asked, “Were you having a nightmare?”

She jerked her gaze from his, but guilt and some other emotion he couldn’t define colored her face. Had he not been so affected by her, he would have laughed.

He knew better than to play this game.

She seemed to notice that her gown had slipped then, and retied it, then yanked the sheet up to her chin. “I did earlier,” she admitted in a somber voice.

The pain in her eyes sucker-punched him.

“I dreamed Natalie was calling me for help, but I was too late.”

He clasped his hands together to keep from reaching for her. “There was nothing you could do.”

Her soft sigh tore at him.

“If I’d only convinced her not to go to the club, she would be alive.”

“So it was her idea to go?”

She nodded. “I’m not really into the club scene, but she begged me to accompany her. I thought she’d be safer if she didn’t go alone. Has her family been notified?”

He nodded. “They’re on their way. Can you talk about what happened?”

She swallowed as if gathering courage. “We both went in, ordered drinks. Natalie met a guy and they went to dance.” She hesitated. “I watched from a corner table.”

“Anybody with you?”

She shook her head. “I turned down a couple of drunk guys then went to the bathroom. Like I told you before, the fire started while I was inside the ladies’ room.”

He twisted his mouth in thought. “Did you know the guys who asked you to dance?”

She shrugged. “No. And they certainly weren’t upset enough to get violent. I assume they moved onto the next girl.”

Something in her tone sounded self-deprecating, but he decided not to explore it. “What about Natalie? Did she have a boyfriend who might have seen her with this other man and gotten jealous?”

She shook her head again. “No boyfriend. She just moved back here a few weeks ago.”

“Where did she work?”

“She was interning at a design studio and taking classes at the Savannah College of Art & Design.”

“What about you?”

She clamped her teeth over her lower lip for a minute. “I own a shop called Mystique. We sell specialty gifts, New Age books, stories of local folklore and ghost legends, candles, voodoo kits and dolls.”

He frowned, still mesmerized by her eyes but disturbed by her answer. So she was into that New Age crap. Probably believed in the supernatural and local ghost legends.

“How did you and Natalie meet?”

She hesitated again, this time looked away as if she didn’t want to answer.

“She visited the store,” she finally said quietly.

He waited, wondering, testing to see if she’d fill the silence and volunteer more information. Instead tension vibrated between them. She didn’t fit the profile of an arsonist, and didn’t seem like the vindictive type to set a fire to hurt anyone. But it still struck him as odd that she’d been present at both scenes.

Although she’d given him no reason to think she or Natalie had been targets or that she knew the arsonist, he definitely wanted to find out more about Rosanna Redhill. What made her tick, what made her so intriguing, what made him want to hold her when they had nothing in common.

Why he wanted to ask if she had a boyfriend or any lovers when it probably had nothing to do with the case.

Why he sensed she was hiding secrets, that she wasn’t at all the innocent angel she appeared to be.