Excerpt: Burning Love

Chapter One

“Body found in blaze at one-sixteen Sorrel Lane.”

The dispatcher’s voice crackled across Terra August’s car radio. As the sole Fire Investigator for Presley, Oklahoma, she was already on her way to the two-alarm fire in the established Hunter’s Ridge addition, jarred out of a deep sleep minutes ago by her pager.

Her mentor, Harris Vaughn, lived on Sorrel Lane, but she didn’t know the house number. Their frequent meetings had never taken place at his home. Please, don’t let it be Harris’s house.

After flashing her badge for the uniformed officer stationed at the neighborhood’s entrance, she maneuvered her Explorer down a neatly-kept residential street. The older brick homes were bathed in a mix of moonlight and shadow. Red and blue lights strobed from a police cruiser at either end of the block. Fire trucks, engines, police cars and two vans bearing the name and logo of the nearby Oklahoma City television stations crowded both sides of the street. The frantic swirl of lights spiked her blood pressure. Less than five hours ago, she and Harris had enjoyed a Sunday night dinner and put their heads together about a case that had her stumped.

Fighting to calm a sudden flicker of panic, Terra squeezed her SUV to the curb just behind an ambulance. The paramedic raised a hand in greeting and shut the door. Terra glimpsed the empty guerney inside. No survivors.

Her heartbeat stuttered, but she uncurled her death grip from the steering wheel and stepped out. The blaze was out, but gray smoke streaked across the midnight-black sky. Water from the firemen’s hoses ran down the streets, gurgled into grates and glistened on trees, yards, nearby cars. Smoke still hung heavy in the air. Police and fire radios crackled into the night. Yellow crime scene tape squared off the house and yard. Officers stood guard at each of the four corners and probably in the back yard where Terra couldn’t see.

In a neighbor’s yard, a fire fighter stood videoing the scene. Terra would get the tape from him later.

Urgency had her slamming her door and looking around for the police officer who held the scene log to check people in and out of the scene.

The familiar sharp odor of burning wood and engine fumes wrapped around her like the wet midnight. This fire was different. It had taken more than a home, more than memories. It had taken a life. And she had to know whose.

She opened the back door of her Explorer and grabbed her boots. Stumbling out of a dead sleep when her pager buzzed, she had automatically pulled on jeans and a heavy flannel shirt with sleeves she could roll up. She’d sleeked her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail. Hoping like crazy that the victim’s identity would be someone other than the mentor whose company she’d enjoyed earlier in the evening, Terra toed off her tennis shoes and tugged on her rubber, steel-soled boots.

She grabbed her hard hat and slid it on. Her thick, well-worn gloves were in her pockets. She slung her camera around her neck, picked up her shovel and a tackle box containing her hand tools.

Her gaze swept the knots of people moving around the scene. At the sidewalk which led to the front door, Terra spotted a cop holding a clipboard. She started towards him, dodging the hood of a police car, stepping over a hydrant hose.

She flashed her badge at the thirty-something officer who stood eye-to-eye with her five foot nine frame. “Terra August, Fire Investigator.”

He nodded and held the log out for her to sign her name and record the time.

Her gaze going to the brass nametag he wore, she swallowed around the painful knot in her throat. “Officer Lowe, do we know the victim’s name?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He skimmed a finger up to the top of the page. “Officer Farrell spoke to a neighbor who said a man named Harris Vaughn lived here and the neighbor saw him come home around nine-thirty.”

No! A sharp pain pierced her chest and Terra struggled to absorb the shock, try to keep her wits about her.

What had happened? Electrical fire? Arson? Her knees wobbled, but she moved forward, partly out of reflex, partly out of denial. No, it wasn’t Harris. It couldn’t be.

Wait for facts. Harris’s instruction played through her mind and she hung on to it with single-minded focus as she sidestepped the labyrinth of hose on the sidewalk. Sooty water splashed over the toes of her thick rubber boots. The cops knew only that this was Harris’s house. No one had identified him, only a male victim.

Out of habit, she reached for the camera around her neck, but rather than stop for her first set of pictures, she moved inside.

The smell of wet ash settled over her like a cloud of fog. She absently registered moving across slick tile then soggy carpet, down a long hallway to her left. The wall’s creamy paint was hidden beneath streaks of soot and ash. Wood and glass littered the floor. A clump of men and women stood in the doorway at the end of a hall and Terra knew the body was there. The bedroom door had been blown from its hinges. Was this room the point-of-origin?

She’d need to check every room for that, ask if anyone had discovered any sign of forced entry, anything that might indicate arson, but all she cared about right now was seeing the victim and making sure it wasn’t Harris.

The bedroom was now a skeleton of burned rafters and support beams, studs peering out from gouged and blackened Sheetrock. She automatically noted those details as her gaze went immediately to the body lying on the bed.

She drew in a deep breath and moved closer. The face was too severely swollen to be recognizable, but her gaze snagged on the victim’s cowboy boots. Water-gray, Australian sharkskin.

No! Her vision grayed. Dizzy and nauseous, she turned and stumbled blindly toward the door. Harris. Those boots had cost a pretty penny. Terra and the other Presley fire fighters had pooled their money to buy Harris the pair for his retirement along with an Alaskan fishing trip. The M.E. would have to use dental records for a positive identification of the body, but for Terra the boots were a macabre dog tag.

Trying to breathe without keeling over, she reached for the nearest wall, grabbed only air and pitched forward.

An arm, solid and thick, caught her at the waist. “Easy there.”

The deep masculine voice commanded rather than soothed. Reflexively she clutched at the arm bracing her waist, her stomach rolling. For an instant, she let herself lean into the steel-hard strength, tried to absorb the pain slashing through her. Her entire body throbbed with it. In another few seconds, her vision cleared and she registered dark brown hair, hard blue eyes and a mouth that meant all business.

Cop. She saw the gold badge clipped to the waistband of his faded jeans at the same time she realized he still held her. She felt steadier and managed a thank you.

He frowned, his lips flattening. “This your first body at a fire scene? Something like this isn’t for a rookie.”

Irritation flickered through the smothering pain. She mumbled thanks only out of politeness and pushed her way out into the hall.

“Cut her a break, man,” Terra heard someone say to the cop. “The victim’s a friend of hers.”

She ducked into an empty bathroom, boots squishing through ashy water and crunching over glass, splintered wood. Wet smoke and the rotten smell of death weakened her knees as she dragged in deep breaths of cold, rancid air. The bloated unrecognizable mass of Harris’s face floated through her mind. She closed her eyes, leaned her forehead against the wall and focused on breathing.

Tugging off one of her gloves, she pushed back her helmet and wiped at the cold sweat on her forehead, her nape. Tears burned her throat and she thumbed off the strays falling down her cheeks. The cop’s disapproval of her pricked, but it didn’t matter. What mattered was what had happened to Harris and she meant to find out.

Despite how difficult this case was, fire investigation was her job, what Harris had trained her to do. What she would do. For him.

After another minute, she pulled on her glove, adjusted her helmet more comfortably and returned to the bedroom. She fought down another swell of emotion. Her mind still couldn’t accept what her eyes had seen. For a moment, she made herself stare at the body. There was nothing of the shy grin, the trimmed beard shot with gray, the kind brown eyes. All traces of the man she knew–loved–were gone. Except for the boots. Bit by bit, she let in the pain until she felt she could control it. When she began to tremble, she bit her lip and looked away.

Her initial guess was the bedroom as the point-of-origin, but she would make no conclusions until she finished her investigation. Urging herself to get started, Terra turned. The cop who’d kept her from planting her face in the floor watched her coolly from a few feet away.

Rubbing her temple where a headache had started, she walked to the far side of the bed. Bedroom fires were typically caused by three things: frayed lamp circuits, electric blankets or smokers. Harris had never smoked so she dismissed the possibility that he could’ve started the fire that way. Though fires due to frayed lamp circuits and electric blankets were rare, Terra checked anyway. There was no electric blanket on this bed. At the bedside table, she noticed a blackened brass lamp and knelt to check the electrical cord. No frayed lamp circuit here.

“You the fire investigator?”

She remembered the rough velvet voice. Standing up, she had to tilt her head a bit to look him in the eye, something she didn’t have to do with very many men. “Yes.”

“Detective Jack Spencer, Homicide. I’ll be the primary on this case.”

In the harsh flood of the portable fluorescent lights the firemen had set up for her, Terra noted fine lines fanning out from Detective Spencer’s eyes. Very blue eyes. Hard blue eyes.

He stuck out his hand.

She shook it and released it quickly. “Terra August.”

“I apologize for my comment earlier. I didn’t know he was a friend of yours.”

She tamped down the slash of pain. Presley was still small enough that all police, including the detectives, worked solo rather than with a partner. Except in fire death cases like this. Procedure between Presley’s police and fire departments stated that when P.F.D. found a dead body in a fire, they worked to contain the blaze, then stopped and called Homicide. “I guess we’ll be working together.”

“Yes. Looks like murder.”

Struggling to keep a rein on the emotions swirling inside her, she pressed her lips together and nodded. “The bound hands and feet of the victim also indicate the fire as a probable arson. But why?”

“That’s what I intend to find out,” Spencer said. “Do you have any ideas?”

“No. I’ll concentrate first on confirming or eliminating arson. Then we’ll have a solid starting place.” She’d have to work with the detective until one of them proved the death was an accident, suicide or murder. If Harris’s death was an accident, Terra would turn over her part of the investigation to the insurance company. Otherwise, she and Jack Spencer were in this together. She could interview and interrogate, but she couldn’t arrest or serve warrants. Spencer could.

His gaze lasered into her. “Since the victim was a friend of yours, I’ll need to interview you before I leave here.”

The victim had a name. Terra bit off the sharp words, resisting the urge to rub the place where he’d touched her. The cop was doing what she should be doing — putting his emotions aside so he could do his job.

His features were just as exacting as his eyes. The stubborn chin, rough-hewn cheekbones and shadow of whiskers did nothing to soften a jaw that looked as if it could take a few blows.

“I’ll also be conducting an investigation,” she said.

“I’ll notify the family, talk to the fireman who found the body.” He scribbled in the small notebook he held. “That should give you time to do some things you need to do, then you and I can talk.”

“Harris had only an ex-wife.” Thinking about Cecily Vaughn unsettled Terra’s stomach again. “His parents passed on some years ago.”

“Thanks. That confirms what I learned from his neighbor.” Jack Spencer tucked his notebook into the inside pocket of his light-weight tweed blazer. “Anything else you can tell me? Had he made anyone mad recently?”

She frowned. “He’s retired.”

Broad shoulders lifted in a shrug.

She shook her head. “I had dinner with him tonight. He was fine.”

Spencer’s gaze sharpened. “We can talk more about that when I see you again.”

“All right.” She started to turn toward the charred wall.

“Should you be working this case? He was your friend, after all.”

Having her doubts voiced only served to tighten her jaw. “I am working it.”

“Look, I apologize for what I said when I first walked in, but seeing him obviously affected you. I don’t want anything to jeopardize this case.”

“Neither do I. And nothing will. What happened earlier was shock. I’m not used to seeing my friends burned to a crisp,” she said sharply.

“I know you’re the only Fire Investigator we have, but maybe someone else could help you out, give you some space.”

“What I need to do is my job, and I will. Maybe you could do yours.”

His lips flattened. “I’ll be by to talk to you once I finish my preliminary interviews.”

“You know where to find me.” She wondered if his blue eyes were that hard all the time, then she pushed the thoughts away and focused her attention on piecing together what had happened to her mentor.

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