Page 76 of Too Hot

* * * *

Rafe grinned from ear to ear when he walked into the firehouse on Monday. He and Brianna had spent a wonderful weekend together. She’d enjoyed the fire cupping, and he was in awe of her for taking that challenge on. He’d been worried at first that she was doing it to make him happy. But she’d convinced him she wasn’t. Brianna was the most amazing woman he’d ever met.

Hell, he’d almost hit the floor when he thought she’d come into the club topless. Rafe didn’t consider himself possessive, but found with Brianna, he didn’t want her showing too much of her body in the club.

“Hey, Rafe,” the captain called from his office.

“Yeah, Captain.” Rafe leaned against the door frame.

“I’m going to need your expertise this morning.” The captain pointed to the chair in front of his desk.

Rafe moved into the office and sat down. “What’s going on?”

“Well, I think our little arsonist is back.”

Rafe sat back in the chair. “What happened?”

The captain explained about two suspicious fires over the weekend, and he wanted another pair of eyes. They’d had so many fires lately that something wasn’t adding up. At eight-thirty, the Captain and Rafe headed out to the first fire.

It was an old warehouse down by the water. While the Captain drove, Rafe questioned him about why he thought it was arson. The Captain gave his opinion, and once they got to the scene, they both made sure they were dressed properly before entering the warehouse.

Rafe stopped just inside the door and looked around for the point of origin. “It looks like it started in the back and moved forward.”

“That was my deduction, as well. When we got here, the building was almost fully involved.”

Rafe made his way slowly into the structure. The windows had heavy smoke deposits on them. Interesting. They shouldn’t have been that damaged. When he made it to the next part of the warehouse, he stopped.

“It started here.” The damage in this room was much worse. The windows had either cracked or been blown out, and there was a hint of something in the air. “There’s a chemical smell.” Rafe studied the floor. “And the burn pattern is wrong.”

“That’s what I thought. Shall we head over to the other one?”

“Yes. I can come back to this one with more equipment and take samples.” Rafe ran his hand over his face. He had a feeling he knew what he’d find, and it would match some of the other investigations.

The next one was an empty store front in town. By the grace of God, the fire hadn’t spread to any of the other stores. This one had the same pattern. “Damn, this isn’t looking good,” Rafe said.

“That’s why I wanted your opinion.”

“I hate to say we have a serial arsonist, but we’ve had too many fires.” Rafe shook his head.

“I agree. I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. At first, I thought maybe it was kids playing around, but now I’m not so sure.”

“Let me grab some equipment and see what else I can determine, but I’d let the higher ups know what we’ve found.”

“On it.” They walked back to the truck.

Once back at the firehouse, Rafe grabbed his arson equipment, loaded it into the small truck that belonged to the fire department, then drove back out to the first scene. He really hoped this was kids, but he had a feeling it wasn’t.

Rafe took his time at each scene, including talking with the neighbors of the empty store and near the warehouse to find out if anyone had seen or heard anything. He also stopped by the police station and picked up the preliminary police reports.

After dropping off his samples at the lab, he went back to the firehouse and set up in the conference room. He pulled all the reports of the fires over the last three months to see if he could find a pattern. It was going to be a long week.

At least he could look forward to seeing Brianna. When he worked until six, she had him come by her place, and they ate dinner together. She was a much better cook than she liked to believe. He didn’t spend the night—much as he wanted to—but it didn’t stop him from kissing or touching her.

He rubbed his forehead as he put another file on the not-arson pile. Something wasn’t adding up here, and he was determined to figure out what it was.

Chapter Fourteen

Brianna walked around her classroom on Thursday afternoon, watching the kids draw. She was so glad tomorrow was Friday. She liked her job, but she couldn’t wait to spend more time with Rafe.

---