Katie stood still and stared at the building—or what was left of it. A bomb could have gone off—and actually might have, if the RDX was any indicator—and left the same type of damage she now faced.
She fought the flashes of memory, the smell of burned flesh, and resisted the urge to gag. Instead, she cleared her throat and concentrated on the workers next door. Each person had a job to do to make the land fit to build on. The backhoe operator pulled the stumps from the ground, following the directions of the guy to his side. Others raked and shoveled the dirt aside. The dump truck driver waited patiently to haul off the excess. Each person knew his job. And when the job was done, each one went home and probably didn’t take the job home with him. Or her. Even as she stood there watching, workers were picking up lunch coolers and waving goodbye. The sun continued to sink and Quinn and Daniel talked as though she weren’t there. Right now, she was fine with that.
It had been three years and she still had issues at the thought of going into the charred area. From a CFI, Certified Fire Investigator, with ATF to Certified Explosive Specialist to bodyguard. She’d done a lot in the last ten years. Each job had had a purpose and she’d had her reasons for moving on. Good reasons. “I promised myself I wouldn’t go back,” she murmured.
“You mentioned that before,” Daniel said. “You want to explain?”
She took a deep breath. “It doesn’t matter. Maybe Quinn’s right. Maybe instead of avoiding it, I should face it. Maybe once I face it, it’ll go away.” She shook her head. “Guess we’ll find out.” She glanced at the setting sun. “And if we’re going to do it today, we’d better get busy.”
He frowned at her but didn’t ask her to elaborate. She walked around to the back of her Jeep and motioned for Quinn to join her. He did. She reached in and pulled out two bags. “Suit up.”
He blinked. “Huh?”
“Well, the first rule of fire investigation is, you don’t go in alone. You blackmailed me into being here, so you get to participate in the fun. There’s a communication system built into the suit. When you pull on the headgear, it’ll be activated. Just start talking.”
Quinn reached for the bag.
“No. I want to.” Daniel took the bag from Quinn before the man could form a response, set it on the ground, and unzipped it. “We’re about the same size so I shouldn’t have any trouble fitting into the suit.”
To Katie’s surprise, Quinn didn’t protest, and within minutes she and Daniel were ready to enter the area. At that point, the shakes wanted to set in. She refused to let them. Stay in control, you can do this.
Standing on the sidelines watching a fire, she was fine. Disarming bombs didn’t faze her. Going head-to-head with a killer didn’t make her blink. But going into a scene as an investigator was something that made her want to freeze.
She drew in a slow, deep breath. She could do this. She’d done it before. Just not since the incident three years ago. Why had she chosen now to say yes to going in? She could have refused, she should have refused. Brushed Quinn off and told him to mind his own business. But she hadn’t. Because she really wanted to conquer this thing that controlled a part of her life. She hated it, the fear.
She shoved the thoughts aside and looked at Daniel. “Ready?” she asked.
“Ready.” His voice sounded clear in her ears.
“Let’s see if we can find that box for Riley then.”
Together they ducked under the tape and approached the building. With each step, her heart pounded harder, her breath came faster. Sweat popped out on her forehead and rolled down her temples.
“Help meeeee.”
Katie gasped. Stopped. Looked around. Shook her head. No, not here.
“Are you all right?”
She looked into Daniel’s eyes. Concern clouded them and she gulped. Nodded. “Fine. I’m fine.”
She made it to the front door and even inside what used to be the lobby area of the restaurant. The mess the fire had left behind came to her in stark detail.
“Help me! Get out, Katie! Run! Help meeee!” The voice echoed in her ears again.
She spun, looking for the source. “I can’t, I’m sorry!” The words slipped from her without her even realizing her lips had formed them.
“What?” Daniel gripped her upper arm. “Hey, are you okay?”
“I can’t help you! You’re dead!” She jerked away from him and placed her hands over the head covering where her ears were. She met Daniel’s startled gaze, saw the sudden knowing that glimmered there. She spun and raced out of the building.
“Katie, wait!”
She ignored him and bypassed Quinn, who was saying something.
“Help me, help me, help me . . .”
She ripped the mask off and flung it, reached the edge of the property, and lost what little food she’d eaten that day.
She panted, reached into her pocket, and pulled out the tissues and breath mints she always kept on hand. Humiliated, she felt tears burn in her eyes. Why couldn’t she do it? She felt a hand on her shoulder and didn’t know which man it was. “Go away,” she whispered. “Just . . . go away for a minute.”
“Mine is the children,” Daniel said. “I hear the children screaming. Crying. They come toward me carrying their body parts. Sometimes it’s arms, sometimes it’s organs. A beating heart or . . . whatever. One little boy is holding his head. And the head talks to me. They all talk to me. And they’re begging me to put them back together so they can be whole and grow up happy.” He cleared his throat. “And I throw up too,” he whispered. “Every stinking time.”
Katie bit back a sob and felt his arm go around her shoulders. It was bulky and awkward in the suit, but she leaned into him. Allowed herself to take comfort from him. He knew. He understood. “But you didn’t flinch when the gunfire went off yesterday. Does it still come at you? The PTSD?”
“Sometimes. In my nightmares mostly. Fortunately, when I got out, I played it smart and didn’t deny what I was going through. I knew the symptoms and recognized them in myself. I got help as soon as I got back and got out. When Riley’s parents were killed, I knew she needed me and she needed me to be whole. I couldn’t be waking up in the middle of the night screaming and I sure didn’t want to have to be worried I’d accidentally hurt her. I still can get jittery or anxious, but I haven’t had a nightmare in over a year.” He gave her a quick squeeze. “It comes and goes, but I’ve learned coping strategies.”
“Like when the sniper was shooting.”
“Once I realized the bullet got my computer instead of me and I was alive, I started using one of those coping strategies. For some reason as long as I chant ‘It’s not real’ over and over in my head, it works.”
“But it was real. Those were real bullets.”
He nodded. “Still worked, though.”
“Good, I’m glad.” She paused for a moment to swipe a stray tear.
“What did you mean when you said Quinn blackmailed you to come out here?” he asked.
She pulled back. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Tell me.”
She hesitated. “He just said that it was my duty as your bodyguard to come to the site with you. That if anything happened, it would be on my shoulders and Riley would never forgive me.”
Daniel stiffened. “That jerk.”
The ice in his voice surprised her. He started to spin, but she caught his arm. “Now, now, don’t do anything rash,” she said. “While I appreciate the sentiment, I know Quinn. He thinks he’s helping in his own pushy way. He was just really wrong this time.”
Daniel hugged her against him even tighter this time. “Pushy nothing. That’s pure bullying. I’ll hurt him if you want me to,” he whispered against her ear.
A watery chuckle actually escaped her lips. “No. If he needs hurting, I can do it.”
“Oh. Right. Of course.”
The brief moment of humor helped restore her equilibrium a bit. She looked up to find Quinn walking toward them. She turned her back on him for the moment. “But I’d be open to letting you help me.”
“With pleasure.” The flashing eyes and tone of his voice said he was serious.
“I’m sorry,” Quinn said from behind them. “I thought . . .” He sighed. “I thought by asking—pushing—you to come out here, I was helping. I guess I was wrong.”
Katie sniffed and swiped her eyes. She pulled away from the only comfort she’d allowed herself in three years and turned to face Quinn. His eyes shimmered with remorse and she could see he was kicking himself for pushing her. In fact, she didn’t think she’d ever seen him look so unsure and hesitant. His right hand flipped his cell phone over and over.
“Yes, you were wrong.” She glared at him, then let her gaze drop to his hand with the phone. “And are you actually fidgeting?” she asked.
Quinn scowled and clipped his phone to his belt. “Absolutely not.”
“Good.” She couldn’t stand to see Quinn so discombobulated. It was unnerving. Calling him out had reset him. So to speak. She sighed. “And it’s okay. I wanted to do this.” She shook her head. “The other night when I was able to stand here while the building was burning, I thought, ‘Maybe I could do the investigation. Maybe I’m getting better.’ And now this.” A tremor shuddered through her. “It’s disappointing. Frustrating. Maddening. Humiliating.”
“It’s normal,” Daniel grunted.
“Not for me, it’s not,” she snapped. Then grimaced at her tone. “Sorry.”
Daniel shook his head. “No apology necessary. You’re stressed and you probably feel like you have ants crawling all over your brain right now.”
At her stunned look, he gave her a soft smile. “I know PTSD when I see it.”
She knew he did. And somehow that made what happened a little easier to deal with. “I’m still embarrassed.”
“Don’t be,” Quinn said. “No reason to be.”
She looked back at the building. A burned, charred shell of the magnificent piece of architecture it used to be. Disappointment and frustration were accurate descriptors, but at the same time they weren’t strong enough. She was also heartbroken.
“One day at a time,” Daniel said.
“It’s been too many days. I’m ready for it to stop.”
“Yeah. I know what you mean.”
Quinn rubbed his chin. “Don’t sweat it, Katie. You’re good at what you do. You don’t have to get back to arson.”
“Exactly,” Daniel said. If his glare had been a laser, Quinn would have been eviscerated. “And people shouldn’t push her to do so.”
Quinn opened his mouth to respond, then snapped it shut. He gave a short nod. “You’re right.”
Katie squeezed Daniel’s tense arm. “I hate that I’m letting the past win, that it has this much control over me.”
“We all have something,” Daniel said.
Quinn took his phone back out of its clip and glanced at it. “Let’s get out of the cold and take a look at this video footage from the security camera at the Elmwood location. I want to see if you recognize anyone.”
“Wait a minute, we have to look for Riley’s box,” Katie said.
Daniel shook his head. “Not today. Come on.”
They piled into Quinn’s unmarked car with Daniel volunteering for the backseat. Quinn pulled the video footage up on his laptop, then turned it so they could all see the screen. “This is from your camera. We’ve analyzed it and it shows a person dressed in black with a hoodie covering his head.” The person came on-screen and kept his head low. “He’s opening the basement door.”
“Wait a minute,” Daniel said. He leaned forward. “He used a key.”
“Yeah. We noticed that. Keep watching.”
Daniel did. Katie stared at the screen. After the door was open, the intruder walked to the side of the building and returned with Armstrong’s body over his shoulders carrying him in a fireman’s hold. When he arrived back at the door, he used his foot to shove it open. He disappeared inside. Minutes passed and Katie wanted to get out of the vehicle to pace. Instead, she tamped down her racing energy and focused on whatever was coming next.
The figure finally reappeared, only to vanish from camera view almost as fast as she could blink. Just a few short moments later, Katie saw Daniel on the screen as he bolted out the basement door to stand and watch. “That must be when I saw the taillights.” Then the on-screen Daniel turned and went back inside.
Where he’d discovered Armstrong’s body.
“While we can’t see the guy’s face and have only an approximation of his height and weight, there is one good thing about the footage,” Quinn said.
“What’s that?” Daniel said.
Quinn met his eyes in the rearview mirror. “It pretty much clears you as the murderer.”