Fired Up

HE STOOD A LITTLE DISTANCE FROM CHLOE WHILE SHE talked to the police officer. Hector was alive. One of the medics at the scene had taken a look at him and bandaged the wound in the dog’s head and offered the reassuring assessment that Hector would probably live. A kindhearted neighbor had volunteered to take Hector to the nearest emergency veterinary clinic.

Rose pressed close to Chloe in silent support. Jack realized that he wanted to stand close, too, but that wasn’t his job. He was not part of her inner circle. He was just the client, the client who had burned her badly with a psychic blast of nightmares. It was a wonder she had not collapsed like Madeline. Probably a tribute to her own strong talent.

Fletcher Monroe and Madeline Gibson had been taken away in ambulances. An officer had accompanied Madeline, who was still unconscious when she was loaded into the vehicle. Monroe had begun to stir when he was secured to the stretcher. Jack had overheard him say something about cookies.

The firemen had beaten back the worst of the flames, but the house was still smoldering. There was a tangle of hoses on the lawn, a lot of flashing lights from the emergency vehicles and a great deal of water in the street. The neighbors had emerged and now stood around in small groups, watching the action.

“CSI will test the cookies, but it looks like Gibson was telling you the truth when she said she put some sleeping meds in them,” the officer said to Chloe. He checked his notes. “She waited until midnight and then came back to burn the house down around him.” He looked up. “Think she was intending suicide as well as murdering Monroe?”

“She wasn’t thinking clearly at all.” Chloe folded her arms tightly beneath her breasts. “But, no, I don’t think she intended to die in the fire. She just wanted to make sure that no other woman would ever get Fletcher, I mean, Mr. Monroe.”

“She was a student. Last quarter, I think. They dated, but when the quarter ended, so did the relationship. Then she started stalking Mr. Monroe. She got into a pattern of showing up here at midnight and leaving little presents on the front steps.”

“No. He was hoping to avoid that because of the scandal it would cause at the college. I was supposed to get some incriminating pictures. He intended to use them to confront her. I told him it probably wouldn’t work, but he was convinced he could handle the situation if I got him the photos.”

“What made him think he could deal with her in a rational way?” the officer asked with a quizzical expression.

The officer grimaced. “Got it. Well, thanks very much, Miss Harper. Someone will be in touch about getting a statement. I’ll need your contact information.”

“I’ve got a card.” Chloe looked down as though she expected to find a card in one of the pockets of her trench coat. A confused expression crossed her face. “My cards are in my satchel. It’s in the trunk of my car.”

The officer examined Chloe with a thoughtful expression. “I recognize your name, Miss Harper. You consulted on the Anderson Point murders a year ago, didn’t you?”

“I gave Detective Takahashi some information,” she said quietly. “He was able to use it to identify a suspect.”

“I know. That one was as cold as it gets. They say Takahashi worked it night and day. Kept the file under his desk, but it stayed cold until he caught a break with the information you gave him. I remember the hostage situation at the end. It was a real squeaker.”

“They sent the crazy bastard to Winter Cove hospital. Luckily for everyone involved he found a way to hang himself. Saved the state a lot of money.”

Rose returned with a card. “You sure you’re okay, boss?” She examined Chloe from head to foot again. “You didn’t get singed or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Chloe said. She handed the card to the officer and waited until he had moved off to talk to some people who were getting out of a CSI van. She looked first at Rose and then at Jack. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m really glad to see you both, but what are you two doing here, anyway?”

“You heard what Mr. Winters told the cop,” Rose said. “He was worried about you being out here alone on a stakeout.”

“I know what you told the officer, Mr. Winters.” Chloe’s frown darkened. “But how did you find out that I was working tonight?”

“You called my office in the middle of the night?” Disbelief tightened her soot-streaked face. “And the two of you just decided to come racing over here to see if I was okay?”

“Chloe,” Rose said quietly. “Mr. Winters had a feeling, okay? So did I. How often have you told me to pay attention to intuition?”

“Sorry.” Chloe rubbed her forehead. “I’m not complaining. I just don’t understand what made you think that something was wrong.”

She probably didn’t even want to be in the same car with him now, not after the way he had burned her.

Rose snorted. “Like you’re in any condition to drive, boss. You’ve had one heck of a close call. Mr. Winters is right. Let him drive you back to the office. I’ll take care of your car.”

He bundled her into the front seat, then went around to the driver’s side. He peeled off his leather jacket, which now smelled of smoke, and tossed it onto the floor of the backseat. He got in beside her.

When he closed the door the small space was suddenly infused with a startling sense of intense intimacy. He was very conscious of Chloe sitting so close. She smelled of smoke and woman and the aftereffects of adrenaline. She had been in the red zone, running wide open, when he went through the doorway. He had sensed it immediately. He, too, had been cranked to the max. Now they were both enveloped in the rush of the after-burn. He realized he was fully aroused, every muscle in his body hard and tight.

He’d heard rumors about the erotic heat that could be generated by two strong talents who were sexually attracted to each other. He’d encountered more than one powerful female talent over the years and felt a certain pleasant stirring of his senses. But he’d never been slammed into overdrive like this. Get a grip, man.

They sat quietly for a couple of minutes, watching the activity in the front yard of the burning house.

“You saved my dog,” Chloe said after a while. “And probably Fletcher and me as well. Thank you.”

She pushed some hair out of her eyes. “Hector went for Madeline. Trying to protect me. I’ve never seen him do anything like that before. I think that in another life he must have had some guard dog training.”

“Maybe. Or maybe he was just acting on instinct. He’s a tough dog. The medic seemed pretty sure he’ll make it.”

“Thanks to you. But I need to get him home from the vet as soon as possible.” Anxiety laced her voice. “He’s got abandonment issues. If he wakes up in strange surroundings—”

“But it’s going to smell like smoke after I get out.” She fumbled with her seat belt. “Probably cost you a fortune to get the interior cleaned.”

She glanced over her shoulder into the backseat, where he had tossed his jacket. “No, I guess not.”

He watched her take a couple more stabs at the belt buckle, missing each time. He reached over and buckled it for her. She exhaled, rested her head against the back of the seat and closed her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he said finally. He couldn’t think of anything else to add to that. What did you say to a woman after you had hit her with a wave of nightmares?

“That is one heck of a talent you’ve got,” she said. Her voice was absolutely neutral. “The second one, I take it? The one you think means you’ve been hit with the Winters Curse?”

He watched the smoking house. “I’m still learning to control it. For obvious reasons I haven’t been able to run a lot of experiments.”

He had literally terrified her tonight. She’d probably have nightmares about him for weeks. Not the best way to impress a woman on a first date.

She opened her eyes and looked straight ahead through the windshield. “Almost never. I hate this kind of work; it’s always messy.”

“Ex-boyfriend, not ex-husband. We stopped seeing each other several months ago. Last quarter he dated Madeline Gibson. When he tried to end it, she started stalking him. Madeline didn’t understand Fletcher. She didn’t realize that he has a very predictable pattern.”

“Every quarter he picks out a new female student in one of his classes and fires up a relationship. Said relationship always comes to an end when the quarter is over. For Fletcher, a new quarter always means a new girlfriend. He is the quintessential serial monogamist.”

“No. She became increasingly intense. She was always there, waiting outside his classroom. She showed up at his gym while he was working out. The little gifts began to appear on his front step. Flowers. Fresh coffee and doughnuts. She always came around after midnight. Fletcher tried to talk to her, but she just laughed and said she was teasing him.”

“We had stopped seeing each other, but we were still friends. He knew what I did for a living, of course. And he was desperate to keep the problem under wraps.”

“Fletcher’s dating pattern has started to cause talk. There have been complaints from other members of the faculty and some nasty gossip. At the college level it’s certainly not unheard of for instructors to date their students. But when it happens over and over again, people do tend to notice. And not everyone approves.”

She turned her head and looked at him. “You appear to have grasped the big picture here, Mr. Winters.”

“Yes, Fletcher was afraid that he would lose his position if he made an accusation. He wanted to deal with it privately.”

“I turned up a lot of stuff on the Internet, of course. It’s amazing what people will write in their blogs and on their personal websites. They treat cyberspace as if it were a private diary. Madeline chatted at length about the affair. Her obsession was clear, but she did not implicate herself in the stalking. She just wrote that she had given Fletcher a few presents and that he had not appreciated them. He wanted photographic proof of what was going on.”

“And because we’re still friends,” she said. “I could tell that he was very nervous. Fletcher is a nice guy. Intelligent. Fun to be with. Even-tempered. Great sense of humor. What can I say? I like him.”

“No, of course not.” She sounded genuinely surprised. “His dating pattern was one of his two best features as far as I was concerned.”

“His commitment phobia. The problem was that once Fletcher discovered that I also have commitment issues he kept trying to fix me. Probably some form of misguided projection.”

“Misguided projection.” He realized that he was still grappling with the serial monogamy thing and the commitment issues. Somehow, he hadn’t seen either coming.

“Things got even more awkward between us when I told Fletcher that I have some talent. At that point I think that I became a patient to him.”

“He’s got a Ph.D. in psychology. Of course he doesn’t believe in it.” She sighed. “All in all, I had no choice but to end things after only a few dates. We never even made it as far as the bedroom. Rose thinks that still bothers Fletcher, but I have a hard time buying it.”

“Because he moved on immediately. Started dating someone else right away. Fell right back into his usual pattern. It wasn’t like he couldn’t let go. I think he just sees me as a professional failure, that’s all.”

“Mostly what I learned is that psychologists look for explanations and motives. Me, I’m just a PI. I look for bad psi.”

He took the on- ramp onto I-5, heading toward downtown. The freeway was nearly empty at this hour. The lights of the city’s high-rise buildings, including the one in which he lived, glittered in the night.

“You really thought that Monroe’s serial monogamy habit and his commitment issues were good features?” he asked after a while.

“Are you kidding? I was almost convinced that he was Mr. Perfect. When I gave him The Talk, he looked downright thrilled. Then, again, men often seem happy enough at first. I’ve never been able to figure out why they change their minds. Aunt Phyllis says it’s just the way men are.”

“That’s when I explain about my commitment issues. I make it clear that any relationship I enter into is likely to be short-term and that there are no strings attached. I make sure that the other person knows that he is free to dump me on a moment’s notice without feeling any guilt.” She frowned a little. “But for some reason I’m usually the one who ends up doing the dumping.”

“It’s hard to explain,” she said. She leaned her head against the back of the seat, folded her arms. “It doesn’t matter now, anyway.”

“The serial monogamy thing got old. I moved into a new phase about a year ago. I admit that I toyed with the idea of going back to serial monogamy for a time with Fletcher, but I finally realized it just wouldn’t work.”