A Conspiracy of Bones (Temperance Brennan #19)(71)

“Bird?”

As the cat padded toward me, I checked my surroundings. Still no alarm bells. My gaze fell on the door leading into the kitchen. Dark slashes ran along the edges where the wood should have met the frame.

Had the wind knocked it ajar? For those in my line of work, security is second nature. Like washing your hands with soap. Or breathing. Plus, there had been break-ins in the past. No way I’d ever forget to lock up.

Seriously, Brennan? Lately you’ve been acting like a sparrow caged with a Maine Coon.

Pete was with me during dinner and later at his house. Katy wasn’t in Charlotte. Mama didn’t drive after dark. No one else in town had a key. Who?

I jumped at the brush of fur on my ankles. Squatted and scooped Birdie into my arms.

“Good boy for hanging close to home.”

The cat purred and raised his head. I buried my nose behind his right ear.

My pulse quickened.

He smelled like cinders.

Flash image of the incinerator at the fenced bunker.

Alert Slidell?

Detective Delightful would either go radioactive at being phoned so late or set a land record rushing over to protect my ass. Before dialing, I had to know what the hell was going on. If anything.

Another quick glance around, then I eased the door inward and stepped inside. No ski-masked figure lurched from the gloom. Every familiar shape was in its normal position. The sink, the appliances, the table and chairs.

But the smell of smoke was unmistakable.

Nervous energy must have goosed me into squeezing harder than I realized. Birdie yrrrped and twisted. With a four-paw brace, he launched from my chest and shot from the room.

Lights?

I knew the layout. An intruder, if there was one, would not. Advantage to me.

Feeling half foolish, half frightened, I crept forward in the dark. The dining room was undisturbed. Ditto the living room, the only movement the gentle swaying of the pendulum on the mantel clock. The only sound its low metronome.

But why so black? Usually, I leave the hall table lamp burning. I’d also forgotten that?

As I inched toward the guest room/study, the air felt wrong. Too heavy, too warm. Had the hot mugginess seeped in through the open back door? And why the smell of burning?

One peek gave rise to alarm.

The room sparkled with a million points of iridescence.

A moment of confusion, then comprehension.

Light from a streetlamp was filtering through a shattered window behind the sofa, sparking shards of glass blanketing the furniture and rug.

Birdie was on an end table, a pale, fuzzy cutout in the shimmery gloom. His nose was raised, his nostrils testing the out-of-place scents of flowers, grass, and soot. On sensing my presence, he focused round questioning eyes on me.

I had no answer for him. A missile hurled through the window? By accident? On purpose? No foreign object lay embedded in the aurora borealis display.

A break-in?

Was the burglar still in the house?

I tried to calm myself to think.

Phone Slidell! The old gaggle of wary neurons urged.

Yes.

Of course, I got voice mail. Left a message.

911?

Not yet.

Why not?

I stood, breath frozen, listening for movement upstairs. Heard footsteps. Rustling. A soft sssshh.

No pistol being cocked. No semiautomatic slide being ratcheted back. That was good.

Ignoring the alarmist neurons, I gathered Birdie and locked him in the pantry. Then I grabbed a hammer, retraced my steps, and stole up the stairs. With each tread, the smoky stench grew stronger.

Halfway up, I paused. Was I actually hearing movement? Or were the sounds a new fantasy born of my paranoia? Of my unbearable grief over Boyd?

At the top, my anxiety went suborbital. The thuds and swishes were real and coming from off to the right.

I tried to swallow. My mouth was too dry.

Tightening my grip on the hammer, I tiptoed down the hallway toward the new shared office.

The door was open, the rolled towel kicked to one side. A Coleman LED lantern sat just inside, throwing off-angle slashes of light and shadow upward from its floor-level placement.

The room looked like a nuclear bomb had gone off. The south and east walls remained as scorched uprights backed by mangled exterior siding. Melted wiring dangled from the exposed framing and damaged ceiling.

Both desks were destroyed, my patinaed old oak charred and blackened, Ryan’s glass cracked and fragmented. The two filing cabinets were now scorched hulks, their drawers exploded outward by the intense heat. What was left of my reports, printouts, and photos lay scattered across the floor as sodden sludge.

The reek of smoke, seared metal, and liquefied plastic was so overpowering my eyes began to burn, and tears ran down my cheeks. And, underlying the mix, another noxious note. Paint? Turpentine?

I pictured the broken window downstairs. Wondered again about an intruder. Could the added element I was smelling be an accelerant such as gas or kerosene? Was I the victim of arson?

Amid the wreckage I spotted what survived of Ryan’s Guy Lafleur bobblehead, my picture of Katy, the Nebulon frigate lamp, all twisted and distorted. My framed diplomas leaned cockeyed, glass shattered, documents torn, every component covered in soot. Propped against what was once the east wall was a blackened metal ladder. Flanking it, along the baseboard, were incinerated cans and remnants of what had been drop cloths and rags.

Also amid the wreckage was my neighbor, dressed in bathrobe, PJs, and sneakers. A mask covered his mouth, and a fire extinguisher jutted from between his arms and his ribs.