Consumed (Firefighters #1)(103)

“Neither do I.”

After they hung up, he stared at the phone. And called her one more time. He didn’t think she was going to answer—and she didn’t.

As voicemail kicked in, he cleared his throat. “So I’m guessing by the fact that you’ll talk to Jack and not me that Moose called you about the drama this morning between him and Deandra. I just want— It’s got nothing to do with me. Deandra was just shooting her mouth off about shit because she pissed off about money. I really hope you’ll call me so we can talk about it. I love you, Anne. I wanted to tell you in person this morning, but I lost my nerve. I really . . . I love you and we were headed in a good direction. I want to keep going like that, for the rest of my life. Anyway, call me. Please.”

Ending the connection, he stared at his phone until the lock screen came on. Then he looked at it some more.

When it stayed black, he didn’t know what he expected.

Bullshit. He’d thought she’d listen and call him back and tell him she loved him and Moose was in a bad relationship with a bad woman and it was all just a misunderstanding.

Putting the cell phone back in his pocket, he smoked and thought of the nightmare that had woken him in Anne’s bed.

It had been him back at that apartment where the old lady had been gutted. He had walked into the room, taken a look at the mutilated body, and started to throw up.

And then everything had morphed and he had been the one with hands and feet tied, screaming as a shadowy perpetrator had cut him open and removed his internal organs.

That had been a party compared to what he was feeling right now, stuck at the stationhouse while what little glimpse of a good life he’d had dimmed . . . and disappeared into the night as if it had never existed.

He was going to fucking kill Moose.





chapter




49



Anne sat back on her sofa and closed her eyes. It was going on ten o’clock and she was surrounded by printouts of reports on those warehouse fires, the papers like the snow cover of winter, a December of documents on the floor, the coffee table, the cushions.

Except for where Soot was curled up next to her.

She had been going over the same information and nothing was sticking anymore. Good distraction, though. It had gotten her through dinner and past the dead zone before bedtime.

“You want to go out one last time?”

Soot knew the cue and obligingly got off his spot. The jingle of his collar was a welcome accompaniment as they went to the back door and she turned off the security system by her remote.

Before she stepped outside, she took the nine-millimeter handgun she’d left on the corner of her desk with her.

The night was cold and dry, and the outside lights were bright and clear. She took comfort that her neighbors were all home, their lights on, their bodies moving in and out of windows as the whole neighborhood settled for the rest of the night.

Soot was efficient. No sniffing around. No investigating what scents were on the wind or the bushes or the browning grass.

Another good sign as far as she was concerned. If anyone was around, she had to believe he’d notice.

Back in the house. Back with the locked door. Back on with the alarm.

She kept the gun with her as she considered going upstairs to bed. In the end, she stayed downstairs. She felt like if someone tried to get in, she’d hear them better.

As she resumed her seat on the sofa, Soot did the same, and she put her hand on his warm flank, stroking his short, smooth fur. When he let out a deep sigh of relaxation, she envied him.

Picking up a random incident report, she tried to get her brain to connect the dots that were refusing to be linked. She had Ripkin. She had Ollie no-longer-Popper. And then whoever had showed up at that warehouse with the trailer—which might have been Ollie or might not have been.

“When was he arrested?” she said out loud.

Back into the paperwork to find the file on Ollie. Nope. Not him. He had been in police custody when the most recent warehouse fire had been set.

Damn it, she wished she had CCTV for those other burns. Maybe she needed to talk to Ripkin’s daughter, although what would she be looking for if she did? The key was the identity of the unknown third person. If she could find out who it was, maybe she could make the tie to Ripkin. Before the bastard killed them, that was.

She thought about Bob Burlington being found in the ocean. Shit, she did not want that to be her.

As her phone rang, she braced herself as she picked the thing up. If that unknown caller was back— It was Danny.

“Goddamn it.”

She debated letting it go into voicemail again, but she wasn’t some coward to run from confrontation. And he was just going to keep calling until he got off shift and showed up on her doorstep at eight a.m. in the morning.

“Hello,” she said.

“I didn’t think you were going to answer.”

“I’m busy.”

There was a pause. “I left you a voicemail.”

“I didn’t listen to it.”

“Did Moose get in touch with you?”

“Yes.” She put the paperwork aside. “Listen, we’re not going to do this, okay?”

“Do what.”

“Pretend. I don’t have time for it. Don’t call me anymore, don’t try to see me, and if you have a passing thought, some weeks or months from now that I might want to hear from you, I’m going ask you to replay this conversation again. I am never going to want to set eyes on you again.”