Whisper of Bones (Widow's Island #3)(7)

3


Tessa called in the fire on her radio; then she grabbed the fire extinguisher from the back of her vehicle and ran for the front door. Smoke alarms pealed inside the house.

“What are you doing?” Logan caught up with her on the front porch.

“Trying to save a potential crime scene.” Tessa could think of only one reason the McCoys’ house was on fire. Someone wanted to destroy evidence.

She placed a hand on the front door. The steel was cool to the touch. She tried the knob and found it unlocked. Then she stood back and pushed open the door. No fireball rushed at her, and she saw no flames in the foyer. But thick smoke filled the hallway beyond.

She shouted over the alarm, “Police! Is anyone inside?”

Logan coughed. “Tessa, you should wait for the fire crew.”

“By the time they get here, it’ll be too late to save evidence. Whoever set the fire could still be inside. Flag down the fire truck when it gets here.”

This wasn’t the city, where fire crews were dispatched within minutes. The Widow’s Island fire company was all volunteer. The men had to drive to the station and gear up before they could respond to a fire.

Shaking his head, Logan took the fire extinguisher from her and tucked it under his arm. “I’m going in with you.”

His jaw was set, and determination shone in his blue eyes. But the pallor of his face made her hesitate. Though it was cold outside, his forehead gleamed with sweat. She knew he suffered from posttraumatic stress, but he hadn’t been ready to share the details yet.

“You don’t have to do this,” she said.

“Neither do you,” Logan shot back.

Tessa drew her weapon and led the way into the house. Crouching low to avoid the smoke gathering near the ceiling, she followed the black cloud to the kitchen at the rear of the home. The smoke irritated her lungs but wasn’t as thick as she’d expected once she left the confines of the hallway.

The corridor opened into a large great room. The rear wall was almost entirely glass doors and floor-to-ceiling windows. Tessa turned left into the kitchen area. An island the size of a Ping-Pong table occupied the center of the space. Its white base cabinets smoldered. A few flames danced along the cabinet bottoms. Fresh air blew through a broken window over the farmhouse sink.

Tessa swept the room for suspects, but it was empty.

Logan walked around the island, directed the extinguisher, and covered the lower cabinets with a layer of white foam, smothering the fire.

“I’ll check the rest of the house!” Tessa yelled over the alarm.

Logan set down the extinguisher and drew his own weapon. He positioned himself at her left flank as they moved from room to room. In addition to the great room, the house had three bedrooms upstairs and an office for McCoy Construction on the first floor. The office had its own separate entrance. The decor was uncluttered and open. It didn’t take them long to clear the rest of the house and return to the kitchen.

Shards of glass littered the counter and floor. Tessa shone her flashlight on the glass. Mixed in with the large pieces of window glass were amber shards and the labels of two empty liquor bottles. Molotov cocktails?

“All of this glass isn’t from the broken window!” she yelled.

“Incendiary device!” Logan shouted back. “Thrown through the window!” The color had drained from his face, and the skin seemed to be stretched more tightly over it, sharpening his cheekbones. With his close-cropped black hair, he looked gaunt.

She moved closer to speak into his ear. “We’re lucky that whoever set this fire wasn’t very good at it. The cabinets are solid wood, which doesn’t burn as easily as you’d think, and the flames never grew large enough to carry over to the tile and granite.”

“But whoever did this must have just left.” Soot smudged Logan’s cheek. He wiped it on his sleeve.

Tessa agreed. “The house is isolated. I didn’t see any other residences nearby.”

“No nosy neighbors to see the arsonist run away.” Logan scanned the kitchen, then stared up at the smoke detector mounted on the ceiling. “This looks like a local unit. I don’t see any sign of a central alarm system. If we hadn’t come here, no one would have called the fire department.”

He coughed again.

“Let’s give the house a few minutes to air.” Tessa waved smoke away from her face. She crossed the tile and opened a set of glass doors. She gestured to Logan to follow her onto the patio overlooking Widow’s Bay. She saw no one in the yard and turned toward the water. A cabin cruiser bobbed at the end of a long dock. Behind the boat, the afternoon sun sparkled on small whitecaps in the bay. Pacing the pavers, she called the station to update Kurt about the status of the fire. Her eyes burned as she lowered the phone.

“We’ll head back to the front yard and wait for the fire truck,” Tessa said. “I’ll walk in this direction. You go the other way. Look for footprints.”

Logan coughed and nodded, then disappeared around the opposite side of the house.

Tessa gave the grass around the foundation a wide berth so as not to disturb evidence. She stopped a dozen feet from the broken window, just shy of a small patch of trampled grass. The arsonist hadn’t left any convenient litter. The ground was damp, and a trail of crushed grass led toward the front of the house. She took a photo and switched to video. She recorded her walk as she followed the trail right to the driveway.