CHAPTER TEN
REESE BRISTOW WOULD not normally race to the scene of a small fire on the beach in the middle of the night. He was the newly appointed Santa Raquel Fire Chief. One truck of junior firefighters could handle the call half asleep.
Still, there he was, in jeans and a T-shirt, racing up the beach behind men in full gear carrying hoses he hoped they wouldn’t need to use.
If they could smother the fire instead of drench it, there’d be more evidence.
And that was why Reese was there. To get a look at the initial evidence firsthand.
Holding back to give the suited men ample room, he watched his team. Three in turnout wear, one in paramedic blues. Even suited up and from the rear, he could tell who was who. Brandt, his second-in-command, was the tall one who ran with the bent knees of a track star. Riley had the shoulders of a football player. And Mark, at five-one, was the smallest firefighter he’d ever known.
Gaze moving to the paramedic, Reese frowned. He didn’t recognize the guy—or more specifically the rounded derriere that filled out those blues like a man wouldn’t.
The new hire. He’d vetted her file, but Brandt had done the interviewing and hiring. Reese had spent much of the past week between his office, scenes and a forensic lab in LA trying to find anything that would help him solve the rash of small fires being set around Santa Raquel.
As one of Southern Cal’s wonder-boy fire investigators, he was not doing so wonderfully. Pathetic, considering he was the man who’d been in national news for his work on a fire that had killed most of a family. The husband and father was the only surviving member. He’d claimed he’d jumped out his bedroom window when he awoke to the flames. All evidence had pointed to an accident. All of it. No matter how many times Reese had looked at it. But he’d had a hunch.
Made into a strong suspicion when he heard that the survivor had completed a fire training course years before in another state under a different name.
It turned out the husband had set the fire himself. The guy had made one mistake. When he’d broken the window to jump out—which he’d broken after the fire was set—he’d left the glass on the ground just as it had fallen. Glass that wasn’t as shattered, or as sooty, as it would have been if the fire had been burning as hot and as close as the guy claimed when he took his sail.
Reese had discovered the guy’s wife was leaving him. He’d been willing to break a leg jumping out of a second-story window to kill her and their kids so she couldn’t start over without him.
“We’ve got this one, boss!” Mark’s voice traveled the short distance down the beach as Reese jogged toward them. He could barely see smoke or flames now. Hoses on the ground, Brandt and Riley were working the fire, while Mark and the new hire stood ready to jump in if needed.
Reese went straight for the one person he didn’t know, holding his hand out as he approached. “Reese Bristow,” he said. “Sorry we have to meet at a scene in the middle of the night. My understanding was that you didn’t start shift until tomorrow.”
He’d planned to meet her at the station in the morning. Have a pseudo-interview with her. She’d already accepted the job. He already knew her credentials were fine. He just liked to know every member of his team.
And he knew he didn’t like it when one of them hesitated before shaking his hand. When she didn’t meet his gaze.
If she’d been focused on the scene, he might have shrugged off the brief gaffe. The fact that she was looking toward the sand when she reached for his hand a couple of seconds late bothered him.
“Hi, Reese.”
What the hell?
A new employee didn’t...
The voice...he knew it...
With his hand holding hers, he reared back a few inches. Studying her in the shadows. Damning the darkness.
What in the hell was her name? He pictured her file on his desk.
Faye Walker.
The only Faye he’d ever known had been Faye Browning and...