“They might smell like smoke, but I figured it was better than nothing.” Again his eyes skated over her. “Then again…”
“Do you want me to kick your ass?” Kenton asked quietly, and there was no hint of humor on his face or in his voice.
Ramirez just shrugged. “You can try.”
“Ease up, boys,” she ordered, shooting a hard stare at them both.
“Yes, ma’am.” From Ramirez.
The guy was obviously trying to piss off Kenton. His attack was also quite obviously working.
Ramirez reached back and pulled a folded-up newspaper from the belt loop on his pants. “Jones ran the story.”
“Shit.” Kenton grabbed the paper.
The news. She hadn’t even thought that the story about the fire at her place would be on the news and in the papers. “I’ve got to call my brothers,” she told Kenton, spinning around and heading for the bathroom to change. If her brothers heard about the fire before she had a chance to talk to them—
They would freak.
The door thudded behind her.
What? Again?
She glanced back, seeing it shake. A real strong fist must be hitting that thing.
Kenton and Ramirez turned together. “That’s not Monica,” Ramirez murmured.
Lora caught a glimpse of his gun.
Kenton was armed, too. She could see his weapon now, poking through the line of his coat.
“Easy,” he told Ramirez, even as the other agent moved to flatten himself close to the hotel room door.
“Uh, Kent…” She began because that door was shaking again.
He risked a glance through the peephole, then turned to stare back at her. He’d dropped the newspaper. “Sweetheart, I really think you should have made that call sooner.” His fingers curled around the knob, and he yanked the door open.
Ryan. Ben. Jake. They spilled inside. Faces red. Jaws set.
“What the f**k is goin’ on?” Ryan snarled.
Her lips parted. “How did—how did you even find me?” She dropped the bag onto the bed.
Ryan stormed across the room. “Your house was on fire. Fire.” He grabbed her, hauled her close, and nearly squeezed the breath from her.
Okay, he did squeeze the breath from her.
“Christ, Lora… when I heard the news…” He shuddered against her.
“Who the hell are you?” Ben demanded. She glanced up and over Ryan’s shoulder and found Ben eyeing Ramirez. “What are you two pricks doin’ in here with my sister?”
“Ramirez,” came the reply. “I’m Special Agent Jon Ramirez.”
“Big damn deal,” was Jake’s reply. Pretty much the way her brothers had felt about Kenton’s title. Or, well, anyone’s title. Authority had never impressed them, that was one of the reasons why Jake hadn’t lasted so long in the army.
And why they all ran their own businesses. The boys liked to be in charge.
She pushed against Ryan’s chest. “I’m okay.”
“Bullshit.” His eyes, the same gold as her own, stared back at her. His lips were tight, white around the edges, pulling down the scars. “Max told me you were in that house. That guy lit the place with you in it.”
She hadn’t wanted this. Hell, she’d thought about calling him last night, but it had been 3:00 A.M. “I didn’t get burned.” She wouldn’t let her eyes go to his scars. “I got out before the fire escalated. He didn’t hurt me.”
Jake was there. He elbowed Ryan to the side and pulled her tight against him in a bear hug. “I saw the house on the news this morning. Freaking six o’clock news.” She felt his ragged breath against her neck. “Those scenes scared five years of my life away. Another fire, like before.”
Lora shook her head. “No, not like before.” Long ago, an electrical fire had spread too quickly on a cold winter night. That had destroyed their home then.
Fate.
This time…
An a**hole.
Ben grabbed her next, hugging her so hard her ribs ached. When he eased back, he kept a tight hold on her right hand.
“That guy, Phoenix, he did this, didn’t he?” Ryan could always cut through the crap.
She gave a grim nod. Ben still had her hand. “We think so.” Know so. Slowly, she pulled her hand away from Ben. He watched her like a hawk.
So did Ryan. But that was the way he always watched her. He’d pushed her toward the window that night, pushed and screamed for her to jump.
But she’d glanced back and seen the fire take him.
She hadn’t been able to leave her big brother. She’d gone back and grabbed his hand. She’d dragged him through the flames.
Then the roof had fallen in.
She didn’t remember much after that. She’d woken up… in Frank Garrison’s arms.
“You can move in with me,” Ryan offered. “Until this bastard is caught, you can stay at my place.”
How much heat can you handle?
No. She’d never bring fire to Ryan’s door. Not again. “Kent…”
He closed the hotel room door. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.”
Ryan swung on him. “Oh, and why the hell not?”
Kenton crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her brothers. “Because as of this moment, Lora is under protective custody. She’ll be staying with me.”
Well, damn. That wasn’t quite what she’d—Lora blinked. “Wanna run that one by me again?”
His eyes glinted. “Until this bastard is caught, consider me your personal bodyguard, sweetheart. Day and night, I’m gonna be with you.” He closed in on her. Jake tensed. So did Ryan, but Kenton didn’t back down. “Phoenix wants you? Too bad. He’ll have to go through me to get to you.”
She sucked in a hard breath and shoved away from her brother. “I’m not going to hide from this guy. If you think you’re gonna toss me into some hotel room—” Uh, yeah, that’s where she currently was—“think again. I’ve got a job. People who count on me. I’m not vanishing just because some freak has the idea that killing firefighters is fun.”
“Killing firefighters?” Ryan repeated. “I knew people died in those fires, but I thought the only firefighter was Carter—” He broke off, glancing at Lora’s face.
Ramirez cleared his throat. “We’re keeping a lot of information about Phoenix under wraps,” he said. “The fact that he seems to be luring firefighters in and trying to trap them in the flames as they rescue victims—”
“Sick f**k,” Jake grated.
“That information wasn’t exactly fit for the morning news.”
Kenton brushed around Ben and took her hand. His fingers rubbed over the back of her knuckles. “I need you to work this case.”
The tenseness in her shoulders eased a bit. Good, then he wasn’t—
“But I need you alive more. I’m not going to let him get to you.”
She licked her lips. She hurried forward and scooped up the bag of clothes. “I’m not defenseless.” She didn’t need to sit around and wait for someone to save her. She did the saving, that was part of her job. She was strong, physically, emotionally. She’d had to be. “I’m not some weak target. If he wants to take me on, I can be ready for him.”
“No.” Flat. “You won’t be. If he comes at you—comes at you to kill, not to just screw with your head—you’ll be as dead as Carter.”
Lora took that hit, right in the heart, with only a ragged hitch of her breath.
Carefully, taking her time, she pulled her hand away from his. “Let’s be clear.” Her voice didn’t shake and it didn’t whisper, though right then, she was pretty surprised by both facts. “I don’t want you throwing Carter up to me ever again.”
“Lora…”
“You think I can’t handle myself?”
Ben eased back.
Kenton’s eyes widened.
“I got myself out of that house. Just like I got Wade out. Just like I’ve gotten hundreds of others out.”
“I didn’t say you—”
“I work out every day. I know how to use a gun. I know how to use a knife—”
“She’s a damn fine shot. I taught her… thought it was a good—” Ben broke off. “Never mind.”
“I’m not some poor damsel in distress who needs to sit on her hands while the world turns to shit around her.”
“Never been the sitting-on-shit kind,” Ryan drawled.
“I get it, though,” she said, storming on, “you’re the special—”
“Big damn deal,” Jake interrupted.
“—agent so you call the shots. Fine. Call them.”
“I—”
Lora plowed right on, her vision reddening. “If you think that putting me into some safe house is going to stop him, you’re dead wrong. Locking me up will just make me better bait.” She whirled away from him.
“Lora…” His fingers skimmed her shoulders.
She kept going, and when she got into the bathroom, she slammed the door behind her hard enough to rattle the frame.
“I’m afraid that the information delivered to the press last night was… premature.” Kenton’s voice came smoothly.
Lora watched, her body tight, as the camera lens zoomed in on Kenton. He’d told her he that had to come to the Channel Five news station, to “smooth over some shit.” She hadn’t known quite what he meant until…
“Did a witness see Phoenix?” Elle Shaw asked, her face tight with a reporter’s patent concern and intensity.
Kenton smiled back at her. “We have multiple leads that we are following on this case. But, at this juncture, the SSD will not disclose the specifics of any witness testimony that we may or may not have.”
Lora frowned and glanced over at Ramirez. “What’s going on?” She had the feeling she’d missed something important and that feeling sucked.
“Last night, Captain Lawrence got a little too chatty with some reporters who’d been staking out the police station.” Ramirez sighed. “The guy told ’em we had a witness who could ID the killer.”
Her heart lurched. “Is that true?”
“No. The description we got is for a stick figure.”
“Uh—what?”
“He’s white, he’s tall, and he wears a baseball cap.” His arms crossed over his chest as his gaze scanned the Channel Five station. “In short, he could be just about any guy you passed on the street.”
Great. But… She eased back from the crew and lowered her voice. “Then why did the captain say that?” Kenton was talking to Elle, calm, composed as he said—
“We definitely expect to apprehend the suspect soon. It’s just a matter of time. The SSD is confident that the perpetrator known as Phoenix will be captured.”
“He wanted glory.” Ramirez hesitated, then told her, “But what Lawrence did was put our guy in the cross-hairs.”
“I don’t—”
“Phoenix killed the last witness.” Blunt. She flinched, remembering the flames. “So what do you think is gonna happen when our perp hears about this one?”
“Cut!” Travis’s voice. “Great. That’s a wrap, people!”
Kenton managed a curt nod for Elle, and then he yanked at the microphone clipped to his lapel.
“He’s losing his objectivity because of you.”
She didn’t look away from Kenton. His jaw was locked tight, and his eyes were on her. Narrowed and sharp.
You’ll be as dead as Carter.
“I’m not too happy with him right now.” Because he’d hit too deep with his words.
“He’s scared because with you… it’s personal.”
Kenton rose and headed toward her.
“It’s hard enough when you don’t know the victims.” A whisper of something came and went in Ramirez’s voice. Something that sounded like pain. Her stare slid to him, but nothing showed in his eyes. But then, she hadn’t seen any emotions show at all in the agent’s eyes. He could tease, he could play, he could rile Kenton, but it was like all that was surface. Just actions he was supposed to perform in order to fit in.
“When it’s someone you care about…” One of his shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. “All f**king bets are off.”
She swallowed.
“We’re done.” Kenton’s arm brushed against hers. “Monica wants us to meet her at the police station. She’s got some info for us about the other victims.”
Ramirez nodded. “I’ll meet you there.” Then he was gone, moving quickly through the tangle of bodies in the newsroom.
Kenton caught her hand. “We need to talk.”
In less than a minute, he’d found an empty office—Tom’s office, because his name was spelled out in gleaming gold lettering on the door. Kenton pushed her inside, slammed the door, and glared.
She glared right back. No way would she back down.
“I—I’m sorry.” His words sounded gruff, awkward. “About Carter, I didn’t mean—” He stepped forward, raised his hands, as if he’d touch her, but seemed to freeze. “He’s not getting to you.”
But Phoenix had already come calling once. “What about the other guy? Ramirez told me the witness—”
“The witness is safe. We’ve got him protected in an undisclosed location.” The faint lines around his mouth tightened. “Phoenix won’t get him.” He wrapped his hands around her arms. “Or you.”
“Do you want me to kick your ass?” Kenton asked quietly, and there was no hint of humor on his face or in his voice.
Ramirez just shrugged. “You can try.”
“Ease up, boys,” she ordered, shooting a hard stare at them both.
“Yes, ma’am.” From Ramirez.
The guy was obviously trying to piss off Kenton. His attack was also quite obviously working.
Ramirez reached back and pulled a folded-up newspaper from the belt loop on his pants. “Jones ran the story.”
“Shit.” Kenton grabbed the paper.
The news. She hadn’t even thought that the story about the fire at her place would be on the news and in the papers. “I’ve got to call my brothers,” she told Kenton, spinning around and heading for the bathroom to change. If her brothers heard about the fire before she had a chance to talk to them—
They would freak.
The door thudded behind her.
What? Again?
She glanced back, seeing it shake. A real strong fist must be hitting that thing.
Kenton and Ramirez turned together. “That’s not Monica,” Ramirez murmured.
Lora caught a glimpse of his gun.
Kenton was armed, too. She could see his weapon now, poking through the line of his coat.
“Easy,” he told Ramirez, even as the other agent moved to flatten himself close to the hotel room door.
“Uh, Kent…” She began because that door was shaking again.
He risked a glance through the peephole, then turned to stare back at her. He’d dropped the newspaper. “Sweetheart, I really think you should have made that call sooner.” His fingers curled around the knob, and he yanked the door open.
Ryan. Ben. Jake. They spilled inside. Faces red. Jaws set.
“What the f**k is goin’ on?” Ryan snarled.
Her lips parted. “How did—how did you even find me?” She dropped the bag onto the bed.
Ryan stormed across the room. “Your house was on fire. Fire.” He grabbed her, hauled her close, and nearly squeezed the breath from her.
Okay, he did squeeze the breath from her.
“Christ, Lora… when I heard the news…” He shuddered against her.
“Who the hell are you?” Ben demanded. She glanced up and over Ryan’s shoulder and found Ben eyeing Ramirez. “What are you two pricks doin’ in here with my sister?”
“Ramirez,” came the reply. “I’m Special Agent Jon Ramirez.”
“Big damn deal,” was Jake’s reply. Pretty much the way her brothers had felt about Kenton’s title. Or, well, anyone’s title. Authority had never impressed them, that was one of the reasons why Jake hadn’t lasted so long in the army.
And why they all ran their own businesses. The boys liked to be in charge.
She pushed against Ryan’s chest. “I’m okay.”
“Bullshit.” His eyes, the same gold as her own, stared back at her. His lips were tight, white around the edges, pulling down the scars. “Max told me you were in that house. That guy lit the place with you in it.”
She hadn’t wanted this. Hell, she’d thought about calling him last night, but it had been 3:00 A.M. “I didn’t get burned.” She wouldn’t let her eyes go to his scars. “I got out before the fire escalated. He didn’t hurt me.”
Jake was there. He elbowed Ryan to the side and pulled her tight against him in a bear hug. “I saw the house on the news this morning. Freaking six o’clock news.” She felt his ragged breath against her neck. “Those scenes scared five years of my life away. Another fire, like before.”
Lora shook her head. “No, not like before.” Long ago, an electrical fire had spread too quickly on a cold winter night. That had destroyed their home then.
Fate.
This time…
An a**hole.
Ben grabbed her next, hugging her so hard her ribs ached. When he eased back, he kept a tight hold on her right hand.
“That guy, Phoenix, he did this, didn’t he?” Ryan could always cut through the crap.
She gave a grim nod. Ben still had her hand. “We think so.” Know so. Slowly, she pulled her hand away from Ben. He watched her like a hawk.
So did Ryan. But that was the way he always watched her. He’d pushed her toward the window that night, pushed and screamed for her to jump.
But she’d glanced back and seen the fire take him.
She hadn’t been able to leave her big brother. She’d gone back and grabbed his hand. She’d dragged him through the flames.
Then the roof had fallen in.
She didn’t remember much after that. She’d woken up… in Frank Garrison’s arms.
“You can move in with me,” Ryan offered. “Until this bastard is caught, you can stay at my place.”
How much heat can you handle?
No. She’d never bring fire to Ryan’s door. Not again. “Kent…”
He closed the hotel room door. “I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible.”
Ryan swung on him. “Oh, and why the hell not?”
Kenton crossed his arms over his chest and glared at her brothers. “Because as of this moment, Lora is under protective custody. She’ll be staying with me.”
Well, damn. That wasn’t quite what she’d—Lora blinked. “Wanna run that one by me again?”
His eyes glinted. “Until this bastard is caught, consider me your personal bodyguard, sweetheart. Day and night, I’m gonna be with you.” He closed in on her. Jake tensed. So did Ryan, but Kenton didn’t back down. “Phoenix wants you? Too bad. He’ll have to go through me to get to you.”
She sucked in a hard breath and shoved away from her brother. “I’m not going to hide from this guy. If you think you’re gonna toss me into some hotel room—” Uh, yeah, that’s where she currently was—“think again. I’ve got a job. People who count on me. I’m not vanishing just because some freak has the idea that killing firefighters is fun.”
“Killing firefighters?” Ryan repeated. “I knew people died in those fires, but I thought the only firefighter was Carter—” He broke off, glancing at Lora’s face.
Ramirez cleared his throat. “We’re keeping a lot of information about Phoenix under wraps,” he said. “The fact that he seems to be luring firefighters in and trying to trap them in the flames as they rescue victims—”
“Sick f**k,” Jake grated.
“That information wasn’t exactly fit for the morning news.”
Kenton brushed around Ben and took her hand. His fingers rubbed over the back of her knuckles. “I need you to work this case.”
The tenseness in her shoulders eased a bit. Good, then he wasn’t—
“But I need you alive more. I’m not going to let him get to you.”
She licked her lips. She hurried forward and scooped up the bag of clothes. “I’m not defenseless.” She didn’t need to sit around and wait for someone to save her. She did the saving, that was part of her job. She was strong, physically, emotionally. She’d had to be. “I’m not some weak target. If he wants to take me on, I can be ready for him.”
“No.” Flat. “You won’t be. If he comes at you—comes at you to kill, not to just screw with your head—you’ll be as dead as Carter.”
Lora took that hit, right in the heart, with only a ragged hitch of her breath.
Carefully, taking her time, she pulled her hand away from his. “Let’s be clear.” Her voice didn’t shake and it didn’t whisper, though right then, she was pretty surprised by both facts. “I don’t want you throwing Carter up to me ever again.”
“Lora…”
“You think I can’t handle myself?”
Ben eased back.
Kenton’s eyes widened.
“I got myself out of that house. Just like I got Wade out. Just like I’ve gotten hundreds of others out.”
“I didn’t say you—”
“I work out every day. I know how to use a gun. I know how to use a knife—”
“She’s a damn fine shot. I taught her… thought it was a good—” Ben broke off. “Never mind.”
“I’m not some poor damsel in distress who needs to sit on her hands while the world turns to shit around her.”
“Never been the sitting-on-shit kind,” Ryan drawled.
“I get it, though,” she said, storming on, “you’re the special—”
“Big damn deal,” Jake interrupted.
“—agent so you call the shots. Fine. Call them.”
“I—”
Lora plowed right on, her vision reddening. “If you think that putting me into some safe house is going to stop him, you’re dead wrong. Locking me up will just make me better bait.” She whirled away from him.
“Lora…” His fingers skimmed her shoulders.
She kept going, and when she got into the bathroom, she slammed the door behind her hard enough to rattle the frame.
“I’m afraid that the information delivered to the press last night was… premature.” Kenton’s voice came smoothly.
Lora watched, her body tight, as the camera lens zoomed in on Kenton. He’d told her he that had to come to the Channel Five news station, to “smooth over some shit.” She hadn’t known quite what he meant until…
“Did a witness see Phoenix?” Elle Shaw asked, her face tight with a reporter’s patent concern and intensity.
Kenton smiled back at her. “We have multiple leads that we are following on this case. But, at this juncture, the SSD will not disclose the specifics of any witness testimony that we may or may not have.”
Lora frowned and glanced over at Ramirez. “What’s going on?” She had the feeling she’d missed something important and that feeling sucked.
“Last night, Captain Lawrence got a little too chatty with some reporters who’d been staking out the police station.” Ramirez sighed. “The guy told ’em we had a witness who could ID the killer.”
Her heart lurched. “Is that true?”
“No. The description we got is for a stick figure.”
“Uh—what?”
“He’s white, he’s tall, and he wears a baseball cap.” His arms crossed over his chest as his gaze scanned the Channel Five station. “In short, he could be just about any guy you passed on the street.”
Great. But… She eased back from the crew and lowered her voice. “Then why did the captain say that?” Kenton was talking to Elle, calm, composed as he said—
“We definitely expect to apprehend the suspect soon. It’s just a matter of time. The SSD is confident that the perpetrator known as Phoenix will be captured.”
“He wanted glory.” Ramirez hesitated, then told her, “But what Lawrence did was put our guy in the cross-hairs.”
“I don’t—”
“Phoenix killed the last witness.” Blunt. She flinched, remembering the flames. “So what do you think is gonna happen when our perp hears about this one?”
“Cut!” Travis’s voice. “Great. That’s a wrap, people!”
Kenton managed a curt nod for Elle, and then he yanked at the microphone clipped to his lapel.
“He’s losing his objectivity because of you.”
She didn’t look away from Kenton. His jaw was locked tight, and his eyes were on her. Narrowed and sharp.
You’ll be as dead as Carter.
“I’m not too happy with him right now.” Because he’d hit too deep with his words.
“He’s scared because with you… it’s personal.”
Kenton rose and headed toward her.
“It’s hard enough when you don’t know the victims.” A whisper of something came and went in Ramirez’s voice. Something that sounded like pain. Her stare slid to him, but nothing showed in his eyes. But then, she hadn’t seen any emotions show at all in the agent’s eyes. He could tease, he could play, he could rile Kenton, but it was like all that was surface. Just actions he was supposed to perform in order to fit in.
“When it’s someone you care about…” One of his shoulders lifted in a faint shrug. “All f**king bets are off.”
She swallowed.
“We’re done.” Kenton’s arm brushed against hers. “Monica wants us to meet her at the police station. She’s got some info for us about the other victims.”
Ramirez nodded. “I’ll meet you there.” Then he was gone, moving quickly through the tangle of bodies in the newsroom.
Kenton caught her hand. “We need to talk.”
In less than a minute, he’d found an empty office—Tom’s office, because his name was spelled out in gleaming gold lettering on the door. Kenton pushed her inside, slammed the door, and glared.
She glared right back. No way would she back down.
“I—I’m sorry.” His words sounded gruff, awkward. “About Carter, I didn’t mean—” He stepped forward, raised his hands, as if he’d touch her, but seemed to freeze. “He’s not getting to you.”
But Phoenix had already come calling once. “What about the other guy? Ramirez told me the witness—”
“The witness is safe. We’ve got him protected in an undisclosed location.” The faint lines around his mouth tightened. “Phoenix won’t get him.” He wrapped his hands around her arms. “Or you.”
