Page 58 of Wild Fires

It was an obsession. I craved her, and not just her body, but her mind and spirit. She was like a drug. Drug addicts knew that drugs were bad, yet they couldn't stop themselves from going back for another hit. Just seeing her standing there felt like a temptation that I wasn't sure I was strong enough to walk away from. A part of me wanted that hit, the high of just being with her.

Clarence had called me to tell me that I needed to finish what I started. He wanted me to continue working with Gracie. When I told him that I didn't think that was a good idea, he'd laughed and said, “I don't know what happened between the two of you and I don't need to know, but she said the same goddamn thing.”

After that he'd told me to do it anyway and even went so far as to challenge me and my commitment to serving and protecting Ravenden. It had been over the top, but it'd certainly ruffled my feathers enough to get me moving.

I figured the fastest way out of this was to just solve the case and find the arsonist. I should have known that Gracie would think the same.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as I parked then stepped out of the car.

“Probably same as you.”

We didn't even know for certain that this fire was even related to the others, so we both knew our first step was to confirm it or strike it from our list.

“Clarence call you?”

“Yup.”

“I don't need you, Ryan.”

Her words cut me like a knife through my heart.

“So you can go back to just being mayor. I'll figure this out on my own. I always do.”

There was a sadness in her voice and my instinct was to run to her, wrap her up in my arms, and promise her she never had to face anything on her own again. But then the nightmare surfaced as I saw the perfect circle marring the ground. It wasn’t because of the fire exactly; it was where she'd died.

I pushed that thought from my mind.

This was business and nothing more. I could be an adult about this. For now, I needed to work with Gracie. It was for the good of Ravenden. I was going to have to accept that, keep my distance so not to encourage the bond any further, and just do my damn job. Then whatever this had been between us would be over and I could finally go about my life.

So why did that thought make me so sad?

I knew I still wanted Gracie in my life, but that was just the addiction talking.

I cleared my throat. “Did you find a match? Or a feather? Any chance this is our boy or is it just a tragic incident?”

She held up her hand, holding both items.

“It's definitely him.”

I sighed. That’s what I was afraid of.

“Why do you think he changed his M.O.?”

Most people didn't realize that M.O. was short for modus operandi. Loosely translated it meant “mode of operating.” In a case like this it meant why did he change the fire? The location was way off from any of the others we'd attributed to him. This one had to be personal, but why?

“We'd have to know more about him first. What's his why? How do all these sites connect, or are they just random? Are we dealing with a calculated arsonist or just an active and curious pyromaniac? There's still too much that we don't know.”

She was in full work mode, trying to separate emotions from the job. We both knew we weren't getting out of this until the case was solved.

Still, her detachment bothered me. Even though it was exactly my plan to get through this in one piece, I hated that she was using it against me.

“We need to start a trail and brainstorm the possible whys that could lead us to the who.”

“We could set up a project board down at the station,” she suggested.

“How about my office? I don’t want others stumbling by and seeing it, especially since I know you want to put Vance on it. I don't want to confront him until we have some concrete evidence.”

“And he could stop by the firehouse.”