High Stakes Bride (11 page)

D
ora McIntosh was a monthly appointment and a home visit. An octogenarian and semi-disabled, all Dani could do for her was massage for pain relief and loosen up stiff joints, but they'd both gotten to enjoy the sessions and the afternoon tea that followed. Dora might be slow on her feet, but she was dynamite in the kitchen. People came for miles to visit and eat her scones and plum jam.

Minutes after the physiotherapy session was finished, while Dora was pouring tea into translucent porcelain cups, Dani tensed. She could smell smoke.

Making the excuse that she needed to use the bathroom, just in case she
was
going crazy, she walked down the narrow hallway with its muted runner and faded sepia photographs grouped on the walls. When she opened the door to one of Dora's tiny back bedrooms, smoke and heat blasted out in a wave, sending her stumbling back.

Slamming the door closed, Dani retreated down the hallway, which was now filled with smoke. Dora met her at the kitchen doorway, face pale, eyes frightened. The first order of business was to get Dora to safety. Besides suffering from arthritis, she was an asthmatic; the last thing she needed was an attack brought on by stress or a case of smoke inhalation.

After gathering Dora's handbag and her own things, she turned the knob on the front door. It wouldn't budge. Seconds later, she found that the back door was also locked, and, like the kitchen door, the key was gone.

After a frantic search that came up blank because the entire container of keys was missing, Dani pushed up one of the old-fashioned sash windows, helped Dora out, tossed out their bags and went back for Dora's oxygen.

When she'd made Dora comfortable in the passenger seat of her truck, Dani stood in the dense shade of the walnut tree that overhung the driveway, slipped her cell phone from her bag and made the call. Flames had already engulfed the back third of the house. Dani would do what she could with the garden hose, but Dora lived a good fifteen minutes out of town. By the time the fire crew arrived, it could be too late.

The emergency operator picked up the call and began taking details. She paused in her list of questions, the tension almost palpable. “Didn't I take a call from you last week?”

The Barclay fire. “That was me. Same person, same town, same kind of emergency, although this time we also need an ambulance.”

Less than twenty minutes later, the fire engine came to a halt in front of the house. It was followed by the ambulance and a police cruiser.

Tony Flynn slid through the small knot of medics and fire fighters around the ambulance, the inevitable notepad and pen in his hand. “Who do you think set this fire, Mrs. McIntyre?”

Dora paused as she was being helped into the back of the ambulance. Her gaze settled on the burnt remnants of her cottage. “What makes you think I know anything?”

“Heard Dani Marlow called it in. Again.”

The ambulance officer shot Flynn a hard look, and tried to get Dora up the steps.

Dora resisted. “I would have called emergency services myself, but Dani was quicker. If she hadn't been here, I would have died.”

“Rumour is if she hadn't been in your house, you'd still have one.”

Dora's mouth set in a line. “I don't listen to gossip. Not spoken
or
printed.”

The ambulance officer changed his grip, stepping around Dora as he did so and incidentally shouldering Flynn out of the way.

The doors slammed on the ambulance. Seconds later it was on its way down the drive. Flynn's gaze settled on Dani.

Dani crossed her arms over her chest. “Don't bother.”

Flynn's expression lost some of its professional blankness and Dani realized he was loving this. Homes and livelihoods were being destroyed, but for Flynn it was a professional windfall. Career-wise, the Jackson's Ridge fires were the best thing that had happened to him since he'd hit town.

“People are saying whenever you turn up so do the flames.”

A shadow fell over Flynn. “If you're trying to snatch a quote out of the air, Flynn, forget it.”

Carter. She'd been aware of him in the background, talking to Murdoch and Jackson's Ridge's only other police officer, Lowell Higgins. He must have arrived within seconds of the police cruiser. The only way that could have happened was if Murdoch had phoned him.

Flynn flipped his notebook closed and slipped it into his shirt pocket. “Just doing my job, Rawlings.”

“First time I heard fiction was a legal part of it.”

Flynn's face hardened. “What exactly are you accusing me of?”

“Nothing. Yet.”

Flynn barely registered the threat. Transferring his attention to Dani, he slipped a business card out of his pocket. “If you want to talk I can get you a deal on syndication, maybe even a chunk of dough from a magazine. Think about it.”

Dani ignored the card. “Keep it, I won't be changing my mind.” In Dani's opinion, even if she had something to say, Flynn had brought a style of reporting to Jackson's Ridge that the small community just didn't need. The general consensus was that he was a city boy, as hard as nails and brash, but he would adjust to the slower, gentler pace in time. So far, despite Flynn's enthusiasm for owning his own paper, he hadn't shown any visible signs of softening, all he'd done was get up everyone's nose.

A loud crumping sound was followed by an explosion of smoke and steam as the roof on Dora's cottage collapsed inward. Walter Douglas roared an order and the men directing a steady stream of water into the building pulled back as a wall collapsed outward.

A slow burning anger ignited as Dani watched walls fall like dominoes. Within a matter of minutes Dora's home—the house she'd lived in for sixty years—had been reduced to little more than a pile of smoking rubble, the pretty gardens around it destroyed. The fact that Flynn, and others, thought she might be responsible for the destruction faded in the face of what Dora had lost.

A chill slid down her spine when she remembered the locked doors. In the scramble to get Dora to safety the cold deliberation of the act—locking them in the house while the fire was set—had barely registered. She'd simply opened a window and kept moving, but now that she had time to think, the intent behind the act took on a distinctly sinister note. Dora didn't normally lock her doors, nor did she leave the keys sitting in the locks. Like everything else in Dora's house they were kept with meticulous order—in a pottery bowl on the kitchen counter. The entire bowl had been missing, which meant that part of the crime had been as premeditated as the carefully set fire in the back bedroom—the room furthest away from the main living rooms of the house—where the blaze could get a good hold before they realised there was a problem.

This fire hadn't been lit by kids or a straight-out pyromaniac, it was the work of an ordered adult mind. She was certain the fire had been set with the intent to panic and injure, maybe even to kill.
She
wasn't an arsonist—or a potential murderer—but someone else was. The problem would be convincing Murdoch of that fact.

On cue, Pete Murdoch pushed through the knot of locals that had arrived to help. He nodded at Carter who had taken up a position beside her and for once Dani didn't have one qualm about Carter's presence or the subtext that went with it. Something had happened since her revelation of the previous day—the resistance that had always existed was gone. The issues that had destroyed their relationship remained and she didn't know if she would ever be comfortable with the vulnerability that went with being in love, but on a subtle female level she had accepted him. She didn't know how they would work things out, or if they ever could, but she didn't question his right to protect her.

After initial pleasantries, Murdoch slid his notebook out of his pocket, but when Flynn appeared, he rolled his eyes and jerked his head in the direction of his cruiser.

Grimly, Dani fell in step beside Carter, and suspicion coalesced into certainty. “Murdoch's the reason you're here.”

“He rang me when he got the call. We've got a theory.”

“I hope it matches mine.”

Dani perched on the edge of the front passenger seat and answered the standard questions. When Murdoch was finished she pushed to her feet. “Ever think that whoever's setting these fires is doing it to frame me?”

Murdoch snapped his notebook closed. “Or using you as a scapegoat. I've put some thought into it.”

Carter straightened from his position against the bonnet of the cruiser. “So far almost every fire has been a neighbour.”

Murdoch looked thoughtful. “Or a client.”

Dani went still inside. The moment she'd discovered Dora's keys were missing replayed itself. She'd assumed the crime was aimed at harming Dora, but if Dora had a connection to the arsonist, it was a random one. Dani's connection was direct in every case: she had been present at every fire. If the link forged by the arsonist was planned and not a coincidence, that could mean she had been the target, not Dora. “
My appointment book.
”

She was a creature of habit; her life usually ran like clockwork with little variation. The thought that someone was using that information when committing the crimes in order to implicate her didn't make sense, but it was possible. Briefly, she explained about the keys and the locked doors.

Murdoch made a note. “How accessible is your office?”

“When I'm not there it's locked.” Unlike the house, she always secured the clinic. The habit wasn't logical in light of the fact that every other building was wide open, but the precaution was ingrained because she stored confidential medical records. It was second nature to lock up her workspace.

Carter's expression was grim. “The doors may be secured, but the locks are old-fashioned and standard. You can buy the keys from almost any hardware store.”

“If a key was needed at all.” Most appointments were made at least a couple of weeks in advance, so the book was filled. All it would take was a glance from someone in her waiting room. “The theory has holes. Tom's a client, but not on a regular basis, and I've never treated Nola.”

Murdoch shrugged. “At this point, any lead works for me.”

The now-familiar figure of O'Halloran standing watching the fire crew roll up hose registered. “O'Halloran was in for a treatment last week.”

Murdoch's gaze was cold. “Don't worry, I'm checking on him.”

 

Half an hour later, Murdoch was in Dani's therapy rooms, studying her client list and the appointment book. “Mind if I borrow these? I'll copy it and have it back to you tomorrow.”

Dani took a note of the week's appointments then dug out her address book. “You might want this, too.”

Murdoch shook his head. “I had no idea you treated so many people out here.” His expression was unreadable as he bagged the books and placed them in his briefcase.

Her stomach tightened at the possibility that one of her clients was responsible for the fires, and for setting her up.

Murdoch straightened. “Made any enemies lately?”

“None that I can think of.” Jackson's Ridge had always been a haven. People
liked
her, and she liked them.

But, chances were, someone on that list didn't, and it wasn't comforting to know that over the last month she had been busier than ever with the practice.

 

Dani watched as Murdoch drove away.

Carter pushed a hot drink into her hands.

“He's still going to investigate me.”

Carter propped himself against the doorjamb and sipped his coffee. “It's his job.”

The brevity of his reply and his rock-solid steadiness were oddly comforting.

“I notice Walter was on that list.”

Dani wrapped her fingers around the mug and breathed in the fragrance of the coffee. “Walter's been coming to me for years. It's no big deal. Chronic sciatica.”

Carter finished his drink in silence, straightened and walked to the small kitchenette.

She heard water running as he rinsed his mug. “It
can't
be Walter.”

Carter reappeared. “He's been in the Fire Service for years.”

Dani didn't need a picture drawn. She'd watched the movies and read the newspaper articles. Criminals loved to revisit the scene of the crime, and firebugs got their thrills by watching the fire. What better way to observe than if you were actually on the fire crew? She shook her head. “It can't be Walter.”

“Someone's setting the fires. They're skilled and elusive, and you're at the centre of the pattern.”

The clear, cold blue of Carter's gaze was unsettling. The word
pattern
didn't make her feel any better.

She lifted the mug to her mouth and drank, forcing herself to shake off the jumpy feeling. “What do you know about patterns?”