“When was that decision made?”
“About the ceremony? Maybe…forty-five minutes before the game. I asked Dave to okay it myself. The cheerleaders wanted time to tell the students and to give out the candles.”
So a good half hour before the game most of the people in the stadium would have known the lights were going out at the half. Plenty of time for someone to put this into play.
As for why the lights were out everywhere instead of just the field, he’d have to take that up with whoever had set this in motion. From what Lindsey had said that would be Campbell.
“You folks all right?”
Jace glanced up to find that the fire department had finally arrived. The paramedic who’d asked the question moved them aside so that the firemen could get close to the building.
“You need to check out the guy with the rake,” Jace said. “He seemed to be feeling the smoke and exertion. Older man in a maintenance uniform. White hair.”
“I’ll do that. How about you, ma’am?”
“Just a sore throat from the smoke.”
“We’ll check you all out. Can you two make it to the truck?” He tilted his head in the direction of the emergency van that had been pulled up onto the inner edge of the parking lot. “Wait there and I’ll see about the other gentleman.”
“I’m fine,” Jace said.
“You got burns that could be deeper than you think. Let us take a look at them to make sure.”
Lindsey’s hand slipped into his. “Let them look.”
“Tell them not to do anything with the crate and that trash over there,” Jace instructed the EMT. “I’ll send someone to pick them up.”
The paramedic turned his head, looking at the smoldering pile Jace indicated. “What for?”
“Evidence,” Jace said tightly.
The man’s eyes swung back to his face. “Of what?”
“Arson for a start. Then we’ll go from there.”
T
he paramedics had insisted on taking all three of them to the regional medical center. Although Jace had protested, Lindsey hadn’t argued.
Maybe they would keep her overnight, she reasoned. That way she wouldn’t have to face her empty house
or
explain to her parents why she wanted to sleep at theirs.
Besides, her throat and chest really were raw from the smoke she’d inhaled. Maybe they could give her something for that. And something that would help her sleep.
“Everything looks fine,” the doctor who’d examined her announced as he came back into the treatment room where he’d asked her to wait.
He was younger than she was, but that difference hadn’t prevented him from flirting. After Jace’s reaction to the feel of her hand on his cheek, the resident’s attraction had been balm to her battered ego.
“Lung function’s good,” he went on, thumbing through the results of the tests he’d asked for. “The coughing and rawness are the result of smoke irritation. It should clear up completely within twenty-four hours. If they don’t, you can make an appointment with your regular physician or come back here. Got any questions?”
“What about the man who was brought in with me?”
“Guy with the burns? Superficial. You were both lucky. Of course, I’d say that’s par for the course for him.”
“I’m sorry?”
“A little ER humor. You want to see him?”
“Is that okay?”
“No reason why not. They’re putting dressings on a couple of the places, but you can go in and watch. Give him a little moral support. I’ll show you the way.”
He offered his hand to help Lindsey off the table, his fingers closing firmly around hers. He waited to release her until he was sure she wasn’t lightheaded.
He and the nurse watched as she gathered up her purse and the papers they’d given her, including the prescription for the sleeping pills she’d asked for. Then the resident led her out of the room and down a long, glass-walled corridor.
He opened the door to another treatment room without knocking and ushered her inside. “You got company.”
A nurse was putting a square of gauze over an angry-looking patch of skin on Jace’s left shoulder. His
bare
shoulder, Lindsey realized, her mouth suddenly dry.
Jace Nolan, fully dressed, was a force to be reckoned with. And he was undeniably more impressive without his shirt.
His skin was darkly and evenly tanned, the chest it covered broad and firmly muscled, like that of a well-conditioned athlete rather than someone who had lifted weights to achieve that look. Her eyes traced along a defined six-pack, bisected by a dark arrow of hair that disappeared into the top of his khaki trousers. Despite the fact that he was sitting on the end of the examination table, bent slightly forward as the nurse worked on his burns, there wasn’t a hint of fat around his waistline.
It wasn’t until she raised her eyes from her unthinking assessment that she understood what had elicited the doctor’s remark about luck. The scars were on the opposite side of Jace’s chest from where the nurse was working, one just above the bulge of his pectoral, the other near the top of the rib cage. Red and puckered in contrast to the smooth, brown skin that surrounded them, even to a layman’s eye it was obvious the marks had been made by bullets.
“You okay?” Jace asked, his dark eyes concerned.
“Just some smoke irritation. What about you?”
“A couple of cinders burned through my shirt.”
“I can give you one to wear home,” the resident offered.
“I’d be grateful.”
“There you go,” the nurse said, pressing the last of the tape across the bottom of the pad. “Don’t get ’em wet for a couple of days.”
“Thanks.”
“You got somebody to call that can come get you?” the doctor asked.
They’d ridden over with the paramedics. Lindsey hadn’t even thought about her car back in the stadium lot. She assumed Jace hadn’t either. “I could call my dad.”
“The department will send a car,” Jace said, obviously reading the lack of enthusiasm in her voice. He eased down off the table, rolling the shoulder the nurse had just bandaged.
“If the burns don’t seem to be healing when you take off the dressing in a couple of days, you need to come back.”
“They’ll be fine.”
“You get those on the job?” the resident asked, nodding toward the reddened scars on Jace’s chest.
“You said you had a shirt I could borrow.”
“In my locker. I’ll get it.”
“Thanks.”
The nurse had gathered up the materials she’d used to treat the burns. She handed Jace a tube of ointment. “You might as well have this. It’s just going in the trash.”
“Thanks.”
The nurse smiled at Lindsey. “Keep him out of trouble. Not that that’ll be easy from the looks of him.”
“I will,” Lindsey agreed, feeling like a fool as she said it. “Thank you.”
The nurse followed the resident out the door, leaving them alone. Obviously, the medical personnel believed their relationship was very different from the one that existed between them. One strained by the argument they’d had the night Jace thought someone had broken into her house.
Another time Jace had come to her rescue, she realized. As he had tonight. “Thank you.”
She couldn’t remember if she’d told him that at the stadium. He’d been too intent on grilling her about who’d been around the booth before the fire. Still, he
had
probably saved her life, and she needed to express her gratitude.
“Somebody else would have broken down that door.”
“Maybe. Eventually. But you were the one who did.” And at no small cost to himself. She suspected from his earlier behavior that he prefer she not make reference to the burns. Just as he’d ignored the resident’s question about the scars. “I am truly very grateful.”
Jace was saved from having to respond when the door opened again. In his hand the doctor held a faded black T-shirt.
“My workout shirt. Old, but clean. Actually, it’s just out of the dryer.”
“I’ll send it back to you.”
“Doesn’t matter. Like I said, it’s old.”
“Thanks.” Jace took the shirt and slipped his hands into the sleeves.
Lindsey was close enough that she heard the intake of breath when he raised his arms to pull it over his head and then down across his chest. The thin knit, which was probably loose on the lanky frame of the young doctor, clung to Jace’s body, emphasizing all the attributes she’d just mentally catalogued.
She pulled her eyes away to smile at the resident. “Thanks for everything.”
“Y’all take care now.” He opened the door of the exam room, allowing them to precede him into the hall. “Go to the end and take a left. That will get you back to the ambulance entrance. You can make your call from there.”
Jace nodded, putting his hand against the small of Lindsey’s back. His touch sent a shiver up her spine, although she knew the gesture was meaningless.
She was probably reacting so strongly because she’d just been treated to the display of his rather blatant masculinity. Or maybe it was gratitude he’d been the one willing to brave the flames. In any case, she was aware of him as a man in a way she hadn’t been since the night he’d taken her out to dinner.
All you are to Jace Nolan is a component in his investigation of the church fires. No more and no less than you’ve ever been. Just because he happened to be the one on hand when the fire was discovered tonight doesn’t make any of this personal. He’s a cop. Protecting people is his job. And you’re an idiot if you take any of this any differently.
The automatic door to the emergency entrance the resident had described opened before them. Jace stepped aside, allowing her to go through. Once the panel slid closed behind them, he took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the humid night air.
“I can’t stand that smell.”
“Of a hospital?”
“You have your cell?” he asked without answering. “Mine was in the inside pocket of my blazer.”
Which meant it had met the same fate as his jacket. Something else she owed him for. She fished around for her phone in the bottom of her purse and held it out to him.
“I really can call my dad,” she offered again.
“You up to dealing with that tonight?”
She wasn’t, she realized. She didn’t even know what to tell them about what had happened. Although Jace might be convinced someone had locked her in the booth and then set it on fire, that entire scenario was still hard for her to grasp. It would be even harder for her mom and dad.
“I should probably call them anyway. They may hear about the fire from someone else.”
“Calling them is one thing. Having to replay what happened is another.”
“Actually…” She hesitated, reluctant to confess that she was coward enough to have been thinking about staying with them tonight. “I’m not looking forward to going home. I mean, if you’re right about what happened at the game—”
“I’m right.” Unequivocal.
“Then that’s twice someone has targeted me.”
“It makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”
“Wonder what?”
“What you know. Or what they think you know.”
Before she could protest the conclusion he’d come to, Jace flipped open her cell and punched in a number. After a moment he put the phone to his ear, clearly waiting for a response.
As he did, she looked out over the parking lot, trying to figure out what she was supposed to know that had made her a target. Something about the church fires? Or about Andrea?
“This is Nolan. I’m at Grace Regional Medical Center, at the ambulance entrance in the back. I need you to send a squad car to take me home.” He listened again, before he closed the case with a snap, holding it out to her.
She took it automatically, her mind still working at the puzzle he’d given her. “I don’t know
anything.
And I don’t know why anyone would think I do.”
“One, because you’ve been seen with me on a couple of occasions and I’m in charge of the arson investigation. Two, because as far as anyone knows, you were the last person associated with the school to see Andrea Moore alive. And, in all likelihood, the last person to talk to her before she died.”
The last person to talk to her before she died.
For some stupid reason, she hadn’t realized that.
“That doesn’t mean I know anything about either.”
“Someone obviously doesn’t believe that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Maybe not.”
Which meant Jace thought Andrea might have told her something important. “We talked about the test. She didn’t confide in me. If I’d had any idea what was in her head—”
“I came to you. So did Andrea. Obviously that’s making somebody uncomfortable.”
“Uncomfortable enough to want to
kill
me?”
“I’m not sure either incident was intended to do that.”
“Then…What does that mean? Exactly?”
“As attempts at murder, they were pretty inefficient.”
“They didn’t feel inefficient to me.”
“Snake bites are rarely fatal. Painful and dangerous, yes. But rarely fatal. And tonight…Why pull that stunt in front of thousands of people?”
“It
wasn’t
in front of them. And it almost succeeded. If it hadn’t been for you and a couple of other people—”
“Who were
there.
A lot of people were there. I can’t see how anyone could believe that was going to be a successful attempt on your life.”
“Then what was it?”
“Another warning about keeping your mouth shut. Or an act of revenge.”
“
Revenge?
For what?”
“For talking to me.”
She still was. She had been tonight in front of all those people. Actually, she’d stood at the back of that smoldering ticket booth with his arm around her.
If Jace was right, and she was being targeted because of her relationship to him, the smartest thing she could do would be to have nothing else to do with him.
She’d given him the analogy of the rattlesnake being a warning. If he was right about the fire—
“Andrea didn’t tell me anything, Jace. I don’t have any idea why she killed herself.”
“Would you be willing to try and re-create that conversation for me? As close to word-for-word as possible?”
“I told you most of it this morning at school. There’s really nothing in what she said…”
She hesitated, trying to think if she might be mistaken. Had Andrea given her a clue as to what was wrong? If so, she hadn’t picked up on it.
“Don’t try to force it,” Jace advised. “We’ll sit down and talk about it when you’re rested.”
She laughed, thinking how little sleep she’d managed this week. Despite having a prescription that might help, there was no way to get it filled tonight. She wasn’t going to drive to the Wal-Mart out on the highway. Not alone. Not at this time of night. Especially not after what Jace had just suggested.
“Something funny?”
“That whole idea of me being rested. I can’t remember the last time I slept for more than a couple of hours at a stretch. I doubt that after this tonight will be any different.”
“You aren’t sleeping?”
“Not since Tuesday.”
She’d never before understood the psychological implications of sleep deprivation as a punishment. She did now.
“You want me to stay with you tonight?”
She admitted the offer was tempting. Despite his earlier rejection. Despite what had happened the last time he’d been at her house. Despite her unexpected reaction to the sight of his bare chest tonight.
“My neighbors would talk,” she said finally.
“Mine won’t.”
Which sounded like an invitation to spend the night at his place. Only, she wasn’t sure what the invitation included.
“You’re suggesting that I spend the night at your house?”
“Apartment. I haven’t had time to house hunt.”
But it sounded as if that were something he intended to do. For some reason—one she couldn’t justify, given their relationship—she was pleased.
Because you’re a glutton for punishment? Remember, this is a guy who couldn’t bear to have you touch his cheek.
“It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer—”