Kansas City's Bravest

“Oh.” Embarrassment couldn’t begin to describe the emotions trying to break through. She pressed her lips tightly together and waited for control to kick in. Gideon wouldn’t want her to have any feelings for him—grateful or sexual or otherwise. She’d long ago killed any feelings he had for her. So she made a joke. “Well, you know me and makeup. I never get it quite right.”

Gideon didn’t laugh and neither did she. Instead he strode away from her and climbed down a ladder into the basement. It was an easy movement that betrayed no reaction to the heated moment they’d just shared. “I want you to have a look at something I found earlier.”

If she was smart, she’d turn around and walk the other way. But then, she’d never been able to resist one of Gideon’s challenges. And if it was work-related…

That was where their relationship had started in the first place. As a probationary recruit about to wash out of basic training, Gideon had taken her under his wing and turned her into a real firefighter. She’d learned her skills at the foot of a master. This was her career now. This was who she was and who she needed to be. She’d be foolish to turn down the opportunity to learn more.

Carefully watching her step and keeping her distance, she followed him down the ladder. “What is it?”

She stepped down into a half-inch slush of water and dirt and debris. While the muck oozed around the soles of her boots, Gideon directed his flashlight across the floor.

“There.” He lifted one of the charred planks piled in the middle of the floor and tossed it aside. “You can hardly see it through this slime, but it’s there.”

She moved to help him clear more boards to prop them up in a makeshift dam until they’d exposed a four-foot square of old stone tile. He used the beam of his flashlight to point out crisscrossed markings burned into the floor that were a darker shade of black than the surrounding charcoal and ash.

Meghan squatted for a closer look. She wiped her hand clean on her pant leg and reached down to touch one of the charred lines. Her finger came back sticky. “What is it?”

Gideon hunkered down beside her, testing the tacky residue as she had, but bringing a sample up to his nose to sniff it. “My guess is a petroleum distillate, like kerosene or gasoline.”

“A catalyst. Does that mean what I think it does?”

Gideon nodded. His serious expression left no room for doubt. “Arson. Someone set it deliberately.”

A cold, cold feeling of alarm stilled the skittering pulse in her veins. The shadowy figure darting across the corridor before the platform collapse suddenly made sense. It hadn’t been the dog at all.

“Gideon?” What she’d seen had been more hallucination than fact. Her description wouldn’t give Gideon or the police much to go on. But it might be important. “You didn’t find any trace of a body, did you?”

“No.”

The quirk of his eyebrow told her he was interested in what she had to say.

“Then I think I saw who set the fire.”

Chapter Three

Meghan didn’t know which disturbed her more—her sudden notoriety or seeing Gideon again.

At least the congratulatory phone calls at the station and the bouquets of flowers from her battalion commander and three animal rights agencies would go away after a few days.

Memories of her time with Gideon Taylor would haunt her forever.

After she’d given her brief statement to Gideon, she returned with her team to the station house. Off duty for the next sixteen hours, Meghan had showered, changed into a pair of khaki shorts and a navy tank top, shoved her feet into a pair of slip-on tennis shoes and sped off in her pickup truck. She’d delivered all but the commander’s bouquet to the Truman Medical Center, and stopped by the animal shelter.

She’d been efficient. An hour and a half later, she was pulling up to a house in the Kansas City suburb of Ray-town, Missouri, not too far from Kauffman and Arrowhead stadiums. She parked her Ford Ranger in the long asphalt driveway in front of the white, two-story, barn-style house that felt more like home than her own apartment.

Meghan rolled down the window and killed the engine before leaning back into her seat and taking the first unfettered breath she’d enjoyed since the station dispatcher had sounded the alarm that morning. She sat in the driveway and studied the house with its detached garage. The gold shutters needed a new coat of paint and the shrubs out front needed some pruning.

There was a normalcy about a house that was truly lived in, which Meghan envied. But it wasn’t the need to tend something, or the towering pine trees, or even the massive yard that brought her back here every evening and weekend she was free. It was the people.

Her boys, to be more precise.

No. Dorie Mesner’s boys. Or, most accurately, the four boys who were orphaned or legal wards of the state who had been assigned to live in Dorie’s group home.

The same group home where Meghan had spent one relatively safe year of her life before turning eighteen and moving out on her own.

She leaned across the bench seat and stuck her fingers through the grate of the plastic pet carrier. She smiled at the cold nose that butted her hand and laughed at the warm tongue that licked her fingers. “Don’t be nervous. I was at my first visit, too. But Dorie’s a nice lady. She comes on all tough in the beginning, but by the end of the day she’ll be baking you cookies. Or, in your case, sneaking you dog treats.”

The plaintive whine from the pooch, which the vet had officially labeled a terrier mix, struck a familiar chord in Meghan. The seven-month-old dog had been abandoned. The dog’s life as a runaway had left her traumatized by the fire, with sore paws and two thumb-nail-size patches of bare pink skin on her tail where she’d been singed by flying embers.

Basically, Meghan had agreed to be the dog’s foster parent. “Come here. We girls have to stick together around here.” She opened the carrier and let the dog climb into her lap so they could cuddle and trade comforts.

With the animal shelter full, she was to watch the dog until they could determine where she belonged. In the meantime, Meghan had to try to take care of her without becoming too attached—just in case the dog had to go away again. She scratched the base of the dog’s ears, reassuring her of her good intentions without actually making the promise that she could stay.

Meghan had heard that promise and seen it broken more than once.

“Whatcha got, Meghan?”

Edison Pike. A gangly ten-year-old with a shock of two-toned blond hair stood at the open truck window. She should have known he’d spot the dog right away. His observant blue eyes didn’t miss much. He was as smart as his namesake, but she knew better than to call him that.

“Hey, Eddie.” The dog propped her two front paws on the door and sniffed at her potential playmate. Eddie, on the other hand, held himself perfectly still. “It’s okay.” Meghan thought he might be leery of the dog’s eager greeting. “She’s friendly. She doesn’t bite, though she might try to lick you on the nose.”

“What’s wrong with her? She’s missing fur on her tail. What are the bandages on her paws for?” Ah, yes. Asked with all the detachment of true scientific curiosity.

A nice cover for a boy who wasn’t willing to risk his emotions. Meghan could relate.

“She was caught in a fire I worked today. The vet said the injuries aren’t severe. No smoke inhalation to worry about, only a few minor burns. We just have to watch that she doesn’t scratch or chew on the raw skin. We get to watch her for a few days.”

Eddie inched a step closer. “Does she have a name?”

“Not yet.” He lifted the back of his hand to within reach of the dog’s nose. The dog snuffled Eddie’s hand, then twisted her neck to press the top of her head into his palm, demanding to be petted. “I think she likes you.”

The dog was doing all the work, but Meghan was pleased to see that Eddie hadn’t pulled his hand away. “I think we should call her Crispy.”

“Yeah?”

“She’s lucky she didn’t get burned to a crisp,” Eddie reasoned.

“Crispy it is, then. Here.” She hooked a leash to Crispy’s new red collar and handed her through the window to Eddie. “Keep a good hold on her. Why don’t you run her to the backyard where the fence is? Make sure the gate’s shut tight.”

“Okay.”

Pleased with his new friend and new responsibility, Eddie set the dog on the ground and took off toward the back of the house. Meghan moved at a much slower pace. As stress and adrenaline let down, fatigue set in. She picked up the carrier and a sack of pet supplies from the back of the truck, and hiked up to the front door. With her hands full, she nudged the doorbell with her elbow.

Seconds later the door sprang open. “Meghan.”

Dorie Mesner, her cap of snow-white hair flying out in frizzy curls all around her head, uttered the robust greeting and pulled the grocery sack from her arms all at the same time. She stuck her nose inside the sack. “What have you done this time?”

Meghan grinned. “I’m fine, thanks. How are you?”