Mcqueen's Heat

“What’s tucked into the liner of yours?” Chandra wasn’t smiling. “You showed me once, so I know—a St. Florian medal pinned to the sweatband, a photo of your family taken before they died and a laminated four-leaf clover.”

“Half the jakeys in the country must have a St. Florian medal somewhere on their person.” Tamara’s tone took on an edge. “He’s the patron saint of our profession.”

“Yeah, the patron saint of jakeys, like you say.” The strong features relaxed momentarily at the slang term firefighters used to describe themselves. “And the shamrock’s for luck. But the photo keeps the people you love close when you’re on the job—most of the crew tuck a picture of a husband or a wife or a girlfriend in their helmet. Who knows why the child picked it up, but it must have fallen from Joey’s gear.” She frowned. “Unless there’s some connection between you and that little girl you haven’t told me about.”

“How would I know who she is?” Tamara shrugged before she remembered her sprained shoulder. It had been examined when she’d arrived here at Mass General three hours ago, but she’d refused any medication. “Until she gives us her name we don’t even know who her mother was, and like you told me earlier, she hasn’t said one word yet.”

“That’s not surprising.” Chandra’s expression was closed. “The doctor pegged her at about seven or eight, poor tyke—it has to be pretty rough on a little girl like that, seeing her mom dead and nearly dying herself. You sure you never saw her before, King?”

Tamara’s lips tightened impatiently. “She looks like a girl I went to school with a long time ago, for God’s sake. Except this kid’s got green eyes, and Claudia Anderson had blue.”

“That could be it. Maybe the child’s mother was this girlhood friend of yours, fallen on hard times and hoping to get in touch with you to see if you could help.”

“Your theory’s all wrong, Lieut.” Tamara pushed her hair back from her forehead. “Claudia was my best friend all through school and even after, but I haven’t seen her for years. The last I heard she’d gotten married.” She went on reluctantly. “Besides, I’d be the last person she’d want to see. The man she married was my fiancé. He literally left me standing at the altar and ran off with her.”

Boyleston’s eyes widened. “That must have been a blow,” she said softly. “Sorry I stirred up old memories, Tamara.”

Tamara saw the sympathy in the other woman’s eyes. “Hey, Lieut—I’m over it, okay? It happened a long time ago, and though I’ll admit it was pretty devastating to be jilted in front of a whole churchful of people, I went on to make a new life for myself. I even went through with the reception, sans groom, of course.”

Chandra grinned in startled amusement. “Jeez, girl, talk about ballsy. You threw the party without the wedding?”

“Threw the party, danced up a storm, drank too much and awoke the next morning with the first and only hangover I’ve ever had in my life.” Tamara nodded. “The whole evening was a blur, but I remember some of Rick’s friends were there. I didn’t want him hearing I’d had to be escorted from the altar sobbing broken-heartedly or anything like that.” A corner of her mouth lifted ruefully. “I saved the messy breakdown for the next day, when no one could see me.”

Not true, King, a small voice in her head said with annoying precision. You fell apart that night, and in front of a total stranger. A stranger you’d just—

She shut the voice off with an effort. “Anyway, that’s why I know Claudia wouldn’t come looking for me.”

“Which leaves us with Joey. He obviously realized you only saw him as a friend, so he kept his feelings under wraps.” As an orderly wheeled an empty gurney past them, Chandra went on. “I’d still like to know who the civilian was. In all the excitement I never even got a good look at him. The crew told me if he hadn’t passed out again while they were trying to get him into the ambulance, he probably would have taken off on us. He didn’t give you his name?”

Tamara frowned as she heard the clatter of something metal in one of the nearby rooms. A male nurse at the station looked up in annoyance and then headed down the corridor.

“No, but it wasn’t hard to figure out his story, Lieutenant. Like the child’s mother, he was down and out enough to be staying in that dump. I—I got the feeling life didn’t mean much to him anymore,” she added.

“His life, maybe.” The brown eyes watching her sharpened. “But he went to the wall to bring that little girl—”

“It’s against the rules to just walk out!” The curt remonstration came from one of the rooms. “Dr. Jasper left specific instructions—”

“Tell him I discharged myself. And since I’d prefer not to waltz down Charles Street bare-assed, how about handing over my pants before I leave?”

The smoky growl was almost drowned out by another crash, and Tamara heard the no-nonsense tones of the male nurse who’d just left the station.

“You’re in no shape, mister. They pumped you full of drugs when you arrived, so why don’t you—”

His placating words ended abruptly. The next moment a tall figure strode into the corridor, shirtless and still zipping up the fly of the soot-smeared khaki pants he was wearing. Beside Tamara, Chandra stiffened.

“Don’t tell me. Our Mr. X?”

“I was going to find out what floor he’d been taken to and see how he was,” Tamara answered, her attention focused on the tableau being enacted only yards away from them. “I guess that’s not necessary now.”

The male nurse had been joined by an orderly, and even as she watched he stepped in front of their patient. In the doorway of the room they’d left a ward nurse appeared.

“At least let us call someone to take you home—a family member or a friend.” Taking advantage of the momentary standoff in the corridor, the female nurse advanced to the big man’s side, her posture rigidly disapproving. “If we could release you into someone’s care—”

“I don’t have any family. I don’t have a home anymore, for that matter.” The husky voice held a note of impatience. “So why don’t you call off the guarddogs here, sweetie, and I’ll just be on my way?”

“You’ve got friends, McQueen.” Boyleston’s tone was arid. “God knows why, with a personality like yours, but you’ve got a few. Or at least you used to, before you dumped us all and dropped out of sight.” Her voice lost a little of its edge. “How’ve you been, Stone?” she asked quietly.

Tamara looked at her in astonishment and then back at the man again. With a second small start she realized that those dark gray eyes were fixed on her, not her companion.

It all made sense now, she thought—the heroism he’d shown, the way he’d known too much about fire. He’d been a firefighter. He’d gone up against the beast. She met his eyes. He blinked, and looked at the woman beside her.

“I see you made rank, Chandra,” he replied flatly. “How about using your pull to remind Florence Nightingale here that it’s still a free country? Buddy, you’ve got exactly three seconds to get that hypo away from me,” he added to the male nurse.

“I’ll take responsibility for him,” Boyleston sighed. One slim brown hand went to her forehead to massage her temples. “Still a charmer, McQueen. But after what you did today I guess I owe you.” She glanced sideways at Tamara. “Stone McQueen. Tamara King. I hear you guys didn’t introduce yourselves earlier.”

“So what happened to your partner?” As the lieutenant followed the still-glowering nurse to the station and began putting her signature on what seemed to be endless forms, Stone McQueen gave his attention to buckling his belt. His question was perfunctory. Tamara was taken aback by his attitude, but she kept her voice even.

“Joey’s going to make it,” she began, but he cut her off, his head still bent to his task.

“He nearly got you killed, honey. What was he playing at, arriving at a fire without a respirator?”

“He made a mistake. He’s going to be paying for it for a long time, according to the doctors.” She took a deep breath. “I nearly made a mistake, too. Thanks for getting me out of that hallway in time.”

He raised his head abruptly. “A mistake? Is that how you explain it to yourself?” He shrugged, the muscles shifting under that broad expanse of tanned chest. “Okay, honey. Then thanks for not letting me make the same mistake when you barged into my room and wouldn’t take no for an answer. I guess we’re even.”

He frowned, looking down at the gauze dressing that covered most of his left forearm. “God, I hate hospitals,” he said under his breath. “I hate every damn thing about them.” His jaw rigid, he ripped the bandage off with a muttered oath.

“But you didn’t want to get out of that room, McQueen,” Tamara said sharply. “Your being there wasn’t a mistake, and both of us know it. I don’t see the connection between that and me almost getting caught in that hallway.”

“You don’t?” Carelessly he tossed the crumpled square over his shoulder into the wastebasket by the pay phone behind him. “Joey was just the excuse. You wanted to look into its face, honey. You wanted to know who it was.” He spared her a smile. “You thought you might see yourself looking back,” he said softly.

“You’re going to have to run that one by me again.” She heard the tightness in her own voice. “Whose face? What am I supposed to have seen myself looking back from?”

As he stood just inches away from her, Tamara suddenly realized that the destructive aura she’d only sensed before was all around her.

If she let herself, she thought, she could reach out and touch that solidly muscled torso, trace the coarse scattering of hair leading from those tanned pectorals, veeing down to his exposed navel, vanishing under the worn leather of the belt at his hips. The garish hospital lighting revealed every flaw in his skin—the grainy weariness, the small scar by his full bottom lip, the angry-looking scrape high up on one hard cheekbone. It was obvious he’d never been a pretty man. It was obvious he’d never needed to be. He practically smelled like sex.

“The fire, honey. You think if you look close enough, you might see your face staring back at you from the fire.” He was near enough to her that the warmth of his breath touched her lips. “You’re afraid you brought the beast to life. You think maybe there’s only one way to stop it for good.”

How did he know? The shocked thought tore through her mind. How did he know what she called it, how did he know how she felt when it was raging all around her?

“You’re out of your mind,” she said, trying to match the evenness of his tone, and almost succeeding. “I hate fire, McQueen. It’s the enemy. It’s the thing I go up against. I don’t start fires, for God’s sake—I spend most of my life running around putting them out.”

“You can’t put them all out.” A corner of his mouth lifted humorlessly. “You’d better learn that fact before it’s too late.”

“You sound like you’re talking from experience.” Her voice was ice. “You were a jakey once, too, weren’t you?”

He didn’t answer, but she took the slight flicker in his gaze for affirmation and went on, her tone edged. “Maybe you’re the one with an unresolved conflict about fire, McQueen. Except you just gave up the fight—gave it up so totally that today you were only minutes away from surrendering completely.”

She brought her face to within inches of his. “You’re the one who’s burning up,” she ground out. “What I’d like to know is who or what struck the match with you. Was it a woman? Is that how you were destroyed, Stone?”

With a slight sense of shock she saw her random arrow had found a mark. At her last words he froze.

“You got it a little wrong, honey,” he said woodenly.

Without making a move he seemed somehow to be looming over her. But his size wasn’t the most overwhelming thing about him, Tamara thought. What would strike even the most casual observer was the impression of power held just barely in check that appeared to be an integral part of him. Coupled with the aura of self-destructiveness she’d already noticed, the combination of the two seemed perilously volatile.

“The job destroyed me.” That velvet voice wrapped itself around her like an invisible snare. “But yeah, a woman struck the match, and I’ve been burning ever since. Maybe I could have done something about it once…but after all these years I think I like it.”

His smile was crooked. “You might find yourself liking it, too. Why don’t you try it and see?”

“You’re officially discharged, McQueen.” Lieutenant Boyleston was standing beside them, her expression quizzical. “Now all we have to do is find you somewhere to sleep tonight. Here, put this on before you get a candystriper all hot and bothered.”

She was holding out an orderly’s jacket to him, but as she spoke her eyes narrowed on Tamara’s set features. “I’d offer you a bed at my place, but for some reason Hank’s not real crazy about you.”

Without glancing at it, Stone took the jacket. His eyes were still locked on Tamara’s, and for one illogical moment she thought she saw the hard light in that smoky gaze replaced by a flash of regret. He looked away.

“Your husband?” Impatiently he wrestled into the jacket. “I don’t remember meeting him. Hell, Chandra, I can’t wear this thing.” Glaring at the white sleeves ending inches above his own wrists, he tried half-heartedly to pull the front edges across his chest.

“It was in a bar downtown last year. You were a little the worse for wear,” Chandra said tiredly. “The jacket’s a loaner, Stone, so don’t rip it. King, while I was at the desk—”

“Tell Hank I’m sorry.”

Boyleston’s lips tightened at the interruption. “What?”

Stone started to shrug, and stopped as a seam gave way. “Whatever I said, whatever I did—apologize for me, would you? You’re one of the few who stuck by me.” His voice dropped. “Hell, Chand, I wouldn’t want to think I’d lost your friendship, too.”

“You’ve come close a couple of times, Stone.” Boyleston held his gaze steadily. “But we go back a long way, you and me…back to before everything fell apart for you. I told Hank you were a jerk, but that deep down you were still one of the good guys.”

Her smile wavered. Sighing, she turned back to Tamara. “Like I was saying, King, your uncle Jack called. Apparently he dropped round to the stationhouse to chew the fat with some of his old buddies and some fool told him you’d been taken to the hospital. I told him it was nothing serious but that I was giving you a few days off to let that shoulder mend.”

“You’re putting me on sick leave?” Tamara shot the other woman a glance. “Come on, Lieut, it’s just a pulled muscle.”

“Until you can swing an axe or carry a hose you’re off the roster, and that’s not negotiable.” Boyleston frowned. “Count your blessings, King. Joey might never return to work. When will we get the message through to the public, dammit—smoking in bed is like drinking and driving. You just don’t do it.”

“What’s your point?” McQueen’s thumb was on the call button of the elevator. He looked impatiently over his shoulder.

“My point is that if the dead woman had exercised some common sense, her little girl would still have a mom, Stone. She was smoking in bed. The only reason her room didn’t go up in flames first was because a previous tenant had punched a hole in the drywall, and it acted as a kind of crude chimney.”

Boyleston raked a hand through her cropped hair. “That’s a preliminary assessment, of course, but I doubt the official investigation’s going to find different. The bed smoldered just enough so that the woman died from asphyxiation, but the fire itself went into the walls and the attic.”

“Nice theory.”

As the elevator doors slid open Stone planted one hand solidly against them. Lieutenant Boyleston stepped in, but Tamara paused, alerted by something in the big man’s tone.

“Nice theory but what?”

He shrugged. “Nice theory but it’s crap.”

The elevator doors started to close and he slammed them back into place. This time Tamara heard the seam in the borrowed jacket give way completely, but his next words drove everything else from her mind.

“That fire today was arson—and whoever set it was targeting your friend and her child.”

Chapter Three

“I thought you knew who the kid was! I didn’t know I was the only one she’d talked to.”

Stone swung his gaze from the woman sitting beside him in the waiting room. He was handling this all wrong and he knew it, he thought. It would have helped if Chandra had come with them but the child’s attending physician had stood firm on that, so it was just him and the woman.

And already it wasn’t working.

Tamara was sitting as stiffly as a statue, her face white, the strands of auburn hair escaping her braid like tiny flames flickering around her. He began again, aware that beyond the swinging doors was a ward full of sick children.

“Like I said, she was in the bathtub when I got to her. She already knew her mother was dead.”

And when I tried to lie about that, I just about lost her trust right then and there, he added silently, remembering the almost adult note of scorn in the childish voice.

“If Mom’s only sleeping, why isn’t she breathing?” He’d had an arm around the small shoulders while he’d been hastily dipping a torn sheet into the water, and he’d felt a tremor run through them. “She’s dead. She was dying of cancer anyway, so I’m glad. This way it didn’t hurt. It—it didn’t hurt, did it?”

That question he’d been able to answer truthfully. “She wouldn’t have known anything, Tiger,” he’d told her.

He blinked, torn from his thoughts by the quiet approach of the nurse entering the room. She was young and pretty, he saw. He was relieved. The kids behind those swinging doors deserved to hear a soft voice, see a kind face.

“Dr. Pranam says if you’d like, we can phone you when she wakes up.”

“I’d rather wait.” Tamara’s lips barely moved. “Tell Dr. Pranam I appreciate him bending the rules for us. I know visiting hours are over.”

“We bend a lot of rules.” The nurse smiled, but there was sadness in her voice. “Some of these little ones won’t be leaving, so we do what we can to make them happy. And like Dr. Pranam told you, the only way we could calm her when she arrived was to tell her that we’d find Mr. Stone and bring him to see her.”

“Stone.” He looked away uncomfortably. “It’s my first name. Stonewall.”

“Like the general?” The nurse laughed softly as she pushed open the swinging doors. “That explains a lot. I hear you laid waste to the fifth floor.”

“Stonewall Jackson was shot by his own troops.” As the nurse exited Tamara spoke, her face still white but the blank look in her eyes replaced with a glitter of anger. “So unless you want the similarities between yourself and your namesake to go further, I’d suggest you tell me everything you found out from Claudia’s daughter—starting with why you’re so certain she is her daughter. Why would Claudia come back to Boston to see me?”

“Petra said she was dying of cancer.” Stone saw her lashes fall over the angry blue of her eyes. He continued, wanting to get it over with. “Petra’s the kid,” he added. “I told her to call me Stone, and she told me what her name was. I was trying to keep her mind off what was happening.”

Tamara nodded tightly. “Go on.”

He didn’t want to go on. In fact, he didn’t want to be here at all, Stone thought savagely. The whole damn thing was bringing back too many memories—memories of other vigils in other hospitals—and the urge to just walk out was overpowering. Walk out and find a bar, you mean, an amused voice in his head said. So why don’t you, McQueen?

“She wanted you to take care of her daughter when she was gone,” he said shortly. “That’s why the photo was so important to Petra. She knew that with her mom gone she’d have to find you all by herself.”

“She didn’t mention her father?” Tamara was rubbing her thumb against a smudge of soot on her jeans. “She has to have a father, for heaven’s sake. Where’s he?”

“He died in a car accident before she was born, if I understood her right.” The smudge was now a smear, he saw. “I wasn’t listening to everything she said. I was too busy wondering what our chances were of getting out of there alive.”

He paused. “You don’t want her to be Claudia’s daughter, do you? You don’t want to believe any of this.”

“And I don’t believe it.”

Abruptly she stood. She walked over to a bulletin board and stood there studying flyers for a hospital fund-raiser, her back to him. Stone rose, too, his movements more controlled than hers.

“What’s not to believe? If nothing else, she had that photo of you. How the hell do you explain that away?”

She lifted stiff shoulders in a shrug. “Chandra thought it might have fallen from Joey’s helmet. It seems like the most logical explanation.”

“For the love of Mike—logical? Isn’t it more logical to accept that the kid’s telling the truth?” He had the sudden impulse to take her by the shoulders and force her to listen to reason. With an effort he turned away.

He was getting too involved in this, he told himself tightly. He’d spent the past seven years making sure any involvement he had with the rest of the world was as minimal as possible, and lately he’d come to realize even that was becoming too much to take—although her accusation that he’d been ready to detach completely in that rooming house today was far from being a given, he thought, frowning.

He’d wanted to look into its face. He’d been pretty sure he would see his own staring back at him. Instead he’d looked around and seen her, and that had been the biggest shock of all. He closed his eyes.

Beyond those swinging doors was a little girl whose world had been smashed to pieces—a little girl who was asking for him. He knew why she wanted to see him. He hadn’t told the woman who’d been her mother’s best friend everything that had passed between him and the child, he thought heavily.

He’d crashed through the doorway of the rented room. It had been years since he’d run through a burning building but all at once he’d been back in the past, knowing that there had to be clues if only he could see them, knowing that in seconds those clues could disappear forever.

The woman had been lying on a smoldering cot by the wall. Even before he’d fallen to his knees beside her and placed his thumb firmly on what should have been the pulse-point of her neck he’d known instinctively that Joey had been right. She was gone. An even earlier habit had come back to him, and without conscious volition he’d swiftly crossed himself.

“Rest easy, sister.” For some reason it had been important to put it into words, just in case any shadow of her had lingered and could hear him. “I’ll take care of her for you. I’ll get her out of here.”

As he’d started to rise the information he’d automatically noted even while he’d been concentrating on the woman clicked into place and his heart sank. Between the fingers of the outflung hand was the burned-down butt of a cigarette, the sheet the hand had been resting on now only charred fragments. The cot itself had caught and smoldered, he’d realized, and whatever outdated material it had been filled with had thrown off the toxic fumes that had proven so fatal for its occupant. But at some point the smoldering should have become a full-fledged blaze. Why hadn’t it? And how had the fire skipped to the rest of the building, leaving this room untouched?

He’d gotten swiftly to his feet. Finding the child and getting her to safety was his main concern. Giving the woman on the cot one final glance, he’d seen a remnant of the sheet leading from the cigarette to the emptiness of the hole knocked into the wall, and had realized he was looking at the answer to the questions he’d just dismissed.

But as he’d lifted Petra into his arms only moments later, he’d known that the most deadly question hadn’t been answered at all.

“You’re going to find out who killed my mom, aren’t you, Stone?” In the shadows her eyes had been wide with anguish and fixed stubbornly on his. “You’ll put him in jail, right?”