Baptism In Fire

She strained against the pressure of hands encircling her arms. Never taking her gaze from the inferno, Rachel pried frantically at the vise grip. The pain of reliving this nightmare became more than she could bear.

Maggie. Gotta save Maggie.

She had to block out the images.

She felt herself being shaken. “Rachel!” Luke’s stern voice catapulted her back to reality. “Let it go!”

Mentally she clawed her way out of the past. Slowly, very slowly, she relaxed. For a long moment she stared at him, trying to rationalize where he’d come from. Then she saw his eyes. Reflected there was regret, pain and something else she couldn’t name.

She pressed her face into his chest. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed his strength. His arms felt so right, so safe, so secure. His closeness blocked out the memories of the nightmare. If only they’d shared this comfort back then….

Dear Reader,

As a child, my favorite part of the Memorial Day Parade in our small town was always the firemen and the shiny, red fire trucks. I came from a firefighter family and then I married into one. Among my favorite movies are Backdraft and Ladder 49. Then there was 9/11 and the tragic loss of so many brave men…. Do you see where this is all leading? Writing a book about firemen was inevitable for me.

But Baptism in Fire is not only about firemen. It also addresses a subject that has, unfortunately, become a problem of major proportions in my home state of Florida and around the country: the abduction of children. Being a mother and a grandmother, this was the hardest part of the book to write, but a part that my heart told me I had to address.

I hope you enjoy the journey.

Blessings,

Elizabeth Sinclair

Baptism in Fire

Elizabeth Sinclair

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ELIZABETH SINCLAIR

In 1988, Elizabeth’s husband, Bob, dragged her kicking and screaming from her birthplace, the scenic Hudson Valley of upstate New York, to historic St. Augustine, Florida. It took her about three seconds to stop struggling and to fall deeply in love with her adopted hometown. Shortly after their move, at 3:47 p.m. on August 3, 1992, she sold her first romance, Jenny’s Castle, to Silhouette Intimate Moments®.

Despite the fact that she used to spend hours in the kitchen cooking big meals, Elizabeth’s husband, her most ardent supporter, has learned to enjoy hot dogs and delivery pizza as much as he used to enjoy spaghetti sauce from scratch. Oh, and he no longer complains about all the books she spends money on. Bob and Elizabeth have three children, four lovely grandchildren, a rambunctious sheltie, Ripley, and an affectionate adopted beagle, Sammi Girl, they found abandoned along the roadside and took into their home.

For more about Elizabeth, visit her Web site at www.elizabethsinclair.com.

In loving memory of my dad, Preston Charles Ronk,

a thirty-five-year member of the

Walden Hook & Ladder Fire Company, Walden, NY

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would be remiss if I did not express my deepest gratitude to the three men who helped me delve through the world of firefighting and fire forensics and kept me on the authenticity track. Any mistakes or misrepresentations should be attributed to the author.

Ed Sulkowski, Operations Analyst, IFF South Brunswick, has been a fireman for over twenty years with the Highlands Fire Department in Highlands, New Jersey. He is trained in arson investigation, extrusion and fire prevention as well as standard firefighting techniques, and is a member of the ambient IFF industrial firefighters squad.

Wallace Arthur Lind, Senior Crime Scene Analyst (retired), was a police crime scene investigator for seventeen years. In October 1992, he was certified by the International Association for Identification as a Senior Crime Scene Analyst and has processed over 2,000 crime scenes, including homicides; about 1,500 scenes as the lead crime scene investigator; testified as an expert witness in crime scene investigation, bloodstain pattern analysis and scene reconstruction; and trained others in the field.

Dr. Harry R. Carter, a thirty-eight-year veteran in fire and emergency service, is a municipal fire protection consultant, educator and motivational speaker who holds degrees in fire service administration, public policy analysis, fire safety administration, the social sciences and business administration. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners for Howell Township Fire District #2, and is a longtime contributing editor for Firehouse magazine and the Pennsylvania Fireman. He has authored seven books and more than 1,200 magazine, Web and journal articles.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

Prologue

“I’d rather go through root canal without Novocain than go back to Florida,” Rachel Lansing said fiercely into the phone. She was unable to believe that a man who professed to be her friend was asking this of her. He knew why she’d left.

“Rachel,” A.J. Branson, the Orange Grove Police Department’s chief of detectives, sighed. “I know I’m asking a lot—”

“A lot? You have no idea.” She swallowed hard and fought for a long time to push back hellish memories of another place, another time, another life. A life she’d believed perfect until— “A.J., I left Orange Grove to put that part of my life to rest, not to mention save my sanity. I have a new life here in Atlanta. Why would I come back?”

“Because this involves kids,” A.J. said simply. “No one I know loves kids more than you do and no one I know can profile an arsonist like you.”

Kids.

Maggie.

Damn him.

Rachel rose from the couch and paced her small Atlanta apartment’s living room. No! She massaged her forehead in an effort to push back the insistent memories rising from the darkest recesses of her mind. But even as she denied them admittance, images of her tall, handsome husband holding their blond little girl as she clutched her worn, patchwork teddy bear seeped into her mind.

Oh, God! Maggie… My sweet baby girl.

Pain sliced through her, nearly drawing her double. Her knees dipped, threatening to collapse completely. She gripped the arm of the couch and took a deep breath.

Her white-knuckled fingers pressed the cordless phone tightly to her ear. “Dammit, A.J., that was a low blow.”

“I’m sorry as I can be, Rachel, but in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m desperate.” A pause. “You know I wouldn’t ask you to put yourself through this if I didn’t think it was important.”

Why hadn’t she gone out for dinner instead of coming home? If she had, she would have missed A.J.’s call, missed him stirring up—

“There are other people qualified to do this. Why me?” She tried but failed to keep the anguish out of her voice.

Another pause, then he spoke again, his voice quiet, earnest and firm. “This bastard is about as elusive as any arsonist I’ve come up against. We’ve tried for six months to find the answers but we can’t. I need an arson profiler who knows the ropes. One who can climb inside the torch’s mind. That’s you.”

A long pause followed, during which Rachel remembered the exhilaration of the hunt, the adrenaline rush of piecing together elusive clues like a giant jigsaw puzzle, and the satisfaction of finally nailing the arsonist and putting him behind bars. Nothing in her present life could compare to the challenge of profiling, of learning the intricacies of how a criminal mind worked and then outthinking him.

All this reminiscing magnified just how much she hated her present job as a secretary in a construction company’s office.

However, given the choice, she’d take the boredom of ordering 2x4s any day to reliving the agony of waking up in the middle of the night to find her home going up in flames and her baby gone. When compared to the painful reminders of her only child being kidnapped and probably killed and a husband who no longer loved her, arrogant contractors were infinitely easier to cope with.

“I’m sorry, A.J. You’ll have to find yourself another profiler.”

“Are you sure?”

A pregnant pause followed his question. Was she sure? Could she turn her back on those kids? Could she step back in time and face everything she’d left behind, step back into a lifestyle filled with memories too brutal to bear? The pain in her heart answered for her.

“Yes. I’m sure,” she said, but even she knew her voice lacked conviction. “Find someone else.”

Another pause stretched Rachel’s nerves to the breaking point. A.J. exhaled a long breath, as if he’d made a decision that didn’t sit well with him. “I called you because I need someone with an investment in finding this bastard.”

She went stone still. Her fingers tightened on the phone. Sweat broke out on her forehead. “Investment?”

“I didn’t want to tell you this over the phone, but this recent series of arsons has some definite similarities to your apartment fire.”

An icy chill washed over her from head to toe. “My fire?” She wasn’t sure if she’d said it or thought it.

The line remained silent except for her accelerated breathing. Then A.J. cleared his throat as if removing a knot of emotion from it. That didn’t surprise her. Maggie’s kidnapping and the collapse of Rachel’s marriage to Luke had hit A.J. hard.

“There are a lot of similarities, Rachel. I think it’s the same arsonist, and I thought you’d want the privilege of helping to collar this creep.”

Chapter 1

One Monday morning, after a two-year absence, Rachel walked into the Orange Grove, Florida, police station with a stride that bespoke unmovable determination. If any of the workers knew her, they would have known that look and given her a wide path. But the faces following her progress into the lobby were those of strangers, and instead, they threw casual, unconcerned glances her way and then went back to work.

Rachel surveyed the surroundings and smiled to herself. Maybe the faces didn’t ring any bells, but everything else was familiar. The noise level still reminded her of a hive of worker bees, and no matter how hard the cleaning crew tried, the place still reeked of unwashed bodies, stale coffee and cheap floor wax. Forest-green plastic chairs that Rachel wouldn’t have given house room bordered one wall and held an assortment of handcuffed suspects awaiting booking. Probably the source of the body odor.

There had been a time when her job as arson investigator and profiler for Engine 108 and her marriage to Detective Luke Sutherland had brought her here on a fairly regular basis. Back then, she’d always regarded this place as a familiar presence in her life. Now she found herself experiencing a fish-out-of-water sensation.

What difference does it make? You’re here to do a job, then leave. You’re not here to win friends or settle in permanently.

Rachel walked to the desk and waited while the one familiar person in the room, Desk Sergeant Tony Antola, processed a prisoner being released on bail.

The idle time allowed suppressed doubts to resurface and undermine her resolve. Was she really ready for this? Was she about to jump in over her head emotionally? If she did, was she prepared to face the consequences?

She glanced longingly at the front door and thought about how easy it would be to just slip out, climb into her car and drive back to Georgia. Then images of children without moms, husbands without wives, lives torn to shreds by some crazy bastard who got his rocks off by playing with fire…and her darling little Maggie bombarded her conscience.

Could she handle it? At this very moment, she couldn’t answer that, but she knew she had to try, for all those lives and dreams that had gone up in smoke and for herself. She’d never be able to get back what she’d lost, but she’d deal with whatever came her way—one step at a time. For them, for herself and for Maggie.

When Tony finally turned to her, she smiled. “Hi, Tony.”

“Rachel!” His eyes widened. He smiled broadly, then seized her hand and pumped it with enthusiasm. “Damn, it’s good to see you back here.”

“Thanks.” She returned his smile and accepted his welcome without explaining that she wasn’t really back. “I’m here to see Captain Branson.”

“Sergeant.”

The one-word command came from Rachel’s left and hit her with all the force of a baseball bat being slammed into her middle. It had been eighteen months since she’d last heard it, but she knew that husky voice as surely as she did her own. The owner of that voice had whispered love words to her in the dark of night, read stories to their daughter and promised they would have forever together—then he’d walked out.

Stiffening her back, she turned. Despite her determination not to react, her breath caught in her throat.

Her ex-husband, Luke Sutherland, leaned one broad shoulder against the wall, arms crossed over his wide chest, his hands tucked out of sight beneath his muscular biceps. That purposeful, arrogant stance was also familiar to Rachel. She’d seen it many times, especially in the last six months of their marriage. He’d closed himself off, made it impossible for anyone to see beyond the stern facade he presented to the world. In short, he’d deserted her emotionally and finally physically as well.

That shouldn’t have surprised her. Everyone she’d ever cared about had let her down in one way or another: a father who’d left when she was an infant and a mother who’d shut down emotionally and died too young. It was why Rachel had become so good at her job. If you were the best, you didn’t have to depend on anyone for anything. Rachel had clung to that independence for years, then she’d made the biggest mistake of her life. She’d met Luke and trusted him to take care of her. In the end, he’d been no better than the two people who had given her life.

Rachel had hoped to never see him again, and now, here they were, face-to-face. She fought to control her breathing, to paint the picture of a calm, in-control woman.

Why hadn’t she prepared herself for this? She’d known she’d be running into him. After all, he worked here. Why hadn’t she thought of that? But she knew the answer. Catching the arsonist who’d taken Maggie and probably murdered her was all she’d been able to think about from the time A.J. had hung up the phone. Besides, Luke didn’t enter into this equation. She had come here for one purpose and one purpose only, and it was not to take up again with the man who had torn out her heart and left it to bleed empty.

Now a whole new set of questions flooded her mind. Had he known she would be coming back? Had A.J. lied to her and orchestrated this to get his two friends to reconcile? No. A.J. wouldn’t do that. It just wasn’t like him.

Rachel stared at Luke. Words deserted her. Probably because they’d said all they had to say to each other over the deposition table in her divorce lawyer’s office. But that didn’t mean that his presence didn’t spark her pulse to racing. If she hadn’t reacted to him at all, she hoped someone had ordered her casket, because surely she’d died. Once he entered a room, Luke was not the kind of man any healthy woman ignored, not even one who had dismissed him from her life months ago.

“Hello, Rachel.” His voice was deep, rich and had the effect of silk shimmering over her skin.

He seemed to fill the windowless room. Rachel took a deep breath, hoping to dispel the sudden smothering sensation his presence produced, despite the laboring hum of the AC. “Luke.”

He looked past her at Tony. “I’ll take Mrs. Sutherland in, Sergeant.” Without waiting for a reply, he took Rachel’s elbow, but she shrugged him off.

“Lansing. Ms. Lansing.” She stared straight ahead, then, when he made no reply, glanced sideways to see if he’d heard her.

One dark eyebrow was raised, but Luke neither looked at her nor said anything. He just led her down the long hall. They stopped in front of a door with a frosted-glass panel embossed with gold letters outlined in black that proclaimed this to be the office of Captain Austin J. Branson, Chief of Detectives.

Luke swung the door wide, and Rachel, careful not to touch him, stepped past him and into the office of the man who had been their closest friend and the best man at their wedding. “A.J.’s at a meeting. He’ll be back shortly.”

The room thickened with an uncomfortable silence. Her back to him, she felt him move to the side of the room. It surprised Rachel that she could still sense Luke’s every movement without looking at him. But, then again, the man did have a presence that permeated all corners of any room.

“What’re you doing here, Rachel?”

His question stunned her. She jerked around to look at him. “A.J. didn’t tell you I was coming?”

He shook his head. A lock of dark hair slid over his forehead. With a huff of impatience, he pushed it back. “No.”

Luke had propped his thigh on the corner of the desk. The bunched muscles beneath the denim fabric brought images to mind of watching him during his daily workout, when sweat coated his tanned body and…

She pushed the thoughts away with both hands.

His dark gaze traveled slowly from her chestnut hair to her gray suit, then downward to her tanned legs, remaining there for a tantalizing moment before moving back to her face. Insanely, she wished she’d worn panty hose.

“You’re looking good, Rachel. Georgia agrees with you.”

Fighting off the magnetic pull of his gaze, she dropped her briefcase to the floor, then slipped into the chair in front of the desk and pulled her skirt over her knees, effectively cutting short his appraisal.

He smiled knowingly. “You always did have legs that magnetized a man’s senses.”

She gripped her hands together in her lap to cover their shaking. In an attempt to feed her suddenly starving lungs, she took a deep breath. What the hell was wrong with her? She was over him, over his charismatic ways, over falling victim to his pretty words. Nerves. It had to be nerves. After all, it wasn’t every day she embarked on a case that could lead her to the bastard who took Maggie.

Unwilling to prolong this conversation, she glared at him. “I didn’t come all this way to discuss my legs. You can leave. I don’t need you to babysit me. I’ll be fine until A.J. comes back.”

“I’ll wait,” he said and settled his back against the file cabinet beside the desk.

“Suit yourself,” she said, then picked up her briefcase and opened it. She glanced at Luke, then quickly averted her gaze to a handful of papers she’d extracted from the open case and attempted to read them. The words swam across the bright white paper. If he would just leave or, at the very least, stop staring at her.

Luke drank in the sight of his former wife. It had been so long. Why was she here? A.J. hadn’t mentioned that he’d been expecting her. Had she somehow heard about the arson case they’d been working on and come to offer her help?

If she had, she had a big surprise coming her way. As head of the task force investigating the arsons, he would never agree to having her join the team and, knowing what kind of emotional strain it would put on her, A.J. would never take her up on it. Both he and A.J. knew that Rachel was one of the best arson profilers in the business, but there were too many emotional ties connected to this case, ties she didn’t need tearing her apart. So, back to his original question. Why was she here?

She pushed her hair from her face and the light reflected off something at the open neck of her blouse. He waited for a better look, and when she straightened for a second, he saw it. The Oriental necklace he’d given her the week before Maggie was—

He broke the thought off abruptly before it had time to fully form. The last thing he needed right now was to be distracted by the guilt that seemed to ride his back and eat at his belly daily.

The gold necklace winked at him. Given that Rachel had done all she could to cut him out of her life—not that he blamed her—that she was still wearing it shocked him.

His gaze strayed from the necklace to the creamy white skin of her throat, then up to her face. God, she was beautiful. Could have been a model. But she chose to dig through the charred ruins of buildings and the sick minds that started the fires.

Luke drew in a deep breath to steady his libido. A.J.’s office normally smelled of the occasional cigars he indulged in and various other stale odors, but since she’d walked in, he was aware only of the intoxicating scent of her perfume—a scent she had specially made for her, an odd combination of spices and honeysuckle. Seductive and earthy at once, and all Rachel. Despite his efforts, his groin tightened. His pulse quickened. His throat went dry.

How had he ever found the strength to walk away from Rachel? You found it because she didn’t need your guilt hanging around her neck like a dead albatross. She had her own problems to contend with, and her strength could only support one set of battered emotions. That she had made a new life for herself proved that. Didn’t it?

Before he could think about an answer, the door opened and A.J. stepped into the room. His assessing gaze flicked from Luke to Rachel.

Rachel smiled, understandably happy to see her old friend after so long. Older than them by five years, A.J. had Nordic blue eyes and blond good looks that turned the heads of some women, but Rachel had always said she preferred Luke’s dark hair and eyes. Still, when she offered his boss the smile Luke craved for himself, he felt the faint stirring of the green-eyed monster. What he wouldn’t have given to get that kind of greeting.

She stood and opened her arms. “Hi, A.J.”

“Rachel.” He engulfed her in a tight embrace, plastering her slight body against his physically fit, six-foot-plus frame. “It’s so good to see you. How have you been? It’s been way too long.”

Gasping for air, she pushed at his broad chest. “I was fine until you did surgery on my rib cage with your belt buckle.”

“Sorry.” He laughed, then released her immediately. “So, what brings you here?”

Mouth agape, she frowned, then stared first at A.J., then at Luke. “I—”

Luke read the look of puzzlement on Rachel’s face. Suddenly, the reason for her presence struck him square in the gut. “Son of a—” Luke rolled to his feet. “Can the act, A.J. I may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but I’m not stupid. You asked her to come, didn’t you?”

A.J. shrugged and looked for all the world like a child who had gotten caught drawing on the living-room wall. “Okay, I called her and asked her to consult on the serial arsonist we’ve been tracking. She said she’d think about it, so I wasn’t sure if she was coming or not. Until she made up her mind, I figured I’d keep my mouth shut for a change. I was afraid if I told you, you’d raise hell.”

“You got that right.” Luke glared at A.J. While his nerves screwed up into tight knots, something akin to panic began forming a ball inside him. He took a step toward his boss. “What the hell were you thinking?”