Debra Cowan – Burning Love (страница 1)

“Burning Love was a fabulous read from start to finish. From the serial arsonist turned killer to the growing attraction between the hero and heroine, it was hot, hot, hot! I loved it.”

—New York Times bestselling author

Sharon Sala

“I’ve been working on three cases very similar to this. I think this is his fourth fire.”

Jack’s spine stiffened. “You’re saying we have a serial arsonist?”

“I think so,” Terra said, exhaling audibly.

“There haven’t been any other fire deaths,” he said bluntly. “I would’ve heard about that.”

“If this is the same guy, last night was the first time he’s killed.”

“Why now? And why Harris Vaughn?”

“I have no idea.” Her voice was even, but the glimmer of brightness in her eyes reminded him that the arsonist’s first victim had also been her friend.

Dear Reader,

The days are hot and the reading is hotter here at Silhouette Intimate Moments. Linda Turner is back with the next of THOSE MARRYING MCBRIDES! in Always a McBride. Taylor Bishop has only just found out about his familial connection—and he has no idea it’s going to lead him straight to love.

In Shooting Starr, Kathleen Creighton ratchets up both the suspense and the romance in a story of torn loyalties you’ll long remember. Carla Cassidy returns to CHEROKEE CORNERS in Last Seen…, a novel about two people whose circumstances ought to prevent them from falling in love but don’t. On Dean’s Watch is the latest from reader favorite Linda Winstead Jones, and it will keep you turning the pages as her federal marshal hero falls hard for the woman he’s supposed to be keeping an undercover watch over. Roses After Midnight, by Linda Randall Wisdom, is a suspenseful look at the hunt for a serial rapist—and the blossoming of an unexpected romance. Finally, take a look at Debra Cowan’s Burning Love and watch passion flare to life between a female arson investigator and the handsome cop who may be her prime suspect.

Enjoy them all—and come back next month for more of the best and most exciting romance reading around.

Yours,

Leslie J. Wainger

Executive Editor

Burning Love

Debra Cowan

DEBRA COWAN

Like many writers, Debra made up stories in her head as a child. Her B.A. in English was obtained with the intention of following family tradition and becoming a schoolteacher, but after she wrote her first novel, there was no looking back. After years of working another job in addition to writing, she now devotes herself full-time to penning both historical and contemporary romances. An avid history buff, Debra enjoys traveling. She has visited places as diverse as Europe and Honduras, where she and her husband served as part of a medical mission team. Born in the foothills of the Kiamichi Mountains, Debra still lives in her native Oklahoma with her husband and their two beagles, Maggie and Domino. Debra invites her readers to contact her at P.O. Box 30123, Coffee Creek Station, Edmond, OK 73003-0003 or via e-mail at her Web site at http://www.oklahoma.net/~debcowan.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I wish to acknowledge and thank Jack Goldhorn, Public Information Officer, Norfolk Fire Rescue, Norfolk, VA, and David Wiist, Chief of Fire Prevention, Edmond, OK, for their invaluable and generous assistance. You have my word that my small arson knowledge will be used only between the covers of a book.

All liberties taken in the name of fiction are my own.

Contents

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 1

“Body found in blaze at one-sixteen Sorrel Lane.”

The dispatcher’s voice crackled across Terra August’s car radio. As the sole fire investigator for Presley, Oklahoma, she was already on her way to the two-alarm fire in the established Hunter’s Ridge subdivision, jarred out of a deep sleep minutes ago by her pager.

In the past ten years, the Oklahoma City suburb’s population had grown to nearly fifty thousand. The police department had hired enough officers before the growth spurt, but not the fire department. These last few weeks had doubled Terra’s wish for another investigator in her office, but until next year’s budget was approved, she was it.

Her mentor lived on Sorrel Lane, but she didn’t know the house number. Their frequent meetings had never taken place at his home or hers, and usually involved a meal somewhere. Please, don’t let it be Harris’s house.

After flashing her badge for the uniformed officer stationed at the neighborhood’s entrance, she maneuvered her Explorer down a neatly kept residential street. The older brick homes were bathed in a mix of moonlight and shadow. Red and blue lights strobed from a police cruiser at either end of the block. Fire trucks, engines, police cars and two vans bearing the names and logos of the nearby Oklahoma City television stations crowded both sides of the street. The frantic swirl of lights spiked her blood pressure. Less than five hours ago, she and Harris Vaughn had enjoyed a Sunday night dinner and put their heads together about a case that had her stumped.

Fighting to calm a sudden flicker of panic, Terra eased her SUV past three police cruisers, around Station One’s rescue truck and squeezed to the curb just behind an ambulance. The paramedic raised a hand in greeting and shut the door. Terra glimpsed the empty gurney inside. No survivors.

Her heartbeat stuttered, but she uncurled her death grip from the steering wheel and stepped out. The blaze was out, but gray smoke streaked across the midnight-black sky. Water from the firefighters’ hoses ran down the streets, gurgled into grates and glistened on trees, yards, nearby cars. Smoke still hung heavy in the air. Police and fire radios crackled into the night. Yellow crime scene tape squared off the house and yard. Officers stood guard at each of the four corners and probably in the back yard where Terra couldn’t see.

At one time, the single story, traditional redbrick home had been inviting. Now it looked cold and bleak. Dead. Still mostly intact, the brick was streaked with soot, burned black on the west side of the house. The one front window on the west side was blown out; the trio of windows on the east side looked untouched except for the dripping ash and water as the firefighters from Stations One and Four, her old station house, stood amidst snaking hoses and a now soggy lawn. In a neighbor’s yard, a firefighter stood videotaping the scene. Terra would get the tape from him later.

The blaze appeared to have burned only one area of the home before firefighters managed to douse it.

Urgency had her slamming her door and looking around for the police officer who held the log book to check people in and out of the scene.

The familiar sharp odor of burning wood and engine fumes wrapped around her like the wet midnight. This fire was different. It had taken more than a home, more than memories. It had taken a life. And she had to know whose.

Ash swirled through the air, clung to her cheeks. The Oklahoma County Medical Examiner’s wagon eased past her and found a spot farther up the crowded street.

She opened the back door of her Explorer and grabbed her boots. Stumbling out of a dead sleep when her pager buzzed, she had automatically pulled on jeans and a heavy flannel shirt with sleeves she could roll up. She’d sleeked her shoulder-length hair into a ponytail. Hoping like crazy that the victim’s identity would be someone other than the mentor whose company she’d enjoyed earlier in the evening, Terra toed off her tennis shoes and tugged on her rubber, steel-soled boots.

The ambulance pulled out and ambled down the block. Trying to steady her racing pulse, she grabbed her hard hat and slid it on.

Her thick, well-worn gloves were in her pockets. She slung her camera around her neck, picked up her shovel and a tackle box containing her hand tools. Stepping around the back of her truck, she racked her brain for any memory of Harris’s house number. She came up empty, which only sharpened the dread pricking at her.

Her gaze swept the knots of people moving around the scene. Several uniformed officers wound through the crowd of reporters, cameramen and neighbors. At the sidewalk which led to the front door, Terra spotted a cop holding a clipboard. She started toward him, dodging the hood of a police car, stepping over a hydrant hose.

This neighborhood had probably never seen anything more traumatic than a bicycle wreck. Farther up the street, uniformed officers were directing passersby to keep moving and news vans to park at the end of the block.

As they’d finished dinner, Harris had mentioned taking in a movie after running some errands. Terra had grabbed a swim at her gym before heading home to turn in early. She hadn’t been asleep two hours before her pager went off.

Four years as a fire investigator and nine years on the job had taught her to level out her emotions so she could objectively do her job, but tonight she failed. Tonight she was terrified of whose body the firefighters had found.