Fireproof

In the dark corner of the television screen she saw movement. Not flames but a flicker of motion that was not a part of the movie. A reflection. A figure. A man walking across the doorway of the room behind her.

Someone was in her house.

CHAPTER 3

The dogs were gone.

Maggie should have noticed sooner. They were always at her feet.

Her eyes darted around the dim living room. She sank into the sofa and remained still. It was better if he thought he hadn’t been spotted. He may not have seen her. Instead, he stayed in the kitchen.

She kept the corner of the TV screen in her line of vision. If he came up behind her she’d see him.

Or would she?

As scenes changed in the movie so did the corner reflection.

Maggie tried to remember where her weapons were. Her faithful Smith & Wesson service revolver was upstairs in her bedroom. A Sig Sauer was down the hall in a bottom desk drawer. She had never before felt the need for a gun inside her home. As soon as she moved into the two-story Tudor, she had installed a state-of-the-art security system. She’d taken great care to create barriers outside as well. Not to mention two overprotective dogs who would never allow an intruder inside. And for the first time Maggie felt sick to her stomach.

Where were Harvey and Jake?

She couldn’t bear the thought of either dog injured or dead.

A quiet click-swoosh came from the kitchen, and the room brightened. Her intruder had opened the refrigerator.

Maggie slumped farther down on the sofa.

Waited. Listened.

She slid her body off the cushions, dropping her knees onto the floor, now wishing she had carpeting to muffle her movement. Ironically that’s why she didn’t have a shred of carpeting in the house. Not because she loved the gorgeous wood floors but because floor coverings concealed footsteps. Thank goodness she had on socks.

Maggie kept her focus on the corner reflection, her new angle giving her a new view. She saw his hunched back. He was looking inside her refrigerator. She grabbed a glass paperweight from the side table. Quietly she crawled to the doorway, sliding against the wall and hugging the shadows.

What did you do with my dogs, you bastard?

She let the anger drive her as she inched closer to the door.

She could smell him. He reeked of smoke and charred wood. So it hadn’t been her nightmare playing tricks on her imagination.

He reached inside the refrigerator, unaware of her presence, leaving himself vulnerable. She clutched the paperweight tight in her fist and swung it high, ready to bring it down on the back of the man’s head. Then she took a deep breath and charged through the doorway. He startled and spun around, and Maggie stopped her arm in midair.

“Damn it, Patrick. You scared the hell out of me.”

“That makes two of us.”

“I almost bashed your head in.”

Her brother squatted down to the floor, obviously weak-kneed, sitting back on his haunches. In the light from the opened refrigerator behind him Maggie could see the soot smeared on his forehead. His fingers clenched the door handle.

“I didn’t want to wake you,” he said, struggling to his feet. He was a firefighter, young and in great shape, and yet Maggie had reduced him to a frazzled pile on her kitchen floor.

“I didn’t expect you until the end of the week.”

“We finished early. I should have called.” Then he added with a smile, “Sorry. I’m not used to having someone to call.”

And Maggie wasn’t used to having someone come home.

They were still learning their way around each other. Maggie had invited her half brother, Patrick, to stay with her when he graduated from the University of New Haven in December. Armed with a new degree in fire science, he was anxious to add experience to his resume and had taken a job as a private firefighter. The company maintained contracts in thirteen states, so Patrick spent most of his time away, using Maggie’s house as a home base in between assignments.

They had just found out about each other in the last several years. Maggie’s mother had kept her father’s infidelity a secret for more than twenty years. Likewise, Patrick’s mother had told him only that his father had died a hero. There had been no mention, no hint, no clue that a sister existed, half or otherwise. It was an agreement the two women had wielded after the man they both loved died suddenly, leaving each of them with a child to raise on her own.

So here they were, two fatherless children, now adults, learning to be siblings.

“You mind if I have some of this pizza?” He pointed to the box he had been reaching for on the top shelf of the refrigerator.

“Help yourself.”

Maggie knew it wouldn’t be easy. She had become an intensely private person. She actually liked living alone, and she liked—no, it was more than that—she craved solitude. So it wasn’t a surprise when she and Patrick began an ongoing battle almost as soon as he’d arrived. The surprising part was that it had nothing to do with typical issues of sibling rivalry or even territorial roommate disputes. Not about money or food or dirty socks in inappropriate places. If only it could have been something that simple.

No, Maggie didn’t approve of Patrick’s new employer. Worse than that—she questioned the ethics of the Virginia-based corporation and she couldn’t understand why Patrick didn’t.

Braxton Protection sold high-end, expensive insurance policies—the Cadillac of policies, offering protection for elite homeowners who could afford it. Part of that special protection included a private crew of firefighters if the need arose. In other words, Patrick had chosen to be a sort of mercenary. Instead of a gun for hire, he was a hose for hire.

Maggie wasn’t sure why she couldn’t just shut up and pretend it didn’t matter. Patrick wanted the accelerated experience. What was wrong with that? Why wait around a real fire station for a fire when you can dive right in to monster wildfires threatening catastrophes? And if people could afford it, why shouldn’t they be able to purchase special protection? Or so their arguments, or rather their discussions, went.

“So what happens,” she had countered, “when you have to drive around a house that’s already engulfed in flames to go hose down a house miles away?”

That’s when Patrick would shrug and give her a boyish grin that reminded her of their father.

And right now he looked like a twenty-five-year-old who was exhausted and hungry. He must have come directly from the fire. Soot smudged his forehead and lower jaw. His hair was still damp with sweat from his helmet. The cowlick—their father’s cowlick, even on the same side—stood straight up and Maggie fought the urge to reach out and smooth it down, just like she did every single time she dreamed about her father in his casket. That’s what had sent her spiraling into the nightmare. She had smelled smoke. Patrick reeked of it.

“Did you drive directly from the site?” she asked, trying to remember where he had been this past week.

“Yeah.”

He left the open box of leftover pizza on the island countertop while he popped open a can of Diet Pepsi. He slid onto one of the bar stools, suddenly stopping and hopping off like the seat was on fire.

“Sorry. I guess I smell bad.” A slice of pizza in one hand, the Pepsi in the other, he looked back to see if he had gotten the bar stool dirty.

“Don’t worry about it. Sit.”

Maggie grabbed a slice of the pizza and took a seat next to him, waving at him to sit back down.

He hesitated and Maggie hated how tentative and how polite he still was around her. Almost as if he were waiting for her to change her mind, change the locks. She blamed herself. There were twelve years between them,