Flashback

“Now, now. That’s not entirely true. I just didn’t want to be responsible for raising kids. I never wanted kids.”

“But it’s okay to be responsible for killing people?”

“One person,” he corrected. “Not people. And that was an accident.”

“You killed Tracy and that was no accident,” Blake ground out. “You murdered her.”

“Ah, now, see murder implies intent, and I don’t have intent. I have an addiction.” He smiled sadly. “It means I can’t help it.”

Kenzie again tried to charge him, but this time it was Aidan who held her back, not trusting that asshole with her.

“If I was an alcoholic,” the chief asked, “would you still be looking at me like that? If I had a drug problem? No, you’d be trying to get me help.”

“I tried to get you help,” Blake told him. “When I figured out you had started that second fire all those months ago, you begged me to understand. You lied and said it was your first time, and that you’d stop, that you’d get help. Instead a child died and when I tried to turn you in you threatened me.”

The chief slowly shook his head. “Tommy was getting close. You wouldn’t leave me alone. I had to do something. I had to keep you quiet.”

Blake gave Aidan an agonized look, as though pleading for forgiveness. “By then he had implicated me. He’d changed the schedules, he’d planted evidence. He discredited me so that even if I did tell, I’d be the first one they’d lock up. And once I was in jail, he threatened to hurt Kenzie.

“Then Zach started asking questions and the chief tried to kill him by burning down his house. I had followed him, Zach saw me, and I didn’t know what to do. I panicked and faked my death. If I was gone, he had no reason to harm Kenzie.”

“And I didn’t.”

“You killed Tracy!”

“But not Kenzie,” the chief said calmly. “Look, Tracy was going to put together a list of people who’d purchased those metal trash cans. I would have been on that list.”

“You didn’t have to kill her,” Blake shouted.

“He had to set more fires,” Aidan said grimly.

“That’s true.” The chief nodded emphatically. “I can’t help myself. I tried like hell. I couldn’t stop, but at least I went for old and dilapidated properties, or overly insured buildings.” He paused. “Like this one.”

Aidan stared at him. “What?”

“Sheila is getting ready to renovate,” the chief said.

“She has to,” Aidan said. “The building has structural problems.”

“Yes, and now she’s over insured to protect it. It’s a situation that cries out to an arsonist. It needs to burn.”

“Ohmigod,” Kenzie breathed, looking horrified. “You’re a very sick man.”

“Agreed.” Her uncle smiled without any mirth. He clapped his hands together. “Well, it’s been nice clearing all this up but I’ve got to end this now.”

“You’re not walking away,” Aidan said. “Not from this. You have to pay for your crimes.”

“I’m not paying for anything. You didn’t get hurt. None of you died.”

“Are you kidding?” Aidan asked incredulously. “Blake nearly died trying to stop you. You nearly killed Kenzie on Blake’s Girl, and then again when you blew up her car.”

“Nearly won’t hold up in a court of law. I was just trying to scare her out of town, anyway. The car was supposed to blow an hour earlier, but a fuse failed me. And the boat was an accident. I was just trying to get rid of Blake’s laptop. I didn’t know she was there that night.”

“There’s something else you don’t know,” Aidan told him. “Blake e-mailed Kenzie backup files.”

The chief’s mouth tightened. “I’m not going down for this, for any of it. I’m the chief.”

“Not for long you’re not,” Blake said. “You’re going to be stripped of that title and put in jail.”

“Not happening,” the Chief declared. “I won’t go to jail-I’ve made sure of it. I’ve risked my life to save people for almost thirty years. I won’t be remembered as an arsonist.”

Aidan’s gut clenched. There was only one reason the chief would come out in the open like this and confess his crimes. And that was if he didn’t intend for them to live to tell the tale. “Whatever you’ve planned, no.”

“You’re too late.” The chief looked first to Kenzie, then to Blake. “I’m sorry. Truly sorry.”

“What did you do?” Blake demanded. “Oh, Christ, you didn’t-” Without finishing that thought, he whirled and limped to the roof door, yelling as he took the stairs, “Evacuate! Everyone out-”

Which was all he got out before a thundering explosion hit. The entire building shook, throwing Aidan and Kenzie to the ground.

17

AT THE EXPLOSION, the world seemed to stop, or at least go into slow motion. Kenzie managed to lift her head just as Aidan rolled toward her, his face a mask of concern. Her uncle, ten feet away, wasn’t moving at all. Pushing to her knees, she stared at the doorway where her brother had just disappeared. “Blake!” she screamed.

He didn’t reappear, no one did, nothing except a plume of smoke that struck terror in her heart. “Ohmigod. Aidan-”

“Are you okay?” He was on his knees before her, running his hands down her sides, pushing her hair from her face, looking her over, his expression calm, only his eyes showing his fear. “Are you okay?” he demanded again hoarsely.

Shaken, but all in one piece, she nodded and pointed to the doorway. “Blake-”

His eyes and mouth were grim. “I know. He’s down with the others. We’ll get to him.” He glanced at the chief.

“Is he-”

Aidan checked for a pulse. “Just out cold.” He pulled her to her feet, yanking his cell phone out of his pocket. From far below, they could hear screams and yelling over the whooping sound of smoke and car alarms going off.

All of it brought Kenzie back to the night on Blake’s Girl, back to that irrational terror. Then they’d been able to jump into the water. Now there was nothing down there except concrete.

Three floors down.

“Call 9-1-1,” Aidan said to her, shoving the phone into her hands as he ran past the very still chief to the edge of the building and looked over the side. “Dammit, I can’t see if people are getting out of here.”

The cafe hadn’t been full to capacity, but there had been at least twenty people inside when they’d entered, and then there was Sheila and her staff.

And Blake. God, Blake. Could she really have found him only to lose him again, for real this time? “Aidan-”

“Listen to me. There’s no way off of here except for the stairwell. No outside fire escape or ladder.”

They both looked at the dark doorway, emitting smoke now. “Ohmigod.” She felt frozen. Logically she knew she had to go down to get to Blake, not to mention to safety. But there was nothing logical about the fear blocking her windpipe. She’d thought Blake had died in a fire. She’d nearly died in the boat fire. Instead of seeing the roof’s doorway, she kept flashing back to Blake’s Girl, the black night and blacker water. She could feel the heat from that fire prickling her skin even as she could feel the iciness of the water closing around her body-

“Kenzie.”

She blinked Aidan into view. He had his hands on her arms and he was frowning into her face.

“I can’t go in there,” she said, unable to catch her breath. “I just can’t.”

“Okay.” They both looked at the chief, who still wasn’t moving. Again Aidan went to the edge of the roof and