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Too weak to struggle, he squinted upward.
Above him a demon in a mask was pouring something down on him.
Water . . . ? No . . . gas! “Fuck,” he tried to yell, but the bastard poured it into his mouth!
Spitting and twisting, Channing saw the lighter.
Then fire.
Great hellish flames cracking, burning.
His car. His beautiful convertible. “Ugh . . . ga . . . ga . . .” he sputtered, struggling to his feet.
He saw it as it happened—the red flash of flame that jumped from the car to him in a brilliant arc. It was almost beautiful. Blinding. Horrifying. He gasped. Too late as the gasoline rained upon his body ignited all over him. Burning. Scorching. Melting his face and his hair and his jogging suit.
Pain seemed to rip off his skin.
Running, yowling, a human torch, he raced around the lot as the fire consumed him. He screamed and screamed and screamed.
Chapter 20
“Symbiosis,” Ravinia said for the second time when Rex ignored her. Seated at his small kitchen table, staring through the window to the rain drizzling from a leaden sky, she was getting damn tired of being ignored. “I help you, you help me.”
“I’m already helping you,” he said distractedly, his gaze on the laptop screen. He was seated across from her, a cup of coffee having cooled beside him. “Tomorrow we’ll do the contract.”
He’d been distracted from the moment he’d returned with the news that yes, Elizabeth’s family had lived at the Brightside Apartments, and yes, the old woman who’d known them had thought Elizabeth was an odd child, and yes, they were on the right track. But that didn’t mean they had another plan. Rex had gone into his den and pulled out his laptop and he’d all but shut Ravinia out, which pissed her off no end.
“I’m trying to make a point here,” she said, crossing her arms over her chest.
“Go ahead and make it.”
She wanted to slam the small computer shut on his fingers, but she figured that would fly in the face of her argument. Besides, he was working and that work was likely related to her search—at least she hoped it was—so she didn’t want to do something counterproductive.
“I could work for you. I could stay here and use your address and get my driver’s license. I have a birth certificate. I have my GED. I should be good, right?”
His fingers stilled and he eyed her over the top of the laptop. “Use my address?”
“I need an address,” she pointed out.
“How is any of that symbiosis?” he asked, surprising her that he’d been listening.
She spread her hands. “I help you and you help me.”
“I get the part about me helping you. Where does your help come in?”
“In the investigation. Tomorrow, the lady with the butt implants is meeting her lover, right? Kimberley Cochran.”
“Wait a minute . . . how did you know?”
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“I overheard you talking to the husband and I already know where. Casa del Mar. I looked around Google and a few other web sites,” she shrugged, proud of herself.
“You used my computer.”
“The laptop was open.”
“Jesus, you can’t go poking into people’s private lives, you had no right—”
