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The entire barn was ablaze when Zach slammed on the brakes a hundred yards north of the buildings.
There’d been no sign of another vehicle as he drove in. He turned off his headlights, drew his weapon and scanned the area before opening the door of his SUV.
In the eerie glow of the fire he could only see shadows dancing in the darkness and choking billows of smoke.
He quickly searched the exterior of the house, testing the door and window locks. The house was still secure. The peacock and geese were huddled at the far end of the fenced backyard, well away from danger. From inside the house he could hear Katie’s puppy yelping frantically.
Moving on, every sense alert, he circled the barn with his gun drawn, watching for any suspicious movement. Even at fifty feet away, the intense fire heated his skin and his eyes watered from the acrid smoke. With every step closer to the barn, the sharp tang of gasoline grew stronger.
Arson.
If the guy had tossed the can into the inferno, there’d be little chance of fingerprints. But if he fell under the usual criminals-are-stupid classification, that gas can would be somewhere along the driveway or out along on the highway.
Embers rained down like falling stars, flaring into a thousand miniature grass fires that were already coalescing into a low wall of flame advancing across the dry grass toward the house.
Discordant sirens wailed in the distance, echoing across the vast, rolling land.
Turning on his heel, Zach ran to the house and unlocked the front door. He grabbed the puppy, put her in the dog cage and raced to his vehicle, then returned for his laptop, sensitive case files and the gun safes, followed by two laundry baskets filled with Katie’s clothing and toys. After two more trips he had everything of importance in the SUV.
“Sorry, buddy,” he murmured to the terrified pup cowering at the back of its cage as he shut the hatch. “You’re a whole lot safer out here.”
He locked the doors, then retrieved the garden hose from the backyard. After attaching it to a freestanding hydrant out by the overgrown garden, he began soaking the roof of the house.
Steam sizzled skyward where embers glowed ominously against the shingles. The stench of hot asphalt burned his lungs. Fitful breezes carried clouds of heavy, choking smoke toward the house.
Dana’s truck pulled up behind his SUV, the sound of its motor masked by the roar of the fire. After climbing out of the cab, she hoisted a heavy coil of hose from the back.
She ran ran to the house and hooked it up to an outside faucet. “I’ll start on this grass fire,” she yelled. “How are you doing?”
“The barn’s a loss—I’m just trying to save the house.” He rubbed a forearm across his face to wipe away the sweat and soot trailing into his eyes. “Sounds like the fire trucks are almost here.”
Minutes later, the Fossil Hill volunteer fire trucks—an ancient tanker and a 1950s ladder truck—pulled in with six volunteers.
Within seconds the yard was a scramble of dark-coated firefighters. Hoses snaked in every direction, and hoarse voices shouted orders above the roaring flames.
Billows of smoke rolled skyward as the firefighters struggled to contain the grass fires now spreading in every direction.
When one of the firefighters gave a thumbs-up and a nod toward the house, Zach stepped back to let the man take over with his much more powerful hose.
Two hours later, the dying blaze hissed and crackled, and the heavy, choking smell of wet cinders and damp, smoldering hay clogged the air. The barn was a loss, just as Zach had thought, but the house had been saved and the firefighters had stopped the spread of fire across the pasture.
They began coiling hoses, their adrenaline rush over and their steps weary and slow.
“Can you come over here for a minute, sir?” One of the younger men pointed to a patrol car parked next to the ladder truck, where a heavyset, balding deputy stood scowling at the clipboard in his hands.
Even through the low-laying haze and predawn darkness, anyone could see the alligator pattern of charring across the entire lower front foundation of the barn that was strongly suggestive of arson.
The deputy gave Zach a tight nod of acknowledgment. There was something vaguely familiar about him, and if Zach still recognized him it probably wasn’t good.
“Your name, sir?”
“Zach Forrester.”
“Have any identification?”
Zach hesitated, then withdrew his wallet and slid out his driver’s license, thankful that he’d left his badge and DEA credentials in one of the gun safes.
His career, and reasons for being here, were topics he had no wish to discuss while standing in a curious, milling crowd. With luck, perhaps he’d never need to reveal them while in Fossil Hill.
