Melting Point Read online

  Awash in sensation, Kiley couldn’t draw a full breath. She wanted to drown in the dark male scent of him. His day-old beard rasped against her breast and the wet fire of his mouth had her humming in pleasure. The brush of his shirt against her bare flesh drew her belly tight. She liked him; she wanted him. She wasn’t saying no.

  This thing between them was temporary. She wasn’t going to think past that. Her unsteady hands went to his slacks, unzipped them. “Five times a day?”

  He lifted his head, eyes dark and fierce, reckless. “Okay,” he said gruffly. “Five times a day might be an exaggeration.”

  She slid a hand down and found him, rigid and straining. “Or not.”

  He groaned, cupping her bottom and lifting her against him. “Can we do this standing up?”

  “I can,” she said silkily. “Can you?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  “Let’s go, cowboy.”

  Chapter 11

  She’d gotten to him. Just like he was getting to her. Collier knew why Kiley was coming up with this let’s-not-get-ahead-of-ourselves stuff, but he wasn’t having it. He knew it spooked her. It should’ve spooked him. How much time had he spent telling himself he couldn’t—wouldn’t—be involved with her?

  His asking about continuing their relationship after the investigation had caused her to withdraw. It was nothing blatant, but she’d raised her guard. And she was skittish, dodging any situation that might make them seem like a couple. Like the invitation from Walker for dinner. Collier had managed to get her to his house the last two nights, but she’d left before morning both times.

  He couldn’t escape the sense that she was counting the hours until he ended their personal relationship. Until he walked away. But he wasn’t walking away. Knowing her background with her father, Collier understood, but he wanted her to know he wouldn’t jump ship the way she thought he would.

  He didn’t want anyone but Kiley. He didn’t want her with anyone else, either, which was why the thought of those extra toothbrushes at her house still gnawed at him.

  She was the only woman who had ever held his interest outside of the bedroom as much as she did in it. She made him laugh. He liked the way her mind worked. He loved looking at her and knowing she wore sexy, nearly nothing underwear and a gun beneath her clothes. And she fired him up faster than any woman ever had. Whenever she walked into a room, it changed, seemed brighter. Bigger somehow.

  They also worked well together, but even that couldn’t help them dig leads out of thin air. After they’d confirmed Alan Embry’s alibi for the Lazano murder, they spent the next four days going over all their interviews and their timelines. They reviewed Collier’s photos and diagrams of each one. Still, they couldn’t pinpoint the one crucial common denominator between the arson-murders.

  When the sniper first hit, Kiley, Terra and Collier had restricted their focus to calls all the dead firefighters had responded to in the last year. No fire station ever responded alone, and because of that the victims had been on several of the same calls. Terra, Kiley and Collier had determined early in the investigation that the murdered firefighters had worked six of the same calls together. So had twenty-four other firefighters from three Presley station houses and one from Oklahoma City.

  One call involved city workers and the collapse of a trench being dug for water lines. No one had died at that scene, but one man had been paralyzed for life. He had a lawsuit pending against the city, but after checking him out, Kiley and Collier decided he wasn’t a good suspect for the murders. Two calls were house fires, one with a suicide. One was a pipe bomb thrown into a bowling alley. Another was a fire started behind the junior high school. And the other was a five-car accident on nearby I-35.

  Two of the accident victims had died en route to Presley Medical Center. Kiley and Collier spoke to the victims’ family members and came up with nothing that remotely hinted at revenge, bitterness or blame toward the fire department or the firefighters who’d worked those scenes.

  Midmorning on Saturday, they were back at the Lazano murder scene. They had already revisited the others. As they started up the long, concrete drive of Rehn’s Coffee Warehouse, Collier shoved a hand through his hair, knowing Kiley was as frustrated as he. They were racking their brains about what else they could do, where else they could look for something. Anything.

  Her cell phone rang. As she answered, he continued up the drive, turning to eye the distance between Rehn’s front door and the warehouse across the street where the shot had come from.

  When she hung up, the huge smile on her face had him smiling, too. “What is it?” he asked.

  “A break. I’ll tell you on the way.”

  He followed her down the driveway. “Where are we going?”

  “To OCPD headquarters.” Excitement glittered in her eyes. “A patrol cop picked up a guy last night on a burglary charge and he says he has information on the Lazano murder. He wants to deal. His name’s Bart Damler.”

  “We haven’t heard of him before.” Collier opened the passenger door of his truck for her.

  “I know we’ve gotten excited about leads before that led us nowhere, but this is it, McClain. I can feel it in my gut.”

  He wanted her to be right, and he didn’t. Because when they closed this case, things between them would change. “You sure you’re not just coming down with something?”

  She made a face. “I’m sure. Drive.”

  Forty-five minutes later they had a new lead. Damler, a small-time drug dealer and burglar, claimed he had been hired to bypass the security system at Rehn’s warehouse and disable the sprinklers on the night Dan Lazano was murdered. And he had a tape recording to back it up.

  Kiley and Collier found that awfully convenient. In response to their skepticism, Damler told them that his stint in prison had taught him to tape all his dealings with his less-than-desirable associates. He’d known it would one day help him get a pass on a return visit to jail.

  Kiley and Collier wouldn’t agree to speak to the D.A. about a deal until they had the tape in hand. He gave it to them along with the name of the person who’d hired him: Dominic Narr.

  Not having heard of Narr before, they ran his name through OCPD’s computer as well as the National Crime Information Center. He had an impressive number of arrests for possession of and fencing stolen property. He had done time for the same. They had no idea what connection he had to Dan Lazano or any of the Presley firefighters who’d been murdered, but they would find out.

  The files also yielded the name of the detective who had worked Narr’s most recent conviction and Kiley spoke with him by phone on the way to Narr’s apartment. As she and Collier drove to a new complex on the west edge of Presley, she told him what she’d learned about their new lead. “Detective Stevens said Narr is cagey and calm.”

  “We’ve got the tape. Even though it’s as scratchy as a screeching cat, let’s try to catch him in a lie.”

  Kiley nodded. “Stevens also told me that Raye Ballinger was Narr’s attorney on this case. Said she was a real piranha in the courtroom, which we already know.”

  “She must represent every skank in the state.”

  “She does attract them.”

  They found Dominic Narr at home. Easily six foot seven and three hundred pounds, the ex-con was massive. With his thick dark hair and droopy mustache, he reminded Collier of a woolly mammoth. Kiley and Collier both showed their badges, then explained what they were doing there.

  The man was leery, but he let them inside his sparsely furnished, amply littered home. After Kiley read him his rights, Collier led with their questions.

  “We looked at your record. You only served half of your three-year term on your last conviction.”

  “Yeah, I was released early for good behavior.”

  Collier noted that Kiley’s gaze skipped around the small living area, over the take-out containers, pizza boxes and beer cans as she asked, “Do you know Bart Damler?”

  “Never heard
of him.”

  “Maybe you’ll recognize him.” Collier pulled out the Polaroid they’d taken when they had spoken to the burglar an hour ago. “He claims you hired him to break in and disable security at Rehn’s warehouse.”

  Narr barely glanced at the picture. “Nope. Never seen the guy.”

  “He claims he knows you.”

  Narr folded his beefy arms and stared flatly at them. “Well, I claim he don’t.”

  Kiley stepped up beside Collier, eyeing the ex-con. “Have you ever been to Rehn’s Coffee Warehouse?”

  “Is that on Benson? I’ve heard of it.”

  “Yes or no. Have you been there?”

  “I could’ve been, at some point. I’ve lived here for almost ten years.”

  “You mean, when you weren’t in prison.” Kiley flashed a cold smile.

  “Yeah.”

  Collier didn’t like the way Narr’s eyes narrowed on Kiley. He shifted, putting himself between her and the heavyweight. “Burglar boy says that you hired him to bypass security and break in to disable the sprinkler system.”

  “He’s lying.”

  “Really?”

  “Really.”

  “That’s funny,” Collier said softly. “Because he’s got a tape recording of you hiring him.”

  The big man’s eyes hardened, but other than that his face didn’t change.

  Kiley brought out the minicassette recorder and punched the play button.

  Narr said nothing until it was over. “That’s not my voice. It don’t even sound like me.”

  “Sounds like you to me.” She slid a look at Collier. “What do you think, Investigator McClain?”

  “Yeah, sounds just like him.”

  Narr folded his arms and rocked back on his heels. “It’s not me.”

  “The police lab has voice-analysis software. We’ll be able to prove it’s you.”

  He smirked. “Don’t try to con me. Even if you did have some software that could recognize my voice, you’d have to have a print of my voice and you don’t. ’Cuz that ain’t it.”

  Too bad Kiley’s bluff hadn’t worked. Collier knew she wouldn’t follow up on trying to get a voice match between Narr and the man on the tape, at least not with the current quality of the recording. Besides having too much static, the conversation had been recorded over the phone. About the only part of the conversation they could understand clearly was the location of the warehouse Damler had been instructed to break into.

  After exchanging a glance with Collier, Kiley said, “We might have more questions later. You’d better stay available.”

  The scumbag shrugged.

  Once Kiley and Collier were back in his truck, she huddled into her coat. “Shoot, I really thought that punk Damler might’ve given us something besides a big fat zero. Are we ever going to get anywhere?”

  “Eventually.”

  “Which right now feels like never. I don’t know where else to look.”

  “Neither do I.”

  “Let’s take this tape back to the police lab and see if the tech can clean it up at all. Maybe he can get us something helpful.”

  “All right,” Collier said.

  “You’d think we’d be closer to solving the case now, not spinning our wheels.”

  She didn’t sound nearly as frustrated about the sorry lead as he’d thought she would. Maybe because she didn’t want to call it quits with them yet, either? He knew she wasn’t ready to discuss the possibility that there might be more than sex between them, but maybe he could convince her to see where things might lead.

  He wouldn’t bring it up now. Neither of them could afford to split their focus, and he didn’t want her distracted by anything when he told her he was crazy about her. Convincing her would be a hard sell, but he’d do whatever it took to show her he wanted her and only her.

  Things between her and Collier were changing, and Kiley fought the sense of being overtaken, swept under by some thrilling, frightening wave of emotion. She didn’t like his asking questions that made her think he wanted to take things further with them. She wasn’t even going to consider it. She knew where their relationship stood, what was going to happen.

  She needed to focus on the investigation, keep her mind off Collier. Off them. Stop dwelling on the way he made her feel.

  Back at the PD, they took the tape to the lab. Denny Larkin, the tech, told Kiley and Collier they could wait if they wanted. Putting the cassette tape into a black machine that looked like a shoebox sprouting wires, he went into a computer program and began working his techno-voodoo. After a few minutes he played the tape.

  Kiley shook her head. “I think Damler’s voice is more clear, but I can’t tell anything about Narr.”

  “Neither can I,” Collier said.

  “There are a couple more things I can try,” Larkin said. “Don’t know if it’ll make any difference.”

  “Go ahead,” Kiley urged. The tape was all they had right now.

  The tech rewound the tape and started again on the computer. A phone across his desk rang and he answered. He glanced at Kiley. “Yeah, she’s here.” He grabbed a sticky note and scribbled something on it. “I’ll tell her.”

  He hung up and passed her the note. “Someone called Crime Stoppers with an anonymous tip about your case.”

  Kiley stood, hit with a jolt of adrenaline as she read, “Go talk to Raye Ballinger.” Her gaze shot to Collier’s as he also got to his feet. She looked at Larkin. “Did they say anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Did Crime Stoppers say if the caller was a man or a woman?”

  “A man.”

  She turned to Collier. “I want to run a general records search on Raye. Run her for any kind of record, traffic ticket, whatever.”

  “I’m with you.”

  Going to the squad room, they faxed a request to the OSBI for a general records search and received a call a few minutes later. The computers were down for maintenance and wouldn’t be back on until after noon.

  While they waited, they checked with the Oklahoma Bar Association to see if anyone had lodged a complaint against Raye or if she had lodged one against someone. Kiley’s online search of public records turned up one formal complaint, filed against the attorney a year ago. The charge that Raye had consistently failed to disclose certain information to a client had resulted in a private reprimand by the Oklahoma Supreme Court.

  Collier ran a check through the police department’s database, searching for traffic tickets or citations, anything outstanding, but found nothing. He eased down onto the corner of Kiley’s scarred metal desk. “We don’t have much on Raye, at least not yet. And we still don’t have a connection between Alan Embry or Sherry Vail to someone they could’ve hired to do the murders.”

  “There’s still the possibility that the arsonist-murderer acted independently.” Kiley angled her chair to face him. “Embry or Vail could’ve managed to get into every murder scene except Rehn’s Coffee Warehouse without special skills. Anyone could’ve cut the padlock on the high school gym door to start the fire where Gary Miller was murdered.”

  “Yeah, that would be easy enough. And a knock on the door could’ve gotten the killer into a hotel room, like the one where Rex Huffman was last seen alive with a blond woman.”

  “Same with Lisa Embry. Nothing except patience was required to wait outside her garage and shoot her when she pulled inside.”

  “Those reasons are good enough for me to keep Sherry Vail as a suspect,” Collier said. “But Rehn’s Coffee Warehouse was challenging. Someone would need electrical knowledge to bypass both the sprinkler and security systems.”

  “Alan Embry has years of electrical training, but we have no proof of anything other than the fact that he’s a liar and Sherry Vail is bitter.”

  “We don’t have any information that gets them off our list either, though.”

  “And now there’s Raye Ballinger. Weird getting that tip about her. I wonder what she knows.”

 
; “That’s what we’re going to find out,” he said.

  Since they had time while waiting for the OSBI’s computers, he and Kiley decided to go over their notes on Raye from her first interview back in November. They had talked to her because of her suicidal brother’s connection to the murdered firefighters. The man Raye had given as her alibi for the night of Dan Lazano’s murder confirmed that he had, indeed, been with her all night. A phone call to the resort in Cancun backed up the lawyer’s claim that she’d been there in October on the night of Gary Miller’s murder.

  The alibi she’d given for the night of Rex Huffman’s murder, that she was at a city council meeting, was also solid, but the meeting let out at such a time that she still could have been the mystery blond who’d been the last person to be seen with him alive. That, and the fact that Kiley and Collier couldn’t prove or disprove that Raye had been home alone the night of Lisa Embry’s murder kept the attorney on their radar. She could’ve hired someone to do the killings for her just as easily as Alan Embry or Sherry Vail could have.

  If he let himself, Collier could be completely distracted by Kiley, but he managed to keep his attention on the case just as she was doing. He e-mailed a copy of the PD’s records check as well as the formal complaint on Raye to his computer at the Fire Investigator’s office.

  They took a break for a late lunch. When they returned to the squad room a little after two o’clock, Kiley checked the fax machine. Whipping a piece of paper from the machine’s tray, she hurried over, eyes glowing with excitement. “Look at this! Guess who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon?”

  He leaned closer, his shoulder brushing hers. “The counselor?”

  She smiled, handing him the piece of paper and pointing to the information about Raye. “So, the lawyer knows how to use a gun.”

  “Even so, that doesn’t mean she pulled the trigger herself.”

  “I know, but it’s a place to start. Her fingerprints are also on file. When she applied for her concealed carry permit, she was printed.”