LITMIR.BIZ

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of hair spray—it was definitely hair spray—grew stronger. “M.B., are you up here? Answer me!”

      It was unlike the teacher not to respond. Shelby headed for the bedroom, the first one to the left of the stairs. Light and smoke rippled from the open doorway, weaving around the stair rail spindles to sweep across the living room floor.

      On the second floor landing, the sharp chemical odor of hair spray made Shelby’s eyes water, as did thickening smoke. Rancid, bitter smoke that wafted out of M.B.’s bedroom. Shelby noted the new odor in the split second before she stepped into the doorway, blinking against the sting of smoke.

      No! At first her mind couldn’t process the horrible sight. Then it clicked into place—M.B. lay on the bed in flames! A man stood over her. A man Shelby knew! She froze in shock, then automatically recoiled from the gruesome scene. She was remotely aware of what was happening and how quickly.

      Even as she recognized the man standing over M.B.’s body, caught the sour stench of burning hair and flesh, she backed up reflexively to run. The man charged across the room, putting his head down and ramming it into her stomach. His momentum, combined with her own, lifted her off the floor.

      She grunted, her breath whooshing out as he plowed her backward, hard hands closing over her lower thighs and lifting her.

      Off balance, she threw an elbow. The blow caught him on the side of the head, but it didn’t slow him down. She pushed at him, trying to gouge his eyes. Something hard slammed into the small of her back. The railing. Her feet left the floor and she plummeted backward. Air rushed past. She screamed. Her hip hit the sharp edge of the couch. Her head cracked against the hardwood floor. Pain exploded, then nothing.

      Clay Jessup hit the door of Presley Medical Center at a dead run. Jack’s call that Shelby had been hurt and was being taken to the hospital had jerked him clean awake. Clay had pulled on jeans and a T-shirt, jammed his gun into the notch at the small of his back, put on tennis shoes and driven about eighty miles an hour to get to the center.

      He didn’t have all the details yet, but Jack Spencer, his friend and fellow cop who had caught this case, told him Shelby had been found unconscious in a house across the street from her fire station. The firefighters on Shelby’s shift had also found a dead woman—a dead burned woman-—in an upstairs bedroom.

      Even at this late hour, the emergency room was half-full. Clay’s nostrils twitched at the mix of ammonia, antiseptic and sweat. Nurses barked orders. Doctors conferred down the hall. The admitting nurse, sitting behind a sleek curved counter, calmly directed people to take a seat or to the patient they sought.

      Clay flashed his badge, even though it wasn’t necessary. He just wanted to get to Shelby. Fast. A short, trim nurse snagged his elbow to point him down the hall to the last trauma cubicle where his friend was being assessed. Three men in bunker pants, grimy boots and white, soot-streaked fire department T-shirts stood in a circle outside the curtain.

      Clay recognized Jay Monroe, but not the others. His breath jammed in his lungs. He didn’t want to think about the last time he and Shelby had been in a hospital together, but the memory was all over him.

      Shelby wasn’t hurt like her brother, his best friend, had been, Clay told himself. She wasn’t going to die—

      He cut off the thought, reaching her room and nodding to the waiting firefighters. The curtain to her room, one of three used to evaluate emergency room admissions, was slightly open and Clay took a deep breath, schooled his features into what he hoped was a calm mask.

      He stepped inside and saw she was alone. His heartbeat jackhammered in his chest.

      “Clay?” Her voice was weak, her eyes unfocused and dark blue with pain under the grainy fluorescent lights. The bed had been raised to a half-sitting position, and Shelby reached out to him with her right hand.

      “Hey, blue eyes.” He managed to keep his voice steady as he moved around the bed and squeezed her hand. Shelby wasn’t big on hugging or touching, but he could tell how rattled she was when she didn’t immediately release him. She was trembling.

      His strong, athletic friend, who had competed in two triathlons, looked frail in her grimy white T-shirt and dark blue pants. Her black shoes smeared dirt over the snowy sheets beneath her. She was pale, the white bandage at her hairline and left temple glaring against her brown hair. Her soft features were pinched with pain.

      His chest tightened. “This isn’t your way of getting out of that dinner for the mayor, is it?” he teased.

      Instead of shooting back with some cute retort, she said, “I…don’t know.” Tears filled her eyes, rocking him. “Clay, I can’t remember anything.”

      “You mean about how you got hurt?” he asked.

      Her fingers tightened on his. “Yes.” She started to shake her head, then winced, releasing his hand to press hers to her temple.

      “There’s something wrong with my wrist—” She lifted her right one. “And my head. Why can’t I remember?”

      “What did the doctor say?”

      “I…don’t know.” She frowned, panic edging into her voice. “She told me, but I couldn’t follow.”

      Her words were slightly slurred. He wanted to calm her, wanted to calm himself. “I’ll find out. It’ll be all right.”

      “The doctor said she would be right back.” Her eyes fluttered shut for a second. “How did you know?”

      “Jack called me.” Clay wondered what Shelby had been doing alone at the scene of a fire.

      “Jack knows?” Opening her eyes seemed to be a struggle. “Why?”

      So she didn’t remember about the dead woman upstairs. Or maybe she hadn’t even known.

      “Clay?”

      “They found you on the lower floor of a house across from the station. You’d…fallen over the stair railing.”

      She shook her head, confusion in her eyes. “Who found me?”

      “The guys on your shift.”

      “There was a fire? Why would I be there by myself?”

      “Yeah, there was a fire. I don’t know much else.”

      “But…why would Jack be called to a fire scene?”

      Clay hesitated. Procedure between Presley’s police and fire departments stated that when PFD found a dead body in a fire, they worked to contain the blaze, then stopped and called Homicide. Shelby knew this, but that hit to the head had obviously jarred some things loose. “There was a woman in an upstairs bedroom,” he said as gently as he could. “She was dead.”

      She touched a hand to her temple, her brow furrowing. “But I was at M.B.’s. I do remember going inside her house—” She gasped. “M.B.? Clay, is it M.B.? Is she dead?”

      He hesitated. “I’m sorry.”

      “No!” she choked out. “How? What happened?”

      He really didn’t want to lay this on her right now. “I don’t have all the details yet.”

      Other questions pressed harder at him. What had happened to Shelby? How had M. B. Perry died? As a result of that fire? All things Clay would have to find out.

      A tear slipped down Shelby’s lightly tanned cheek. “M.B. is dead? I can’t believe it.”

      Clay could hardly breathe past the relief that Shelby hadn’t met the same fate. He could have lost his best friend tonight. After what he’d been through with Megan and then losing Shelby’s brother Jason, standing in a hospital room with an injured Shelby had Clay almost panic-stricken. That had to explain this urge he felt to touch her again, hold her for just a minute. He rubbed a hand across his sweat-dampened nape. “There are some guys waiting outside to see you.”

      “The

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