Christmas Up in Flames Read online

  “Yeah. It is.”

  But she had no idea what the next step was going to be, and to be honest, she wasn’t even sure what she wanted anymore. Lingering thoughts of the three of them becoming a family were fading quickly. She’d lost that dream a long time ago. Still, she didn’t want Reid to shut her out. Somehow they were going to have to find a way forward without hurting her son. Because Owen had to be her priority at the moment.

  And if Captain Ryder was correct, all of this would be over soon.

  Reid pulled into the driveway that led to the B&B, then slowed down to let a cat cross in front of them. Worry and fear pressed against her chest as the house came into view. She’d come to Timber Falls intent on taking down an arsonist. Instead, over the course of a couple of days, her entire life had been flipped upside down.

  The captain’s SUV was parked outside the house, where the only light on was in the living room, which wasn’t surprising. The B&B was closed and the Grahams were currently staying in town. Reid parked next to the SUV, then headed up the sidewalk to the house beside her. The air was still tinged with the smell of smoke. She was here because they needed answers, but all she wanted to do right now was see what the captain had found and get back home to Owen.

  “I see you got the captain’s message.”

  “Shawn?” Claire stepped into the living room that had been mostly spared from the fire. “We did. Where is he?”

  “Actually, the captain isn’t going to make it. It’s just me.”

  “I don’t understand.” She glanced at Reid. “Where’s the captain? He’s the one who told me to come here.”

  “He’ll live, though he might have a headache for a while.”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “Just borrowed his phone.” Shawn pulled out a gun and aimed it at them. “Come stand by the staircase, both of you, and don’t try anything stupid. I’m a really good shot.”

  A really good shot?

  What was he talking about?

  “Shawn, what do you want?” Reid asked.

  Claire glanced around the room, trying to figure out what was going on. This couldn’t be happening. She’d known Shawn for years, seen him as a friend.

  He tossed Claire a long piece of rope. “Tie him to one of the wrought-iron stair railings, and do a good job, because I’ll be checking.”

  “Shawn...” She didn’t know what his plan was, but getting loose from the staircase would be almost impossible, and if Shawn was planning to set the house on fire...

  “Just do it!”

  She moved next to Reid and mouthed, I’m sorry.

  “We’ll get out of this, Claire.”

  But would they?

  “You don’t get it, do you?” Shawn said, stepping up behind her.

  “Get what? Because no, I don’t know what’s going on, but you need to put the gun down. That isn’t going to help. Just tell me what you want.”

  “Tie him up tight, or I’ll have to shoot the father of your child.”

  A chill ran through her. This wasn’t the Shawn she’d gone to school with, or the one who’d gone out looking for her son. She glanced up at him. Or had he been behind all of this and fooled them the entire time?

  “Tell us what you want,” Reid said.

  “Isn’t it clear? Claire’s the only thing I ever wanted. Ever since high school.”

  “Me?” She finished securing Reid, then took a step backward. “I don’t understand.”

  “Of course you don’t, because you never noticed me. I was always stopping by your mom’s house when we were in high school, but really I just wanted to see you.”

  “Because we were friends.”

  Shawn shook his head. “But I didn’t want us to just be friends. I wanted more than that.”

  “All these years...” She faced him, fighting to grasp what he was saying. “Why didn’t you just tell me how you felt?”

  “Would that have made a difference? You never saw me as anything but the boy next door, so I decided to become a firefighter like you. I thought maybe if I did something good with my life, you’d notice me. But instead you fell for Reid.”

  “Shawn I—”

  “That’s why I decided to start the fire at the Reynolds farm.”

  “You started that fire?”

  “It was brilliant, wasn’t it? A way to get you to come to Timber Falls. All I had to do was leave a couple clues and it worked.”

  “But I still don’t understand. You didn’t have to burn down a building to see me. You could have come to Denver.”

  “I needed to get you down here, then I needed a way to save you. That was my plan, anyway. And with some digging, I was able to figure out how to do that.”

  The pieces of the puzzle were slowly starting to fall into place. “The locked door at the B&B. That was you?”

  Shawn nodded. “I wasn’t going to hurt you. I never wanted to hurt you. Just lock you in the room and then save you.”

  “But you didn’t try to save me,” she said. “I could have died.”

  “I tried, but then the owner almost caught me setting up things in the house, and he locked me out. Everything went wrong after that. Thankfully I was able to doctor the security footage, but still...”

  He motioned for Claire to stand a couple of feet away from Reid. “You’re next.”

  “What about the drone?” Reid asked. “I’m guessing that was you too.”

  “It’s ironic that the captain actually sent me to Denver to learn about them. There are so many ways fire departments can use drones. Their thermal cameras can find people, they can help with investigations, assess risks with aerial views of the fire...”

  And this had all been to get her attention.

  Claire resisted the urge to fight as he secured her to another one of the stair railings. She’d been working this case for months, and in coming to Timber Falls, had never thought about a copycat. But Shawn had used his connection with the fire department and found things out like the antique lighters. And she’d played right into his hands.

  “When the fire here didn’t work,” Shawn said, “I had to get Reid out of the way. Because you’re always in the way. And no matter what I do, she always goes to you. The handsome fireman and father of her child...”

  “And you took Owen?” Clare asked.

  “I didn’t hurt him. I would never do that. I just wanted us to be a family. If you just would have stopped and looked at me. You would have seen that you could trust me more than him.” He waved the gun at Reid.

  “And this...this is you trying to prove I can trust you?” Claire asked. She worked to slow her breathing and calm her panic. There had to be a way out of this. She wasn’t going to let Owen lose both his mother and his father today. Because Shawn wasn’t going to get away with this. “Just tell us what you want.”

  “One last fire. Your real arsonist will be blamed for this.”

  “You know who the real arsonist is?” Claire asked.

  “It’s funny, because a few weeks ago, while researching the case, I inadvertently discovered who’s behind the fires. He’d disguised himself well—the guy in the hoodie—but I managed to figure it out by tracing his tattoo.”

  “So he never was here in Timber Falls at all.”

  Shawn laughed. “All of you saw what you wanted to see. A doctored photo from the fire put the arsonist here in Timber Falls. Temporary tattoos convinced you he’d taken Owen, not me. And now, with the information I left as crumbs for the authorities, they’ll find him, and he’ll go to prison for those fires and for this one. He was already going to prison for life, so this is just what he deserves. And I might not get the girl, but at least I’ll be a hero. The man who brought down the Rocky Mountain Arsonist.”

  “So if you can’t have Claire, no one can?” Reid asked. “Is that what you’re
saying?”

  Shawn turned to Reid. “That wasn’t my original plan. The first time I tried to run you off the road I didn’t realize she was in the vehicle with you. So I backed off. But yeah, if I can’t have her, no one can.”

  Claire fought the terror as Shawn grabbed two jerricans of fuel and started dousing the room. “Don’t do this, Shawn. Please. My son... I don’t want him to grow up without parents.”

  “Why not? I did, and look how I turned out.”

  “Reid—”

  “You don’t think Reid really loves you, do you?” Shawn stepped in front of her while she tried to undo the rope on her wrist. “Things wouldn’t have worked out with him. He moved on from you a long time ago, and even if some of those feelings are still there, it’s not like he can really trust you after you kept a secret like that for all these years. That’s not something easy to forgive, is it Reid? She lied to you, didn’t tell you that you have a son. That...that is unforgivable.”

  “Shawn, please...”

  Shawn finished pouring the gasoline across the wood flooring. “I learned you can’t force people to love you. No matter how hard you try.”

  Reid pulled on his wrists. “She made the best decisions she could at the time.”

  “Are you really going to come to her defense? The woman who never told you about your child? I wouldn’t if I were you. Because I’ve learned the truth about her. She’s not a good friend. Not really.”

  “They’re going to figure out you were behind the fires and Owen’s kidnapping.” Claire struggled for something...anything that might bring Shawn to his senses, but from the empty look in his eyes, it was too late for that. Still... “Shawn listen to me. Please. Murder’s a different story. You don’t want to do this.”

  “No, they won’t figure it out. They’ll believe it was the arsonist, and he really did set all those other fires. No one will ever know what I did. Because no one has any idea of my involvement.”

  Shawn pulled a lighter out of his pocket.

  “Shawn—” The room began to spin around Claire. Surely things weren’t really going to end like this.

  God...please...

  “Stop begging,” he said, catching her gaze. “It doesn’t look good on you. And besides...it won’t be so bad. Most people don’t die from the flames, but from the smoke inhalation. It will quickly incapacitate you, then suck up all the available oxygen. You’re both firefighters. You know how the particles of smoke can penetrate the respiratory system and then find their way to the lungs. Some are just irritating, but others are toxic. And if the air is hot enough, one breath can kill you.”

  Why hadn’t she ever seen this side of Shawn? He’d always seemed like a good friend. She’d even let him watch Owen at that cabin. Bile from her stomach burned her throat. Her life couldn’t end this way. She tried to shift her wrists, but he’d tied them so tight.

  He walked up to her and ran his thumb down her cheek. “It’s over, Claire. Anything we could have had together...everything I imagined happening between us one day... You had your chance, but it will never happen.”

  “Don’t do this, Shawn. Please.”

  “Too late.”

  He used the lighter to start the fire. First the curtains, then the couch were consumed. She could smell the smoke. Things couldn’t end this way. She needed to be there for Owen. She couldn’t let him grow up without his parents. And as for Reid...

  “Goodbye, Claire.”

  Shawn dropped the lighter onto a chair, then left the house.

  SIXTEEN

  “Claire...”

  She stood near Reid, her hands secured to the wrought-iron railing, while flames continued to move closer. How had they missed that Shawn was the one behind all of this? He couldn’t begin to wrap his mind around the man’s motivation, but for right now, all that mattered was getting Claire out of here alive.

  “Claire, are you okay?”

  “Yes, but I can’t get my hands undone,” she said, not even trying to mask the panic in her voice. And he couldn’t blame her. Flames crackled around them, ravenously licking up the accelerant soaking the fabric around the room. It wouldn’t be long before the entire structure was on fire and started to collapse. In another couple of minutes, there would be no way out.

  “Hang in there,” he said. “We’re going to get out of this. I’m almost loose.”

  He was hoping that Shawn’s cockiness would be his downfall. In the man’s rush to tie them up, he’d forgotten to check the rope around Reid’s hands, and Claire had tied it loosely, which gave Reid the advantage. But with his wrist brace, he was struggling to use enough strength to undo the knots.

  What if he couldn’t manage to get free?

  Heat pressed closer against him. He glanced at Claire, while the shifting rope chafed his wrists. He hadn’t wanted things to end like this between them. He’d just been so shocked that she’d never told him the truth. So shocked, he couldn’t see himself ever trusting her again. But no matter the anger he was still holding onto, he didn’t want anything happening to her—or to Owen. No matter how betrayed he felt by what she’d done, a part of him had never stopped loving her. He just wasn’t sure it was going to be enough to make things right with her, even if they did somehow manage to survive this.

  The smoke thickened around them. He needed something to cover his mouth, but with his hands tied in front of him, it wasn’t possible. He tugged harder on the loose piece of rope, praying that if they couldn’t get free, someone would at least notice the smoke and come see what was going on. The fumes filling the room were beginning to affect his breathing. As a firefighter, he knew all too well the dangers of fire—how quickly it spread and how unpredictable it could be. He had to get them both out of there in the next minute or neither of them were going to make it.

  “How could Shawn have done this?” Claire’s raspy voice rose above the crackling flames.

  Reid didn’t have answers, but his question was how they had both missed this. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard of a firefighter arsonist. While the vast majority choose their career for the right reason, to make a difference, there were some who betrayed the trust of every firefighter. From what he knew now, Shawn, it seemed, had been desperate to play the hero in order to get Claire’s attention. And somehow they’d missed it.

  The rope loosened again. A second later, he was able to pop one hand free. He quickly tugged the bindings off. “I’m free.”

  His wrists were raw from the rope, and his side ached, but there was no time to deal with the pain.

  Claire was coughing as he rushed to help her. “Hurry, Reid. The ceiling is about to collapse.”

  Wood splintered above them as he fumbled in the semidarkness to free her wrists. No matter how angry he was at her, he would never leave her. He had to get her out and put an end to this nightmare.

  “Hurry, Reid.” She was choking on the smoke and her tone was frantic.

  Don’t let me lose her now, God. Not this way.

  Things might never work out between the two of them, but Owen needed a mother. And Reid wanted to get to know his son.

  Seconds later, she was free.

  He managed to find his phone in his jacket pocket. He flipped on the flashlight, then grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the front door. “Cover your mouth as best you can and stay low.”

  A grating noise of splitting wood cracked above them. Seconds later, a large beam dropped from the ceiling, hitting the floor in front of them and blocking the way. Flames exploded. He pulled her back and held up the light, searching for an alternative way out. There was a narrow path to the left of the fallen beam...

  They made it to the door, but when he turned the handle, it was locked. He unlocked it and shoved on the door, but it was jammed from the outside.

  They were going to have to find another exit.

  “There’s
a side door.” He pulled her with him as he fought to avoid flames that were spreading rapidly to anything the previous fire hadn’t destroyed.

  We need You to step in, God, and get us out of here.

  He stumbled over something, but managed to catch his balance, still holding tightly to her hand, but he wasn’t sure he was heading toward the other door. The smoke was too heavy. He flashed his light again. This time he found it. He reached for the handle, then shoved the door open. Moonlight streamed through the smoke surrounding the house that was starting to collapse around them. He needed to get her as far away from here as possible.

  They made it to the tree line, several dozen feet away from the burning house, then he bent over next to her, breathing in deep gulps of air. He hit the emergency option on his phone to call 911.

  A clicking noise to his left caught his attention. He shifted his torso, then froze. Shawn stood holding up his phone in one hand and a gun in the other. “You just can’t admit when you’re defeated, can you?”

  “Shawn...” Claire took a step forward, but Reid grabbed her hand and pulled her behind him.

  Reid slipped his phone into his pocket without hanging up the call, and shouted over the crackling roar of the fire. “It’s over, Shawn. Time for you to put an end to this.”

  “I don’t think so. My original plan might not have worked exactly the way I’d hoped, but it’s definitely not over. All I have to do is shoot you both, then dump you in the middle of the inferno raging behind me. The Rocky Mountain Arsonist will still be blamed.”

  “You’re wrong,” Reid said. All he needed was enough time to stall until help arrived. His 911 call would immediately activate a search that could trace the GPS on his cell phone. They just needed to stay alive until then. “This won’t change anything.”

  “Why not? You changed everything when you got involved. You couldn’t just step aside and let me win her over.”

  Reid stared at the light on Shawn’s phone. While flames devoured the B&B in the background, Shawn was filming them, just like he’d filmed them with the drone and filmed the wreck. Maybe Reid had been wrong. Maybe reasoning with the man was futile. It was as if Shawn had lost touch with reality, and if he couldn’t be the hero he wanted to be and win the girl, he was convinced his only option was to have everyone pay.