Page 11 of Ice Cold Liar (Ice Breaker Cold Case #14)

Chapter Five

“The fire’s out, for now.” The firefighter tipped back his helmet as he studied the house. His crew still fanned out. Half inside. Half near the idling firetruck. “Always have a chance of rekindling, so we want to check the scene as thoroughly as we can.” His gaze slid back to Naomi.

A quiet Naomi. A Naomi who wore just that oversized shirt. An oversized shirt wasn’t supposed to be dead sexy. But this was Naomi. Her long legs were bare, the shirt just skimming the tops of her thighs. She didn’t have a bra beneath it. The tight edges of her nipples were clear to see.

Lightning flashed overhead. More raindrops drifted down on them. Just great. What did Eb need now? For Naomi’s t-shirt to get drenched and stick to her like a second skin.

“Ma’am, I am happy to help you in any way you need,” the firefighter told Naomi as he took a step closer to her.

Yeah, Romeo could slow the hell down. Eb yanked off his own shirt and stepped in front of Naomi. He shoved his shirt over her head. Then yanked her arms through the sleeves. He pulled that shirt down as far as it would go?—

“What are you doing?” Naomi asked him as she swatted at his hands.

Covering her up. Keeping those tight nipples away from anyone else’s eyes. “You’re cold.” Thus, the tight nipples. “I’m warming you up.” He tugged the hem of the shirt as far as it would go. There. Mid-thigh. Better than before. Satisfied, he nodded.

She shook her head. “Now you have no shirt. And it’s probably going to full-on rain soon.”

Yeah, he was shirtless, but the firefighter wasn’t ogling him. So, win. He turned back toward the firefighter. What was the guy’s name? Saul? Paul? “How did the fire start?”

“Hard to say. You’ll need the fire investigator out here in order to make a determination like that. But I did note a lot of paint cans and flammables in the den…”

Yeah, there were plenty of those cans. A recipe for disaster. And Naomi had stayed to fight the flames. When the whole thing could have erupted like crazy at any moment. Rage seethed inside of Eb. “Mind if I check the scene?” He wanted back in there to get an up-close look for himself.

“Not safe to go in, not yet.” A pause. “I’d advise finding another place to stay for the night.”

Not like there was a whole lot of night left. Maybe a few hours. But, yeah, not going back into the house that had been on fire seemed like a good plan to Eb. The home would reek of smoke. Plus, some of the firefighters had been spraying water in the den. In other words…

We aren’t going to be staying in that house for a while.

“We can bring some clothes out for you,” the firefighter offered. “Do you have another place to stay?”

“Yeah, I do. There’s actually a small guesthouse at the edge of the property.” Naomi waved to the right. Past the line of giant oak trees that lined a small trail. “I can, um, bunk in there.” A shiver skated over her body.

He understood the shiver. Because Hudson hadn’t been killed in the main house. Back then, the place would have been even more of a renovation wreck. Instead, Hudson had taken his bride to the guesthouse.

The first place to be renovated.

The place where he’d died.

“You can go to a hotel,” Naomi told Eb as she squared her delicate shoulders. “You don’t need to stay in the guesthouse with me.”

Oh, he absolutely did need to stay in there with her. He’d been dying to get inside, and, well, Hudson had actually died inside. “My clothes are in the main house, too,” he told the firefighter. “Second level. First room. My bag is at the end of the bed.”

Someone called out for the firefighter. Saul. Not Paul. Definitely Saul. Eb made a mental note of the correct name.

Saul hurried away.

Naomi reached for Eb. Her fingers slid over his abs, then she jerked back, as if she’d been burned.

Oh, sweetheart, it was a very near thing. Those flames had come entirely too close to her precious skin, and he’d come entirely too close to a complete freak-out.

“Take your shirt back,” she whispered. “I do not need it.”

“I could see your nipples. Saul could see your nipples. Trust me on this, you need the shirt.”

She immediately crossed her arms over her chest. “Sorry you have a problem with my sleep attire. When I went to bed, I didn’t exactly plan to entertain the whole fire department tonight.”

“Next time I tell you to get that sweet ass out of a burning building, you do it.” This whole scene bothered him. Especially with her past.

I knew a fire had taken her parents. But he hadn’t known that Naomi had broken her legs when her father tossed her to safety. He hadn’t realized she’d been thrown from a second-story window.

His chest ached.

“This burning building is all I happen to have left! Don’t you get that, Eb? It’s my future. If it goes up in flames, what will I do?” Her chin jutted up. “The fire was still at a level where it could be contained. There was still time. So I tried to save my property.”

“Fires can spread in an instant.” Something she should know. “Don’t play with your life, not ever again. Wood and bricks aren’t worth you dying.”

She edged closer to him. “Aw, Eb. When you talk like that…” Now her hand rose. Curled carefully around his arm. “It seems like you care about me.”

His back teeth had clenched. “Your smoke detectors didn’t go off.”

Her head tilted to the right. Her hair trailed over her shoulder. “What?”

“After a fire took out your family, you expect me to believe you don’t have working smoke detectors? You had a closet with two fire extinguishers.”

“I have fire extinguishers all over the house. I have one every forty feet.”

One every forty feet. “And no working smoke detectors?” He knew she had smoke detectors. He’d seen them on her ceilings. When a chunk of plaster had fallen in the den shortly after his arrival, Eb had looked up. Spotted the first smoke detector.

“They should all work.” Her hand tightened on his shoulder.

“They didn’t, baby.” Baby. Why the hell had he called her that? It wasn’t even the first time the endearment had slipped out. “Not a single one went off. I was awake.” Awake and using his laptop to dig deeper into the mystery that was Naomi. “I smelled the smoke. Then I went to get you.”

But what if he hadn’t been awake?

A new Naomi fact that he’d discovered…she truly slept like the dead. When he’d rushed into her room, she’d been out hard. Then she’d been confused. Afraid.

Don’t hurt me!

That cry had pierced right through him.

Of course, she’d followed up that desperate plea with a very demanding…

Where’s the knife?

And he couldn’t help but think of Hudson. Who’d been found stabbed three times. Twice in the side. Once in the heart. The knife had never been recovered.

Where’s the knife …indeed. It was the question every cop and the DA had certainly wanted to have answered. But when he’d been in that bedroom with Naomi, Eb hadn’t seen a killer.

He’d seen a victim.

He didn’t buy that the blaze tonight was an accident. Not with the smoke detectors failing. “I’m checking the scene.” He had to get in that house.

“What?”

“Stay here.” He looked to the right. “Henry, guard her.”

The dog just watched Eb with his steady, dark gaze. The dog had been remarkably well-behaved during all the chaos. Even now, he didn’t rush toward any of the firefighters or bark to get attention. He just waited with Naomi, a constant presence at her side.

“He’s not a guard dog,” she muttered, disgruntled. “And I’m not a dog, either, so how about you drop the stay commands, huh?”

The woman was going to be the death of him. Eb was increasingly convinced of that fact. “Naomi, will you please stay here? I need to search your house.” Not an easy task considering the massive size of the place. Over six thousand square feet.

“I’ll come with you,” she immediately offered. “Not like I enjoy sitting on the sidelines.”

Yes, he’d noticed that about her. Naomi was certainly not a sideline sitter.

But before he could convince her to stay out of the still smoking house, a police cruiser rolled onto the scene.

“Crap.” She exhaled. “Now it’s gonna be a real circus.”

Like it hadn’t already been? “Stay here. Try not to piss off the cops.”

“Oh, I make zero promises on that score. I think I piss them off just by breathing.”

But she turned to face the patrol car and the exiting officers even as Eb hurriedly slipped away. This whole scene bothered him and before it got wrecked anymore, he needed to do a bit of investigating.

Wrecked anymore? It’s already been burned, sprayed, and had half a dozen firefighters stomping through the place. Any good evidence of an intruder was probably already long gone.

Eb rushed around the house. The front door had been locked when the fire broke out. He’d secured all the doors before bed . He’d been the one who unlocked the front door.

What about the door at the back of the house? Had it still been locked when the firefighters arrived? Or had someone perhaps broken in through that door and set the fire?

Eb hurried to the rear of the house. Bounded up the porch steps and moved toward the door. Still closed. He reached for the knob.

It twisted easily in his hand.

Eb yanked out his phone. He’d tucked it into his pocket right before he’d hauled ass to Naomi’s room. He turned on the phone’s light and pushed the glow toward the lock.

Scratch marks.

But were those old? New?

“Hey, buddy, you shouldn’t be back there!”

Eb turned toward an approaching firefighter. “Did any of your crew open this door?” Maybe he was just being a suspicious SOB.

“Hell if I know,” the firefighter replied. He lumbered toward Eb. “You need to get away from the structure. The scene isn’t secure yet. Incident Commander hasn’t given the all clear.”

A young guy. Barely looked twenty-one. One long and bushy mustache covered his upper lip. A very impressive mustache. The kid still wore his full gear, minus the helmet and face mask.