Sizzle and Burn

limped toward them, waving her arms to get their attention.
    “Take care of him first,” she said, pointing to Zack. She put every ounce of authority she possessed into the command. “He’s the good guy.”

Fifty-seven
    T wo hours later she sat in the reception area of the Shelbyville Community Hospital. Wayne Langdon was with her.
    She was still waiting for Zack. He had been in the emergency room for what seemed an eternity. A doctor had appeared briefly to assure her that the wound looked a lot worse than it was. He explained that the bullet had passed cleanly through skin and tissue, not striking any vital organs on the way.
    “A lot of stitches and some antibiotics and he’ll be fine. Mr. Jones will end up with an interesting scar but no permanent damage.”
    Easy for him to say, she thought. She would remember the moment that Zack took a bullet for her for the rest of her life. The terrible fear that had flashed through her when she knew he’d been hit would haunt her nightmares, just as the voices did.
    Someone had re-taped her ankle and provided her with a pair of crutches.
    “Got a full confession out of Spicer before they took him into surgery,” Langdon said. “Hard to shut him up, to tell you the truth. Kept babbling about how he had to burn the witches.”
    “Uh-huh.” Raine fiddled with her crutches, trying to get the hang of using them.
    Langdon grimaced. “I appreciate that you’re not saying I told you so .”
    “Hard to resist, though.”
    “I’ll bet.” Langdon whistled softly. “Got to say, Spicer’s confession couldn’t have come at a better time, and that’s a fact.”
    “Why is that?” Raine asked, glancing at her watch.
    “The case against Burton Rosser was starting to unravel pretty fast. Turns out he’s got an ironclad alibi for at least one of the Bonfire murders. He was doing time for burglary when the first girl was killed.”
    “I assume Spicer was the one who set him up?” she asked.
    “Yeah. Evidently you scared the, uh, crap out of him after you discovered the girl still alive in your aunt’s basement.” Langdon cleared his throat. “Got the feeling that something about you made him real nervous.”
    “I have that effect on people sometimes. It’s a gift.”
    Langdon looked as if he didn’t know how to take that. He turned a little red and then acted as if she hadn’t said anything. He cleared his throat again and hurried on with his story.
    “Spicer figured the best way to protect himself from becoming a suspect was to give us a solid perp. He left the belt in Burton Rosser’s house. Then he copied the photos of the victims off his own computer onto a flash storage device and loaded them onto Rosser’s computer. We found the same photos on Spicer’s computer a few minutes ago.”
    “How did he know that Rosser would make a likely-looking suspect?”
    “Spicer deliberately picked someone who was even newer in town than himself. Rosser also looked good because he was a loner and there were rumors that he’d done jail time.”
    Her phone rang. She reached into her purse and glanced at the incoming number. Blocked.
    “Hello,” she said warily.
    “Is this Raine Tallentyre?”
    A man’s voice, or maybe the voice of a really irritable bear. It was hard to tell.
    “I think you have the wrong number,” she said.
    “Fallon Jones,” the bear rumbled, sounding even more annoyed because he’d had to identify himself. “Just tried to call Zack. His phone’s off. What the hell is going on?”
    She gave Langdon a brief, bright smile. “Excuse me, Chief. I have to take this call.”
    “Sure, no problem.”
    She got to her feet, grabbed the crutches and limped through the sliding glass doors out onto the brick entranceway. It was cold outside, but she didn’t care. She was suddenly generating more than enough heat to keep herself warm. Leaning on one of the crutches, she managed to get the phone back to her ear.
    “How do you do, Mr. Jones,” she said, making her voice glassy smooth. “So you’re the head of the firm that ripped my family apart all those years ago.”
    “Huh?”
    “I can’t begin to tell you how pissed off I am by the sneaky, underhanded way your agent Wilder Jones conducted his so-called investigation.”
    “What the hell? Lady, I had nothing to do with that investigation. It went down long before my time here at J&J.”
    “I don’t want excuses, Jones, I want abject apologies. Wilder Jones broke my aunt’s