Still, she had to ask herself if Logan could be involved in some way. After all, she'd gotten a good ten minutes alone with Joseph after leaving the hotshot station, which would have been more than enough time for Logan to leave the station, set a fire in her motel, then head after her.
But no matter how she looked at it, she couldn't forget that Logan was a hotshot. One of the elite. She wanted desperately to believe he was innocent.
What if he wasn't?
“I'll get out here, thanks,” she said, pulling at the door handle to no avail, held captive by the automatic lock. Even though they were stuck at a red light a block from her motel, she wanted out of his car. Now. She had more than enough adrenaline to sprint the rest of the way.
“Hold on, we'll be there in thirty seconds” was his reply.
As they pulled into the lot she pressed every button on the door until the lock finally clicked open. Grabbing her bag and tools, she jumped out while the truck's tires were still spinning. Seconds later, Logan was out of his truck, following closely behind her.
Several red-and-yellow fire trucks blocked the motel from view and she guessed it was at least a three-alarm blaze. Maybe four. Everything closed in on her and she wished, just for a second, she could turn her back on fire. It had devastated her life, and still she walked toward it again and again.
One of the firefighters turned and saw them. “Hey, Logan, didn't expect to see you here. Not with the wild-fire burning in Desolation.”
“My crew's got the fire covered tonight, Bob. What's going on here?”
Maya held her breath as she waited for his answer. She needed to know if the fire was an accident.
Or if she was the target.
“We got a call twenty minutes ago that there was smoke coming out from under one of the doors.”
Maya took a step closer. “Which room?”
Bob frowned at Maya's interruption. He jerked his thumb in her direction. “She with you?”
Logan nodded. “Cal Fire.”
Bob's eyes widened. “Shit. If something's going down, we want to know about it.”
Maya barely held back a frustrated scream. “Which room?”
The urban firefighter looked at Logan. “Should I be telling her this?”
Logan nodded. “We both need to know.”
“Room 205.”
She felt the blood drain from her face and her lips go numb.
Logan's hand gripped her elbow to keep her steady. “Is 205 your room?”
She was shaking. Shit, she needed to get a grip. Needed to take a step away from Logan. And then another.
Spinning away from him, she ran between engines, stopping in front of the only firefighter not geared up, the one with the radio and the clipboard. He had to be the station chief.
“I'm Maya Jackson. From 205. It's my room that's on fire. I need to know what happened.”
A loud crash came from the building and she whipped her head around just in time to witness the roof falling in on the first-floor ceiling. The firefighters calmly went about their business and Maya wished she could be more laid back about the fire's ongoing demolition. But she'd spent the bulk of her working life behind a computer, holding on to a telephone, sitting in airless rooms questioning suspects and witnesses.
She struggled to pull her gaze away from the flames. The out-and-out annihilation.
The fire chief studied her face for a long moment. “Are you related to Tony Jackson?”
Oh God, how could she have forgotten for even one second that this had been Tony's domain? He'd been Lake Tahoe Fire Department, Station 3, and his station's tanker truck was parked ten feet away. Tony should have been in the parking lot with these guys or up on the roof, checking for hot spots.
She nodded to give herself time to recover from the sudden blow. “I am.”