Her throat burned as she screamed and tried to rise up. But her bruised, nearly crushed throat stung as she drew in the acidic air, thickening with chemicals that she used every day.
She rolled onto her belly, wincing as she crawled toward the front window and away from the unleashed fire dragon consuming the storeroom and the salon. Her escape route was vanishing, and in seconds, this entire building would collapse on her.
Panicking, she rose up on her hands and knees, but another lungful of lethal smoke sent her back to her belly.
She had been so damn obsessed with fire. Setting them had been a game.
The fire, as if it had heard her, jumped up the west wall and rolled over and consumed the posters featuring the newest hairstyles. Long amber fingers crept over the ceiling above her, and she wondered if she were already dead and in hell.
A police car’s red and blue lights flashed outside less than twenty feet away.
“Save me!” she screamed.
Timber above her head cracked. Several ceiling tiles fell and hit the floor, releasing a swarm of firefly embers that burned her skin. Flames licked over her feet and spread to her jeans. She howled in pain as her flesh melted.
Confessions of an Arsonist
I burned myself today on the arm, and the pain sent a rush of pleasure through me as potent as sex. Both pleasures create an intimate bond that cannot be duplicated.
CHAPTER THREE
Missoula, Montana
Saturday, September 5, 2020
6:55 p.m.
Detective Gideon Bailey had hoped his first day back on the job would be peaceful. He had expected a call or two. With the students back for the fall semester, trouble was inevitable. And so far, so good. Since his shift had started that morning, he had responded to an overdose and an attempted rape. He had stayed with the victim in the emergency room until the sexual-assault nurse had arrived. Now it looked like his plan to reenter the job after three months of leave was coming off without a hitch.
He had taken three months off to spend time with his ten-year-old son, Kyle. The two had spent the time living in his grandfather Mac’s cabin, nestled in the Sapphire Mountain Range. Their days had been filled with fishing, hiking, and rebuilding the stone firepit on the property.
Gideon’s ex-wife, Helen, had died in the spring from cancer. Helen had reached out in January and told him what was happening. She was not the type to ask for help, even when their son had been hit by a passing car and suffered a broken arm. But she had sense enough to think of Kyle first and had contacted Gideon.
Gideon had immediately driven to Denver to see her and his son, whom he saw one weekend a month and two weeks during the summer.
Whatever animus he harbored toward his ex-wife vanished when he’d seen her. Helen had aged a decade in the last few months. Her once-full figure had been whittled down to a hundred pounds, her blond hair had thinned, and her skin had turned sallow. She could barely stand. Kyle refused to leave his mother, which meant Gideon traveled back and forth for several months, staying for longer and longer stretches until finally Helen had passed on in early May.
Gideon had packed up his grieving, sullen son and driven back to Missoula. After checking in with his chief, he’d taken leave, and he and Kyle had driven north. The lack of Wi-Fi had been a shock to both their systems. The quiet had created too many opportunities to talk. And the cabin’s confined space had offered few places to hide.
That left streams to fish, trails to hike, wood to chop, and a lot of anger and emotions to untangle. They had mended some fences and distance created by the divorce, and he was almost sorry they’d had to come back. But he had a job, and Kyle needed to catch up on the spring’s lost schooling.
The car’s radio squawked. “All vehicles in the downtown area, we have a structure fire.”
“Damn it,” he muttered as he reached for the radio. “This is Detective Gideon Bailey. I’m a mile away. I’ll respond.”
“Roger that. Fire crews have been dispatched and deputies en route.”
“Roger,” he said. He flipped on his lights, did a U-turn at the next intersection, and punched the accelerator. The wails of the fire trucks’ sirens quickly grew louder as he hurried through each successive intersection. As he rounded the final corner, his welcome