Burning Up by Anne Marsh Read Free Book Online

and she always got what she went after. If she’d wanted advertising, she’d have been the best damn account exec in the city.
    Evan shrugged. “Probably had herself a whole life out there. Boyfriend, maybe. I remember she used to be real pretty.”
    She still was. Something more than pretty. Looking at her, holding her in his arms, he’d known he’d regret walking away from Lily Cortez. San Francisco was a dog-eat-dog world, but Lily had never been the kind of girl who ran home with her tail tucked between her legs. Whatever had sent her running, he figured it was bad.
    While Rio worked his magic, Jack settled in to make a few phone calls. Set the ball rolling. Maybe he should have waited for her to confide in him, but his gut screamed she didn’t have that kind of time. Even if the problem was no big deal, it was eating her alive from the inside out. Tapping his fingers on the cell, he snapped it shut. He really didn’t want to think about why it mattered to him, but damned if she wasn’t still under his skin.
    When he finished, Rio was still bent over the keyboard, fingers flying across the keys. “Got something here,” he said tersely. Rio had his back, like always. You could count on Rio.
    â€œShitload of fire reports. Lily spent a whole lot of time phoning in fires that just seemed to pop up around her.” Grabbing his beer, Rio finished it and crumpled the can, lobbing it toward the basket on the other side of the hangar. “Unless Lily was damned careless with matches, she was a fucking magnet for fire. Things burned around her.”
    â€œShe was never careless.” Jack figured they were on to something here. A weight lifted in his chest.
    â€œNo.” Rio was silent for a moment, connecting the dots. “Got a fire log, too. Series of small fires where she lived. Trash can. Debris. Carport. Kitchen fire. That kind of stuff. Small potatoes.”
    â€œDamage?”
    â€œMinimal. To her things, at least.”
    Rio wasn’t telling him something. “But there’s a pattern to the calls,” Rio continued. “And in the last report, she floated the idea to the investigator that she was a target. Those are too many fires to be a coincidence, Jack.”
    â€œAnd?”
    â€œAnd she wondered out loud to the investigator if she could have a stalker.”
    â€œDid she suggest any names when she decided to kick this theory around?” He wanted to howl, wanted to hurt something.
    Rio scrolled through the pages. “Not that I can see. Doesn’t help any that the fire investigator wasn’t in a particularly credulous mood when she made that suggestion. Investigator noted that Lily was likely either a firebug or paranoid.”
    Someone had stalked her. Terrorized her. “I want information, Rio.”
    â€œWorking on it.”
    â€œWhat kind of man stalks a woman and sets fires?”
    â€œWhat makes you so sure the stalker is male?” Evan grunted.
    Rio looked up. “Eyewitness reports seeing a male in the vicinity of the last two fires. They didn’t get a good look at him but were sure it was a guy.”
    Whoever he was, he’d set his last fire. Jack was going to hunt him down and make damned sure of that. “Lily didn’t have any idea who was after her?”
    Rio shook his head, turning the laptop around so Jack could read the report for himself. “If she did, she didn’t share. She could have been protecting someone, but I think he scared her, Jack. Bad. Those fires were personal, and she knew it.”
    â€œAttention.” His voice was rough with anger and a primitive possessiveness he hadn’t known he was capable of. “He was demanding her attention. Burned her things and forced his way into her life.”
    â€œA disgruntled lover?” Rio suggested.
    That didn’t feel right. “Not that kind of personal. Maybe he wanted to be her lover, or he was in love with