Fire Raiser by Melanie Rawn Read Free Book Online Page A

thought about making it a condition of delivery that she could slide the phone back into his trouser pocket herself, but managed some restraint. “Sure. Get going.”
    He started for the door, turned, frowned, felt his right hip, and looked sheepish as Holly dangled his phone by its antenna. He came to retrieve it, grinned, and then hurried outside.
    When Jamey was gone, Gib cocked an eyebrow at her across the table. “A little young for you, maybe?”
    “Well, there’s that,” she laughed. “But actually I’m too married—and way too female.”
    Dark eyes widened. “Really?”
    Holly regarded him with a mixture of amusement and affection. “You have to be the only man I’ve ever known—gay or straight—who has absolutely no gaydar at all.”
    He gave a shrug. “I’ve never seen that gay or straight matters.”
    “Evan’s the same way. He can always tell, though, and I can’t recall a single time when you’ve ever—”
    “ Does it matter? I mean, unless you’ve got ambitions to get a particular person into bed, who the hell cares?” Wadding a paper napkin with a bit more emphasis than strictly necessary, he went on, “Did I hear right, and another church has burned down?”
    “This makes three since the end of September. Evan can’t figure the motive—I mean, it’s not as if there’s robbery involved, or insurance fraud. Baptists don’t go in for silver candlesticks and gold communion goblets. And neither of the first two churches had enough insurance to be fraudulent about.”
    “All Baptist?”
    “What?”
    “Were they all Baptist churches?”
    She thought for a minute. In September it had been Old Believers Church, out on Highway 4; in October, Calvary Weekly Fellowship in Silver Rock; and now—
    “I’m sure Evan’s thought of it,” Gib said almost apologetically.
    “Y’know, I’m not sure that he has. Two’s a coincidence, but three starts to look like a pattern. That’s nice detective work.”
    “I read a lot,” he grinned. “You and Evan are coming over to the house soon, right?”
    “Please don’t let Erika go to any trouble.”
    “Are you kidding? How many famous writers does she get to entertain for an evening?”
    Holly groaned and threw her napkin at him as she slid out of the booth. As Gib left the diner and Holly put in a lunch order with Gertrude, she reflected that if there was anything she hated more than the “How’s the writing going?” question, it was being treated as if what she could do made her something to be exhibited at the Tri-County Fair. Which wasn’t a nice thing to think, and unjust into the bargain. Trouble was, knowing that had never enabled her to ditch the feeling that she was expected to perform like Rex the Mathematical Horse.
    There were times when she missed Susannah Wingfield for the most ignoble and selfish of reasons.
    The circumstances of the arson—for arson it was, as Holly figured out when Evan threw a charred metal can in the back of his SUV—were too similar to the first fires to make this third one anything but connected.
    “If they’d all been started in the same place, I’d maybe think it was somebody with a religious grudge. Thanks, babe,” he added as Holly handed him half of a tuna-on-sourdough. “But Old Believers started at the front door, and this one where the benches were stacked in the back corner. That’s where Luther found the accelerant.”
    “Calvary was the pulpit,” she reminded him. “That’s psychologically suggestive, isn’t it?”
    He shook his head. “The whacko type can’t help it—they leave clues whether they want to or not. This isn’t even somebody trying to mess with our heads by pretending to be a psychopath. Significant dates, same day of the week, same phase of the moon, all that fun-and-games serial-killer stuff they love to do in the movies.”
    “Was there gas in the paint can?”
    “Wasn’t paint.” He took a long swig of coffee and looked startled. “Gerdie musta