Chapter 17

Sunday, March 14

10:00 p.m.

None of it's going to bring them back, Leigh. Trust me.

Leigh tossed for the hundredth time, trying to get comfortable on her childhood twin-sized bed. The sheets were scratchy and smelled of something damp and alive. Nothing had changed in this room. Her bed creaked if she looked at it wrong. The desk in the corner was still collecting dust, and the dresser had lines of purple nail polish from when she'd tried to make her own set of fake nails from Scotch tape. Her mother had kept everything in its place, but she wasn't sure it'd been intentional more than purely detached.

She stared up at the ceiling. She'd come back here because it'd seemed easier than living out of a hotel over the duration of the case. For all she'd known at the time, Livingstone was prepared to send her packing the moment she'd arrived at the scene. But staying here hadn't been the smart choice. Too many memories. Good and bad. Mostly good. Which made it all the more painful. Rolling onto her side, she stared at her brother's toy soldier now missing the tip of his rifle on the edge of her nightstand.

Bits and pieces of her father's warning bled into focus then out again. The past few days had worn her from the inside out, but the final hit had been discovering Joel Brody hadn't requested any legal files, books, or resources to fight his own case. Not a single call to his lawyer. As though he'd simply given up. As hard as he'd tried to dissuade her away from the investigation in the name of protection, he'd let his hope run dry. Just as her mother had.

Now it was her job to bring it back. For all of them.

Heaviness dragged her away from reality, just for a little while. She'd made it a habit to stand on the brink of sleep without falling over the edge for as long as possible.

The smell of something burnt tickled her nose. Sharp and suffocating.

She should've washed the sheets before she'd climbed in bed, but that would've required hooking up the forty-year-old washer and dryer and hoping an animal hadn't died inside. Leigh rolled onto her side. "What the hell?"

The smell got worse.

She shoved to sit up, her hand sinking into a soaked puddle of liquid. Fumes burned down her throat. Gasoline? Glancing up at the ceiling, she tried to discern what would've leaked on her from above, but there didn't seem to be any damage.

"I warned you to leave, Agent Brody," a voice said. "You didn't listen."

A dark outline separated from the shadows in the corner of her room. Big. Male. Her brain struggled to catch up between the grogginess of sleep and the fumes overriding her senses. Leigh lunged for the pistol she'd stuffed under her pillow.

"Don't worry. I've taken care of your gun for you. Wouldn't want anyone getting hurt, now, would we?" The shape solidified with help from a few slivers of streetlight through the blinds. "Didn't the folks in the FBI teach you better than to believe you would ever be safe here?"

Leigh leveraged her heels into the mattress. It'd been doused. "I told you the night you graffitied my garage. I'm not going anywhere. Not until I find who killed these latest victims."

"That's a shame. I was hoping we could resolve our differences without this." A click of metal registered a split second before the bedroom lit up. A lighter. The flickering flame danced in front of a broad chest and masked face, and a streak of fear laced her nerves. One wrong move and her entire bed would consume her alive. "I know what you're thinking, but it's not just the bed. Turns out you're a deep sleeper. Every inch of this house will burn unless you do exactly as I tell you."

He was toying with her.

Literally holding her life in his hands, and the playful banter he'd engaged in said he liked it. He was enjoying this.

"You want me to leave Lebanon." She scanned the room. She could go for the window. Would she be fast enough? Would he try to stop her? Leigh mentally catalogued everything in the room. She'd only thought to bring her sidearm out of years of paranoia that came from studying serial offenders. Teenage Leigh hadn't considered the idea anyone in this town could turn violent. Up until Troy had gone missing, there hadn't been a reason to keep a weapon handy. She had to think. What the hell had she been interested in as a moody teen bent on being angry at the world?

"Don't forget about not coming back." A ghost of the flame capable of ending her life right here right now trailed behind itself as her attacker gestured toward her. "That part is important."

"Right. As it should be." As much as she could decipher his outline at the end of her bed within the cast of flame, he couldn't possibly see her. Leigh inched her hand to the opposite nightstand. The one where she'd kept an entire collection of geodes. Sharp crystals and rock could do a lot of damage. It'd been hard to leave them behind, but she'd never been more thankful to her desperate past self than right then. "Then how about we make a deal?"

"Look at that. I think we're coming to an understanding," he said. "And here I thought I'd have to set this place on fire to convince you to see things my way."

She fisted one of the larger geodes, careful not to move too much so as to aggravate her rusted-out bed and give herself away. "Your way? What's that?"

A low laugh tendrilled through the room and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. "I'm sorry. I thought I'd made it obvious." The floor creaked in the same spot as it had when she'd tried eavesdropping on her parents as he shifted closer to the foot of the bed. "Your father brought evil to our town. He made us scared of our own neighbors, our family members, our friends. We couldn't leave our houses without feeling like we were going to be next. No birthdays, Christmases, or trick-or-treating. School was never the same. There wasn't any more playing at friends' houses or barbeques on the weekends. Do you know what that kind of fear can do to people, Agent Brody?"

"I have an idea." Leigh tried to keep up filing away any details she could get out of him.

His voice dipped into dangerous territory. "I don't think you do. You got to leave this place. You didn't have to face what we did. You got to live your life while the rest of us tried to save what little we had left. But, deep down, I think you knew the truth. Despite all your hollering and pleas for the police to take another look at the case, I think you left Lebanon because you knew your father deserved to be punished." The outline in front of her seemed to double in size. "As does anyone who tries to stand up for him. People like your mother."

An invisible hand of shock slapped her across the face. Leigh gripped the geode tighter. She just had to wait for the right moment. A little bit closer. "You don't know anything about my mother."

"You'd be surprised what I know, Agent Brody." Her attacker's frame shifted closer. "And what I'm willing to do."

"I think you'd be surprised by me, too." Leigh launched to the end of the bed. She arced the geode straight into his head. A loud thud registered a split second before the lighter dropped to the floor.

Flame erupted across the aged carpet and caught on to her bedding.

In a flash, the entire room was covered in fire.

She dashed toward her bedroom window to escape. Stinging pain spread across her scalp. A hand fisted in her hair and dragged her back. She hit a bullet-proof vest.

"And here I thought we were having a nice conversation." Rage vibrated through his every word. Her heels skidded across the floor as he wrangled her closer to the flames. "I'm very disappointed in you, Agent Brody."

Hands clenched around his, Leigh struggled to keep her balance. Fire climbed the walls and licked the ceiling at the corners. The house groaned and warped and made the structure sound as if it was a second away from collapse. Smoke clawed down her throat, burning her from the inside out.

"Now you're going to know exactly what we felt." He moved her closer to the bed.

The heat was too much. Pain splintered up her bare legs as tongues of fire flickered against her skin. Her scream drowned the roar of the flames and seemed to feed into her attacker's grip on her head. Burns blistered along the front of her shins and the tops of her feet.

No. This wasn't how she was going to die.

Leigh released her hold on his hands and threw her elbow back into his face. Bone crunched beneath her strike. The bastard fell backward. She hit the floor as he collapsed into her closet. She only had a moment to watch his clothing catch fire before a support beam crashed through the ceiling drywall from above. Embers rained down as smoldering raindrops settled in her hair and burned her skin. Her attacker screamed, flailing his arms back and forth to dislodge the flames.

She was out of time.

Turning back toward her bed, she grabbed the toy soldier off her nightstand and raced for the door. Fire consumed the walls of the hallway. Her attacker hadn't been lying. He must've doused the entire house with gasoline.

She couldn't see anything.

Smoke built along the ceiling, stealing precious oxygen. There wasn't anywhere for her to go. The heat was so strong, she could feel the burns spreading. His screams had drowned out. Whether because her attacker had gotten out or died, she didn't know.

Leigh got onto all fours to stay below the smoke line, but a bubbling cloud of flame took over the ceiling. Like it'd come to life and started hunting for her. She could almost hear its whispers begging her to come closer. Or maybe that was her oxygen-deprived brain. She army-crawled down the hall toward the living room. There was a fire extinguisher under the kitchen sink. If she could get to it, she might have a clean shot out the back door. The house had intensified from groaning to flat out shattering. Sweat slicked across her skin, blisters catching on the matted carpet. A sob forced its way up her throat, but she wouldn't stop.

Strong hands latched on to her bare feet.

Her scream filled the house as she turned to throw off her would-be killer. She kicked one foot into his face. Once. Twice. He wouldn't let go. Bloodied and blistered skin shucked free from his palms and stuck to her. His grip was hot and sticky and refused to budge. He was trying to keep her here. "No!"

The flames were closing in. Leigh latched on to the nearest doorframe and pulled with everything she had left. She slipped free and climbed to her feet. Fire singed her fingertips as she hobbled into the living room. She was surrounded by flames. The porch had been engulfed. The windows were blocked by furniture that'd caught fire. The ceiling would fail any second. And the burn… She wasn't sure she could take much more. She just needed to get to the kitchen?—

A bullet ripped past her arm. She pulled up short, her back to the shooter.

"I'm beginning to think you don't know how this works, Agent Brody." His voice sounded garbled. Broken. "Did you really think you'd be the one to walk out of here alive?"

She didn't have any other choice. Clutching Troy's toy soldier in one hand, she turned to face him and raised her hands out as though they'd protect her from the next bullet. Her childhood house was burning to the ground around her. She was going to lose everything, but she wouldn't give up her life.

Leigh inched toward the hammer she'd left out on the dining room table after patching Troy's bedroom window. Any second now, the fire would eat through the wood as it had everything else. She had to make a move. Now. "It doesn't have to be this way. We can both make it out. Just put down the gun."

"You did this. You know that, right? Coming here. Acting like you belong. This is all your fault. You're nothing but a cancer." His hand wobbled as he centered her own sidearm on her. "And I'm the cure this town needs. Goodbye, Agent Brody."

"Goodbye." Leigh wrapped her hand around the too-hot steel and attacked.

A second bullet grazed her rib cage, but her strike had found home. She smashed the face of the hammer down onto the bastard's wrist. The gun fell to the floor, out of reach. Arcing the heavy tool back, she planted the claw in his shoulder. He lurched backward with another ear-numbing scream, and she drove the metal deeper. A right hook slammed into her temple, and she hit the ground. Darkness encroached around the edges of her vision. Get up. She had to get up. Another punch took the fight out of her as her face met the floor. The hammer thudded beside her.

"There's no shame in giving in, Agent Brody." He panted above her. "We all do in the end."

Footsteps bled into her awareness. Getting closer. She uncurled her fingers from around the toy soldier. This wasn't over. Leigh rolled to her side. His shadow hovered above her, taking in every moment of agony. "There you go. Let the fire do what it does best. Cleanse everything in its way."

"Let me know how that goes for you." Leigh grabbed for the hammer and slammed it into his ankle. He buckled, collapsing down onto one knee. She shot to her feet and swung again. Metal contacted bone and ripped his face away from her a split second before his body hit the floor. The fire was closing in around the back door. She sprinted for the fire extinguisher under the kitchen sink, removed the pin, and aimed. Thick clouds of fine yellow powder exploded, smothering the flames climbing up the door.

She burst out the back door and into the yard. Cool air caressed her skin and cleared her lungs as sirens echoed down the street. On the verge of doubling over, Leigh tossed the extinguisher and stared at the last remnants of her childhood.

It was gone. It was all gone.