Robert B. Parker’s Buried Secrets

Thirteen

Jesse was out of the door, hand on his gun. “Peebles!” he shouted.

Peebles was already back inside the car. The Toyota peeled away, tires screeching, engine a high whine as Peebles floored it.

Jesse didn’t want to fire after him, shooting blindly into the dark. No telling where the bullet could end up.

He looked back at the house. The fire was already spreading rapidly, years of accumulated scrap going up like dry kindling.

Any chance of finding an answer could still be buried under there. And the neighboring houses were at risk.

Jesse saw the Toyota’s lights disappear around the bend in the street.

He had a choice. But it was no choice at all, really.

He turned back to his Explorer and grabbed the mike from his dash. “This is Chief Stone. We’ve got a fire at the Burton place. Someone tossed a gasoline bomb into the house. We need all units and fire response immediately.”

Then he ignored the sudden squawking of questions and alarm from the radio and ran toward the burning house.

The neat piles the crime scene techs had made were smoking. The heat from the fire was intense. He leaped over a stack of curtain rods and old draperies and charged up the front steps of the house. The door was already burning.

He kicked it open, pulling his leg back quickly as though he were trying to avoid being bitten. He turned just in time to avoid having his eyebrows singed off by the sudden burst of fire that roared out of the open door, fed by the fresh oxygen.

Jesse checked the entryway. Mostly tile, mostly clear. The ceiling obscured by rolling smoke.

Good enough.

He ran inside, T-shirt over his mouth, eyes watering, throat already closing up.

From memory, he turned left, into the room where Burton’s body was.

Jesse remembered there were cases of motor oil. Stacks of newspapers and phone books.

Perfect fuel for a fire. He really hoped the techs had gotten that stuff out.

He could barely see a foot in front of him now. He bumped into a stack of boxes that went over in a shower of sparks.

He reached out and grabbed whatever he could. He brought a file box up to his chest.

The rest of the room was going up. He turned, began to run out the way he’d come, but bounced off a wall.

He’d gotten turned around.

The box in his hands was burning. Everything was burning.

He couldn’t believe how fast it was all going.

Jesse took a moment to be still. Tamped down the instinctive panic of an animal trapped by heat and flame.

Looked for the smoke. Jesse saw it rolling in big clouds, tumbling in the direction of the fresh oxygen feeding the fire.

He heard something crack like a gunshot deeper in the house. He felt, more than heard, the ceiling shift above him.

Jesse ran in the direction of the smoke, hoping he was right.

He bounced off another wall. Tripped. Got back up.

Nothing but smoke on all sides of him now. Red-and-gold flames the only light he could see. Each breath into his lungs like inhaling broken glass. The pain in his hands reached his brain now. He had to get out now. Or he wasn’t getting out at all.

He moved forward, pushing against the smoke like it was a solid thing.

And stumbled again, tripping, trying to stay upright.

He hit the ground, realizing he was under the night sky. He’d made it onto the lawn, which was now burning, too, the piles of trash and carefully collected evidence all going up at the same time.

Jesse managed to get to his feet again, made it farther down the lawn, the box still in his hands, smoldering but not aflame.

He dropped it and rolled, hoping that he wasn’t on fire, either.

He finally stopped and rested on his back, wet enough from the dew on the lawn that he figured he must not be burning anymore. His lungs felt like they were medium rare. His hands were blistered and red.

He glanced over at the smoking, crumpled cardboard box a few feet away. It was an empty husk, the bottom burned out, whatever was inside it lost to the flames.

Jesse looked up at the stars, which seemed distant and peaceful, as sirens wailed in the distance.