Night on Fire

Book 6: Violet Darger

by L.T. Vargus

Genres: Horror; Hard-Boiled; Pulp Thrillers; Romantic Suspense; serial killer; series of standalones; FBI; police procedural Detective Thriller; psychological thriller; wild fire; arson

Synopsis

Fire crawls up the sides of the church. The orange glow thrashes. Blackens the siding. Climbs up onto the steeple. The flames close in on the wedding party trapped inside.

When a serial arsonist terrorizes Los Angeles County, FBI profiler Violet Darger heads to California to investigate. The fires keep coming faster. The body count rises, and the threat hangs over the city as thick as the smog.

The case file is brutal -- stuffed with photographs of charred bodies, human faces melted beyond recognition. And when Darger gets up close to the crimes, the real thing, that sense of savagery only intensifies.

What kind of a person could carry out such cruelties? Understanding the warped psychology will be the key to solving the case.

The suspect seems hellbent on creating a spectacle. Bigger targets. More deaths. He treats setting fires like a Hollywood special effects sequence, like he's building up to the shocking finale.

Watch the city burn. It's entertainment.

And there's one more factor complicating the investigation: Autumn is settling in over Southern California. The leaves are changing color, and the Santa Ana winds have begun to change directions.

The Hollywood Hills are ripe for a forest fire. The arsonist means to make it the biggest one yet.

A page-turner packed with heart-stopping suspense. Fans of John Sandford, Michael Connelly, Lisa Regan, and Lisa Gardner should check out the Violet Darger series.

Praise for the Violet Darger series:

"The Violet Darger books are honestly the best detective novels I've ever read." -- Devin

"Wow, just wow! If you like scare-you-half-to-death mystery books this is the one for you. It starts with a bang and just doesn't stop." -- Ada Lavin

"Un-put-downable! I cannot wait for this series to grow. If you love Sandford, Slaughter, Kava, Stelljes and Deaver, you’ll LOVE Vargus & McBain!" -- Melody M

"Vargus and McBain have, in Violet Darger, created a character that absolutely stands up with some of the greats -- Phillip Marlowe, Dave Robicheaux, Elvis Cole, Charlie Parker, August Dupin, Jack Reacher, Harry Bosch, etc." -- Lucinda E. Snyder

"If you liked Silence of the Lambs, you'll love Dead End Girl... At the same time, there's so much attention to detail and organic storytelling that this could easily compete with any of Stephen King's longer works. I found myself completely invested in every character, from the authorities to the killer to the victims themselves." -- eden Hudson

"This book reminds me of some of my favorite books in the crime thriller genre - Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, The Collector by John Fowles, the Mr. Mercedes trilogy by Stephen King, and of course Silence of the Lambs. It's not a glimpse...it's a good long look inside the mind of a killer. It's fast paced, it's scary, and it's satisfying." -- Rain

"If you are a fan of Silence of the Lambs, this book is a spiritual successor." -- Amazon customer

"I devour each installment in this series the instant it is available." -- Shelley R. Klouzal

Release date: December 29, 2019

Publisher: Smarmy Press

Print pages: 426

Sample

 

Prologue

 

 

The groom had just peeled back the bride’s veil when the smell of smoke hit.

Wait. Was that right?

In the ensuing panic, Jason couldn’t remember the exact sequence of events anymore. Flashes of the day came to him out of order — a useless jumble of memories that pulsed through his head as he tried to escape the burning building.

In his mind, he could see the church as it had been before — rows of silent people. Sitting. Fidgeting. Fingers picking at their clothes and faces. Waiting for the ceremony to start.

Sunlight streamed through the windows up along the vaulted ceiling and glittered on the shiny wooden backs of the seating and the rails that divided the main altar from the nave. The glow shot through the stained glass and splotched sections of the wall in royal blue and red, elongated rectangles of color that stretched along with the angle of the sun.

The minister stood next to the lectern, an older man sporting thick glasses, smiling, fingers laced around a bible that he clutched to his chest. A little smile blossomed and ebbed on his lips, never fully leaving.

Above all, Jason remembered the anticipation building to something palpable. All of those waiting people. All of that anxious energy. It multiplied like bacteria, created a warmth in the air that made the room stuffy, made it hard to breathe.

In another flash, he remembered kissing Fran on the cheek in the little prep area in the chamber off the main floor of the church that she called “backstage.” Remembered worrying, for just a second, that he might have messed up her makeup or something. Everything about all of this seemed so delicate, so precious, made him feel so out of place. Part of him worried that he was going to blunder in and trample something, that he’d go to touch something and watch it fold up like moth wings, ruined.

Even the kiss itself had caught him off guard. He didn’t show affection that way often — considered himself the strong, silent type — but in that moment he’d lost himself, forgotten himself. Fran was his niece, almost like a daughter to him, and now she was all grown up, getting married.

He could still remember her laughing as a toddler — head tipped back, eyelids squinted to slits, little ringlets of hair bobbing along with the quaking round belly — laughing harder than he’d ever seen any child laugh. And he still associated that image with the woman she’d become — her sense of humor still as core to her being at 26 as it had inexplicably been at two. She taught improv now and periodically toured with a local group doing sketch comedy, made laughter for a living, albeit toward the starving artist end of the economic spectrum. Still, she’d always favored pursuits of passion to those financial, just like him.

The emotions that came along with her wedding surprised him, gripped him like a fist clenching in the center of his chest, overwhelmed him. His skin had tingled from the moment he’d arrived at the church, throbbed with pins and needles.

He’d never had kids of his own. Never would, according to the doctors. Maybe that meant more to him than he’d realized until today. And maybe that diagnosis from Dr. Miller played a bigger role in the divorce than he’d let himself consider — the straw that broke the marriage’s back.

Only sitting in the packed pews did any of this occur to him, in the quiet of the church, in the stillness of being alone while surrounded by people. He saw his life from a different perspective in this place — a fresh angle — saw the way his mind usually distorted aspects of the truth like those warped boxes of red and blue light that stretched out along the wall.

Funny how it all worked, life. You kept so busy that you only got the faintest glimpses of what you really wanted, who you really were — fleeting little glances at the truth that only came to you in the quiet moments if you looked for them out of the side of your eye.

And the big truth here seemed plain enough. Fran was as close as he’d get to fatherhood, and now she was a girl no longer. Her new life started today. They were all here to witness it become official, this ceremony cementing it to the satisfaction of both God and government.

Dennis, the guy she was marrying, seemed like an all right guy. Tall and long-faced with bad posture. Worked at a big marketing company. Something to do with computers, Jason thought. Kind enough, though. Agreeable. Gentle.

Except…

Maybe Dennis was a bit of a puss, if Jason was being totally honest. Scared of snakes and spiders. Unable to fix anything around the house. Hell, he had seen the kid’s face pucker into a contorted mess of wrinkles whilst sipping something as watered down as Coors Light, for Christ’s sake. Bitter beer face on more than one occasion.

Not much of a man by Jason’s old school definition, maybe, but he treated Fran well. That was something. So much had changed, Jason knew. Maybe the world was different now. Maybe the way we treated each other was all that really mattered, the only real way to judge someone’s character.

His mind fast-forwarded to the main event. He sat in the pews among all the people as the ceremony got underway, shocked to find tears forming in his eyes as Fran walked down the aisle. Tears. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. Had forgotten, somehow, that it was something that happened to you rather than something you did, the involuntary nature of the act striking him as strange, almost cruel.

He tried to fight it, the crying. Tried to squelch the emotions. Tried to will his eyes dry. Like he could wrestle his feelings, pin them to the ground and make them submit. Cast them out with some brute force of will power.

But the nostalgia only tugged harder at him as things proceeded. It submerged him, pulled him out into the deep. An angry ocean of emotions lurching in his skull. Chaotic and overwhelming.

And his consciousness drew up into that storm in his head until he couldn’t make out the words that the minister said. Instead, he experienced them as a drone streaming along with the image of Fran’s veil lifting, her green eyes looking deeply into the groom’s, like watching a foreign film with the subtitles turned off.

The smoke smell hit then, a blackened stench like that of charring meat on a barbecue with a foul chemical note intertwined. Jason felt his nose wrinkle.

He blinked a few times as his mind processed it. With an effort, he managed to break his gaze from Fran and Dennis, swivel his head to scan for the source of the bad smell.

Someone yelled then.

“Fire!”

And then everything moved very quickly.

A stampede of human bodies swarmed for the door. All shuffling feet and swinging elbows. Seeming to move as one frightened creature rather than individuals.

Screams and moans shattered the silence of the ceremony. Strange throaty sounds rising up — the screech of frightened animals.

Jason could hear his breath in his head. Too loud. Wrong.

The same room that had harbored that reverent quiet one second, convulsed with panic the next.

Twirling black smoke filled the space all at once. Clouded everything, its opaqueness rapidly thickening. It billowed from the little chamber off to the side of the main sanctuary and began to eclipse the sun streaming in those windows above, casting a darkness over everything.

Jason pressed forward into the mass of human bodies clogging the space between him and the exit, eyes looking past all of them to the double doors ahead.

The main chamber of the church tapered to a small foyer — an architectural funnel overflowing with humanity. The stampede had moved from the pews to this narrow doorway all at once, and all the torsos piled against each other. But their forward progress ended there.

 No daylight peeked from around the edges of the door. Nothing.

The mob could only shift and jockey for position and thrash into each other.

The wall of bodies closed around Jason. Cinched him so tightly that he moved along with the whims of the crowd. They lifted him off his feet, swept him up in the swell of mankind pressing on the front door that wouldn’t seem to open.

He could picture an impossible image in the frenzy: the mob somehow lifting itself up like a tidal wave in the ocean, lurching up and up before folding itself forward with great momentum, crashing into the door, rolling back out to sea.

And as shoulders and elbows dug into his ribcage, a set of words opened in his head. Interrupted the present. Held him strangely still as though catatonic. Whittled all the panicked sounds down to quiet.

We’re going to die here.

We are all going to die in here.

The sounds of the mob returned, brought him back. The wood floor groaning beneath all those moving feet. And the whimpers. Panicked expressions. A wordless cacophony erupting all around him.

But no. It wasn’t wordless after all. He could make out one word rising above all the din. A raspy voice, full-throated and deep.

“Locked.”

Locked. It took a second to make sense of it. The doors were locked. They were trapped inside.

Again, he swiveled his head.

The black smoke undulated behind them. A strange wall of murk that twirled and tumbled about itself like liquid.

Still, it was the only way out. Had to be.

He pulled the collar of his shirt up over his mouth and knifed his way back through the mob, moving toward the smoke, moving into it.

He got low as the black surrounded him, one hand holding his collar over his lips, the other patting along the ground to try to feel his way along.

The windows were too high. He remembered that, even if he couldn’t see it now — all of the stained glass congregated far up toward the vaulted ceiling, out of reach.

But there had to be other doors. Another way.

He felt along. Fingers scrabbling over the textured carpet, knuckles butting into the leg of a pew now and again.

The heat gripped him as he reached the last row of pews and moved into the open. It was right on top of him and so intense it seemed to flush sweat out of every pore right away, made his vision blur and flicker along the edges. His mouth and throat felt raw, but he didn’t let himself dwell on it.

He squinted. Tried to see anything at all in the murk. But the black smoke rolled endlessly up. A thick wall of it undulating everywhere like some creature that belonged at the bottom of the sea.

Light erupted to his right. A curtain went up all at once. Flame climbed it and devoured it. Sent raining sheets of melted fabric down, sizzling and flickering and half-liquefied. He jumped back, just missing the fallout.

But the curtain told him where he was. It meant he was near the little side chamber, the little backstage area where he’d kissed Fran.

God. Fran. Was she OK?

He pushed the thought away. He had to focus on finding a way out.

He stepped around the flaming curtain, moving faster now. He couldn’t remember, but he thought there’d been a door in that little prep chamber. Thought. Hoped.

His fingers found the wall. Traced along it. Patting it. Frisking it.

He could hear the fire just next to him, though he couldn’t see it. Hissing. Spitting. Mocking him. Threatening.

The screams back toward the door intensified — the sounds of fear turning to those of pain — and Jason stiffened. Froze. Listened. He suspected the fire had reached the mob now. Inevitable.

Focus. Keep looking.

If he could find a door, he could yell for the others. Try to lead them by sound to the way out. Save them.

His fingers traced and retraced the seam before the realization hit. A doorway.

He jerked his hands for where the knob should be.

Nothing.

Panic.

Bile in his throat, on the back of his tongue.

His hands flailed where the door handle should be. Fingers brushing the smooth steel of the door.

The empty space seemed impossible. Something from a nightmare.

Too hot. Hard to think now. Sweat cascaded down his spine. An endless flow.

He focused. Slowed down. Worked his hands in wider arcs.

The protrusion bashed into the back of his knuckles. Found it.

He twisted the knob. Pulled the door open.

A rectangle of light sliced into the smoke. Tendrils rushed into the opening, twisting like tentacles into the open air.

He stumbled through the threshold into the light, into the cool. Down two concrete steps. Collapsed on hands and knees in the grass.

Very faint now. Head spinning.

Breathe.

Breathe and then yell for the others.

The wind hurt scraping into him, cold and fresh as it was. Ached in his throat and on his tongue as it sucked past into his lungs.

But the cool surrounded him. Enveloped him. Beat back the heat at last.

Safe. He was safe.

He breathed. In and out. The spinning in his head slowing, leaving him.

Need to yell for Fran. For Dennis. For everyone.

He pushed himself off the ground. Trying to sit up.

But no. Something was wrong.

The heat surged in him again. Flushed his face. Too hot.

His breathing went ragged. Uneven. Not working right.

He coughed. Choked.

And his face clenched. Pulled taut. Felt like all the veins there constricted into piano strings.

He swiped a hand at his forehead, and a wad of melted flesh sloughed away at his touch.

 

 

 

Chapter 1

 

 

A blast of warm air tugged at Darger's hair as she passed from the plane into the skybridge and proceeded with the rest of the passengers into Terminal 3 of Los Angeles International Airport. The flight from Virginia to California had been delayed due to lightning at Dulles but was otherwise uneventful. No turbulence, no screaming children, no overly-talkative seatmates.

The air felt different here, that was for sure. Warm, dry, and scented with pine and salt. Back in Virginia, they were at the tail end of a moist, muggy summer. She couldn’t remember the last time it hadn’t rained for at least part of the day. During the most recent downpour, the basement below Darger’s apartment had flooded, and her landlord had to have a handyman come install new gutters.

She passed a bank of windows near the gate showing off a picturesque row of palm trees. As a kid, palm trees had always looked like some sort of weird Dr. Seuss animal to her, with an impossibly long neck and a shaggy green mane that obscured the face.

Crossing through a food court area, Darger got a whiff of freshly ground coffee beans coming from Starbucks. Her mouth watered, and she considered that a healthy shot of espresso would go a long way in warding off any looming jetlag. Then she saw the line stretching halfway across the food court and decided against it. She was already running late as a result of her delayed flight, and she had a ride waiting. She needed to collect her luggage and get a move on.

She glided down two escalators to the baggage claim area and wriggled through the crowd to Carousel 2. The horde shifted and swayed, a sea of people. Together their voices combined to form one collective murmur. Here and there a raucous laugh or shriek of a child stood out for a half-second before being swallowed up again by the babble.

There were other sounds, too. Suitcases clattering to the ground and wheels bump-bump-bumping over the seams of the tiled floor. Shoe heels squeaked. Somewhere to her left, someone slurped at the dregs of a drink through a straw, a hollow gurgling noise as they tried to suck up the last few drops.

At least three different languages were being spoken in her direct vicinity: English, Spanish, and Korean.

Someone coughed. Another person called out, “Callie! Callie, come back here.” Darger watched the woman turn and mutter to her husband. “Please go get Callie before she starts climbing on that thing.”

A slight bulge in Darger’s jacket pocket kept causing her to shift her right elbow. A fresh set of FBI credentials to replace the ones she’d tossed over the bridge in Detroit. Had they always been this bulky, or had she grown that accustomed to not having them on her person? She’d only been on hiatus for a couple of months, but somehow it felt like years had passed. There'd been surprisingly few hoops to jump through to return to her duties with the BAU. Whoever Loshak knew higher up the chain, they must have been a Big Fucking Deal.

Fifteen minutes passed. The mass of people in the baggage claim area grew slightly more agitated. A game of telephone started up and passed through the crowd, and Darger heard her flight number.

“Were you all on Delta 1128?”

Darger and several people clustered around her nodded their heads.

“So I guess the thing they use to get the luggage from the plane to here — the train, or whatever — I guess it broke down, so they had to switch all the luggage over to another one. They’re almost finished, but it’ll be another fifteen minutes or so.”

The throng groaned and sighed with annoyance at the holdup.

Darger reached for her phone and glanced at the clock. From what she knew about L.A. traffic, they were probably already going to be late for the meeting. Shit.

She opened her contacts and dialed, but there was no answer on the other end. She texted instead.

Still at the Baggage Claim. Some sort of delay. Fifteen minutes, they said.

She should have just rented a car like she usually did, then this could have been avoided. She’d still be late to the meeting, of course, but at least she wouldn’t have made someone else late, too.

Instead of putting her phone away, she kept it out and used the dead time to flip through her case notes.

Loshak had called only a few days after she’d gotten her shiny new badge and ID via FedEx.

“Got something for you, if you’re ready to roll. There’s a mutual acquaintance of ours working out of the L.A. field office that specifically requested our expertise.”

“Los Angeles? That’s where we’re headed?”

“Tinseltown, indeed, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to join you. I’ve got a speaking engagement and then a conference that’ll run through the 10th. You know how I love to work the criminology con circuit, hang out in a crowded conference room that smells like boiled ham, so I can shake the hands of sweaty people from all over the country.”

Darger had been looking forward to working with Loshak again, so it was a little disappointing to hear she’d be flying solo for the time being. She managed to stifle that feeling and put her game face on.

“Tell me about the case.”

“Serial arsonist,” Loshak said. “Guy torched a church last week in the middle of a wedding ceremony.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Twenty-six dead. At least seven of them were kids.”

Darger closed her eyes and sighed.

“Nearly all the survivors had to be treated for severe burns. Some had damaged lungs. A real mess. Crazy thing is, the majority of the dead weren’t even burned. Untouched by the fire. They died due to smoke inhalation.”

“You said serial arsonist. He’s done this before?”

She heard papers shifting in the background, Loshak paging through the file.

“There was a single casualty at a previous scene, an older woman, retired junior high principal, last name Galitis. Died when her house went up in flames at three in the morning. A few months before that, back in May, there was a small structure fire on some abandoned property. Anyway, they found evidence of the same incendiary device, for lack of a better term, at all three scenes — a two-liter bottle of gasoline of all things. Crude. Simple. Not much of a device at all, I guess, but…”

She swiped past photographs of the crime scenes on her phone now. Charred bodies. Destroyed buildings. Evidence markers. Crime scene tape.

Darger was jotting a reminder to look into the dead retiree’s background when she noticed a distinct shift in the crowd noise. It was like someone had suddenly turned up the volume on the steady murmur.

At first she assumed the baggage from her flight had finally started circulating, but she hadn’t heard the obnoxious buzzer sound that usually announced that the carousel was about to start up.

Something was definitely going on, though. She heard shouts echoing across the large chamber of concrete and tile. She wondered if a fight had broken out. It wouldn’t surprise her. People were typically fairly on edge while traveling. With the added delay of their flight and then the snafu with the baggage, she could imagine someone with a short fuse snapping.

She skirted around a family decked out in matching Hawaiian shirts, trying to see what all the commotion was about.

There was a young woman breezing through the baggage claim area. Her platinum blonde hair was pulled into a messy ponytail, and she wore dark sunglasses despite being indoors. She clutched a phone in a hand with long pink stiletto nails.

She was flanked by two men and another woman, who appeared to be with her. But another group swarmed around her like flies and seemed to be trying to get her attention.

“Cici!” one man yelled, then threw himself onto his knees so he could snap a photo of her with a camera sporting a giant telephoto lens.

That was when Darger realized they all had cameras, all of the people buzzing around the woman. A few of them were just using I-phones, but one of them had a full-size TV camera propped on his shoulder.

A celebrity being followed by the paparazzi, Darger thought. How very L.A.

The name “Cici” didn’t ring any bells for Darger, and the woman hadn’t looked familiar. A pop star from one of those singing shows, maybe. Darger could never keep track of that kind of thing.

She went back to her notes, thinking over what she and Loshak had discussed when he’d given her the case.

“I can’t say I’ll be sad to miss out on this one,” he’d said.

“Why’s that?”

“Arson is always ugly. It’s one of the worst ways to go, and it makes for some of the grisliest cases to work. From my point of view, anyhow. And dealing with the arsonists themselves — the psychology of it — can get a little bleak. I don’t know. They don’t inspire a lot of faith in humanity, I guess you could say.”

“Any thoughts about this case in particular?”

“I didn’t dig too deeply in the file, but… a wedding? Seems awfully personal.”

"You think the killer knew the bride or groom? That they were targeting someone specifically?"

"Could be. Could be the bride, the groom, someone in the wedding party. A family member. Or just one of the guests. Or it could be that this particular wedding was chosen at random. But I think the fact that it was a wedding says something, regardless. This person is very angry."

“Well, let’s take a step back. The three motives for setting fires are money, revenge, and fun. I’m assuming we can rule money out,” Darger said. “Unless the same person happens to own both properties. Or stands to benefit from all the life insurance policies, if there were any. Though I also assume that’s the first place the police looked.”

“Bingo. So far they’ve found zero connection between the victims or the targeted properties. That doesn’t rule it out completely. There could always be some bizarre tangled web that leads to someone profiting off the various fires, but I’d say it’s a doubtful prospect.”

“So that leaves revenge and fun,” Darger said. “And if you haven’t been able to tie together the victims or properties…”

“Then it rules out revenge as motive, at least tacitly.”

“So he’s setting them for fun.”

She used the male pronoun theoretically, even though nearly all convicted arsonists were male.

Just because most of them are, she thought to herself, doesn’t mean they all are.

It was a mistake she’d made once and had vowed to never make again.

“That’s what my gut says.”

“Great,” she said, her tone dry.

“Yeah.”

She knew Loshak was thinking the same thing she was. That the “for fun” type of arsonist was the hardest to catch, because they often chose their targets at random and behaved rather erratically in general. Impulsive types, largely.

She tacked on a few notes to the end of her profile — things she wanted to be sure to hit hard during her presentation — and then a sound like a basketball shot clock sounded. The baggage carousel was finally moving, and she could see suitcases and duffel bags already sliding down the chute at the far end.

For once, luck seemed to be on her side. Her suitcase was one of the first onto the conveyor belt. She recognized it at a distance because of the twist of bright orange yarn tied to the handle. A trick her mother had taught her long ago.

She edged her way around to one corner of the giant oval-shaped machine, trying to head off her bag. She extended her arm, grabbing for the handle of her suitcase. It was just within her grasp, but someone elbowed in front of her and beat her to it.

“Let me get that for you.”

It was a masculine voice, and Darger was instantly annoyed. She knew that was irrational. He was surely just trying to be gentlemanly. But if she needed help, she’d ask for it. She didn’t need someone barging into her personal space, as if she were some kind of damsel in distress, incapable of lifting a damn suitcase.

The man’s fingers snatched the suitcase upward, hoisting it easily from the conveyor belt and setting it on the floor beside him and just slightly out of her reach.

He smiled down at her benevolently, and now she was really ready to give it to him. She was already late, and now some dickhead wanted to play games with her luggage. Was he trying to be cute, holding her bag hostage like that?

Darger opened her mouth to speak, and at the same time the man lifted a hand to remove his sunglasses. She stopped, recognizing him.

The man was Casey Luck.

“How was your flight?” he asked, still grinning.

Her irritation fled instantly.

“I didn’t recognize you. You’re… tan. And you’ve got stubble.”

“Plus, I shaved off the mustache.”

“Aww,” Darger said, pretending to mourn the loss.

“Yeah right. I know you hated it.”

“I told you it was nothing personal. I hate all mustaches equally.”

“Yes, I remember it well. Very even-handed of you. Fair and balanced and all that. Let’s go.”

They threaded their way through the throngs of humanity to the parking area outside, where Luck’s Lexus was parked in a restricted area. Darger feigned a heart attack, grabbing her chest.

“Parked in a No Parking zone? Agent Luck, what’s gotten into you? You lose the ‘stache, grow a little stubble, and suddenly you’re Mr. Rulebreaker?”

Luck chuckled as they climbed into the car.

There were other things that were different about him, too. He looked a little thinner, and instead of a suit and tie, he was wearing a sports jacket and khakis.

“I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you not wearing a tie.”

He gave her a wry look.

“Violet, you’ve seen me wearing nothing.”

Snorting, Darger said, “Fair enough. You’re just looking awfully casual, is all. Relaxed, even. It’s very… un-Luck.”

He made a face like that had hurt his feelings.

“I can be relaxed,” he insisted. “Besides, everything’s a little more casual out here.”

Darger raised an eyebrow. “Even the FBI?”

“Even the FBI.”

 

 

Chapter 2

 

 

The chorus of “Hang On Sloopy” by The McCoys filtered out of the speakers as soon as Luck turned the key in the ignition. He steered them into traffic and soon they left the airport behind them, heading for downtown.

Something about the radio playing oldies felt fitting with all the palm trees and mid-century architecture passing by outside Darger’s window. Part of her always thought of that era of history when she thought of L.A.

Her eyes wandered over to the man driving the car. Despite their seemingly friendly greeting, she sensed some unease with Luck. It was his posture, she thought. He was holding his chin just a touch too high. And his back was a little too straight and upright. What did they call that? Ramrod straight. Like even the “new casual model” of Casey Luck couldn’t quite relax around her.

She supposed she felt a little of the same uncertainty. Partly because of their history. She doubted things would ever be truly informal between them after a failed romance.

With what happened in Detroit, though, when they’d last seen one another, it was hard to know where things lay between them, even as associates in a professional sense. They’d spoken, of course. Once to go over some of the more pertinent details of the current case and again to double-check her flight arrangements so he could pick her up at the airport. So at least she’d had advance warning that they’d be working together again.

She still felt some resentment that he hadn’t spoken up for her after that last case, if she was honest with herself. That maybe he hadn’t even believed her that his boss had been working with the mob. And maybe he had some remaining bitterness of his own. Things had gotten messy in Detroit. And Darger wasn’t sure how much of that might have led to his current position being in a field office halfway across the country.

There was something else nagging at her, too. After her falling out with Prescott, when Darger had decided that the private sector wasn’t working out, it had been a natural decision to go back to the Bureau.

But now that she was here, she couldn’t help but wonder if she’d made the right choice.

She let the back of her skull fall against the seat, cradled by the headrest.

Why couldn’t she just be sure of things for once? Why was she always doubting her own choices? Maybe that was life. Maybe it only ever seemed like other people knew exactly what they were doing. What they were meant for. Where and who they were supposed to be.

She studied Luck from the corner of her eye. To most people, it would seem like he’d hit the jackpot with this assignment. She remembered one guy in her training group at the Academy. His dream placement had been in Honolulu. He’d been sent to Kansas City instead. She could still see the stunned look on his face when he opened his letter and the way he kept muttering, “Wow… Missouri? Wow.”

“So, how’s paradise?” Darger finally asked.

“Paradise?”

She swept her hand around, gesturing at the scenic landscape outside.

“Come on, you live in La-La Land. How’s it been treating you?”

“I mean the weather is fantastic. Almost unbelievable.”

“Are you suggesting you don’t miss the seemingly endless winter of the Midwest? The gray, sunless days?”

He shook his head, smirking. “Not even a little.”

Darger wondered how Luck’s daughter was adjusting to their new home.

“What about Jill?”

“Oh, she loves it out here. We’ve been to Disneyland five times already. Can’t really beat that.”

“Yeah, probably not.”

They lapsed into silence for a few moments, but something about his original answer about living in Los Angeles was bugging her.

“So the weather is fantastic, but…”

His eyebrows peeked up above the rims of his sunglasses.

“Huh?”

“It just sounded like you were going to add that there was something not so fantastic.”

“Well, I felt a little guilty at first. We’d just gotten settled in Michigan, and then we had to start all over again.”

Darger held her tongue on that. It was part of being in the FBI, the Bureau made that very clear during agent training at the Academy. Agents were told they should be prepared to pick up and move assignments every three to five years.

It wasn’t helpful to point this out, though, so she kept her lips sealed.

“Claudia and Ray followed us out here. Jill’s grandparents. And at first I thought it was a blessing but…”

Darger waited for him to continue. He shrugged and let out a sigh.

“I don’t know. I got kinda used to it being just me and Jill in Michigan. They’d come up for holidays and Jill’s birthday and stuff… and I shouldn’t complain. They’ve been great. They’re saving me a fortune not having to find daycare, and they love Jill to pieces, but…”

He trailed off again, and this time Darger urged him on.

“But, but, but. What?”

“They’re just always around, you know? On the weekends, when maybe I’d like to take Jill to the beach, spend some time with her after working all week, I feel obligated to ask them to come along. Or they invite themselves. And I can’t really say no. They do so much for us. And it seems like a small thing to offer.”

“Boundaries, my friend,” Darger said, shaking her head. “Look, they spend all week with Jill, right?”

“Right.”

“Then you’re absolutely entitled to some time hanging out with just her, apart from them. She’s your daughter.”

“But they do—”

“So much. I heard you. But they’re not doing you a favor, watching Jill. You realize that, right? They’re doing it because it’s what they want. It’s a reward for them. They didn’t move out here for the nanny job. They moved out here to be close to their granddaughter. And they are. Stop feeling guilty.”

Luck frowned, and she worried she’d offended him. Maybe she’d overstepped the bounds of their current relationship, offering unsolicited advice like that. It really wasn’t her place.

But then Luck blinked a few times and the corners of his mouth turned upward. He turned his face toward her.

“When did you get so insightful?”

Darger scoffed and watched the skyscrapers downtown seem to grow taller through the windshield as they got closer.

“Oh, it’s easy to have all the answers when it’s someone else’s life. You just kind of point your finger and say wrong a lot.”

 

 

Chapter 3

 

 

From the outside, the LAPD headquarters looked like a giant mirrored cube nestled in a triangle of concrete. Luck parked down the street in a paid lot. From there they walked back to the shimmering LAPD building, passing restaurants, bars, and storefronts.

A car horn blared. Smells wafted from a food truck set up nearby. Thin, tan, blonde people shuffled everywhere, something a little plastic about many of them.

Darger followed Luck through a set of automatic sliding glass doors. The interior was just as modern as the outside. Everything was brushed steel, sparkling glass, polished concrete. Luck showed his badge to a uniformed officer at a desk, and then they took an elevator upstairs.

As she’d suspected, the meeting was already underway when she and Luck finally pushed through the conference room doors. The rows of chairs were packed with uniforms, detectives, and other law enforcement personnel.

She recognized both the room and the man behind the podium from the press conferences she’d watched related to the case. Newly appointed, Chief Macklin mostly looked the part. His neat crew cut was standard police issue. The beard, less so.

Behind him, an American flag hung limp next to a backdrop emblazoned with the LAPD logo. From the out of context snippet of the speech Darger was hearing, it sounded like Macklin was talking about new leads.

Luck nodded to a man in a gray suit standing near the podium, and, in turn, the man waved them up to the front. As they approached, gray suit leaned over and whispered something to Chief Macklin.

Darger’s stomach suddenly felt like a lump of raw dough being kneaded by a dozen fists. She didn’t know if it was because she’d missed the beginning of the meeting or if it was the time she’d taken away from the FBI, but she felt even more edgy than usual.

It seemed to take forever to reach the front of the room. She breathed in and out slowly, trying to settle her nerves.

When they reached the podium, Chief Macklin gestured that Darger should take his place in front of the microphone.

“And now I’ll turn things over to our profiler, on loan from our friends at the FBI. I’ll let her introduce herself and present her findings.”

This was it. There was a laptop connected to a projector on a small cart next to the podium. Darger connected a thumb drive with some informational slides relating to her profile and stared out at the crowd of faces.

“Good afternoon,” she said into the mic. “I’m Violet Darger from the FBI.”

She cringed internally. The Chief had already told them she was from the FBI. Now it probably sounded like she was bragging. That or maybe like she was just an idiot.

And even though her notes were right there in front of her, her mind went blank.

If she’d had just five minutes to get her bearings in the room before she’d had to present her profile, a few seconds to breathe. But she’d literally walked in and been ushered on stage, and now everyone was staring. Expecting her to have all the answers.

She remembered then what someone had once told her about public speaking.

You are here to present your profile… to move the information from Point A — your brain — to Point B — the brains of your audience. Focus on how to do that best, and you’ll forget about everything else.

The kindly voice of Ted Fowles echoed in her mind, and Darger knew then that she’d be fine. It was a simple task, after all. One she’d done dozens of times now. She had this.

She swallowed the rest of her doubts and glanced down at her notes, but she barely needed them. She remembered it all now.

“Let’s start with the basics: Most arsonists are young, white males,” she said, bringing up a chart with more detailed demographics. “In fact, about one-third of them are under the age of fifteen. In this case, however — given the severity of the crimes and the apparent escalation — it's more likely that we're looking for someone older. More experienced, if you will. The geographic spread of the crime scenes, at least, suggests the perpetrator has access to a vehicle or is somehow otherwise able to get all the way from the west side of L.A. to San Bernardino County. These circumstances, combined with the data-driven probabilities, would suggest that we’re looking for someone between the ages of 17 and 26 — possibly a little older, but the odds go down as the age goes up.”

Her eyes wandered over to Luck, who stood off to her right, and he gave her an approving bob of the head.

“We generally divide arsonists into categories based on three main motives.” She ticked the first two off on her fingers. “The most common are fires started for profit — usually an insurance scam. Second-most common are fires started for revenge — an angry ex-husband setting his former spouse’s home on fire, for example. In these cases, the perpetrator may or may not intend for the fire to cause bodily harm.”

A click of the mouse revealed a graph of arson crimes in the US grouped by motive.

“Given the fact that we have yet to find a connection between the properties or the victims, we can probably rule out the motives of profit and revenge. That leaves us with the last group: fires started for fun. In these cases the arsonist doesn’t have a motive other than loving to see the destructive power of fire in action. This type of arsonist is a true pyromaniac, one who achieves sexual pleasure from starting fires, one obsessed with all fire-related things. Matches, lighters, fire alarms, fire trucks. He sets fires because he loves it, plain and simple.”

Darger let her eyes settle on the group of men and women in front of her.

“If we are indeed searching for a pyromaniac, it makes our job that much harder. This is the hardest type of arsonist to catch. He can set fires anytime, anywhere. His crimes are seemingly committed at random. Erratic. Spontaneous. We can’t predict where or when he’ll strike next, because even he likely does not know.”

The next slide she brought up showed a list of common attributes and characteristics for pyromaniacs as children.

“Our pyromaniac would have had an unstable childhood — one or both parents absent, and there was almost certainly abuse and/or neglect by whoever was tasked with caring for him,” she said. “Pyromania has also been linked to low serotonin levels and childhood hyperactivity disorders. There’s often an incorrect assumption that pyromaniacs have a low IQ, but most studies have found them to have an overall average or above-average intelligence.”

Darger proceeded to the next slide.

“But no matter how smart he is, the instability in his childhood will almost certainly carry over into adulthood in terms of his ability to form and maintain relationships. He’s probably not married. He may even still live with or somehow rely on a parent or childhood guardian for support. If he is in a long term relationship, his homelife is probably rocky. Substance abuse, domestic disturbances, infidelity. Any and all of these would fit a pyromaniac.”

Darger poured herself a glass of water from the pitcher next to the podium and took a sip before she went on.

“Above all, his behavior is marked by impulsiveness. Emotional events and stressors trigger his outbursts. Life problems set him off. It becomes cause and effect. When he gets angry or upset, the emotions create a tension that can only be relieved by setting a fire. He feels an actual physical sense of gratification and even sexual arousal when setting a fire or viewing the damage caused by one. He finds escape from his pain only in torching something.”

Darger thought she saw at least a handful of the audience grimace at that thought.

“I imagine at least some of you are familiar with the John Orr case. For anyone that isn’t, he was a fire captain and arson investigator for the Glendale Fire Department, and between the years of 1984 and 1991, it is believed that he set as many as two thousand fires. These were fires he’d set and then investigated himself. He was arrested in 1991 and convicted of four counts of murder, but it took years before anyone got suspicious enough to start piecing it all together.”

A click of a button brought up a photograph of the convicted arsonist and murderer.

“Orr presents as a classic pyromaniac, and he fits many of the profile characteristics to a T: a childhood fascination with fire, firefighters, and law enforcement. He actually wanted to be a police officer but failed the entrance exam. One pertinent detail is that at the time of the most devastating fire — the hardware store fire that claimed the lives of his four victims — John Orr was 35 years old.”

Crossing her arms, Darger continued.

“You’ll remember I gave an age range of 17-26. Most experts that have studied the John Orr crimes believe he’d almost certainly been setting fires long before the 1984 fire. So one reason I wanted to bring this up is to remind you that the age range is a suggestion based on the probabilities. It’s not gospel, not absolute. Don’t let the guidelines in the profile lead to tunnel vision.”

She turned and glanced at the larger-than-life photograph of Orr projected on the wall.

“The other reason I bring John Orr up is to highlight the split in his image of himself. Not only did he start the fires and then show up on the scene to put them out and then investigate. He also wrote about them. One of the main pieces of evidence against him was a novel he’d written and submitted to literary agents and publishers. Those who knew Orr and read the book said it was quite clear to them that he’d cast himself as both the hero arson investigator and also the arsonist himself — the name of the villain, Aaron Stiles, was an anagram for ‘I set L.A. arson.’ So there’s a strange dichotomy there, that he can see himself simultaneously as the hero and the villain. That in some ways, he wants to be both. It speaks to the fact that our arsonist, like many other serial offenders — be they rapists or killers — lead a double life.”

Gripping both sides of the podium now, Darger shook her head.

“Some of the people he worked with still refuse to discuss or acknowledge the case. I don’t think they’re able to come to terms with the fact that someone they knew and worked with could have done this right under their noses.”

Darger hesitated there a moment, let the silence linger in the room, not sure exactly how to broach this next piece of business.

“Chief Macklin has asked me to suggest a course of action for the investigation moving forward.”

Darger resisted an urge to fidget. It was always uncomfortable to be the Fed who swooped in and told the local cops how to do their jobs. The fact that the Chief had specifically asked for her opinion on the topic didn’t necessarily make it any easier.

Her next slide had a list of angles for the task force to work.

“Chances are, the investigations into the fires to this point primarily focused on motives involving either money or revenge. You probably looked at building owners, landlords, tenants, former tenants, employees, etc. At the time, that’s what made the most sense. But knowing what we know now, it would be wise to revisit those earlier files and expand the investigation. Re-interview witnesses. Rewatch any available surveillance tape. Canvas the neighborhoods. We need to cast a wider net. If we can find a vehicle that was spotted somewhere near several crime scenes in the days leading up to the fires, or someone found lurking around during the investigation or rubbernecking at more than one fire, then we might just find our guy.”

It occurred to Darger that the group in this room felt different than most she’d spoken to. Bigger, for one, but there was something else. Something about the quiet, the rigidity of the postures, the proliferation of crew cuts among the uniformed officers staring up at her. She’d heard the LAPD skewed a little more military than most urban police forces, both in operational tactics as well as the culture. Maybe there was something to that.

She took another sip of her water and went on.

“The fire itself only makes these types of investigations more difficult. It destroys evidence of all kinds. Often leaves us little to work with. Without the two-liter bottles found at each of these scenes, we wouldn’t even know we had a serial offender on our hands. To that end, I’d like to point out that there’s a good chance he’s set other fires we don’t know about. Dozens. Maybe hundreds, depending on how old he is and how prolific he’s been. I’d suggest another team start contacting the various jurisdictions in the surrounding areas to get a list of fires where gasoline was used as an accelerant. Also find out if they’ve ever found two-liter bottles or perhaps PET plastic residue at a fire scene. In many cases, the fire inspector might not have even classified the fire as arson, so be careful about whose toes you’re stepping on. We’re not looking to lay blame, we only want as much information as we can gather. If we uncover more fires our guy is responsible for, we might be able to spot a pattern.”

She’d reached the last slide and the end of her notes, but she wasn’t quite done.

“Does anyone have any questions?”

An older detective in a tweed blazer raised his hand.

“I have a question about the, uh, the plastic soda bottle filled with gasoline.”

“Yes?”

“The arson expert says this crude way of starting a fire — splashing gasoline and leaving the empty bottle off to the side — is odd seeing as there are incendiary devices that would be much harder to detect. Which would make it harder to definitively say it’s arson. Wouldn’t the fact that our guy is using such an obvious method to start the fires be a sign that he’s, well… not a genius?”

“It’s possible,” Darger said. “It’s also possible that we’re dealing with a young or otherwise inexperienced perpetrator. That he’s simply ignorant about what kind of clues he’s been leaving behind. Or it could be the opposite. He might know exactly what he’s doing, and it’s meant as a taunt. These types of criminals are often cocky, aggressive, territorial types. He probably doesn’t believe we can catch him, even if he intentionally leaves breadcrumbs to mark his trail. It might be that what he truly craves is credit and attention. As soon as he started leaving a signature, the headlines started rolling in.”

That led to the first real murmur in the crowd. The detective who asked the question thanked Darger and jotted something on a legal pad in his lap.

Finding no more raised hands in the crowd, Darger turned things back over to Chief Macklin.

She rejoined Luck off to the side of the room, and he gave her a thumbs up.

“OK. You heard the lady. Cast a wider net. We’ll have a team start digging into the surveillance. There’s no surveillance set up at the church, but check out the traffic cams for all routes leading into the area. Same for the intersections around the residential fire and the abandoned lot. Another team will go back over any reports of fires for the past… five years?”

He looked to Darger for that last bit, and she nodded her approval.

“Detectives Stoltz and Martin, I want you on the street, head up a major operation canvassing for eyewitnesses. Anyone who might have seen something or someone out of the ordinary. We’ll see that you get all the manpower you need to do the job. And I assume our brothers and sisters in San Bernardino will be doing the same,” the Chief said.

A woman sitting in the front row said, “Yes, sir.”

The baseball cap she wore was embroidered with the San Bernardino Sheriff’s Department logo.

The Chief picked up his stack of papers and neatened the stack with a tap of his hand.

“Then I think we’re finished here for the time being. This meeting is adjourned.”

Immediately a swell in the collective murmur. Bodies rising from the chairs, crowding for the door. Wordlessly, Darger and Luck decided to wait out the scrum.

With the various members of law enforcement streaming past them, Luck took out his phone. Glanced at the screen.

“Shit. Missed a call from Jill.”

A loud burst of laughter erupted from one corner of the room where a circle of uniformed officers were chatting.

“If you don’t mind, I’m gonna go find somewhere quiet to call her back. You still want to get that bite to eat?”

“Sure,” Darger said. “I’ll meet you at the car.”

She watched him join the mass of people filing out through the double doors.

“Hey, Agent Darger?”

She stopped and swiveled to face him. The man was several inches taller than her, with brown hair and what she considered the classic cop mustache. The badge on his uniform said “MURPHY.”

“Yeah?”

“Rodney Murphy,” he said, shaking her hand while simultaneously gesturing at the man to his left. “And this is Miguel Camacho.”

Camacho’s biceps bulged and strained against the fabric of his uniform as he reached for her hand.

“Nice to meet you.”

“Got a question for you,” Murphy said. “We’re supposed to be looking at old fires, trying to find a pattern, right? But I thought you said the pyros don’t really follow a pattern, that’s why they’re so hard to catch.”

Darger nodded then pointed to Camacho.

“You two are partners, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How long?”

“Four years going on eternity,” Murphy joked.

Camacho rolled his eyes.

“Do you know what he ate for breakfast this morning?”

“No,” Murphy said, shoulders twitching.

“If you had to guess?”

Without hesitation, Murphy said, “Egg white omelet with spinach and a protein shake.”

Darger’s gaze flicked over to Camacho.

“Is he right?”

“Yeah, but that’s what I eat every morning.”

“And that’s my point,” Darger said with a smile. “Pyromaniacs are still human, and humans are creatures of habit. I guarantee there’s a pattern to the fires he sets, it’s just not as clear as a fire set for the purpose of money or revenge.”

Crossing her arms, Darger sighed.

“You still make a fair point in that it’s a long shot. A lot of times, investigators only find the pattern afterward. We might never find one at all. But that doesn’t mean it’s not there.”