Page 68 of Raging Inferno

Presley slid on a pair of running shoes and jogged down the steps, where she found tousled black hair face down on the sofa, arms and legs akimbo.

“Kayne?”

His head shot up and seafoam-green eyes blinked at her. “Huh?”

Presley crossed her arms. “I see you made it.”

He pushed up into a sitting position and finger-combed his silky locks. “I drove all night to get here.Sacré, that was a long haul.”

“Thank you for coming.”

He glanced over her shoulder and then flashed that devilish grin that made women young and old fall under his spell. “Anything for you,cher.”

Presley knew without looking that Dominic was behind her. She’d felt the air around her shift as he silently descended the steps.

“Cher? As in Sonny and?”

Presley chuckled. “No, sometimes Kayne’s Cajun roots show, especially when he’s tired. Dominic, this is Kayne Serruto, former Navy SEAL and current COBRA Securities coworker. Kayne, this is Dominic Bianchi. He’s the fire captain of Serenity Shores.”

Dominic walked over to shake his hand. “Thank you for your service.”

Kayne nodded his regards. “Same to you.”

“There’s a suite upstairs if you want to take a quick nap,” she told him.

“Nah, I’m good. Give me the scoop.”

“I’ll make breakfast while you fill him in,” Dominic offered.

While Dominic retreated to the kitchen, Presley told Kayne everything, starting with her cousin, Gwen.

“How did she die?” Kayne wanted to know.

“It was the week after she graduated from high school. Her group of girlfriends, the Cheerios as they were called, crashed a party several guys were having at a cabin. The boys were drinking by the lake, and the girls went to join them. Gwen turned back to the cabin to use the bathroom. She tripped over a rug and slammed her head into the stone hearth. Jerrod Moran, the boy whose family owned the cabin, had started a fire to warm it up, but he didn’t cover it adequately. Sparks caught a stack of newspapers used as kindling for the fire. The cabin went up in flames with Gwen inside.”

“Aw, Presley, that’s awful.”

“It was, made even worse when Jerrod killed himself the next day.”

“What an all-around tragedy.”

One Presley wished she didn’t have to recall. It was still painful all these years later. Then came another dark time in her life. She told Kayne about Ed Smith’s attack when she’d been a detective.

“I knew something had happened to you, but I wasn’t going to pry,” he said as he pushed to his feet and cracked his knuckles. “Now, give me his address so I can beat the shit out of him.”

Between Dominic and Kayne, she felt loved. Presley pushed him to sit back down. “Luke took care of him. Now, listen to what’s been happening here.” When she finished, she asked his opinion.

“Full disclosure, I wouldn’t have thought Margy’s death had anything to do with Gwen’s, simply because it’d been too many years between incidents and the cause of the fire was plausible. However, when the second blaze happened, oh yeah, that’s ahuge red flag. The third one confirms it. Your instincts are spot on, Presley.”

She couldn’t bask in the glow of his compliment because her phone buzzed. She pulled it out to see Reggie Branch’s name and answered. “Hey, Reggie.”

“Presley, I have something to show you. Are you at Dominic’s house?”

“No. It was compromised.” She wasn’t about to tell him where they were staying. Not that she didn’t trust Reggie, but she didn’t trust Reggie. Only her coworkers earned her confidence. It didn’t matter that she’d known him for years. “We can come to the station.”

“Get here as soon as you can. I’ll be waiting.”

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