Page 43 of Deadly Attraction
As if he felt her stare, he glanced up.
Caught. “You are quite the renaissance man, cooking, saving animals, protecting the womenfolk,” she said, once more trying for humor. “Keep this up, and I’ll have to hire you.”
A smile. One that made her pulse hop. “You don’t want to do that.”
She was pretty sure she did. “The case you’re working on now—I heard you say something about the wildfires and a pyromaniac. You think the fires were intentionally started?”
He moved food around on his plate. “I can’t really talk about it.”
“That’s why you were curious about that trail into the backside of the park, isn’t it?”
“Could be.”
“I don’t need to know the details, but I have worked with multiple, criminal fire setters. I could share some insight into the workings of their minds, if you think that would help you with your case, Agent Holden.”
His eyes caught hers over the candlelight. While his gaze was serious, penetrating, his voice held a note of teasing. “Mitch. I’m not a stranger anymore, remember?”
“Mitch.” She forced herself to hold that piercing, perceptive gaze of his.Focus on the work. “Fire setters often get started as juveniles. Their minds are quite fascinating.”
“The suspect is part of a homegrown terrorist group who has a perpetual beef with the government. His mindset isn’t that difficult to figure out.”
“Perhaps not in relation to why he started the fires, but a little insight into his psyche might determine if he is a pathological fire setter or simply following the command of someone he believes has authority over him. It could assist you in capturing him.”
The corner of one eye narrowed slightly as he studied her. She had the feeling he was about to shoot her down again when he bobbed his chin and went back to his food. “Sure. Why not? Can’t hurt.”
Progress. He was letting her in, even if it was in relation to a case. “Then we best finish up here. We have a lot of analyzing to do after dinner.”
Raising his beer bottle, he held it out in toast. “To taking down the bad guys.”
Like the previous night’s toast, clinking her glass against his made Emma happy.
Silly, really. He was with her another day or two at most. She’d never see him again after that. No sense in getting attached.
But loneliness sucked, and for now, he was here, and his hostility and antagonism had dwindled to almost nothing. Was it wrong to wish for more than a friendly exchange over dinner? “To taking down the bad guys,” she echoed.
The sexual tension between them had been palpable all day. Mitch got a hard-on every time he thought of that smile she’d given him. The one at dinner. The real Emma Collins—not the head shrink, not the horse whisperer. The woman behind all the masks.
Tucked away in her upstairs study, the clock counted down the hour to midnight while Emma read by candlelight. She sat at her desk, her reading glasses perched on her nose and her hair in a messy bun, schooling him on the inner workings of a pathological fire starter.
The sexy librarian of his fantasies before him, Mitch found it difficult to concentrate on what she was saying.
“As with certain other behaviors, pyromania is an impulse control disorder,” she explained. “Pathological fire starters start fires to relieve tension or for gratification. It’s emotional for them. They get a kind of euphoria from fire and it can reduce the buildup of stress in their system. In your case, your suspect may not be a pyromaniac. He may simply be a criminal arsonist, setting the fire inside the national park as a means to an end for someone other than himself. The leader of his group, in other words.”
“Mmm-hmm.”
Emma lowered the glasses to the end of her nose and shot a look over at him where he sat on the couch. “Are you tired, Mitch? Should we call it a night and pick up here tomorrow?”
He wanted to call it a night, all right. He wanted to pull the clip from her hair and lay her out on her desk. Unbutton that soft flannel shirt and see what hid underneath. “I’m good. Just thinking.”
Not about what she was saying, but it wasn’t a total lie.
She waited, as if expecting him to go on. When he didn’t, she sat back in her chair. “Is it still your feeling he’s a criminal arsonist?”
Yepper, but he wanted to keep her talking. “He has three priors, all for setting fires.”
“Any juvenile history of fire setting?”
Mitch scrolled through the file he had on his laptop. “The first incident that resulted in an arrest was at the age of nineteen. He was part of a small-time motorcycle gang in Oceanside who broke into some old lady’s house, stole her stuff, and killed her. He set fire to the house to destroy any evidence.”
