Page 38 of Roark
Pierce looked up at Roark. “Where’s Tamika?”
“She went to the hospital to see her mother. Tell me what’s going on.” Roark wasn’t in the mood for waiting on an answer, especially not when the look on Pierce’s face said he knew more than what he was saying.
“I’m calling Cade to loop him into this conversation, but we need Tamika here. Now.” He didn’t look at all bothered by the slight rise in Roark’s voice with his previous comment. Probably because the guy was used to dealing with sociopaths and serial killers for a living. Standing here listening to Roark demand answers was most likely nothing to him.
“Hey. Are they all there?” Cade’s voice sounded from Pierce’s phone.
“Tamika’s not here yet,” Pierce told him.
“What the hell is going on, Cade? I want to know what you two know right now!”
That rise in temper may have done the trick, because Roark watched as Pierce’s brows raised, and he could hear Cade exhaling deeply through the phone.
“It’s about Aunt Max and Lemuel Rayder.” Cade’s voice sounded dour.
“What about them?” Roark asked.
“They were classmates.” Tamika came into the room, supplying the answer to his question, and Roark turned to face her.
“My mother’s awake and I asked her before I left,” she said. She was wearing denim today, cuffed mid-calf, form-fitting over her soft thighs and glorious hips. Her jacket was a coral color, the shirt beneath white. She dropped her oversized Louis Vuitton bag onto the chair closest to her and turned her attention back to the conversation.
“She’s right,” Cade said from the phone. “They went to college together and, according to another classmate we tracked down after finding a picture of them during some rally back in the early Seventies, their group of seven was very close.”
Tamika moved closer to where Pierce stood with the phone. “My mother just said Mrs. Donovan and my dad were good friends. All of them were friends.”
“Did she know about the letter?” Roark asked, because he knew it was important for Tamika to keep believing her father wouldn’t have had an affair.
“She knew, because your mother had sent her a letter too,” Tamika answered.
“Now, we have this group of seven,” Pierce interrupted. “Lemuel and Sandra Rayder, Gabriel and Maxine Donovan, Ronnella McCoy, Tony Graves and Kaymen Benedict.”
“Okay, a group of friends from college—that’s not out of the ordinary. How does this relate to the fires?” Roark needed Pierce and Cade to get to the point sooner rather than later.
“From everything we know about the fires so far, this guy is controlled. He’s organized and intentional in everything he does.” Cade cleared his throat before continuing. “Most arsonists set fires for the joy of the fire. They have an intimate relationship with it and with the method of their choice. Once they set a fire, they stay and watch, because it not only gives them a sense of control, but for some it gives them sexual pleasure.”
Tamika frowned. “Because things always needed to have the weird factor tossed in to be real.”
“We think the arsonist might be going after people in this group,” Pierce announced soberly.
“Revenge?” Roark couldn’t believe that was what they were saying. People were actually dying—his mother had been burned to death in her bed—because of revenge? His hands fisted at his sides while he tried to come to terms with that thought.
“Revenge is a very strong motivator,” Cade said. “And this guy’s plenty motivated. He’s traveling cross country to get the job done.”
“My father died twenty-three years ago from a heart attack. He can’t be included in this.” Roark clenched and released his fingers.
Pierce shook his head. “No, your father wasn’t, Roark, but he was part of the group. Your father was the first victim,” he told Tamika.
“We believe something happened last year that reminded him of whatever went wrong in the group. The event would’ve been his stressor, and from that point on his plan to seek revenge by fire was hatched.” Cade spoke matter-of-factly.
It was his work voice, Roark surmised. Cade and Pierce were talking like profilers, and he and Tamika had no choice but to listen to every word they were saying.
“I don’t understand. You think somebody they went to school with forty plus years ago is now hunting them down and killing them. The guy would have to be in his mid-sixties by now,” she said.
“Our profile puts him at sixty-five, the same age your parents were, and he’s in relatively good shape. He’d have to be to carry the cannister of gasoline and whatever protective gear he’s wearing,” Pierce said.
Roark frowned. “Protective gear?”
“Yeah, because he wants to stay and watch them die,” Cade said. “MPD has issued its official finding of homicide along with the Fire Brigade’s report regarding your mom, Roark. Boot prints were found in the bedroom and the hallways leading down the stairs and out of the house. The prints showed remnants of gasoline and soot, meaning he stood there for a while watching and waiting for her to die. That’s why he paralyzes them first, so they can see it’s him who’s killing them.”
