Page 36 of Burning Justice

“My thoughts exactly, buddy.” Brett narrowed his eyes at the receding vehicle.

“What is it?” Gemma followed his gaze.

“C’mon, let’s go!” He popped Blaze’s door, closing it after his dog had jumped in, then yanked open the driver’s side door.

Gemma was already hauling herself into the passenger seat. “Do you know who that was?”

“Nope.” Brett cranked the engine, then K-turned the Expedition. “But we’re gonna find out. Buckle up.” He slammed his foot on the accelerator, sending the SUV flying down the driveway, then cranked a hard right onto the road and took off after the other vehicle.

“You think that was our arsonist?” Gemma clicked on her seat belt.

“Don’t know, but I want to find out.” He pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator. They’d been too far away to see the tags. He couldn’t be certain of the make, only that the vehicle was large. Maybe a Suburban or a Yukon. “You know as well as I do arsonists often return to the scene of their crimes.”

“So they can watch the fire and take pride in the destruction they wreak. But that would have been yesterday.”

“That only applies to an arsonist coming from a place of passion. Our arsonist is cold, calculated. Everything he does has a purpose.” Brett slowed as he came to an intersection.

Gemma leaned forward and pointed. “Look, there! Turn left! I just saw brake lights.”

Brett turned left and punched it. Several hundred yards ahead, a white SUV took the twisting road at high speed, forcing Brett to do the same. Behind them in his kennel, Blaze wisely lay down.

“We’re gaining on him,” Gemma said, her voice filled with excitement.

They were gaining ground, and soon, they’d be in town and their quarry would be forced to slow down. It also meant more places to hide.

Sure enough, as they approached the outskirts of Leadville, Brett had cut the distance between them down to a hundred yards, still not close enough to see the tag, and his binoculars were in the back of the SUV and unreachable without stopping.

As they entered the center of Leadville, he eased his foot off the gas. Being a Friday evening, the sidewalks were fairly busy as people searched out the bars and restaurants. A group of runners wearing yellow-and-blue tank tops ran parallel to the road on the sidewalk.

Up ahead, the light at the next intersection changed from green to yellow. A Colorado Mountain College bus turned onto the main road, squeezing in between Brett and the white SUV and obscuring the tag just when they were getting close enough to read it.

The bus braked to a stop. The light was now red. Brett cranked the gearshift into park, then jumped out into the street. The last he saw of the SUV in front of the bus was its quarter panel as it turned right at the next intersection.

He hopped back in the Expedition.

“Is he still there?” Gemma asked.

“No. He made it through the light.” He was about to put the SUV in reverse, then hit the strobes and go around the bus to give chase, but two other cars had lined up behind him, the first of which was practically kissing his rear bumper. He smacked his palm on the wheel. “Dammit.”

When the light changed, he followed the bus, then turned right where the other vehicle had turned. No white SUV. He glanced up at the utility poles, searching for city pole cams, but there were none.

“You know,” Gemma said, “most fire marshal vehicles are either white or red. It could have been someone else from the fire marshal’s office, someone Duke Grant works with.”

“If that was a fire marshal vehicle, why didn’t he or she drive up and talk to us?”

“Good question,” Gemma agreed.

“Because it wasn’t the fire marshal.” Brett would bet his next paycheck on it.

Chapter Ten

An hour later, Brett sat across from Gemma, both of them chowing down on pork tacos at a table in one of the two adjoining hotel rooms they’d gotten at the Rodeway Inn. Gemma had taken the tie from her ponytail. Her long, thick, wavy red hair cascaded gracefully over one shoulder.

As he wolfed down more of his taco, Brett tried not to notice how the late-day sun streaming through the window picked up the highlights in her hair, making the strands shimmer like they were covered with tiny red sparks.

After losing the white SUV, they’d taken a spin through the fire station’s parking lot. The fire marshal’s vehicles were all red, not white, and with department insignia on the door panels. Duke Grant had not only been in a meeting all day, but he’d confirmed no other fire marshals had been on Ruby Road today.

Brett washed down his second taco with a swig of Two Mile Brewing Company’s Leadville Lager. The printer Gemma had dragged in from the Expedition and set on the credenza next to the TV spat out page after page. She wasn’t kidding. Documents and data were her thing.