Fire….
It was hot…beyond hot…stifling…LA was not like this….not supposed to be like this.
The city was on fire. Everywhere a haze hung in the air. Thick black acrid smoke rolled off the hills into the city, coating everything in pall of ash. Every breath was labored and tasted of dirt and ash. At night you could see the fires although they were still miles away because where the black, quiet, darkness of the mountains should be an ghostly shade of flickering light edged in against the darkness.
Charlie stood on his darken portico, lit by nothing more than the greenish cast from the swimming pool. A storm was approaching, a fire storm – it felt like earthquake weather. Even the coyotes felt it, they wanted to howl and every once in a while he would hear them yip, but they stifled themselves and sat eerily silent.
The preceding days had been dark with death. Two firefighters lost their lives battling a fire intentionally set by someone. Normally, fire investigation was the venue of LAFD but this was homicide and therefore LAPD and this time Crews and Reese drew the case.
Firemen are a breed apart; slightly crazed men and women who danced with the devil daily, hotshots, smoke jumpers and death cheaters who - when not fighting fire, worked out vigorously, barbequed and lived in a little collective, keeping to themselves. They had a code like cops that Charlie respected. They did not leave their men behind and would risk life and limb for another firefighter - even one they did not know. Charlie thought it was as admirable a profession as one could aspire to.
But indications were this fire was set by someone who knew a lot about fire, maybe one of their own and that made investigating it doubly hard. Beyond the normal challenges, there was the wall of silence outsiders could not penetrate. Just like cops.
It was like a puzzle inside a bag that you had to assemble without seeing. He ran his hands through his short red hair sighed heavily and looked back at the smoke sinking into the valley near his house. Danger was nearby.
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Dani Reese sat staring at a different kind of trouble, playing with fire.
The clear bottle of liquor sat on her kitchen table mocking her. It was a rough week – rough enough for her to break down and buy a bottle of Grey Goose vodka and throw it in the freezer. She'd taken it out hours ago and now beads of sweating rolled off the chilled container making an ever widening ring on her table, but Dani wouldn't move the bottle because to touch it would mean crossing a line – to a place she didn't want to go.
She traced patterns on the table top with her finger tips in the condensation. She chipped tiny slivers of ice off the bottle with her nail. It was so very hot, so very hard this week. The intense heat resulted in rolling blackouts, meaning her house never really got cool enough to stay comfortable. Dani could feel the sweat roll down her back to the waist band of her shorts. The crisp, cool bite of the vodka called to her like a soft song and a comfortable bed. Come on – just one, it'll be okay, it said seductively.
Dani needed to talk herself out of her infatuation with the vodka or to call her sponsor, but it was late, really late, too late to call Lou. She convinced herself that everyone she knew would be asleep, safely slumbering in their comfortable beds spooned against their significant other, breathing in the peaceful sounds of another soul's heartbeat and breath; company - even when unconscious. Dani sat there alone - with her desire.
She fished her cell phone from her pocket, toying with the one number she knew she could call, but determined not to be dependant on anyone. She steadfastly refused to push the button that would bring him to her, staring at his name on her caller id – Crews.
Dani knew he would come. He would begin moving the moment his phone flashed her number, driving the canyons in that dark little sports car at exhilarating speeds, without knowing what she needed, just her number at this time of night would bring him to her.
What Dani was afraid of was that her need for the and safety of Charlie Crews was supplanting her other addictions. At this point, if she examined her urges clinically, she knew she wanted Crews more than she did the drink.
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Charlie thumbed open his cell phone and scrolled to the number he wanted to call. She was probably in bed, someone else's bed he thought darkly, asleep. Someone other than him had his nose buried in the hair at the base of her neck, breathing in the citrus scent of her shampoo, with her pulled tightly against his chest and wrapping his arms around her tiny torso. He needed not to think about his partner, that just made things hotter…more uncomfortable.
He never should have kissed her, Charlie thought. It just confused things. She was Tidwell's girl. But there in that orange grove in the rush of exhilaration they'd both felt after escaping Roman, he'd done just that. He didn't think about it then and even if he had - Charlie wasn't sure that he could have stopped himself.
She rolled up in Bodner's car wearing this curious little smile that reached all the way to her eyes. He only meant to embrace her, but she was so warm, so fine, so much like everything he missed out on and still wanted from life. She was his - for just that moment and he lowered his head to hers and kissed her gently. To Charlie's surprise, she didn't push him away, she deepened and returned his kiss and that was when Charlie's grip on the world loosened and reality as he knew it spun out of control.
She was fire. She was like playing with matches or razor blades. Dani Reese was full of sharp edges, acute angles. Charlie knew she would cut him in a million places, burn him all over his delicate pale skin and still he found he couldn't stay away from her.
Before he remembered doing it, the phone was ringing… she answered with a quiet "hey" like it was completely normal that he'd call her at 2:46AM and almost like she'd been waiting for his call. "I can't sleep" Charlie said.