Chapter Sixteen
Smoke tendrils wafted skyward from somewhere on the opposite side of the Bluelick High School gymnasium. Josh turned back to Melody. She stared at the smoke. “What should I do?”
“Do you have your phone with you?”
Her gaze shifted to him. “In my gym bag.”
“Call the fire station. Tell them there’s gray smoke coming from the south side of the gym and let them know I’m already on-scene so they don’t blast me with a hose when they get here.”
“Okay. I’m on it.”
He ran toward the smoke. When he rounded the side of the gym he saw the source. Not the structure itself, but a wooden shed abutting the brick wall. Flames licked their way up one side, and the smoke, or the alarm, already attracted a few other responders. Kenny Whelan, metalhead stoner and school janitor, came running from the school office.
Kenny lugged two twenty-pound dry chemical extinguishers. Josh took one of the cans from him. “Wait here,” he said, and approached the burning shed. Not a smart move, procedurally, given he wore no protective gear and didn’t know whether there were any combustibles stored inside, but the fire hadn’t made a ton of headway yet and he gambled he could knock it back with twenty pounds of foam. He had the second can if it took a little more to put it down completely.
He aimed at the base of the flames sprayed in a back-and-forth motion. A second spray of foam came from somewhere on his right. He looked up to find Rusty manning the other extinguisher. A minute later they were staring at a foam-covered mess of charred wood on the scorched side of the shed. Rusty hit the side of the shed again, either due to adrenaline or a desire to show off for the small crowd of onlookers now gathered. Most had probably rushed over from the Hungry Buffalo burger joint across the street.
Sirens blared from the front of the school—the cavalry arriving. Josh put his extinguisher down and scanned the people at the scene. Kenny, he noted, wore jeans, a gray T-shirt, and a Kentucky Wildcats ball cap. Was this their audience from under the bleachers? Kenny’s scraggly blond ponytail hung out the back hole of the cap, and Josh hated to think he’d have missed that detail, even at a distance, but he couldn’t be sure. Melody, thankfully, had changed into workout pants and a sweatshirt. She was probably burning up in the sweatshirt, but he was glad the rest of Bluelick wasn’t going to be treated to the sight of her in her cheerleading outfit. Next to them stood a couple of waitresses from the Hungry Buffalo. A few more people he recognized by face only lingered in the crowd, and, on the very edge, Justin Buchanan—wearing jeans, a gray T-shirt with a designer logo splashed across the chest, and a ball cap.
As he watched, Justin’s mouth twisted into a tight grin and he wandered closer to Melody. “Bet you’re hot in that sweatshirt. I liked your other outfit better.”
His last thread of control snapped. He stalked over to the teen, intercepting him. Hell, no. “You”—he extended a finger as a warning—“you don’t look at her. You don’t speak to her. You don’t even think about her.”
“Are you shitting me? I’ll talk to whoever I want.” He glanced over at Melody. “Tell your redheaded friend ‘hi’ for me.”
He got right up in Justin’s face and grabbed a handful of the overpriced T-shirt when the little bastard would have backed away. “Try me, Justin. Try me and find out if I’m shitting you.”
“Let go of me, asshole, or my dad’s going to hear about this.”
“Fine with me. Give him a call right now. Ask him to come rescue you.”
Justin turned a satisfying shade of red, but the satisfaction faded fast because Melody rushed over. “Josh, don’t.”
“Bluelick…”
Before he could tell her to move back, a restraining hand curled around his arm. He looked over to find a uniformed deputy.
“Hey, Chief. Another fire?”
Josh turned back to Justin, bared his teeth in what might pass as a smile, and released him. “If you’re so anxious to strike up a conversation with someone, talk to us.” Josh indicated himself and the deputy. “How about you tell us where you were when you noticed the fire.”
“What the hell, man, I was over there.” He pointed across the street to the Hungry Buffalo. Josh looked at the waitresses. One of them nodded. “He was. He ran over here with the rest of us.”
“How long had he been there?”
She shook her head, her dark bangs dancing over her forehead. “I don’t know. We were busy, and it’s seat yourself, so…”
Justin’s lips quirked again and Josh fought the urge to smack the smirk off his face.
Disappointing as it was to acknowledge, there was no way Justin could have set the fire in between getting chased across the football field and arriving at the restaurant—not in time to be a bystander. Whoever had torched the shed had hauled a gallon of accelerant to the site, splashed it around, and fanned the flames until they’d taken hold. The fire had been set by the time Josh had chased Justin across the football field. Which didn’t mean the kid was innocent, only that he hadn’t lit the match.
“Why don’t we run your hands under a black light and see if you’re the one who pulled the fire alarm?” There was no “special chemical” coating the fire alarms, but Justin probably didn’t know that.
“Uh, Chief?”
Josh looked at the janitor. “Yeah, Kenny?”
“I pulled the fire alarm. When I saw the smoke, I unlocked the gym and pulled the alarm. Then I carried the fire extinguishers over here.”