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The smell got worse.
She shoved to sit up, her hand sinking into a soaked puddle of liquid. Fumes burned down her throat. Gasoline? Glancing up at the ceiling, she tried to discern what would’ve leaked on her from above, but there didn’t seem to be any damage.
“I warned you to leave, Agent Brody,” a voice said. “You didn’t listen.”
A dark outline separated from the shadows in the corner of her room. Big. Male. Her brain struggled to catch up between the grogginess of sleep and the fumes overriding her senses. Leigh lunged for the pistol she’d stuffed under her pillow.
“Don’t worry. I’ve taken care of your gun for you. Wouldn’t want anyone getting hurt, now, would we?” The shape solidified with help from a few slivers of streetlight through the blinds. “Didn’t the folks in the FBI teach you better than to believe you would ever be safe here?”
Leigh leveraged her heels into the mattress. It’d been doused. “I told you the night you graffitied my garage. I’m not going anywhere. Not until I find who killed these latest victims.”
“That’s a shame. I was hoping we could resolve our differences without this.” A click of metal registered a split second before the bedroom lit up. A lighter. The flickering flame danced in front of a broad chest and masked face, and a streak of fear laced her nerves. One wrong move and her entire bed would consume her alive. “I know what you’re thinking, but it’s not just the bed. Turns out you’re a deep sleeper. Every inch of this house will burn unless you do exactly as I tell you.”
He was toying with her.
Literally holding her life in his hands, and the playful banter he’d engaged in said he liked it. He was enjoying this.
“You want me to leave Lebanon.” She scanned the room. She could go for the window. Would she be fast enough? Would he try to stop her? Leigh mentally catalogued everything in the room. She’d only thought to bring her sidearm out of years of paranoia that came from studying serial offenders. Teenage Leigh hadn’t considered the idea anyone in this town could turn violent. Up until Troy had gone missing, there hadn’t been a reason to keep a weapon handy. She had to think. What the hell had she been interested in as a moody teen bent on being angry at the world?
“Don’t forget about not coming back.” A ghost of the flame capable of ending her life right here right now trailed behind itself as her attacker gestured toward her. “That part is important.”
“Right. As it should be.” As much as she could decipher his outline at the end of her bed within the cast of flame, he couldn’t possibly see her. Leigh inched her hand to the opposite nightstand. The one where she’d kept an entire collection of geodes. Sharp crystals and rock could do a lot of damage. It’d been hard to leave them behind, but she’d never been more thankful to her desperate past self than right then. “Then how about we make a deal?”
“Look at that. I think we’re coming to an understanding,” he said. “And here I thought I’d have to set this place on fire to convince you to see things my way.”
She fisted one of the larger geodes, careful not to move too much so as to aggravate her rusted-out bed and give herself away. “Your way? What’s that?”
A low laugh tendrilled through the room and raised the hairs on the back of her neck. “I’m sorry. I thought I’d made it obvious.” The floor creaked in the same spot as it had when she’d tried eavesdropping on her parents as he shifted closer to the foot of the bed. “Your father brought evil to our town. He made us scared of our own neighbors, our family members, our friends. We couldn’t leave our houses without feeling like we were going to be next. No birthdays, Christmases, or trick-or-treating. School was never the same. There wasn’t any more playing at friends’ houses or barbeques on the weekends. Do you know what that kind of fear can do to people, Agent Brody?”
“I have an idea.” Leigh tried to keep up filing away any details she could get out of him.
His voice dipped into dangerous territory. “I don’t think you do. You got to leave this place. You didn’t have to face what we did. You got to live your life while the rest of us tried to save what little we had left. But, deep down, I think you knew the truth. Despite all your hollering and pleas for the police to take another look at the case, I think you left Lebanon because you knew your father deserved to be punished.” The outline in front of her seemed to double in size. “As does anyone who tries to stand up for him. People like your mother.”
An invisible hand of shock slapped her across the face. Leigh gripped the geode tighter. She just had to wait for the right moment. A little bit closer. “You don’t know anything about my mother.”
“You’d be surprised what I know, Agent Brody.” Her attacker’s frame shifted closer. “And what I’m willing to do.”
“I think you’d be surprised by me, too.” Leigh launched to the end of the bed. She arced the geode straight into his head. A loud thud registered a split second before the lighter dropped to the floor.
Flame erupted across the aged carpet and caught on to her bedding.
In a flash, the entire room was covered in fire.
She dashed toward her bedroom window to escape. Stinging pain spread across her scalp. A hand fisted in her hair and dragged her back. She hit a bullet-proof vest.
“And here I thought we were having a nice conversation.” Rage vibrated through his every word. Her heels skidded across the floor as he wrangled her closer to the flames. “I’m very disappointed in you, Agent Brody.”
Hands clenched around his, Leigh struggled to keep her balance. Fire climbed the walls and licked the ceiling at the corners. The house groaned and warped and made the structure sound as if it was a second away from collapse. Smoke clawed down her throat, burning her from the inside out.
“Now you’re going to know exactly what we felt.” He moved her closer to the bed.
The heat was too much. Pain splintered up her bare legs as tongues of fire flickered against her skin. Her scream drowned the roar of the flames and seemed to feed into her attacker’s grip on her head. Burns blistered along the front of her shins and the tops of her feet.
No. This wasn’t how she was going to die.
Leigh released her hold on his hands and threw her elbow back into his face. Bone crunched beneath her strike. The bastard fell backward. She hit the floor as he collapsed into her closet. She only had a moment to watch his clothing catch fire before a support beam crashed through the ceiling drywall from above. Embers rained down as smoldering raindrops settled in her hair and burned her skin. Her attacker screamed, flailing his arms back and forth to dislodge the flames.
She was out of time.
