Fanning The Fire Marshal's Flame

Running Revelations

She could tell from his pause he knew he’d f****d up his wording.

“I’m not saying it’s your fault. I’m just curious how men who normally f**k and duck end up wanting to propose marriage.” He gave a groan, “I can’t even believe we’re having this conversation.”

“Me either.” She prayed it was the end of the conversation and she focused on her breathing.

“I’m still curious.” He said after a few minutes.

“I wish I knew. I’d stop doing it.” She said dryly, wishing now she had refused his request to run with her. He was really chatty.

“No, you wouldn’t,” he scoffed at her.

She noticed he had barely huffed the question and his breathing was far too easy. She stepped up the pace. “Let’s just say I’m highly sensitive and it feeds a man’s ego.”

“Highly sensitive?” he made a face and then as her words sunk in made huge eyes at her. “Oh. Well shit.”

“Guys like to think they’re doing something right.”

“Yeah, we do. It’s an ego boost if we can make you satisfied.” he gave a laugh. He caught himself, “I mean not you in particular. Just in general.” He shook his head as if disgusted where his thought was.

“Relax Diarmid, I know you didn’t mean me.”

Her wrist watched made a tinging and she rolled her eyes as she looked at the message popping up.

“That’s a cool watch.”

“Perk of working for Draxton. She likes to keep in touch. This helps her do it.”

“Clara Draxton is personally messaging you?”

“Mm, I usually work Monday afternoons, but she’s asked me to go in tomorrow morning instead.”

“How did you land such a gig? Your dad said you’re working in her labs but she’s a tech genius. Aren’t you into chemistry or chemicals?”

“It’s a joint venture she’s doing with another lab. I can’t talk much about it, but it’s been very interesting, and the work should last five to ten years at least so it’s a steady paycheque.”

“Your dad said you’re really smart with the chemical thing.”

“I am.” She didn’t deny it. “I enjoy the reactions more than anything. Causing things to occur or sorting out why things happen.”

“Did he tell you why I’m here?” he easily kept stride with her.

“No.”

“I took a transfer to New York. I’m bunking on your sofa until my place is ready for me to move in.”

“For how long?” she felt her stomach clench and her fists bunch. She was going to kick her father’s a*s for not giving her the heads up.

“Two weeks, maybe? The condo owners had really eclectic tastes in paint colors, so I have them repainting the whole thing.”

“Your move to New York is permanent then?”

“Yes. I miss it here. My boss knew I wanted to move and gave me the chance.”

“So, what is here you can’t do there?”

“My family is here. I miss them.”

She ignored the look he gave her. If he was thinking she was part of his family, he was crazy.

“What will you be doing? Still working for the Federal Marshals, I assume?”

“My boss gave me a special assignment. We have the possibility of a serial arsonist, but this guy is using chemicals in addition to normal accelerants. It’s been going on about seven years. He’s crossed borders between New York, Boston, and other eastern states. My theory is he’s working for a g**g or a mob doing clean-up, but each blaze is hotter, more intense and the last one actually put itself out before we even got on sight. It’s like the chemical sucked the life out of the fire.”

“Using chemicals?” she laughed despite the plummeting feeling in her stomach as intuition shook her. “Am I a suspect? Is it why you made the comment about me being good with chemicals?”

“God no,” he gave a shout of laughter at her pointed question. “Your dad thought I could pick your brain on the analysis stuff our team can’t seem to crack.”

“Sure, I’ll take a look,” she answered almost too quickly. She needed to see what fires he was reviewing. Chemicals were her signature, and she knew it. Not to say others didn’t use them but if it’s a mix hard to c***k then there was and his words about the fire putting itself out were worrisome. She’d read his papers and then report to Artemis, Naomi, and Jesse.

She changed the subject, “I was sure dad said you were living with a girl in Boston. How does she feel about moving to New York? Why isn’t she bunked on the sofa with you?”

“She’s not invited,” he made a face as he whispered something about a crazy psychopath under his breath

Lita noted his face was redder than it should be, and it had nothing to do with the exertion of their run. “What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Come on. You just heard all about my s*x-capades and my stalker is still running about a half mile behind us. You can share a bit with Little Lita?” she blinked her green eyes at him playfully.

“Her friends and colleagues were all starting families and getting married. I wasn’t there yet. She tried to force it.”

His discomfort was giving her immense amounts of pleasure. “How did she try to force it? Did she give you an ultimatum?” As he paused, she smacked her hands together, “aw come on, Diarmid. Spill it!”

“She faked a pregnancy.” He said with a slow to his pace and then he stopped full-on and looked at her when she stopped with him in confusion, “Lita, you’re a girl. What on earth would make a woman use someone else’s urine to fake a pregnancy two times and then take it so far, she would even book an ultrasound as if she wouldn’t get caught.”

“Okay, thank you for acknowledging I’m a girl but f**k you for lumping me into the category of being capable to understand crazy ex psychos who clearly need professional help. That isn’t right. Are you really saying she used someone else’s pee?” She stood with her hands to her hips panting heavily, incredulous at the story he was giving her.

“Yup. Showed me the home pregnancy test. It was positive. I was freaked out and I insisted we go to a doctor and check it out by a professional. She went into the bathroom, came out, the doctor dipped the stick, and it came out positive. We booked an ultrasound for the twelve-week mark. Went to the scan and there was nothing on the screen. Just her empty, unchanged, and tiny uterus.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“I couldn’t be more serious. I can’t understand for the life of me why she thought she would get away with it. Why? Who does this s**t?” he threw his hands in the air in frustration.

“Crazy people.” She felt her lips pull back in disgust as she answered his question. “Crazy people in serious need of therapy do stuff like this. You were living with her?”

“Eighteen months with the last six weeks of it involving me trying to figure out how it happened. I could not sort out how, even with the use of a c****m just in case her birth control failed, I still got her pregnant. Turns out I hadn’t.”

She was still staring at him in disbelief. “Diarmid, there had to be signs she was crazy long before this. Nobody just snaps and fakes a pregnancy. This was planned.”

“I’ve been racking my brains the last month trying to figure out what I missed.”

“I’m going to say you missed a whole f*****g lot,” she mocked him openly. She started running again and shaking her head. “Did she boil bunnies or have a freezer full of body parts?”

He easily caught up to her. “Why are you laughing at my misery?”

“You know what the guys at the firehall all called you right?” she was chuckling to herself as she ran.

He grunted at her, and she knew he knew.

“Diarmid the Dumpster Diver.” She was laughing harder now. “Dude, every girl you ever dated was crazy. I might have been a kid, but I heard enough stories. The guys always ignored me because I was like the wallpaper. I would sit waiting for dad outside his office and they would talk. They figured I was there but not hearing anything. They laughed at all your girlfriends. You dated all the crazy ones. All of them. The trashier and crazier they were, the more all-in you were. If you were dating the crazy ones eight years ago and they’ve escalated over time, it’s no b****y wonder you wound up with the queen of them all.”

“She wasn’t crazy though when we met. She’s a lawyer.”

“You think lawyers can’t be crazy?” she laughed at him. “I’m quite sure crazy doesn’t discern who to cling to.”

“Well, it’s clinging to her like plastic wrap.” He grumbled. “Psycho freak won’t leave my condo. I had to go to a hotel. My real estate agent called me last night and the nutjob is saying she doesn’t want to sell it and is now saying we were common law and she’s entitled to half.”

She laughed, “she’s not wrong.”

“I know. f**k. I need a lawyer.” Exasperation coated the words as he gave a kick in the air before catching back up with her. “Know any good divorce attorneys? My realtor says it’s who I should call.”

“My friend Jesse does a lot of work with lawyers in the city. She’s a forensic language pathologist. I’ll ask her for the name of a good divorce lawyer. Sounds like you’ll need it.”

“It’s going to be a long time before I let a woman live with me again,” he muttered furiously. “She called the nursing home where my parents are and asked if I’d been to see them because she can’t find me in Boston. She’s actively searching for me like I’m a missing child. Told my realtor she wouldn’t vacate until l went home and discussed our unborn child. There is no child!”

“You’re f****d,” she was laughing again.

“This isn’t funny, Lita.”

“It, kind of is,” she grinned up at him.

“I don’t recall you being a masochist,” he swore.

“My dad is Conor O’Malley. Care to rephrase your thought?”

“Yeah, but your grandmother helped raise you.”

She went quiet at the thought of her Gran. “She was even crueler than Dad could be. She’d be making fun of you and your unborn baby.”

“There is no baby!” he cursed furiously. “Lita, what am I going to do? She’s telling everyone she’s pregnant.”

“I couldn’t tell you. I’ve never been in your shoes. I just have guys who want to sleep with me more than once. You have women who want to lock you down in holy matrimony with babies. Nobody is asking me for babies, Diarmid.”

“It’s making me crazy. I am trying to focus all my energy into my work but it’s frustrating. Since I moved to New York, work gave me a different cell number but changing my email address isn’t as easy. I never thought I would be in a situation like this.”

“I bet every single one of your old friends at the firehall would have bet money on it. I bet there was a pool taken, and this exact scenario is on the list, and one of the guy’s just won five hundred bucks.”

“You really are O’Malley’s kid,” he gave a playful nudge in her direction.

“I sure am.”

“I need the b***h out of my head.”

As they approached her favorite hill, she gave a wide smile. “Don’t worry, it’s going to happen. By the time you finish this hill and the one beyond it, you’ll be so focussed on the pain in your legs you won’t even remember the girl’s name.”

“Bring it,” he stepped up his pace and went ahead of her. “I look forward to it. Let me know if you need to be carried. I still remember how to do a fireman carry.” He called the words over his shoulder, his smile suddenly wide and bright.

She gave a happy twist of her head as she took in his a*s and legs in his shorts running ahead of her. She decided she liked the shorts better than the grey sweats. He was the perfect eye candy distraction for her run, even if he was going to be the topic of her next counselling session.

She gave a sinister grin as the thought of him being tortured by an ex gave her a happy high and she took it, along with the image of his hot body running ahead of her as a sign her day wasn’t going to be completely s**t.