The cops and the fire department were at Mac Ketchum’s old place when Kellan’s bike came roaring up the street. Had he been thinking straight he would have turned around as soon as he saw the flashing lights. But he wasn’t, and he didn’t. He was already parked and charging across the perimeter of uniformed bodies when strong arms hauled him backwards.
The house was on fire. Big clouds of dark smoke filled the air.
“Emma!” he screamed out. “Emma!’
“Sir!” someone repeated with the determination and authority of a police officer pig.
He whirled towards the voice. “What?” he snarled.
“Is this your house?” The police officer was tall and well built, but it wasn’t the person holding him. Kellan turned again and found himself facing Rudy, who still had a firm hold on his shoulder.
“Let me go, man.” Kellan shoved against Rudy.
“No,” Rudy said. “You can’t do anything, Kellan. You gotta let them work. You gotta let them do something.”
He shook his head. He didn’t want to let them do their job. He wanted to find Emma. Was she in there? Was she dead? “I gotta help Emma.”
“You can’t.” Rudy gave him a shake. “Kellan, listen to me, you can’t.”
“Why?”
“Look around you!”
Kellan blinked and tried to take in his surroundings. His breath felt too loud in his ears. A half dozen firemen were waiving hoses across the roof of the house. The water seemed to evaporate before it hit anything. As many police officers were wandering around the lawn. A few were talking to a couple that Kellan recognized as neighbors. They were motioning towards the house, and then towards the road.
“Sir,” the officer repeated. One of his hands was resting causally near his sidearm. It made Kellan angrier. The officer’s eyes weren’t on Kellan’s face, but resting on his vest and the patches that it sported. “Is this your house?”
“No,” he snapped out. “It’s my wife’s house.”
The word felt strange on his tongue. He didn’t think he’d ever called Emma that. They had been married for a month and going to bed together for the better part of that. He should have called her wife before now. He should have said a hundred other things too. What if she was dead? What if he never got to tell her?
“You don’t live with your wife?”
“It was her father’s place. He died a few weeks ago from cancer. It’s hers now,” Rudy explained.
“Was she here?”
Kellan shook his head. “I don’t know. I think so. We got into a fight.”
“What did you get into a fight over?” He plucked a pad of paper and a pen from his front pocket.
Kellan became aware of the fact that this was a cop, and everything that was said and done could be used in a court of law. He was pretty sure you didn’t go to jail for a house catching on fire, but he didn’t think it couldn’t be used against him somehow. Kellan wanted to ask why that mattered, why any of it mattered. He didn’t. “Having kids.” It was close enough to the truth.
The officer nodded in mock sympathy. Kellan wanted to hit him. Only Rudy’s cool hand on his shoulder kept him from doing just that.
“So you guys fought, she left, and you think she came here?”
“I left,” Kellan corrected. “I was mad so I left. I didn’t want to talk to her anymore. I don’t know where she went or what she did. I haven’t talked to her since the fight.”
“Does she make a habit of running out when you guys fight?”
Kellan swept a hand through his hair. “I don’t know. I…we’ve only been married a month.”
“Already fighting?” The officer’s eyes stayed level on Kellan.
“What the hell does it matter? Is she in there?”
“We don’t know yet.”
There was a commotion. Raised voices. Kellan charged towards them. He dimly heard “alive” and “injured.” A fireman, dressed in the bright yellow suit, came out of the front door. In the curve of his arms was a dark mutt with a big head.
“Rocco!”
He took another step forward. The officer tailed his steps. “Is that your dog?”
“Yes,” he said. “Is he dead?”
The fireman shook his head. “Hurt pretty bad, though.”
“Emma’s a vet,” he said stupidly. He reached a hand out and touched the dog. He felt warm. His chest rose and fell slowly. “Almost a vet. She’s got one more semester of college left.”
That didn’t matter, but he found himself talking about it anyway. The officer wrote it down. Apparently it mattered somehow.
“She wouldn’t have left him alone. She doesn’t like leaving him alone. Keeps telling me dogs are pack creatures. They don’t understand why people leave.”
The officer nodded again, and kept writing.
“Is she in there?”
The police officer and the fireman exchanged a glance. Kellan didn’t need to hear them say it. No one was inside. Kellan’s legs gave out and he crumpled to the ground. “She wouldn’t just leave him.”
“Even if she were mad at you?”
Kellan gave the officer a bitter look. “What do you think happened? You think my wife was so mad about kids that she brought the dog to her dad’s house and lit it on fire?”
“Is that what you think happened?”
Kellan jerked his head to one side, and then the other. “No. Hell no. If Emma were that mad, she’d just take the dog and stop talking to me.” He snorted and found that he could stand again. “She gives a wicked cold shoulder.”
The officer asked more questions. Rudy answered most of them. Phantom never said a word. Kellan was too busy deciding what he was going to do when he got his hands on Gabriel. There was no doubt in his mind that the drug dealer had everything to do with Emma’s disappearance. Kellan already owed him for sending a hit squad to shoot up the clubhouse.
The firefighter gave Kellan a small pump and a dog-sized facemask to tend to Rocco. Kellan held it over his face and slowly pumped some life back into the animal. There was something wrong with the mutt. It wasn’t just breathing in bad air, his leg hung at a funny angle and he wasn’t lifting his head very much. Though he managed a whimper when Kellan asked him if he was all right.
“Did you hear what I said, sir?”
Kellan looked up. “No,” he admitted.
“I asked if you knew if someone had a reason to attack your wife.”
Kellan kept his face blank when he said, “No.”
The officer clearly didn’t believe him.
“Why?” Rudy asked.
“Apparently some neighbors heard a confrontation before the fire started. The door was kicked in.”
Kellan ran his tongue over his lips. “I gotta go.”
“You aren’t going anywhere.”
Kellan kept walking. “You can’t stop me.”
“The hell I can’t.”
“Why?”
“You admitted to you fought with your wife, and now it seems she’s missing. That makes you a suspect.”
Kellan snorted. “Being a suspect isn’t the same as taking me into custody. You haven’t got shit for that.”
Kellan got on his bike and started it. He didn’t hear what the cop said as he went roaring off into the evening. Nothing the man said would have mattered anyway. He knew where Emma was, and he was going to go get her. He heard Phantom and Rudy start up their own bikes. It didn’t take them very long to figure out exactly where Kellan was going.