Blue Smoke and Murder

48

SEPTEMBER 16

1:07 A.M.

Score finished peeing into the empty bottle of Gatorade, capped it off, and set it next to the other one on the floor of the passenger side of the van. When he left town later tonight he’d do what long-distance truckers working on piece rates did-throw the urine-filled bottles out the window along the Interstate.

He checked his computers, found nothing useful on the Breck woman’s phone bug, and decided it was time to go to work. Past time, actually.

The smell of gasoline was making him sick.

He slid out of the van, just one more shadow in the night. As he walked the block and a half to Frost’s place, a spring-loaded sap made his jacket pocket sag and bang against his hip. His silenced pistol dug into the small of his back. The bottle of gasoline he carried in a paper bag did what it had been doing for the past hour-it stank. The shredded Presto log that cushioned the bottle inside the paper waited to help the party along.

Nobody noticed him go up and over the adobe wall.

He walked quickly to the Dodge, saw that the shipping boxes were still inside, and smiled. He gave the rear window a swift, expert smack with the sap. At the impact, safety glass crumbled to glittering pebbles, just as it had been designed to do. No sharp edges to cut flesh.

The alarm yelped in the few seconds it took to light the makeshift fuse on the gas bomb and throw bag and bottle inside the vehicle.

The flash of flame was so fast and so violent, it nearly burned his face.

Mother. Next time I won’t use that much of the log.

But he’d wanted to be very sure that this fire caught and held. He stood beside the wall for a few more seconds, making certain that the flames wouldn’t fizzle.

They burned with a ferocity that cast shadows like a small sun.

Suddenly the front door opened. Score saw a flash of silver hair, yanked out his pistol, and took aim.

Frost’s pistol boomed an instant before Score fired.