Against the Fire Read Online Free PDF Page B

side; but as before, Mattie didn’t wait, just opened the door and jumped down. He felt the tug of a smile. He’d always preferred a woman who at least in some way needed a man. This one certainly didn’t seem to. On the other hand, even her conservative clothes and severe hair-style couldn’t hide her femininity.
    “Apartment twenty-two,” she said. “Must be on the second floor.”
    “Let’s go.”
    She ignored the hand he offered and hurried to keep up with his longer strides. They climbed the iron stairs and Gabe stepped back while Mattie knocked on the door. From the start, she had made it clear she was in control of the situation. He was only there in case of trouble.
    The door swung open and a small, thin Hispanic woman stood in the opening.
    “Mrs. Flores?”
    “Sí.”
    “I’m Mattie Baker. I’m a volunteer at the Family Recovery Center. This is Gabriel Raines. We’d like to talk to Enrique. Is he home?”
    The slight woman eyed Gabe, who was trying to appear as nonthreatening as possible. It must have worked because she stepped back so they could come in. The apartment was cramped, the furniture old and worn, the couch covered by faded fringed throw covers, but the place was tidy and clean.
    The woman turned, called down the hall. “Enrique! You have visitors.”
    Gabe immediately recognized the boy walking toward him as the slender youth he’d seen with Angel. Enrique looked at Gabe with suspicion but didn’t seem to recognize him. Mrs. Flores cast them a final glance and disappeared into the kitchen, and Enrique turned his attention to Mattie.
    “Hello, Enrique,” she said with a smile. “I’m Angel’s friend, Mattie Baker. I work at the FRC.”
    “Angel told me about you. He said you helped him and his family.”
    “That’s right. And this is Mr. Raines. You might remember seeing him at the fire last night.”
    The boy’s dark-skinned face lost half its color. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t downtown last night.”
    “You were there with Angel, Enrique. Mr. Raines saw the two of you at the Towers watching the fire.”
    Enrique subtly squared his shoulders and his chin inched up. “I said I was not there.”
    “Did you know Angel was arrested for setting the fire?” Mattie asked.
    The kid’s obsidian eyes widened.
    “That’s right,” Gabe said. “He was pulled over because one of his taillights was out. Angel has a record for setting another fire a few years back. The police put two and two together and Angel was picked up and taken in for questioning.”
    The kid’s expression turned fearful. “Angel didn’t set the fire. We saw the smoke from a few blocks away. We walked over to see what was happening. That is all we did. We watched the firemen for a while and then we went home.”
    “It was a school night,” Mattie said. “What were the two of you doing downtown?”
    Enrique glanced toward the kitchen. “We were just out driving around.”
    “That’s probably true,” Gabe said. “The two of you were downtown driving around. But what else were you doing? Why did you go down there in the first place?”
    Enrique’s gaze darted around the living room as if he searched for a way to escape.
    “If you don’t tell us the truth,” Mattie said gently, “Angel may go back to detention. You’re supposed to be his friend. Do you want that to happen?”
    The boy shook his head, moving the long black pony tail at the back of his neck. “No, no, I do not want that.”
    “Then tell us the truth,” Gabe said.
    The boy stared down at the holes in his dirty white sneakers. “Tagging. I was tagging a wall. Angel drove me down to finish what I’d started a few weeks ago.”
    The words and the look on the kid’s thin face rang with truth. Angel hadn’t wanted to betray his friend, and spray painting the side of a building was illegal.
    “Where were you tagging?” Gabe asked.
    “A couple of blocks from the Towers. That’s how we saw the fire.”
    Mattie reached over and laid a