Clean Burn Read Online Free PDF

over the years, buying books off Amazon, all but drooling over the photographs.
    Then when someone torched the Sudsy Clean Laundromat across the street from my apartment, I’d watched avidly behind the limits of the crime tape. Once the arson investigators finished their work, I’d volunteered to help the Nguyens clean up the mess. I didn’t even bother to tell myself I was only being neighborly. I knew what impulse sent me slogging through that sodden, blackened mess.
    But unlike the Nguyens’s Laundromat, where much of the rubble had already been cleared away before I could get my mitts on it, the fire in the Markowitz’s garage was newly extinguished. It would still hold a fascinating treasure trove of clues I itched to decipher.
    Before I could take a step toward the ruins, Ken rounded the front of the garage, coming into view. And I completely forgot about the fire.
    I had maybe a thirty second grace period before Ken noticed me. Time enough to take in the fact that in three years, he really hadn’t changed much. He’d let the buzz cut from his SFPD days grow out, his sandy hair now long enough to curl behind his ears. The khaki shirt didn’t fit as well as the blues we wore in San Francisco during our beat days, but even at 45, he looked damned good.
    When he first saw me, his gaze rolled right past without recognition. Then he lasered back on me, something flickering in his face he would have killed me for if he’d known I’d seen it. An instant later, that light doused and I saw nothing but disinterest in those blue eyes.
    He sidestepped Mr Markowitz and headed toward the Explorer. The riled-up homeowner started to follow, then stopped to answer the summons of his cell phone.
    I moved on an intercept course, more unsettled by Ken’s dismissiveness than I wanted to admit. I pasted a cheery grin on my face. “Ken!”
    As he turned toward me, a twitch in his jaw told me his self-control wasn’t quite as all-encompassing as he might want me to think. “Did you make a wrong turn somewhere?”
    “Good to see you, too.” I tapped the sheriff’s badge on his chest. “So you’re already running the place. What happened to Sheriff Kelsey?”
    “Heart attack.”
    “Dead?”
    “Retired.”
    “Too bad.” There was no love lost between Kelsey and me. He and dear old Dad had been thick as thieves way back when, drinking buddies, hunting and fishing partners. Kelsey knew what my father was doing to me, had seen the marks on my arms. At best, he pretended not to notice; at worst, he thought I must have deserved the punishment.
    Kid Deputy made his way over to us, oblivious to Ken’s and my little drama. He gave me a puppy dog smile. “This a friend of yours, sheriff?”
    “Janelle Watkins,” Ken said, the words dragged out of him. “My former partner at SFPD.”
    Kid Deputy thrust out a hand. “I’m Alex Farrell.”
    I shook his hand, keeping my attention on Ken. “Pleased to meet you.”
    Alex pointed at the matchstick I was chewing to shreds. “You just quit smoking or something?”
    I pulled it from my mouth and shoved it in my pocket. “Or something.”
    He grinned at his boss. “Didn’t she do profiles for SFPD? Maybe she could do one for us on our arsonist.”
    “How do you know it was arson?” I asked. “Maybe Mr Markowitz was cooking meth in his garage.”
    “Nah. It was arson,” Kid Deputy told me. “We’ve had a string of them. I bet you could figure out who.”
    I risked a glance at Ken. He stared off into the middle distance, his jaw working.
    “I don’t profile anymore,” I told Alex. “I’m a private investigator.”
    Alex’s radio squawked and he excused himself, moving to the far side of the Explorer. Ken bent his head, lowered his voice. “We had an agreement.”
    I remembered all too clearly when it had been struck, the verbal missiles we’d lobbed at one another. “It’s been three years, Ken.”
    “‘Stay the hell out of my life’ didn’t have an expiration