Money To Burn Read Online Free PDF Page A

Book: Money To Burn Read Online Free PDF

the looks of it, I’d say the fire’s been helped along. But we can’t go back inside until the blaze has been checked.” He wheezed for breath, sipped water from a sports bottle then squirted the liquid over his face.
    “What about the basement?” I asked. “Did anyone check? There’s a full laboratory down there.”
    He looked at me curiously. “You know the house?”
    I nodded.
    “You know the owner?”
    “His name is Thomas Nash. He lives on the second floor and has a lab in the basement. I saw him at midnight.” I hesitated. “He was a client of mine.”
    Doodle’s eyes shifted to the fire. “What kind of a client?” he asked. He knew my line of business.
    I let out a long sigh. “I was doing some bodyguard work for him.”
    Doodle stared at the fire. “No one came out, Casey,” he said flatly. “And we weren’t able to get into the basement. Maynard Pope’s the cause and origination man on this one. He’s gonna want to talk to you.”
    I hardly heard what Doodle said. The fire had reached the attic and whatever stored items were there ignited, sending the blaze to new heights. The fire seemed too strong, too towering to be real. It was like a special effect in a movie, and I felt myself being lulled into the passive state of a detached observer. I knew Thomas Nash was probably dead, but it wasn’t really registering. All I could do was stare at the flames.
    “Casey?” Doodle repeated louder.
    I shook my head, tearing myself away from the sight of the blaze. “Sorry. Jesus, how can you watch this all the time?”
    “I know. It can hypnotize you. Listen, you better stick around, so Maynard can talk to you. I’m no expert, but I’d say this fire was set. If you know the building layout and the reason why, you might be able to help. Can you stand it?”
    I thought of Thomas Nash bent absently over his instruments, oblivious to the world around him as he pursued answers in a microscopic world of his own.
    “Yeah, I can stand it,” I said.
    While I waited for the fire to be brought under control, I trudged home and changed into more suitable attire: a black tank top, matching leggings and my red high tops. Flame on. I took four aspirin and chugged a quart of water. Any trace of alcohol fogging my brain had disappeared from shock. I felt like a complete asshole for not taking my client’s death threats more seriously. Thomas Nash had hired me to help him and now chances were good that he was dead.
    Still numb, I stopped by Dunkin’ Donuts on my way back to the scene. Listen, I was desperate. Durham is a disadvantaged town—it has no Krispy Kreme. When I ordered thirty coffees to go, the night manager knew I was heading to the fire. He gave me the coffee for free, and threw in five dozen doughnuts to boot. Durham is still a small town in many ways.
    “God bless them,” he told me. “It looks like a bad one.”
    Worse than he knew, I thought.
    I staggered back to the scene bearing an armload of sustenance and was greeted like a returning hero. It didn’t make me feel any more like one.
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I sat on the running board of someone’s pickup truck and watched in glum silence as Durham’s bravest battled to bring the blaze under control. The sun was rising over the nearby Duke campus by the time the flames were finally extinguished and the remains cool enough to investigate.
Like all fire scenes, it begged the question: “Is that all there is?” The front wall of the house had been completely destroyed. It gaped open to the gawking crowd, like a giant dollhouse. The interior was reduced to a series of support walls and mounds of black ashes, dotted by melted lumps of possessions and strange charred shapes that had once been furniture. The doorway leading to the basement had disappeared, a dark hole taking its place. The bathroom fixtures on the first and second floors had survived the blaze and the sooty porcelain had been rinsed to a bright white by the