The mist hung low, a lost soul dragging its feet to hell. Rust-coloured tendrils of dead flora fluttered.
Fire, annihilation, ashes…
Crackle and pop! The fire thrust dark smoke into the mist; ash twirled towards the heath.
Sirens echoed like loud cries, racing towards the scene to cordon the billowing fires from burning down the entire snow-clad landscape.
Death’s presence never looked beautiful, never pleasant, never serene.
‘Over here!’
Water hosed down on the burning metal, the smell assaulting the nostrils of everyone in reach.
Detective Inspector Callan Cameron watched it before him like a movie, hands shoved into his black woollen jacket, cropped hair unmoving in the breeze. The firefighters fought the icy wind, struggling to hold the hose and battle the fire.
When he’d shrugged into his jacket just half an hour ago, he hadn’t expected fire – definitely not the life-ending sort.
‘Inspector!’ A woman dressed in the firefighter garb hiked over, her headgear cradled in her arms. ‘We’ll no’ get anyone alive out of that – they’ll have been dead before we got here.’
An eejit would see the flames reaching for the sky and the mushrooming smoke and come to the same conclusion.
‘Do we ken how many passengers?’
Her sharp eyes cut to the black ruins, so in tune with Callan’s clothing. ‘No, we’ll get to it once we deem it safe.’
Callan sighed. Bloody procedures. ‘Do we have a registration? A partial, at least?’
She shook her head. ‘We’re lucky the heath isn’t dry. That would’ve been a catastrophe. Who’ll be transporting the wreckage?’
‘Wreckage?’ Callan crossed his arms. ‘Tell me, what’s missing?’
When the firefighter blinked at him, Callan cursed. ‘Don’t move it until I say so. No one goes near it.’
Some people never truly saw.
His phone rang in tune with his thoughts. The caller was someone who always noticed what others missed.
‘Aileen.’
‘Where are you?’
Callan studied the burned vehicle. An arson investigator is what they needed. But they also needed him.
‘What’s that?’ Her sharp intake of breath paid testament to his previous thought. ‘Are you at a crime scene?’
He’d promised, so he opened his mouth. ‘Came across a car fire at the lay-by.’
‘Here?’
He heard her thoughts. ‘Don’t come over—’
The call cut off. Bloody hell! Who lost the plot when he hung up? And now she’d done the same thing to him.
If he’d had longer hair, he’d have pulled it out by the roots. Why date a woman who’d kill him off with worry?
Self-flagellation.
Callan stalked to his car. No time like the present to log in his statement and get to work. He always kept his warrant card on him.
‘Robert.’ His voice cut off any smart retort the not-so-green-anymore officer might have offered. ‘The lay-by on the service road leading to the dual carriageway. A car’s caught fire here – I found it, called it in. Get yer arse here.’
‘Er, I’m not a firefighter.’
‘How does a random car, one without a driver, sitting next to a layer of snow catch fire in a lay-by, eejit?’
A long pause echoed down the line. ‘Er—’
‘Get here. Now.’ Callan’s growl left no room for jokes. And this time, he hung up.
As if in mocking response to his command, a sedan rolled down the road. Of course, she’d respond faster than Police Constable Robert Davis.
Both were a pain in his arse.
The brunette parked the car right behind his, as if she thought he might run, then elbowed the door open.
Callan’s heart flipped, as it often did, when those fierce brown eyes caught his in the side mirror.
Long, dark brown locks fluttered in the wind as her eyes lasered in on the scene and registered shock before meeting his again. And then she was making herself comfortable in his car.
The perfume she’d spritzed smacked him first as he slid into the driver’s seat, followed by the dress that hugged her form and accentuated her figure. She turned to face him, and he swore.
Callan reached out with his thumb and swiped the lipstick from her lips. ‘You don’t need this.’
Aileen rolled her eyes. ‘It’s what women wear on dates.’
‘I don’t like it.’
‘So?’
‘Don’t you want to impress me?’
‘Excuse me?’ Aileen curled her lip. ‘I can do whatever the hell I want.’
She’d sat in his car, uninvited, after making her way here, to a crime scene, when he’d asked her not to.
‘We have to cancel tonight.’
