Frostbitten by Rebecca Zanetti

Author:Rebecca Zanetti
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lyrical Press
Published: 2023-11-22T00:33:31+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

The fire took half the house. Scott leaned against the side of his SUV near where Millie perched on the hood, her legs dangling over the front. Roscoe had flopped next to her after having jumped on top, scrambling with his claws, then hunkering down with a sigh. Scott purposely didn’t look at the damage because surely he’d have to get the hood buffed out.

Right now he didn’t care.

They had moved the vehicles across the road to make room for the fire trucks. Acrid smoke still wafted through the air while debris gently rained down. Soot covered part of Millie’s face, but even so he could see new bruises on her cheek and jaw. They appeared darker, more purple than the bruises from the other day, which had begun yellowing. He wasn’t taking very good care of her.

“Stop worrying,” she said, her gaze still on the house.

“I can’t help it. I smashed you into that door pretty hard.”

She turned to him and grinned, and he noted the right side of her lip had cracked. “Considering three projectiles exploded in my house, I’m rather thankful the blast threw us into the door and away from the flames.”

He sucked in the stench of charred wood and scorched paint mingling with the choking fumes. The flashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles glowed eerily through the still-dispersing smoke, even as the firefighters rolled up their hoses. Their response had been quick and they’d managed to save half the house.

“I’m sorry about your belongings, Millie,” Scott said.

She shrugged. “It’s just stuff. I secured all valuables either in the safe or at Aunt Mae’s house. I did like my bed, though.” She rubbed the soot on her face and smeared the wet powder toward her ear.

Investigators had already arrived to examine the charred home, collecting evidence and snapping photographs. Tate Bianchi emerged from the front door and strode over the singed front yard and across the street. He had arrived only about twenty minutes ago, taken one look at them, apparently decided they were all right, and headed into the still-smoldering building.

“You sure you don’t need medical attention?” he asked, soot on his bald head.

“No,” Millie said, kicking out her feet. “We’re good.”

Scott wouldn’t say they were good. In fact, if anything, he was downright pissed off. “What did you find?”

“Pretty much what I thought we’d find,” Tate said, a small notebook in his hands. “Three shattered bottles with protruding wicks. Simple but effective. Tell me about whoever threw them through the window.”

Scott frowned, the anger hotter inside him than the still-burning garage door, which had fallen from its track and now lay across the driveway. “Someone hurled the explosives from a blue truck with a damaged muffler. I noted one driver, but I honestly couldn’t see clearly. Either dirt or a dark tint obscured the windows.”

“What kind of truck?”

“Ford, early seventies,” Scott said automatically.

Millie leaned down and scratched Roscoe’s ears. “I heard the vehicle but I didn’t see it,” she said. “Everything happened so fast.

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