Elizabeth Sinclair - Baptism In Fire

She strained against the pressure of hands encircling her arms. Never taking her gaze from the inferno, Rachel pried frantically at the vise grip. The pain of reliving this nightmare became more than she could bear.

Maggie. Gotta save Maggie.

She had to block out the images.

She felt herself being shaken. “Rachel!” Luke’s stern voice catapulted her back to reality. “Let it go!”

Mentally she clawed her way out of the past. Slowly, very slowly, she relaxed. For a long moment she stared at him, trying to rationalize where he’d come from. Then she saw his eyes. Reflected there was regret, pain and something else she couldn’t name.

She pressed her face into his chest. She hadn’t realized how much she had missed his strength. His arms felt so right, so safe, so secure. His closeness blocked out the memories of the nightmare. If only they’d shared this comfort back then….

Dear Reader,

As a child, my favorite part of the Memorial Day Parade in our small town was always the firemen and the shiny, red fire trucks. I came from a firefighter family and then I married into one. Among my favorite movies are Backdraft and Ladder 49. Then there was 9/11 and the tragic loss of so many brave men…. Do you see where this is all leading? Writing a book about firemen was inevitable for me.

But Baptism in Fire is not only about firemen. It also addresses a subject that has, unfortunately, become a problem of major proportions in my home state of Florida and around the country: the abduction of children. Being a mother and a grandmother, this was the hardest part of the book to write, but a part that my heart told me I had to address.

I hope you enjoy the journey.

Blessings,

Elizabeth Sinclair

www.millsandboon.co.uk

In 1988, Elizabeth’s husband, Bob, dragged her kicking and screaming from her birthplace, the scenic Hudson Valley of upstate New York, to historic St. Augustine, Florida. It took her about three seconds to stop struggling and to fall deeply in love with her adopted hometown. Shortly after their move, at 3:47 p.m. on August 3, 1992, she sold her first romance, Jenny’s Castle, to Silhouette Intimate Moments ®.

Despite the fact that she used to spend hours in the kitchen cooking big meals, Elizabeth’s husband, her most ardent supporter, has learned to enjoy hot dogs and delivery pizza as much as he used to enjoy spaghetti sauce from scratch. Oh, and he no longer complains about all the books she spends money on. Bob and Elizabeth have three children, four lovely grandchildren, a rambunctious sheltie, Ripley, and an affectionate adopted beagle, Sammi Girl, they found abandoned along the roadside and took into their home.

For more about Elizabeth, visit her Web site at www.elizabethsinclair.com.

In loving memory of my dad, Preston Charles Ronk,

a thirty-five-year member of the

Walden Hook & Ladder Fire Company, Walden, NY

I would be remiss if I did not express my deepest gratitude to the three men who helped me delve through the world of firefighting and fire forensics and kept me on the authenticity track. Any mistakes or misrepresentations should be attributed to the author.

Ed Sulkowski, Operations Analyst, IFF South Brunswick, has been a fireman for over twenty years with the Highlands Fire Department in Highlands, New Jersey. He is trained in arson investigation, extrusion and fire prevention as well as standard firefighting techniques, and is a member of the ambient IFF industrial firefighters squad.

Wallace Arthur Lind, Senior Crime Scene Analyst (retired), was a police crime scene investigator for seventeen years. In October 1992, he was certified by the International Association for Identification as a Senior Crime Scene Analyst and has processed over 2,000 crime scenes, including homicides; about 1,500 scenes as the lead crime scene investigator; testified as an expert witness in crime scene investigation, bloodstain pattern analysis and scene reconstruction; and trained others in the field.

Dr. Harry R. Carter, a thirty-eight-year veteran in fire and emergency service, is a municipal fire protection consultant, educator and motivational speaker who holds degrees in fire service administration, public policy analysis, fire safety administration, the social sciences and business administration. He currently serves as Chairman of the Board of Fire Commissioners for Howell Township Fire District #2, and is a longtime contributing editor for Firehouse magazine and the Pennsylvania Fireman. He has authored seven books and more than 1,200 magazine, Web and journal articles.

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Epilogue

“I’d rather go through root canal without Novocain than go back to Florida,” Rachel Lansing said fiercely into the phone. She was unable to believe that a man who professed to be her friend was asking this of her. He knew why she’d left.

“Rachel,” A.J. Branson, the Orange Grove Police Department’s chief of detectives, sighed. “I know I’m asking a lot—”

“A lot? You have no idea.” She swallowed hard and fought for a long time to push back hellish memories of another place, another time, another life. A life she’d believed perfect until— “A.J., I left Orange Grove to put that part of my life to rest, not to mention save my sanity. I have a new life here in Atlanta. Why would I come back?”

“Because this involves kids,” A.J. said simply. “No one I know loves kids more than you do and no one I know can profile an arsonist like you.”

Kids.

Maggie.

Damn him.

Rachel rose from the couch and paced her small Atlanta apartment’s living room. No! She massaged her forehead in an effort to push back the insistent memories rising from the darkest recesses of her mind. But even as she denied them admittance, images of her tall, handsome husband holding their blond little girl as she clutched her worn, patchwork teddy bear seeped into her mind.

Oh, God! Maggie… My sweet baby girl.

Pain sliced through her, nearly drawing her double. Her knees dipped, threatening to collapse completely. She gripped the arm of the couch and took a deep breath.

Her white-knuckled fingers pressed the cordless phone tightly to her ear. “Dammit, A.J., that was a low blow.”

“I’m sorry as I can be, Rachel, but in case you haven’t figured it out, I’m desperate.” A pause. “You know I wouldn’t ask you to put yourself through this if I didn’t think it was important.”

Why hadn’t she gone out for dinner instead of coming home? If she had, she would have missed A.J.’s call, missed him stirring up—

“There are other people qualified to do this. Why me?” She tried but failed to keep the anguish out of her voice.

Another pause, then he spoke again, his voice quiet, earnest and firm. “This bastard is about as elusive as any arsonist I’ve come up against. We’ve tried for six months to find the answers but we can’t. I need an arson profiler who knows the ropes. One who can climb inside the torch’s mind. That’s you.”