He looked around and didn’t see anyone obviously watching them, but what if that Smithson guy had come to town and was waiting for them at this spot? The thought made his stomach knot.
I don’t think he’s here, she reassured him as she headed for the building that stood on the old clinic site. After looking up and down the street again, she reached to press her palm against the brick exterior.
For long moments, her expression didn’t change. Then she closed her eyes.
And he heard her gasp.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Jake was about to scramble out of the car when Rachel came running back and climbed into the passenger seat.
“What was that?” he asked as he lurched away from the curb.
“It burned.”
“What burned? What are you talking about?”
She put her hand on his arm, pressing her fingers into his flesh as she sent him a vivid picture of the clinic building as they’d seen it earlier.
Flames leaped through the waiting room, caught the draperies, climbed up the walls. As he stared at the awful scene, he had the same shocked reaction that she had. They’d been in that room!
The flames interfered with his vision, and he pulled into the parking lot of a bank where he sat behind the wheel, breathing hard.
“Sorry,” she whispered.
“It’s okay.” He threw his head back, leaning against the seat. “At least the waiting room was empty.”
“Thank the Lord. I think it was at night.”
“What happened? Was it an accident?”
“No.”
He turned to her questioningly.
“I saw that part too. Do you want to see?”
“Yeah.”
She kept her hand on his arm and sent him another picture–that of a shadowy figure, with a stocking mask over his face, moving through the waiting room. Because it was dark, it was hard to see clearly, but Jake could tell that the man was holding a can of gasoline and sloshing it onto the floor and furnishings. Then he walked through a door and into the back of the clinic. Rachel stayed with him as he walked past examination rooms and offices, continuing to spread the gasoline around.
When he reached an exit, he pushed it open and stepped out into an alley where he struck a match and tossed it inside. He stood for a moment, watching the flames spring up, then he closed the door and walked away down the alley.
“Who was he?” Jake asked, thinking there was something familiar about him, but he couldn’t put his finger on what it was.
Rachel’s brow wrinkled. “It was hard to tell with his face covered.”
Jake shifted in his seat. “When did it burn?”
She shrugged.
“There should be some way to find out.”
He pulled out of the parking lot and headed back the way they’d come, then found a coffee shop with wireless network. While he got a table, Rachel ordered them both medium-sized lattes.
When she came back with the drinks and set them on the table, he gestured for her to move her chair around to his side of the table where she could see the screen.
“I had enough information to get a date,” he said, careful to reveal nothing aloud that other patrons might overhear.
