UNCONTROLLED BURN by Nina Pierce

laughed and walked into the kitchen. “He’s an arrogant ass. Why do you let him get to you?” The sound of dishes clanging and the fridge opening made her smile. She liked that Josh felt her apartment was his space as well. She’d been trying to work up the nerve to ask him to move in with her. “Sometimes I think that man gets his jollies from pissing people off,” Josh called from the kitchen, imitating Ronan’s brogue.
    Hope laughed. “This time I think his needling worked.”
    “Write it down. I think it’s a first.” More cupboards opened and closed. “Hey, babe, you got any of those—”
    “Second cupboard on the right. Top shelf.”  The man had a sweet tooth as insatiable as his libido. There was a very feminine satisfaction in feeding both his needs.
    Josh came around the corner, several Ho Ho’s in one hand and two steaming mugs of coffee in the other. “So what could Nason have said that would trigger all this serious research?”
    Hope cleared the loose papers from the couch cushion next to her and took the mug he offered. “He just made some flip remark about newsworthy stories. It got me thinking about all the recent fires.”
    Josh choked on his snack cake. It took him a minute to catch his breath. “The man was just pushing your buttons. I think he’s jealous you’re already taken.” He leaned over and nuzzled her neck. “How about I take your mind off all of this?”
    She wanted to melt into the teeth grazing the tender flesh of her throat, but Hope needed Josh to see what she’d discovered. “Still, he had a point. We haven’t really been digging into the facts.”
    He nibbled her earlobe. “My boyish charm’s not working?”
    “Of course it’s working.” Hope grabbed his jaw, pushing his face away and turning his eyes back to the coffee table. “It’s just that I need you to focus on this first. I may have a theory about an arsonist.”
    Josh gave up on his seduction. “It’s not like the local news has been ignoring them. Besides, it’s the fire marshal’s job to investigate.”
    “I know. Which is why I talked to him this morning.”
    Josh set his mug down and turned to her, his brow furrowed. “The fire marshal talked to the press?”
    “It’s not like I overstepped any ethical lines.” Hope couldn’t understand Josh’s concerns. She wasn’t one of those reporters who used underhanded tactics to get her stories and this man warm against her side knew that. “All I got from the fire marshal were vague responses and generalities. But …” Hope excitedly grabbed the map, “after my internet search of all the fires within a thirty-mile radius over the last eighteen months, look what I found.”
    Leaning forward, Josh took a minute to study the map. “All I see are yellow and orange marks with different colored numbers and circles around them. Sorry, babe, it’s not making any sense to me.”
    Hope tapped a couple of keys on her computer, retrieving information she’d stored over the last few hours. “Okay, here. July 17. South Kenton University. One student of Professor Alexandra Flanagan burned in a lab fire. Accidental.” She pointed to the map. “Yellow highlighted dot for the location of the fire. A green number indicating how many died. In this case, one. A colored circle if the story included an affiliation with another person. For this fire there’s a red circle for Alex. Blue for Ronan. Brown for Professor Morgan. I’ve also got brown for unidentified connections if I didn’t know anyone associated with the victim.”
    She pointed to another mark. “August 5. Bailer’s Park here in South Kenton. A couple died in a cabin fire. The woman was a summer bartender at the tavern. Red for Alex. Orange for Glenn.” Hope clicked a couple more keys on the computer, pulling up more news articles. “March 17. Structure fire at Royal Mills apartments. South Kenton. One dead.”
    “You’ve got it circled in red.”
    “It’s Alex’s apartment