“Temporarily intimate. There’s a difference. Now, if we’d been getting naked every night since…that would be true intimacy.” He looked at her, wanting a reaction, but hell if he knew what kind of reaction he wanted, or why he was even going there.

“You agreed readily enough,” she reminded him. “And it’s what you do, anyway. Light stuff only.”

She was watching him carefully, and sitting there in the hospital chair, surrounded by strangers, the scent of antiseptic and people’s suffering all around them, she was clearly waiting for him to deny it. And given how he kept baiting her about it, it made sense that she was confused.

But what he wanted didn’t really matter. Not when she was out of here in less than two weeks. But apparently his mouth didn’t get the message from his brain because it opened and said, “Whatever this is, clearly we’re going to drive each other nuts for the next two weeks, so we might as well take it as far as we can.”

She blinked. “You mean…”

“Yeah.”

At his hip, his pager beeped. Hell. Rising to his feet, he looked down into her still surprised face. “Think about it.”

“I…will.”

ZACH’S CALL was to an all-too-familiar address for a house fire.

Phyllis’s.

When they pulled down her street, his stomach hit his toes. The house was lit up like a Fourth of July fireworks display. The flames were hot, fast and, as it turned out, unbeatable. Even with Sam and Eddie’s engine already there, and two others from neighboring firehouses, in less than twenty minutes they’d lost the entire structure.

Afterward, with the crew all cleaning up, Zach slipped inside the burned-out shell. He moved through the clingy, choking smoke, down the blackened hallway where Phyllis’s pictures were nothing but a memory. Inside her bedroom, he took in the soot, water and ashes.

And a wire-mesh trash can, tipped on its side.

On the wall above it, black markings flared out, indicating a flash burn. Probably aided by an accelerant.

Just like the Hill Street fire.

And the two before that.

Jaw tight, Zach stared at the evidence, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket to take a picture, which he e-mailed to both Tommy and himself. This time, whatever happened, he was going to have his own damn evidence, because no way had Phyllis had a wire-mesh trash can in here, not in the lacy, frilly, girly room.

His cell phone rang, and when he saw Brooke’s name on the I.D., he experienced a little jolt. I’ve thought about it, he imagined her saying. Do me, Zach…