-10 Years Later-

The woman was lying. And she was good at it. Damn good.

Detective Marcus Williams had put in too many years with the Sheriff's Department not to smell a liar. He'd seen the best the county had to offer - two-bit con men, things, snitches and killers - and he recognized a rat when he was facing one.

This beautiful woman - this beautiful rich woman - was hiding something. Something important. Lying through her gorgeous, white teeth.

The smell of stale smoke hung heavy in the interrogation room. Pale green walls had turned a grimy shade of gray since the last paint job before all the budget cuts, but Marcus Williams felt comfortable here. At home in the beat-up old chair. He reached into his breast pocket for a pack of cigarettes, remembered he'd quit smoking two months before and reluctantly settled for a piece of Dentyne that he unwrapped slowly, wadded and shoved onto his tongue. The gum wasn't the same as a good drag on a Camel straight, but it would have to do. For now. Until he gave up his continual battle with his addiction to nicotine ad took up the habit again.

"Let's go over it one more time," he suggested as he leaned backward in his chair and crossed a booted leg over his knee. His partner, Peter Bonham, was propped up against the door frame by one shoulder, his arms folded over his skinny chest, his dark eyes glued to the woman who was the center of this mess - murder, arson and probably much, much more. Casually Marcus picked up the file and began leafing through it until he came to her statement, the one she'd made without an attorney present just a few hours before. "Your name is . . .?"

Her blue eyes blazed with outrage, but he didn't feel one iota of guilt for putting her through it all again. After all, she'd do it to him if the situation was reversed, and she wouldn't give an inch - just set her teeth in and hang on. Reporters never let up. Always on the case of the law or the D.A; it felt good to get a little of his own back.

"My name is Lindsay Biersack. But you already know who I am."

"Lindsay Bale Biersack."

She didn't bother responding. He shook his head, dropped the file and sighed. Tapping the tips of his fingers together, he glanced at the soundproof tiles in the ceiling, as if wishing God Himself was lurking in the joists and would intervene. "You know, I was hoping you were going to be straight with me."

"I am! Going over it again isn't going to change anything. You know what happened-"

"I don't know shit, lady, so cut the crap!" His boots hit the floor with a thud. "Look, I don't know who you think you're talking to, but I've seen better liars than you and busted them, like that." He snapped his fingers so loudly the sound seemed to ricochet around the cinder-block walls.

"Whether you realize it or not, you're in deep trouble here; deeper than you want to be. Now, let's get down to it, okay? No more bullshit. I hate bullshit. Don't you, Bonham?"

"Hate it," Bonham replied, barely moving his lips.

Williams grabbed the file again. He felt as if he were losing control. He didn't like it when he lost charge of any situation. Especially one in which he thought his career was on the line. If he solved this case, hell, he'd be able to run for sheriff himself. If Marcus didn't solve the case . . . oh, hell, that wasn't even a possibility. Marcus believed in thinking properly. Even more, he believed in himself.

He glanced at the clock mounted over the door. The seconds just kept ticking by. Through the window, the last rays of sunlight settled into the room, causing shadows to creep along the walls despite the harsh light from the overhead fluorescent bulbs. They'd been at this for three hours and everyone was growing tired. Especially the woman. She was pale, her skin stretched tight over high cheekbones and sunken sky eyes. Her hair was a golden brown that framed her face even more beautifully. Tiny lines of worry pinched the corners of what might have been a pouty, sexy mouth.

He tried again."Your name is Lindsay Bale Biersack, you're a reporter with AP Tour and Kerrang and you know a helluva lot more than you're telling me about the fire at your daddy's sawmill."

She had the decency to blanch. Her mouth opened and closed again as she sat stiffly, her denim vest wrapped around her slim body, her dark makeup long faded.

"Now that we've got that straight, you might want to tell me what you know about it. One man's near dead at Northwest General in CCU, the other in a private room unable to talk. The doctors don't think the guy in Critical care is gonna make it."

Her lips quivered for a second. "I heard," she whispered. She blinked, but didn't break down. He hadn't supposed she would. She was a Bale, for Christ's sake. They were known to be tougher than rawhide.

"This isn't the first fire to occur on your daddy's property, is it? It seems to me there was another fire in another mill years back." He climbed to his feet and began to pace, his gum popping in noisy tandem to the heels of his boots clicking against the yellowed linoleum floor. "And if I remember right, after the last one, you up and left town. Said you'd never come back. Guess you changed your mind - oh, hell, everyone has that right, don't they?" He flashed a good-old-boy smile. His best.

She didn't even flinch.

"But now listen to this. It's what bothers me. You gave up a job most men and women would kill for, came back home married to one of the Biersack boys and guess what? Lo and behold, we have another hot-damn fire the likes of which we haven't seen in - what - nearly five years! One guy nearly killed in the explosion, the other guy hanging by a thread." He threw up his hands. "Go figure."

Bonham shoved himself away from the door, exited for a few minutes and returned with cups of coffee.

Williams turned in his chair backward and straddled it. Leaning forward, he glowered at her. She held his gaze. "We're still trying to figure out exactly what happened and who was there. Fortunately your husband was carrying a wallet, otherwise we wouldn't have recognized him. He's a mess. His face is swollen and cut, his hair singed, his jaw broken and one leg in a cast. But they managed to save the injured eye, and if he works at it, he may even walk again." He watched as the woman shuddered. So she did care about her husband . . . if only just a little. "The other guy we don't know. No ID. His face is busted up pretty bad, too. Swollen and black and blue. He lost a few teeth and his hands are burned. His hair nearly singed off. We're havin' a helluva time figuring out who he is and thought you might be able to help us." Leaning back in his chair again, he picked up his cup of coffee.

"What-what about fingerprints?"

"That's the hell of it. John Doe's hands are burned; no prints. At least not yet. With all those broken teeth and messed-up jaw, dental impressions are gonna take some time . . ." Williams narrowed his eyes on the woman, and he scratched thoughtfully against the stubble of two days' growth of beard. "If I didn't know better, I'd think the bastard burned his hands on purpose; you know, to throw us off."

She grimaced. "You think he started the fire?"

"It's possible." Williams picked up his mug, took a long swallow and scowled.

"I told you I don't know who he is."

"He was meetin' your husband at the mill."

She hesitated. "So you said, but I . . . I don't keep up with my husband's business. I have no idea whom he met or why."

Williams' eyebrows quirked. "You got one of them marriages - you know, he does his own thing, you do yours?"

"We were thinking about separating," she admitted with a trace of remorse.

"Is that so?" Williams swallowed a smile. He'd finally hit pay dirt. Now he had a motive - or the start of one. And that's all he needed. "The fire chief thinks the fire was caused by arson."

"I know."

"The incendiary device, well, hell, it could be spittin' image of the one used five years ago when the old gristmill was torched. You remember that, don't you?" She grimaced a little, her lips losing some color. "Yeah, I guess you couldn't very well forget."

She looked away, and her hands trembled around the thin Styrofoam. Of course she remembered the fire. Everyone in Malibu did. The Bale family - all of them - had suffered a horrible, tragic loss, one from which most of them had never recovered. The old man - L.K's father - had never been the same; lost control of his life, his company and his willful daughter.

"Maybe you'd like to come to the hospital, see the damage yourself. But I'm warning you, it's not a pretty sight."

She leveled steady albino blue eyes at him, and he was reminded again that she was a reporter as well as a Bale. "I've been demanding to see my husband ever since he was injured. The doctors told me I couldn't see him until the sheriff agreed - that there was some question about him being a suspect."

"Well, hell, let's go!" Williams said, but as she started to climb to her feet, he changed his mind. "Just a couple more things to clear up first." Her spine stiffened, and she slowly settled back in the worn plastic chair. She was a cool one; he'd give her that. But she was still lying. Hiding something. Marcus reached into his pocket and pulled out a plastic bag. Within the clear plastic was a charred chain with a burned St. Christopher's medal attached to it. The image of the saint was barely recognizable, twisted and blacked from the heat and flames.

L.K's mouth rounded, but she didn't gasp. Instead she stared at the bag Marcus dropped onto the battered old table in front of her. Her hands gripped her cup more tightly, and she drew in a quick little breath. "Where'd you get this?"

"Funny thing. John Doe was holding it in his fist, wouldn't let it go, even with as much pain as he was in. We had to pry it from his fingers, and when he did, guess what he said?" Williams asked.

She glanced from the detective to the other. "What?"

"We think he yelled out your name, but it's just a guess because his voice wasn't working right. He was screaming his lungs out, but not making a sound."

L.K swallowed though she hadn't a taken a sip of coffee. Her eyes seemed to glisten ever so slightly. He was definitely making headway. Maybe with the right amount of pressure she'd crack. "I guess maybe he thought he needed to see you . . . or maybe he did see you there, at the mill that night."

Marcus' dark gaze fixed on the woman.

She licked her lips nervously and avoided his gaze. "I already told you I wasn't anywhere near the place."

"That's right, you were alone in the house. No alibi," Williams turned to his partner, and picked up the plastic bad. "Has this been printed?"

Bonham nodded slightly.

"Funny," Williams said, staring at the woman as he pulled out the darkened silver chain. "Wonder why a guy who was being half-burned to death, would hang on to this damned thing - you know, like it was real important?"

She didn't answer as Williams let the plastic bad fall softly back to the table and allowed the St. Christopher's medal to swing, like a watch in a hypnotist's hands, in front of her nose. "Wonder what it means?" he asked, and he saw the tiny spark of fury in those round eyes again. But she didn't say a word as he dropped the blackened links onto the table and they slithered together.

She stared at the charred metal for a minute, frowning, her throat working. "Are we finished? Can I go now?"

Williams was pissed. This woman knew something and she was holding back, and here he was sitting on the biggest murder and arson case in two years with the department. "You're not changing your story?"

"No."

"Even though you don't have an alibi?"

"I was home."

"Alone."

"Yes."

:"Packing? You were planning to leave your husband."

"I was working on the computer at home. There are time logs, you can see for yourself-"

"That someone was there. Or that someone took enough computer courses and knows how to get into the guts of the machine - the memory - and change the entry times. Let me tell you, you're pushing your luck." He snapped up the chain and dropped it into the plastic bag. "You know, whatever you've done, it will go easier on you if you 'fess up. And if you're protecting someone . . . hell, there's no reason for you to take the rap for something that you didn't do."

Her eyes shifted away.

"You're not . . . protecting your husband, are you? Nah, that's silly. You were gonna split anyway."

"Am I being charged?" she demanded. Two spots of color caressed her high cheekbones and beneath her denim vest she straightened her thin body, a body that must've dropped five pounds in twenty-four hours since the fire.

"Well, not yet, but it's still early."

She didn't smile. "As I said, I'd like to see my husband."

Williams sent his partner a look. "You know, I think, Mrs. Biersack - you don't mind if I call you that since you're still legally married - I think that's a damned good idea. Maybe you should see the other guy, too; there's a chance you can tell me who he is, though in the shape he's in I doubt if his mother would recognize him."

Bonham shifted against the door. "Dodds won't like it - not without him there."

"Let me handle the sheriff."

"It's your funeral, man."

"I'll give old Floyd a call. Make it official, okay?" Williams stretched out of his chair. "'Sides, he don't like much that I do."

Bonham still wasn't convinced. "The doctors gave strict orders that the patients weren't to be disturbed."

"Hell, I know that!" Williams reached for his hat. "But how can they be disturbed? One guy's so far gone he's nearly in a coma and the other . . . well, he's probably not long for the world. This here's the wife of one of the men, for God's sake. She needs to see her man. And maybe she can help us out. Come on, Mrs. Biersack, you wouldn't mind, would you?"

L.K tried to control her ragged emotions though a thousand questions ran in long endless paths through her mind. She hand't slept in nearly two days, and when she had managed to doze, horrifying nightmares of the inferno at the sawmill blended into another terrifying fire, that hellish hot beast that had destroyed so much of her life and her family five years ago. A shudder ripped through her body and her knees nearly gave way as she remembered . . . oh, God, how she remembered. The black sky, the red blaze, the white-hot sparks that shot into the heavens as if Satan himself were mocking and spitting at God. And the devastation and deaths . . . please help me.

She noticed the detective staring at her, waiting - and she remembered he'd asked her a question - something about going to the hospital. "Can we go now?" she asked, steeling herself. Oh, God, please don't let him be in agony! Tears threatened her eyes, riding like drops of dew on her lashes, but she couldn't give Detective Marcus Williams the satisfaction of seeing her break down.

She should have asked to have her attorney present, but that was impossible as her attorney was her husband and he was clinging tenaciously to his life. Though she hadn't been able to visit him, the doctors had told her of his injuries, the broken ribs and jaw, punctured ling, cracked femur, and burned cornea of his right eye. He was lucky to be alive. Lucky.

Pushing herself to her feet, she slid a final glance at the tarnished silver chain still coiled, like a dead rattler in the clear plastic bag. Her heart seemed to rip a little bit, and she reminded herself it was only a piece of jewelry - not expensive jewelry at that - and it meant nothing to her. Nothing.

---

The hospital noises were muted. Rattling carts and gurneys, the sound of doctors being paged, quiet footsteps, all seemed to melt away as Williams held the door open for her and she stepped into the hospital room where her husband lay unmoving beneath a sterile white sheet. Bandages covered half his face including his right eye as well as the top and back of his head. The flesh that was exposed was bruised and lacerated. Stitched tracked beside his swollen nose and yellow antiseptic sliced across the scratches on his skin. Dark beard stubble was beginning to shade that part of his jaw that was visible and all the while an IV dripped fluid into his veins. He didn't look the same. Didn't look anything like how he did before.

L.K's stomach lurched and she gritted her teeth. So this is what it had come to. Why was he at the mill that night? Who was he meeting - the man who lay dying somewhere in the labyrinthine rooms of this hospital? And why, oh, God, why, had someone tried to kill him?

"I'm here," she said quietly, walking into the room and wishing she could turn back time, someone save him from this agony. Though they'd stopped loving each other a long while ago, perhaps never really had been in love, she still cared for him. "Can you hear me?" she asked, but didn't touch the clean sheets covering his body, didn't want event he slightest movement to add to his discomfort.

His good eye was open, staring sightless toward the ceiling. Its white had turned a nasty shade of red, and the blue - that clear sky blue - seemed to have dissolved into the surrounding tissue. A different shade than she remembered was now in place of his iris, but she shrugged it off as a defect from the accident.

"I'm here for you," she said, conscious of the detective standing near the door. "Can you hear-?"

Suddenly, the eye moved, focusing on her with such clarity and such hatred that she nearly jumped back. Her husband stared at her for a long, chilling minute, then looked away as if in disgust, his gaze trained on the ceiling once more.

"Please-" she said.

He didn't move.

The detective stepped forward. "Biersack?"

Nothing.

She said softly, "I want you to know that I care." Her throat clogged painfully on the words as she remembered their last argument, the cruel words they'd hurled at each other. The eye blinked, but she knew it was useless. He couldn't hear her. Wouldn't. He didn't want her love now anymore than he ever had, and she was just as incapable of giving it. "I'll be here for you." She remembered her marriage vows and felt a deep rending in her heart, an ache that seemed to grow as she stared at the broken man who had once been so strong.

She'd known from the start that their marriage had been doomed, and yet she'd let herself believe they would find a way to love each other.

But she'd been wrong. So wrong.

She waited and eventually the eye closed, though she didn't know if he was sleeping, unconscious, or pretending that she wasn't in the hospital, that she didn't exist, as he had so many times in the past.

L.K walked out of the room on wooden legs. Memories washed over her, memories of love gained and lost, of hopes and dreams that had died long before the fire.

The detective was in step with her. "You want to tell me about the chain and the St. Christopher's medal?"

Her heart jolted. "I . . . I can't."

"Why not?"

She wrapped her arms around herself and despite the soaring temperature felt a chill as cold as November. "It didn't belong to my husband."

"You're sure?"

She hedged because she wasn't certain. "To my knowledge, he never owned anything like that. It . . . ir probably belonged to the other guy - the one who was holding it."

"And who do you think he is?" Williams asked.

"I wish I knew," she said fervently, not allowing her mind to wander to another time and place, another love and a shining silver chain with a St. Christopher's medal dangling from its links. The same chain she had given to him. "I wish to God that I knew."

They walked the length of one corridor and took the elevator down a floor to CCU. Williams couldn't convince the nurse on duty or the doctor in charge to let them see the man who had been with her husband, so they passed through the exterior doors outside to the outside of the hospital, and there, in the simmering afternoon heat, Williams handed her a photo of a charred man, his face blistered, his hair burned off. She closed her eyes and fought the urge to retch. "I already told you. I-I don't know him. Even if I did, I don't think, I mean I can't imagine-"

"It's all right." For once William's voice was kind, as if he did have some human emotions after all. "I said it was a long shot." He took the crook of her elbow and helped her walk across the parking lot to the cruiser to which he'd been assigned. Glancing back over his shoulder to the whitewashed hospital, and the wing in which CCU was housed, he shook his head. "Poor bastard. I wonder who the hell he is."

Notes

[Part 2]: There's gonna be a whole lot of suspense, turning points, unexpected events, and a bunch of other things! You will get mad, sad, happy, and all kinds of emotions, but that only means I'm doing good :)

-LoverSunset <3 :)