Burn Zone - A Psion Case File

Chapter Four

"I did it a while ago. Nada." He hunched his shoulders against a sudden blast of cold wind. Justice did the same. "Did you find anything out when you were flirting with that hot doctor over there?"

"I was interviewing her," Justice replied.

"Flirting," Austin said, barely holding back a wide grin. "With a hot doctor."

"Do I have to tell Kim you're looking at other women?" Justice asked, smirking. He felt a satisfied thrill when Austin's big, smug grin fell off his face.

"You wouldn't dare," he said, a note of disbelief in his voice.

"You know I would."

"Man, that's all kinds of fucked up."

"I'm messing with you," he told him. "Besides, since when is interviewing witnesses classify as flirting?"

"Since when does interviewing a witness involve flirting?" Austin shot back.

"Just drop it," Justice said, clapping Austin on the back. "Besides, I've got something to go on."

"You got a lead?"

"Not much of one," Justice grunted. "But more than we had before. Our guy was posing as a patient."

"Do we know what he looks like?" Austin asked, an anxious, excited gleam to his eyes.

"No. His face was heavily bandaged, so we don't have a description," Justice replied. "I told you it wasn't much of a lead."

"Is that all? That's not much to go on."

"Also, he has a tattoo. Caroline told me he's got one on the inside of his right wrist. It's a pic of a flame if you can believe that. This guy's not much for subtlety." Justice started walking back to their car with Austin following behind him.

"Caroline?" Austin asked with a grin. Justice just glared at him and mouthed the word Kim. But Austin called his bluff this time and went on. "Did you do that thing with the business card and then feed her the line about calling if she thinks of anything else?"

Justice didn't respond. He just got in the car.

"Oh man, you did didn't you?" Austin lost it. He laughed for a good five minutes before he was finally able to quit. "That's so cheesy."

"Shut up," Justice told him, shooting him a warning look.

Austin shook his head and then started the car, blasting the heat. It was late autumn now and the weather had turned cold real fast. He waited a moment for the windows to defog and then peeled out, plastering Justice to the seat.

Justice's cell phone started ringing. He fished it out of the inside pocket of his coat and put it up to his ear.

"Monroe," he said.

"Justice. It's Gutierrez," Gutierrez said. "I've got a preliminary list of dead from the fire earlier today. Some of the bodies are still being identified but the Coroner managed to get confirmations on eleven people. You want me to read it to you?"

"Go for it," Justice replied. It couldn't hurt to have the information. After the fourth name was read, however, Justice stopped him. "Give me that last one back."

"Uh...Holstein, Dale." Gutierrez replied. He was about to continue but Justice hung up on him.

Facts and bits of information he'd gotten since this case first began started to fit together now. He double checked his memory to make sure he was right before he said anything out loud. Three out of the five places hit were connected to each other. Fact one...The floral shop was owned by Dale Holstein. Fact two...his girlfriend was Leanne Johnson, victim number two's mother. Fact three...now Dale turns up dead in the apartment fire. He wasn't sure what the other two places had in common, but three out of five was good enough for him.