Fire Spirit by Graham Masterton Page B

the lab, couldn’t you, and run some tests on it?’
    At that moment Amelia came back downstairs again. Ruth hid the math book behind her back but Amelia said, ‘It’s all right, Mom. I know what you’ve been talking about. I really don’t mind. I get it all the time at school.’
    â€˜I’m sorry, sweetheart,’ said Ruth. ‘We’re worried about you, that’s all.’
    â€˜I heard the voice again,’ Amelia told her.
    â€˜When?’
    â€˜Only a minute ago, in my room. It was the same voice, inside my head. It said, “ Andie’s ashes ”.’
    â€˜â€œAndie’s ashes?” Are you sure?’
    Amelia nodded, and kept on nodding, like a dipping duck. ‘It was him. I know it was. The Creepy Kid. I don’t think he means me to hear him, but I do.’
    Ruth went to the living-room window and looked out at the front yard, and Craig came up close behind her and laid his hand on her shoulder.
    â€˜I can’t see him,’ she said. There was nobody out on the street except for an elderly man in dark glasses and flappy gray shorts, walking an overweight spaniel.
    â€˜That’s because he doesn’t want you to see him. But he hasn’t gone away.’
    The phone suddenly warbled, right next to her, and it made Ruth start. Craig picked it up and said, ‘Cutter’s Kitchens. Craig Cutter here. How can I help you?’
    He listened, and then he passed the receiver over to Ruth. ‘It’s Jack. He says they’ve found another one.’

SEVEN
    S he lugged her heavy metal case along the corridor and into the open door of the victim’s apartment. Tyson trotted close to heel behind her, but already he was sniffing and snuffling and letting out little sneezes of excitement.
    Bob Kowalski was standing in the living-room talking to a young woman detective, Sandra Garnet. Detective Garnet was red-haired and freckly, with upswept eyeglasses and an olive green suit that was a little too tight across the rump, but she was very pretty and chatty and Bob Kowalski always said that he would have asked her to marry him if he hadn’t been married already, and she hadn’t been fifteen years too young for him.
    â€˜The vic’s in the bathroom,’ said Bob. ‘Just as badly burned as yesterday’s unfortunate young lady, but at least we’re pretty sure who she is.’
    Ruth looked around. She knew that this apartment complex on West Rainbow Drive, on the south-east side of Kokomo, had been built less than four-and-a-half years ago. Craig had been contracted to fit the kitchens, and it had been one of his first really big contracts.
    It was poignantly obvious that the victim had lived here alone. A single pair of worn pink slippers was peeping out from under the couch, and on the kitchen counter stood a single yellow coffee mug with the name Tilda painted on it. Along the window sill there was an arrangement of framed photographs of a chubby, smiling young woman, some taken with a grumpy gray-haired woman who looked like her mother, and others with a group of girls in blue blazers and white blouses. No photographs with men.
    Detective Garnet said, ‘The deceased is too badly burned to identify one hundred per cent, but it’s almost certain that it’s Tilda Frieburg, who rents this apartment. She’s a twenty-three-year-old tele-salesperson who works for Allstate Insurance, 452 West King Street.’
    â€˜What the hell happened in here?’ asked Ruth. The glass-topped coffee table was shattered, with two of its legs splayed out, and the rug underneath it was rucked up. Several colorful cushions were scattered on the floor, all of them spattered with blood. In the far corner of the room, beside the door that led to the bathroom, rested an apple with teeth-marks in it. The beige carpet was stained with damp, and there was a strong, acrid odor in the room.
    â€˜It looks like Ms Frieburg was