Page 119 of Burning Caine

“Can I sit?” She took the seat from Nancy, who seemed uncomfortable, but not enough to decline any of our requests.

“Play the one covering ten that morning,” I told her.

“On it, boss.” She cued up the video. The timestamp read 8:00 a.m. and nothing was happening.

“Fast forward to when the fire starts.”

She dragged the progress bar slowly forward, until I saw it.

I grabbed her shoulder. “Stop! Back it up!”

She was already doing it. 10:22 a.m. The fire wasn’t yet visible. But something else was. Lucy gaped. My stomach did a cartwheel.

Nancy slammed a hand over her mouth. “Is that what I think it is?”

“It sure is. Do we have your permission to forward these to Foster Mutual and then Brenton PD?”

Nancy nodded slowly, taking the seat back from Lucy.

Chapter 47

Samantha

Iforwardedthesecurityvideo to Janelle with the subject line,Merry Christmas—I’ll be at the station in 15 minutes. When we arrived, she was waiting on the front steps. Good sign.

“What’s this?” she demanded.

“You watch it yet?” I took the steps two at a time.

“Of course not.” She frowned at me. “Sounded like a virus.”

My shoulders dropped. “C’mon, we need a big screen to watch it.” I grabbed her arm.

“Why?” She removed my hand and didn’t budge from her spot in front of the doors.

“Evidence on the Scott claim.” I rubbed my hands together. “You’re gonna love this!”

Janelle looked over at a still exhausted Lucy. “What’s her problem?”

“She’s out of shape. C’mon, let’s go.”

She signed us in with visitor’s badges, and we headed toward one of their meeting rooms. As we walked, she hollered, “Slater!” and Jimmy’s head popped up. “Let’s go!”

We were all sitting in the room when Jimmy arrived, carefree as always. “Heya, Sammy!”

Janelle gave him one of her customary glares as she started up the computer locked to the meeting room desk. She logged in and called up her email account, grabbed the video file, and hit play on the big screen.

“So what is it, Sam?”

“Security camera footage from a house across the river.” I could barely sit still, waiting to see her reaction. “We were working a vandalism claim, and we stumbled across it.”

Lucy instructed her to fast forward to 10:20. Janelle advanced it and hit play again. A couple of minutes later, we all saw it, grainy and fuzzy, but obvious.

A figure emerged from the back of the house, dressed in black from head to foot. It stopped briefly and then walked across the back yard and through the door in the fence to Kathy Becker’s house. We kept watching until the flames were visible in the windows, and the smoke started seeping out of the living room.

Her eyes grew wide as she watched the figure and the fire.

“I knew it!” She pounded the table and launched herself up to get closer to the screen. “Goddamnit, I knew it! Jimmy, get the Chief!”