Page 39 of Sizzle
Captain Bridges sat back to look at Sam, then Lucy. “I’m not thrilled that you two took it upon yourselves to go to the arson investigation office to talk your way back onto that scene. Everything you do reflects back on Seventeen, whether or not you do it on your own time, and you’re already on thin ice for breaking protocol. That said”—he paused to let out a slow exhale, his stare unwavering—“you did ask Nat’s permission, even if you didn’t ask mine, and that scene is her jurisdiction. Your instincts were on point, and the sooner we catch this arsonist, the better. If you’re willing to assist on this case, I’m not inclined to stand in your way. I’ll speak with Captain Nolan to reduce your service hours at the academy to time served, and you’ll assist the arson investigation unit and the RPD with this case until Nat no longer needs you. Then you’ll return to duty at Seventeen, as planned.”
Excitement flooded through Sam’s chest, his smile unstoppable as he said, “Thank you, sir.”
“Don’t thank me yet,” Bridges said. “Finding whoever started this fire is going to be an uphill battle, and Isabella and Nat are going to hold you to your word. If you set so much as a baby toe out of line, you’ll have a lot more to worry about than stair drills. Do I make myself clear?”
“Yes, sir,” both Sam and Lucy said in unison. Then, Lucy added, “So, when do we start?”
“We’ve got an arsonist on the loose and a hell of a lot of ground to cover,” Nat said. “I don’t see any reason to wait.”
* * *
Forty-five minutesand one very fast but much needed shower later, Sam’s enthusiasm had been kicked in the teeth. He’d convinced Lucy to leave her SUV at the academy and ride with him to the arson investigation office so they could come up with a plan for how to tackle this case. His brain—naturally—had been whirring at eight hundred miles an hour. But Lucy had simply started at the beginning, methodically going through what they knew and what they needed to know, until a process had formed between the two of them. The steadfast order she brought to everything, from how to perform a complicated wall breach in low visibility to how to decide what show to binge on a Saturday night, had allowed him to take a breath.
That breath jammed to a stop in his chest as soon as Nat walked them into the conference room at the back of the arson investigation office and he saw at least half a dozen piles of file folders stacked like towers over the table.
“Okay!” Nat said brightly, as Sam concealed his unease with a well-practiced smile. How had he not realized there would be this much paperwork to study? “Here are the case files, the information from the insurance company, and the lab reports.” She indicated three separate mountains of folders, and for a second, he wondered if stair drills might actually be easier than this.
“The video that Capelli took of the warehouse has been uploaded to this laptop, right here,” she continued, pointing to a laptop on the desk with an external monitor hooked up to it. “If you want to take the rest of today to get up to speed, we can set up a meeting with Isabella tomorrow for the three of you to really dig in. She’s on standby at the precinct, though, if you have any questions that can’t wait. The whiteboard is yours for the using, and there’s plenty of coffee in the kitchen down the hall. Most of us will be out on site today—there was a pretty big restaurant fire a couple of days ago that’s messy as hell. But I’ll check in later to see how you’re doing.”
“Thanks,” Lucy said. Her pinky finger brushed against Sam’s leg, so slightly that he’d swear it had been an accident. But the contact brought him out of his head, allowing him to focus enough to anchor in the moment.
“We’ll be sure to text if we need something,” he promised. They said a few quick goodbyes, and then it was just the three of them in the conference room—Sam, Lucy, and their gigantic mountain of file folders to read.
Which, to his surprise, Lucy ignored, gesturing to the laptop instead. “Why don’t we start where we left off and review the video of the scene first?”
“Works for me,” Sam said, his unease slipping another notch. He was far better at active tasks, like fire scene inspections—even if theywerevia video feed—than sifting through a bunch of files. He pulled out a chair, parking himself next to Lucy while she slid the laptop over to him.
“Do you want the honors?”
Ah, even better when he could get his hands moving, too. “Sure.”
He navigated through a couple of screens to pull up the video, then hit play. Images of the warehouse’s second floor rolled over the monitor in high definition, and the damage was even worse than Sam had expected.
“Damn,” he said, his pulse tapping at his throat at the sight of the scorched walls and gaping holes where parts of the floor had collapsed into the first level, below. The burn patterns clearly suggested that the fire had started here and traveled fast, and the rest of the video confirmed exactly what Nat had said it would.
“With this many points of origin, whoever set this fire clearly wanted the place to burn to the ground, and fast,” Sam said. “See how these paths all feed each other? If the arsonist started on the third floor, then worked his way down, that would explain this damage.”
“And the tinder soaked in accelerant would explain how quickly the flames spread,” Lucy added, then frowned. “But if the goal was to burn the place to the bricks—and I agree that it seems it was—why not just douse the place in kerosene, light a couple of matches, and be done with it?”
Sam looked at the monitor, her question tumbling through his brain, over and over. “Too obvious,” he said a beat later, and yeah,yeah,that made sense. “He wanted the fire to look accidental, like squatters had started it and it just spread out of control. I mean, that’s exactly what the fire marshal originally thought, right?”
“Yeah,” Lucy said, her tone encouraging him to keep talking.
He didn’t hesitate. “So, if he soaks the warehouse in accelerant, the fire would burn too fast. He’d risk not giving himself enough time to get out safely, not to mention potentially tipping us off to arson. As it was, you and I both noticed how quickly the fire was spreading. But if the arsonist had drenched the place and dropped a couple matches…”
“It would’ve been obvious that the fire had been set on purpose,” Lucy agreed. They’d both seen enough fires fed by flammable chemicals, albeit most of the time in training, to be able to spot the signs.
“Exactly.”Ideas snowballed into place in Sam’s head, one after the other, and God, how had he not seen it before? “But using accelerant-soaked tinder to ignite the place would work if the tinder was well placed. It would have the same end result, only the fire would burn just slowly enough not to make the arson obvious. If this guy started on the third floor and moved very fast, placing the tinder in just the right places, the whole building would go up like that.” Sam snapped.
Lucy sat up straighter beside him, sudden awareness painting her expression. “And if we’d let the place burn per protocol for an empty warehouse, any evidence proving that the fire had been set intentionally would’ve been destroyed.”
Holy shit, she was right. They’d never been meant to see any of this. The only reason the entire warehouse hadn’t burned to the ground had been because he’d impulsively run in to try and save the person he’d seen through the window.
The person who was, in all likelihood, the arsonist.
Sam put a pin in the realization, because it was that or let it stun him into uselessness. “And if ithadburned to the ground, the fire would’ve looked like enough of an accident that the fire marshal would’ve ruled it inconclusive, at the very least.”
Lucy nodded, her brown eyes lit with excitement. “Which means the warehouse wouldn’t be processed as a crime scene and the RFD wouldn’t have tested for traces of accelerant—”