Page 46 of Sizzle
“And I’ll set up a perimeter,” Gamble said. They’d assisted on enough cases that had required either investigations or accident reconstruction for them all to have been trained in how to preserve a scene until the police arrived, and Sam was damned glad for Gamble’s quick thinking, because his brain? Yeah, not letting go of the look on Lucy’s face anytime soon.
“Jesus, Lucy,” Shae said, her worry on full display. “What happened? Why are you guys here so late? And why would someone do this to your car?”
The direct questions seemed to cement Lucy’s focus, and she took a deep breath. “I don’t know what happened, exactly. My SUV was on fire when we got here, and I have no idea who could’ve done it. As for why we’re here so late, that’s…kind of a long story.”
Shae’s light brown brows shot upward. “Not to put too fine a point on it, but Gamble is stringing up caution tape, Kellan’s calling in the cavalry, and I just hit your car with the entire contents of a twenty-pound fire extinguisher to keep it from exploding like a roman candle on the Fourth of July. You wanna at least give me the highlights, here?”
“You’ve got to admit, it’s kind of a fair question,” Sam murmured to Lucy. Neither Nat nor Isabella nor Captain Bridges had said anything about their work with the arson investigation unit being on the down low. There was no reason to keep it a secret.
Nodding, Lucy gave Shae the condensed version of how she and Sam had stumbled on evidence of arson at the warehouse and agreed to help Nat and Intelligence with the investigation. Gamble and Kellan had rejoined them by the end of the recounting, and Kellan frowned, looking around the scene.
“So, you think someone did this to your SUV on purpose?”
“I took it in for service a month ago, and everything looked great. It’s got”—she paused. Closed her eyes briefly. Reset—“hadless than sixty thousand miles on it. Plus, it wasn’t an electric vehicle, so there’s no chance it was a battery fire. I haven’t even been in it since early this morning. I don’t see how it could’ve been anything other than arson.”
“It would explain the windows being smashed,” Shae said. “That would give whoever did this access to the SUV’s interior.”
“And give the fire room to spread quickly,” Sam added, his gut bottoming out. This fire hadn’t been a bit of impulsive vandalism. It was too well-planned for that.
Gamble shook his head. “Okay, but who would torch a parked vehicle?”
“Therehavebeen a handful of fires like this around the city lately,” Kellan said, sparking recognition on Lucy’s face and in Sam’s head.
“A couple of abandoned cars and storage sheds, right?” she asked.
“I think so. Isabella said they were being investigated as vandalism cases. Maybe this is the same person or group of people?”
“Maybe,” Lucy said, then nodded. “Yeah, probably. I got a video of the fire. I’m not sure if it’ll help, but—oh.My phone.”
“Oh!” Shae reached into her coat pocket, pulling out Lucy’s phone. “Here. I recognized your phone case. It was on the ground over there. I didn’t see it until after the fire was out, though.”
A pang unfolded in Sam’s belly as he replayed the fire in his head, and shit. He must have dropped her phone when he’d pulled her away from the flare up.
The pang morphed into full-on despair as he realized how much water surrounded her SUV. “Does it still work?”
“No,” she said, looking up from the device, her expression matching the dread coursing through him.
“All the evidence we had is gone.”
* * *
Malachi watched from the shadows,unable to contain his excitement even though the fire he’d set in Lucy de Costa’s SUV had been put out. Enough of the vehicle had burned to render it destroyed, and while the thought of it burning until even the tires had melted and the metal had warped, then transformed into brittle ash, held obvious appeal, this fire would do. It had served its purpose, allowing him an outlet while sending a much-needed warning.
The terror on Lucy’s face as she’d watched her SUV burn had told him his message had been received. The way Sam had protected her at all costs had told Malachi even more, and oh, how he could use it to suit his purpose.
Keeping his binoculars pressed to his face, he continued to watch from the safety of his car, nestled in a dark lot among a half dozen delivery vehicles that had been abandoned for the night hours ago. The flower shop’s parking lot was adjacent to the rear of the fire academy, separated by a grassy slope and a smattering of small trees. Malachi had mourned the fact that he’d had to take cover too far away to hear the conversation unfolding between Sam, Lucy, and the firefighters and detectives who had arrived at the scene. Knowing their theories would’ve been helpful. But in the end, they’d never figure out who he was, let alone find him. He was going to fulfil his plan without getting caught. He would have completion.
Like father, like son, his ass.
After his second efforts had been thwarted at the warehouse, Malachi had divided his time between keeping tabs on the redhead running the arson investigation—Nat Delacourt, he’d uncovered easily enough—and following Sam and Lucy from a safe distance. Nat, he’d wanted to monitor simply to cover his bases. As good as he was, going after her directly would attract the sort of attention he couldn’t have. But he could still punish Sam and Lucy for keeping him from his goal, not once, but twice now.
And so it had become his temporary mission. For $19.99 apiece, Malachi had learned every address they’d ever had. Where they’d gone to school. What their credit looked like. He’d followed them carefully, discovering who their neighbors were and when they were home. Where they grocery shopped, went to the gym. Sam and Lucy had made it easy for him by spending a large amount of time together over the weekend, mostly at Sam’s apartment. Malachi would bet they were fucking. He’d never seen them get too personal, not even when he’d watched them through the windows, and they hadn’t spent the night together since he’d been keeping tabs on them. But the way Sam looked at her, especially when she wasn’t looking back?
Yeah. Malachi wasn’t stupid. At the very least, the guy wanted to get in her pants.
It would make him easy to control.
Malachi’s original plan had been to set fire to Sam’s Jeep later tonight. He’d wanted to strike out at Sam hardest.He’dbeen the one to come running into the warehouse in the first place. It washisfault the place hadn’t burned all the way to the ground as it should have. As it was meant to. Malachi had cased Sam’s housing complex enough to know he’d get away with it, too. Suburban neighborhood like that, at two in the morning, with no security cameras on half of the parking area and plenty of shadows to hide in? Christ, it would have been too easy. No one would’ve seen him,ornoticed the fire until the damage was done.