Thank you for noticing.
An hour ago, I'd been sitting in this same spot, laughing with Millie about kind boys who show up. Watching Shane cook dinner like he belonged here. Feeling, for the first time in years, like I had a family.
Now I was holding a card from a child I'd failed.
Tommy wasn't targeting random schools.
He was building toward me.
And every school he burned was one step closer to me.
CHAPTER 13
Shane
I still went hometo my apartment after the shift.
Technically. I kept clothes there, paid rent there, and slept there occasionally when Maya had an early morning or Zoe had a friend sleeping over. But most of my time was spent in a cramped Queens apartment that smelled like coffee and dry-erase markers and something floral from the shampoo Maya used.
My toothbrush lived in her bathroom now. My jacket hung on her coat rack. Even my coffee mug sat in her cabinet like it had always been there
I was building a life with her. With both of them. And it felt more real than anything I'd had in years.
But Tommy Vickers hung over everything.
I couldn't stop thinking about him. I couldn't stop picturing the kid Maya had described. Ten years old. Small for his age. Flinching when adults moved too fast. Coming to school hungry. Wearing the same clothes. Hiding bruises under long sleeves.
A kid who'd trusted Maya, who'd written her a card thanking her for noticing him.
And then he'd vanished into a system that was supposed to save him and instead had chewed him up and spit him out.
Now he was nineteen. Burning schools. Spray-painting messages on walls in letters that slanted backward.
You forgot us.
They left us to burn.
Maya was his target. I knew it in my gut, the same way I knew when a building was about to come down on its own. The other schools were practice. Warm-ups. Tests. Tommy was working up the nerve to face the woman who'd changed everything.
I'd seen what fire did to people. I’d pulled bodies from buildings, watched families lose everything in the time it took to make a phone call. I knew the smell of smoke and burning flesh. Knew the sound of screams. Knew the weight of carrying someone out and not knowing if they'd make it.
The thought of Maya in Tommy's crosshairs made me feel sick in a way I couldn’t shake off.
I had to do something. I couldn’t just wait for him to make his move.
Not when Maya was in his sights.
I found Captain Rodriguez first thing when I came back on shift.
"I know who the arsonist is," I said.
Rodriguez's coffee cup stopped halfway to his mouth. "What?"
I pulled the card from my jacket pocket. Yellowed, edges softened by time. Careful letters from a child who'd been trying so hard to be neat.
Thank you for the granola bars. Thank you for noticing. —Tommy V.
I set it on his desk next to my phone, which showed the crime scene photos. The spray-painted messages. The backward slant. The distinctive T's.
