I cleared my throat. "I've already looked into the buildings that were targeted."
Sloane's head came up. Whatever she'd been about to say—whatever professional opening she'd prepared—dissolved. "When?"
"After the second fire. Something about the pattern felt familiar." I pulled my folder from the stack. "Every single property has a history of fire safety violations. Exposed wiring. Blocked exits. Faulty sprinkler systems. The works."
She took the folder. Flipped through it. That crease appeared between her eyebrows—the one that meant she was connecting dots.
"These violations were reported," she said slowly. "But nothing was enforced."
"Not a single one."
Sloane tapped her pen against the folder, eyes still scanning. "Same owners?"
"Different names on paper. But follow the shell companies back far enough and you hit the same handful of players." I spread out the ownership records I'd traced. "A holding company called Apex Properties that exists only on paper. They own half the firetraps in Queens and a good chunk of Manhattan."
"So we should be looking at the landlords." She looked up. "You think someone in the department is helping them bury these violations?"
"You don't ignore this many reports by accident."
"Payoffs?"
"That's my guess. Three names keep showing up on the inspection reports. Different properties, different years, same signatures approving buildings that should've been condemned. I just can't prove the money trail yet."
She sat back. Looked at the map again. Then at my documentation. Then at me.
"So we have landlords bribing officials to ignore deadly violations. And now someone is burning down their buildings." She tapped her pen against her knee. "The question is why. Why these buildings? Why now?"
"Revenge is the obvious answer. Someone who got hurt by the negligence. Lost property. Lost family."
"That's a long list. These landlords have been operating for years."
"Which means our arsonist has been waiting. Planning." I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.
"Someone with inside knowledge."
"Or someone who's done their homework."
Sloane was deep in the documents now. That laser focus I remembered from years ago. When she worked, the rest of the world disappeared. She'd forget to eat. Forget to sleep. Forget everything except the thread she was pulling.
I used to love watching her work. Used to bring her coffee at midnight and leave it on her desk without interrupting, just so she'd have something warm when she finally surfaced.
I pulled up the delivery app on my phone.
Twenty minutes later, the food arrived.
Sloane looked up when I set the containers on the coffee table, pushing aside papers to make room.
Pad Thai with extra peanuts. Green Curry, mild.
She went still.
"Eat." It was all I could manage.
She smiled, small, surprised, and picked up the box I'd laid in front of her.
We ate surrounded by evidence of systemic corruption, and for a little while, it almost felt normal. Easy.
Like the eight years between us were just a pause, a held breath, not an ending.
