"They can. They did." His voice was flat. Resigned in a way that made my chest ache. "We're borrowing from Engine 302 now. Forty minutes away on a good day."
He paused.
"What happens when we need it, and they're on a call?"
The donations. The shell companies. The systematic strangulation of a firehouse that refused to stop asking questions. They weren't just trying to close Engine 295. They were trying to cripple it first.
"We're close," I said. "The story is coming together. Marianne's ready to run it the moment we have everythinglocked down. Engine 295 isn't going to get shut down. I won't let it."
Silence. Then, quietly, "I hope you're right."
"I am." The confidence in my voice surprised even me. "Trust me."
I could hear him breathing. Could picture him in his bunk, staring at the ceiling the way I was staring at mine.
The last voice I heard before sleep.How had that become his again?
We used to do this. Talk until our voices went hoarse, then just breathe together, neither of us willing to hang up first.
"I should let you sleep." His voice was quieter now. "You need rest."
"So do you."
"Tomorrow evening? After you get home from work?"
"Yeah. I'll be here."
Silence. "Good night, Sloane."
"Good night, Garrett."
The line went dead.
I set my phone on the nightstand. Thermal imaging cameras and budget denials and the way his voice wrapped around my name—all tangled together in the dark.
Trust me.
I was going to earn it.
He showed up at my apartment the next evening with Thai food and his laptop.
We fell into our routine, files spread across the coffee table, containers of pad thai and green curry between us, the case consuming us the way it had for weeks. Garrett sat close enoughthat our knees almost touched. I'd stopped pretending I didn't notice.
I was cross-referencing the arson targets with the victim list when something clicked.
I sat back. Stared at my screen.
"What?" Garrett looked up from his own laptop. "You found something?"
"Maybe."
I pulled up an old file, one I hadn't looked at in years. The memory surfaced slowly, like something rising from deep water.
"The MO. The accelerant signature. The timing." I stared at the screen. "I've seen this before."
"Where?"
"Ten years ago. One of my first big stories." I turned my laptop toward him. "David Crane. He was setting fires in buildings owned by slumlords. Same targets. Same precision."
