"I'll be right there," Mabs said weakly. "Thanks."
"No problem at all." He hung up and called Sabrina, who picked up with a grim, "I know."
"I—oh. Okay. Yeah. I'm right outside the site," Luke said helplessly. "The firefighters are taking care of it."
"I'm around the corner," Sabrina said, and when he glanced back toward town, it was to discover she meant it literally: she was now striding up the street toward them, her expression stressed, worried, and angry all at once. Noah didn't even glance her way, all his attention still completely focused on the fire, and from the strain in how he leaned toward the site, Luke thought he still shouldn't let the kid go.
"I think it only just started," Luke said as Sabrina hurried up to them. "Noah was watching when I got here, but I called the fire department less than ten minutes ago, and they're here already."
"I guess this answers how upset some people are about the train coming back," Sabrina said in a low, tense voice.
"They don't need to be," Noah said in a similarly strained voice. "Nothing is ever going to hurt Virtue."
The two adults exchanged looks over Noah's head, and Luke squeezed his shoulder again. "I'm sure you're right, buddy. Look, your mom's on the way, okay? Why don't we step back a little?"
"Not until the fire is out!"
Sabrina wrinkled her forehead at the kid, then at Luke, who shrugged and stayed put, making sure Noah didn't throw himself forward the way he seemed to want to. His mom, a short, purple-haired woman, arrived a few minutes later, breathless and with a toddler in tow. The little one threw herself at Noah with a happy shriek. He hugged her, but still refused to stop watching the fire, even when Mabs tried to draw him away. After a couple of tries, she, like Luke, kind of shrugged and gave up, choosing to hold onto the kids instead of fighting over Noah's insistence.
She also murmured, "Thanks," to Luke, who nodded and took a cautious step back, not wanting to get too far away in case Noah needed collaring again. Mabs wasn't much bigger than Sabrina, and already had a three year old to contend with. Luke figured his longer reach might be useful.
All at once, though, Noah relaxed so completely he almost fell, and his mom caught him in a hug before finally convincing him to come with her. "No, you don't have to go to school," she said to Noah's murmur, and cast one more thankful smile at Luke. They made their way down the street as somebody from the fire department approached Luke and Sabrina.
"Chief Brady," he said to both of them, and offered a hand first to Luke, then to Sabrina before saying, "You're the construction lead here?"
Sabrina shook her head. "I'm the architect. The construction lead is Tiffany Wright, with Wright Construction. But we had a late start time today, so I'm praying nobody was on site?"
"Not a soul. You called it in?" he asked Luke.
Luke wobbled a hand. "I called it in, but Noah Brannigan saw it first and told me to."
"That kid probably saved half the town," Brady said bluntly. "There's accelerant all over the place in there. If it had gone up, the wind would have carried it everywhere."
"Accelerant," Sabrina said faintly. "You mean arson?"
"I'm afraid so. I'm sorry, Ms…?"
"Keep. Sabrina Keep."
"I'm sorry, Ms. Keep, but your building site is a crime scene now."
CHAPTER 19
Sabrina swayed and, without meaning to, put her hand out toward Luke for support. He was there immediately, like he'd always been there, knowing what she needed, and like he always would be. She echoed, "Crime scene," because she had to say it aloud to understand it. "Do you know who…?"
"Not yet." Chief Brady was of medium height, but Sabrina couldn't really tell what his build was like, under the soot-stained fire gear. "Hopefully we, in conjunction with the police, will be able to figure it out. I've got to tell you, though, Ms. Keep, you're actually incredibly lucky. The town is," he repeated. "I don't knowwhyit didn't go up like a box of matches, with the amount of gasoline that had been poured around the site, but the fire was contained to a relatively small area. I'm afraid it still means a lot of the original structure has been lost. The whole back wall is gone, and an electrical shed behind it, but it could have been much, much worse."
"God. My God. But nobody was in there?"
Brady shook his head. "There are the remains of a primitive ignition device where it started, and it looks like it was on a timer of some kind. Whoever set this did so—last night?"
"Any time since Friday evening," Sabrina whispered. "The crew had the long weekend off, and we had a late start planned for this morning because getting up early after a holiday weekend always sucks, so I try not to make people do it."
"You probably saved some lives that way. I don't know why…" The fire chief exhaled and shook his head again. "I'll have a lot of questions for the culprit when we find them. If they wanted the whole thing to burn, I don't know why they didn't set it ablaze at night when nobody would see it until it was too late."
"They must not have wanted to risk the town," Luke put in softly. "They must have wanted the station to burn, but for someone to see it in time to keep the town safe. Noah just saw it faster than they expected."
"And some kind of barrier blocked the accelerants from going up like tinder," Brady said flatly. "Wouldn't have mattered if the kid saw it early if those had ignited the way they should've. We'll run every test known to man to find out what kept it from catching, but whatever happened, thank God it did. The police are going to want to talk to you, Ms. Keep."
