“The nearest electrical source to either ignition point is over a dozen feet away.There’s no outlet, no junction box, no light fixture, no wiring of any kind in the locations where both fires started.Given that there were the circuit breakers between the two ignition points mean no single electrical failure could have sparked in both locations.Any surge at one ignition point would have been stopped before it traveled to the second ignition point.With me so far?”
She nodded.“Electricity didn’t start the fire.”
“Correct.”
He moved to Tucker’s photographs.“The stalls had heavy wooden doors with steel latches.The horses were contained.No animal knocked over a heat source or kicked something into the aisle.The stall design rules that out completely.”
She took a sip of water.It did nothing to alleviate the dryness in her mouth.
“The hay was stored in the west end of the loft.The eastern ignition point—” he tapped the floor plan, “was under the upstairs office.There was nothing flammable above it to fall, combust, or smolder.”
He continued, “I’ll show you evidence in a minute that rules out hay catching fire from something like a cigarette or match.In fact, no material commonly found in a horse barn burns anywhere near hot enough to explain the heat at both ignition points ...”
“Gray.”
He turned to face her, surprised.“Do you have a question?”
“No.Just say it.”
His gaze was steady.Not cold—she’d never seen his eyes look cold—but right now, his expression was stripped of everything except the truth he was slow-walking her to.
He nodded.“Okay.”
“Okay.”
He spoke clearly.Clinically.A professional presenting information he was absolutely certain of.“I have eliminated every accidental cause as a possible source of ignition.The fire in that barn was set deliberately.”
The words landed with the sound of stones dropping into still water.She felt them sinking through her, passing through the layers of things she’d believed, things she’d told herself, and things she’d rebuilt her life around for the past four years.The words hit bottom and settled somewhere deep and cold at the bottom of her heart.
“There’s more,” he said quietly.
Her gaze snapped to his in dismay.
“Do you need a minute or are you ready to continue?”he asked.
Part of her appreciated his quiet mercilessness.Without it, she would already be out of here, running away as fast and far from everything in this room as she could get.Including him.
But she knew he wasn’t going to let her out of here until she’d seen every single horrible, unthinkable fact he’d meticulously collected.
“Go on,” she managed to croak past her sawdust dry throat.
He pointed to the mechanical systems page.The red lines she hadn’t understood the first time she’d seen them in the storage unit.“The approved blueprints include a complete fire suppression system.These red lines depict pressurized, wet-pipe sprinklers placed at forty-foot intervals throughout the barn, upstairs and down.This is a thirty-thousand-gallon pressurized water tank beside the well house.And these are supply lines running underground from the tank to the barn.”
She stared at the thin red lines on the blueprint.Precise and everywhere, like veins in a body.Horror blossomed in her belly.
He continued inexorably, “If this system had been installed and operational, it would have soaked the loft, cooled the fire, displaced the oxygen fueling it.It wouldn’t necessarily have saved the barn given how hot the accelerants used to start the fire burned.”
She could see him choosing his next words with the care of a man walking across thin ice.
“But sprinklers would have slowed the fire long enough for the men inside to get the horses out.And to get themselves out.”
She was ...staggered.Aghast.
A blanket of shock descended over her.She recognized it because the same thing had happened the day the Apple Creek Fire Chief told the wives gathered here at the firehouse that all their husbands had died.
Her thoughts jumped around like panicked wild animals trying to escape a trap.
“Ellie,” she said randomly.“You asked her if there were sprinklers, didn’t you?”
