She took off, and he lengthened his strides to catch up.
They neared the blaze that still roared in the first building like a flickering monster hungry for the wood, and the heat knocked him back. They skirted the flames dancing and licking as sparks jumped from place to place, desperately trying to catch onto fuel before burning out. The smoke thickened and darkened the area decimated by the bomb. It had not only flattened the building and felled several trees but also charred the ground.
“Looks like a burnover,” Ryan said from behind the last standing wall. “The area burned hot and fast, leaving only embers.”
Ryleigh surged ahead and rounded the wall. The roar of the nearby flames filled the air, but Ryleigh’s gasp sounded above the hum of destruction.
He turned the corner. She stood over the victim charred beyond recognition, her eyes wide, her hand clamped over her mask. The victim was lying on his side, his limbs pulled tight against his torso.
Horrific. Like many of the tragedies Finn had seen as a SEAL. He’d learned the victim’s position was called the pugilistic stance—pugilistic meaning boxing. When a body burned, the elbows and knees constricted and fists clenched in the heat due to the shrinkage of body tissues and muscle dehydration—resembling a boxer’s stance. Charred, black debris surrounded him, and glowing embers were the only hints of fire trying to stay alive.
Question was, who had succumbed to the fire?
The burly day supervisor, Virgil Eckles, stood over the victim. His eyes were tight, his body rigid.
Finn stepped over to him. “Can you ID this guy?”
“Smokey.” The name came out on a choking sound, and Eckles looked away.
“Smokey, really?” Finn shot another look at the body to see if he could recognize the night supervisor. The man oversaw the last half of a fifteen-hour work day in the summer when there was an abundance of light outside to move logs and materials.
But this guy? The body, if you could even call it that, was Smokey?
No way Finn could ID the victim by sight. “You’re sure?”
Eckles glanced back at the victim. “I mean, I can’t be one hundred percent sure, but what’s left of those boots are Smokey’s.”
“I’m not familiar with Smokey,” Ryleigh said, her tone tight.
“The night supervisor, Uri Gates. Got the nickname on his first logging job when he started a fire with a chainsaw. The name stuck with him. Anyway, that hunk of boot that’s left is his. His right leg is shorter than the other, and his right boot has a custom lift.”
Finn gave a side glance at Ryan. “How on earth did that piece of boot survive the blaze?”
Ryan pointed at a steel spade lying near the body. “It must’ve fallen onto the tip of his foot and blocked the fire. I moved it to see if there was a lead on his ID.”
“Why didn’t the shovel melt?” Ryleigh asked.
“Steel melts at two thousand degrees,” Ryan said. “Must not have gotten that hot in this area.”
Ryleigh squatted, her focus pinned on the remaining piece. “If his boots are custom, not likely that someone else would be wearing them. Or perhaps that’s not a lift, and the sole is that thick. Could someone else have a similar pair without a lift?”
“Not likely anyone on our crews.” Eckles shoved his hands into his pockets. “That brand’s price is out of reach for most of us. You could buy a couple pairs of sturdy work boots for one pair of those.”
“So why can Gates afford them?” Finn asked.
Eckles cocked his head. “He’s too new. Don’t know a lot about him, so I can’t say.”
Maybe he was paid to plant a bomb.“What was he doing here at this time of day?”
Eckles shrugged. “Could’ve come in a few hours early for his shift, but I doubt it. He didn’t seem like the go-getter type to me. Didn’t even know he was here.”
“That’s odd, right?” Ryleigh asked.
“Yeah,” Eckles said. “He had to know Tobias wouldn’t be here, and there would only be a skeleton crew doing maintenance. He’d pretty much have the place to himself.”
“You think he had something to do with the bomb?” Ryan asked, sirens sounding from the road.
Eckles narrowed his eyes. “Just don’t know him well enough to speculate, but him being here instead of at lunch with the othersissuspicious.”
