He trailed off and spread his hands. What else would it be? Boyd exhaled raggedly and scratched his jaw.
“Okay,” he said. “Once I finish in here, I’ll give him a call and check up on him.”
Jessie looked relieved to have passed on the responsibility. He hopped to his feet and grabbed a handful of wrinkled sheets and crumpled pillowcases off the floor.
“I’ll stick these in the laundry,” he said. “Take that off your plate.”
“Thanks.”
Jessie got a few steps down the stairs and paused. He shifted the ball of laundry in his arms and glanced over the banister at Boyd.
“Look, who am I to judge,” he said awkwardly. “I mean, it’s weird, but who isn’t, huh? I wouldn’t want to be married to Tom’s wife, but he seems happy.”
Boyd shrugged and shooed the cat out of her pillow nest. She laid her singed ears back, swatted him, and left a raw sting of blood across his knuckles that made him hiss.
“It’s all right,” he said as he licked the blood off his knuckles. “I want him more than I want you to like him.”
There was a pause, and then Jessie shook his head. “Well, fuck,” he said. “I guess I know why none of my boyfriends work out, then.”
The cat, fluffed and indignant, stayed to watch as Boyd finished the last of the beds. He left her to sleep on one of the pillows, curled up so her tail was in the sun, and headed downstairs. The linens were in the wash, and he could have taken a break, but instead he finished the rest of the chores on his list. It took half an hour to run out of excuses.
Boyd tipped the soapy water from the windows down the drain in the street outside. As it drained away, he tossed the bucket back inside and fished his phone out of his pocket. He leaned against the damp windowsill as he called Shay and then waited.
The call rang through to voicemail twice. Boyd hung up each time without leaving a message. On the third call, he hung on through Shay’s lazy message and waited for the tone. Then he waited some more as his brain fizzed noisily around silence.
“Shit,” he muttered on autopilot, and that reminded him of the other words. “Sorry, look, it’s Boyd. You probably know that.”
He leaned his head back against the glass and made a face. Tattered strips of clouds trailed through the crayon-blue sky. “Hopefully you’re screening my calls, not passed out over a hot grill. Or something. I know we’re still pissed at each other, but let me know you’re not dead? You know this isn’t going to fix anything, Shay. It never does. Just—”
The siren went off inside the station. Boyd cut the call short and shoved himself off the wall. He could finish the call to Shay later. Or not. If Shay didn’t want to talk to him, maybe he should respect that. Right now—Danni tossed him his gear as he loped back inside—he had work to do.
“We’ve got a vehicle fire on Elmwood,” Harry barked as he strode out of the office, jacket half-on. “Two cars involved so far. Suit up and let’s go.”
TWO CARS.
Three houses, no fatalities, but two elderly homeowners taken to the hospital.
One school bus, parked outside the elementary school.
The old equipment shed out at the derelict factory.
“You smell that?” Danni asked as she pulled her SCBA off. Her nose and around her mouth was grimy with soot. “Gasoline. Same as the rest.”
Boyd raked his fingers through his hair. It was drenched with sweat and matted to his head, itchy behind his ears and at the nape of his neck.Shedmade the space sound small, but it was a barn-sized steel box cluttered with machine parts, office furniture, and two forklift trucks. Plenty to burn, once it started, and the metal walls had been hot enough to glow by the time the fire truck got there from town.
Tom and Jessie were still at it outside, hoses turned on the sides of the structure to cool them down. The walls cracked and groaned in protest at the cold bath.
“Think someone’s discovered the joys of arson?” he asked.
Danni wrinkled her nose and wiped her hand over her mouth. Under the soot, her skin was flushed red.
“Weird targets, though,” she said. “Kids with lighters and a weird tickle in their pants usually start small—bonfires in the woods, small fires in derelict houses, that sort of thing. And they usually like to watch us put it out. Out here we’d have seen them a mile off.”
Scraps of burned paper floated in the runoff of grimy water that covered the floor. It sloshed around Boyd’s feet and darkened as each step stirred up ashes and mud. He kicked something that clinked, so he bent down to fish a bottle out from under the charred remains of a desk—a whiskey bottle, label half-peeled off from being soaked, and still half full of booze.
“Looks like someone has been camped out here,” he said as he held it up to show her. “There’s an old mattress back there too—what’s left of it—and some clothes.”
Danni splashed over and took the bottle from him with a laugh. “Got drunk and set fire to his own shit, huh?” She turned the bottle around, smoothed a dangling bit of label back into place, and whistled softly. “Good taste in whiskey, if nothing else. This stuff isn’t cheap. Remind me to tell Mac that our firebug could have hit a liquor store.”
