Page 105 of Flint’s Strike

“You’re kidding.”

Nate slides the thumb drive into his laptop. “Afraid not. Databases don’t usually wake up in the middle of the night and edit themselves.”

“We’ve got a subpoena request in for BRYCER’s logs,” Parker says. “Soon as it comes through, we’ll know who made the change and when.”

“Assuming they didn’t find a way to scrub that, too.” AJ runs a hand through his hair, leaving a few strands sticking up.

“If they did,” Nate replies, sending the first page of my report from his laptop to the monitor on the wall, “that’s a whole different level of problem.”

“We cannot bring Zephyr in on this.” AJ stares Nate down, then turns his gaze to Parker. “You hear me?”

I glance at the three of them. Parker and Nate both look a little guilty.

“Who’s Zephyr?”

Parker clears her throat. “A…friend.” Nate rolls his eyes, and Parker cuts him a look. “A friend who’s exceptionally good with computers.”

“The kind of skill that comes with paperwork I’d rather not do,” Nate says.

AJ shakes his head. “She’s a hacker. A brilliant one. Which is why she’s staying as far away from this investigation as humanly possible.”

“Got it. Well, I hate to add to the day’s problems, but I brought you a couple more.”

Nate sighs. “Please tell me one of them directly leads to somebody going to prison.”

“Eventually.” I reorder the papers I dropped, and find the page Nate has on the monitor. “But probably not today.”

“Go ahead.” AJ settles against the wall again, arms crossed. “We’re listenin’.”

“The first problem is the fire suppression system.”

Nate passes me the remote, and I click on the first photo. “The water supply’s live, fire pump’s installed, powered, all gauges are in the green.”

Parker tilts her head. “But?”

“But the pressure switch that tells the pump to turn on was wired to the wrong setpoint.” I aim the laser pointer at the control assembly. “When the sprinklers activate, the system pressure drops. That drop should signal the pump to boost it up again.”

AJ stares at the monitor, a line forming between his brows. “I’m gonna need a little more.”

“Think of it like this. You put a new thermostat in your house in the middle of June, then set the heat to turn on at sixty-six degrees. The installer tests the heat. Hot air comes out of your vents just fine, and he leaves. This part of Texas—hell, any part of Texas—you won’t need heat until at least October or November. You wake up the first mornin’ it’s below freezing, and it’s forty-seven degrees in your house. That’s how you find out the temperature wasn’t set right in the first place.”

The purple highlighter Nate’s been spinning between his fingers stops moving entirely. “So…you’re sayin’ no inspector could have caught this?”

“Oh, they should’ve caught it. You can’t sign off on an inspection without a pressure test.” I move to the next image—a wide shot of the pump room—and aim the laser pointer at a valve near the ceiling. “Hook a hose up here, discharge the water outside, and force the pressure to drop. The pump should start automatically. Takes maybe twenty minutes to confirm everything’s workin’ properly.”

Nate sets the highlighter down next to his legal pad. “So Kessler either skipped the test⁠—”

“Or signed paperwork saying it passed when it didn’t,” Parker finishes.

I move on to the next set of images. “This second issue is older. The beams and columns were coated. But at the joints…nothin’. Bare steel. The pump issue? That could’ve happened when they did the retrofit three years ago. But the joints? They were never coated. The building’s eight years old. Almost nine.”

Parker reaches for her Dr. Pepper, but pauses with the can halfway to her lips. A bead of condensation hits the table. “Well, shit.”

Nate flips back through his legal pad, scans the page, and flips forward again. His brow furrows. “Say that again? The joints were never coated?”

“Nope.” I point the laser at the photo. “The weathering’s consistent across every exposed connection. That’s original construction.”

With a sigh, Nate reaches for his laptop. “I’m gonna need a bigger spreadsheet.”