Page 56 of Flint’s Strike

The interior is dimmer than it should be. The blown windows let in the light, but soot and ash absorb more than their fair share.

Starting with the least damaged unit—the one on the far end—I work my way through the building. Suites F and E, the last two storefronts, are completely empty and mostly intact. Smoke damage. Nothing more.

But by the center of the building, the ceiling tiles are gone, the grid that used to hold them warped in some sections, twisted and laying on the floor in others.

On the south wall of Unit C, I find a clear V pattern. It starts at floor level, spreading up and out in an almost perfect triangle six feet wide at the ceiling.

I crouch, stifling my groan as my body protests, and run the hydrocarbon detector along the floor at the base of the V, around a rough, two-foot area where the concrete’s one shade darker than everywhere else. I mark it, take half a dozen photos, and label my first sample can. Filling it with some of the fine debris—ash and small fragments of ceiling tiles and drywall—I seal it before I probe any further along the wall.

The official report can’t be filed until the lab processes everything, but I can smell the naphthalene through the respirator.

Before moving on, I sweep the flashlight along the ceiling. The smoke detector sits high on the wall in the far corner. I ease it out of the mount, expecting the wire tethering it to the electrical system to catch. It doesn’t.

Fuck.

All new construction requires smoke detectors to be hardwired with a battery backup. The small plastic compartment is empty. Whoever set this blaze didn’t leave a damn thing to chance.

I bag the entire thing, seal it up, and move to Unit B.

It’s lighter now, the summer sky visible through a hole in the roof. The gap in the ceiling assembly—the twelve-foot run Martez described—should never have been there. It channeled the fire up from the adjoining unit, into this one, and took the ceiling with it.

The flashover would have been terrifying. With no smoke alarm in the next unit, theirs would have gone off, and the whole fucking ceiling above them would have burst into flames seconds later.

The rear of the unit is cordoned off with more caution tape. Two yellow numbers almost glow in the disturbed ash—placards left behind. One for each victim.

Ducking under the tape, I start snapping pictures of the door. It takes me five shots before I understand the wrongness of what I’m looking at. I crouch down and run my fingers over the panic bar assembly.

Whoever mounted the damn thing flipped it around. The push rail is facing the hinges. Not the latch. No amount of force was ever going to open that door.

My hands shake, and I shove the camera back into my bag. The building should have been safe. The two victims—fuck, I don’t know their names or why they were here in the first place—should have gotten out easily.

Zack should have gotten out too.

One breath. Two. Three.

Sweat beads along the edge of my safety goggles and runs into my left eye. I try to wipe it away, but the angle’s wrong. Twisting my hard hat slightly, I manage to run the edge of my sleeve over my forehead.

A dry, sliding sound from above registers a second before a concentrated point of heat hits the back of my neck and left shoulder.

I land on my ass, swatting at my shirt through the coveralls until the sensation fades away.

Shit. That could’ve been a hell of a lot worse. I take another beat to calm my racing heart, and keep working.

Chapter Twenty-Two

Parker

APD has two uniforms stationed outside the tape. As soon as we duck under the perimeter, a sergeant strides over to us, thumbs hooked in his belt loops like we haven’t already clocked his badge and attitude.

“Captain Elmore,” I say, keeping my voice as sweet as spun sugar. “This is Captain Hardison.”

“Sergeant Thurgood. Wilson Thurgood. Didn’t know this was a Ranger operation,” he sneers.

“Three fires. Three counties.” Nate shrugs. “It is now.”

Thurgood doesn’t bother hiding his contempt. Nate and I didn’t make any friends in the weeks between Grace showing up in Mexico and the destruction of both the Blessed Flock and the Cordova Cartel.

“We’ve got this handled, Captain. We’re in the process of finishing our witness interviews⁠—”