Page 34 of Burning Justice

Minutes later, he held out his hand for Blaze’s lead, then pointed into the house. Blaze easily hopped up and in. Brett headed back into the debris and worked Blaze through the house, being careful to avoid any broken glass or other material that could slice open his dog’s paws. Minutes later, Blaze hadn’t alerted on anything. Whatever had caused this fire, accelerants weren’t involved.

A noise had him turn to find Gemma struggling to haul herself into the house. Decades-old images of the house fire that had killed his friends materialized front and center, followed by a searing-hot flash of panic. “Stay out of here! The beams and walls of this house are hanging on by a thread as it is.” The last thing he wanted was for her to get hurt, and it was easier for him to concentrate without worrying about someone else.

“I am not staying outside.” She tossed her portfolio across the threshold and began climbing up.

“Didn’t you hear me?” He grabbed the portfolio and tossed it on the grass outside the house. “I said to keep out.”

“Damn you, Tanner!” She retrieved the portfolio, looking ready to hurl it at his head. Her brows lowered, and she stomped her foot. “I’ve been in dozens and dozens of fire scenes in my career. This is no different, and you’re not keeping me out. You don’t have the authority.”

“The hell I don’t.” He stared down at her from the edge of the foundation. “Unless I can determine that it’s safe in here, which it isn’t, I have the authority to keep out anyone I want to.”

Gemma took a deep breath and shut her eyes. When she opened them, they were shooting daggers, spears, and knives. “We’re partners in this. Right? Where you go, I go. That was the deal, and there’s no way I’m letting you do this without me. I have as much a right to be up there as you do.”

“This isn’t about rights. It’s about—” Brett shoved a hand through his hair. What was this about?

Fear. Reliving his past would be too painful. He couldn’t risk making a mistake again that took someone’s life, and certainly not his partner’s life. Definitely not Gemma’s.

“Look,” she said, taking another deep breath. “I’m sure you’ve got this whole ‘me man, you helpless woman’ thing going on. I get it, it’s genetic, and as a man, you can’t help yourself. But you have to. If we’d driven to these two houses separately, I would have gone into a fire scene without you, so why is this any different just because you’re here?”

Now it was Brett’s turn to draw in a calming breath because she was right, and he didn’t know why this was different. Gemma was just as competent as any agent he’d worked with, so what was this really about? Then it hit him, like a fireball to the chest.

Her.

This time, he didn’t want her to get hurt. He cared about her, and not just because they were working together. Something else had caused the gut-wrenching fear that she’d get injured. But now wasn’t the time to let his personal feelings muddy his brain.

“It’s hard to know how much longer these walls will be standing.” Reluctantly, he held out his hand. “You can come in, but don’t touch anything.”

“Duh,” she quipped.

Her fingers were slim and soft as she grasped his hand. As it had every time they’d come into physical contact, a tingly warmth shot up his arm. Clenching his jaw, he shook it off. Letting her get to him was a supremely bad idea. Getting involved with her…even worse.

“Thank you,” she said when he’d hauled her inside.

While Gemma took photos, Brett meandered through the debris. Piles of sheetrock and roofing shingles lay in the center of the ground floor. “Sit,” he told Blaze, then crouched by the sheetrock. He lifted off the shingles to examine the sheetrock beneath. Interesting.

Gemma crouched beside him. “Find something?”

“See that hole?” He pointed to where a jagged opening had been cut in a large piece of sheetrock. Broken pieces of thick, curved glass, probably part of a ceiling light-fan fixture, lay nearby. “There aren’t any screw holes in that sheetrock.”

“So?”

“If that opening was where the ceiling fan was attached, then there’d be holes around it where the fan was screwed on. It probably wouldn’t be as jagged, either.”

“Then what’s the hole for?”

“Good question.” He looked up at the clear blue sky. “Fire needs oxygen. By cutting a hole in the ceiling between the first and second floors, you could create a better draft. The front door isn’t as burned as I would have expected. They could have intentionally left the door open, along with the second-floor windows, increasing the draft to really get the fire rocking and rolling.”

“If not with accelerants, how did they start the fire in the first place?”

“There are lots of possibilities.” When Brett stood, Blaze looked up at him eagerly, hoping to go back to work and wind up with another piece of freeze-dried liver. Brett didn’t think this was a job for his dog.

He did a slow one-eighty, searching the lower sections of sheetrock and counting the electrical outlets. A gust of wind blew through the house, making the walls creak. Blaze snorted when one of the bricks from the chimney fell to the floor with a thunk.

Brett’s gaze landed on a corner of the floor, where a large section of shingle-covered roof leaned against the wall. This was an old house and, as such, wasn’t built to today’s electrical code. But he’d bet there was another outlet hidden by that piece of roof, one the fire marshal had missed or hadn’t gotten to yet behind all the debris.

He manipulated the piece of roofing away from the wall, then carefully laid it down on the floor. Bingo. The roofing had protected the wall from burning, but the discolored, melted outlet cover told a different story. He crouched, then using a pocketknife pried off the misshapen cover. Melted copper wires stared back at him. “See those beads?” He pointed to the tiny balls of metal on the wires.

Gemma leaned over, and the scoop neck of her shirt billowed out, exposing the tops of her breasts. “I see them. Arc beading?”