rather than his brain, she would’ve opened that door and provided the fire somewhere to escape.
And the escape would’ve been straight through her.
She hadn’t been aware that the screeching noise they heard from inside the room was from the fire building in intensity. Opening the door would’ve provided more oxygen to the flames and caused them to engulf her.
If she’d opened that door, they would’ve been planning the final details of a funeral today rather than a wedding. Fear still clawed inside his gut at the thought, as he sat staring at the charred remains of the doorway.
“Pretty jarring to look at, isn’t it?” Grand County fire inspector Randall Abrahams said from behind Tanner.
It would take a couple of days before the official report would be filed and Tanner could act on it, so Randall had agreed to meet Tanner out here as a personal favor in order to try to get this wrapped up before the wedding.
“You have no idea. Bree almost opened that door.”
Randall whistled through his teeth. “If she had, this definitely would’ve been a homicide investigation rather than plain old arson.”
Tanner turned. “You’re sure it was arson? There were a lot of building supplies and leftover stuff from the construction. Maybe not stored properly or something. An accident could’ve lit it on fire.”
Randall walked around Tanner and entered the room where the blaze had started. “That was our initial thought.”
“But something changed your mind.” It wasn’t a question.
“When we talked to your fiancée, we found out that she had put a security camera in here. That’s how she realized the building was on fire so quickly—the camera turned on when the smoke and blaze got big enough to trigger the motion detector.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Did you help rig that camera? Know anything about it?”
Tanner shook his head. “Not a whole lot. Cassandra and Bree wanted to do it themselves. I gave them a couple good camera suggestions and then looked it over once they had it hung. Seemed fine to me.”
“But someone could’ve sneaked by the camera?”
“Yeah, definitely.” Tanner shrugged, looking around. “They were just trying to keep teenagers out of trouble, not provide full-fledged security for an empty section of the building.”
“Camera was up in that corner, right?”
“Yes.” Tanner took a step farther into the room with the older man, stepping carefully around the debris left by the fire and the hoses. “Do you think someone sneaked in around the camera and lit the fire? I checked the footage first thing and there was nothing. Just the blaze itself.”
“Did you go back any further than the night of the fire?”
Tanner nodded, still looking around at the mess. “Yeah, just in case someone had been hiding in here. Nothing had triggered the camera in the forty-eight hours before the fire. The footage doesn’t keep more than that.”
“Let me show you what we found.”
Randall and Tanner stepped carefully through the debris until they were standing in the corner of the room directly under where the camera had been located before it was destroyed in the fire.
“You’re gonna have to tell me what you want me to see, because it all looks like the bottom of my fire pit to me,” Tanner told him.
Randall pulled out a plastic evidence bag from his pocket. “This is what I want you to see, and this corner was where we found it.”
Tanner took the bag, squinting at it as he held it up. Randall didn’t keep him in suspense.
“It’s a timer. We found parts of it and a pretty sophisticated detonation device in this corner. Somebody very definitely set this fire.”
Tanner let out a low curse. “A sophisticated detonator goes well beyond some kids playing a prank or a firebug who wanted to watch a building burn.”
“I agree. This was set with deliberate intent to go off exactly when it did. And I think someone broke in here ahead of time and planted the device and timer. It could’ve been a while ago, but every day it sat here, it risked detection.”
Tanner ran a hand through his hair. “So it was probably in the last couple of days. And if there’s no record of it in the footage, that means whoever sneaked in here knew where that camera was located and how to avoid it.”
This had just become much more serious than any of them had counted on.
Tanner studied the evidence bag and its contents. “But to what end? Were they trying to blow up the whole building? Kill everyone?”
Randall shook his head. “No. If anything, the opposite. I know Bree was here and called the fire department much more quickly than would’ve occurred on any other night. But the way this fire was set up, it would’ve burned itself out before it ever got to the inhabited side of the building. I don’t think it was meant to harm anyone.”
“Well, it damn nearly harmed Bree.”
Randall gave an apologetic shrug. “That’s true, but on any other given night she wouldn’t have been here.”
“So, we are looking at some sort of explosives expert?”
What the hell would one be doing at a women’s shelter? Especially if they weren’t trying to blow the building up? This didn’t make a lot of sense.
“Not necessarily. Yes, an explosives expert would know how to do all of this and it’s definitely beyond what your normal amateur pyromaniac is involved with. But there are certain jobs—military, construction, even some welding jobs—that would also provide that sort of knowledge. Or it could be hired out.”
“I liked this much better when I thought it might be a run-of-the-mill arsonist just trying to burn the place down. Now we’re talking about someone with a specific skill set who also has studied New Journeys enough to know the basics about their security and what would or wouldn’t happen in a fire.”
“I don’t blame you there. A pyro may be a pain in the ass, but they’re also predictable. Their endgame is to watch the world burn.”
Tanner looked around, trying to put himself in the arsonist’s mind. “What was this guy’s endgame? No one was hurt. Nothing was stolen, as far as we know.”
Randall walked over and slapped him on the shoulder. “That, my friend, is your job and thankfully not mine.”
Randall showed Tanner a few more things, including where the fire would’ve burned out on its own if the fire department hadn’t stopped it before that. And he was right—it definitely wouldn’t have hurt anyone, unless, like Bree, they just happened to be wandering in that section of the building.
As Tanner walked back to his office, he kept trying to figure out what the motive was.
What was the purpose? That was the ultimate question. All this had really served to do was shake everyone up.
He let out a low curse. Maybe that was the purpose—getting everyone shaken up. Thanks to the fire, everyone was back in the old building where there was much less security and no set routine.
Ronnie Kitchens, the other deputy in their office, met Tanner as soon as he walked in the door. “That face doesn’t look good. Problems?”
Tanner explained about the detonator and everything else Randall had told him.
Ronnie let out a low whistle. “That’s not good.”
“The only people I can think that might have something to gain from pulling a stunt like this would be the men involved in these women’s lives.”
“Definitely.