fire in here,” the marshal said. “Just smoke damage.”
“How can you tell?”
“No burn pattern,” said Hannah. “Look at the floor and the walls.”
He couldn’t see anything but dark grey ash everywhere.
The light centered on him. “You all right?”
Maybe the residual smoke was getting to him. He cleared his throat. His eyes burned and he rubbed at them. “Yeah,” he ground out. “Fine.”
Hannah found his hand in the darkness. She squeezed once.
He didn’t squeeze back—but he didn’t let go either. He followed the arcing light back into the foyer.
Here, he could see what they meant about the burn pattern. The carpeting was black, but too black. The stairwell had been on fire. He could smell the difference, too, now that he was paying attention. Something stronger and more acrid than the smoke alone.
The flashlight hit the living room carpeting and illuminated the edge of the sofa.
Or what was left of the sofa. Michael only recognized it from its position in the room. No more green upholstery. Nothing left but the arm of a charred shell.
The fire marshal stepped back into the archway separating the foyer from the living room, shining his light along the carpeting, then along the ceiling.
The drywall had burned away, and Michael was looking at charred beams and exposed insulation. Then the light skittered down the opposite side of the room, where a few bookcases and cabinets had been built into the wall.
Michael remembered being eight years old, resentful of his three toddler brothers who never shut up. He remembered sulkily “helping” his father install those wall units, probably just an excuse to keep him out of his mother’s hair.
Why are we building this, Dad?
Because your mother wants bookcases.
Then why isn’t she building them?
Because I want to give them to her.
He couldn’t remember how much he’d actually helped, but he remembered holding a hammer, his father’s hand secure over his as he showed him how to hit a nail. He remembered being proud of the finished product, of his mother’s reaction.
Now there was nothing left. Just a burned shell of where the bookcases used to be.
Hannah edged closer to him. “If this is too much—”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.”
It wasn’t. He wasn’t.
Hannah didn’t move away. Her voice was very soft. “You’re shaking.”
He was. He made sure his voice wasn’t. “It’s nothing. It’s cold.”
A new voice spoke from down the hallway. “Want me to grab a blanket off one of the ambos?”
Michael turned, glad for the distraction, for the reason to look away from those goddamn bookcases. I’m sorry, Mom.
Like he was a kid again, and he’d broken her favorite dish or something.
No, worse. Like he’d burned down her house.
You did burn down her house.
“No, thanks,” he said. “I’m good.”
The new firefighter clicked on his own flashlight, creating another beam in the hallway, his feet crunching on grit as he came over to join them. When he got close, Michael recognized him as the firefighter who’d been with Hannah. The guy was tall, taller than Michael, and built like a linebacker. He had a bar in one hand, one end resting against his shoulder. A camera-like device hung around his neck.
His flashlight beam lifted almost to Michael’s face, so he could see everyone clearly, but no one was blinded. His expression was some mixture of surprised and intrigued. “I still can’t believe you’re upright and talking.”
Michael wasn’t sure what the right response to that was. “Give me an hour.”
“I checked the walls on this level. Thermal imaging doesn’t show anything. I think you’re clear.”
Again, no appropriate response came to mind. This man had dragged him out of a house unconscious. He’d helped perform CPR. He’d watched Michael lose his shit.
Actually, if he’d walked in here a minute later, he would have seen Michael lose it for a second time.
“Thanks,” Michael finally said.
“No problem.”
“This is Irish,” said Hannah. “Irish, this is Michael.”
Michael knew he should be following social niceties, but his brain wasn’t providing the automatic responses. Maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the residual haze of smoke in the living room, maybe it was the fact that his life had literally turned into a pile of crap around him. But he could only stand there, silent, staring at Irish like he had two brain cells left.
“Could you shine that light over here?” said the fire marshal.
His words broke through the awkward tension. Irish pointed the flashlight toward the other beam.
“Look.” Marshal Faulkner gestured with his flashlight along the floor. “Can you see the pattern of the burn?”
Michael just saw a whole lot of burned carpeting. “It’s all burned.”
“Look. Follow the light. See how it’s darker along this line?”
The light traced a path through the thin smoke, following a stretch of charred carpeting.
Then Michael saw it, a clear line of darkness through the rest of the blackened material. “It’s darker. Why?”
“Burned hotter,” said Irish, as if it were obvious.
Hannah glanced up. “Accelerant does that.”
“Like gasoline?” Calla had used accelerant to start the fires a few months back. She’d been drawing pentagrams in the houses she destroyed, in an attempt to call the Guides. Was this a pentagram? It was too dark to tell, and he couldn’t ask without sounding more involved than he was.
Guides marked houses with pentagrams, too, but he’d never heard of it being done by fire. Then again, anything was possible. Neither she nor the Guides would have needed accelerant to start a fire—unless they wanted to send a message. Like now.
Everything here pointed in both directions, leaving Michael feeling like he sat squarely in the line of fire.
Hannah’s father shrugged. “Could be gasoline. Or kerosene. Lighter fluid. Anything, really. Pretty clear pour pattern. No one tried to hide anything here.” The light flicked back to Michael. “Deliberate. No question. Not that I had any doubt, with four other houses going to ash right this second.”
“Who would do this?” said Irish.
His tone was the same as the fire marshal’s: not quite an interrogation, but almost. Michael waited for Marshal Faulkner to say something cop-like, maybe, I’ll ask the questions here, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he was waiting for the answer, too.
At least Michael didn’t have to lie. “I have no idea. Is that Ryan Stacey kid still behind bars?”
“Who’s Ryan Stacey?” said Irish.
“Local kid,” said Hannah. “He was setting houses on fire a few months ago.”
Ryan had been helping Calla. They didn’t know that, but Michael did.
Not that he could volunteer that information.
“Ryan Stacey didn’t do this,” said Marshal Faulkner. “Not from prison. New question.”