Deep Burn (Station Seventeen Book 2)

by Kimberly Kincaid

Took a deep breath. Exhaled with a dirty, internal curse. And said, “Okay then. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

  Chapter 6

  Shae looked at Capelli as if he was one taco short of a truck, which he had to admit, felt plausible given the circumstances. But part of forming the most likely scenario was ruling out all the things that hadn’t happened at that crime scene, and if Shae could help put one more of those in his “no” column, far be it for him to stand in her way.

  “Oh. Okay then,” she said, shifting slightly in her chair. “Well, I’m working over at arson investigation for the next two weeks, helping them review cases and file reports.” She paused to wince, and with good reason. The regs alone were probably giving her an epic case of the shakes. “I stumbled across this restaurant fire from a couple of weeks ago, and something about the damage and the burn patterns are wonky.”

  Capelli’s brows lifted. It was the same word she’d used on Friday to describe the damage at the meth lab fire. Still… “No offense,” he said. “But you’re going to have to be more specific than ‘wonky’.”

  Shae’s brows lifted right back. “Fine. According to the report, the restaurant fire was caused by faulty electrical. And before you interrupt to tell me that almost certainly wasn’t the cause of the fire at your murder scene, I know.”

  “Okay,” he said, his brain scrambling for a re-direct, because pointing out the inconsistency had been exactly what he’d intended to do. “Did the fire marshal think there was anything odd about the cause of the restaurant fire when he did his site inspection?”

  “No.” But rather than admitting strike two like any rational person would, she sat up taller in her chair, poised to argue even harder. “He noted that the scorch patterns were consistent with an electrical fire, and actually, he’s not wrong. But there’s something off about the rest of the damage. Look.”

  Shae reached into the brown leather laptop bag she’d placed by her feet and pulled out a file folder bearing the crest of the Remington Fire Department, and holy hell, she had more brass than a college marching band.

  “Please tell me that is not an active case file.”

  “Technically?” she asked, prompting Capelli’s gut to pang even harder. Like there was any other way.

  “McCullough, you can’t just waltz out of the arson investigation office with stuff like this.” She was committing at least three different policy violations, and those were just the ones he could think of off the top of his (admittedly overactive) head.

  “I get that I’m sort of bending the rules,” Shae said, her green eyes flashing beneath the harsh fluorescent lighting overhead. “But none of this information has been scanned into the RFD database yet. I didn’t have any other way to show you the file other than to bring it here, and you need to see it. This restaurant fire might not have started in the same way as the one from Friday, but they have a lot in common. They both look accidental—”

  “Odds are high that’s because they actually are,” Capelli said past his frown, but she continued even more emphatically, as if he hadn’t just offered up a perfectly logical response.

  “Both scenes sustained a huge amount of fire damage in a small amount of time—”

  But again, he shook his head and took the rational road. “Also not outside the realm of plausibility. Volatile chemicals have the potential to create a lot of heat and damage, especially given the right combinations and enough things in their path to burn. Same with faulty wiring.”

  “Fine.” Shae pushed the word through her teeth. “Then how do you explain that in addition to the other similarities, both fires have more than one potential point of origin?”

  Capelli opened his mouth to put a spike in this argument, once and for all. Scanned, then re-scanned every detail of the fire at the murder scene in his head just to be sure his facts were straight.

  And stopped.

  “The restaurant fire has more than one potential point of origin?” he asked, his breath kicking from his lungs as his thoughts suddenly shuffled into an entirely different order. True, the most probable cause of the meth lab fire was a combination of toxic chemicals and a mismeasurement of the heat used to cook them. Even so, Capelli couldn’t definitively pinpoint one specific starting point for the blaze, nor could he come up with irrefutable evidence that the mismeasurement—and thus the fire—had been accidental.

  Which meant there was a chance, however unlikely, that Shae was right.

  “I think so,” she said, and the scenarios in his head jerked to a graceless halt.

  “That’s not what I asked you.” For Chrissake, he’d met people who thought the earth was flat as a fucking two-by-four. He needed facts, not conjecture.

  A muscle in the otherwise delicate line of her jaw twitched. “Oh for the love of…yes. Although the primary cause looks like faulty electrical, the restaurant fire could have more than one point of origin.”

  Whipping the file folder open, she flipped to an eight-by-ten photograph of what had once been a commercial-grade fryer, leaning forward in her chair as she continued, “The fire marshal reported that the fire started with the faulty wiring in this wall right here, then traveled to ignite the grease trap above the fryer, and bam. There’s your blaze.”

  Capelli took in the photo, the details finding a probably-permanent home in his brain. “Highly likely.”

  “But”—Shae swapped the photograph of the fryer for two of some fire damage so bad, he could only lodge a best-guess at what had once been in them—“the restaurant’s office is clear across the kitchen, and it sustained at least as much damage as the rest of the scene, arguably more. So did more than half of the dining room. The place is on the pier, near at least a dozen other businesses, so it’s not like it burned unnoticed for an extended period of time…”

  She let the rest hang, and he filled in the blanks all too easily. “So you think the fire had to have started in all three places at once in order for it to have caused so much damage in that amount of time.”

  “Yes. Not only that, but I think the same thing happened at the scene of that meth lab fire,” Shae said. “I don’t know if I’d have made the connection so easily if I hadn’t been there to see the fire in action, but that house wasn’t just burning, Capelli. It was a freaking inferno, and I’m telling you, normal fire might burn that hard under the right circumstances, but it doesn’t spread that fast naturally. I think the burn patterns and the amount of damage at both scenes suggest multiple points of origin are at least a possibility. Which means the fires must have been set on purpose.”

  Sitting back in his desk chair, Capelli clicked through a few possible sequences of events in his head, but damn, each one had more pitfalls and potential snagging points than the last. Not to mention a metric ton of gray area.

  “If these two incidents are related—and I’m not saying I think they are—you’re talking about a highly intelligent, highly calculated perpetrator,” he said slowly. “And there were obviously no victims at the restaurant fire, so there isn’t even a clear motive for someone to torch the place.” At least with the meth lab fire, the whole ‘covering up a murder’ thing worked in their favor on that count.

  “Not yet,” Shae argued, knotting her arms over her chest. “But I’ve been knocking down fires for five years, and I know what I know. Something about these two scenes don’t wash, and despite what the fire marshal says, I think it warrants a deeper look.”

  He paused. What Shae was proposing was unlikely at best; after all, the theory of Occam’s razor existed for a reason. Common sense dictated that the simplest explanation was usually the right one, and hers was damn close to crazy.

  Crazy, but not impossible, came a whisper from the back of his brain. She might not have looked at either scene conventionally, or even rationally, but he couldn’t refute her theory that these fires were arson beyond all doubt. At least not without going to both scenes to gather more intel.

  More intel he might need in order to catch an
arsonist and a killer.

  Fuck.

  His silence seemed to unnerve her, though, and before Capelli could figure out a way to verbalize his thought process or any of the places it had led him, Shae let out a frustrated huff.

  “Look,” she bit out, stabbing him with a stare that put every last ounce of her frustration on full display. “I get that you need something concrete—”

  “I do,” he agreed, but she barreled on, her voice growing stronger by the syllable.

  “—and that what I’m saying is maybe a little unlikely, and I’m jumping to conclusions because I’m too impulsive and reckless and I should just stick to the facts and forget everything else—”

  “McCullough,” he tried to interrupt, but Jesus, she was on a tear.

  “—and maybe I am impulsive to go with my gut, and I knew you of all people wouldn’t believe me, because of course you want it all in black and white and you never think outside the box, but—”

  “McCullough—”

  Shae shook her head, jabbing a finger into the air as she continued, unchecked. “I mean it, Capelli. Impulsive or not, this is serious. Something’s not right with these fires. Two people died! And frankly, I’m really freaking tired of being dismissed right now, so if you could just—”

  “Shae.”

  She blinked once before her dark gold lashes fanned up in surprise. “What?”

  “I believe you.”

  “You do?” Shae’s lips parted even though her eyes didn’t budge. Her fingers flexed against his palm, and only then did Capelli realize he’d pressed forward to grab her uplifted hand and wrap his fingers around hers in a firm, hot grip.

  Shit. He let go and briskly slid back to reclaim the space between them, although a tiny, dark place inside of him gave up a harsh protest. “I do,” he said, smoothing his voice into perfect calm despite his rioting pulse. He had to find his center and keep focused.

  “It’s true that you don’t have anything by way of hard evidence”—he held up a hand to stanch her clearly brewing argument before she started in again—“but I do think there’s a chance, however slim, that the inconsistencies you’ve noted could theoretically point to arson.”

  “Okay.” Shae sat up straighter in her chair. “So what do we do in order to find out for sure?”

  “We follow protocol.” Turning toward his desk, Capelli palmed his cell phone, and a handful of keystrokes later, Sinclair came out of his office.

  “McCullough.” His gray-blond brows lifted so slightly at the sight of Shae that no one but Capelli would have likely even noticed. “Nice surprise. You’re not on shift today?”

  Her shoulders did the up and at ’em against the back of her chair, and that was something even a blind man would have noticed. “No. Actually, I’m spending a couple of weeks over in arson investigation, and I came across something I thought you’d want to know.”

  She replayed the details, step by step. Sinclair went for a full-on frown when she pulled out the hijacked file, but Capelli had to hand it to the guy. He was smart enough to let Shae run her story from stem to stern before he said so much as a word.

  “So it’s your feeling that both the fire marshal and a thirty-year veteran from arson investigation are wrong on this, and that somehow, these two fires were set on purpose by the same person who killed Malik Denton.”

  Any reasonable person on the planet would have paused at the doubtful edge in Sinclair’s tone. So of course, Shae didn’t. “Yes. That’s exactly what I think.”

  Sinclair swiveled his gaze toward Capelli. “And you agree?”

  “I can’t rule it out as a possibility,” Capelli corrected, and Sinclair read between the lines in less than a breath.

  “But you can’t rule it in, either.”

  “Not without more information.” Gesturing to the laptop on his desk, he formed a mental list of the variables that would provide the best shot at a lead, as well as the ones that would help eliminate dead ends. “First, we’d have to go over both fire scenes pretty carefully, ideally with the help of someone who has experience with interpreting fire behaviors and burn patterns.”

  That was going to be easier said than done, since second-guessing the fire marshal’s report was certainly bound to piss off just about every single person in the arson investigation office. But if these fires had been set by the person who’d killed Malik Denton, there could be something at one of the scenes that would give them the break they so desperately needed in solving this murder case.

  “Okay.” Sinclair nodded in agreement. “What else?”

  Capelli pushed his glasses higher over the bridge of his nose and thought. “We’re also going to need a close look at the fire marshal’s report from Friday’s scene so we can compare it with the one from two weeks ago for similarities.”

  “There isn’t a report on the meth lab fire yet,” Shae chimed in, capturing both Sinclair’s and Capelli’s full attention. “Natalie over at arson told me the fire marshal wanted to be sure the crime lab was done collecting evidence first. He’s not supposed to go out to the scene until tomorrow.”

  “Spectacular,” Capelli muttered. Between that and the ME’s report, he’d probably be waiting for the better part of three days, even with a rush request.

  Sinclair seemed oddly untroubled at Shae’s revelation, though. “All right. If more information is what we need to either link these fires to our murder or prove they’re a dead end, then let’s go get it. I want the two of you on this together.”

  Capelli’s spine snapped to full attention. “Wait, what? You want me and McCullough on this?” He wasn’t even technically a cop, for Chrissake. And neither was she. Plus, he had methods for analyzing data. Tested methods. Legitimate, time-proven methods.

  Methods that Shae McCullough was bound to either blatantly disregard or totally fuck with. Possibly not in that order.

  “For preliminary investigative purposes?” Sinclair asked, leaning against the edge of Maxwell’s desk to fasten him with a stare. “In a word, yeah. All my detectives are out on calls, and I’ve got a murder case that’s growing frostier by the minute. I’m not inclined to wait for a report from the fire marshal when I can send you to check the murder scene for details right now, and as far as analysis goes, you’ve got the best eyes on the team.”

  Well, shit. Of course his boss had to go and have a logical point. “Yes, but…”

  Nope. Sinclair wasn’t having it. “We’re perfectly within our jurisdiction to go through the scene before the fire marshal does, and anyway, I don’t want you to do his job. I want you to do yours,” he continued. “You’ll go out there to look for information on the murder, and properly interpreting the fire may now be part of that.”

  “It might,” Capelli said, and his agreement was just the fuel Sinclair needed to keep going.

  “Good. Like you said, you need someone who’s well versed with burn patterns to help you shake this out, and Shae has firsthand knowledge of how the meth lab fire went down. That makes her an excellent resource.”

  “I’d be happy to go back to the scene for a walk-through if you think it would help,” Shae said, the spark in her green eyes putting Capelli another notch closer to being overruled.

  Sinclair nodded, just a quick lift and lower of his chin. “Good. I’ll reach out to Captain Bridges as a courtesy to make sure he’s okay with you assisting us on this case. I’m sure he’s got good reasons for sending you to arson investigation for two weeks.”

  “Oh, he does,” she agreed with a frown, and dammit, even that didn’t seem to budge Sinclair’s resolve.

  “And I’m not about to go over his head on that. Find or no find, working recon on this case today won’t get you off the hook there. You’re still going to have to do whatever time he’s assigned to you at arson.”

  Shae—being Shae—didn’t even skip a beat. Fuck. “You guys have two bodies to account for, and arsonists put firefighters’ lives at serious risk. I’m okay with making up the lost time on
desk duty if it gets you closer to catching this guy.”

  “First things first,” Sinclair said, snatching the words right from Capelli’s mouth. “Let’s find out if there is an arson to go with our murder, and then we’ll go from there. I’ll get the gears moving with Bridges, but I want the two of you out at that scene as soon as he gives up an all-clear. And, McCullough?”

  She met Sinclair’s stare with one of equal resolve.

  “You might’ve made a good find with your amateur detective work, but around here, we take protocol seriously. When you’re on my watch, you’ll do the same. No exceptions. Do you copy?”

  “Yes, Sergeant,” she said, waiting until Sinclair had gone back into his office and shut the door before turning to Capelli and sealing his fate with an infuriatingly sexy smile.

  “Well. It looks like for better or for worse, you’re stuck with me.”

  Chapter 7

  Shae’s heart tapped an excited rhythm against her breastbone as she followed Capelli down the hallway outside of the intelligence office twenty minutes later. Bridges had given her the green light to survey the scene of Friday’s fire with Capelli, although he’d texted her the instant he’d gotten off the phone with Sinclair to remind her in no uncertain terms that she’d better keep her nose spic and span while she did. In her defense, she hadn’t gone looking to break the rules when she’d popped open that file on the restaurant fire—in fact, she’d been trying to suck it up and do the exact opposite so she could grit her way through Bridges’s punishment and get her ass back to the action of Station Seventeen, where it belonged. But working with the intelligence unit to catch some lowlife who had committed both murder and arson?

  That was so much better than sitting in some stuffy office filing even stuffier paperwork. So she’d impulsively fractured a few little rules by borrowing the file. Was it really that big a deal if it ended up getting intelligence the lead they needed?

  She could help. If her experience as a firefighter could help Sinclair’s team figure out who was setting these fires and why, she could potentially save lives.