I have no doubt that, by now, Makena and her crew have put the fire out. I have even less doubt that she’ll see it this time.
She’ll remember.
She has to.
If she doesn’t, then I’ll have no choice but to confront her, burning with a white-hot rage inside of me.
And I don’t want that to be the last way she remembers me.
Chapter 17
Dom gave me a ride to the firehouse.
I’ve been in my office for the past forty minutes comparing all of the Polaroids from when these fires first started to this one.
The lily started out small, gradually becoming larger with each fire, and somehow, I missed the fucking thing until yesterday morning when my mind drifted back to this case in a groggy haze.
But why lilies?
Why so detailed and so grand?
Even the smallest burn pattern of the flower shows the detail of being open faced with a darker shading inside closer to the pistil. The longer I sit here staring at the pictures, the more frantically my mind is racing to find some significance.
My phone goes off in my pocket, vibrating powerfully, and almost causing me to fall out of the chair. I laugh nervously at my reaction, then glance at the screen, raising an eyebrow when I see a number I don’t know. I swipe to accept the call curiously and place the phone to my ear.
“Hello?” I ask into the receiver.
“You’ve been gone a while.”
I smile and shake my head, “Yeah. Had a fire call come in during the middle of the night.”
“I found your note, saw your number, thought I would call to see if you wanted to grab some lunch before I head home,” Tanner suggests cheerfully.
“Um, I’d really like to, but I have to finish this report. I have to get the information to the Los Angeles Fire Chief by end of day,” I reply feeling a little glum.
“It’s okay. I’ll come to you. Chinese okay?” he asks, still sounding cheerful as ever.
“That’s fine,” I relent with a short laugh. “Do you know where the firehouse is? Grab a pen and I’ll give you the address.”
I give Tanner the information he’ll need to find me then terminate the call as I go back to looking at my puzzle. Hopefully he doesn’t plan on staying too long because I don’t know what the hell to write in this report that I haven’t already written a thousand times before.
And since this is my guy, he’ll be my catch. I need to figure out a way to give the LA Chief as little information as I possibly can without compromising my position in The California State Firefighters' Association.
Taking a deep breath, I locate a new report file on the computer and begin to type something to satiate the prick that runs the Los Angeles County Fire Brigade.
Tanner showed up about thirty minutes after I started my report.
I jumped when a bag of delicious smelling food was dropped on my desk next to me and glanced up at him with a grin.
“Thanks!” I say as I motion for him to take the chair next to me. He chuckles lightly in return, still wearing his suit from last night, with those top buttons still undone. I’m thanking God Almighty right now that Dom doesn’t work here because if he saw his son wearing the same clothes from last night, I’m pretty sure the jig would be up.
Tanner reaches into the bag and hands me small carton of pork fried rice, a plastic fork, and some napkins as he clears his throat and pulls out a second serving for himself.
“There’s more food in there. I didn’t know what you liked, so I just grabbed a bunch of different things,” he explains with a shrug as he settles back into the chair and begins eating his food.
I steal a grateful glance at him before I shovel a forkful of the rice into my mouth, then set the carton down and go back to my report.
“Whatcha working on, Makena? Am I allowed to ask?” he inquires conversationally as he digs up some more of his rice and continues eating.
“Just another arsonist having fun while watching the world burn,” I tell him, rolling my eyes at the screen as I continue typing.
Every now and then, I can feel Tanner lean over and glance at my screen, but he doesn’t say anything else. He just keeps working on his carton until it’s empty, then retrieves two bottles of water from the bag, placing one by my hand and opening the other for himself.
“Thanks,” I mumble distractedly as I finish typing. After about an hour of excruciating lack of detail, I’m finally done with the damned thing and sit back to give it a look over.
I make a face when my next forkful of rice is cold, but it should have been expected considering I haven’t touched the carton after the first bite. Tanner chuckles, asks me where the break room is, then leaves with the carton and bag.
I sigh as I lean rest an elbow on the desk and drop my chin into the palm of my hand and keep reading. I hastily decide to remove the part about the lily pattern because that would link our counties and put is in pissing contest to see who would take precedence. I guess it’s safe to assume that since the majority of the fires were started in my jurisdiction that I would get to keep the case, but that LA Chief seems like he’d give me a hard time just for the hell of it.
“Here ya go,” Tanner says when he reappears. I look up at him gratefully as I take the paper plate he’s dumped the rest of my rice into and go back to reading. When I’m satisfied that I’ve given the other chief as much information
