She nods, but also frowns. “You should do that anyway, as part of your civic duty. Anything else is concealment. You know that.”
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.” Then something insinuates itself into my awareness. “Hey, Detective. Do you smell smoke?”
Jane and I look at each other. The acrid scent of smoke has already filled the narrow hallways of the admin suite. A thin haze hangs near the ceiling, making the overhead lighting yellow and wan.
I cough. “What’s burning?”
I have my answer when we burst into the fellowship hall. Someone has thrown flaming bundles of rags, soaked with accelerant, in through a broken window. The foam-filled chairs and sofas have gone up like the devil himself is sitting on them. Palls of black and stinking smoke swirl around the hanging lights.
“Come on!” I yell. “Out the back way.”
“The computer! We need to analyze it! If we lose it, we lose everything.”
“Don’t be stupid!”
But Detective Candide has already run back into the warren where Chandler’s office is.
“Goddamn it!” I cough again, deep hacks that wrench my chest. Already the heat is stifling.
Let her go. She made her choice.
Reflexively, I push Zoe out of my mind. “Detective! Come back!” Cursing, I make my way back towards the office, expecting to meet her in the hallway. But it isn’t until I stumble through the ragged ends of yellow tape and into Daniel’s office that I find her, yanking plugs and cords from the box of the CPU.
Both of us are coughing like last-stage emphysema patients.
“Get the flash drives!” yells Candide, as she bundles the computer into her arms.
“There’s no time!”
“Get them! It’s evidence!”
Rather than argue, I scoop the memory sticks into my pockets from where they lay on the desk. “Now, come on!”
We stumble into the hallway. The heat from the fellowship hall has increased, and smoke billows above our heads. I bend double, following Jane with her awkward load.
The fellowship hall has filled with smoke and an acrid chemical smell. Plastic chairs and tables warp and twist. The carpet smolders, and flowers of flame bloom from the nap. Pictures form squares of heat and light on the walls. My eyes water and burn.
Jane yells, “We need to get out!”
No shit, Sherlock. What was your first clue?
I push Jane ahead of me, toward the back exit. Where the hell is the fire department?
Then she trips, and falls face down. The computer flies from her arms and crashes on the floor, the box breaking open.
“Leave it!” I shout. “We have to get out!” The carpet is in flames, with streamers of fire licking towards us. I can scarcely breathe.
“No!” She fumbles for the hard drive amid the broken components.
The heat makes a twisting, searing tentacle that wraps around us both. I grab Jane’s collar, and pull her away from the computer and towards the exit. I hit the crash bar and feel her weight against my back as she careens into me. Then we’re both outside, filling our lungs with sweet damp air that feels like a gift from the gods.
Candide stumbles past me to her car. She grabs the mic and chokes out an emergency call. I can hear the calm voice of the dispatcher as the detective requests fire trucks. Someone else has already called, because the sirens split the air while she is still talking. I bend over, hands on my knees, coughing and sucking oxygen deep into my lungs, coughing again. Behind me, the Church of the Spirit continues to burn.
The back alley is too hot to bear, and we run around to the front. I am shocked at the extent of billowing flame. Sheltering my eyes, blinking back tears, I can barely make out individual piles of material set at discrete intervals along the base of the building. I try to take pictures with my phone, zooming in through clouds of smoke and quivering heat waves. The heat is like a breath from hell, and I retreat back to the edge of the parking lot. Candide joins me. Her face is red and ash sprinkles her hair.
“Audrey, are you all right?”
“Yes. You?”
She nods.
“It’s arson, Detective. Look.” I point out the flaming piles, now almost gone.
After the pumper trucks arrive, Jane and I just watch the building consume itself. Those big interior open spaces fan the flame like a wind tunnel, and the water jets take care of what’s left.
No pictures. No papers. No files. Nothing.
So. Now what?
I think I know who killed Victoria Harkness. I don’t know who killed Daniel Chandler. I don’t know if the image of Eric North was cosmic residue or overactive imagination. If I were still a cop, I would get some backup and go over to see North and try to rattle his composure. See what shakes loose. But I’m not a cop anymore. And what’s worse, I’m not used to not being a cop. I’m not used to playing a completely lone hand. And being almost burned alive has given me pause. As it is no doubt meant to.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
WHEN I GO downstairs the next morning, the first thing I smell is smoke. My jacket is hanging in the basement to air out — even after a whole night, I can smell it. Now that I’m safe, the thought of that fire gives me the shakes. I’d like to think whoever did it thought the building was empty, but that doesn’t pass muster. Our cars were in the parking lot. Either we were the targets or acceptable collateral damage. Either way, the killer has escalated his behavior. I’ve got to tie up all the loose ends, get proof positive. Before someone else pays the price.
Might be you next time, Lake.
Thanks for the reminder.
Because it’s always the innocent who get hurt, isn’t it?
Yes. The innocent. Like the body on the mattress. I still can’t look directly at it. Instead, I see it darkly, through a distorted funhouse mirror; fuzzily, through a layer of distorting gauze; distantly, through the
