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Lucy looked at the scorched walls and piles of wet ash pooled on the concrete floor. “There’s an awful lot of damage down here, isn’t there?”
He thought of the chunks of the ceiling that had nearly flattened them, not once, but twice, and wait… “Are you thinking the fire started down here instead of upstairs?”
“Yes. No. Maybe?” A sound of frustration crossed her lips. “It’s probably too hard to tell without getting up there to find a definite point of origin. But it could’ve started in the room next to this one, then spread both up and out, like the one on the second floor.”
It would account for the ceiling going as quickly as it had, that was for sure. Or— “It’s possible both locations are ignition points,” he said, his pulse picking up as a theory started to form in his head. “Only one of them can be the true point of origin, and with how the second and third floors were already fully involved when we got here, it’s likely that’s where the fire first started, like the fire marshal said. But if this guy is committing arson, he’d want the warehouse to burn as fast as possible, right?”
“Which means he’d have multiple ignition points placed strategically throughout the warehouse and light them one at a time,” Lucy said, her eyes widening, “likely starting at the top floor and working his way down, so as not to block his own escape route.”
Sam nodded, continuing, “The fire would spread fast, especially if he used accelerant and loaded this place up with flammable debris. That would explain how fast the fire traveled. He must’ve been lighting the last ignition point when I saw him in the window.”
“And then he bolted out the back, knowing it would be the last part of the place to burn.” Lucy paused. “But, wait. Dempsey had to breach both back doors so you and I could get out. How would anyone else have been able to open one of them to escape?”
There—therewas the thought that Sam hadn’t been able to place when he’d slid the key into the lock earlier. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “I mean, he had to have used one of the doors, otherwise someone fighting the fire would’ve seen him. Maybe they were only locked from the outside.”
“Another maybe. What we need at this point are facts, and with all this damage, finding anything definitive is going to be next to impossible,” Lucy said. At the protest she must have been able to tell he was working up, she added, “I’m not saying your theory doesn’t have merit, Sam. I’m just saying this is all speculation unless we can find something to back it up, and Nat’s going to need more to go on than a lot of maybes and what-ifs. Even good ones.”
Sam was unable to keep his brows from arching, one corner of his mouth kicking up. “I thought you came with me to…what was it you said? Ah, right. Shut me up.”
“Oh, I did,” she said without missing so much as a fraction of a beat, andfuck,her tenacity lit him up like a goddamn rocket. “And for the record, I still think this is crazy. But just because it’s crazy doesn’t mean it isn’t true, and it’s pretty tough to deny that arson is at leastpossible, especially when you consider what you and I just came up with. I just wish we had something more concrete to go on.”
“I do, too.” Frustration kicked Sam’s feet into motion, and he paced a circuit through the scorched boards and pieces of what had once been the ceiling. A small section of the building’s exterior wall had caved in, likely when all the framing holding it into place had burned away, and irritation made Sam kick at the pile of bricks that had tumbled to the concrete along with the ceiling beam. A few of them scattered, thudding several feet from the larger pile, and wait…was that…
“Lucy, look. There’s something under here.”
11
For a second that lasted at least an hour, all Lucy could do was stare at Sam. When she’d agreed to go with him to the warehouse, it had been to serve as the voice of reason, to follow protocol and prove any crazy notions of arson wrong with whatever facts they found so they could put this whole thing behind them, once and for all. Okay, fine, so his intensity was sexy as hell, and the way he trusted his instincts so unequivocally did things to her insides that defied description. She could deal with her irrational reaction to Sam’s passion later. Right now, she needed to deal with the fact that, while she’d come here to prove him wrong, she had in fact done the opposite. His arson theory wasn’t just statistically possible, but truly plausible. She felt it in her gut, and rather than shutting it down by default, she was starting to believe him.
Andthe feelings about the fire she’d been trying like hell to rationalize and explain away.
Lucy focused on the pile of bricks, her gaze snagging on the thin strip of black nylon that Sam had just uncovered. “Holy crap. How could anything have not been burned to ash in here?”
“Whatever this is, it must have been buried by the bricks before the fire could get to it.” He reached out, presumably to unearth the item, but she stepped forward to grab his arm before he could get too close.
“Wait!” Her pulse tripped, heat prickling over her face as she registered the way her fingers clutched his jacket and the feel of his forearm, well-muscled and solid against the heel of her hand. She let go, much to the disappointment of her libido, which was going to get a sternly worded letter from her brain as soon as they left this warehouse. “We should take some pictures first. In case Nat needs them.”
“Oh.” Sam blinked, then looked from his arm to whatever was still mostly buried beneath the bricks. “Yeah. Yes. You’re right.”
Lucy busied herself by taking her phone from the back pocket of her jeans, snapping images from various angles. The task reset her focus, and after a minute, she stepped back. “Okay. That should do it.”
Sam nodded and began to remove the bricks, one at a time. The ones on top bore some scorch marks, but he’d been absolutely right. The pile of masonry was heavy enough to have protected the item that had been trapped beneath it. Bit by bit, he exposed the black strap, more of the item coming into view until—
“Oh, my God,” Lucy said, unable to keep her surprise in check. “Is that…?”
“The backpack we saw when we did search and rescue,” Sam finished. Carefully, he pulled it from the floor, shaking off the ash and dust. The once-black nylon was now stained dirty gray, but otherwise, the backpack was in remarkably good shape. In fact, it almost looked new.
“That’s weird,” she murmured.
Sam looked at her, his red-gold brows raised. “What’s weird?”
“It could be nothing,” Lucy qualified. “But we’re assuming this backpack belonged to a squatter, right?”
“Probably a safe bet, since we also saw a sleeping bag and all those food wrappers.”
“Exactly. So, the owner of this backpack was likely houseless, right?” She looked closer, her gut tightening another notch as the logo on the front of the backpack registered. “But this company makes pretty pricey gear, and the backpack looks close to new. I don’t know. Maybe I’m reading too much into it, but it doesn’t quite make sense.”
Sam unzipped the bag, his eyes skimming the contents for just a beat before going round and wide. “Actually, it makes perfect sense.”
