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“And without anything definitive pointing to arson, the whole thing would have been written off, leaving our guy to get away with the crime,” Sam finished.
“Okay,” Lucy said slowly, and Sam could practically see her lining up all the facts into tidy, perfect rows in her mind. “So, we have a pretty good ideahowhe did it. But we have no cluewhy,or who he even is.”
“Well, we need to figure it out,” Sam said, dread settling into his chest as a thought struck him, full force. “Because if this fire was that well-planned, there’s no chance in hell it was his first crime. Or that it’ll be his last.”
15
Lucy sat back in her chair in the conference room, ninety percent certain her head was going to explode. In her defense, she’d used it for more critical thinking in the past six hours than she had in the last six days combined—which was really saying something, considering all the review she’d done at the academy. But when Nat had told her and Sam that the evidence they’d uncovered pointed to arson, then asked them to help find the person who’d purposely set the fire that could have killed them both? Lucy hadn’t even thought about hesitating.
And when Sam had promised not to freelance, to follow the rules and do what it took to catch this arsonist, she’d believed him.
Which was great, because now they were partners.
Not so great, though, that she could still feel his mouth on hers.
Reallynot great that despite all common sense, she wanted it there again. And again.
And lower.
“Okay!” Lucy blurted, her voice just a shade too high for the quiet room where they’d been sitting all day. She cleared her throat and forced herself back to reality. She’d been asked to help catch an arsonist, for God’s sake. She couldn’t afford to lose focus now, no matter how sexy Sam’s determination was. “I think that’s the last of the lab reports. Unfortunately.”
Sam frowned from the spot where he sat beside her at the table, then looked at the whiteboard where she’d meticulously detailed everything they’d gleaned from the stacks of files Nat had left for them. Their strategy had been to get up to speed on the facts first, giving them a solid foundation that would lead to reasonable speculation. But after six hours of poring over first the video, then dozens of documents and reports from the fire marshal, insurance companies, and the RFD lab, they were no closer to figuring out who might have set this fire, or why.
“So, the backpack we found at the scene obviously belonged to whoever set this fire, and it’s a safe bet he’s the person you saw through the window,” Lucy started. She was rehashing what they already knew, but ugh, she was getting desperate for something,anything,that would get them closer to finding this guy. “The brand traces back to a popular sporting goods store. There are three of them in the Remington area, but the chain supplies the same backpack in the same color to hundreds of stores nationwide, not to mention selling loads of them online. Best guess is that our arsonist was startled when you saw him and accidentally dropped it when he bolted.”
Sam played Devil’s Advocate. “Either that, or he left it behind specifically so it would be destroyed by the fire and erase any evidence that he’d been there.”
“Only the ceiling collapsed on top of it first,” Lucy said. It should have been a win for them, and yet… “Even though it was well-preserved by the rubble, after analysis, the lab couldn’t find any useable prints or traces of DNA. No hair, no fibers, nothing except the tinder inside.”
“Which had been soaked in kerosene, matching the traces of accelerant found at all five ignition sites,” Sam said, and she went in for the finish.
“And could have been obtained at any one of the two hundred gas stations within a thirty-mile radius of the warehouse. Which means that despite the fact that we literally caught this guy in the act, albeit not intentionally, we have no idea who he is and nothing that can help us find him.”
Annnnnnd dead end.Damnit, how could this guy have left no trace of himself anywhere?
Sam ran a hand through his hair, letting out a slow breath. “Okay. So we know the facts—”
“Or lack thereof,” Lucy muttered, and Sam gave up a crooked smile that was far more charming than it should’ve been.
“Exactly,” he said. “There’s not much to go on.”
She snorted. “No offense, but your pep talk skills need work.”
“Okay, first of all, it’s going to take a lot more than that to offend me”—he waggled his brows, and okay, she laughed—“and secondly, this isn’t a pep talk. It’s a reality check. I know this might give the rule-follower part of you hives, but maybe what we need isn’t to focus on the facts, but to look at the bigger picture.”
Confusion fogged Lucy’s thoughts. “But why would we zoom out to something more general when what we need is to find one specific person?”
“Real answer? Because we’ve been at this for hours and my brain hurts,” Sam said, and she had to admit, he had a point. She’d been all about following the process they’d agreed upon, but all of these factswerestarting to blur together. “Plus,” he added, “even though we’re trying our asses off, we’re not getting anywhere this way. I know you like having a plan, but maybe we need to fly by the seat of our pants just a little and see where it gets us.”
Lucy opened her mouth to argue. Spit-balling was the last thing they needed to do on a case this big. Except…
Shit, he was right. They weren’t making an inch of progress by looking at the facts, and re-examining the same dead ends over and over again was just going to burn them both out.
“Alright,” she agreed. At this point, what could it hurt? “What did you have in mind?”
His grin would’ve tempted her to be sorry she’d asked if it hadn’t been so freaking sexy.Focus, girl.“How about a little free association?”
Lucy wrinkled her nose. “What, like where we say the first thing that pops into our heads?”
