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Sam’s brain exploded with six different ideas, all screaming for immediate attention. He chose the loudest one first. “All of these fires were set in places where they had a good chance of burning to the ground. Especially if they were all fed by accelerant.”
“These fire patterns suggest these otherscouldhave all been set intentionally.” Lucy pointed to the shot of the storage shed, then another as Capelli clicked his way through more scene photos. “Just like the warehouse fire. See?”
She traced a path over the images as if connecting imaginary dots, and holy shit.Yes.“These fires are all connected.”
Hollister’s auburn brows lifted toward the edge of his dark green beanie. “Okay, look. I’m not saying there aren’t a few maybes here. But a three-story warehouse is a far cry from a few storage sheds and an abandoned vehicle in North Point, don’t you think?”
“It could be,” Lucy agreed, “unless we’ve been looking at the vandalism angle all wrong. What if”—she paused, but only for a second, during which Sam’s heart began to pound—“what if it wasn’t vandalism at all. What if this guy is a firebug, and those smaller fires were just practice for the real thing? What if they’re all arson, and this guy is just escalating?”
Silence fell across the Intelligence office, the air charged with oh-shit possibility. “With how well planned the warehouse fire was, that actually tracks,” Garza said.
“We know for sure that both the warehouse fire and Lucy’s SUV were arson,” Hale said, nodding as her blond brows creased in thought. “If he’s truly a firebug, that would explain the lack of traditional motive.”
“The fireisthe motive,” Isabella said, and Sam shook his head.
“The fire is the whole point. And now that he’s managed to set one this big, he’s not going to stop.”
“Okay, wait.” Capelli frowned, flipping through the images of each fire, ending on Lucy’s SUV. “This doesn’t make sense, though. If the smaller fires were practice for the warehouse fire—which, I admit, is plausible—then why set fire to Lucy’s SUV, a whole week after the fact?”
“To try and stay under the radar?” Xander guessed. “Maybe he’s trying to make the cause of these fires look inconclusive so we won’t dig too deep. But another large structure fire would definitely tip off the arson investigation unit, right? They’d open a case, get us involved…it could put a lot of heat on him.”
Sam’s heart rose into his throat. “But the RFD did open a case when we uncovered that backpack,” he said slowly, and oh, fuck. “So, maybe Lucy was the target after all.”
Lucy froze beside him, eyes wide, and Sam had never wanted to pull her close more than he did in this moment. “Are you saying…you think that whoever set these fires isafterme?”
“Okay, let’s take a step back for just a second,” Sinclair said, his gravelly voice calm. “We don’t have any evidence that you were specifically targeted, or that you’re in any danger, Lucy, and we don’t have anything definitive linking these events to the warehouse. That said,” he added, before Sam could jump in with the protest he’d had, locked and loaded on his tongue, “we need to take the possibility seriously. I think it’s time we bring in an expert who can help us dig in to this firebug angle.”
“Wait.” Lucy looked at Sinclair, then the rest of the detectives, looking as confused as Sam felt. “I thought Sam and I were the experts.”
“On the scene, yes,” Isabella said. “But not on the arsonist. Or, more specifically, his behavior.”
A second passed, then another, before realization hit Sam full-force in the chest. “Dallas Garrity.”
Sinclair nodded. “He’s the best damn profiler in the city. I take it you know him?”
Sam’s laugh was only part irony. “Seeing as the guy saved my life once? Yeah. I’d say I know him.”
21
Three hours, two deli sandwiches, and one brand-new cell phone later, Lucy found herself back in Sam’s Jeep, headed to former rescue squad member and current RFD psychologist Dallas Garrity’s office. Dallas Garrity, who could help them unravel whether or not a dangerous arsonist had set fire to her SUV. Dallas Garrity, who had been on squad at Station Seventeen for seven years, two of them with Sam, before a horrible injury had ended his active-duty career. Dallas Garrity, without whom, Sam wouldn’t be alive.
Mind. Officially. Blown.
“Okay,” Lucy said, fixing Sam with a look that probably betrayed her curiosity. “The suspense is killing me. How exactly did Dallas Garrity save your life?”
She realized—too late—that it was a fairly nosy question. Not that he hadn’t forked over the tidbit about Dallas to the entire Intelligence Unit. But Sam was nothing if not impulsive. Maybe he’d said it to Sinclair without thinking it through. Or maybe the gory details weren’t really on his To Be Shared list. He did tend to be pretty tight-lipped about anything serious, and almost dying definitely qualified. Just because she’d blabbed all about her past this morning didn’t necessarily mean he’d want to open up in return.
Except he didn’t hesitate. “You know Dallas was on Squad Six,” Sam said, and here, Lucy nodded. When she’d been assigned to Station Seventeen, she’d made it a point to learn its history. Parker Drake, the paramedic who’d left to become a surgeon. Asher Gibson, who had been tragically killed in an apartment fire, way back before Kellan had even been a rookie. And Dallas Garrity, who had been on squad even before that, and whose active-duty career had ended before he’d turned thirty with an injury that no one ever talked about.
“Yes,” Lucy said. “Until about five years ago, right?”
Sam nodded, his eyes on the windshield but his attention clearly on the conversation, too. “It was me, Garrity, McElroy, who retired before Garrity did, and Hawkins. Of course. He took over as lieutenant when McElroy left.”
“You four were close,” Lucy said, not a question. Firefighters needed to have some level of closeness in order to trust each other with their lives. Squad firefighters? Needed twice as much, minimum.
Sam nodded again. “Yeah. This was almost seven years ago. I was the squad rookie. Thought I was completely fucking bulletproof. Not exactly the Boy Scout I am now.”
Lucy groaned as he sent a wink in her direction, but her laugh quickly took over. “Well,that’sterrifying.”
