Page 15 of Over the Flames

The rain picked up pace against the single window framed into the foundation to their left, and she struggled to hear over the crack of thunder shaking through the entire house. A single desk had been set up along one wall with blank paper strewn across the surface. Pens, newspaper articles, a laptop cord snaking across the mess. Phil Anderson’s editor believed the journalist had stopped submitting and publishing work, but the desk looked like the mind of a writer at work. Maybe the victim had stopped submitting to The Daily Herald, but that still didn’t explain how Baldwin and Jacqueline were involved.

“It’s about a string of fires that broke out in abandoned buildings all over Seattle last year. The fire marshal assigned to the case originally believed the fires had been set so building owners could collect insurance money, but he couldn’t make a connection between them.” The dark circles under Sheriff Sanders’s eyes said she’d gotten about as much sleep as Arden and Lawson had. Her long, red hair had been pulled into a severe bun at the base of her neck, leaving frizzed sections of hair around her straight features. Hesitation swirled in her commanding gaze as the sheriff studied her from the corner of her eye, but Arden wasn’t about to extract herself from this investigation. Not now. “But the fire marshal was able to prove all the fires were set by the same arsonist. Whoever lit the match used gasoline at each one of the scenes before he went dormant. Four in total.”

Gasoline. The same accelerant used at Baldwin’s, Jacqueline Day’s, and Phil Anderson’s scenes.

Lawson scrubbed a hand across his five o’clock shadow as he surveyed the rest of the space. “I remember the news coverage. The media started calling him the Arsonist after two people died in the last fire, but the police didn’t have a suspect.”

“According to this article, Phil Anderson identified him.” Sheriff Sanders handed over the draft, the rounded arch of her eyebrows steeper than a minute ago. “I count three different styles of handwriting in these pages. Possibly two males, one female. There are notes in the margins as well as the sticky notes you see all over the desk.”

Arden closed the distance between her and her ex-husband. Another rush of that all too familiar awareness fought to replace the chill she’d carried in from outside. She arched to get a look at the papers in his hand. Red ink drew her attention to the margins where instant recognition solidified. Baldwin’s handwriting. She’d recognize it anywhere from the hundreds of notes he’d left in the margins of her own articles. Oxygen hitched in her throat. That didn’t make sense. Why would Baldwin have given feedback on an article written by a man who’d accused him of plagiarism? Suspicion deepened as she studied the two other sets of handwriting. “The changes written in blue are Phil Anderson’s handwriting. I recognize it from some notes he’d taken upstairs on a piece of mail near the back door.” She indicated the red-penned corrections slanted from left to right, as though a left-handed person had written the notes. “The sharper, rushed revisions written in red are Baldwin Webb’s.”

Shock brought Lawson’s shoulders back, the weight of his proximity holding her in place. “You recognize the handwriting.”

Not a question. No suspicion overlaying his words. Lawson believed her on the surface, and she couldn’t help but breathe a little easier.

“How can you be sure? Apart from the evidence here proving Phil Anderson was working on this draft, none of the victims’ names are on this article as authors.” Sheriff Sanders settled her hands on her tactical belt, those stark green eyes narrowed. “Handwriting analysis isn’t considered reliable evidence for a reason. There are too many variables that affect someone’s handwriting. Stress, time, the content of the sample. There were too many graphologists looking at the same samples and rendering completely different opinions as to who they belonged to.”

“They used a pen name.” She singled out the author listed at the top of the first page. “Writers sometimes use a different name to publish as kind of a shield, especially if an investigation has the potential to come back and hurt them or their family. All three victims must’ve used this one to keep the fact they were working together a secret. Baldwin has edited dozens of my articles in the past two years. Always in red pen. If he and Phil Anderson were working on this story together, Baldwin would’ve been the one to print them out to make notes.” She was sure of it. “I have all my original articles if you need proof or something to compare the two samples, but I’m telling you, Baldwin made these notes. I’m positive.”

“And this third sample? Do you recognize that one?” Lawson circled the strokes written in black, doubt absent from his expression.

“No.” Arden shook her head, but her instincts told her who the comments belonged to. “But considering Baldwin and Phil were both burned alive, there’s only one other victim I can think of who might’ve been involved and could match that feminine handwriting.”

“Jacqueline Day. Damn it.” Lawson handed the draft of the article back to Sheriff Sanders, his expression unreadable as he spoke to the sheriff. “We’ll need a sample of her writing to be sure, but we can’t ignore the possibility all three of the victims were working together to uncover the identity of the Arsonist.”

“I’ll have my people go through what’s left of the evidence we collected from Jacqueline Day’s home. Might be something in there with a sample on it they can send us.” Sheriff Sanders studied the dissected article draft again. “If what you’re theorizing is true, there’s a chance the Arsonist could’ve discovered three journalists were working to identify and expose him and went out of his way to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“Baldwin never said anything to you about working with two other journalists to investigate a story?” Lawson turned to her, the intensity in his eyes knocking her back a step.

“No, and there wasn’t any evidence on his tablet, in his emails, or in his message history to prove he was. If they were working together, they didn’t want anyone else to know.” Then again, how much of Baldwin was true anymore? She wasn’t sure she’d ever known the man she’d admired and trusted with the darkest pieces of herself. Arden studied the desk again, the fact three chairs had been brought down into the basement, the different colors of sticky notes, and the number of pens sprawled across the desk’s surface. “This could’ve been where they did their work. They could’ve met here to talk about the case and write in private. If they were trying to expose the Arsonist on their own, they’d would’ve kept all the details of the investigation between them, but there’s a laptop missing. Someone obviously knew what they were working on and took it to cover their tracks.”

“You’re right.” Sheriff Sanders turned toward the desk. “We haven’t recovered a computer or a laptop during our search so far, but there’s a power cord. Stands to reason the killer might’ve taken it with him after he disposed of Phil Anderson’s body.”

“I recognize the charger. It’s specific to one brand, and a lot of those devices are able to track one another with an app in case they get left behind in a public place or stolen. Problem is accessing the data long enough to run the app.” Lawson’s gaze cut to Arden as though the same thought had crossed both of their minds. She’d been able to get past Baldwin Webb’s tablet password, but she knew next to nothing about Phil Anderson. He faced Sheriff Sanders as crime scene techs bagged and collected evidence from the desk. “Have you recovered the victim’s phone yet?”

“No, but I have a good idea where to start looking.” Sheriff Sanders flipped through the article to the last page and indicated a circled section at the bottom written in red ink. One of Phil’s notes. “Phil Anderson believed he’d uncovered the identity of the Arsonist. Brent Hayward. I asked one of my deputies to run a background check. I haven’t heard anything back, but according to the sources all three of the victims collected for this article, he had access to the buildings and the accelerant.”

A tingling sensation swept through her at the name.

“I wrote an article about Brent Hayward when I first started writing for the paper.” The amount of research she’d collected hadn’t been much. In truth, her first articles for The Seattle Times were more puff pieces than investigative masterpieces, but she’d kept her head down and done the work until she had something more valuable to show her editor. As Baldwin had taught her. “He was a fire marshal for Seattle Fire Department, specifically knowledgeable in arson and accelerants criminals used to feed their fires. He retired a year ago, walked away with a wall full of accommodations from the mayor.”

“He was the fire marshal assigned to determine if the fires were arson or accidental. The victims believed Hayward was the Arsonist. Did the notes you went through happen to pinpoint a motive?” Lawson asked.

“They did.” Sheriff Sanders hooked her thumbs into her dark green uniform slacks, her shoulders curving inward. “Hayward’s station was also first at the scene of every fire the marshal concluded had been set by the Arsonist.”

Lawson’s low whistle raised the hairs on the back of Arden’s neck. He shifted his weight between his feet before crossing his arms over his chest and resurrected the familiar scent of his aftershave. “Hayward sets the fires, has his station respond first in order to beef up his reputation, then reports that there’s a serial arsonist at work to deflect suspicion.” Storm-gray eyes settled on hers, and a quiver exploded down Arden’s back. “I think that’s enough motive to want three investigative journalists dead, don’t you?”

“I’ll call you as soon as we have an address. Until then, we need to finish processing this scene.” The sheriff handed off the drafted article to the tech nearest her and headed up the unfinished stairs to the main level.

The electrifying buzz of sensation of following a lead, of solving the case, took hold. Arden’s fingers tingled to reach for her phone and take notes, but she’d made Lawson a promise not to make his investigation into these deaths public for her own benefit. He’d only allowed her to be part of this case because she’d wanted to find the truth about what’d happened to her best friend and mentor. Now that they’d uncovered a promising theory that explained how Baldwin, Jacqueline Day, and Phil Anderson were connected, that agreement would soon be coming to an end. Stiffness replaced the rush of excitement quicker than she’d anticipated as Lawson studied the papers strewn over the desk’s surface.

She hadn’t been able to do anything for Rey when she’d died, but with Lawson, with this case over the past couple of days, she’d helped. She braced for the rise of pain and grief at the mere thought of her daughter, for the Ache, but like before, when she’d said that single precious name aloud, there was only a shadow of the fear she’d tried to bury. It’d been two years since she and her ex-husband had stood beside that far-too-small coffin, but this…newfound strength had nothing to do with time. And everything to do with the agent in front of her. She’d provided valuable information that would’ve taken the FBI and the King County Sheriff’s Department days, if not weeks, to find on their own, and Lawson had looked at her as though he couldn’t have done it without her. She didn’t want to give that up. She didn’t want the familiarity of them working toward a common goal to end. Not yet.

“Brent Hayward didn’t strike me as the killing type. He retired after that last fire revealed two people had died inside the building.” Had the former fire marshal been the one to bind Baldwin’s hands to that chair, soak him in gasoline, and light the match? Arden had studied those fires in hopes of taking her editor something the paper could use, but there’d been nothing to give her a suspect, let alone peg a former fire marshal as the Arsonist. She’d dropped the story and moved onto a case involving a mother poisoning her child to get the attention of her loved ones and friends. Munchausen syndrome by proxy. The story had rocketed Arden from puff piece princess to part-time investigative journalist the moment she’d submitted it to her editor. If all three victims had been working together to identify a serial arsonist as the evidence suggested, the theory fit. Except… “Before you said the killer was working his way up to bigger headlines. He started with Phil Anderson, who worked for a smaller paper and ended with Baldwin. So why would the Arsonist move the body into the shed? Wouldn’t he want his first victim found?”

Lawson faced her, every bit the federal agent she’d imagined him to be in that moment as his expression neutralized. Tall, dark, handsome. Dangerous. He wasn’t the kind to use his physical strength against her, but there was more than one way to hurt someone. More than one way to get past her defenses and make her believe she was safe to feel again. He swept that mesmerizing gaze across the scene one last time, and the spell holding her hostage shattered. “I don’t know yet.”

Thundering footsteps pounded down the stairs before Sheriff Sanders rounded back down into the basement. Sections of the bun at the nap of her neck had escaped in the few minutes she’d been upstairs. Excitement bled into her voice and widened those sharp green eyes. “Agent Mitchell, we’ve got an address for Brent Hayward. SWAT is already en route.”

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