Page 3 of Burning Truth

Well, if those scars were from a fire, it would make sense that he would be terrified.

Addie stayed long enough to see the segment air, then she headed home. If there was an update, she would hear about it.

Traffic at midnight was minimal, which was good, because she was only half paying attention as she drove home. Worry dogged at her, and she doubted she would sleep at all tonight.

When she’d taken this job, her mother had shaken her head at her. “I love you, kiddo, but I don’t know if this is the job for you. I’m not sure if your heart will take it.”

Yeah, she’d kind of felt that as well, but she’d wanted the experience under her belt. At first, she’d been an intern, a nobody in the production business. But one of their reporters had unexpectedly resigned to take a job across the country, in California, and the search had been on for a new, prime-timeface to fill in. It was not the way things were normally done in the business, but it made for a good story.

Ron, the Program Director, had put out the call and her boss had put in her name. It was no secret she’d gotten the job because she was more than passably pretty. As soon as she’d walked in the door of Ron’s office, he’d nodded his head at the man sitting at the conference table with him. “Yeah, she’s the one. Get her ready for the camera.”

And he’d stalked out of the room, leaving her with a new job she hadn’t even handed her resume over for. Was he even aware that she planned to take over his job, then move up?

While she didn’t mind being on camera, it wasn’t what she was working toward, but she had decided to accept the position for the experience. Eventually, she wanted to be the News Director, who ran the entire enchilada. This was experience in that direction. At least, that’s what she kept telling herself.

The worst part about being on camera was learning to regulate her expressions. She hadn’t trained to be an on-air personality, so it had taken some getting used to. At bad scenes, she still had to overcome her own emotions to report the news. Ron had gotten frustrated with her a few times, because she’d said or done something in reaction to what she’d seen. At a crash with a school bus, she’d cried when she’d learned that one child had been killed. At another scene, she’d laughed when a dog had raced up to greet her, leaving muddy footprints all over her new skirt.

Surprisingly, though, the viewership appreciated her humanity. At first, they didn’t like that she’d ‘taken’ the previous woman’s job. Layla Jones had been a nightly staple on WNBC 4 News Columbus for a lot of people, and her exit had been abrupt. There had been a lot of speculation that something had happened to make her leave the station, but Addie didn’t thinkthat was a case. Layla had simply been offered a job in LA, a spot she’d been more than happy to take.

Once Addie changed into her sleep clothes and settled onto the couch with a cup of tea, she started scrolling through her social media. They had a social team at the station that posted important clips and events for them on their pages, and most of the time, Addie liked scrolling through and responding to comments. Even months into the job, it surprised people to get a response from the actual personality.

Recently, though, she’d had a couple of trolls. One persisted in critiquing her outfit every day. Whatever. But the other had started leaving more personal comments. Things that niggled at her. Yep, there he was. BrickBrak342 had left a comment.You should have done better. I spent a lot of time on that, Addison.

She frowned at the comment, wondering if he was trying to take responsibility for the crime. Or did he just mean he’d spent time watching her segment?

She took a screenshot of the statement and sent it to Ron. The man barely slept, and she had a feeling he was still awake. He would watch the nightly segments, then take copious notes on what could be better to be distributed at his morning meetings. Over the past couple of weeks, she’d sent him several of these screenshots. Just things that didn’t sit right with her.

BrickBrak342 had been a different name before they’d blocked him, but she recognized the phrasing. He always used the long version of her name, like he was a teacher correcting the pupil. It grated at her. If he was the same guy, they were going to have to watch him, because he’d commented on several of her segments recently.

On her phone, she added the screenshot with the others in the file and where she’d stored it. Then she headed to bed for a sleepless night, wondering about the victims of the fire.

2

Severn knew in his gut that Columbus had an arsonist at large.

The guy wasn’t moving quickly. For the past few months, there had been a slew of little incidents. Fires in random places, pieces of IEDs and pipe bombs found in obscure places, criminal trespass complaints in abandoned buildings. If he didn’t have the access he did to certain police reports, he wasn’t sure anybody would even notice to connect the dots.

It all added up to a growing firebug, to him, though, and he was about ready to take it all to his boss.

Parker called him into his office the next morning, and Severn grabbed the folder of firebug info and his tablet.

Parker gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “What is this?”

“A hunch.”

Parker flipped through the paperwork, then rocked back in his chair. “I have a meeting in thirty minutes with the police, and I think you’d better be involved.”

Severn scowled. “Why do I have to be involved?”

“Because, my friend. They think you’re the firebug.”

Severn barked out a laugh, squinting at his boss in incredulity. “Are you fucking serious?”

Parker handed over a photo. It was of Severn himself, standing and looking up at the blazing building on Pike Street with a haunted look on his face. That had been several weeks ago, at the coffee shop he used to frequent. That was where he had seen the newswoman, and she’d tried to talk to him.

That was where they’d eventually found three people fried to a crisp.

Severn scowled. “This is a few blocks from my apartment, and I heard the explosion. I ran to see what happened, and the building was already engulfed. I had a flashback when I looked up at it, and that was when the news crew filmed me.”

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