Page 22 of Catching Fire

“Your brothers aren't that much younger than you, are they?” Kalan asked.

Luke shook his head. “We’re all close in age. Mario and Carlos were there for three and four years after I moved out. Tiago is barely eleven months older than me.”

Kalan had wondered what that must have been like for their mother. Four boys, all under five years old at once. His own mother had raised him and two younger sisters alone, but his sisters were a bit younger than him. As far as he knew, Luke’s father had abandoned the family when the boys were young. But Kalan still wasn't quite sure what to say, so he asked, “Is it a nostalgia thing?”

He wondered how he'd feel if his own childhood home had burned. But his childhood home had been a high-rise apartment in Chicago, and he was certain he would feel differently about watching that burn than watching Luke’s small, quaint, slightly rundown house go up in flames.

“It's not that.” Luke looked down for a moment as Kalan waited. “These fires …”

Kalan knew exactly what he was talking about. Redemption was a small town. Firefighting was as much about checking smoke detectors, picking up medical cases, and getting people out of their cars or pulled from a flood as it was about fires. So he knew exactly what “these fires” meant.

“They've all been places that I've known. I told the chief at the second one that we were in my old neighborhood. But we're up to four now.”

Though Kalan hadn’t seen the official report, he could make a deduction. “So this was arson, too?”

“But they've all been started by different methods,” Luke told him, clearly frustrated. “The more cases we see, the less likely it is that it’s a separate arsonist. And that means someone knows a lot of ways to get away with setting fires.”

Kalan absorbed that. It didn’t go down well, and Luke wasn’t finished.

“The fires had all been in places I’m familiar with, but it’s a small town. What area don’t I know? But this time it’s a home that my family once lived in.” Luke looked him dead in the eyes, as if to ask if Kalan was as concerned as he was. Suddenly Kalan was.

Jesus, he thought, he'd spent his whole shift worrying about getting back to Seline to play pretend boyfriend. And now, Luke was suggesting that their arson wasn't random.

What was going on in his little town?

His attention was pulled by the sandwiches arriving in large paper bags rolled tightly at the top. The shop guy handed them through the side window to Luke who traded cash for the wonderful smell.

Kalan’s stomach growled just as the radio crackled. His stomach dropped and he looked at his partner as if to say, “I called it.”

“At least we have the sandwiches,” Luke grinned.

Kalan tapped his comm. “Yes Chief?”

“Don’t eat all the sandwiches.” It might not be an emergency after all … The chief’s voice carried through the cab. “The hospital just called.”

Kalan's heart sank.

“That woman you brought in? Five minutes after arrival, she had amassiveheart attack. They would not have been able to save her had she not already beeninsidethe ER.”

“Holy shit!” Luke’s mouth gaped open.

The chief told them to hurry up with the food and as the comm line went dead, Luke and Kalan let themselves have a slightly hysterical laugh.The old bat had known what she was talking about!

But even though the truck now smelled like sandwiches, and they did manage to save the woman's life, Kalan thought of Seline.

She was at the university today.

Too far away,he thought and the sinking sensation in the center of his chest wouldn’t loosen.

Chapter Fourteen

Seline swore a blue streak. She only did it because she was in her lab all by herself and she was swearing in French.

The day had been a disaster. Everything had to be done twice because she was either interrupted or someone called and wanted the exact same information she’d already given them. She shouldn’t have answered the phone.

Then the experiment had gone poorly, the results not at all what she’d expected. This was a big setback in her work to produce a biodegradable, but sturdy, food safe foam. This was the project that was supposed to clinch her for tenure.

Seline swore again even as she mentally reminded herself that negative results were good and often led to breakthroughs. But she hadn’t seen the breakthrough, only the disappointment. Missing the meeting, bringing a serial killer to the school, and now failing at her design was almost sure to keep her out of getting tenure. That would mean she couldn’t afford her house and she’d have to move. She almost put her hand to her face to cry. The only thing that stopped her was her training never to touch her face in the lab.

---