Page 77 of Catching Fire

Verner held the phone to her ear so Kalan had no idea what had roused him, but he must have heard something. Honestly, there'd been a lot of times people in the room had been on the phone, andeveryonein the room had been able to hear both sides of the conversation. So it was a bitch that he couldn’t hear whatever had triggered him awake now.

Verner waved her hand at him, as if to tell him it was nothing.

His heart was still beating heavily from jolting awake and his brain reminded him that Verner was probably right. So fareverythinghad been nothing.

Him recognizing the house in the picture Ivy brought hadn't been right. It hadn't turned out to be the house he was thinking of. Though it did look like a house that Sanders would use, the police in the area had already rushed out to the place and interrupted the occupants—an older couple who had been watching TV. So some poor couple who had no connection to anything was now suffering because the FBI had rushed the house.

Other checks had all been a big bust, too. So Kalan forced himself to hang back until Verner hung up the phone. Then he asked, “What was it?”

Though it was probably another round of nothing, he wanted to know whatexact kindof nothing it was. Because, sooner or later, some of these nothings had to add up tosomethingthey could use.

“A property out near Brownlee,” Verner said, as though that were enough information.

Kalan pressed harder. “What about it?”

“There was an explosion.”

Every cell in his body clicked into place. He was wide awake now. “The local authorities are checking it out. Right?”

“Of course, they are.” Verner set the phone down on the folding table and leaned back over her laptop, as though Kalan's questions were of no consequence.

“No.” Kalan tapped her shoulder and forced her to look up at him. “This is important. We need to go there, now.”

And then he said what he had suddenly begun tobelieve. “Seline is there.”

“They said it looks like a gas fire.”

“Okay.” He backed off for a moment but it didn’t change his conviction. Then he turned back to Verner, this time his intensity caught Rossi's attention as well. “You’re saying that one of the properties we were watching—a property with a known link to Sanders—just exploded.”

“That doesn't mean your girlfriend's there,” Verner told him, her expression not moving from the neutral setting it had been at for almost two days now.

“I think it does.”

“No.” Verner countered with such a blah tone that he almost backed off.

But there was more. “Someone turned on the gas and blew up the house. It’s not a coincidence.”

“It could have been an accident,” Verner replied. “Gas leaks happen all the time, especially on these older properties.”

“Right. But none of the other properties has blown up since Seline disappeared.”

“True.” But though Verner voiced agreement, she once again dismissed him and turned back to the laptop.

That was when it hit him. Verner and Rossi, and the rest of the FBI agents, were just doing their due diligence. Though they all desperately wanted to find Seline, they no longer believed they would find her alive.

He was looking for his girlfriend. They were looking for a body.

She’d passed the fourteen-hours-missing mark quite some time ago. In fact, far too long ago to have blown up a house just now.

Kalan swallowed hard, as if he could swallow down the idea that she was gone just as easily.

On the one hand, he told himself he should believe them, that they knew what they were doing. Despite their dismissal of his idea, they hadn't yet declared her dead, nor had they packed up their laptops, folded up their tables, and left him sitting here in her living room alone. They had not changed her status officially from “missing” to “missing presumed dead.”

The other side of him fought back. They hadn't changed her status, but his hope cost them nothing. However, losing hope would cost himeverything.

He plopped back down onto the couch and tried to be a good resident. He'd been fighting this for a full day, knowing that if he got too overheated or fought too hard, they could and would throw him out. It wasn't his home any more than it was theirs. They had jurisdiction. He did not.

He was only allowed to stay while he was being helpful, or at least while he remained out of their way. But then the phone rang again and Verner frowned a little as she answered. “Arson?”

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