Page 34 of Crash and Burn

Back at the couch, she wished she had a cat to curl up with her. Could she do that? Abbie had often had a house cat or at least a feral one that she fed. Maggie sighed, she was getting tired or bored. Her mind was wandering. Since she wasn’t getting a cat in the middle of the night, she pulled up the pictures of Abbie's records on her computer.

This was hard to research, too. Abbie’s paperwork was as much a mess as everything else. Nothing was in order. Rental contracts from thirty years ago were filed with one from last December.

It might have been the last one she wrote, Maggie thought, but she pushed the nostalgia aside and pulled out a notepad and pen. She began keeping track of names and dates. As she plowed through the pictures, a few odd facts emerged.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Sebastian stood at the front of the house, the heat of the flames could still be felt through his thick gear. They lit up his view and a good part of the neighborhood.

Next to him, the chief stood surveying the damage, hands on his hips. He wasn’t happy. He also wasn’t in full gear but did have his mask on to breathe clean oxygen. The whole neighborhood was rolling with smoke and ash.

The two men watched as A-shift dampened the blaze. They didn't have to talk.

House fires were rare. Abandoned buildings sometimes caught fire. Camp sites caught fire an inordinate amount of time when people failed to follow necessary protocol. Wildfires sometimes started with lightning strikes or fireworks run amok.

But this? Two house fires in a small town within a week was odd.

The first house had at least been empty when it had gone up. It had been for sale. That had triggered an investigation by the insurance company. Though, from everything Sebastian had gathered when he and the chief had gone back to check the place out, the family had lost money in the blaze. The area was relatively nice, though not one of the up and coming places in town, and the sale of the house would have been worth more than the insurance was paying out.

Sebastian had heard that the staging company was also going after the insurance to recover everything they'd lost. All the furniture and fake family pictures, kitchen supplies, everything they'd added to make the home look lived in and welcoming to prospective buyers had been destroyed, too.

This house though … it was smaller, more rundown, and lit up like a fucking firecracker.

Chief motioned him to move back and they stepped further down the street. Their comms would keep them in touch with the others, but this allowed them to take off their masks and speak a little more freely. They definitely had to watch out for neighbors listening in.

The street was overrun with lookie loos. They weren't drivebys gawking. They were neighbors, bringing water bottles to the family or treats for the family’s two dogs. One of the dogs had already been walked away to a neighbor's where he could be taken care of.

That was the kind of community Sebastian wanted for himself. His apartment building didn’t have it, but he hoped one day to get himself a fixer-upper.

“We won't know till we get inside …” the chief started, letting the phrase trail off.

Sebastian understood. They'd have to find evidence if it was or wasn’t arson.

“Older house,” Sebastian mused. “Could have been the wiring.”

“They should have seen something or smelled something first,” the chief countered.

“I don't know,” Sebastian shrugged. They should have, butshoulddidn’t always mean people did notice. Or they’d noticed but dismissed it—either thought it wasn’t that bad a smell or decided that they’d just fix it later. He wasn’t ready to rule out faulty wiring.

He spotted Luke coming up the street toward them. That was odd. The firefighters stayed put. Each had his position and leaving it would rearrange how the team worked. It must mean Luke had something to say.

“Hernandez.” The chief greeted him with a neutral tone, letting him know he was free to talk, but unexpected.

Hernandez glanced towards Sebastian, but again the chief nodded. The movements were simple conversation between people who worked together as a unit consistently, sometimes in life and death situations. They all understood the nod to mean that, whatever Luke had to say, he could say in front of Sebastian.

“I didn't put anything together before,” Luke looked between them. “But I'm getting a little concerned about the locations of the fires.”

“I don't understand,” the chief said, now curious about what one of his newest firefighters was bringing.

“When I was a kid,” Luke added, “We moved around a lot. It was my mom, my dad, me, my three brothers. Then my dad left when I was seven.”

Chief nodded. Sebastian understood. Luke hadn't made a secret of his family history, and he was wondering why it was getting repeated now.

“I've lived in each of these two neighborhoods. I’ve …” He didn’t finish, but shook his head as if shaking off something disturbing.

Interesting, Sebastian thought. Two house fires, barely a week apart. One firefighter had lived in both places.

The chief took a more cynical approach. “You moved around a lot. But the people who live in these neighborhoods move around a lot more, too. It’s probably not just you who’s lived in both places.”

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