Page 69 of Up In Smoke

Maybe they were all scrambling the way that he was. The fire department had just barely finished the other fire and this second one had been too-well timed.

Son of a bitch. He thought he knew his brothers. Mario would never have been able to pull this off, but Carlos was smart, calculating, the best salesman on the floor at his car lot. Maybe there was a better reason for that than just that he was driven to escape the poverty they’d grown up in, Luke thought now.

He pulled up to the blaze even before the trucks arrived, though, right behind him the small red pickup that the chief drove plowed its way in. A second fire in the same night brought out the big guy.

Pulling into the drive, Luke hung an immediate right, parking on the grass and making room for the crew that was on its way. The two vehicles parked next to each other and he was out and rushing for the house even as the chief climbed out, a little more cautious in his movements.

With his tablet tucked under his arm, Taggart looked at Luke with a deep and abiding sympathy. “I figured this might be another place you knew.”

Luke only nodded as he pulled up short, as close to the flames as he could be, still empty from the loss of Ivy. All he could do now was fight. He felt like a child on the verge of a temper tantrum, about to lash out at anyone and everyone. He tried not to do anything too damaging to the chief.

Logically, he knew the man was only trying to help. So he tried to be helpful. “We lived here for six months after my father left.”

The chief pointed up and down the long street. The houses on either side of this one were also boarded up. “Were you the last ones who lived here?”

“I don't know.” He'd been a kid, not even ten when his father had left. He didn't remember much of the logistics aside from worrying that his mother wouldn’t be able to pay the rent, regardless of which house or apartment he'd lived in. Other than that, his big concern was that he might one day get his own bedroom. It hadn't happened until he was an adult.

“Engine’s on its way,” the chief said as he reached back into the truck and pulled the massive flashlight out. It was handheld, shaped like a bullhorn, and put out an unbelievable number of lumens. “Want to do the preliminary sweep with me?”

Luke nodded. He had to have something to do, he needed an assignment and rules to follow. He could feel that his body was preternaturally still but inside every cell was abuzz.

Where was Ivy? Where was his brother? Would they find Ivy’s body in the barn? Or would they find her somewhere else?

He stopped, reaching out to grab the chief's arm. “What if Ivy's here?”

“Her car's not here,” said the chief.

“They didn't find her at the barn.” His fingers now dug into the man's arm. He would have stopped but he couldn't. All he could do was be grateful that his chief was wearing a thick coat so Luke probably wasn't hurting him. Luckily, his boss didn't argue further. “Why do you think she'd be here?”

Luke felt everything in him fall. He didn't have a better explanation than the one he gave. “Because my brother is salesman of the year.”

Obviously, that didn't land very well and Luke scrambled to explain. The words gushed out of him. “Ivy left work at six when the library closed. She texted Orlando Taveras—maybe the last person who’d texted her—and she sent ‘its various’ at 6:37 p.m. He called her. I called her. But her phone's been going straight to voicemail since about that same time.”

“What's her number?”

Luke watched as he flipped the tablet on, lighting up his face, and tapping in a request.

Jesus, Luke thought, the chief was going to trace the numbers. Thank God. Ivy might not be alive … but she might be. And they could use every bit of information. He could hold on to the hope that he might find her again.

“Alright, keep going,” the chief said once he'd hit the last button.

“Look at your keyboard,” Luke instructed. “We're pretty sure she was writingIt's Carlosand it got autocorrected. It sure doesn't match Mario. Or Tiago.”

Taggart was frowning at him, but Luke motioned to him. “Try it. DoCarlos.”

Sure enough,variouswas one of the words that was suggested.

“Son of a bitch.” He muttered the words, then looked up. “So why does it matter that he's a salesman of the year?”

“He reads people. He's calculating. Maybe Ivy wasn't in the barn. Maybe he left her car there to throw us off the track.”

“I'll be honest,” the chief said. “I don't remember your brother as calculating. But he didn’t pass the psych test. That’s why we couldn’t take him.”

Luke sucked in a breath. He’d missed so many signs. But he turned back to the only thing he could do now. With the request to track Ivy’s cell phone done and the chief having tried the wording on his keyboard, they started to circle the building. The flashlight shone at the base of the small house, illuminating the parts the flames left in shadow. The chief occasionally reached to his shoulder, talking into his comm to the engines that were on their way. He discussed getting backups in from Beatrice if those finishing up at the barn weren't able to leave quickly enough. He set dispatch to calling in firefighters from A and C-shift to help cover the extra work.

They made their way around the corner to the back of the house. The light only showing them what the fire already had. The place had been ringed in accelerant and the structure was beginning to collapse.

“My brother is charming but in a few moments I’ve seen him have real rage. He always covered it up so quickly that we thought he'd gotten over it.” But after seeing these fires Luke thought his brother’s rejection from the fire department may have had a bigger impact than it should have.

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