Page 33 of Inferno

Julio tugged out a chair and sat beside her, turning to face her so she was his whole focus. “I haven’t done anything.” He glanced over at Romeo and Bristol, now sitting on two waiting area chairs. He was trying to sign something, and she was adjusting his hands. Both of them were laughing. Romeo pulled out his phone. “You have to admit, it’s pretty adorable.”

Samantha groaned. “I’m never going to hear the end of this.”

Julio didn’t think about it, he just lifted his hand and ran it down a strand of her hair. He stopped his hand at the back of her shoulder, caressing with his fingers. Trying to impart some peace into her. Or at least a sense of solidarity. “It’ll be okay.”

“Unless all goes horribly wrong, and then I’m the one who has to pick up the pieces on both sides. I’ll have to see them every day. And they will end up blaming me for the whole disaster.”

“But it might not go wrong at all,” Julio said. “It just might be very, very right.”

She flinched.

Then frowned.

Before he could ask what was going on, she said, “Why is Captain Tennet on TV?”

Julio glanced over. At the bottom of the screen it said his name, scrolling with the wordsArson Investigator. Then the wordsLIVEandBreaking Newsflashed across the screen. Hegrabbed the remote from the middle of the table and turned up the volume until he could hear Tennet address the reporters, hands gripping the edges of a podium at a press conference.

“…that we are currently dealing with a copycat of the notorious arsonist Richard Sylvan. We advise the public to go about their lives but do so with caution. It is our belief that this man is extremely dangerous.”

THIRTEEN

Even an hour later, Julio was still fuming about the arson investigator’s announcement. Samantha could tell, even if he’d finally quit ranting. Not just the fact that Tennet had gone on TV in a press conference without telling anyone else on the taskforce, but also because he had announced to the whole city that they were looking for a copycat.

She sat in the passenger seat of his truck, on their way to speak with Richard Sylvana’s next of kin. She didn’t want to keep rehashing the same thing over and over, but it just wasn’t connecting. And it was much better than thinking about her own sister and partner having their first date in the Intelligence bullpen.

Julio was right—it was pretty adorable.

Not that she planned to admit that toanyone.

“I just don’t understand how Tennet could make that assessment so quickly,” she said, glancing over at Julio. “We had barely put it together about the identities of the two victims. He seriously jumped the gun.”

“It connects them to Sylvana.” He shrugged one shoulder, his movement tight.

“Seems to me like a whole lot of circumstantial evidence when it isn’t clear who is doing this or what their motives are.” She would never have moved on it in the same situation. “All we did is tip him off to how much information we put together so far.”

“Maybe that’s the point.”

“I don’t know how the fire department conducts investigations.” She shook her head. “But in the police department, we try not to let the bad guys know that we know what they’re doing and that we are onto them. The takedown tends to go better if it’s a surprise.”

Kind of like the way Bristol had surprised them with coffee. It wasn’t until her sister had shown up with four cups instead of three that Samantha realized it was about seeing Romeo. It just so happened that about the same time Romeo decided he wanted to get to know the woman Samantha was having breakfast with at the diner, her sister was also having the same reaction to him. But love at first sight wasn’t something Samantha put much stock in.

Was it even a real thing?

And the odds of it happening to both of them at the same time?

It was like watching some kind of bizarre miracle cross with a fairytale unfold in front of her. As if there was still magic in the world, not just death and destruction. Cases. Investigations. Breakups.

She barely knew what to make of it.

Another God-thing?

Samantha said, “I’m thinking maybe I should go to church, or something. Things just seem to be way too confusing and I’m having a hard time understanding what’s going on.”

Julio reached over and squeezed her hand. “It’s a good place to start. I should probably go with you, but…”

She waited for him to say more, but he didn’t. “But what?”

“I haven’t gone to church in a while. To be honest, I was pretty angry after we broke up.”

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