Page 38 of Inferno

Maybe being more successful this time around.

He wandered through the house, looking for Samantha. She was probably doing her police detective assessment of the man’s things. Out the living room window, he saw a black-and-white police car pull up.

Romeo had gone to interview the employees from the warehouse, so it wouldn’t be him unless he’d heard Julio’s call to dispatch and was able to get away.

Julio checked in empty room, with one single cardboard box in the corner. Next down the hall was the bathroom, also empty. He went to the bedroom because it was the last place to look.

But Samantha wasn’t in here.

He frowned, turning in a circle. Pulled out his phone and called her number, listening to it ring while he checked the closet. It was the only other space he hadn’t looked in, the single bathroom being in the hallway. She didn’t answer.

“Where did you go?”

No one answered his muttered question. The call switched to voicemail, and he heard her tell him to leave a message after the beep.

Julio hung up and opened his messages. He found Bristol in his contacts and sent her a text.

Can you look up Samantha’s location on your phone?

He wandered through the house back to the front door, figuring she was likely out there if she wasn’t inside the house. Or was she in the backyard? Maybe she had seen something and gone outside.

The two uniformed officers walked up the front path toward the door.

Julio said, “Have you seen Detective Jesse out here?”

Both shook their heads. His phone buzzed, so he looked down at the screen. Bristol had sent him a screenshot of a map with Samantha’s GPS location. Not entirely accurate usually, so he wasn’t sure how far he could trust it. But Samantha seemed to be two streets away.

What was going on?

FIFTEEN

Samantha raced along the sidewalk, her gun drawn, sticking to as many spots where she could find cover as possible. Up ahead, a lone man walked swiftly along the sidewalk. His shoes clipped the concrete.

He never once turned back, but she didn’t trust that her own steps were silent. She had no clue if he was aware of her behind him.

She’d seen him outside at the end of the backyard. Staring at the house from the other side of a chain-link fence. She wasn’t sure she could have articulated what it was about him that had her rushing through the house and leaving the front door with only a callout to Julio that she wasn’t sure he’d heard.

Did some part of her subconscious remember him?

The EMTs had been pulling down the street at the same time. Julio had help. She could take care of herself. So she’d raced out after this guy.

Just in case.

The man turned down a side street, probably headed for his car or another residence nearby. Was he out walking and he’d seen commotion in the arsonist’s son’s house? Just some kind of interested bystander with no connection? Mitchell Sylvanahad never changed his last name, unlike his grandmother. The question was, why had it taken the arsonist longer to find him? At least, that’s who she was banking on had attacked Mitchell in his home.

But why tie him to a chair and interrogate him?

What was he hoping to gain from asking Mitchell questions he didn’t want to answer?

She had enough faith to pray Mitchell woke up in the hospital and was able to give them a full statement. Enough to ask for Julio to be safe at the house right now and for herself, that she wouldn’t run headlong into danger.

Samantha stopped at the closest front yard, where another street intersected with this one. She moved across the grass to the corner of the house and peered around the siding, sticking to cover.

This side street led to downtown, but that was still half a mile down. An older part of town that had been here far longer than the bustling high-rises in the center of Benson. Once the main part of the city, these buildings were older with historical markers on them. Brown brick structures that might have been standing for a hundred years.

She couldn’t see the man ahead of her.

Samantha crept out from behind the house and hurried down the sidewalk. He might have gone into another building or ducked out of sight, where he was now waiting.

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