Page 61 of Inferno

He was aware the firefighters had made a number of reports about the condition of the building—at least compared to the brass and their fancy headquarters. Complaints of disrepair at the firehouse. Requests for materials to shore up the structure and bring it back to code. But budget cuts had scraped renovation plans. The department didn’t want to fix what wasn’t broken beyond their ability to repair.

At least now, they would be forced to completely redesign their response team’s base of operations.

Only two lives lost in the tragedy.

He watched the flames pick up. Someone on the sidewalk below him pointed to the destruction, calling out to a friend. A phone was drawn out of a pocket. A frantic request made.

But it would take time for the response. After all, he’d perfectly timed it so the house would be mostly empty, as everyone else was occupied by the incident at the school. A fire extinguished before it could reach its full potential was far too disappointing.

He was better than that now.

Richard Sylvana was the past. He had become something more, the old washed away and made new. Creation. Rebirth.

Fire was the only way to accomplish what had to be.

And with the two of them working this case as part of the taskforce, it was only a matter of time before things came to a head.

And so he had dealt another blow—this one fatal.

TWENTY-FIVE

Samantha’s throat still felt bruised from Walter’s attack. Her mind flashed with an image of him above her, squeezing the life out of her. Determined to end her. She fought through the nightmare to consciousness. Aware something was wrong.

Very wrong.

Her nascent faith flared to life in a moment of fear, erupting into flame like a smolder coming to life. She needed that flame, the hope it brought with it rather than destruction. Fire meant warmth. It meant light in the darkness.

Lord, help us.

She didn’t even know what she was praying for. Until she fought far enough through the haze to blink her eyes open. Everything rushed back in that instant.

Smoke filled the air. Darkness surrounded her, and she pulled in a breath she had to cough out.

Samantha recalled the explosion, that recent memory mixing with the time she’d been blown out of that house. The day she lost their baby.

Julio.

No words escaped her lips. She cried out for him in the recesses of her mind.

The firehouse.

They’d been at the table, and then everything washed in noise and heat. The past and the present collided in a wash of sensations. But unlike that day, Julio had been here with her. They’d been cooking. Looking at files. Trying to find an arsonist.

He’d found them.

Samantha took stock of herself first, as was that old adage:Rescuer safety first. She couldn’t help anyone else if she was a victim.

Arms. Legs. Something lay on her left thigh. A heavy weight that wasn’t drywall or the frame of the building.

She kept one hand on the weight pressing against her leg and dug for her phone. Had it been on the table, or was it…

There.

In her pocket, back right side where she usually kept it.

She dug the device out and squeezed the button on the side. The screen illuminated, nothing but shattered glass. At least, the backlight still worked. She pulled down the top menu and tapped on the flashlight, pretty sure she also cut her finger on the broken glass of the screen in the process.

Samantha let out a breath, now able to see around her. Around them.

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