Page 48 of The Birthday Girl
“And you’re sure?” he asked, though his voice cracked around the question.
“Can't be certain until the lab work comes back,” Harlan said, his voice hollow, “but the night clerk ID'd her. Said she came in with both kids just after midnight.”
Vega crushed his notebook, metal coil biting into flesh as pages crumpled beneath his grip, and Shanice's voice echoed in his skull, tight with panic.
“They left another package on my doorstep. Please, just—just get here now.”
He had told her to run, to get the kids somewhere safe, and now their bodies lay charred in the ruins.
His warning—worthless.
Their trust in him—betrayed.
His promise of protection—a death sentence.
An image of the little boy's pajamas melted to his spine, slammed into Vega's mind, doubling him over. His fingers cramped around the notebook until his knuckles cracked, and with a strangled sound that wasn't quite human, he tore his grip open, stuffed the mangled pages into his coat, and sucked in air that scorched his lungs like he was breathing the inferno that had consumed them.
“This is fucked up,” Vega replied hoarsely, barely able to keep his emotions in check.
“I agree,” Harlan said, his voice heavy. “What kind of monster sets a fire knowing kids are inside?”
Vega’s head snapped toward him. “What makes you think they were alive when it started?”
Harlan exhaled, rubbing the soot at his temple. “They died in motion, Vega.” Harlan's voice dropped to a whisper. “Mother in one bed. Kids were in the other. The little boy—" Harlan's voice caught. “His body was hanging halfway off the mattress, fingers extended like he was trying to grab his mother's hand. The girl was curled behind him. They all died trying to close the distance between each other. That doesn’t happen if they were gone before the fire.”
Vega’s chest tightened, bile rising with the smoke still clinging to the back of his throat as he continued to listen to Harlan speak.
“The arson team flagged pour patterns everywhere. Whoever did this poured accelerant across both beds and ringed the room. There was no way out. They never stood a chance,” Harlan said, his voice gravelly from smoke inhalation. “Given how destructive it was and how fast it spread, I’m assuming they used gasoline.”
Vega nodded without looking at Harlan, because for the very first time since he’d become a detective in SID, he didn’t trusthimself to speak. His mouth was dry and useless, and it took real physical effort to keep his hands from trembling.
Vega did what he’d been trained to do. Stood for a few silent beats, eyes down, body perfectly still, letting the panic shudder through his heart until it passed. If he opened his mouth now, he’d curse, or scream, or maybe beg Harlan to lie and tell him it wasn’t Shanice and her kids.
So Vega returned to the restroom and focused on the facts. He forced himself to study the crushed notebook in his hand, to scan the pool of blood that had run from beneath the bathroom door and turned the floorboards slick. He catalogued the details: the chemical stink of gas, the glass from the window fused into lumps along the sill, and the spray of brain matter that still clung in pinkish flecks to the tiles above the tub.
He took in the grisly evidence with the same mechanical detachment he’d used to block out nightmares in his rookie years. Only this time, it didn’t work. The horror clung to him, burrowing in. He needed to get out.
Vega stepped around the other officers, not bothering to cover the body, and made for the corridor. It took every ounce of discipline to descend those stairs without showing the limp in his soul.
At the landing, a firefighter nodded at him, but Vega couldn’t bring himself to return it. He ducked the tape, stepped into the parking lot, and let the cold, acrid air hit him full in the face. His hands were shaking, but he forced himself to light a cigarette to steady them, even though he’d quit years ago.
As he smoked, Vega tried to count the number of cases he’d closed in the last decade. How many times had he stood at a scene like this and felt nothing but a cold, professional pride in his work? He’d thought he was immune. He’d thought the job couldn’t touch him anymore. But this one was different. This one would leave a scar.
By the time he finally calmed, the sky had begun to brighten. Reporters crowded the barricades, lenses raised, their voices carrying in bursts of questions he refused to hear. He turned his back on them. The thought of Shanice and her children reduced to sound bites and headlines before he even filed a report made his stomach turn.
Harlan joined him on the curb, scribbling something onto his clipboard. “We’ll coordinate with your division once we’ve got lab results, but Detective—” He paused, his soot-lined face unreadable. “This isn’t going to stay quiet.”
Vega stared at the motel’s husk until his eyes stung. “I know,” he replied before heading for the reporters.
“Detective Vega!” The voice cut through the murmur of the crowd. A woman in a navy blazer thrust her microphone forward, the Pulse 11 News logo catching the morning light. Behind her, a cameraman hoisted equipment to his shoulder, red recording light blinking like a warning. “Can you confirm the death toll?”
Usually, he would’ve kept walking and waited for the department’s press officer to do damage control, but Shanice and her children’s faces were haunting him. His silence would do nothing to help them.
Vega stopped and turned toward the cameras, his eyes red from smoke but fixed steadily on the crowd. “There are multiple fatalities,” he said, his voice raw but clear. “At least six confirmed at this time, including a woman and two children.”
The press erupted, voices tangling over one another.Were they targeted? Who was the woman? Are you treating this as arson?
“We are treating this as suspicious,” he continued. “And we have reason to believe it is connected to other recent homicides under investigation.”
