Burn Patterns (First in Line #1)

12. James

Chapter twelve

James

T he stench hit me first—melted plastic and synthetic fabric burrowing into my sinuses. My brain automatically dissected the components with scientific precision: polyester warped by controlled heat, nylon reduced to its chemical base components, and vulcanized rubber transformed into something hideous. The arsonist manipulated each element to create specific effects and tell a story.

Flames peeled back layers of the mannequin at the shore of Lake Washington like a surgeon conducting an autopsy, revealing the structure beneath with methodical care. Marcus's badge number glowed against the darkness, etched into the helmet. The numbers shouldn't have been possible to read through the destruction, but they were. Someone wanted it that way.

The arsonist had protected the helmet, turning it into a crown for their ghastly sculpture. My stomach churned as I recognized the technical mastery required.

I forced my breathing into steady rhythms, not from fear but from the need to keep my mind functioning at peak efficiency. The analytical part of my brain documented every detail while something deeper, more primal, screamed at me to run. It wasn't merely another message or even a threat. It was a rehearsal.

I spoke softly, almost whispering, "He was here."

Marcus stood beside me, his body radiating rigid tension that spoke of rage pushed to its absolute limit. He vibrated with barely contained fury. "Yeah, I know."

"This is controlled," I said, my academic tone hiding the horror pooling in my gut. "It's staged. And it's escalating." The words were horribly insufficient compared with the weight of what we witnessed.

Marcus didn't look at me. His gaze remained fixed on the burning figure like he was memorizing every detail for future retribution.His jaw worked, grinding against the dread he couldn't swallow.

Without thinking, he bent down, snatched a fist-sized rock from the shoreline, and hurled it into the water. The splash echoed in the quiet like a gunshot.

The mannequin didn't fall—it knelt. Perfect. Precise. A firefighter in their last moment of collapse.

Marcus flinched, breathing hard.He scrubbed a hand over his face, leaving streaks of grit and dampness across his cheek, then pressed both palms to the back of his neck like he was trying to hold himself together.

The last of the flames licked at the helmet, untouched, its smooth surface reflecting the inferno in Marcus's eyes.His foot snapped forward, kicking at the sand, scattering pebbles as if the ground itself had offended him.

I watched the moment he saw himself in the fire.

Frustration and fear twisted together in my chest, choking me worse than the toxic smoke.I rubbed the back of my neck, fingers digging in like pressure could keep the fear from leaking out. My heartbeat thudded in my ears, too fast, too loud." You need to step back."

He turned then, and the look in his eyes stole my breath.His chest heaved like he'd just run a sprint, and his fingers twitched at his sides, restless, itching for something to do—something to break.

"Yeah? And let him keep playing this game?"His voice was low, but his hands betrayed him, one curling into a fist so tight I saw the tendons straining against his skin.

"If you keep reacting how he wants, you're giving him precisely what he's looking for. If you back away and refuse to be part of the act…" I held my ground despite the electricity crackling between us, despite how every instinct screamed at me to put distance between myself and the intensity rolling off him in waves.

His jaw tightened until I heard his teeth grinding. "You think I don't know that?" Exhaustion bled through his sharp tone, but something darker lurked beneath it—a kind of fatalistic acceptance that made my blood run cold.

"Then act like you know it." I pushed harder, desperate to make him understand. "Step back before this gets worse."

His laugh mocked my comments. "James, it's already worse."

We stood too close, neither willing to yield. The mannequin's flames reflected in his eyes, transforming the usual calm green into something molten and dangerous. Smoke and chlorine clung to his skin—the familiar scent of him now tainted by this new horror.

I wanted to shake him to make him see what was happening. Make him understand that he was being sculpted into something else entirely.

I raked my fingers through my hair, with my own helplessness threatening to choke me. "You're playing right into his hands."

"And what's your strategy?" He stepped closer, close enough that heat radiating from him mixed with the heat from the flames. "Wait for him to stop?"

"I don't wait." The words came out clipped, desperate. "I find patterns and predict behavior."

"Then predict this—what happens if I walk away?"

I met his gaze, my voice dropping as the truth crystalized with horrible clarity. "You don't get it, do you? He doesn't want to kill you, Marcus. Not yet. He wants to shape you. Like metal in a forge or like clay in a kiln. He's turning you into what he sees as his greatest work."

Marcus curled his fingers into fists at his sides, tendons standing out against skin that had gone pale beneath his tan.

"I'm not playing his fucking game."

I shook my head, my throat tight with all the horrors I saw coming. "You already are. And I can't—" My voice cracked. "I can't watch you burn."

Silence stretched between us as the mannequin's flames finally began to die. The sound of waves lapping against the shore continued despite the gravity of what was happening—nature continued its rhythms while someone systematically dismantled everything I'd tried to protect.

Marcus exhaled, dragging a hand over his jaw. When he spoke, his voice had an edge of desperation I'd never heard before. "Come back to my place. Just for tonight."

My spine stiffened as my professional walls slammed into place like the doors of a bank vault. "Not happening."

"You shouldn't be alone right now." The concern in his voice was like acid on my skin.

"I'm fine."

His head tilted as he studied me, seeing too much. "Yeah? That's why you haven't stopped looking over your shoulder?"

I kept my expression neutral, but inside, something cracked. He was right. Somewhere between the first warehouse fire and this moment, I'd lost my carefully maintained distance. Lost my scientific detachment. Lost everything that had kept me safe after Harrison.

And Marcus knew.

I crossed my arms, trying to hold myself together. "I'm going home."

Frustration rippled across his features as he exhaled sharply. "Fine." A beat passed, heavy with things neither of us could say. Then: "My family's Sunday dinner. You're coming."

"What?"

He shrugged with a forced casualness that didn't mask the intensity in his eyes. "Dinner. At my mom's. You're invited."

A startled laugh escaped me, brittle and sharp. "Is that a joke? No."

"It's not a joke." His steady gaze held mine, stripped of all pretense.

"You think getting me to meet your family is going to do what? Keep me from walking away?"

The corner of his mouth lifted, but his eyes remained serious. "Maybe. You scared?"

I exhaled slowly, feeling the last of my defenses crumbling. He was impossible. He was going to get himself killed, and I was going to have to watch it happen. "Fine. But I'm leaving the second things get weird."

His grin said it all. "Everything's weird. You're already screwed."

I hated that he was right. I hated how deep he'd already gotten under my skin, and I hated how much I needed him to survive this.

***

Later, alone in my apartment, three locks engaged on the door still didn't feel like enough. The weight of the deadbolt sliding into place should have reassured me, but I still pressed my palm flat against the door for a moment, listening. Nothing but the quiet hum of the refrigerator and the faint drip of a faucet that needed fixing.

My apartment was a study in control, a space curated for function rather than comfort. The dark walnut bookshelves—custom-built to exact dimensions—were lined with old hardcovers, their spines faded from years of handling.

No decorative knickknacks, no sentimental clutter. Just volumes of forensic psychology, the history of criminology, and a handful of first editions from the golden age of detective fiction.

Doyle. Sayers. Carr.

Their worn pages smelled like dust and old ink, a quiet counterbalance to the modern sterility of the space. A heavy wooden desk, scarred by years of use, dominated the far wall. It had belonged to my grandfather, a professor of philosophy at Columbia, and bore the weight of a century's worth of knowledge—his, then mine.

The surface was pristine except for an old brass lamp with a green glass shade, the kind you'd find in law libraries and lecture halls. The light cast a muted glow over the room, just enough to make the shadows feel deliberate rather than intrusive.

My TV droned in the background, not one of the usual crime procedurals I let run for white noise, but an old episode of Columbo . A contradiction, maybe, given that I spent my waking life dismantling criminal methodologies with surgical precision, but something about Falk's slow, shambling genius settled my nerves. There was an artistry to his deception—how he let suspects believe they had the upper hand before unraveling their defenses thread by thread.

The record player in the corner—an actual vintage Technics model, not some faux-retro reproduction—sat silent, but the last album I'd spun was still on the turntable: Blue Train by John Coltrane.

Jazz wasn't my usual go-to, but I liked how the notes ran like an algorithm, the patterns revealing themselves over time. And, if I was honest, there was something about Coltrane's saxophone that was the only logical response to the burning wreckage left in the wake of this case.

I set the needle down, letting the first few notes fill the room. The rich, brassy sound should have made the apartment seem warmer and less empty. Instead, it merely magnified the silence between each note.

The kitchen was barely a step away—small, functional, looking like it belonged to someone who ordered in more than they cooked. The cabinets were dark walnut, the countertops black granite, and the only real personality in the space came from the single framed piece of art above the sink: a diagram of human nerve endings in stark, clinical detail.

I'd bought it in an antique medical supply store on a whim. Most people would have found it unsettling. I found it beautiful.

I reached for the electric kettle, flipping the switch before realizing I had no interest in drinking the tea I was about to make. The scent of chamomile curled into the air, mixing with the phantom traces of smoke that still clung to my clothes, my skin, and the backs of my eyelids when I shut them too long.

The music should have helped. It usually did. But even Coltrane's intricate layers of sound weren't enough to drown out the images burned into my mind—the helmet gleaming in the flames and Marcus's badge number carved in fire. I saw the mannequin's melted flesh peeling away with the same calculated precision I used in my work.

I abandoned the tea, let the music keep playing, and sank onto the couch, laptop glowing faintly on the table. Work had always been the antidote to everything I couldn't control. But tonight, I couldn't focus. My eyes kept dragging to the window, scanning the shadows outside. Searching for movement. For signs that someone else was watching me, taking notes on my habits the way I took notes on theirs.

Somewhere in the stacks of records shoved onto the lower shelves—nestled between Thelonious Monk and The Cure—was an old, battered copy of Meet the Residents . A remnant of a phase I'd gone through years ago, fascinated by the way the band turned music into something unnerving and abstract.

Maybe that was what I needed—something unpredictable, fractured, and as unsettling as the thoughts running through my head.

A book was missing.No—shifted.Half an inch, maybe less.It was The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing.

Moved enough to be nothing.

Enough to be everything.

I shut the laptop, killed the TV, and lay in the dark, listening and waiting for the sound of someone else breathing.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the fire again. I saw Marcus in its place. I saw how the flames had worked with intention, peeling back layers like a sculptor refining their masterpiece.

The night dragged me under eventually, sleep a fragile surrender. But it didn't last.

I found myself back at the lake. The water was black glass, perfectly still, reflecting a moon that shouldn't have been there because it had rained that night. I was standing at the edge, Marcus's badge in my hand, with its metal warm against my palm, though it shouldn't have been.

Not here.

Not now.

The sound came first—a faint hiss, like the breath of something vast and unseen. Then flames erupted on the water's surface, moving in impossible patterns, tracing shapes I couldn't understand.

Except I could. They weren't shapes. They were letters.

My name.

The fire spelled my name across the dark water, the letters burning bright and hungry.

I tried to step back, but my feet were rooted to the ground, the sand beneath me clutching like fingers. Heat licked at my skin, but I wasn't burning.

Marcus was. He stood in the center of the lake, his figure framed by fire, perfectly still, perfectly silent. His eyes found mine—blank, empty. Not pleading. Not accusing. Just gone.

I screamed, but the sound never left my throat.

The flames surged, collapsing inward, swallowing him whole. When they receded, there was nothing left.

I woke with a strangled gasp, drenched in sweat, the ghost of heat still searing my skin.

Coltrane's saxophone played softly in the background, the record needle reaching its end, clicking over and over.

And on the shelf, The Oxford Companion to Crime and Mystery Writing had shifted again.

Farther forward than before.