Chapter 8
Garrett
She's single.
The thought ambushed me somewhere between my first cup of coffee and my second, lodging in my brain like shrapnel.
I'd been replaying the night before, the way she'd grinned at me when she teased me about making a good cop, daring me to react. The moment the room had gone quiet and I'd almost…
I'd almost kissed her.
Sitting on her couch surrounded by case files and evidence of corruption, I'd looked at that smile and forgotten every reason I was supposed to keep my distance.
She'd looked away first. Asked what I wanted for dinner like nothing had happened.
Maybe nothing had. Maybe I'd imagined the whole thing.
But then she'd ordered beef and broccoli. Extra rice. Dumplings by the dozen.
My exact order from years ago, delivered without a single question. Like she'd kept a file on me somewhere in that cluttered apartment.
Then her ex showed up. Designer jacket. Expensive haircut. Looking at me like I was something he'd scraped off his shoe.
He'd stood in Sloane's apartment like he still had a claim to it. To her.
And then she'd told me about the proposal. The conditions.
Quit your job. Become someone smaller.
I said no.
I stared at my reflection in the bathroom mirror, razor frozen halfway down my jaw.
Why did that matter? Why was I cataloging every detail like evidence at a crime scene?
I knew why. I just didn't want to admit it.
I finished shaving. Got dressed. Went through the motions of starting my shift while my mind kept circling back to possibilities I shouldn't let myself consider.
Eight years. She'd been gone for eight years.
She'd left me waiting by a phone that never rang, writing letters that were never answered. Whatever we'd been, whatever we'd almost had—it was ancient history. Scar tissue. The kind of wound that healed wrong and ached when the weather changed.
But last night, sitting in her apartment surrounded by case files and takeout containers, it didn't feel like ancient history. It felt like picking up a conversation we'd paused mid-sentence.
I'll text you when I'm off shift.
I'd said it without thinking. The way I used to, back when checking in was just something we did. She'd smiled. Nodded.
She didn't say I didn't have to.
I grabbed my keys and headed for the door.
Keep it professional, Stone. She's here for the story. Nothing else.
Eight years. And it had taken less than a week to undo all of it.
Becks showed up just before lunch.
She came through the side door like she belonged there. Tupperware stacked in her arms, that same warm smile from her first visit already in place. Brown hair pulled back. Gray streaking the temples. A canvas tote bag over one shoulder, printed with a farmers market logo.
"I made too much again," she said, setting the containers on the common room table. "Chicken parm this time. And I brought garlic bread because last time someone"—she pointed at Brian without looking—"ate the lasagna with his hands."
Brian grinned. "It was hot. I was improvising."
"You were an animal," Shane said, already reaching for a plate.
She'd been coming around weekly now. Three visits, maybe four. Always with food, always with that easy, neighborhood-auntie energy that made the guys relax around her.
Rodriguez had cleared her after the first visit, just a local who wanted to feed the crew. It happened more than people realized. Communities adopted their firehouses.
The crew gathered around the table. Becks moved through the kitchen like she'd been there a hundred times, pulling napkins from the dispenser, filling a water pitcher without being asked.
She knew where things were.
I sat at the edge of the group, plate balanced on my knee, and checked my phone.
Nothing from Sloane. I set it facedown on the bench beside me.
Thirty seconds later, I picked it up again.
"You've checked your phone three times in the last ten minutes."
Brian's voice cut through my thoughts.
I looked up from the chicken parm I'd barely touched, found him watching me with an expression caught somewhere between confusion and amusement.
"I haven't."
"You have. I counted." He crossed his arms and leaned against the rig. "I've known you for years, Stone. You don't check your phone on shift. You barely remember you own one sometimes."
"I'm expecting an update on the case."
Shane took one look at me and stopped chewing.
"What?" I said.
"You're in a good mood." He said it like an accusation. "That's unusual."
"I'm always in a good mood."
Brian snorted. "No, you're always in a controlled, vaguely intimidating mood." He exchanged a look with Shane. "This is different."
"This is happy," Shane said. The grin spreading across his face told me exactly where this was going.
"I'm going to finish eating."
"You've barely started eating. You've been too busy looking at your phone."
I felt the corner of my mouth twitch. "I'm monitoring the situation."
"It's the journalist," Shane said. "Isn't it? Sloane Harper."
I took a bite of chicken parm. Chewed slowly. Didn't answer.
"That's a yes," Brian said. "That's definitely a yes. He's not even denying it."
"I'm not dignifying it with a response. There's a difference."
"How's the case going?" Shane leaned forward, elbows on his knees. "Lots of late nights? Reviewing evidence? Sitting close together on her couch?"
"We're working."
"Sure you are." Brian appeared on my other side. Flanked. Nowhere to retreat.
Not that I was trying very hard.
A soft laugh came from the kitchen.
Becks was wiping down the counter, her back half-turned, but she was smiling. The warm kind. The kind that said she'd been listening and couldn't help herself.
"Sorry," she said, waving a hand. "I'm not eavesdropping. But you boys are not subtle."
"We're interrogation specialists," Brian said. "Subtlety is overrated."
She dried her hands on a dish towel and crossed to the table, started collecting empty containers. Her movements were unhurried. Easy.
But when she passed behind my chair, she paused.
"You know," she said, her voice dropping into something quieter. Conspiratorial. Like a favorite aunt cornering you at Thanksgiving. "I noticed it, too. That look on your face when you walked in today."
She tilted her head, studying me.
"Is there a special someone putting that smile there, Lieutenant?"
The crew went dead silent. Every pair of eyes swiveled to me.
I should have deflected. Should have given her the same non-answer I'd given Shane and Brian.
But something about the way she asked, gentle, genuinely curious, like she actually cared about the answer, caught me off guard.
"Maybe," I said.
The common room erupted. Brian threw his hands up. Shane pointed at me like I'd just confessed to a crime. Even a few of the other guys at the far end of the table started clapping.
Becks laughed again. Warm. Delighted. She squeezed my shoulder the way someone's mother would.
"Good," she said softly. "Everyone deserves that. Someone who makes them light up."
Her eyes held mine for a beat. Just a beat.
And something in them shifted, a flicker, fast enough to miss if I hadn't been looking. Not warmth. Something sharper.
Something that cataloged the admission and filed it away.
Then it was gone, and she was just Becks again, stacking Tupperware, asking Brian if he wanted seconds, reminding Shane to return her containers this time.
Shane and Brian erupted into laughter. I shook my head, but I was smiling as I set my plate down and headed for the apparatus floor.
Behind me, Becks was saying goodbye to the crew. Thanking them for their service. Telling them she'd be back next week.
At the door, she glanced back.
Not at the crew.
At me.
I didn't catch it. I was already gone, clipboard in hand, the smile still on my face.
But she'd gotten what she came for.
The tones dropped at 11:23 PM.
Structure fire. Building on Atlantic Avenue. Multiple floors involved.
We were rolling in under two minutes, the familiar choreography of boots and gear and bodies moving in practiced synchronization. The city blurred past the windows—streetlights and storefronts and late-night pedestrians who barely glanced up as we screamed by.
I was already reading the address, cross-referencing it against the mental map I'd built over seven years of documentation.
Atlantic Avenue. Six-story residential. Owner: Harrington Properties LLC.
My chest tightened.
Flames poured from the upper windows, orange and hungry against the night sky. Residents clustered on the sidewalk in pajamas and bathrobes—some clutching phones, others clutching children.
The building groaned—that deep structural sound that meant things were failing faster than they should.
I read the fire the way I'd been trained to. The color of the flames. The pattern of the smoke. The way the heat pushed outward from specific points rather than spreading organically.
Same accelerant signature. Same controlled burn pattern.
The arsonist again.
"Engine 295, you're on search and rescue, floors three and four," the incident commander's voice crackled through my radio. "Ladder 118 has the roof."
We moved.
The next two hours blurred into smoke and heat and the systematic clearing of apartments.
I kicked in doors. Checked bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets. Found an elderly woman on the fourth floor who'd been too scared to move, carried her down three flights of stairs while the building screamed around us.
No deaths. The arsonist was timing for minimum occupancy, still choosing their moments carefully.
But it was escalating. Bigger buildings. Faster timeline. Whoever was doing this was getting bolder.
Or more desperate.
After the fire was contained, after the residents were accounted for and the investigators had taken over, I stepped away from the chaos and pulled out my phone.
Sloane answered on the second ring.
"Another one," I said. "Atlantic Avenue. Same pattern."
A pause. The sound of movement on her end—papers rustling, a chair scraping back.
"I'll meet you there."