Chapter Five
Austin had been poking around social media, and he finally had a name.
He probably would have found it sooner if he’d told Caleb about this because he suspected that Caleb was much better than him at research, but so far, he didn’t have anything except a firefighter standing there during a fire.
That wasn’t enough to investigate the firefighter or to give Caleb hope.
Austin rubbed his face with his hands and stared down at his phone.
Give Caleb hope? Hope of what? This was a firefighter.
Austin shouldn’t suspect him, of all people, to be an arsonist, yet here he was.
There was nothing to hope about except finding the arsonist, whoever they were, but Austin prayed it wasn’t this guy.
Eric Tate was with station one twenty-eight.
Austin stared at the picture of the guy standing there with a beer in his hand as he talked to someone.
He was in a backyard with a grill in the background and more people.
Austin recognized the guy Tate was talking to—another firefighter from the same station.
Maybe he should reach out and find out more about Tate?
He wasn’t sure how he’d justify it, though, and he didn’t want people to find out what he was thinking.
Hell, he wasn’t even sure there was anything to worry about.
He was suspicious because he’d seen Tate standing around and staring at a fire twice.
It could be a coincidence. It could be anything.
Tate didn’t necessarily have anything to do with the fires, and Austin wasn’t quite sure how to find out if he did.
He was a little stuck, which was probably why he did something pretty stupid.
He decided to spy on Eric Tate.
To Austin’s defense, there was no one around to supervise him.
It was his day off, and Caleb was working until later, when they had a date planned.
West was with Jonathan at the tattoo shop, and while Austin knew he’d be welcome there, he didn’t want to intrude.
Besides, he doubted they’d stay there for long.
They’d be back at Jonathan’s apartment before the afternoon was over if Jonathan was done with his appointments.
What was Austin supposed to do? He had a suspect and nothing to do, so of course he left his apartment and headed to his car.
He wasn’t sure where to find Tate, but he decided to start at the one twenty-eight station.
If Tate wasn’t on shift, well, Austin would come up with something else.
Hell, he might even go and bother Caleb.
He got lucky. He didn’t have to bother Caleb because just as he was parking his car on the other side of the street from the station, he noticed Eric Tate coming out of the building.
He watched as the man made a beeline for a car parked in the lot.
He opened the trunk, grabbed a backpack out of it, and turned around to leave.
He didn’t lock the car. He closed it, but Austin didn’t see him lock it.
Austin stayed where he was and watched the station. Should he actually do this? Eric Tate’s trunk was unlocked as far as he knew. That didn’t mean Austin would find anything in there, but maybe he could take a peek? It wouldn’t necessarily tell him much about Tate, but it might also give him clues.
Or it might get him arrested, but that wasn’t something he wanted to consider.
He wasn’t sure he could afford to think about the consequences.
The fire at the community center had touched him more than he’d expected, and he wanted the arsonist stopped.
If there was anything he could do to ensure that happened, he was going to do it, even if it meant risking jail.
But he could be smart about it. He was a firefighter. One of the reasons he was still alive was that he was smart. Well, that and the fact that he was a dragon shifter, but he wouldn’t have graduated from the academy if he didn’t have at least a little brain.
He wondered if Eric Tate was human. Probably.
He’d never noticed another firefighter who was a shifter, and he would have if he’d crossed paths with one.
No, Eric Tate was probably human, but if he was responsible for the fires, he had to know about shifters.
It made Austin wonder why he was doing this.
He didn’t really care because in the end, it didn’t matter, but he wondered.
Had a shifter done something to Tate? Was he getting revenge for that by hurting others?
Or was he just an asshole who thought he was better than shifters?
Austin didn’t know, but he needed to find out.
The alarm went off. He could hear it even from where he was, and he leaned back in the driver’s seat of his car and watched as the station doors opened.
The engine drove out, and Austin watched it disappear down the street.
He waited a little while longer, knowing someone had been left behind.
He didn’t want them to notice him when he snuck into the parking lot.
But he didn’t have that much time to waste. He didn’t know how long the call would be, which meant that he had to get into Tate’s car now.
He moved carefully, keeping an eye on the station, but he couldn’t hear or see anyone.
Whoever was there was no doubt busy, which meant that Austin had an opportunity he probably wouldn’t get again.
This was his one chance to get his hands on something that would point to Eric Tate’s involvement with the fires—or that would prove he was innocent.
He might be. Austin just wasn’t holding his breath for that.
He wasn’t sure why Tate hadn’t locked his car. Maybe it was because it was in the station parking lot, or maybe he thought he had. That had happened to Austin a few times, but he didn’t have anything to hide. He was pretty sure the same couldn’t be said for Eric Tate.
He was right.
It didn’t take him more than a minute of digging into the trunk to find a piece of paper half hidden under the carpet. He would’ve wondered if Eric Tate was an idiot, but he doubted the man expected anyone to link him to the arson, let alone dig into his trunk. Besides, he’d thought he’d locked it.
He hadn’t, which meant that Austin found the map hidden there, along with a rag that smelled like accelerant.
The map was an old-fashioned map, which someone had drawn red circles.
Austin didn’t have to look it up to know that the circles indicated the shifter-owned businesses that had burned down because he’d been on scene for several of them.
There were more spots circled that he didn’t recognize, but it was easy to guess what would be there if he checked it out—shifter-owned businesses.
Tate had clearly planned out what his next targets would be.
Austin was angry. He hated that he was right because he didn’t want to believe that a firefighter could be an arsonist, but he couldn’t deny what was right in front of him or the fact that Eric Tate had been behaving oddly at the scenes.
He wanted to find the guy and shake him, to demand to know why he was doing this, but in the end, he didn’t really care.
The only thing he cared about was that he needed Eric Tate stopped, but unfortunately, that was more complicated than calling the cops and having them here by the time the engine returned to the station.
This guy knew about shifters. He’d targeted them.
The community couldn’t afford for the authorities to find out about them, though.
Shifters needed to continue being a secret to humans, which meant that Austin couldn’t do anything with the information he had.
It made him want to scream, but instead, he took pictures of everything, then put it all back as best as he could.
This wasn’t something the police could stop.
Someone else was going to have to step in and ensure that Eric Tate didn’t hurt anyone else, but it shouldn’t be Austin.
The problem was that he didn’t know who to contact.
But maybe Caleb would.
He was a shifter, and he knew a lot of people.
Maybe he even knew shifters who worked in the police department who would be happy to take the situation off Austin’s hands and take care of Tate.
Austin could only hope because he had no idea what else to do.
He hadn’t actually thought he’d find out who the arsonist was when he’d agreed to look into it, and while he was glad he had, it left him anxious and wondering if Eric Tate was ever going to pay for what he’d done.
Or if someone else was going to get hurt, maybe someone Austin knew and cared about.
* * * *
CALEB CHECKED HIS PHONE again, just in case Austin had texted him, but there was nothing new on his screen. It wasn’t like Austin to be late, even fifteen minutes, and it was almost twenty by now. It made Caleb anxious, but he told himself not to worry. Surely Austin was about to arrive.
He didn’t. After half an hour, Caleb decided he had enough.
He grabbed his phone and got up, ignoring the way the people in the restaurant looked at him.
They probably thought he’d been stood up, and it certainly looked like he had been.
If his date was with anyone but Austin, he might think that was what had happened, but considering everything, he was worried.
Austin wasn’t working today, so his shift hadn’t run long, and he’d have called Caleb if that had happened anyway. Caleb and Austin were working to find an arsonist. What if that person had found Austin instead? What if they’d hurt him?
Caleb tried calling Austin, but he didn’t answer, which didn’t help Caleb feel any less anxious. He hesitated, wondering if he should call West, but in the end, he decided to do something different.
He drove to Austin’s apartment.