Chapter 7 #2
“Then don’t.” Her sister took a breath. “Choose the place that feeds you. The person should fit inside that.”
The person should fit inside that. Letty swallowed.
“I love you,” Livvy said.
“Back at you.”
The call ended. Letty stared at the glass a moment longer, just thinking. She stepped back into the main room as Rhea’s chair swiveled.
“You look less tense.” Rhea observed.
“Do I?”
“Yeah. Less hurricane, more tide.”
Letty chortled. “That’s not a thing.”
“It is now.” Rhea rolled back from the screens and joined her at the glass. “You thinking about moving to Dallas?” she asked casually. “Sorry, voices carry up here.”
“Not really. It was a brief thought. I like it here.”
“Me too,” Rhea replied. “Our small team feels like family.”
Letty studied the marina below.
Rhea followed her gaze. “Tidehaven.” She shrugged. “It’s messy. Political and occasionally explosive.”
Letty huffed a laugh.
“But it’s ours.” Rhea smiled.
Letty dipped her head. “You think I could fit in here?”
Rhea didn’t hesitate. “You already do.” She touched her arm. “You will support our mission and become one of us. I can see it.”
Below them, a patrol boat idled past the dock, and Letty realized something important. I wasn’t waiting to leave; I was waiting to choose to stay.
WYATT
Twenty minutes after Driscoll left, Cal and Wyatt returned to Salt & Steel. The Bridge lights dimmed as Rhea brought the surveillance feeds and stills onto the main screen.
Cal stood at the front, hands on the back of a metal chair, eyes tracking the faces projected large across the wall. He pointed at each photo. “Deputy State Fire Marshal Grant Holloway, Will Thomas, Conrad Driscoll, three faces and three different kinds of wrong.”
Wyatt leaned next to the glass wall, arms crossed, a silver dollar flipping across his knuckles. “And the councilman, where does he fit in?”
Rhea grimaced. “I don’t have anything that makes me think he’s involved. I think he’s a victim of whatever is happening.”
Cal picked up a marker and turned to the whiteboard. He wrote one word in block letters: ARSONIST.
Then he circled it and added a question mark. “Separate the fire from the fallout,” Cal stated. “We don’t assume they’re the same person.”
Letty shifted in her chair. “You think the person who set the fire isn’t the one benefiting from it?”
“I think the person who struck the match isn’t always the one holding the contract,” Cal replied.
Wyatt nodded.
“Driscoll’s a felon,” Cal continued. “Petty arson in his twenties, insurance jobs, and quick cash grabs. That’s his profile.”
Rhea brought up a mugshot on the screen. “He likes accelerants, fast burn, fast exit.”
Wyatt’s jaw ticked.
“Will?” Cal said next.
The image shifted to Letty’s former research partner. Letty’s posture tightened almost imperceptibly.
“Motivation?” Cal asked.
“Jealousy.” Letty paused. “Professional rivalry. He applied for the same grant I got.”
“And?” Wyatt asked, voice neutral but tight.
“And he didn’t handle losing well.”
“Define not well,” Cal pressed.
“He implied I didn’t deserve it,” she said. “Said I only got it because I had ‘better optics’.”
Wyatt stilled.
“That’s a man who resents public perception.” Cal flicked his pen.
Letty pursed her lips. “What bothered me even more is that he didn’t yell. He just smiled, like he was filing the anger away.” She narrowed her eyes at his photograph before she turned. “Um, he was a volunteer firefighter.”
The room shifted. Wyatt’s eyes snapped to her. “Since when?”
“During grad school,” she said. “He liked proximity to crisis. Said it made him feel necessary.”
Rhea’s fingers flew over the keyboard. “Confirmed, volunteer fire department in Baton Rouge. Two years.”
Cal turned back to the board and added: WILL - Fire access knowledge.
Wyatt pushed off the wall. “So, he’d understand response times.”
“And how to manipulate them,” Letty added.
Cal circled Will’s name once. “But,” Cal continued, “we don’t lock on too fast.” He drew lines connecting all three names. “Driscoll executes,” he said. “Will plans or feeds intel, and Holloway closes the file.”
Letty frowned. “You think the Deputy Fire Marshal’s involved?”
“I think he seemed motivated to shut this down fast.” Cal glanced around the room. “And that’s worth noting.”
Wyatt stared at Holloway’s face on the screen. The man had dismissed Letty’s evidence from the beginning. “Do we think he’s protecting someone?”
“I don’t think we know enough to ask all the questions.” Cal corrected.
Rhea shifted screens again. “Thomas Hargrove,” she said, “the marina developer.”
Cal added another name to the board: HARGROVE
“Hargrove as the insurance beneficiary.” Lines webbed across the board now. “This is complicated.” Heads nodded in agreement. “Fronts working different angles.”
Wyatt’s gaze went to Letty. “If Hargrove wanted Councilman Pike intimidated, he doesn’t hire a guy like Will directly.”
“No,” Cal agreed. “He hires someone like Driscoll. Or someone hires Driscoll.”
Letty leaned forward. “What if Will inserted himself?” All eyes jerked to her. “He knows me,” she said. “He knows how I work. He knows I photograph everything.”
Wyatt’s chest tightened. “You think he anticipated you documenting the perimeter?”
“I think he knows I’m thorough, and if he wanted to discredit me, he’d create doubt, especially if it could further his agenda.”
Cal’s head bobbed with a tight jaw.
“Which means intimidation,” Wyatt said.
“Yes.” Rhea’s screen flickered as she pulled up financial transfers. “Driscoll had a deposit three days before the gala.”
“From?” Cal asked.
“Shell transfer. Routed twice. No clean origin.”
Cal nodded once. “Mastermind at the top. Multiple fronts. Disposable middle.”
Wyatt looked back at the board. “This is organized and deliberate. Are we…”
Letty’s phone buzzed as everyone went still. She frowned. “That’s… odd.”
Wyatt moved toward her instinctively. “Don’t open it yet,” he said.
Too late. Her screen lit up as her face drained of color.
“What is it?” Cal asked.
She didn’t answer fast enough, holding out her phone so Wyatt could take it, eyes scanning the screen. “It’s an email. No subject line from a masked domain… with a single image attachment.”
Rhea raised her hand, getting attention. “Forward it to me.”
Letty took back the phone as the cursor stopped spinning and swallowed. “It’s a photo.”
“Of what?” Wyatt asked. She turned the phone toward him as his stomach dropped.
“Fuck! It’s the marsh road and the Jeep with the brake line hanging loose.
” He studied it. “It was taken from a distance with a single line of text beneath it.” He took a breath, as Rhea pulled up the photo onto the screen.
SOME DISASTERS ARE PERSONAL.
The room stilled as Wyatt felt something cold slide into place inside his chest, the calm focus that came when a threat finally stopped pretending to be subtle.
Cal’s voice didn’t rise. “Time stamp?”
“Two minutes ago,” Rhea answered, already isolating the sender.
Cal flexed his hands. “IP?”
“Routing through three countries.” Rhea typed on her computer. “It’s masked.”
Wyatt looked at Letty. Her breathing was steady, but her hands trembled just enough for him to notice.
“They’re escalating,” Cal growled.
“They’re not just watching,” Wyatt corrected. “They’re warning.”
Letty straightened her shoulders. “They want me to stop.”
They need you to stop. “Yes.”
She met his eyes. “I won’t.”
The steadiness in her voice did something dangerous to him as Cal turned back to the board and underlined one word.
ARSONIST?
“We stop chasing shadows,” he said. “We identify who lit the match.”
Wyatt rolled the coin over his knuckles again, not nervous, just focused. “Let’s assume, Will isn’t just jealous.”
Letty’s jaw set. “Okay, but let’s list what we know.” She pointed to the board. “He’s capable, motivated, and experienced.”
The ocean rolled outside as the Bridge hummed. Team voices echoed in the building, and for the first time, this wasn’t just about a burned casino boat. It was about whoever thought they could scare her into silence.
Wyatt’s voice dropped low. “They just made it personal.” And personal meant Wyatt stopped thinking like a witness and started thinking like a man hunting.