36. Chapter 29
Dashiell
The BDSM checklist is even more thorough than I expected. I’ve filled these sort of things out before, but never in anticipation of sharing it with a specific partner.
Not that I’m sure I could call Lorenzo my partner.
We haven’t defined what we are—fake boyfriends, yeah, and now we’re agreeing to have some pretty kinky sex. Does that make us real boyfriends?
Surely not.
I’m working my way through a section labeled Impact Play—ranging from something as simple as “open palm” to things that even I, with my thoroughly depraved mind, have to Google—when my phone suddenly rings.
DEP. FIRE MARSHAL CHAUDHARY
I answer on reflex, quietly closing a tab on my laptop where I’ve been reading about paddles and riding crops. “This is Dash.”
Mila’s voice comes through brisk but warm. “Dash, I’m glad I got you. Sorry for bothering you on your day off. You got a minute?”
“Don’t worry about it! What’s up?”
“I’d rather do this in person than over the phone. Could I buy you a coffee?”
I glance back at the BDSM checklist. I guess it can wait for a bit. And Wolfe’s downstairs, so he can drive me. “Sure thing. Give me half an hour to get ready, and then I can meet you.”
The coffee shop she picks is a few blocks from the Bureau’s offices, a generically cute place with mismatched chairs, a chalkboard menu, and a handful of people working from their laptops.
A noisy espresso machine and some acoustic music playing over the speakers make private conversations possible, and I suppose that’s why Mila picked it.
She’s already there when I arrive, stationed at a table in one corner with a thick manila folder squared neatly in front of her. Two coffees sit ready to go on the table.
“Thanks for coming,” she says when I sit.
“Hey, someone offers to buy me coffee, I’m not saying no.” I wrap both hands around the hand-thrown mug and glance at the folder. It’s fat, dog-eared on the corners, and has the look of something that’s been opened and closed in frustration a hundred times. “So, what’s going on?”
“I guess I should start with why I called you. You know I used to work at your station, right?”
“Yeah. You were on the truck crew, weren’t you?”
“That’s right. I think they hired you to replace me, honestly.”
“I hope I’m living up to your legacy.”
“From what Nick says, you certainly are.” She takes a sip from her coffee. “Nick is a good friend of mine. My wife and I get dinner with him and his husband once a month or so, and he told me something this weekend that was…interesting.”
“Oh?”
“You’ll have to forgive him for sharing some of your business, but he mentioned that you’ve been seeing Lorenzo Diamante.”
“Ah. That.”
“Actually, I think it was Tristan who mentioned it. He’s more of a gossip than Nick.”
I smile slightly. “I’m aware.”
“Your love life is absolutely none of my business, so if I’m way out of line here, just tell me to fuck off and I’ll do it happily.”
“No, it’s okay. You’ve got me curious, now.”
And a little worried, but I don’t say that out loud.
She opens her folder and angles it so that only we can see it. I look down at three photographs, all showing the same distinctive burn pattern I noticed in the Dogpatch fire. A quick glance tells me that none of these fires is from the Diamante house.
“So,” she says. “We already know that these fires match, that they were probably started by an arsonist, right? This past week, I pulled the property records on all three locations. On paper, they all have different owners. They’re insured by different people.
They’re in completely different parts of the city.
If you stopped looking there, you wouldn’t think they’re connected at all. ”
“Let me guess. You didn’t stop looking there?”
She nods. “I didn’t stop looking there. Two of these three buildings lease their ground-floor commercial space to the same company.
A shell company, if what I dug up is correct.
It’s a management firm registered to a PO Box.
There are no employees, no real offices.
The third building’s lease is also to an obscure company, but I couldn’t find anything on it. ”
She taps the top photo. “I ran the first company’s filings back four years. A lot of it was just smoke and mirrors—pardon the pun—but when I sifted through it enough, I found connections to Diamante-linked holdings.”
My hands tighten around my mug. “What are you getting at here?”
“I’m not saying it’s necessarily a lead, but I am saying that this is the sort of thing that raises my eyebrows. You know?”
“I do.”
“Three fires, the same signature, two buildings leased to the same shell company… It’s not nothing.”
“No, it’s not. Where do I come in?”
“Remember, you can still tell me to fuck off whenever.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
She smiles. “Okay, good. For the life of me, I can’t figure out what these properties were used for—if anything.
It could be nothing. Tons of corporations and organizations have shell companies like this without having any connection to organized crime.
It would be dangerous, and dangerously ignorant, for me to assume that’s what they were used for.
But I have a feeling that if I could figure that out, it might give me some understanding of why they were being targeted. And what the next target is.”
I let out a deep breath as I stare at the photographs. “Off the top of my head, I don’t know anything about this. I’m not in the habit of perusing property filings when I’m at my—my boyfriend’s apartment.”
Calling Lorenzo my boyfriend feels more awkward now with last night’s developments. The lie is drawing closer to the truth.
A small smile quirks Mila’s lips. “Is this you telling me to fuck off?”
“No. Not yet, at least.” My brain whirs through all the implications of what she’s telling me.
Lorenzo, I know, operates in the gray areas of the law.
Despite the supposed fakeness of our agreement, I care about him—a fact that I’m not looking at too closely—and I don’t want him to be accidentally implicated in something.
But I also know that he wants to find who did this.
Maybe there’s a way I can be a bridge between the official investigation and his.
“I won’t spy for you,” I tell Mila, “but I can keep my eyes and ears open. I think Lorenzo wouldn’t be opposed to giving me some access to this information. I can try.”
“That’s all I ask. While you’re at it, it wouldn’t hurt to see if we could figure out what other properties they own that might be future targets.”
“What would I be looking for?”
She pulls a Bic pen from her bag, tears a paper out of her notebook, and begins to scrawl a list. “Commercial or mixed-use properties, for the most part. The only purely residential building was the Diamantes’ own house.
The Dogpatch building was the second-most residential.
Obviously, connections to this shell company.
Its name was…right, Saturn Industrial Holdings. ”
“Got it.”
She keeps jotting down notes. “And if you happen to get called to a fire in a building that matches these buildings, or that has multiple points of origin, I’d appreciate a text before you finish overhaul. I don’t need a full report. Just a heads up.”
“I can do that,” I say as she slides me the paper.
“You sure?”
“I’m sure.”
“Thanks, Dash.” She sits back in her chair, her posture loosening. “I know I’m asking for something pretty complicated from you, Dash. As I said, your love life is none of my business, and I wouldn’t want my investigation to get in the way of it.”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“If you say so.” She swallows the rest of her coffee and then stands, tucking the folder under her arm and offering her hand to shake. “Get home safe, and keep your eyes open.”
“I will. Thanks for the coffee.”
Once she’s gone, I pull my phone out and immediately text Lorenzo:
Me: Where are you? We need to talk.