Chapter 13
Istood outside the tape, cold biting through my wool overcoat while fire chewed through what was left of the Northside Victorian.
Three stories. All brick. Now gutted to a blackened skeleton.
The engines beat me here, water already pooling around my boots, running in dirty ribbons toward the storm drains.
Smoke twisted thick and heavy into the sky like it had something to say.
Firefighters moved with purpose—seasoned, fluid, dancing between danger and duty. Radios cracked. Hoses groaned. Someone shouted a status update over the roar of lingering flame.
I barely registered any of it.
Until I saw them.
A dark-skinned man—big, built like a damn linebacker—held a woman against his chest while she sobbed into him.
Her cries were muffled, raw and shattering, the kind that came from losing more than just walls.
His eyes were glassy, wild, fixed on the house like he could force it to stand back up if he stared hard enough.
There was something behind that look I couldn’t name.
Grief, maybe.
Rage.
Or a question no one could answer.
And then Sanaa pulled up in her graphite-gray Mercedes-Benz CLE Coupe—its paint catching the emergency strobes in sleek, expensive flashes. The engine went quiet, but the presence of it lingered.
The driver’s door opened and she stepped out like the night didn’t dare touch her. Like she hadn’t been choking on my dick aas recently as this morning.
A black Italian leather coat fell to mid-thigh, butter-soft and structured, the collar trimmed in dark sable fur that framed her face instead of softening it.
It moved when she moved, catching the wind like it understood it was meant to be seen.
Her heels were needle-sharp, clicking against the wet pavement without hesitation, navigating puddles and ash like she’d planned this walk.
I watched her approach the woman. Her movements changed there—her hands soft, her voice low, measured. Whatever she said grounded the woman enough to make her nod. The man answered, voice rough. Sanaa met him without flinching, chin lifted, listening in a way that made people talk.
Then he looked up. Right at me.
Not a threat. Just measuring. Calculating if I was part of the problem.
Sanaa turned and finally acknowledged me before walking over.
“You wanna know what I’m doing here,” she said.
“You read my mind.”
"It’s a client’s home. Or was." Her gaze didn’t flinch from the wreckage. “A lot of art was inside. Original pieces from the Harlem Renaissance.”
My stomach dropped. “You serious?”
“As a fire,” she murmured.
I studied her. “That’s twice now. Two fires. Two scenes with your name in the middle.”
“I didn’t set them, Tariq.”
“I didn’t say that.” I took a beat. “But you’re gonna have to explain how your business keeps running into mine.”
She sighed and folded her arms. “There’s a world of collectors out there. Some above board, some under it. You know that. You know what I do.”
“Not everything.”
She tilted her head. “You want me to lie to you, or you want the truth off record?”
“Answer me like you’re not trying to make me pick one.”
She stepped in close. “Some clients want what money alone can’t buy. The things time tried to erase—Gullah masks, Harlem canvases, Black brilliance nobody ever appraised. I find it. Sometimes it’s legit. Sometimes…” She looked back at the house. “It burns.”
I let the silence hold. I hated how much I understood.
“I’ll be in touch once we file the official request.”
She nodded. “My clients won’t wait that long.”
Then she turned, didn’t wait for a goodbye, just wrapped herself back into her coat and went to the man and the woman—who was calmer now, but still trembling.
I didn’t move.
Not until the flames died out, and the hiss of water was all that remained. Not until the crews started packing up, and the sky went dark with exhaustion. I told my team to get me everything—gas samples, floor plans, camera footage. Then I drove.
I left the station after going over the preliminary report and organizing the follow-up site visit for the next morning.
Still, the whole ride to my parents’ place, my head ran laps around what Sanaa had said—and what she hadn’t.
That damn fire was still burning in my mind, but it wasn’t the flames that haunted me.
It was her. That look in her eye. The way she showed up again like fate was stacking coincidences just to mess with me.
Or maybe to remind me that some things don’t burn away clean.
Their house sat in Stanton Heights, perched where the hills rolled into sky, with enough distance from downtown to breathe but close enough to feel it buzzing beneath your feet. Porch lights glowed amber against the dusk.
I let myself in and was hit with the smell of good food and comfort. A warmth that lived in the walls. One that had raised me right.
“Tariq?” Ma called from the kitchen.
“Yeah.”
Dad looked up from the living room, glasses sliding down his nose, paper in hand, Miles Davis easing from the speakers behind him. “Another call?”
“Northside. Might be arson.”
Ma came around the corner, drying her hands on a dishtowel patterned with Black Santa faces. “Anyone hurt?”
“No. House is gone though.”
Her face tightened. “Your jaw’s tight again.”
“It’s fine.”
She handed me a glass of water, brushing my knuckles with a soft touch like she used to when I came in scraped up from ball. I sat down heavily on the edge of the couch.
“Sanaa was there,” I said.
That stopped everything. Dad lowered the paper. Ma stood still.
“Again?” he asked.
I nodded. “Client’s house. Harlem Renaissance-era art collection inside. Rare, valuable. Could be motive.”
Ma exhaled slow. “You think she’s involved?”
“I don’t know what to think. But she keeps showing up in the middle of this.”
Ma looked at me, eyes sharp like she could read past the facts into the fear under my skin. “Do you trust her?”
“I want to,” I admitted.
Dad folded his paper and leaned forward, elbows on knees. “Sometimes your heart decides before your head catches up. Be honest about what it decided.”
I didn’t answer. Just rolled the glass between my palms, thinking about the scent she wore when she leaned into me earlier. The way her breath hitched when I brushed her cheek. That kind of tension didn’t come from nothing.
Ma turned back to the stove, pulling plates from the cabinet.
“You staying for dinner?” she asked.
“I can, if you want me to.”
“We always want you to.”
She cooked like she was feeding the block—roast chicken, sweet potatoes roasted in brown sugar, mac and cheese with the crispy corners, mustard greens with turkey tails.
Dad poured ginger ale over ice like he was mixing something sacred—alcohol was out of the question at his age.
That low trumpet in the background kept me grounded, but my mind was still tracing the curve of Sanaa’s lips.
Then my phone buzzed.
Sanaa. No words. Just a pin drop.
I stood.
“Dinner’s almost done,” Ma said, glancing at the clock.
“Rain check?”
She kissed my cheek and smoothed my collar like I was twelve again. “Go.”
Dad gave me a look, somewhere between warning and blessing. “Don’t just chase the fire, son. Find the warmth too.”
I didn’t say anything. Just stepped into the night, her location glowing on my screen like a pull I couldn’t fight.