Chapter 19
My phone buzzed once while I was at my desk reviewing burn patterns from the fire beside the laundromat. I glanced down absently—expecting something light from my baby. Something like “dick for dinner?” Instead, I saw a dropped location.
The Slopes.
Under it:
HURRY.
My pulse kicked up, fast and sharp, the same way it did walking into a structure you already knew was wrong. I called again, already standing, already reaching for my jacket before my brain finished forming a thought.
Then the notification came through.
Voicemail.
I didn’t breathe as I pressed play.
“Tariq—”
Her voice was thin. Strained. Like she was forcing air past something that didn’t want to let it through.
“I’m at the address I sent. It’s not right. It’s—”
Coughing swallowed the rest. A hard, choking sound. Then static. Then nothing.
The room tilted sideways. I was on my feet before I consciously decided to stand.
Marquez looked up from the front desk where everyone had to cover since Maliah left. “You good?”
“No.”
That was all I gave him. My voice was already somewhere else. My head already running time-distance calculations. If she’d called me after she smelled smoke, ignition had already happened. That meant growth stage. That meant conditions were changing by the second.
I grabbed my jacket and moved, dialing dispatch as I walked.
“This is Hunt. I need a unit rolling to—” I read the address from her pin. “Possible active structure fire. The Slopes.”
There was typing on the other end.
“Copy. We have that call in the queue now. Fire and EMS are en route. Units just got toned out.”
Good—she’d called first. That meant she was still conscious when she did it.
“How far out are they?” I asked.
“First engine is leaving the scene of another incident. Fifteen minutes, maybe less.”
Too long.
“I’m already nearby,” I said. Not a lie. Not entirely true either. “I’ll assess.”
“Hunt—you are not assigned suppression.”
I hung up before the rest came through because I was already moving.
There was no way I could lose Sanaa this way. No fucking way.
I saw the smoke before I reached the address, a low gray ribbon slipping sideways through the trees instead of climbing clean into the sky.
My hands tightened on the wheel, then deliberately loosened.
Grip like that leads to overcorrection. Overcorrection leads to mistakes.
I forced myself to breathe in through my nose, out through my mouth, the same cadence drilled into every live burn I’d ever walked.
Assess first. React second.
The house came into view as I rounded the last incline. Modern construction. Steel, glass, sharp geometry. Too new to have history. Too clean to justify what I was seeing. And the smoke wasn’t venting from the roofline. It was pushing from the rear structure.
That told me everything I needed to know.
Not an accident. Not electrical. Not a kitchen flare-up that got away from someone. It was a set fire. Low origin point. Likely accelerant. Designed to build heat before anyone noticed.
Designed to trap.
My jaw flexed once, hard enough to ache, but I parked without rushing, without slamming the door, because panic is loud and loud gets people killed.
I reached into the back seat and pulled the minimal gear I kept in the truck.
Respirator mask. Gloves. Pry bar. Nothing close to full turnout, nothing that would let me stay long.
But enough to get in. Enough to get to her.
The front door was locked. I hit it with the heel of my palm once, a warning more than a knock.
“Sanaa!”
No response.
I hit the door with my shoulder once, then again, and the latch tore free with a splintering crack. The moment it opened, heat shoved out hard enough to make me brace. Not just warmth. Pressure. The kind that tells you the fire’s already building inside the walls.
And this time I could see it.
Low flame crawled along the back of the living room, a jagged line of orange chewing through baseboards and climbing the studs.
It wasn’t wild yet. It was feeding. Deliberate.
Small ignition points beginning to join, testing the air before they took it over.
Every few seconds something popped—resin, wiring, trapped construction dust—each sound a countdown.
Gasoline rode the air.
I dropped automatically, staying under the smoke layer.
It hadn’t banked down yet, which meant I had a narrow window before flashover conditions started building.
My breaths came slow and controlled, in through the nose, out through the mouth.
No panic. Panic wastes oxygen. Panic gets people killed.
“Sanaa! Call out!” I called, forcing my voice through the heavy crackle of wood catching fire.
The house answered first—a sharp, hungry series of pops rolling across the ceiling.
Then I heard it. A cough. Above me. Good. That meant this was still a rescue, not a recovery.
I moved for the staircase. Heat radiated through the railing before I even touched it, and halfway up I could see flame starting to push through the wall cavity below, thin fingers searching for air. The structure hadn’t failed yet, but it was thinking about it.
Memory tried to intrude—the last time I ran into a house like this, the collapse, the hospital, the months of pretending I hadn’t been afraid.
I shut that down the way you shut down bad data on a scene.
Not now. Stay here.
“Tariq!”
Her voice cut through everything.
I took the remaining steps two at a time, staying low. The hallway above was thick with smoke but still navigable, a dull orange glow pulsing at the far end where the fire was climbing from below.
I found her crouched near the bedroom, a wet towel pressed to her mouth, eyes locked on me. The look of trust in her eyes. The lok of knowing I would come was right there.
That hit harder than the heat.
I crossed to her and stripped the respirator off my face, ignoring the burn of the air the second the seal broke. I fitted it over her nose and mouth, tightened the straps, checked the seal with both hands the way I’d done a thousand times before.
“Breathe,” I told her. “Slow. Just like that.”
Her fingers caught my wrist once. Grounded. Present.
Behind us, the stairwell gave a violent crack. I turned just enough to see flame break through the wall fully now, climbing fast, fed by whatever had been poured down there. The exit we came from was gone.
No debate. No second guessing. You don’t negotiate with fire once it commits.
I scanned the room instead. Window. Height. Exterior grade. The hillside dropped steep—dangerous, but survivable if we controlled the landing. No ladder. No hose line. Just physics and timing.
Good enough.
I pulled her up, locked her against my side, and kept us low as we moved. The heat followed, building, the glow behind us turning brighter, louder, closer. The fire had found oxygen now. It was accelerating.
At the window I drove my elbow into the glass until it shattered outward, clearing the frame with my sleeve.
“Hold on to me,” I said.
She didn’t argue.
I swung us onto the sill, took one measured breath—last clean one I was getting—and stepped off.
The drop hit hard, but the slope turned impact into motion. We rolled instead of stopping, dirt and gravel tearing at my shoulders as I kept her tucked into my chest, counting through it, making sure she stayed protected until momentum bled out.
We came to rest halfway down the yard.
For a second neither of us moved. My lungs burned, dragging in cold air that felt like knives after the smoke. Behind us, the house roared.
Flames punched through the upper windows now, no longer hiding, fully involved and climbing for the roofline.
I tightened my hold on her, just long enough to feel her breathing steady through the mask. Alive.
That was all that mattered.
The first engine came in fast but controlled, lights washing the hillside in red and white. Tires bit into the incline as they angled into position below the house, already reading the structure the way crews do—where it was venting, where it was holding, whether it still had fight left in it.
I didn’t move when they arrived.
I was still crouched beside Sanaa on the slope, one hand steady at her back while she pulled air into her lungs in careful, measured draws. I matched her without thinking. In. Out. Keep her breathing even. Keep myself from replaying how close that just came to ending differently.
“Engine 24 on scene,” someone called over the radio. “Active fire in the rear. Possible accelerant. Making entry.”
Boots pounded past us. A hose line dragged across gravel. Orders layered over each other.
And my brain, finally, started doing what it was trained to do.
Rear ignition. Fast climb. Designed to push heat up the stairwell. No staging inside. No signs of occupancy. No hesitation in the burn pattern. Not random.
Never random.
“Saw your truck halfway up the hill and figured you did something stupid.”
I looked up to see Marquez jogging toward us, winded, jacket thrown over whatever he’d been wearing back at the office. He took one look at Sanaa, then at the house, and let out a low breath.
“Yeah,” he muttered. “This ain’t accidental.”
“You shouldn’t be here,” I said automatically.
He shrugged. “Heard you light up dispatch and then hang up on them. Figured you might need backup. Or someone to explain why you’re about to get chewed out.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
Paramedics moved in, checking Sanaa over, fitting an oxygen cannula under her nose. She answered their questions with short nods, already pulling herself back together. Already reclaiming control.
That’s when the black SUV rolled up.
Marquez muttered under his breath. “Well… that’s definitely not our jurisdiction.”
Elijah Lewis stepped out like he had every right to be there.
He didn’t look at the fire or at the crews.
He looked at Sanaa, who was refusing to go to the hospital. I’d deal with that.
But the way he looked at her wasn’t business—it was assessment. Making sure she was still here. Then his attention shifted to me.
“You kept digging,” he said.
I didn’t pretend otherwise. “It’s my job.”
He nodded once. “And I respect that. Heart like that…Integrity… Even where I come from, that matters. We got codes too. Folks think we don’t and them muthafuckas are wrong.”
He glanced back toward the house where the flames being forced down now under steady streams of water.
“This,” he said, “is what happens when somebody wants to see how far you’ll go.”
I followed his gaze.
Smoke looked back at Sanaa, sitting upright now, wrapped in a blanket, watching us like she already knew this conversation mattered.
“Sometimes,” he said quietly, “you gotta let shit go to keep your woman safe.”
I didn’t answer right away.
He gave a small, almost amused exhale. “You surprised to hear that from me.”
“I am,” I admitted.
He smirked. “I’m married to an investigative reporter.”
That got my full attention.
He caught it and shook his head, smiling like he’d seen that reaction before.
“Yeah. Sounds crazy, I know. We are an unlikely pair. But we also the right pair. And she loves to go digging in some shit that could and has blown back on us. And because my ass loves to end trouble, I would go trying to settle whatever score came with her digging.”
The smile faded.
“But some shit can’t be settled once you dig it up. Some shit is only satisfied when it burns everything down to a crisp, where nothing can come back to life. So I chilled on a few matters. Because I’d do anything to keep her safe.”
His eyes went cold.
“Anything.”
The fire cracked behind us. Radios buzzed. Water hammered siding.
He nodded toward Sanaa. “She told me you two used to be a thing.”
I didn’t like the way used to sounded. He noticed.
“Well,” he said, “looks like that ain’t past tense anymore, son.”
He stepped closer.
“If you want her to stay part of your present—and not turn into something you remember—you protect her the smart way. Let the people who deal in dirty… handle dirty.”
A beat passed.
“Ya feel me?”
I held his gaze.
Then I nodded. Yeah. I felt him. I was no gangsta, and I needed to take my ass home.
We shook hands.
By the time I glanced back toward the fireline and turned again, he was already gone.
Marquez blinked. “Man… does he always disappear like that?”
I watched the empty space where the SUV had been.
“…Yeah,” I said. “I think he does.”
Behind me, Sanaa said my name and this time, I didn’t hesitate. I went straight to her.
I crouched in front of her. There was soot on her temple. Not much. Just enough to make my chest tighten again.
“You okay?” I asked.
She nodded. “I will be.”
Behind us, the suppression crew had knocked the bulk of it down. Steam rolled off the structure in heavy clouds now, the angry orange replaced with that wet, smoldering gray that meant the fight was nearly over.
One of the captains waved me over.
“Hunt. You saw first ignition?”
“Rear,” I said, standing. “Accelerant. Fast climb up the interior chase.”
He nodded. “Matches what we’re seeing.”
We walked a few feet closer—not into the scene, just enough to observe while overhaul started. A section of siding had burned away near the back corner, exposing the skeletal structure beneath. Clean cuts in the sheathing. Too clean for collapse.
My eyes tracked lower. Near the foundation, half-hidden under char and runoff, something metallic caught the light. Small. Rectangular. Melt-warped but not destroyed.
A timing device housing. Not consumer-grade. Not improvised. Placed.
I stared at it longer than I should have. Long enough for my brain to start assembling questions. Long enough for the old part of me—the investigator, the one who chases patterns until they bleed answers—to start waking up.
Marquez shifted beside me. “You see something?”
Yeah. I saw exactly what this was. I also saw Sanaa sitting twenty yards away, wrapped in a blanket, watching me like she already knew the choice sitting in front of me.
Smoke’s voice echoed in my head.
Let it go… to keep your woman safe.
I exhaled.
Then I looked away from the device.
“Just confirming what we already know,” I said. “Set fire. Nothing accidental.”
Marquez studied me for a second. But he didn’t push.
He just nodded. “Yeah. That’s what it looks like.”
The captain called for additional photos. Documentation. Standard procedure. Nothing more.
I walked back to her. Not the scene. Not the evidence. To her.
She reached for my hand the second I got close, like she’d been waiting for me to decide where I belonged. I laced my fingers through hers, and that was that.