Chapter 15
Pancake shifts her weight across both my feet.
"He's very helpful."
She huffs through her nose and sets her chin on the floor.
"My thoughts exactly."
My house is quiet and I have a lease renewal that I've been looking at for forty minutes without reading.
Pancake has been asleep for most of that.
The camera feeds are tiled two-by-two, and the bookstore's interior is clear, well-lit, and active. Avery and Shane are working through another pass of putting each section back in place, two days out from reopening.
Everything looks exactly the way it should.
I pick up my phone and text Avery.
Me: Getting actual work done over here. Pancake is supervising.
She responds in under a minute.
Avery: Good. She has high standards, like me. So glad I pushed reopening out a day.
Me: If your shelving system collapses under pressure, I can come supervise the disaster in person.
I set the phone down and go back to the lease renewal, trying and failing not to be distracted by the store's security feeds.
Camera 1 catches Avery on a step stool in the front, loading a fresh row of hardcovers onto a shelf that was bare this morning. Shane hands a stack up to her from the floor without being asked. I watch them for a bit and then look at the lease.
Telling her about Shane is the thing I'm not doing.
I know why I'm holding back. Pham needs Shane on camera, the chain of custody clean, and nothing Avery says or does to introduce a variable that spooks him into changing his pattern before the footage is sufficient. That's a real reason. I've been telling myself it's the only reason.
Camera 3. Shane is back in the storeroom, filling an empty flat, then returns to Avery with a full one. He sets it on the table near the window display, squares the stack, and starts pulling titles two at a time.
He's good at this. That's the part that still sits wrong. How naturally he fits and how easy it reads from the outside.
I text Avery again and attach a picture of Pancake, her nose pressed to my shoe.
Me: She wants you to know she's very comfortable.
Avery: She'll say that's the most useful thing about your feet.
Me: Sounds right.
I put the phone down and tell myself I'm working.
At 4:40, Shane starts breaking down the empty flats.
Camera 4, rear corridor. He stacks the empty flats against the back, side wall, and looks at the panel housing for three seconds longer than he needs to.
Then he clears the counter in a way that reads like he's wrapping up, like he's getting ready to call it for the day, and then he heads back to the front of the store.
At 5:03, Shane pushes through the front door and is gone.
I watch camera one for another full minute. Avery moves through the frame twice, once toward the register and once back.
Pancake has shifted to her side and is doing what appears to be a very thorough impression of a rug.
I text Avery.
Me: Pancake thinks your current work-life balance is embarrassing. I may need to come assess the situation.
Avery: I'll aim to leave by 8. Call me when you're on your way. I'll probably still be at the store.
Pancake stands up and nudges my shin.
"Need to go outside?"
I know the answer to that, so I gather Pancake's leash off the hook and take her outside to do her business.
She sniffs every planter on the walk like she's conducting an investigation. I stand there in the harbor air with one hand in my pocket and answer two emails while she takes her time. When she finally finishes, she looks up at me like she's done me a favor.
"Appreciate your commitment to the process," I tell her.
Back inside, I sit down at the kitchen counter again, make myself actually read the lease renewal from beginning to end, then finalize it and send it off before I can keep pretending I'm going to revise another paragraph.
My phone buzzes with a text from Jonah as I'm walking to my bedroom.
Jonah: Deployment got extended. Small brush fire turned into a whole thing.
Me: You still coming tomorrow?
There's a typing bubble for a second.
Jonah: Tuesday morning now. Sorry.
Me: Don't apologize for doing your job.
Jonah: Thanks.
I toss the phone onto the bathroom counter, strip out of my clothes, and leave them in a pile on the tile before stepping into the shower.
The water runs hot and I stand under it longer than I need to, which is a habit I picked up in the years after Kellerman when the quiet got too loud. But that's not why I'm doing that now.
I'm thinking about Shane looking at the panel housing in Camera 4, about the sharp pull I got kissing Avery goodbye, and about the fact that Shane's mother is Marvin Stein's sister and Avery still doesn't know it.
I turn off the water and reach for a towel. My phone is on the bathroom counter and the screen is lit up with notifications.
6:05 PM Alert, smoke detected in areas 3 and 4.
6:06 PM Alert, smoke detected in areas 3 and 4.
6:07 PM Alert., smoke detected in areas 3 and 4.
6:07 PM 911 call initiated.
It's 6:13 and there are at least ten alerts stacked in the notification bar from the bookstore's fire safety system.
I grab my keys and move. Pancake lifts her head off the rug, ears up.
"Car," I tell her, already heading for the door.
She's on my heels and I don't slow down.
My phone buzzes again in my hand. I skim the alerts as I jog down the steps, thumb already unlocking the car.
"Up," I say.
She plants her front paws on the seat but doesn't make the jump, so I grab her harness and lift, hauling her up the rest of the way. She lands with a grunt and turns once before settling.
I start the engine, back out too fast, and point the car toward the store.
"Everything will be all right," I mutter as Pancake shoves her nose between the seats like she's checking whether I believe it myself.
At the traffic light ahead, I take the turn before it, cut through the side street, and shave the drive down to nothing. My foot stays heavy on the gas.
The alarm hits me before I see the building, a high, serrated wail that vibrates through the steering wheel and drills into the back of my teeth. I roll the window down. Smoke rides the air, faint but there.
"Stay," I tell Pancake as I pull to the curb.
She huffs once but doesn't move.
I'm out before the engine fully dies. Door slams. I take the front steps two at a time and push inside.
Heat isn't the first thing I sense, the smell is. Burnt, chemical, and wrong. It hits the back of my throat and sits there.
"Avery!" I call, already moving.
No answer.
I cut past the register, scan the front. No movement. No figure behind the counter.
"Avery!!" Louder now.
I move down the middle aisle, hand brushing shelves as I pass, clearing sightlines, checking corners. Nothing.
I cut left, then right, quick checks, nothing holding.
I register the alarm panel as I pass. Lights active. Sprinkler status dead.
"Damn it," I say under my breath, already turning toward the back.
I push through the door to the rear corridor.
The smell deepens here. Burnt paper and that dry, chalky bite from an extinguisher. It sits low and clings to the air.
I slow just enough to see it clearly.
Rear entrance. Bottom third of the frame blackened. Five columns of shelving beside it blown out to ash and residue. White powder across the floor.
"Avery!" My chest locks for a beat, my breath catching, and then I move.
She's lying on the floor with the fire extinguisher still in her hands, motionless. She got there first and put it out, and the smoke got her after.
I cross the corridor and get my hands under her, lifting her the way I've lifted people in burning buildings before, the way the body remembers even when the mind would like to forget.
She's not heavy and doesn't stir. I carry her back through the store and out onto the sidewalk where the harbor air comes in off the water.
The alarm is still sharp even now behind the glass.
I set her down on the concrete and get my arm under her head, my other hand flat on her sternum as I wait.
She draws in a shallow breath and coughs deep, a rough sound that scrapes out of her. Her fingers twitch against my sleeve.
"Hey," I say, leaning closer. "Avery, stay with me."
Her lashes flutter. Not open, not fully, but enough that I see it, enough that the tension in my chest gives an inch.
"Good," I say. "That's good. Keep breathing."
She settles back into it. In, out, in, out. Steady.
I count to five and keep my hand where it is, feeling the rise and fall under my palm.
The fire department arrives, then the paramedics, and then there's a period of organized noise.
Pham's car pulls up behind the fire truck. She gets out and crosses to me.
"Is that Avery Laramie?" she asks.
"Breathing," I nod. "Smoke inhalation. She put the fire out in the rear corridor with an extinguisher."
Pham looks on as the paramedics swarm around Avery, and then she looks at me with an expression I can't entirely read. "Good job, Thorpe."
She nods, then moves toward the nearest patrol car.
I look where she's going and see Shane is in the back seat. He's looking at Avery on the sidewalk.
He looks away only after the paramedics get her sitting upright.
I watch him for three seconds, but he doesn't meet my eyes.
Pham comes back with her tablet already in her hand. "Look at this."
I take it from her.
The footage is grainy, black-and-white, pulled from the rear corridor camera. The person never faces the camera, but the hooded jacket moving through the frame is one I recognize immediately. Shane wears it to work almost every morning.
He crosses to the sprinkler controls, crouches, and makes contact with the housing while holding what looks like a small metal canister.
Accelerant.
Ten seconds later, the figure moves out of frame.
"The timestamp matches the smoke alerts," Pham says.
I keep staring at the screen. The height is right. The build is hard to match up, but the jacket is unmistakable.
"It's Shane."
"You positive?" Pham asks.
"I am."