Chapter Fourteen
Eliot
Nate excuses himself to grab us some waters from the break room. The enchiladas are spicy enough I’m going to start sweating in a minute, despite this building’s overactive air conditioning.
Parker watches me with a hint of amusement. “You can admit defeat any time. Though, I’ve seen your chili recipe. I thought you could handle the heat.”
“I can.” The words come out raspy, and I take a long pull on the iced coffee. It helps. A little. “How’s the leg?”
She stares into her takeout container, shoulders curved inward, and I curse the question.
“Sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“It’s fine,” she says, a hint of a rough edge to her tone. “Desk duty for the next couple of days. AJ—Chief Stone—threatened to send me home if I tried to leave the building for anythin’ other than lunch.”
“He seems like a good guy. I only worked with him twice when he was a captain, but he was always steady.”
“We’ve been through some shit recently. All of us.”
Parker takes another bite of enchilada, this one with a long ribbon of poblano running straight through it. The lining of my esophagus cringes. I thought I could handle heat, but this is something else.
“The thing with his wife?”
“Grace.” The way Parker says her name tells me all I need to know. Grace Stone is important to her. Very important.
Nate returns with three ice-cold bottles of water. “Flint, shouldn’t you have been the one to get these? You’ve got some experience with hydrants…and hydrating.”
“Retired. I leave the hoses to the younger generation.”
He scoffs. “I’m the oldest one in this room by far. What are you, thirty-five?”
I sit up a little straighter. “Forty-four.”
Parker chokes on a sip of coffee. “You must have some skin care routine,” she says once she can breathe again. “Or you’ve had work done.”
If you only knew how much…
The room settles back into the quiet of three people who’ve been working too hard for too long and are enjoying a much needed break. Until Nate clears his throat.
“Time for an icebreaker,” he announces, shoving his now empty salad container into one of the takeout bags.
I look to Parker, who shrugs. “Nate’s mind runs at the speed of sound. Just go with it. Otherwise, he’ll start reciting random facts about giraffes. Or worse. Sperm whales.”
“Biggest predator on earth. Huge brains.” He finishes his latte, lets out an appreciative “Ahhhh,” and leans back in his chair. “But, I digress. You’re new here, Flint, so you get first crack at the hot seat. What do you do when you’re not doing this?”
“I…uh…knit.”
Parker’s brows shoot up. Nate drops the highlighter he was about to uncap. “Like…with yarn?”
Fuck. I should have stuck with something safer. Jigsaw puzzles. Cooking. “Yarn is generally involved, yes.” I don’t elaborate. No one needs to know why I knit. Or what I knit.
“So…sweaters? Hats?” Parker asks. She leans close enough our shoulders are only inches from touching again, and I get a whiff of her light, citrusy scent. It settles somewhere deep and permanent, somewhere I want to protect at all costs.
“Blankets. I’m not an expert. Cables are about as fancy as I get.”
Stop talking before you dig a hole so deep, you’ll never get out of it.
Parker angles her head, interest darkening those blue irises. “Got any pictures?”
“No. I…never thought to take any.” The heat building in my chest now has nothing to do with the enchiladas and everything to do with the woman sitting next to me.
“You should fix that,” she says. “Tonight.”
Through this entire exchange, Nate’s been studying me like a riddle he needs to solve. If I don’t get out of this conversation now, I’m gonna regret it.
Digging the flash drive out of my pocket, I toss it to him. “Want to throw those photos up on the monitor? I’ll walk you through the Round Rock scene.”
Nate catches the hunk of plastic and metal one-handed, and plugs it into his laptop. “So, you have a favorite color?”
“No.”
He arches a single brow. “You think you’re being mysterious, but that answer tells me more than if you’d just admitted it’s blue.”
I open my mouth, close it again.
How’d he know?
“This ain’t a group therapy session,” I mutter. “Can we focus on the crime committed here?”
“Organized. I like it,” Nate says when he sees the dozen file folders, each labeled by building quadrant and subject matter. “You color code these, and we’ll have ourselves a party.”
“Start with the south quadrant.” The first image loads, and suddenly the whole tone of the room shifts. Parker leans forward, elbows on the table. Nate passes me a handheld mouse with a built-in laser pointer.
“The primary point of origin was halfway between the break room and the atrium along the south wall. Accelerant soaked in here.” I gesture to a blackened area on the floor.
“I can’t prove it—the fire burned too hot to leave behind much trace—but I’d bet the unsub used Paracord to start the fire.
There’s a faint char line partway between the origin point and the west service entrance. ”
“So, they lit the end and ran like hell?” Parker asks.
“Yup. And they used enough naphthalene to guarantee the structural integrity of the steel columns would be compromised. But that ain’t the worst of it.
” I advance to the next set of images. Metal pipes hang from the ceiling like molasses poured in January at the North Pole.
“Each photo shows part of the sprinkler system. Want to play spot the differences?”
I watch Parker’s face. She’s so intent, her lips curved into a frown, a tiny crease between her brows, eyes narrowed. “The ends are different. The one on the left looks like it exploded. The other one…it’s capped.”
I pat my pockets, then shrug. “Forgot my box of gold stars at the office. I’ll have to owe you one. Or six.”
Scrolling through photo after photo, I point out each missing sprinkler head in turn. “The suppression system in this section of the building was operating at forty percent capacity.”
“Could the unsub have tampered with it?” Nate asks. “Removed the sprinkler heads before they started the fire?”
“Not likely.” I zoom in, aiming the laser pointer where the cap is threaded onto the pipe.
“I sent a crew out there to excise a couple of these capped sections. We need a forensic examiner to put all this under magnification. If someone removed a head, we’ll see tool marks.
But the cap has the same level of corrosion as the rest of the pipe. Looks to be the same age to me.”
Parker flips through half a dozen pieces of paper in front of her. “This is the inspection from twelve years ago. The sprinkler system got a pass.”
“Then either the inspector was an idjit, or he knew exactly what he was doin’ and did it anyway.”
Parker sighs. “Well, shit.”
For the next hour, I walk the two Rangers through the building one photo at a time.
The zone map posted on the wall marking the location of every sprinkler head alongside photographs of the actual sprinklers—or caps—that don’t match up.
The control valve assembly indicating which zones discharged and which didn’t.
How the water stained the floor in some locations but not others.
I’ve been staring at these images off and on all weekend. I know every pixel. But as I move on to the second problem with the building, Parker stretches in her chair, arms over her head. Small lines of pain crinkle at the corners of her eyes.
“We can take a break,” I offer. “This next part’s…deadly, but boring as fuck.”
“That’s where I excel,” Nate says. “Also where I use Excel. Any time the boredom starts to get to me, I turn to spreadsheets.”
“Who hurt you, Nate?” Parker asks. “No normal person finds spreadsheets entertaining.”
“I used to know some people who were damn good at twisting the truth. Rows and columns don’t pull that shit.”
Parker stares at him, eyes soft, like she’s seeing him for the first time. A moment passes between them, something I can’t read. Nate shakes it off, takes a swig of water, and rubs the back of his neck.
Turning back to me, Parker tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. “We’re caffeinated enough to handle boring. Go for it, Eliot.”
I’m not prepared for the way her voice changes when she says my name. Or the little smile she gives me. I’m definitely not prepared for Nate to stare at the two of us with a bemused smile curving his lips.
“You have a set of building plans?” I ask.
Nate passes them across the table. “Knock yourself out.”
Parker helps me unroll them and anchor the corners with coffee mugs. “This wall here”—I gesture to one on the back side of the kitchenette area, then another by the stairwell—“and here are firewalls.”
“Those are walls. And?” Nate asks.
“Not walls. Firewalls. They’re what we call ‘rated assemblies.’ They’re built with denser drywall.
Two layers instead of one. Thicker. Pipes passing through a firewall have to be sealed properly.
Doors on those walls need to be rated as well.
A standard wall—like the one in front of you—can slow a fire for maybe twenty minutes.
Firewalls are supposed to give you two hours.
Plenty of time for the engine company to show up and knock down the flames enough for the security guard to survive. ”
I flip to a photo of the wall next to the kitchenette—or what’s left of it—then take a seat next to Parker again. She shifts close enough, her forearm brushes mine. The contact is brief. Through two layers of fabric. Yet, it’s the most exciting thing that’s happened to me in…years.
“That isn’t a rated assembly. It’s plain, everyday, available at Home Improvement Warehouse drywall.”
A little after five, Nate pushes to his feet, slides his assortment of highlighters carefully back into the box, and yawns. “Well, it’s been fun. But I’m going home before I turn into a pumpkin. Same time tomorrow?”
“God, no.” Parker leans over, her voice low and sultry. “Nate got here at six thirty this morning. Don’t agree or he’ll start texting you at five.”
“I’m blocking his number now. What is it?”
Her laugh warms my entire body. Nate staggers back as if I’ve wounded him, but in the next breath, winks at us. “Be good, kids. Don’t get into any trouble tonight. Or do. But don’t tell me about it.”
Did he just…?
The bright red spots on Parker’s cheeks confirm it. Yes. Yes, he did.
Scooting her chair a few inches further away, she shakes her head softly.
“He’s a damn good Ranger and a solid partner.
But there are times his overprotective big brother energy gets a little out of control.
There’s a reason I called him Lieutenant Last Nerve for a solid month before we got promoted. ”
“And what did he call you?”
She hesitates. “Lieutenant Loose Cannon.” Before I can ask why, she holds up a hand. “Nate didn’t choose the nickname. I…sort of punched my former chief in the face when he burst into AJ’s house and started screaming at Grace less than a week after she’d reappeared.”
“Holy shit. And you kept your star?” With every new thing I learn about Parker, I want more. More conversation. More of her laughter. More of those small, almost secret smiles she sends me when she thinks Nate isn’t watching.
“Have dinner with me.” The words escape before I think them through. “It doesn’t have to be tonight. But…tomorrow? Thursday? Saturday?”
She regards me with a hint of suspicion. “Not Friday?”
Now it’s my turn to be embarrassed. “I’m part of a knitting circle at Purl on Pine. Haven’t missed a Friday night in almost six years. I’m afraid they’ll send out a search party. Or call the National Guard.”
Parker’s about to reply when the door to the conference room opens and Chief Stone pokes his head in. “Parker? Do you have a minute? Grace and I stopped in on our way to the Punchbowl because she wanted to check on you.”
Pushing slowly to her feet, she tests her left leg before putting her full weight on it. Stone narrows his eyes at her, clearly concerned, and offers her his arm. “I’m good,” she says, then turns back to me. “Eliot, don’t leave.”
She’s out the door before I can answer.