Chapter 7
Sloane
I couldn't stop thinking about his coffee table.
The glass top, specifically. And what I'd seen underneath it.
The rest of the apartment had been exactly what I expected—spare, organized, everything in its place. Garrett had always been like that. Controlled. Deliberate. The kind of person who made his bed with military corners and alphabetized his bookshelf without thinking about it.
But underneath that glass, tucked on the lower shelf like something he wanted close but not visible—
Newspapers.
I'd noticed them when I lifted a stack of his files to make room for my own. Just a glimpse of newsprint, edges worn soft from handling.
Garrett had been absorbed in the crime scene photos I'd brought, that crease between his brows deepening as he traced the arson pattern. He hadn't seen me look.
My own name had jumped out at me like a flare in the dark.
Sloane Harper, New York Times.
The Tommy Vickers exposé. The Lang investigation. The housing discrimination series that won me my first award.
Article after article, carefully cut and stacked, kept in the one personal space in his entire apartment.
He'd been collecting them. For years, apparently.
I stood at my bathroom mirror now, mascara wand frozen halfway to my lashes, and tried to make sense of it.
Garrett Stone, who'd had every reason to hate me, who'd spent a decade building walls I could see from across a room—he'd been following my work. Reading my words. Keeping pieces of me in his home like they mattered.
Like I mattered.
And then there was the food.
Pad Thai with extra peanuts. Green Curry, mild. My exact order from a decade ago, delivered without a single question.
He'd just known. The way he used to know when I needed coffee at midnight, when I needed silence instead of conversation, when I needed him to pull me away from work and remind me that the world existed outside my laptop screen.
Eat. That's all he'd said. Like it was simple. Like remembering someone's takeout order after eight years was nothing.
The thought made my chest ache in ways I wasn't ready to examine.
He probably hadn't realized the articles were visible through the glass. Probably would have hidden them if he'd thought about it, the same way he hid everything else that might make him vulnerable.
But he hadn't. And I'd seen.
I finished my makeup. Pulled my hair back. Went through the motions of getting ready for work while my mind kept circling back to those worn edges. To the pad thai. To the ease of working beside him, our minds ran parallel tracks the way they always had.
God, I'd forgotten how good he was at this. How that tactical mind worked, taking in information and finding patterns other people missed.
It was one of the reasons I'd fallen in love with him, back when falling in love seemed like something I could afford to do.
Professional, I reminded myself. Keep it professional.
I'd never been good at lying to myself.
The 114th Precinct smelled like burnt coffee and old paper. I signed in at the front desk, clipped the visitor badge to my jacket, and followed a uniformed officer through the bullpen to a small office in the back corner.
Detective Diaz's name was on the door. The office itself was barely bigger than a closet: a metal desk, two chairs, a filing cabinet, and a window that looked out onto the parking lot.
But it had walls. It had a door that closed.
That was what mattered
Diaz stood when I entered. Tired eyes. Sensible blazer. The permanent tension in her shoulders of someone who carried too many open cases at once.
She gestured to the chair across from her desk and waited until the uniform pulled the door shut behind him.
"Ms. Harper." This time, she offered her hand. "Good to see you again."
"Likewise, Detective."
"I heard you got the serial arson case," I said.
"Two days ago. The previous detective had it for two months." She settled back into her chair. "Left me a mess of dead ends and a stack of paperwork that doesn't add up to much."
"Any theories on why he didn't get further?"
"Could be incompetence. Could be the case is just that cold." She studied me. "Or could be something else entirely. Which is why you're here, I'm guessing."
I almost smiled.
She was sharp. That's what I was counting on.
"Some conversations shouldn't happen over the phone," I said.
Diaz held my gaze for a moment. Then she stood, crossed to the door, checked the hallway, and closed it again firmly. The lock clicked into place.
"Talk," she said, returning to her seat.
I'd rehearsed this. How much to reveal, how much to hold back. Garrett and I had agreed—we needed someone on the inside, someone with subpoena power and access to records we couldn't get. But we also couldn't tip our hand to the wrong person.
Diaz had worked the Lang case with integrity, even when the family's money and influence made that difficult. She'd followed the evidence where it led.
I was betting she'd do it again
"The previous detective," I said. "What did he leave you?"
"Bare bones. Accelerant analysis, scene photos, witness canvases that went nowhere.
Same signature on all five fires—commercial-grade accelerant, precise placement, timing between 2 and 4 AM.
" She shrugged. "Whoever's doing this knows what they're doing.
Beyond that, he didn't give me much to work with. "
"Did he look into the buildings themselves?"
"What do you mean?"
"Not just who owned them. What condition they were in. Whether there were any complaints on file."
Diaz's eyes narrowed slightly. "Should he have?"
I pulled the folder from my bag. Thin—just enough to show her we weren't working blind. "Every building this arsonist has targeted had documented fire safety violations. Exposed wiring. Blocked exits. Faulty sprinklers." I slid the folder across her desk. "All reported. None enforced."
She opened the folder. Scanned the first page. Flipped to the second.
"Where did you get this?"
"My liaison at FDNY. Lieutenant Garrett Stone."
Something flickered in her expression.
"Stone. I know that name."
"He's been documenting these violations for years. Buildings that should have been condemned, inspections that got signed off anyway." I watched her read, watched the crease deepen between her brows. "Cross-reference his files with your arson targets, and you'll see the overlap."
Diaz was quiet for a long moment.
When she looked up, her expression had hardened.
"You're saying someone inside FDNY has been burying these reports."
"I'm saying there's a pattern. One that explains why these specific buildings are being targeted—and maybe why the previous detective didn't get anywhere."
"That's a hell of an implication."
"It's not an implication. It's a question." I held her gaze. "One I think you're the right person to answer."
She closed the folder. Drummed her fingers against it once, twice.
Through the thin walls, I could hear the distant rhythm of the bullpen—phones ringing, voices overlapping, the grind of ordinary police work.
"Stone's been at this for years, you said." She tilted her head. "Why hasn't he taken it up the chain?"
"He has. Multiple times." I kept my voice even.
"Reports filed, concerns raised, all of it documented and submitted through proper channels.
And every time, it gets dismissed. Buried.
Labeled as a disgruntled firefighter with an axe to grind.
" I paused. "Meanwhile, Engine 295 just landed on the shortlist for closure. Budget cuts, they're calling it."
Diaz's expression sharpened. "That's convenient."
"Isn't it? The firehouse that keeps documenting violations suddenly becomes too expensive to keep open." I let that sit for a moment. "He can't go public without losing his career and his crew losing their station. He needed someone outside FDNY who could dig without getting buried."
Diaz leaned back in her chair. The springs protested, a tired squeak that matched the exhaustion in her face.
"So let me make sure I understand." Her voice was careful, measured.
"You're telling me someone inside the FDNY is signing off on buildings that should be condemned.
Taking money to look the other way while landlords pack tenants into death traps.
And when a firefighter tries to expose it, they bury his reports and threaten to shut down his station. "
"Yes."
"And now someone—someone who knows exactly which buildings have been getting a pass—is burning them down."
"That's not a theory, Ms. Harper. That's a conspiracy." She was quiet for a long moment. Through the thin walls, I could hear the distant rhythm of the bullpen. Phones ringing, voices overlapping, the grind of ordinary police work.
"City officials taking bribes to bury fire safety inspections.
Municipal fraud. A pattern of payoffs connected to preventable deaths.
" She ticked them off on her fingers, her voice sharpening with each one.
"This crosses into federal territory. Public corruption, RICO. That's not NYPD jurisdiction."
She leaned back in her chair. The springs protested.
"I'll handle the federal side. I have a contact at the FBI's field office.
Special Agent Keene. He runs public corruption cases out of 26 Federal Plaza.
" She pulled the folder closer and flipped it open again, scanning the pages with fresh eyes.
"I'll start with the inspection records on my end.
The financial trail, bank records, shell companies, and property transfers. That's Keene's territory."
"Thank you, Detective."
"Don't thank me yet. We don't have anything but a theory." But there was something in her expression. Interest, maybe. The spark of a detective who'd just been handed a thread worth pulling. "I'll be in touch when I have something."
She unlocked the door and held it open. "And Ms. Harper? Tell Stone someone's finally listening."
I walked out through the bullpen, past the ringing phones and cluttered desks.