Page 3 of Single Mom's Firefighter SEALs
She goes still, the line of her jaw set.
“Someone broke in through the rear entrance. Personnel files were targeted.” I draw in a deep breath and exhale sharply, a short burst of white in the cold air. “I’m still investigating, but it appears a file was removed before the fire was started.”
The warm color in her cheeks drains away.
“The file was yours.”
Her breathing turns shallow, but she doesn’t exactly look surprised. “Are you certain?”
“This wasn’t random. Whoever started thefire went in with a mission.”
After a pause, she nods.
“Do you know of any reason someone might have done this? Any disputes with staff or parents?” The image of the black sedan comes to mind again, and I know what her answer will be.
Across the street, the school bell rings, the sound muffled through closed doors and windows. A few children are rushing in late. The wind moves ash across the frozen pavement.
Bypassing my question, she says, “Has law enforcement been notified?”
“Yes.”
She looks past me again and lets out a shuddering breath, and something snaps into place. I’d intended to keep my distance, and told myself it was for her sake, but pretending not to know her is no longer a sustainable position.
“We need to talk privately,” I say.
Her eyes lift to mine. “About what?”
“About whether there’s a reason someone would want your file.”
She doesn’t look away. She holds eye contact for another beat, and when she speaks again, it’s nearly a whisper. “Yes,” she says. “There might be.”
I end up staying late at the station to finish my paperwork, and after I send the preliminary narrative and photo log tothe chief, I join the crew for dinner. The men have questions about what I found at the administration building, but I keep my answers surface-level.
Calder gives me a couple of long looks during the meal. We haven’t talked yet, but he can likely tell there’s more to the story by what I’mnotsaying.
Before I leave, I pull him and Weston out into the bay for privacy.
The three of us have talked about Elena Ramirez exactly once since she came to town. Weston heard about her arrival during a date with a talkative admin from the school superintendent’s office. After he confirmed it was the Elena Ramirez we knew, he told Calder and me, and the three of us spent an evening sitting around a fire, drinking beer, and pretending it didn’t matter.
Since then, we’ve all been on edge. We don’t have to say anything for it to be obvious. The air is different now in Moon Ridge. It’s heavy and thick.
“What’s up?” Weston asks, as Calder eyes me with a grim expression.
“School personnel files were accessed before the fire. One was singled out.”
Both men meet my eyes and instantly know.
Weston runs a hand through his hair. “You talk to her?”
I nod. “She wasn’t surprised.”
They’re both frowning. Calder’s eyes are narrowed.
I tell them about the black sedan and Elena’s reaction. “Either of you see anything? Not just yesterday, but recently?”
“I saw a car like that pulled over on the side of the road just outside of town last week,” Weston says. “It stood out as too clean and too slick, but I assumed it was noise left over from the Sentinel situation.”
Plenty of feds were around after the shitstorm that went down late last year at the Sentinel Security compound about a dozen miles out of town, but that’s clear now.
