Page 35 of On Fire

And yet, he doesn’t seem to care. I asked him once about it—about falling in front of other people, making a fool of himself. He had grinned and said, “Hey, I’ve been in far worse. If falling down is the worst thing that happens here on out, I will have lived a charmed life.”

Nic and I move to the point of ignition in the kitchen, this time tucked like an elbow behind the clothing store. This explains why so much of that store was blown onto the street. Luke joins us, and I have to say, I’m proud watching my kid brother work. He knows exactly what he’s doing. I take measurements and record them on a tablet while he takes photos.

Nic drops to his hands and knees and scours the floor for something. He rises and chats with two young policemen, placing a hand on each of their shoulders. He moves with such grace, even in this mess, wearing the same clothes from yesterday, he’s completely polished.

What does he see in me? A lumbering hulk who wears sweatpants on his days off, is a decade older, and gets mad when he’s kissed in public. . . The chatter usually flying out my mouth is torqued inside my head and I’m making myself crazy.

“Hey, earth to bro,” Luke says. He needs me to release the tape measure.

I still use one. He sets up lasers. The data will prove it, I’m sure, but the explosion was two-fold. The initial blast, and then a secondary one when flames ignited the open gas main. Thus, the shredded roof. Thank God this was a single-story unit and there were no apartments upstairs.

Nic comes by, distracted as well, his eyes darting around. He drops to hands and knees again to search the floor. He stands, he and Turrow talk for a moment. Then he pulls out the two rubber dice from the other locations. Turrow shakes his head, but then frowns and looks thoughtful. I can only imagine the conversation.

Nic is trying to profile a bomber and Turrow is ready to go fight a bear. As Nic follows Bryce and Mateus’s narrative of their initial take on what happened, Turrow approaches me.

“We need to do everything we can to nail this guy, right?” His voice, usually loud and bombastic, is low.

I can’t tell if he’s testing the waters. Is this sarcasm? Is he trying to tell me to lay off? “Of course.”

“I need your word on this, Keller.” Now I see his face is worried, with lines deepening further. “My twenty-three-year-old grandson goes here. A lot. He wasn’t here last night, but he could have been. I stopped by to see him this morning, early. Woke the bugger up. I wanted to tell him what happened before he heard from friends or on the news.”

I nod.

“This is asinine.” He loves the word asinine, but he only trots it out when necessary. “I’m glad you see it the way I do.”

“I think everyone here does.”

“I sure as hell hope so.”

It’s not until Luke is packing up and Turrow’s off, trying to get someone on the phone, that I see it. I’m looking for Nic like a lost puppy, worried that I’ve screwed everything up, and I see something perched on a piece of steel above the stove. Right above the point of ignition.

A singular die. Just like the others, a two-inch cube, white with black dots. It’s sitting, balanced on the end of a twisted piece of metal.

A policewoman brushes by me, a young gal I don’t know, but I ask her to go find Nic. He’s easy to spot. “Good looking guy, dark hair, blue suit, tall.” Within a minute he’s returned, and I point.

“I wanted you to see this,” I point.

“How is that possible?” he says, looking up at the die only two feet above our heads.

“It’s not. There’s no way that thing only flew up five feet.”

He stares at me. “That means—”

“That means the asshole returned after the explosion and left it there.”

Pulling out the other two dice, he goes on. The first one is a mess—smudged, dirty, and slightly melted. “The first one is from the Blue Wave. If Jackson hadn’t thrown the bomb in the vault, we may never have found it.” He pauses and holds out the other one from Boyz. It’s clean, bright, and seems to have survived the explosions. “He’s sending a message.”

“A fuck you message.”

Nic stretches up and removes the die. Once it’s in his hands he looks at it carefully. “Not really. This one, and that one,” he points at the die from Boyz with his other hand, “were deliberately put here afterwards.”

I shift my focus from him to the dice. His point is suddenly obvious. “The last two are too clean. The first one’s filthy.”

“It means he was at both Portland sites after the bomb went off.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah. And it also explains why I found the one in Boston right there under the stove top. It was already placed there.”

Mateus and Bryce join us in the kitchen to tell Nic they are heading back to the Portland office and then there’s a call from Carlson. Though Nic steps back to take the call, in a moment he holds up an index finger to Mateus to have him wait. “Yeah. No. No problem. We’ll meet you at the harbor.” He fishes keys from his pocket. He hands them to Mateus. “Take the Lexus I drove to the office. Let’s have a prelim meeting at four. Will that give you enough time to prepare?”

Mateus nods and Bryce adds, “It won’t be pretty.”

“It’ll have to do. Carlson’s pretty concerned about next weekend.”

“Hey,” I said after the two men leave. “How are we getting back?”

Nic finally smiles. “Carlson is cashing in a personal favor.”