Page 104 of Flint’s Strike

“Hold up. I didn’t just talk to the airline. I put in a call to BRYCER—they maintain the compliance database for fire safety inspections. I was hoping they’d be able to tell me when Rutherford Lane’s inspection record changed, who changed it, their IP address, all the usual stuff… You’d think they’d want to know if someone was fucking with their data.”

“Let me guess. They were less than helpful?” I sit back in my chair, rolling my shoulders one at a time to loosen some of the tension gathered there.

“After twenty-three minutes on hold, two transfers, and a supervisor who sounded personally offended that I asked, they informed me they’d be happy to help,” he says.

I give him the side-eye, and he continues. “As soon as we serve them with a subpoena.”

“Of course. So, is that their standard policy? Or do they know exactly what we’ll find when they hand over the data?”

Nate blows out a long, slow breath. “My money’s on both.”

“Time to go see AJ?” I close my laptop, push back from the table, and toss my empty coffee cup in the trash.

Nate squares up the leaning stacks of case files, tapping each one against the table until the edges line up, then setting them back into place. “Yup. And on our way to find Kessler, we can stop by Judge Nesbit’s chambers and see if we can get lucky a second time in two days.”

“You think that’ll happen?” I hold the conference room door open for him, and he huffs out a short breath.

“It’d take a miracle.”

Chapter Forty-Two

Eliot

I feel like I’ve lived three days since sunrise. The preliminary report from Rutherford Lane is tucked in my bag. The accelerant, the problems in the suppression system, the missing coating on some of the steel supports… My findings are solid in a way nothing else is right now.

The bullpen hums with conversation, the occasional ringing phone, and typing. A printer whirrs somewhere to my left, and behind me, in the break room, the coffee pot sputters the last few drops of its brew cycle.

The normalcy of it all should settle me. But today…I’m not sure anything will.

I spent most of last night convinced that if I stayed busy enough, I’d eventually sleep. That I’d feel less like I was about to walk right off a cliff.

It didn’t work.

The hours passed, my hands ached, and I bruised my shin after tripping over a hammer and slamming my leg into the bed frame. But I was staring at the ceiling at two a.m., three a.m., four a.m., and all the minutes in between.

In a few hours, I’ll tell Parker about my last day on the job. About Zack. I’ll give her the one thing I’ve been afraid to give anyone since it happened: the truth. And then I’ll watch her leave.

I force myself to nod at the few Rangers who look up as I pass by. I’ve met a few this past week—Bennett, Merriweather, Parina. Good folks. Friendly enough.

Yet every step takes more out of me. Because the worst part won’t be losing her tonight. It’ll be coming back here tomorrow and sitting in the same room with her after she’s gone.

I take a breath, and push through the conference room door.

AJ glances over at me from where he’s leaning against the wall closest to the whiteboard. “Good timing, Eliot. Parker and Nate were just bringing me up to speed on our missing inspector.”

I set my bag next to the chair I’ve claimed as mine. The one right next to Parker. “Missing?”

Nate snorts. “Hiding is probably closer to the truth. We’ve been trying to track him down all day. Calls go straight to voicemail. He wasn’t home, and he never showed for a scheduled inspection on Third.”

“We’ll try again tomorrow,” Parker adds. “And Vern said he’d park a uniform outside Kessler’s house tonight.”

I nod, pull a thumb drive out of my bag, and slide it across the table to Nate. “Good idea. Kessler definitely has good reason to turn tail.”

“Oh, I’m sure he does,” Parker says with a little shake of her head. I try not to notice the way one corner of her mouth ticks up in a wry half smile. “But Kessler ain’t the inspector of record anymore.”

I fumble with the paper copy of the report, and half a dozen pages spill across the polished wood table. “What do you mean, ‘anymore’?”

She pops the tab on a Dr. Pepper. “The report had Charlie Kessler listed when I pulled it yesterday. Today…it’s our old friend Todd Ferris.”