Page 8 of Flint’s Strike

“Fletcher. Fire department cleared out a couple of hours ago. It’s all yours.”

Nate brings the incident report up on his phone. “The medical examiner already take the body?”

Fletcher nods, pulls a notepad from his belt, and flips it open. “Yup. Male. Jerry Hollis. Fifty-four. Security guard for the property management company. His shift ended at oh-four-hundred. Fire started at oh-five-thirty. No one knows why he was still on site. Died of smoke inhalation.”

I look past the deputy to the shell of the building. “Where was he found?”

“Second floor. East side. Near the collapsed section.” Fletcher shoves the notebook back into his pocket. “Let me know when you’re done so I can get the hell outta here. It’s hot enough to melt pavement.”

Nate is already rummaging around in his trunk. Hard hats, safety glasses, N-95 respirators, gloves, and two Tyvek suits.

“You have got to be kidding me.” I shake my head with a glare. “We’re not diggin’ for buried treasure in there. It’s hotter than the devil’s tits already. I’ll combust inside that suit.”

He looks me up and down, his gaze lingering on my dusty boots. “My car has a zero-tolerance policy for soot, and I enforce it aggressively. If I find a single smudge on the upholstery, you’re paying for a full detail plus emotional damages.”

With a huff, I reach into his bag and pull out a pair of white booties. “Fine. I’m good for it.”

Once he’s in full gear, and we both have flashlights in hand, I follow him under the tape.

We enter through what used to be a lobby. The smell is so much worse inside. The sharp, chemical stench clings to the back of my throat. The ceiling is still intact, but smoke damage coats every surface in a thick, dark gray film. Parts of the drywall are cracked from the heat, and the reception desk is nothing but a charred skeleton.

Nate’s already taking photos, the small camera clicking steadily as he moves through the space. “Get the boot prints,” I call. “Probably from the fire crew, but we’ll need to rule them out.”

“Yup.” He’s on it, and I venture deeper down the corridor.

No one tells you how dark a building can get after a fire. No power, windows covered in soot and debris, but our flashlights cut wide arcs through the inky void. It’s mainly offices back here, the doors wide open. A few desks still have photos or coffee mugs intact. Others are nothing but ash. Fire isn’t always predictable.

One office catches my eye. The smoke damage stops halfway down the wall—a clean line where something tall blocked the heat. A bookshelf, maybe. Now, it’s just pieces of blackened wood in a pile on the floor. I step over the remains of a desk chair, shining the light on the unburned patch of drywall. Corporate beige.

“Got something,” Nate says from behind me.

I turn to find him crouching by the doorway across the hall. A clock—one of those round, generic ones with black hands on a white face—is warped and half melted.

Swiping the back of my gloved hand over my brow before the sweat can drip into my eyes, I squint through the gloom. The clock is frozen at five forty-eight.

“Eighteen minutes for the fire to get here.”

“If the clock was right.” He straightens, and we keep moving.

By the time we reach the center of the building, there’s debris everywhere. Twisted metal, chunks of plaster, ceiling tiles, insulation hanging in strips. At the far end of the space, what used to be the second floor has collapsed into a pile of rubble. Sunlight filters through the gaps where the roof burned away.

Nate clears his throat. “Gonna need the arson investigator for this part. Let’s head to the west side. Less burn damage over there.”

“Go on. Respirator’s giving me fits. I’ll catch up.” I adjust the straps, tightening them until there’s no space between the edges of the mask and my skin. It helps. A little.

I don’t move yet, though. The body would have been somewhere in all this mess. I find a couple of large, flattened bootie prints. The medical examiner, maybe.

As I turn, I catch it. A metal flashlight lying in the ash. Dented. The plastic lens melted, bulb shattered, but it’s otherwise mostly intact. Stepping closer, I take a couple of photos, and the sunlight shifts enough to reflect on a set of keys.

Shit. They probably belonged to the guard.

I scan the area for any other evidence, and my heart thuds so hard, I feel it in my spine. A warped door lies at an angle in the debris, its knob dented, and—oh God—deep gouges in the dark beige paint. Fingernail marks. Crescent-shaped divots in the wood. From the flashlight.

My breath locks up. I can’t get any air. The space is huge, open to the sky, and still, it feels like the walls are closing in on me.

Jerry Hollis died trying to claw his way out through that door—the wood swelled and warped, and the lock melted, turning the room into a tomb.

I’m moving before I can stop myself. Back down the darkened hall, through the remains of the lobby, and out into the sunlight and hundred-degree heat.