Page 10 of Flint’s Strike

I stop at the edge of a huge pile of debris. A support beam is bent at an angle steel shouldn’t take unless it burned over a thousand degrees for way too long.

The collapse happened in sections. I can see it in the layering. The steel gave first. Then everything above it.

A bead of sweat rolls down my spine.

“Stairwell’s partially blocked. Metal’s groanin’ like a sombitch. Need another minut⁠—”

The building roars. Zack’s voice cuts out over the radio.

Felton’s voice is in my ear. “Eliot. The south side’s gone.”

I couldn’t get to him. Couldn’t even get myself out from under that metal grating.

I force my feet to move. To yield to my penance. I failed Zack, and becoming an arson investigator was the only way I could live with my guilt. I won’t fail anyone else. I can’t. The work won’t bring him back, but it’s all I’ve got.

The charring beneath the debris is uneven. Darker near the east wall, lighter toward the center. Could be a pour pattern—liquid accelerant pooling before it burned—or it could just be where the room got hottest once everything in it was burning at once. I won’t know until the lab runs the samples.

I crouch, ignoring the now-familiar pop in my left knee and the tightness of the skin pulling over my lower back and hip, and skim my gloved hand along the edge of the residue. It’s oily. Dropping a yellow evidence collection flag, I get to my feet and move on.

Boots crunch through the debris on the far side of the atrium. A man emerges from another hallway, camera in hand. He’s taller than me. Tanned skin, moving like someone who’s spent time in buildings worse than this one. It’s a detachment I recognize all too well.

“You’re the fire marshal?” he asks.

“Eliot Flint.”

The man’s dark eyes flicker and the corner of his mouth lifts. “Flint? Someone set you up for success early.”

I don’t respond. It’s one of the better jokes I’ve heard.

“Nate Hardison.” He doesn’t offer his hand, which I appreciate. The gesture feels pointless in a place like this. “This is your scene. We’re just here for documentation.”

“Appreciate it.” I pull out my own camera, start shooting the charring patterns on the exposed floor. “You’ve been through the whole building?”

“Most of it,” he says. “The east side’s unstable. I wouldn’t go more than ten feet down that hall I came from.”

I nod. “Origin’s somewhere in this mess. Multiple burn patterns. Signs of accelerant.”

Hardison’s quiet for a moment, staring at the debris. “Guard’s body was in here. ME took him early this morning.”

“I got the low-down from the deputy who called it in.” Moving to the east wall, I snap another few photos of the V patterns running up toward where the second floor used to be. “Someone wanted this building to burn. Question is whether they knew anyone was inside.”

Another set of footsteps from the lobby. Lighter. Controlled. Elmore. She’s put the respirator back on, hard hat secure, safety glasses firmly in place. Pausing at the edge of the debris field, she glances down at a door upended on a pile of rubble, then over at me. Her gaze is guarded, and her shoulders tense when she locks eyes with her partner.

“You good?” Hardison asks.

The glare she shoots him could ignite this place all over again. “What’ve we got?” She turns slightly, directing the question to me.

“Looks like multiple points of origin. Accelerant in at least three spots, maybe more.” I crouch near the base of the debris pile, angling for a photo of the charring on an exposed floor joist. The wood’s burned deeper on one side than the other—I see that a lot when liquid pools before ignition. “I’ll come back with sample cans after I finish the walk-through. They’re vapor locked, so they work better than evidence bags for shit like this.”

Parker moves closer, peering at the area I’m photographing. “The building’s owned by a commercial real estate LLC. We’ll run it down. Make sure they don’t have any reason to want it…gone.”

“Good. I'll have preliminary findings by Monday. Full lab results take a couple more days.”

She's quiet for a second. “Multiple points of origin—how do you know?”

I point to two other spots across the room where the charring’s darker, more concentrated. “Burn patterns. Every accelerant has a signature, and it sits there—soaks into anything porous—before it ignites. Different from natural fire spread. This”—I tap the wood near where I was photographing—“burned deeper on one side. Whatever was used sat there for a bit before it caught.”

She follows where I’m pointing, and I can see her connecting the dots. “So someone walked through here, poured accelerant in more than one spot, and then struck a match on their way out.”