Page 94 of Flint’s Strike

At my side, Nate shudders. I doubt it has anything to do with the sick kid and everything to do with the mess in Ferris’s car.

I hold up my hand. “Mr. Ferris, we’re with the Ranger division, not APD or the State Troopers. While we hope all of Austin’s citizens drive the speed limit, we don’t write tickets. Or track down a speeder after the fact.”

Todd takes a step back, his shoulders heaving with a heavy sigh. “Oh. Then why are you here?”

“Is there somewhere we can talk? A conference room?” I ask.

His gaze swings from one side of the large open space to the other. “The Longhorn room is empty. Um…you can follow me.”

Todd picks up his mug, a monstrosity with World’s Okayest Golfer in bright green letters on one side. Nate shudders again, and I elbow him in the side. “It wasn’t your car. Get a grip.”

“The upholstery, Parker. Think of the upholstery.”

I’d roll my eyes at him, except Todd is holding the conference room door open for us, his gaze pinging between us and the hallway like he’s planning his escape route. “Do…uh…you want coffee?”

“No, thank you,” I say.

Todd gestures for us to take seats at a beautiful polished wood table, then drops into one of the rolling chairs across from us. He’s not sweating anymore, but he keeps clenching and unclenching his hands around the mug.

“So…what’s this about?” he asks.

Nate opens the red folder he brought up with him and slides the Aldrich inspection certificate across the table. “Is this your signature, Mr. Ferris?”

Todd squints at the paper. First, the almost unreadable chicken scratch at the bottom, then up to the address and inspection details. His face goes from a splotchy red to ghostly pale to a sickly gray in under thirty seconds. “This…wasn’t me.”

Nate leans forward in his chair. “I’ll repeat my question. Is that your signature?”

“It looks like it, but I’ve never been assigned to a job that big. I handle residential sales, mostly out in Pflugerville and Georgetown.” He’s getting flustered now, and reaches for a keyboard and mouse in the center of the conference table. A large screen lights up on the wall in front of him, and he logs into Apex’s internal scheduling system. “See?”

The assignment calendar is blocked out in bright colors. I can practically hear Nate’s disappointment that there are only five different shades. And that the dates surrounding the Aldrich inspection are completely blank.

“Why don’t you have any assignments for the week of June sixth?” I ask.

“I was in Orlando.” Todd reaches for his phone and opens the Star Airlines app. “We go every year with my wife’s family. Her birthday is on the eighth, and we got married on the first.”

He shows us the airline confirmation, then switches to his camera roll. Photo after photo of him and his family—a teenage boy burying his little sister in the sand, a woman in a floppy hat with a wrap-around skirt over her bathing suit, and a selfie where Todd is wearing entirely too much sunscreen.

“Here. And here…I posted about it,” he says, switching to his SocialGram app and passing me the phone.

I tap the picture—one of the whole family on the beach, his wife tagged—with at least forty separate commenters wishing him a happy anniversary.

My photos never get that much interaction. Then again, they might if I posted more than once a year.

Nate peers at the phone, a muscle in his jaw ticking once, then passes Todd one of his cards. “We’ll need copies of your airline confirmation, hotel and rental car receipts, meals…all of it. Send everything you have by the end of the day.”

“I will. All of it.” Todd’s voice cracks. “I didn’t have anything to do with that fire. Two people? My God. I’d never forgive myself.”

“Let’s assume that everything checks out,” I say, doing my best to be reassuring. Innocent or guilty, I don’t want Todd having a heart attack on my watch. “Any idea how a mistake like this happens?”

He glances up at the empty calendar on the wall monitor. “It shouldn’t. But…every inspector has their signature on file with the Texas Department of Insurance. It’s keyed to our license number. Ten years ago—when I started this job—we were on site for the inspection, then came back to the office, filled out all the necessary forms, and had to sign them in ink. Then we carried them to the county clerk’s office to be stamped and filed. But now…”

“So that’s your official electronic signature,” Nate says. “No one forged it.”

“That’s what’s on file with the clerk’s office, yes.”

I lean back in my chair, my pen poised over my small notebook. “So how does your signature get applied to a file you never touched?”

“That’s the thing.” Todd swipes at his forehead again. I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from making a face as his thinning hair sticks almost straight up. “Every inspector at every firm in the state has one of these.” He reaches into his pocket and pulls out what looks like a thumb drive that’s attached to his belt loop by a retractable cord. “There’s an RFID chip in this fob. Without it, we can’t file a damn thing. And when I go on vacation, I lock this in my safe at home. There’s no way my signature should be on that inspection.”