Sacrifice
Page 58

“That’s your boyfriend’s house, right?” said Irish.
She stared at him, thinking of the destruction on the first night, of the bombing on Friday. “Someone came back to finish the job?”
“Sounds like it,” said Irish. His tone was grim. “Or maybe someone is destroying evidence.”
CHAPTER 21
Hannah stared at Michael’s house as the fire truck rumbled across the broken pavement. A truck she didn’t recognize sat on the road in front of his driveway—and beside that was her father’s work truck. Someone had boarded over the front windows of the house, but the door hung open. Smoke billowed from the back of the house.
Despite what the chief had said, she hadn’t believed it until she’d laid eyes on the house.
“You okay for this one?” said Irish.
She met his eyes, wondering if he was teasing about the bombing. But his eyes were serious.
“I’m fine,” she said. Then she straightened, remembering something that had been a concern on the night of the first fire. “The garage. It’s full of landscaping equipment. Lots of fertilizer and chemicals—”
Irish jerked open the window to the main cab again. “Chief. You need to hear this.”
Within two minutes, they had a plan.
Within five minutes, she had an oxygen mask and helmet in place, and she was following Irish into the house, dragging a hose with them.
It was different this time, knowing Michael and his brothers were safe and far from here, that she could keep her mind focused on firefighting. She tried not to think of what Irish had implied, that this could be an attempt to hide evidence. The house was dark and clouded with smoke, but some of the other guys from her unit were prying the plywood away from the windows to allow oxygen back into the home.
They found the fire in the kitchen, already eating away at the walls. She and Irish attacked the wall closest to the garage first, working methodically to ensure the fire didn’t spread back to areas they’d already cleared. They worked backward, chasing flames away from the walls, leaving only the floor on fire.
Someone had to have spread accelerant for the floor to be burning this hot, this long.
Not Michael, she thought. He wouldn’t have done this.
Right?
She could see the vinyl flooring melting into a clear pattern of lines below the flames. She turned the nozzle, ready to attack the floor next.
Irish grabbed her hand and kept the water directed at the wall. His voice came across her radio. “Hannah. Wait. What do you see?”
She stared. She saw fire. A lot of fire.
But then a pattern started to emerge. “A message?” she guessed. Then she looked more closely. “A star? What does that mean?”
“That’s not a star,” said Irish. “But it’s definitely a message.”
“It’s not a star?”
He let go of the hose, and water streaked across the flames on the floor.
“No,” he said. “That’s a pentagram.”
Michael had never been so glad to see the inside of a police car.
He was handcuffed beside Tyler, and they were alone in the vehicle, but Hannah’s father was just outside, speaking to the officer who was going to be driving them to the police station. The cul-de-sac was again lined with fire trucks and ambulances, but the terrified urgency from Thursday night was conspicuously absent. The radio in the front seat kept crackling with orders and updates, but Michael didn’t understand most of the codes, and he didn’t learn anything more than he already knew: his house was empty, yet on fire. A brush fire was burning in the woods.
He’d searched the faces of the firefighters he’d seen milling about, but he hadn’t seen Hannah. At least he didn’t have to be worried about her getting involved here.
Tyler shifted beside him. “I’ve never been arrested before,” he said. “I don’t know whether to be relieved or not.”
Michael stared out the window at the woods behind his house. “I prefer it to being dead.”
When Marshal Faulkner had put the gun against his head, Michael had worried that the Guide would burst out of the woods and kill them all—Hannah’s father included. But it was as if Jack Faulkner’s appearance had broken some sort of spell. Once he’d appeared to take them into custody, Michael hadn’t sensed their pursuer at all.
He had no idea what that meant—but he wondered if he should be giving Hannah’s father a bit more regard. Hadn’t the man been at every crime scene?
Yeah, because he’s the fire marshal, you idiot.
“Did you see anyone?” said Tyler.
“No.” Michael kept his eyes on the woods. “I didn’t.”
And that bothered him, too. Everything had happened so fast that Michael was still trying to piece it together. Had a Guide affected the air, making it thin and difficult to breathe—or had Michael been panicked, leaving adrenaline to do the same thing? Tyler had started the fire on the forest floor, right? Had the Guide made trees fall? Or had Michael done that?
His cell phone vibrated in his pocket. It hit him like a live wire. Michael jumped and swore.
“What?” said Tyler.
“I got another text.”
Tyler’s voice dropped, though they were alone in the car. “From the guy in the woods?”
“My hands are cuffed behind my back, Tyler. It could be from anyone.”
But it wasn’t. He knew. This was bait. A trap. A taunt.