Page 8 of Out of the Fire
They were a straightforward family. Dad was a self-employed plumber. Mom helped with the bookkeeping of the business. Two sons, eight years apart. Youngest son was pulled from his family’s house fire seven years ago while the older brother was away at college. Parents were rescued as well, but the dad was rushed to the hospital for smoke inhalation. He’d died last year from pneumonia, and looking at his health history, it looked like he’d had respiratory issues consistently over the past seven years since the fire. But he was also a smoker before the fire ever happened. And who knows if he actually quit or kept smoking after the fire.
The oldest son didn’t live locally. He was a dentist in Ohio. Neither the mom nor dad had much family here. Mom was from Florida; the rest of her family was still living there. Dad was local, but an only child, both of his parents having passed away years earlier.
“I think I got it.” Dylan’s voice broke through my thoughts. I spun my chair and raised a brow at the manila folder in his hand. “Who is most likely to be an arsonist?”
Great. Profiling. My favorite topic of choice. “You know how I feel about this.”
“Yes, Violet. I know. But humor me. Because we can’t ignore statistics.”
I sighed. “Fine. Young white males.”
“So our twenty-year-old with a possible grudge against the Half Moon Lake FD is the perfect suspect, right?”
I nodded.
“But what are new studies indicating most serial arsonists do for a living?”
“Firefighters.” It was why they were harder to catch. They knew how to not get caught. I shrugged. “But since it hasn’t been tracked, there’s no way to know the exact percentage.”
Dylan stepped forward and handed me the folder in his hand.
I opened it and skimmed the information. “He’s older.”
“Probably why the investigators haven’t considered him.”
“Retired firefighter.” I continued to peruse his details before looking up at Dylan. “Connected to the Taylors?”
He nodded. “He’s the boys’ godfather.”
“So are we thinking they’re working together?”
Dylan pursed his lips and shook his head. “I think we play this as a new suspect. Let’s see if we can connect him to any of the fires, starting with the locations. I might have a chat with him tomorrow about the kid to see if I can get a read on him.”
He was right, we couldn't keep fixating on the son. Not with him having at least one airtight alibi. Camera footage from the convenience store verified he was nowhere near the BBQ joint when it burned down in May. The same location where Logan had found the book of matches that led us to the Taylors to begin with.
“I want to go back to the beginning,” Dylan continued. “Going to ask the captain if I can pull some guys. Canvas neighbors and businesses around the locations. See if they recognize him. It’s worth a shot.”
I glanced back down at the file in my hand. “What do you need from me?”
“Can you look through some of the video footage we’ve collected? Make sure this guy isn’t on camera near any of the locations?”
I nodded. “Sure.”
I silently apologized to my eyes for the tedium I was about to put them through. Maybe it was time to invest in a gallon jug of eye drops. We really needed more help for a project like this, but the state had bigger fish to fry than a small-town serial arsonist. The only reason they weren’t more dedicated to this case was because there weren’t any casualties yet. Just our lovely close call.
Eventually that might change. But until then, we had to do the best we could with the resources we had.
Chapter Five
SETH
This hadto be by far the craziest thing I'd done. And I run into burning buildings for a living. But going on a fake date just so I didn't have to deal with women who wanted to sleep with me? Something had to be wrong with me.
The door to the small townhome swung open and I couldn’t stop my gaze from trailing down her body. Violet’s style was definitely…weird.
So why did I like it so much?
The short-sleeved, dark purple top she wore zipped up the front, the neckline dipping low to reveal the deep valley between her breasts. A short black skirt was paired with her signaturefishnets, and my eyes followed the toned curves of her legs to black come-fuck-me high-heeled boots.
