Page 1 of Built of Flames

Accelerant

Isabella Martinez followed her mentor further into the flames. Roberto Garin was as steady a man as she’d ever met. Trustworthy. Smart. One of the bravest people she knew. She’d always wished he was her father. Or that her father was more like Roberto.

But she’d stopped believing in wishes when her mom had died.

Isabella yanked her mind back on task. Being a firefighter required full concentration at all times. Especially when in the bowels of a building. While she loved being an active duty firefighter, she couldn’t wait to finish her final course and be on the investigating side. Solving the puzzles. Today’s blaze would be an intriguing one.

This warehouse fire was in an older part of town. The buildings were crammed close together with tiny family homes directly behind the row. Plenty of opportunity for disaster.

With Roberto in front, they climbed the stairs leading to what she assumed were offices in the back of the building. Their job was to clear the rooms, ensure no one was in the building.

Smoke swirled throughout the warehouse. With so many smaller fires burning in different areas, it had to be an arson job. The owner? A rival? Or something more personal. At least the stairs weren’t flaming and when they hit the corridor, it was smoky, but with no fire in sight.

Her brother Christo’s team was working on the roof to create safe holes to vent the smoke and fire. She sent good vibes his way, as she did every time he was on duty. As family members, they normally worked opposite shifts, but Christo was subbing for Mac who was at a family wedding.

One bonus of living in Kelsor was that the town only had one fire-station, so she always knew Christo’s status. Of course, the flip side of that small-town life was that she had to work under her father, who didn’t want her anywhere near the station.

Once she aced this final exam, she’d be a full-fledged arson investigator, and she could go anywhere. Take one of the offers sitting in her inbox.

Her heart thought of Mitch Robinson, another firefighter, and her brother’s friend. Isabella had been crushing on Mitch since they were kids. That crush had only grown as she’d watched him become the best kind of man, a lot like her mentor.

Roberto motioned for Isabella to take the rooms on the left while he worked on the right.

Her first room was a tiny office. A peek under the desk and in the closet showed no one, so she moved on. After each room, they waited for the other before moving on. So much about being a firefighter was teamwork and trust. If they didn’t have those, the fire won every time.

A bang sounded above them and Isabella glanced up, but the ceiling above their head remained intact. They moved forward and opened the last doors in the hallway. When she opened the door, she spotted the hole in the ceiling and immediately called Roberto.

The hole wasn’t jagged. It was a neat square, big enough for a man to crawl through. Why had someone gone into the ceiling? There was no evidence of renovations anywhere. The office was like the others, with basic furniture and a small closet. She cleared it and called Roberto again.

The desk was beneath the hole and Isabella figured someone had used it to climb up. Was the person still up there? She’d have to clear that before she could move on.

Roberto hadn’t shown, so Isabella turned to check on him first. Was his radio out? Hers? Her mentor was leaning on the room’s desk when she entered, facing away from her. This room had a similar hole in the ceiling.

“Roberto. You okay?”

No answer, but he started to turn toward her. Isabella hurried forward when the action was slow and clunky. His eyes were round and full of pain. The laugh lines that crinkled from his eyes were slack and his eyes were glazed.

“Calling Team Leader. Martinez 3 with a medical emergency. Repeat medical emergency. We need assistance.”

Isabella slipped under Roberto’s arm and kept talking to him. He blinked, but she wasn’t sure he saw her. She had to get him into the fresh air before their tanks ran out.

No one answered her call for help, but she kept trying. The radios never went out. Ever.

Forcing herself to remember her training, Isabella kept talking, kept her voice calm. She alternated between talking to Roberto and calling for help while she kept her radio link open.

Roberto wasn’t a small man, and while Isabella was average-sized, she wasn’t sure she could get him out without help. “We’re going to walk this way, Roberto. Stay with me, my friend. We’re going to keep moving.”

As she maneuvered the man to the doorway, an explosion ripped from the hole in the ceiling. She pushed Roberto into the hallway as the furniture and debris from the ceiling slammed into her.

Pain lanced through her shoulder and her ribs, sending her to the ground and making it more difficult to catch a breath. When she could move, she crawled away from the debris and looked back to see the room in flames. The one across the hall was still intact, but she knew it could blow at any second.

Thankfully, Roberto hadn’t fallen. He was leaning into the wall at a drunken angle.

Isabella shoved to her feet and found him blinking at her with a little more clarity.

“Hey Roberto. We’re going to head out. Come on, the stairs are this way. Lean on me, it’s not far.” Except it was. It was another five doorways before they got to the stairs.

Roberto made a grunting noise, but his feet shuffled forward a bit. She kept up the running commentary and calls for help. Nothing from either her team or the man she propped up.

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