The radio stayed off. I couldn't bear the unaffected cheer of late-night DJs or news reports. Instead, I filled my mind with terrible calculations: the precise temperature of burning refinery fuel, the melting point of human tissue, and the exceedingly slim odds of surviving what Raines had planned.
A fire truck screamed past, lights painting my windshield in urgent red. For a moment, I couldn't breathe, imagining Marcus running toward flames specifically crafted to test him and complete what his father had started.
I pulled over, pressing my forehead against the wheel as nausea rolled through me. Opening the car door, I lost the contents of my stomach at the edge of the road. The case files in my lap spilled onto the floor. I'd been so focused on methodology that I'd missed the most crucial pattern.
Graham McCabe's ghost haunted every scene.
When I finally started driving again, cold sweat pasted my shirt to my back. Traffic lights cycled between red and green, each one marking time like a countdown. To what?
My analytical mind tried to predict Raines's endgame, but emotions kept interfering. My brain cycled through memories of Marcus's face when he spoke of his father.
I wanted to call him and warn him, but these weren't the kind of revelations you delivered over the phone.
The familiar sight of my building should have been comforting. Instead, something primal in my hindbrain screamed a warning as I pulled into my usual parking spot. The security light above the entrance flickered, casting unstable shadows across the brick walls.
I grabbed the messenger bag, each step toward the building's entrance feeling heavier than the last. The night had gone too quiet like nature itself was holding its breath.
It wasn't until I reached my floor that I understood why.
My apartment door stood slightly ajar, darkness seeping through the gap between frame and lock. The hallway's fluorescent lights cast strange shadows across the threshold, and beneath them, something curled into the corridor—not shadow, but smoke.
My hand froze on the doorknob. The metal radiated heat.
Every instinct screamed to back away and call it in. That would have been my choice in any other situation, but the evidence in my bag was like a lead weight, each page carrying truth that could keep Marcus alive. If Raines had found my other research...
I pushed the door open. Heat slammed into me, carrying scents I'd documented at dozens of scenes but never experienced in my personal space—burning paper, melting plastic, and the distinct signatures of fuel chosen for specific effects. The air shimmered with convection currents, creating patterns I could have sketched from memory after years of studying fire behavior.
In my living room, my desk lay overturned, its drawers pulled out and scattered. Papers carpeted the floor in careful patterns, deliberately placed.
And through the bedroom doorway, orange light danced, accompanied by ominous crackling.
The heat pressed against my exposed skin, trying to drive me back. Sweat instantly soaked my shirt, plastering cotton against my spine. My throat burned with each breath, and my analytical mind helpfully supplied the exact chemical compounds I was inhaling.
For the first time in my life, I grabbed a fire extinguisher, brandishing it as a weapon against the flames. I moved through the apartment like it was another investigation, processing details even as my survival instincts screamed at me to run. The flames consumed my bedspread in controlled patterns—not the chaos of a natural fire, but the precise destruction I'd seen at every scene. It wasn't random arson. This was a message.
The fire climbed the walls in elegant spirals, creating the same signature patterns I'd photographed at the warehouse. My curtains ignited in a careful sequence, each panel catching at precisely timed intervals.
Part of me—the researcher and analyst—wanted to document all of it. Another part recognized I was watching a systematic threat on my life.
A sharp crack overhead broke through my professional detachment.
I looked up just as a section of the burning ceiling broke free. Time stretched into slow motion as I watched it fall, my mind calculating the trajectory and mass even as I tried to move.
Pain exploded in my shoulder as superheated debris struck. The impact drove me to my knees, and suddenly, the fire wasn't a subject of study—it was alive, hungry, and personal. I smelled my flesh burning before I managed to throw the chunk of ceiling aside.
The pain cleared my head. I deployed the extinguisher with mechanical precision, cutting through flames arranged like brush strokes on canvas. The chemicals mixed with smoke, creating a fog that burned my eyes and coated my tongue.
Somehow, I put the fire out and made it to the street. My shoulder screamed where the debris had struck, and each breath was like inhaling shards of glass. Somehow, my hands were steady as I pulled out my phone, finding Marcus's number
One ring. Two. Then his voice, solid and real: "James?"
"It's him. He was here."
A heartbeat of silence. Then, lower: "Where are you?"
"Outside my building." I tasted ash on my tongue. "My apartment is gone."
"I'm coming." No hesitation. No questions.
