Ice climbed in, usinghis cell phone camera to record the footprints. Athena and Hernandez followed. By then, Flash had ventured across the garage bay floor. “I’m catching a faint whiff of accelerant, but it could just be old shop materials leaking from compromised cans. Also? Mice everywhere.”
Lovely,Athena groaned to herself. She wasn’t afraid of mice. It didn’t mean she’d enjoy them scurrying around her feet in the shadowy quarters of this burnt-out shell.
“Which means there are likely snakes somewhere as well,” Hernandez pointed out.
“I’ve got all four of you on my screen,” Paulson said into Athena’s earpiece. “So far, no other activity. The mice are too small, and snakes wouldn’t show up.”
“Thanks.” Athena, Ice, and Hernandez spread out to search the place. It looked like any small repair shop—big hydraulic lifts, rows of toolboxes—except an enormous pile of melted rubber formed an eerie black mass where the tires should be. Anything that could burn had, only now, branches and leaves were scattered over it, like kindling waiting to catch.
“Here’s something,” said Ice. Athena moved toward him. He lifted the lid of a steel trunk, revealing a stash of old shop rags. “The metal box preserved these.”
“Rags like the ones from Lone Star,” Athena murmured. She picked one up and sniffed. “He could have gotten them from here.”
Snap!
Athena jerked her chin around at the noise, every nerve on alert.
“My bad,” said Hernandez. “Stepped on a stick.” He held up a wrench. “Snap-on tools.”
“Oh, yeah, he was here,” Athena said. He’d left them at Lone Star. On purpose.
Her team had spent yesterday afternoon and this morning trying to tie this abandoned business to one of their suspects, only to come up empty. “Maybe he lives around here, passes by every day. This fire was ruled an accident … maybe ‘accidentally’ on purpose?”
“I found the door to the office,” Flash called. “The other fires all started in the buildings’ offices, so you all stand back.”
Athena’s skin prickled with pins and needles as she watched Flash examine the door handle and peer through the glass, checking for a trap. She smashed the window with her axe, stuck her head in. “I don’t see a trip wire. There could be a more complicated mechanism, though. Just hang tight.”
A slow burn of memory lit Athena’s spine as she recalled minor explosions popping all around them in the old Grove Hospital, igniting hidden C4 and methane gas, engulfing her team in flames. Martin Cruz had been killed in the initial blast. At the time, they’d believed he was just trapped on the other side of a collapsed wall. She and Agent Daniels had burned themselves trying to dig him out—Daniels more severely than her.
Flash is here this time. Suited up. Ready.
“I don’t see a triggering mechanism,” Flash reported, “but that doesn’t mean it’s safe. I’m going to open this door and see what happens.”
Athena held her breath as Flash turned the handle. Slow. Careful. The door creaked. Nothing. Maybe this wasn’t a trap. Maybe Athena’s trauma over the summer had her jumping at shadows. The tension eased from her shoulders.
“Is it OK for us to come in and check it out?” Therehadto be something—prints, DNA, hair, anything.
“Hang on,” Flash barked with concern.
“Hey, Bouvier.” Suspicion clouded Ice’s voice. “There’s a camera up there on a post, and it looks new.”
“A camera?” Athena snapped her focus in the direction Ice pointed.
Boom!
The blast ripped through the silence—and it came from the office.
“FLASH!”
Chapter 27
Shooting pain. Ringing in her ears. Smoke. A wave of heat.
Flash moved an arm, then a leg, struggling to orient herself. Her brain was foggy, but she grasped what had happened. As she pushed to wobbly hands and knees, a searing yell cut through the thick air. “Flash!”
Athena. Must get up. Make sure she’s safe.
She opened her eyes to a roaring blaze, everything sounding muffled, like she was under water. When she stood, Flash realized her gloved hands were empty. She shot her gaze around the circle of fire that used to be the office, scanning for her ax and extinguisher. Spotting the canister a few feet away, she took two long steps and jerked it up. Pulled the pin.
