Consumed (Firefighters #1)(105)

As soon as she got up, he was on his feet, and she turned off the alarm and let him out, standing watch. People were stirring in their houses, making coffee on the first floors, showering and dressing on the second.

She did the same.

When she came back downstairs, she poured herself a cup of java, and realized she’d forgotten to take the phone up with her.

Bracing herself, she checked the thing, expecting to see a picture of herself with her hair a mess on the back porch as Soot piddled in his favorite spot by the corner of the house.

Nope. Nothing.

Which was a relief of a temporary nature.

She was about to put the phone in her bag when she thought about Danny’s stupid-ass voicemail. She hadn’t even gone in to erase it, but on the theory of starting as one means to go on, she opened the phone icon. The “Recents” screen popped up, and she was about to hit the voicemail icon with its red “1” on the lower left corner when something didn’t make sense.

The list of calls started with Danny at the top. There was his name and “(4)” next to it, and the line was black because she’d answered the last call from him. Across the line there was “Yesterday” in gray.

Then there was Jack. In black. With a gray “Yesterday.”

And “World’s Greatest Boss,” which was how she had Don in her contacts. Black. With a gray “Yesterday.”

And under that was “Unknown.” In black. With a gray “Yesterday.”

Scrolling down the list, she found the other Unknown Caller. From when she’d answered the phone just before her window got shot out.

But she’d hadn’t answered a call from an unknown number. Hitting the information button, she frowned. The time stamp was yesterday morning, and it showed a call lasting three minutes—

The world spun and she threw out a hand.

Moose. When he’d called her about Deandra and Danny. That was exactly the date and time he had called her to ask to meet.

So he had to be one who had shot her car window. Put the gun on her doorstep. Texted her and watched her.

Stumbling over to a chair, she sat down and stared at the details. Maybe he had phoned her from . . .

She went through all her recents, all the way back to when he had first called her to go see Danny that night. There, the phone number in her contacts showed up with the entry that read “Moose.”

So he had a regular phone, and had gotten a burner and made sure he was anonymous? Which was what you did when you wanted to threaten someone. But why? What was his tie to Ripkin and Ollie Popper, the warehouse fires and the office equipment—

“The box trailer. Shit. The fucking box trailer!”

Bursting up, she went to her sofa. She’d printed out a screenshot from the CCTV and it was here, somewhere—

When she found the piece of paper, she tried to see if the trailer was the same as the one Moose used for transporting his cars in. She couldn’t tell. There had to be a thousand of them in the city of New Brunswick.

There was a temptation to scream from the rooftops, call Jack and send the SWAT team over there, get a helicopter in the air. But she didn’t want to put her foot in it. Slow. Methodical. Let the situation reveal itself . . .

It made no sense. Why would Moose set fires to destroy electronics for Ripkin? The two of them had never met.

“Yes, they have,” she said to herself as she fumbled with the phone.

As her call rang through, she prayed she was right. Prayed she remembered correctly—“Tom? Tom! Listen, I need a favor—”

“What time is it?” her brother mumbled.

“In your office. On the shelf behind your desk. There’s a picture—”

“Sis, you’re talking too fast. What—”

“The picture. From the opening of the new stationhouse. The picture behind your desk. I need you to take a photograph of it and send it to me right now. Okay? Just take a picture of it and send it to my phone.”

“Why?”

She thought about coming forward with everything. But this was not just her brother; it was Moose’s boss. What if she was wrong? All she had was Unknown Caller—she didn’t have the digits themselves. Jack was still working on that.

“I just need to see it. Please?”

“Sure, fine. Whatever. I’m upstairs in my bunk. Gimme five minutes.”

After she hung up, she cradled her phone. Tom no doubt had heard about the blowup between Danny and Moose at the 499, and if she started talking like Moose was some kind of serial arsonist setting fires for a psychotic killer businessman, he was going to think she was nuts.

What she needed was facts. Proof.

Motive: Moose had, in the last year, somehow managed to fund a fancy wedding, a set of implants for Deandra, two expensive cars, a new house, and all that ugly furniture on a fireman’s salary. Even if you assumed he was working as a roofer every second he was off of work? That was a couple hundred thousand dollars right there.

Ripkin could afford to pay well the people he had doing nasties for him.

Means: Moose was on the fire service. Fire service people did training runs in abandoned buildings where fires were set to burn in controlled fashion. Back when she had been at the 499, he and Danny had always been the ones clearing the sites and setting the fires.

It wasn’t that hard to imagine that he could set a controlled ignition by timer or remote device.