Consumed (Firefighters #1)(86)

“How far do your dates go back?”

“A while.”

“We don’t keep footage very long. Only thirty days.”

And it takes two weeks to get the access? What the hell? “Okay, well, I’d appreciate it if you’d email me the form. I’ll get the ball rolling with you and see if there are some other angles I can get to.”

“Listen, the form tells you to send it back to the open inbox. Just shoot it back to me. I’ll see what I can do.”

“Thank you. That’d be great.”

Hanging up, she’d been hoping there was another way, but it looked like she was going to have to go with option two: hardball.

Getting to her feet, she grabbed a folder she had prepared during lunch. “I’ll be right back, Soot. And then we’re going home.”

The Arson Investigation and Fire Inspection Division of the City of New Brunswick took up one floor of the muni building with its dwindling number of inspectors and their support staff working out of a rabbit warren of little spaces with more doors than windows. Don had a corner office, but it was not luxurious, what with its two-sided view of the parking lot.

As she knocked on the jamb, he looked up from his computer. “Now what.” But he eased back and took his “World’s Greatest Boss” mug with him. “You look like you’re on the warpath.”

“I need your help.”

“Wait. I want to be prepared.” He opened a drawer and took out a bottle of Motrin. After taking two, he muttered, “Let’s do this.”

She handed him the folder across his desk and then took a step back while he read.

Her boss went through the paperwork twice. Then looked up at her. “You want to subpoena Ripkin for access to his security cameras on those buildings.”

Anne paced around, unable to stand still. “I’m surprised the previous investigators on the first five fires haven’t already. No offense, but I think they were writing the scenes off because of their location and lack of intrinsic value. We need to see who was going in and out of those buildings because if the Ollie Popper theory is right, he had a sizable amount of evidence to move around. There would be a vehicle that would pull up to the site and enter. It would be there for an hour or so while he moved the goods. And if Ripkin is burning those buildings down? We’d still see someone enter.”

She sat down in one of the two vacant chairs opposite Don, remembering the wired seat Ripkin had made her sit in while they’d spoken in his office. “I’ve been thinking about something. Ripkin Development is a huge corporation, and I have a feel the guy’s paranoid about security and monitoring. There were copious amounts of office equipment in at least two of the fires—so maybe Ripkin is the one disappearing hard drives and laptops. There is no way to completely wipe out memory from computers, unless of course you melt them.”

Don closed the folder. “I get the feeling you’re focused on Ripkin.”

“Or Ollie.”

“Mostly Ripkin. Be careful about seeking information to confirm your hypothesis.” Taking a pen, he signed at the bottom of the form. “But I like your focus, Ashburn.”

“Thanks, boss. I’m going to send this over right now. I’ve also got another one to do for the traffic feeds, but I’ll do that tonight from home for your signature first thing in the morning.”

When she got back to her own office, her cell phone was ringing and she caught the call right before it went into voicemail. “Tom?”

Great, her brother only called her when something was wrong.

“Hello?” she prompted when there was no response.

“Can you meet me over at Mom and Dad’s now?”

Anne frowned. “Your voice sounds weird. Are you okay?”

“Just meet me over there, okay.”

“Yeah. Sure—gimme ten. I’m still at the office.”

Maybe the renovations needed to repair the tree damage were much more than he’d thought? Or . . . she couldn’t think what else it could be.

“Is Mom going to be there?” she asked.

“No. Just you and me.”



* * *



As Anne turned onto the correct street, she was looked around at the houses and was surprised to find that her own neighborhood, where she lived now, was almost identical. Why hadn’t she noticed before? Then again, when was the last time she’d been down here?

A couple of years.

And why wouldn’t she live similarly? Her father had bought the house on the same salary, adjusted for inflation, that she was earning now. Sure, she hadn’t had a wife and two kids—but he hadn’t started out like that and her mom had contributed a kindergarten teacher’s salary to the household income.

Jesus . . . it was still pale blue.

The two-story had been built in the late sixties, and the siding had been white back then. But her mother hadn’t wanted to lose the opportunity to “pretty” it up. So that blue had been born and thrived, despite the fact that it turned the place into an Easter egg that was embarrassing.

Anne parked the Subaru in the driveway, behind her brother’s SUV. “Soot, I’ll just be a few minutes. You already went out, so you’ll be okay. Bark if you need me.”

There was no sun out, and the temperature was at fifty, so he’d be fine, but she cracked all the windows anyway.