Sacrifice. Brigid Kemmerer

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      His flashlight beam lifted almost to Michael’s face, so he could see everyone clearly, but no one was blinded. His expression was some mixture of surprised and intrigued. “I still can’t believe you’re upright and talking.”

      Michael wasn’t sure what the right response to that was. “Give me an hour.”

      “I checked the walls on this level. Thermal imaging doesn’t show anything. I think you’re clear.”

      Again, no appropriate response came to mind. This man had dragged him out of a house unconscious. He’d helped perform CPR. He’d watched Michael lose his shit.

      Actually, if he’d walked in here a minute later, he would have seen Michael lose it for a second time.

      “Thanks,” Michael finally said.

      “No problem.”

      “This is Irish,” said Hannah. “Irish, this is Michael.”

      Michael knew he should be following social niceties, but his brain wasn’t providing the automatic responses. Maybe it was the dark, maybe it was the residual haze of smoke in the living room, maybe it was the fact that his life had literally turned into a pile of crap around him. But he could only stand there, silent, staring at Irish like he had two brain cells left.

      “Could you shine that light over here?” said the fire marshal.

      His words broke through the awkward tension. Irish pointed the flashlight toward the other beam.

      “Look.” Marshal Faulkner gestured with his flashlight along the floor. “Can you see the pattern of the burn?”

      Michael just saw a whole lot of burned carpeting. “It’s all burned.”

      “Look. Follow the light. See how it’s darker along this line?”

      The light traced a path through the thin smoke, following a stretch of charred carpeting.

      Then Michael saw it, a clear line of darkness through the rest of the blackened material. “It’s darker. Why?”

      “Burned hotter,” said Irish, as if it were obvious.

      Hannah glanced up. “Accelerant does that.”

      “Like gasoline?” Calla had used accelerant to start the fires a few months back. She’d been drawing pentagrams in the houses she destroyed, in an attempt to call the Guides. Was this a pentagram? It was too dark to tell, and he couldn’t ask without sounding more involved than he was.

      Guides marked houses with pentagrams, too, but he’d never heard of it being done by fire. Then again, anything was possible. Neither she nor the Guides would have needed accelerant to start a fire—unless they wanted to send a message. Like now.

      Everything here pointed in both directions, leaving Michael feeling like he sat squarely in the line of fire.

      Hannah’s father shrugged. “Could be gasoline. Or kerosene. Lighter fluid. Anything, really. Pretty clear pour pattern. No one tried to hide anything here.” The light flicked back to Michael. “Deliberate. No question. Not that I had any doubt, with four other houses going to ash right this second.”

      “Who would do this?” said Irish.

      His tone was the same as the fire marshal’s: not quite an interrogation, but almost. Michael waited for Marshal Faulkner to say something cop-like, maybe, I’ll ask the questions here, but he didn’t say anything. Maybe he was waiting for the answer, too.

      At least Michael didn’t have to lie. “I have no idea. Is that Ryan Stacey kid still behind bars?”

      “Who’s Ryan Stacey?” said Irish.

      “Local kid,” said Hannah. “He was setting houses on fire a few months ago.”

      Ryan had been helping Calla. They didn’t know that, but Michael did.

      Not that he could volunteer that information.

      “Ryan Stacey didn’t do this,” said Marshal Faulkner. “Not from prison. New question.”

      Michael coughed. He felt like the room was spinning. “Shoot.”

      “Looking at this room, your house should be rolling like the rest of the street. I’m going to ask you again. How’d you stop the fire?”

      Michael had no answer for that. He ran his hands across his face. “I don’t know. I don’t—it must have burned itself out.”

      “That’s not how fire works, and I’m pretty sure you know that as well as I do.”

      He did know that. He also knew he didn’t have any answers to give. His thoughts were still trying to make sense of the fires—and who had started them.

      There was someone in the woods.

      Was it just Chris? Or someone else? Was it a coincidence this happened when he’d been chasing his brother?

      Had he been lured away?

      He didn’t know. He couldn’t even answer his own questions, much less the fire marshal’s.

      Michael rubbed at his eyes and wanted to sit down. “Are you going to arrest me because the fire stopped?”

      Marshal Faulkner held his eyes across the haze. “Not yet.”

      “He’s not going to arrest you at all,” said Hannah. Her voice was firm.

      “Hannah—”

      Irish cleared his throat. “I’m going to go help run lines.”

      “Take her with you,” said Marshal Faulkner.

      Hannah inhaled to object, and her father said, “Don’t think I won’t order you out of here.”

      “It’s okay,” Michael said. “He’s doing his job.”

      “Come on, Blondie,” said Irish. He gave Hannah a pat on the shoulder and gestured toward the front. “We’re shorthanded anyway.”

      Blondie. Michael tucked that away in his head to think about later. Along with the casual way Irish had touched her.

      But she gave Michael a last, lingering squeeze of her hand. “Find me before you leave, okay?”

      “Okay.”

      And then she was gone, following Irish through the door.

      Leaving him there with the fire marshal.

      Michael wondered if he could make a run for it, or if the guy would take that as guilt and just shoot him.

      But then Marshal Faulkner said, “I’m going to let you take your brothers out of here.”

      His voice was almost kind, and for an instant, Michael wished he was seventeen again, that the marshal СКАЧАТЬ