Page 1 of Rekindle My Heart

Chapter 1

The sun dipped below the husk of the building. Detective Ryan Daniels scanned the street, not a soul in sight. He should be with his friends hanging out at the bar on this holiday weekend—the last one of the summer.

No, he stood in the worst part of Ashwood waiting for his contact.

He caught movement across the street and tensed. It didn’t matter that he carried a gun or a badge in this part of town. Gang signs littered the walls of the rundown buildings reminding him that cops were outnumbered in this neighborhood.

A rat scurried from one trash can to the next. His shoulders tensed, and he checked the time. His contact was late. Unless he was inside the building. The boarded-up doors had been busted open.

Five more minutes. If this guy didn’t show by then, he’d venture inside.

Cold sweat clung to his back. The warm night air did nothing to calm his nerves. He should have told Larson where he was going.

His finger hovered over her number. Just two words and she’d have his back. No. He closed down the screen and pocketed his phone. The last thing he needed was to spook the contact. It was the first solid lead to tracking down the ringleader of the corruption. Discovering they had a cop on the take was one thing, but to find out it went deeper astounded the suburban city’s police department.

He rocked back and forth on his heels. A clown in full costume would be less conspicuous than him standing on a corner at this time of night.

A shadow crossed the window in the building across the street. His contact?

Could be. The email was vague on the meeting details. It just said the corner of First and Industrial Boulevard. It was the rest of the message that grabbed his attention.

Anonymous: I heard about your partner’s arrest. He wasn’t working alone. Meet me. Then it went on to set up the meeting.

He scanned the block. Not one of these businesses had been open in over a decade. From time to time, a revitalization project appeared on the books only to be shut down due to lack of funding.

More movement appeared in the building. He inched closer to the brick structure. Ryan squinted. A flash of amber caught his eye a second before the crackle touched his ears.

“Is that…? Shit.” Fire! The word burst in his brain as he shot into action.

He grabbed his phone, calling it in as he ran. He couldn’t be sure, but he thought he’d seen a person. By the time he reached the door, flames flew out the window and licked up the wall.

Fuck. He jumped back. Scorching heat locked his lungs. No way he could enter.

His cop instincts kicked in, and he ran around to the back of the building. A shiny deadbolt hung on the door. Fresh tire tracks marked the gravel. Coincidence? No cop believed in that. The wail of sirens grew louder. He snapped some photos of the tracks and the lock before going back to the front to meet the fire crew and patrol officers.

By the time the first patrol car pulled up, the building was engulfed. The amber and yellow glow rose toward the sky. Ryan stared at the flames. There wasn’t a chance in hell his contact would show up now. A piece of remaining glass from the upper-level window burst, scattering shards into the air.

Not only was an old building burning, Ryan feared his in to the corruption ring was as well.

Erica Randall strapped on her helmet and jumped from the truck. By the way the flames had taken the building, this was going to be a containment job. No way they were saving this structure.

“I hope no one was inside.” The intensity of the heat reached her from this distance. She pulled her gear from the compartment behind the cab.

“We can hope. Come on, let’s go knock down the flames.” Firefighter Garrett Kelley stretched past her to grab the hose reel.

The crew fell into step like the practiced team they were. Hoses ran from the hydrants and pumper trucks, and the crew worked feverishly to keep the blaze from spreading to the neighboring structures. Heat cooked Erica’s face as she walked the hose closer. Her crew chief shouted orders behind her. It was twenty minutes before the team could get close to the building. The roof collapsed, and the structure had no integrity, but they still needed to get in and control the blaze. It had too much fuel. It accelerated through wood and debris at a rapid rate.

They controlled the spread with the hoses, but the closer they got to the structure, the bigger and hotter the flames inside grew.

An explosion lit under Finnigan’s splash. “Whoa.”

“Pull back. Contain the blaze,” Chief Rivera called out.

Whatever was burning, it fed on the water like a starving dog. With each spray of the hose, the flames grew and smoke billowed, filling the interior. They halted their breach of the building until they had the flames under control, focusing their spray on the surrounding structures until the toxic cloud of smoke cleared out.

The moon was high in the sky by the time the fire was deemed safe to enter. Full gear did nothing to stop the intense heat that came off the smoldering, charred walls. Despite the heat, Erica and the crew worked their way through the dark cavern that had been a three-story building.

Two-man teams canvassed what was left of the groaning structure. Head lamps gave them meager light to search. Garrett manned the hose as Erica and two other crew members searched for any hidden flames that could ignite again. Pulse racing, she swept the area for remaining fires. On her pass of the back half of the building, her light hit a charred form.