Page 76 of Christmas with Three Firemen

Chapter Twenty-Three: Noelle

Ismell the smoke before the alarm goes off.

Seven years of this job and my nose gets there faster than dispatch does. I’m already in the hallway, jacket half on, when the tones finally drop.

It’s small, the kind that takes more care than a large fire, contained to the equipment bay entrance, a neat burn along the base of the door frame that’s knocked down by the time I get outside.

Two extinguishers, three minutes, nobody hurt. The crew stands in the cold with the restless energy of people who geared up for something and got very little of it.

Grant is at the door frame with a flashlight, running the beam along the char line. I cross to him. He doesn’t look up.

“Same hand?” he asks.

“Yes.”

He moves the beam higher. “He walked up to the front door.”

“I know.”

The burn is small, no bigger than a dinner plate, scorched into the wood at the base of the equipment bay door. Someone’s already hit it with an extinguisher, white residue crusted over the black. I crouch down and touch the frame an inch above it.

Grant crouches beside me with the flashlight.

“No forced entry,” he says.

I run my finger along the edge of the burn without touching it. I know this signature. I’ve been staring at it for two months.

“This one’s different,” I say.

“Different how?”

“Every fire before this served a purpose. Insurance claim, condemned property, something Delaney could turn into a profit.”

I’ve checked every address for four blocks. Nothing’s changed; this station’s been on the target list since November, same as the other three. That’s not what’s strange here.

Grant looks at the door, then at me. “Then what is?”

I stand up and look at the street. The bus stop across the road is empty, snow settling on the bench where I know, because I’ve seen the photographs, someone has stood before, watching this door, watching me walk through it.

“Every fire before this one was meant to take the building down. Insurance claim, condemned property, something Delaney could profit from. This one’s contained. Controlled. Out in three minutes because it was never meant to spread.” I look at Grant. “This wasn’t an attempt. It was a message. He’s telling me he knows I’m still here.”

I stay at the door frame a moment longer, looking at the street. I go back inside.

The next morning I sit down across from Danny and Tara at the kitchen table and put the question plain.

“We got embedded in this house because it fit the pattern—the next one in line for Delaney to burn for profit. But every fire in that pattern served a property acquisition. Last night’s fire served nothing. No adjacent property, no acquisition play.” I look between them. “So I’m asking a different question. Who knows this house from the inside and has a reason to want it burned?”

Danny sets his mug down.

Tara sets down her toast.

They look at each other across the table, one of those looks that carries a whole conversation.

“Kevin Marsh,” Tara says.

Danny nods, slowly, like a man who was hoping someone else would say it first.

“Tell me,” I say.