Page 1 of Burning Justice

Chapter One

Bright orange-and-yellow flames licked at the night sky as if they were alive, consuming the warehouse and everything in it like a starved animal. Which it was.

Fire is irrational. It destroys that which feeds it.

Tonight, it was a hungry beast.

Over the roar of the blaze, firefighters trained hoses on the structure, starting to get it under control. Eerie creaking rent the air as corrugated metal walls began to bend and buckle. Thick, black smoke seeped from the four loading bay doors and billowed through the collapsed roof. Every so often, glowing embers drifted upward, reminding Brett Tanner of the fireflies he and his brothers used to catch when they were kids.

Even fifty yards away, standing on the edge of the road behind the guardrail and well behind the safety perimeter, Brett felt the intense heat. It was like standing outside in the hot Denver sun in the middle of summer. Sweat trickled down his temples and his back, adhering his polo shirt to his body as if it was glued on. Whether it was from actual pain or repressed memories, the burned skin on his forearm and back tingled and stung.

When the wind shifted, bringing with it the acrid smell of smoke, he tugged on his dog’s leash and backed them both farther away. The warehouse contained not only wood and tools but all kinds of building supplies. The air had a pungent chemical odor, telling him the fire had finally reached the solvents—ignitable liquids that acted as accelerants.

The hackles on his neck went vertical. Those smells—smoke laced with chemicals and burning foam—never failed to hurl him back in time to two other fires, ones he kept reliving over and over again.

As night terrors.

Though it had been twenty-five years ago, he remembered everything about the fire when he was eleven years old. He’d gotten out alive. His two best friends hadn’t.

A house fire a year ago that had killed two teenagers and left him badly burned kickstarted his guilt all over again.

Since then, Brett had been hunting the arsonist he believed was responsible for torching that house. In the process, he’d discovered another arsonist, this one lighting up dumpsters, and now this warehouse. The PD called him anytime there was a fire of questionable origin. Like tonight.

Blaze, his ATF K-9, snorted, and Brett turned to find Sergeant Danny Lopez heading their way. Behind Danny, red-and-blue strobes flashed from police units blocking the road in both directions. One unit moved to the side of the road, and more fire trucks rolled past the barricade, their air brakes hissing as they came to a stop.

Behind the warehouse were several hundred yards of wide open, grassy field edged with thick stands of ponderosa pines and aspen trees. Two scorched industrial dumpsters sat off to the side of the asphalt parking lot, ones that had been deliberately torched only a few days ago. Way too much coincidence in Brett’s book.

The gold badge on Danny’s uniform glinted in the flickering light. “Might take a while to knock this one down.”

“Looks like.” Judging by the staccato of loud pops and mini explosions now coming from one side of the building, the flames had just hit more cans of solvents and strippers. “Thanks for the call.”

“You got it.”

A woman standing about a hundred feet away snapped images on her cell phone. She stuffed the phone in one of the back pockets of her jeans, then tugged a small pad from the other.

“Who’s that?” Brett tipped his head in her direction. “Reporter?”

Danny shook his head. “Gemma Scott. NICB. She got here before you did.”

Interesting. Considering he’d hauled ass from Lakewood doing over ninety down I-25 to get here. Maybe she lived in the area. Or she had an inside source.

“Catch you later,” Brett said. “C’mon, boy.”

Thinking he was about to go to work, Blaze happily fell in step beside him, flicking his tail back and forth as they walked over to the NICB investigator.

In his ten years with the ATF, Brett had encountered agents of the National Insurance Crime Bureau several times before. They were the intermediary between the insurance industry, law enforcement, and the prosecutors’ offices. If insurance fraud was suspected, NICB occasionally referred cases to the local PD. Depending on the circumstances, and if arson was suspected, they reached out to the ATF. But he’d never heard of Gemma Scott, and no one in his office had ever mentioned her.

However, since this was the second warehouse fire in the Springs in as many weeks and at the same warehouse, it didn’t surprise him that NICB had sent one of their people.

Brett was convinced this was the work of the same arsonist who’d been setting the dumpster fires all over town, including the ones right behind this very warehouse. Unlike the fire a year ago that had burned him and killed those teens, at least these fires hadn’t killed anyone.

As he and Blaze drew nearer, Brett thought the woman looked familiar but didn’t think they’d ever worked together. Ms. Gemma Scott wasn’t someone he’d be likely to forget.

At about five-one, she was petite. Thick red hair that fell to between her shoulder blades glowed like hot coals in the firelight. She was dressed in jeans, work boots, and a long-sleeve white shirt rolled up to her elbows. Apparently hearing his and Blaze’s approach, she stopped jotting in her pad and looked up.

Brett held out his hand. “ATF Special Agent Brett Tanner.”

For a moment, she hesitated as her gaze dipped to the badge and gun on his belt, then she took his hand in an unexpectedly firm handshake. Not manly, just confident. “Gemma Scott. NICB. And this is?” She smiled at his dog.