Chapter 10

TEN

" G o ahead and catch us up to speed, Detective Jesse." Across the other side of the conference room table, Captain Tennet picked up his pen.

Julio glanced at the clock, which indicated it wasn't quite seven in the morning. Still, Samantha didn't look nearly as tired as he felt. Maybe she just slept better than he had last night. All that tossing and turning trying to figure out what to say to her next. He should have been working on this case, but instead, being in proximity with her just brought back to reality the strength of their connection. How thoroughly connected to her he was. How much she'd always been under his skin.

Across the table, she tapped the screen of a tablet. "Thank you, Captain. The elderly woman who died in the second fire you already know was Eva Bronswich, eighty-four years old and a lifelong resident of Benson. What you might not know was that she changed her name years ago, legally going back to her maiden name. As a married woman, she was Eva Sylvana."

Julio frowned. He glanced around at the others, seeing similar looks on several faces.

He knew that name.

"If you recognize the surname, that's because it belongs to Richard Sylvana. Convicted of several counts of arson and murder nearly twenty years ago now, the sentence for which he is currently serving. And where he will remain for probably the rest of his life."

Captain Tennet shook his head. "The first victim of our arsonist was that arsonist's mother?"

Julio knew the look on Samantha's face. She had more.

"Now we get to the lawyer from the warehouse fire. The deceased didn't always work in corporate law. At one point he was a criminal attorney, namely the lawyer who represented one Richard Sylvana."

Tennet muttered something under his breath.

Julio might agree, but he wasn't about to express it like that. Besides, he was far more interested in that look on Samantha's face. The way her eyes lit up as she ran down the details of the case. She had always loved what she did. No matter what it was, she only did things she believed in. That meant when she was busy working, she put her whole heart and soul into what she was doing.

And the satisfaction she got out of it was plain on her face.

Once upon a time, he had put that look on her face as well, the one that made her seem so much brighter. The passing of the baby they had created together had stolen that light from her, but she seemed to have figured out how to get at least some of it back.

He wanted to figure out how to see the expression of pure joy on her face again—because of him. Not just for the sake of bringing the past back to life, but because she deserved to have that much happiness. Maybe she didn't want it with him now. He might have to accept that it was too late. But the truth was, he'd never been able to let go of her.

He knew she had lost a partner in the last year. Did she want some of that joy again?

"Captain Espinoza-Vasquez?"

He blinked and realized Tennet was talking to him. "Sorry, what was that?"

Across the table, Romeo Alvarez smirked—though it did seem good-natured. Julio wanted to ball up the paper in front of him and toss it at the guy's head. Samantha didn't make eye contact with him. Though he could see a red blush to her cheeks.

Maybe he was making more progress than he thought.

Kissing her off the bat, just to make a point? That might have backfired. But no one could deny it was a simple way for everyone to know where he was at.

Tennet said, "You've made amazing progress, detectives. Please continue. We can come back to what Captain Espinoza-Vasquez has afterward."

Romeo said, "When I spoke with the company, they reluctantly explained they are getting ready for a fight with a group of disgruntled customers who believed they received faulty equipment. The company supplies machinery to dry cleaners. We are going to work with the court case angle and try to see if the fire might have been started by any of the plaintiffs."

Beside him, Samantha said, "The fire was set to destroy the building and their people. If one of the plaintiffs is the suspect, then all they achieve is potentially destroying evidence. The company files on their insurance for the building and gets paid. It might mean that the lawsuit goes nowhere, wrecking the case. Possibly on top of that, the company ends up ahead thanks to the insurance payout."

"So you don't think it was one of the plaintiffs?" Julio asked.

She shook her head. "It's a longshot, but we have to rule out what isn't as much as trying to ascertain what was ."

Julio could understand that. "One of the plaintiffs in the case would have no reason to commit the other crimes, right? There would be no reason for them to set the other fires and kill the mother of an arsonist from years ago."

"No reason that we know of," she said. "The connection is too abstract, which means it's likely a case of figuring out which it is."

Tennet nodded. "So what's next, Captain?"

"Testing from all the scenes is ongoing," Julio said. "But I went out to the warehouse yesterday and managed to confirm the ventilation system was blocked. Someone purposely prevented airflow to maximize the smoke buildup inside the building."

"Sabotage by the arsonists, or poor maintenance in the warehouse?" Romeo asked.

"That's what I need to find out next. Probably by talking to the same people you're talking to." Though, he'd rather go with Samantha to speak to people than go with her partner. No offense to Romeo Alvarez, but his partner was much better looking.

Samantha said, "Romeo has interviews set up with the plaintiffs. I'm going to the jail to talk to Richard Sylvana."

Julio sat up straighter in his seat. "I'll go with you."

He started to pack away his things, along with everyone else. No way was he going to pass up this opportunity to spend several hours in a row with Samantha. Most of it in a car where she couldn't run away from whatever questions he had.

But that wasn't the tactic he needed to take.

Could he breach the anger he'd felt toward God for so long, enough to figure out how to ask for wisdom with Samantha? Sure, he'd gone to church over the years when he could. He always told people he was a believer, and on the surface he probably seemed like a guy who did the right thing and didn't swear all the time like a lot of the firefighters did.

Underneath the surface, his faith had been hollow for a long time.

In order to get Samantha back in his life, hopefully this time for good, he might just have to do the work to make his belief genuine. Rely on God. Though, even that was a gamble when he took into account God's will. Maybe the Lord had been working years ago when they broke up, and they weren't supposed to be together.

Maybe he was supposed to have moved on.

But instead, he'd held on to his feelings for her, almost as though he'd moved on from God.

Julio winced.

Samantha said, "Everything okay?"

"Sure." The most benign, nothing word in the world. But it served his purpose, walking alongside her to where he'd parked his truck.

"I know you just assumed that you'd be the one driving, but I appreciate the ride. That way I don't leave Romeo without a car."

He stopped by the passenger side and opened the door for her. "You're welcome."

She shook her head, actually smiling.

When he got in on the other side, he decided that rather than keep the banter going he would let her have the security of just talking about work. "So tell me what you know about this arsonist guy. We were pretty young when it all went down. But I remember it being in the news and on the newspapers we used that summer when we went camping without telling our parents."

She chuckled. "It was freezing, and the tent had a hole in it. I do remember you used the newspaper to light a fire."

"What else was I going to do? Your teeth were chattering." He'd had a good time, but the moment they were back from the park the next morning both of their parents had been at her house. The two of them had been in serious trouble for only telling Samantha's sister where they were going. "How is Bristol these days?"

"Oh, she's fine."

Julio glanced over. "What does that mean?"

He realized that instead of talking about work they had slipped into something personal—their shared history. Because God had led their conversation this way? Julio was willing to concede being in control of everything. Especially if God gave him the desires of his heart.

He just wasn't convinced his motives were pure enough God would honor that.

Samantha sighed. "I'm just balancing everything. Trying not to let work and my personal life overlap."

And here he was, determined to convince her to give him another shot. "Is it so bad if there's a little crossover?"

"I like my life segmented. I prefer it when everything stays in its lane, and I can manage, rather than it all being messy and complicated."

Okay, so that was progress at least. "Complicated doesn't always mean bad, and neither does messy. Sometimes things are chaotic in a good way."

"And sometimes we just need to focus on thing in front of us—a case involving an arsonist who has committed more than one murder." She kept her focus on the road in front of them, the way he probably should be doing.

"And when the case is done?"

She didn't answer his question, and Julio wasn't going to push her to do so. She flipped through the dials on his radio and found a soft rock station she put on low while he drove them to the jail.

He left the volume where it was but said, "I still need an answer to my original question."

She stiffened.

"What do you know about this arsonist guy?" It wasn't like he'd ever interviewed a suspect before, and he certainly hadn't visited anyone in jail. The last time he'd been out here it was because half the building had exploded in another bomb attack.

Another suspect at another time. The same person who had been responsible for her partner's death in the drive-by shooting that took out more than a few cops after a fake funeral.

He'd been called in because he headed up the bomb squad in Benson. Not that they were official, or anything.

"Oh," she said. "Right, Richard Sylvana. He's in his sixties now. He had skin cancer a few years ago, but received treatment for it in prison and is in remission now."

"Is he likely to answer any of our questions?" Julio paused. "Do people in prison do that? Or do they get shanked or whatever for talking to the cops?"

She chuckled lightly. "It's up to him if he talks to us. We can't compel him to answer any questions. This is just a friendly chat."

"I'm not feeling very friendly toward a guy who murdered people and set fires."

"We need him to be friendly. We're going to be professional."

"Right." Julio figured he could do that.

At least for a while.

After that, the case would be closed, and all bets would be off. If Samantha thought before that she understood his point loud and clear, she would definitely not mistake his intentions then.

He wanted her back in his life.