Blue Smoke

and relaxed fractionally.
    He might have stayed that way, but he saw the man helping Reena into gear. He pushed through the crowd, was already shoving at the barricade when uniformed cops held him back.
    “Reena. Goddamn it!”
    She glanced in his direction as she hefted on tanks. He could see the irritation ripple over her face, but she spoke to her partner. He stepped away, moved over to the barricade. “He’s with us,” he said briefly. “Goodnight? I’m O’Donnell.”
    “Yeah, fine. What the hell’s she doing? What the hell are you doing?” he demanded of Reena, his eyes narrowed now against the fog of smoke.
    “Going in. I’m trained for this.” She adjusted her helmet.
    “Pretty good smoke eater for a cop,” one of the firefighters commented, and she smiled at him.
    “Sweet talker. I’ll explain later. I’ve got to move.”
    Before Bo could make another protest, O’Donnell slapped a hand on his shoulder. “Knows what she’s doing,” he said, lifting his chin toward Reena as she headed toward the building with two others. “She’s qualified for this.”
    “So are the dozen or so of these guys already in there. What’s the point?”
    “Arson’s the point.” Smoke rolled over them in a wave, had O’Donnell coughing. He kept his hand on Bo’s shoulder, drew him back to clearer air. “Putting out a fire can screw the evidence all to hell. She goes in now, she’ll be able to see more before the damage is done. Somebody set this one for her. She’s not one to walk away from that. She’s worked with these guys before. Believe me, they wouldn’t let her in unless they knew she could handle herself.”

    “Being a cop’s not enough for her?” Bo muttered, and O’Donnell showed his teeth in a grin.
    “Being a cop’s plenty, but she’s a fire cop. And she walks the line between. Knows more about the son of a bitch than anyone I’ve ever worked with. The fire,” he explained at Bo’s puzzled look. “That girl knows fire. Now, tell me what you know.”
    “I don’t know dick. We went to a ball game, went back to her place. She got a call.”
    Bo kept his eyes on the building now—the hell with scouring the crowd—and while his heart drummed in his throat, strained to see her coming back out. “She filled me in some. Some guy’s called her three times, used her name. Cloned cell phones. This time he told her he had something for her here. Fire was already going when we arrived.”
    “How’d you manage to come along?”
    He flicked his eyes back toward O’Donnell. “She’d’ve had to shoot me otherwise, and I guess she didn’t want to waste that much time.”
    This time O’Donnell laughed, and the slap on Bo’s shoulder was friendlier.
    “She tell you he wrote surprise on the front door?”
    “Yeah, she brought me up to date.” Casually, he took a pack of gum from his pocket, offered Bo a stick. “She’ll be fine,” he assured him and folded two in his mouth. “Why don’t you tell me how long you’ve been going to ball games with my partner?”
    Inside, Reena moved through the dense curtain of smoke. She could hear her own breath, the suck of oxygen from her tank, and the crackle of flames not yet suppressed.
    The search for victims would still be under way, but so far—thank God—none had been found.
    Easy pickings for him, she thought as she pushed through smoke. Plenty of time to plan and set this fire in this place. But what she was seeing was so amateurish, so simple. She might have taken it for kids or an ordinary fire setter.
    He wasn’t. She was sure he wasn’t despite the use of basics like gas and waxed paper.

    She’d find more.
    Fire had gnawed its way down the steps, teased along by the use of gas and the trailers. It might’ve burned like a torch, but for the phone call sending her here.
    So he hadn’t cared about destroying the building.
    The second floor took a hit. Both the temperature and the density of smoke increased, and she had no doubt she’d find another point of origin. She could see the silhouettes of men moving through the fog of smoke like heroic ghosts.
    There were remnants of trailers here. She picked up the charred remains of a book of matches, fumbled it into a bag, marked the spot to document.
    “Doing okay, champ?”
    She gave the thumbs-up to Steve. “Burn pattern on the east wall? Second point of origin, I think.” His voice and hers sounded tinny and strained. “Fire sucked into the ceiling here.” She