Fireproof

anyone else. As Maggie walked past her she noticed the small child’s skull Ling had just taken up out of the debris and into the palms of her hands.

CHAPTER 61

    Cornell didn’t make a fuss this time when the tall guy in the ratty-ass green jacket asked to talk to him. Even after the man mentioned a red backpack Cornell hadn’t recognized him. He pulled out what looked like a wallet and Cornell thought he might offer him some money until he remembered he was wearing the hard hat and bright city maintenance vest. Probably wanted to complain about some potholes or sewer backup. Cornell had gotten several of those. So he was taken off guard when the wallet opened, revealing a badge.
    “You’re the guy I tripped up.”
    “Agent R. J. Tully. And you are?”
    “Busted.”
    But he didn’t make a run for it and Agent Tully looked surprised, almost disappointed, like he had waited for it all day long. Maybe like this would be an opportunity to pay back Cornell for sending him facedown onto the pavement.
    Cornell didn’t remember how the police cruiser appeared out of nowhere. One minute Agent Tully was telling him he wanted to ask him some questions and the next minute a cop was there snapping handcuffs on his wrists.
    “Am I under arrest?” Cornell had to ask three or four times before Agent Tully admitted he just wanted to take him in for some questions.
    Before his life on the streets Cornell had been arrested once for drunk driving. That time he had been scared shitless that his clients would find out. Funny the direction life took and how circumstances could change a person’s perspective.
    This time all Cornell thought about was how warm a holding cell might be. He knew they’d have to feed him. Maybe even give him a clean orange jumpsuit. He found himself getting excited at the possibility of a shower and the availability of a toilet. It would certainly throw off the bastard who was following him. He almost laughed, thinking about the son of a bitch watching him slide into the backseat of the police cruiser.
    He’d answer questions all night or maybe not at all. Whichever one got him a holding cell. He could outsmart these guys. His job used to have him chewing up and spitting out guys like this over lunch, sending them into tailspins with all kinds of bullshit. No problem.
    Although it would certainly be easier with his friend Jack Daniel’s.

CHAPTER 62

    Maggie needed to breathe. She took her time following Racine, Ivan, and the fire chief. Just a half dozen deep breaths of clean, fresh air would help. That’s all she needed, but soot and ash still filled the damp night. The oversize boots made her feet heavy, like lifting blocks of concrete while trying to be careful.
    The skull in Ling’s hands had looked so small. It had to be a baby, no more than a toddler. When Maggie got the call earlier, Racine had said this one might be bad. The shops below had closed for the evening but Racine had warned her that some of the shop owners lived in apartments above. This family had come down through the shop, hoping to escape. Why hadn’t they considered using the outside fire escape? She was about to find out why.
    “There was a pile of old rags and newspapers,” the fire chief told them, pointing to a black-and-gray stack of ash now on the pavement in the alley, but then the chief was pointing up to a landing. And Maggie immediately noticed that the fire escape was pulled down.
    “He probably soaked the newspapers with gasoline. He used a piece of wood to make a little platform on top of the flammables.Then he put the chemicals on the platform. It allowed him some time to climb down and just walk off. Maybe as much as five to ten minutes.”
    “Do we know what the chemicals are yet?” Racine looked at Investigator Ivan.
    “We sent the sample residue to the FBI lab.”
    The chief continued his assessment.
    “I’m thinking one’s a solid, perhaps in crystal form. The other must be a liquid. He might even place something between them so when he pours on the liquid it has to soak through that barrier before it’s absorbed by the first chemical. When the two mix, there’s an intense reaction. A white-hot flash that immediately ignites the stack of flammables underneath.”
    He pointed his flashlight back up at the landing and moved the beam over the side of the building, showing a black smudge that rode up the wall from the fire escape landing to a hole that used to be a window.
    “The entire