Silent Scream

Chapter Three

Monday, September 20, 4:30 a.m.

Olivia pummeled the bag with a barrage of short jabs that left her knuckles aching, but pain was easier to deal with than the howl she’d kept restrained since walking away from Mrs. Henry Weems’s heartbreaking sobs. I’m sorry for your loss, ma’am.

The grunting bodybuilder next to her paid her no attention as he did his reps, which was why she came to the gym this time of the morning. People who were here at this hour came to work out, not to be seen. There was a certain anonymity in that.

There were days she craved anonymity, especially from herself. Especially after telling another grieving family she was sorry for their loss. She’d done that a lot in the past months, walked away from a lot of sobbing parents, brothers, sisters.

We found your daughter’s remains in a bone pit. No, you can’t identify her. I’m sorry for your loss. Such inadequate bullshit. And it never ended. Your husband is dead. He was shot to death by an arsonist. I’m sorry for your loss.

Frustration surged and Olivia tore into the bag again, then collapsed against it. “I’m sorry for your goddamn loss,” she muttered, spent.

“Easy, tiger.”

Olivia shuddered at the calm voice. “What are you doing here?” she asked wearily. Paige Holden wasn’t on duty till eight. Which was precisely why Olivia had come now.

“Making sure you leave some of Jasper for everyone else,” Paige said dryly.

Olivia pushed away from the bag that took the name of Paige’s old boyfriend after each breakup. “He’s Jasper now?” Olivia had lost count of all the names Paige’s punching bags had borne in the fifteen years they’d been friends. “What did Jasper do?”

“Left me with the check as he ran off to a client for the very last time.”

Olivia once again marveled at how smart women could be so stupid when it came to men. Present company totally not excluded. “Filet and a hundred-dollar bottle of wine?”

Paige shrugged. “Close enough. Speaking of dinner, when did you eat, Emo-girl?”

Olivia shot her a dirty look. “Dinner.”

“Which was?” Paige pressed.

Olivia closed her eyes, digging deep for patience. “Salad.”

Paige pulled a PowerBar from her pocket. “You need protein, even if it’s not meat.”

Olivia took the bar, knowing it would taste like cardboard. All food tasted like cardboard since the Pit. Meat was especially hard to stomach. Just thinking about it brought the memories back. Flesh falling off the bone. She shook her head to clear it.

“What are you doing here?” Olivia asked again.

“A little bird told me you were here, knocking the stuffing out of Jasper.”

Olivia looked over her shoulder to the man behind the counter who had muscles on his muscles. Caught watching them, Rudy suddenly developed an interest in the sign-in sheet. “Son of a gun,” Olivia muttered. “Freaking little weasel.”

“I prefer to think of him as my confidential informant,” Paige said archly, then sniffed. “You smell like an old fireplace. What happened tonight?”

“Fire. Two dead,” Olivia said briefly, sharing no more than the reporters knew.

But Paige had known her a long time. “You had to inform the families.”

“Just one. So far anyway.”

Paige winced. “The other’s a John Doe?”

“Jane.” Olivia swallowed hard, remembering the girl’s ashen face. “Just a kid.”

Paige squeezed her arm. “I’m sorry, honey.”

“Me too.” She cleared her throat. “I’m not going to have time to work out later, so I stopped by on my way home for just a few minutes. I was going to call you.”

“You’ll call me. Famous last words of Jasper.” Paige pointed at the Nautilus equipment. “You’re warmed up already, so let’s get started.”

Olivia hesitated. “That’s okay. You don’t have to stay.”

“I know. But if I don’t, you’ll keep avoiding me like you have for the past few months. So get to the leg press, Detective.”

Sulking, Olivia obeyed, giving Rudy a dirty look as she passed him. “Traitor.”

“Leave him alone,” Paige murmured. “He’s worried about you. So am I.”

Olivia flopped onto the first machine. “Let’s get this over with.”

Paige said no more of a personal nature, simply counting reps. They moved through the rotation as they had a hundred times before, Olivia mindlessly going through the motions. It wasn’t until they were near the end that the wall crumbled.

“She was expecting us.” Olivia was lying on her back, staring at the tiled ceiling.

Paige was sitting on her heels, next to the bench. “Who?” she asked, unsurprised.

“The widow.” Olivia never gave names and Paige knew not to ask. “The daughter saw the fire on the news, knew it was dad’s shift. She went to sit with mom and wait for us, the bringers of great joy to all people.” Her words were bitter. “He’d been a cop.”

“Oh no. Liv.”

“Yeah. Did his twenty-five years and retired. Never took a bullet. Tonight he did. And all I had to say was ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’”

“What else could you say?” Paige asked logically.

“I don’t know. All I know is I’m damn tired of saying it.”

“You’re just damn tired. Your boss offered you a vacation. Why don’t you take it?”

A vacation. Right. “I tried,” Olivia spat. “It was too quiet. All I could see was…”

“The bodies in the pit,” Paige finished for her.

Olivia sat up, glared at Paige through narrowed eyes. “And then he shows up.” Which was what she’d wanted to say all along and been afraid to, all at once.

Paige’s black brows went up, surprised now. “Who?”

“That guy. From Mia’s wedding.”

Paige blinked. She was the only one who knew the story which had only been pried from Olivia’s margarita-numbed lips. “You mean your sister’s wedding? No way. That was two years ago, in Chicago. He just showed up, after all this time? What a jerk.”

Olivia flicked her gaze back up to the ceiling. Paige hadn’t been updated recently. “Two and a half years, and actually, he lives here now. Moved here seven months ago.”

“Lots of stuff happened seven months ago,” Paige observed quietly. “Why did he move here?”

“His friend lives here. You met her. Eve.”

“The one you saved from Pit-Guy? Rest over. Another set. Go.”

Olivia winced as she pumped. “Pit-Guy” had killed dozens of people, most of them women. Eve had come within a hair of being his thirty-sixth victim. “Another cop saved Eve, not me. I got there after all the killing was done, just in time to clean out the pit.”

Paige sighed. “Two more. One, and you’re done. So what about Wedding-Guy?”

“Came to visit Eve, ended up buying a place. She told me. He hasn’t said a word.”

Paige winced. “Not a word? So, does Wedding-Guy have a name?”

Olivia’s throat closed and she swallowed harshly. “David.”

“And what does David the wedding-guy do?”

“He’s a goddamn firefighter.” And from the corner of her eye she watched Paige’s black eyes flicker. “What?”

“Just that he was at the fire tonight and you got the homicide. Helluva coincidence. So he’s been here, in Minneapolis, all this time? And he didn’t, like, call or anything?”

“Not once.” And that hurt. A lot.

“Pig.”

“I know, right? Except…” Olivia closed her eyes. Be truthful, at least to yourself. “Except he’s a nice guy. He likes cartoons and dogs and loves his mother. He cooks and fixes cars. We’d read the same books, liked the same music, dreamed of traveling to all the same places. He volunteered in shelters for women and teen runaways, fixing plumbing and roofs and whatever got broken. He did karate, too. Like you.”

“Oh? Really?”

Olivia nodded. “He was a brown belt, practicing for his black-belt test. He also taught a class at the Y in Chicago, to kids. For free. I’d have thought he was lying, that nobody could be so perfect, but Mia had already told me he was a nice guy.”

“Wow.” Paige looked stunned. “I thought you’d only met him that one night.”

“Two, actually. We met at Mia’s rehearsal dinner. It was spring, and I guess I was wide open for getting swept off my feet. A weekend fling. How cliché.”

Paige frowned at her disparaging tone. “Liv. You’d gotten dumped by your ass of a fiancé just a few weeks before the wedding. I’d still like to use him for a punching bag for what he did to you. Going back to his old fiancée. Who was a ho.”

“I remember,” Olivia said dryly. “I was there.” Paige’s punching bag had been named Doug for quite some time after that.

“Then, not a week later, finding out the father you’d never known was dead? Then finding out you had two half sisters?”

“The cop and the con,” Olivia said affectionately. “Meeting Mia and Kelsey was the only good thing to come out of all that.”

Paige’s scowl relaxed a little. “I’m just saying that you’d been through a lot that winter. To fall under the spell of a sexy, nice Mr. Perfect could happen to any of us. He took advantage of you.”

Olivia shrugged. “Probably. The day of the rehearsal dinner, I was kind of a mess. I was late. I’d just come back from meeting Kelsey for the first time.”

“At the prison,” Paige murmured.

Where Olivia’s half sister was serving eight to twenty-five for armed robbery. “Yeah. The prison’s about an hour away from Chicago, and I hadn’t been able to get out there before then. I was kind of shaken up, meeting my sister that way, behind the glass. I got to the church late for the rehearsal and was running up to the steps on these stupid high heels, and then I saw him sitting there.”

“This David guy.”

“Yeah.” Olivia closed her eyes. “It was like getting kicked in the gut. I was mesmerized. His face… just, wow. He’s got this face, Paige. And the shoulders. And the rest of him… You can’t forget him. I was staring at his face when my heel hit a rock and I tripped. Flew right into his lap. I was too star struck to even be embarrassed.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever known you to be star struck,” Paige said quietly.

“I never was before. Not with Doug, not with anyone. I’d skinned my knee and he patched me up.” Her lips curved bitterly. “He had me at hello. It’s a wonder I got through the rehearsal and the dinner. All the women looked like they wanted to gouge my eyes out because he stayed with me. And we talked. We talked all night.”

“Did he know about Doug?”

“God, no. I didn’t want to look pathetic. I didn’t tell any of them. Mia didn’t even know. And frankly, sitting there with David, Doug was the last thing on my mind. He never took his eyes off my face. I felt… important. Sounds stupid now.”

Paige’s brow creased in sympathy. “It sounds normal to me.”

“I guess I really wanted to feel important to somebody, you know?”

Paige squeezed her hand. “Yeah, babe. I know.”

Olivia’s eyes stung and she willed back what would have been mortifying tears. “It wasn’t all bad, though. I told him about Kelsey. He’d known Mia for a long time, knew about our father. About the abuse. I was so sad to see Kelsey there, in prison like that, even if she did do the crime. David suggested volunteering with teen runaways, to help give them a chance. To help them not turn out like my sister.”

“And you do. It’s good work, Liv. You make a difference in those kids’ lives.”

“Thanks. So like I said, it wasn’t all bad. The rehearsal dinner was wonderful. It was the night after the wedding that went wrong.”

“After it went really well,” Paige said, brows lifted meaningfully and Olivia sighed.

“I wish I’d never met him, because I can’t imagine it ever being that good again.”

“But you didn’t…”

“Not all the way.” She sighed again. “But based on what did happen, I think all the way would have freaking killed me.”

Paige was quiet a moment. “Maybe he just lied about doing all that nice stuff. Maybe he’s really a colossal jerk.”

“I wish. Since he’s been here, he donates his time to charity. Habitat for Humanity, fixing stuff at the local shelters. Eve tells me about him all the time. She thinks David hung the moon. He really is a nice guy. He just… doesn’t want me.”

There. She’d said it out loud. I should be feeling better now. But she wasn’t.

“Liv, did it occur to you that maybe he’s waiting for you to make the first move?”

Olivia scoffed. “In my fantasies, sure.”

“Liv?” Paige waited until Olivia looked at her. “If I were a guy and we’d parted ways under the circumstances you described?”

“Only after you got me drunk,” Olivia interjected, frowning.

“Like you would have ever told me otherwise? Duh. Of course I got you drunk. But as I was saying, if I were Wedding-Guy, I’d be waiting for you to make the first move.”

Olivia remembered the tilt of David Hunter’s perfect chin before she’d driven away. It had felt like a challenge. But she also remembered that one night vividly. She remembered the one word, that one name he’d said, even more vividly. “No.”

“Why not?” Paige asked, exasperated. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

“The same thing that happened the last time,” Olivia said darkly, and her body throbbed in places that had nothing to do with her workout.

“And that would be a bad thing, how? You haven’t had anyone since. You’re under so much stress that you’re about to crack wide open. What’s the harm in a fling? So he used you. Use him back. What’s the worst that can happen?”

Olivia sat up and swiped at her neck with a towel. I become like you, she thought, with so many boyfriends I need a spreadsheet to keep track of them all. But of course she said nothing of the kind. Paige was her oldest friend. “I’ll think about it,” was what she said instead. “Let’s stretch. I have to catch a little sleep before morning meeting.”

Monday, September 20, 7:10 a.m.

“Whoa.” Jeff Zoellner stood on the condo’s first floor, staring up through the room-sized hole that went all the way up to the fourth floor. “You woulda felt that for sure.”

Grimly, David followed his gaze up, then looked down into the basement. The first floor had also been burned through. “Yeah. I guess I owe you one.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll think of something.” Jeff starting walking again, tapping the handle of his ax on the floor as he sounded for weak spots. David did the same with the end of his Halligan, and together they moved toward the back of the condo. Each of the six floors had six units, but the units on this side of the building had sustained the worst damage. “I think we’re solid from here on out,” Jeff said. “We can let Barlow in now.”

Micah waited in the doorway. He wore a hard hat and boots, but was otherwise dressed like a detective. The end of his yellow tie poked up from the pocket of his suit. He held a video camera in one hand and a light bar in the other, and had worked alongside them diligently but intelligently, treading in areas they’d declared safe.

And he hadn’t said another word about Olivia and for that David was grateful. There were too many dangers here to be thinking about anything else but the job.

Which is what David had told himself every time he caught himself thinking about her, wondering why Micah Barlow felt she was his business, wondering if the two of them had history, not wanting that picture in his head. David grimaced. Except now that he’d thought it, the picture existed, if only in his imagination. Taunting him.

If Micah and Olivia had a past, at least they had no present. David had kept a close enough eye on her that he’d have known. But if she did have someone? I’ll walk away.

And if she doesn’t have anyone but just doesn’t want you? Given the facts, that was the more likely outcome. I’ll cross that bridge when I get there.

“Where can I step?” Micah called from the doorway.

“Floor’s solid where you’re standing,” David said, forcing himself to focus yet again, “but it gets spongy about two feet from the edge of the hole.”

Micah looked up, then down, just as David had. “Goddamn. You’re a lucky bastard.”

“Yeah, I got that part,” David said. “Over here was what we wanted you to see. They poured the carpet padding glue along this line.” David pointed to the pour patterns zigzagging from the front door of the unit to the hole, continuing through to the back bedrooms. “It’s the same pour pattern we found on the second floor. I think they poured a line from the door and from the back of the unit, meeting here.”

“Makes sense,” Micah said, filming. “They probably dumped what was left in the cans where the floor failed. Fire would have been hotter there. The manager said rolls of carpet were stored here, same place on each floor. Waterlogged, that would have been enough weight to crash through the second and third floors. When the first floor collapsed, all three carpet rolls fell into the basement.”

For a minute David thought Micah would venture to the edge of the hole to get video straight down, but he stopped while still in the safe zone. From the corner of his eye, David could see Jeff’s mouth snap shut, discarding the warning he’d been about to bark. It hadn’t taken more than a few runs with Jeff to know cops made him real edgy.

“After they poured the glue, they tossed the cans to the side.” David pointed with the end of his Halligan, and Micah kept filming. “Two cans there, and two more upstairs, roughly in the same spot. Together with the one we found at the entrance, they poured out five. One can on each floor would have been too much. These were amateurs.”

“I think you’re right.” Micah lowered the camera. “Anything else you see?”

“We’re working our way outward,” Jeff said, tapping his way as he went.

David did the same, then stopped when his Halligan hit something soft and he heard the crackle of charred paper. “Look at that.”

Jeff sighed. “Last time you said that I had to pull your ass out of the abyss.”

But David was already kneeling, shining his light on what he’d found. “It’s a backpack, or it was anyway.”

“We’ll get it to the lab,” Micah said. “Maybe they can find something left.”

Jeff gently nudged the corner of the bag with his ax handle and part of the side crumbled away. “Good luck with that. What the hell are you looking at, David?”

David had bent low, shining his light on a lump of black that stuck up from the debris. “I don’t know. Some kind of a case, warped open. Whatever it held is melted to the bottom of it.” A bit of pink plastic peeked from the charred lump.

“I’ll get some stills to show Homicide.” Micah sighed impatiently. “Damn. I’m late for their morning meeting.” He snapped a few pictures with his digital camera. “CSU will bag it. We’ll figure out what it is at the lab. I’ll be back later. Don’t touch anything.”

“We’re not stupid,” Jeff muttered when Micah was gone.

“Neither is he,” David said absently, still staring at the case’s melted contents.

“He’s a cop,” Jeff stated flatly, “and they all want to be firefighters. Idiots. They’d burn up if it weren’t for us, charging in without gear, with the wrong kind of extinguisher. Ready to save the damn day before they even know what kind of fire they got.”

David let him rant, knowing he’d say the same thing regardless of any response David made. There was a story there, he figured, and one day Jeff would tell it.

Story. David stared at the mangled case, his mind pulling a long-forgotten memory. He’d been a small boy, sitting on his grandmother’s lap. He’d always been more fascinated with gadgets than the story she’d tell, especially the gadget that sat behind her ear. He’d reach for it, only to have his small hands gently pushed away. No, David, she’d say, don’t touch. That’s not a toy.

“We should have told Barlow to bring us food,” Jeff finished with a sigh. “I’m starving. Let’s take a break and see what’s left on the truck. Hey. Dave. Come on.”

“I know what this pink plastic thing is,” David said.

“Don’t tell me. I want to guess,” Jeff said. “Okay, give me a hint.”

It was a game they sometimes played that helped them deal when they had to poke around the ashes of people’s lives. “It whistles as it works.” David straightened, hoping he could catch Micah before he left, but through the broken window he could see the cop’s taillights going through the gate.

Behind him, he heard Jeff’s heavy sigh and knew he’d figured it out. “Dammit, David. The girl never had a chance, did she?”

“Doesn’t look like it. I’m going outside to call Micah’s cell. He’ll want to tell Olivia.”

“Olivia?” Jeff asked, new curiosity in his voice. “You mean Detective Sutherland? She was pretty hot. And she was watching you.”

“Leave it alone,” David said flatly. “And don’t ask. I mean it.”

For all his teasing, Jeff knew when to quit. “Chill, man. I’m going out with you. I need to get some food.”

Monday, September 20, 8:00 a.m.

“Happy Monday.” Captain Bruce Abbott dropped a plastic bowl of cookies on the round table in his office. “Compliments of Lorna.”

Olivia eyed the bowl skeptically. “Lorna’s cooking again?”

Abbott settled into the chair behind his desk. “Her guidance counselor said if she retook the class and got a better grade, it would cancel last year’s D.”

Micki popped the lid off the bowl. “How bad can they be?”

“Some people ought not bake,” Kane said sourly.

“Got it.” Micki shot a wicked look at Olivia. “Let Barlow test them. If they’re awful, it’ll serve him right.” She glanced at Abbott. “No offense.”

Abbott’s lips were twitching beneath his mustache. “None taken.” He looked at the empty chairs meaningfully. “Speaking of which, where are Barlow and Gilles?”

“Ian’s not coming,” Olivia said. “He was almost ready to start the girl’s autopsy when I stopped by the morgue.”

Kane studied her face. “When did you stop by the morgue?” he asked, when Why didn’t you go home to sleep like I told you to? was what he really wanted to know.

“On my way in. I wanted a photo of the girl.” Which wasn’t entirely untrue. After her workout she’d gone home but couldn’t sleep, so she’d done what she always did-worked. “I don’t know where Barlow is. I told him oh-eight.”

“I’m here, I’m here.” Barlow barreled through Abbott’s doorway and dropped into a chair. Instantly, everyone leaned away from him. “Sorry,” he muttered. “I came straight from the scene. Didn’t have a chance to shower.”

“We can tell,” Micki said, then smiled kindly. “Here, have a cookie.”

Beside Olivia, Kane coughed to cover what would have been a chuckle.

“Thanks. I didn’t have time for breakfast.” Barlow grabbed a handful and Olivia felt the prick of conscience.

“I’d take a little bite first,” she said and he narrowed his eyes.

“You made these?” he asked suspiciously. “You trying to poison me now?”

Olivia rolled her eyes. Let him suffer. “Since we’re all here, we can get started.” She started to close Abbott’s door, but Abbott lifted his hand.

“Leave it open,” he said. “Dr. Donahue will be joining us.”

Olivia’s shoulders went rigid. Donahue was the department shrink. The one who wasn’t helping after three mandated visits. She sat back down. Great.

“I want a profile of this arsonist,” Abbott went on and Olivia could feel his eyes on her. To be accurate, everyone’s eyes were on her, even Barlow’s. Meddling bastard. “Donahue’s got time and experience with arsonists. And here she is.”

The psychiatrist came through the door, dressed in a trim blue suit that looked like it had been tailored just for her. “Good morning,” she said. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Dr. Donahue,” Abbott said as she took her seat. “Do you know everyone?”

“Everyone but you.” She smiled at Barlow. “I’m Jessie Donahue.”

“Micah Barlow, arson investigator. Don’t eat the cookies,” Barlow added dryly.

The confusion on Donahue’s face under other circumstances would have made Olivia smile, but the very presence of the woman had her on edge. She shook off the discomfort. “Let’s get this done, okay? What do we know, Mick? Any ID on the girl?”

“Nothing so far. The girl’s prints aren’t in AFIS, so no criminal record, at least one that isn’t sealed. No response yet from the Missing Children database, but I’m expecting an answer any hour now. No Amber Alerts, so as of this minute, no ID.”

“I sent her morgue photo to the Florida Highway Patrol,” Olivia said. “I hope the Gator nail decals pan out, even if she’s not in the databases. What about the gel?”

“I won’t get those results till after lunch,” Micki said, “but I do have something on the ball. We wanted to preserve it, just the way the firefighter found it until we knew what the gel was. So we did an image of what was underneath all that gel. This came through just as I was leaving to come up here.” She put a photograph on the table.

The ball was a glass globe of the world. Etched onto the glass were the continents.

“It looks like a paperweight,” Olivia said cautiously, although her mind was already stringing globe, world, and arson together, creating a very bad feeling.

Beside her, Micah Barlow swore softly and grabbed the photograph, staring at it in consternation. “No, it’s a signature. One that hasn’t been seen for ten years.”

“Twelve,” Micki said. “I cross-referenced glass globes with arson.”

Barlow rubbed his hands over his eyes in a tired gesture. “And you came up with SPOT-Societus Patronus Orbis Terra. Shit.”

“Fellowship of the protectors of the earth,” Dr. Donahue murmured.

Olivia sat back, frowning. The bad feeling just got worse. “Ecoterrorists? Hell.”

“With bad Latin grammar,” Donahue said, almost to herself, then looked up at the group. “It’s an interesting addition to the profile.”

“Grammar aside,” Abbott said, “what are we dealing with?”

“A group of environmental activists we believed had disbanded,” Barlow said. “They were at their most active in the early nineties. SPOT operated on the leaderless resistance model-small cells that allegedly have no lateral connection to one another or vertical connection to a ‘boss.’ They targeted commercial development of wildlife habitats, like the wetlands bordered by last night’s condo.”

Abbott had leaned forward, chin on his folded hands. “M.O.?”

“Usually smart,” Barlow said. “They used electronic timers to start their fires and always left behind a glass globe paperweight, but not covered in any gel. They’d wrap it in fire-resistant fabrics, usually pieces of firefighters’ protective gear, coats, et cetera.”

“They wanted it found,” Olivia murmured. “Intact.”

“Absolutely,” Barlow said, brows crunched. “But they always, always contacted the local news minutes after the firefighters were called to the scene.”

“They didn’t this time,” Kane said. “Why?”

Barlow shook his head. “I don’t know. They also never used guns.”

“Was this a smart fire?” Olivia asked.

“Aspects were. Like shutting down the camera systems and shutting off the water to the sprinklers. That took planning. They also had access to the guard’s schedule and they knew to open all the fire doors. If the girl tried to get out via the stairwell, she would have been stopped by the smoke and the heat. But in other ways they were stupid. They used the carpet adhesive, which is incredibly flammable. The fire would have spread quickly. It’s a wonder they made it out alive. Their M.O. last night wasn’t consistent with their M.O. before.”

“What are you saying?” Olivia asked. “They’ve reopened under new management?”

Barlow lifted a shoulder. “Maybe. Or maybe it’s a front. If someone knew about SPOT and wanted to deflect attention from their real motive, they could leave the globe behind and have us chasing our tails.”

“Or that could be wishful thinking and they really are ecoterrorists,” Kane said.

“Meaning, we call in the Feds,” Abbott said flatly.

Olivia’s jaw tightened. “I had to tell Henry Weems’s widow that he wasn’t ever coming home again. Weems was MPD, one of ours. So whoever shot him is ours, too.”

“I agree,” Abbott said grimly. “For now, we call the Feds, just to check on anything new they might have on this group. If these are eco-nuts, I don’t want my ass on the line for sitting on information. But if these SPOT assholes claim responsibility, we will bring the Feds in. No arguments.”

He was right, Olivia knew, just as she knew she was being emotional. “No arguments. Besides, the differences far outweigh the similarities.”

Barlow was frowning. “Maybe not. There is one other similarity. In their last arson twelve years ago, a woman died. Nobody was supposed to be in the building, but this woman was working late and had fallen asleep at her desk. After that, the group went dormant. It was assumed they’d gone their separate ways.”

“That was SPOT?” Abbott asked. “I remember that fire now.”

“That’s a disturbing coincidence,” Jess Donahue said. “If they knew this girl was in the condo last night and set the fire anyway… that’s a whole different ball game.”

“Find them first, then find out what they knew and when,” Abbott said, then turned to Barlow. “Leaderless resistance groups often have a symbolic leader. Did SPOT?”

“Yeah, but I think I’m too tired to think of his name now.”

“Preston Moss,” Micki supplied. “I pulled a few articles from Google. Moss grew up here, in the Twin Cities, but during the nineties was a professor in some private college in Oregon. He authored a few books on preserving forest habitats. His first few books were more mainstream, but he got more radical. He’s believed to have founded SPOT-with appropriate Latin grammar, Dr. Donahue. His followers bastardized the name as they formed their own cells across the northwest and east into Wisconsin. Later he came back to teach in Minnesota. The wetlands were one of his causes, and Moss was believed to have been directly involved in that last fire. He dropped out of sight after the woman’s death and hasn’t been seen again.”

Barlow smiled, but wearily. “You did your homework. Anything else I forgot?”

“No, you covered it,” Micki said kindly. “You have a good memory.”

“How did you remember this, Sergeant?” Donahue asked. “This SPOT group was active before you joined the force.”

Olivia shot a quick look at the shrink, impressed and wary at the same time. That Donahue had known Barlow was on the case and had already checked his personnel file seemed to have floated over the man’s head, because he replied without a blink.

“During one of my training classes, we had speakers from the FBI and ATF. One of the FBI guys had been chasing Preston Moss for years. Kind of his great white whale, if you know what I mean. Seemed a little too intense for my liking, but he may have more information that isn’t in the files. His name is Special Agent Angus Crawford, and then he was with the Minneapolis field office.”

“I’ll give him a call,” Abbott said. “Barlow, do you have enough resources? Should we call the Feds in for support?”

“I’m good for now. We’ve got MFD fire investigators on the scene, and I got some help from one of the firefighters.” Barlow slid a look at Olivia. “The one who found the girl-David Hunter. He’s got a good eye.”

Olivia felt her cheeks heat. David’s eyes weren’t the only things that were good, she thought as Paige’s words came back to taunt her. Focus. She looked Barlow in the eye. “What did you find?” she asked, relieved her voice was professionally brisk.

“Hunter and Zell found a backpack in the debris on the first floor, just before I left to come here,” Barlow said. “The backpack was mostly burned. It may have been on the fourth floor when it collapsed and fell through, landing on the first floor before the fire was completely out. Some of the contents had fallen out and melted.” He produced a camera, turned it on, and passed it to Olivia so that she could view the digital display. “Haven’t had time to print my photos. We found this a few feet away.”

In the screen was a black case that looked like it should have held eyeglasses, but it didn’t. What it did hold, she couldn’t tell, as the contents were misshapen. “What is it?”

“A hearing aid,” Barlow said. “Hunter ID’d it. That pink part is the earpiece. I’m assuming it belonged to the girl.”

“If it does, it narrows the search for her a good bit.” Olivia put the photo of the dead girl on the table. “She had gel on her hands, and Hunter said he found the ball near where he found her. She’d held the ball. Maybe she planted it there. Maybe she was with the arsonists and the fire got out of their control and she got trapped.”

“We can’t ignore the possibility,” Abbott said. “And if she was part of their cell, identifying her could lead us to them.”

“Or she could have been forced to be one of them.” Kane pointed to the girl’s arm. “Her injuries were real. She’d been slapped around by somebody.”

“Or she could have been an innocent bystander who found the ball and picked it up,” Olivia finished. “In which case, we’re back to square one.”

“Did you find any ID in the backpack?” Micki asked.

Barlow shook his head. “No. The contents were too burned. I told your CSU tech to bag it. We got some charred papers, books. The paper took a lot of water damage, but the lab might be able to piece together the scraps for a name or a lead.”

“Can we get in the building now?” Kane asked, but Barlow shook his head.

“Not yet. We’re still checking the fifth and sixth floors, but the damage that made the fourth floor collapse under Hunter goes all the way down. If he hadn’t caught himself, he would have gone all the way down to the basement. The tower truck’s still at the scene, though. Captain Casey said Hunter or Zell could take you up in the bucket, let you look through the windows. I also shot video as we went through the debris. I’ll transfer the files to my PC and e-mail them to you when we’re finished here.”

Olivia couldn’t stifle the icy shiver that cut through her at the thought of David plunging four stories. She did, however, manage to stifle the mixed dread and anticipation at sharing the close quarters of a bucket with him. She’d do her job, as would he. “We’ll take the videos if that’s all we can get right now, but I want to see the scene. I guess going up in the bucket is our best option at the moment. We should get out there before they leave. They’ve been there for about eight hours now.”

“They’ve probably got another two hours ahead of them,” Barlow said, “so you don’t have to rush.” He pulled a sooty envelope from his front pocket and handed it to Kane. “You asked for the Rankin and Sons personnel list. I had them run an extra copy for you.”

“Thanks. We’ll start background checks. Anyone we should be looking at?”

“As in anyone who’d have access to the guard’s schedule and their camera feeds?” Micki asked sarcastically. “Try anyone on that list and just about any entry-level hacker.”

Olivia winced. “You snuck into the system that easily, huh?”

Micki rolled her eyes. “We didn’t have to sneak. Rankin’s IT guy left their server wide open. I’d check the IT guy. If he’s not on the take, he’s the most inept we’ve ever come across.”

“So anyone could have cut the camera feed,” Kane said glumly.

“Sorry,” Micki said. “I wish I could give you better news. We are trying to trace where the command to disable the cameras came from. That’ll take a little while. Like Barlow said, that aspect of this job was done very well.”

Dr. Donahue sat back in her chair. “Sergeant Barlow, could this fire have been set by one individual?”

Barlow hesitated. “Maybe. But if this really was SPOT, then they probably were a cell of two to four people. If it was arson for hire or some other reason, it could have been one. The job itself could have been accomplished solo, with adequate planning.”

“So we have one to four people, educated in computer networks but who didn’t do their homework on actually setting the fire,” Donahue said. “At least one of them was capable of shooting a guard in cold blood. They brought at least one gun with them, so they were prepared for violence of some nature-even if it was to protect themselves. Were any warning shots fired that you could see?”

“No,” Micki said. “We found the slug that killed Weems. Hollow-point,.38. We didn’t see evidence of other shots fired. We’ll keep looking now that it’s daylight.”

Donahue nodded. “So for now we’ll assume they did not fire warning shots, just the one shot that hit Mr. Weems… where?”

“Right through the heart,” Kane said grimly and Donahue’s brows rose.

“Interesting. A more surefire target would have been his head. I mean, Weems could have been wearing a vest. Through the heart is very personal.”

“Weems represented authority, even if they didn’t know he’d been a cop,” Olivia said. “Most of these groups are anarchists. That they’d despise Weems isn’t unusual.”

“But apparently to shoot him, is.” Donahue scribbled in a small notebook. “I’ll do some research on SPOT. See if anyone developed profiles back in the nineties.”

“We’ll keep on the girl’s ID,” Olivia said. “Ian’s supposed to call when he’s done with the girl’s autopsy. For now we’ll start checking into Rankin’s personnel.”

“And I’ll call Special Agent Crawford at the Bureau’s field office,” Abbott said. “We keep the details of the glass globe from the press for as long as we can. Can this firefighter be trusted not to talk to reporters?”

“Yes,” Olivia said quickly. Too quickly, she thought when everyone looked at her. She shrugged. “He’s an old family friend with no love for reporters. He won’t talk.”

Abbott nodded. “Good. Barlow, let me know if you need support. I have a few detectives I can pull in from other cases if we need them. Everyone back here at five.”