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to a position that would allow her to sleep in her own bed and keep Sparky from tasting the machinery. Anya had found the investigative work to be more satisfying. Working behind the scenes, she unraveled the puzzles of forensic and behavioral science that pointed to a myriad of reasons for setting fires: to cover up crimes, for insurance money, for revenge, for pathological pleasure. . . the exact reason for each fire was unique, just as unique as the patterns of flame and smoke damage.

    But transferring to the investigative division took her out of the fishbowl; now she was on the outside looking in. Investigators worked regular shifts, then went home to be with their families. There was little of the camaraderie that existed at the firehouse. Anya’s isolation from her colleagues widened as time passed.

    Anya clomped to the command post for the scene, identifiable by a knot of firefighters and utility personnel poking at blueprints. She spied a familiar bear of a figure in a hazmat suit and helmet scribbling on a clipboard: Captain Marsh. He towered over the utility workers, his respirator dangling from his neck. The hazmat suit was a bit too short in the sleeves for him. His chestnut brow gleamed with sweat, his graying hair clipped closely to his skull. He wore the scar creasing his forehead as a badge of honor, making no attempt to hide the wound he’d received years ago when he’d been on a ladder truck and a building exploded. Marsh was matter-of-fact and didn’t believe in sugarcoating the truth.

    “Captain,” she greeted him. “What’s the story?”

    Marsh looked up from his clipboard. “Kalinczyk. What we’ve got is a warehouse partitioned up for storage. It’s been sliced and diced up with all manner of walls that weren’t up to code.” It annoyed Marsh when people didn’t follow code and something bad happened.

    “Any luck contacting the owner?”

    “Not yet. So we don’t know what was in there. So far, we’ve got furniture, office supplies, document storage, what looks like personal storage. . . who knows what else. All of it was highly flammable, crammed into small spaces.” Marsh flipped pages in his clipboard. “Fire was reported at oh-four-twenty by a security guard at the car lot a half block away.” He stabbed his thumb at a man sitting in the back of a patrol car. “That’s him.”

    “Does he have a record?”

    “No. DPD ran his background and got nothing.”

    Anya’s eyes roved over the EMT vehicles still at the scene and a charred, human-shaped form half covered with a blanket. Her brow knitted. “You said that one of our guys got hurt.”

    “Yeah.” Marsh blew out his breath. “Rather than spring for security, the owners posed a mannequin in one of the second-floor windows. Tried to make it look like someone was there, working.” He gestured to the prone form. “First ladder company on the scene mistook it for a person, broke into the window to get him. Neuman got burned pulling the mannequin out. Kid got burned bad.” Anger twitched Marsh’s mouth. She knew Marsh worked part-time at the training academy and knew most of the young firefighters.

    “I’m sorry, Captain.”

    “Yeah, well, me, too.”

    Anya nodded. “I’ll get to work.”

    Anya turned her attention to the only witness. The security guard, a Hispanic man in his early twenties with buzzed hair, sat in the back of a police car. She noted he was an unarmed guard and that his brown-and-white uniform was new enough to still have the factory creases pressed in it.

    Anya opened the door and slid into the seat beside him. “Hi. I’m Lieutenant Kalinczyk, DFD.”

    The young man looked up at her. She noticed that he had a backpack under his arm. “Am I in trouble?”

    Anya shook her head, taking out her notebook. “No. The back of the car is just the safest place right now, since we don’t know what crud might be in the air from that burning building. Your name, please?”

    “John