After the fourth home they picked through, Lani was close to tears. "They're all just gone," he murmured. "No one had a chance. All their stuff's still here."

  "Whatever didn't burn up, anyway," Jeremy agreed. "I'm still not convinced on the terrorist card though." Anything to get this out of my hands. "Chief send over those pop lists yet?"

  "No. We got word from forensics though. They're almost here, they got held up by something on the road. Apparently there was a freak landslide, but it was already cleared up by someone. Just one lane, tight fit. But there's nothing in the news or municipal records."

  "Another mystery for the goddamn pile," Jeremy muttered. "There's nothin' but ghosts here."

  "...Do you believe in them?"

  "What?"

  "Ghosts."

  Jeremy shrugged. "I've seen some crazy shit, but ghosts?"

  "Yeah. Ridiculous," Lani agreed, a little too quickly. Whatever. Man's entitled to his beliefs. Not my business.

  "Back on topic," he went on, "there's no evidence of firearms or explosives or anything. There wasn't a lightning storm and there didn't seem to be any single origin point for the fire. As far as I can tell, this place just spontaneously burned down all at once."

  "You know how to find the origin of a fire?"

  "You just gotta know what to look for," Jeremy replied. "Every single place we've gone to has a different origin. The way the wood burned is all different, and they all stopped in different ways too. It's fuckin' bizarre." He shrugged. "Gonna have to wait for forensics to drill it down."

  Another buzz of the phone startled them both. "Forensics is here." He grimaced. "So are the reporters, apparently."

  "Goddammit," Jeremy sighed. "What happened to the embargo?"

  "They won't print for twelve hours, but they're not gonna sit on the sidelines."

  "Tell them it's a fucking crime scene."

  "They haven't entered the town."

  "We don't know how big the crime scene is."

  "What should I do, kick them out of the state?"

  "Yes."

  They heard a couple vehicles cruise down the road toward the library, which had been designated the staging area. Jeremy sighed. "Time to go, then."

----------------------------------------

  Lani started coordinating the forensic sweep of the town, while Jeremy hitched a ride back to the entry road. As the most senior agent present, he got lumped into the duty of handling the reporters—much to his dismay.

  At least there weren't any cameras.

  "No comment," he stated blandly.

  "Is there a single survivor in the entire town?" asked a woman with a severe face and a droning voice.

  Hell if I know. "No comment."

  "Is this the work of Islamic extremists?" shouted a journalist wearing a logo for a small Oregon paper. Apparently the story was spreading fast, if he'd made it here already.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  Fucking racist. "No comment."

  "Was the college still in session at the time of the attack?" asked a reporter from the Oregonian.

  Hey, a useful question. "No. The university did not hold a summer term."

  "So all students were sent home before the attack occurred?"

  She's trying to catch me on 'attack.' "We can't confirm that. Nor can we confirm this was an attack. The investigation is ongoing."

  "Does the Bureau's involvement imply this was perpetrated across state lines?"

  If a fire crosses state lines, does that make it a federal fire? "No comment."

  "Are you going to tell us anything useful?" asked the severe woman.

  Jeremy had to struggle to hold back his smirk. "No comment." He bowed slightly. "That's all the time I have right now. Stick around if you want, but don't cross the line into the town." Most of the gaggle looked like veterans who knew better than to violate a police line, but he was a little worried about a couple of them. He didn't want to be babysitting a gung-ho amateur slapped with obstruction for the rest of the day.

  He turned and walked away, ignoring the shouted questions while the state troopers who'd accompanied forensics set up wooden temporary barriers across the road.

  "That went well," he commented dryly to Lani, who was with the forensic team lead inside a tent they'd erected a block into town.

  "How many did you get in?"

  "Eight. They actually got one good question, so I couldn't go for the full ten." Jeremy pulled out his phone, which finally had signal again thanks to the repeater they'd set up at his request. "Oh thank God."

  "We've got our helicopter sweeping around the outskirts of the town," Lani reported. "Looks like another fire broke out in the north as well, but it didn't spread far. There's still half a mile of untouched forest before you hit the town."

  "We've also confirmed the bodies in the streets were covered in electrical burns," added the forensic guy from the staties. Jeremy couldn't be bothered to remember his name. "The victims inside houses were killed by blunt trauma from the collapsing structures, asphyxiation by inhaling smoke, or thermal burns. There's a few odd ones out though."

  He passed a tablet over and started flicking through pictures. Jeremy's eyes narrowed. He was trying not to look too closely at each one. Despite everything he'd seen in his career, he never really got used to it—which was a comfort, as he was terrified of the day when seeing them didn't bother him anymore.

  "This one here," continued Mr. Forensics, "and this one as well. Massive avulsions."

  "That's not an avulsion," Jeremy muttered, "that's a goddamn amputation." The woman's arm had been torn off and there was a hole twice as large as his fist through her stomach. Jeremy pointed at the hole. "How the hell does that happen to someone?"

  "Incident with some kind of power equipment?" He frowned. "Whatever happened, it wasn't natural and there wasn't anything nearby that could have caused it."

  Jeremy sighed. "Please tell me you didn't find any evidence of weaponry involved."

  "Does a pitchfork count?"

  "Hell no."

  "Then no. No weaponry we could determine."

  Jeremy passed the tablet back. "So far as I'm seeing, this is all local. Crazy and fucked up, but local. Seems like it's a job for the state police."

  Lani looked dismayed. "That's it?"

  Didn't see her anywhere, and I'm sure as hell not sticking around for anything else. "It's outside our jurisdiction, Lani. We're not allowed to operate at this level except to support their investigation."

  "You're already here," said the forensics guy, who Jeremy was really starting to dislike. "They'll probably ask you to stick around to consult."

  "We do have other cases, you know."

  "More important than this?" he asked incredulously.

  "It's classified."

  "But we—" Lani started, but Jeremy gave him the same sharp shake of the head he'd received earlier. It was an unspoken rule they both held to firmly. They trusted each other enough to be told when to shut up. Lani fell silent, and Jeremy continued.

  "I'm sure the Bureau will be happy to supply lab work in support, so you guys should have everything you need."

  "Thank you, Dave," Lani added, when the forensic guy's face started to fall.

  An email popped up on Jeremy's phone. The population lists had just come through. He scrolled through them briefly—they weren't very long. As expected, a couple hundred residents, plus the hundred or so university students. Most of them would need follow-ups to knock them off the list of potential dead. The town residents would be more difficult, given how many bodies were buried under rubble or otherwise obscured.

  Jeremy paused at one name on the list. His heart sank. He wasn't getting out of this case after all. Goddammit, Jackie. What were you still doing out here? He sighed aloud.

  Lani noticed the change in his expression. "What's up?"

  Jeremy, with all the reluctance in the world trying to hold him back, shook his head slowly. I still owe her. "We might be stickin' around."

  As he spoke, another email slid onto the screen below the first one. One of the names had flagged up on an automatic scan. A hospital in Olympia had one William Carbonell currently checked into a bed, listed Tuesday May 15th at 1:32am.

  That was just yesterday. The only survivor?

  "Call in the chopper, Lani," he added. "We've got our first lead."