“There is no one else. We need to go, now.”

“Fine.” She handed her cell over to Isobel. “Call the station, have someone come to get Blake. Then call Tommy Ramirez. Tell him—” What? What the hell could she say? All she had were suspicions. “Tell him I need to talk to him. That it’s urgent. Ask him to meet us at the hospital after we pick up our vic.”

But Tommy didn’t meet her. So after Brooke and Isobel had turned their patient over to the E.R., she tried the chief, and shock of all shocks, got him.

“This better be important, O’Brien,” he said in his sharply authoritative voice. “I’m in a meeting.”

“It’s about Blake.”

The chief was silent for a single, long beat. “What about him?”

Brooke moved away from Isobel so that she could speak frankly. “He was at the scene of the Third Street fire today, and he didn’t look right. And…” Oh, God, how to say this? “And I think he was trying to confess to arson.”

“You think? What the hell does that mean? And what arson?”

“He wasn’t coherent. He—” She frowned at the static in her ear. “Sir? Hello, Chief?” She’d lost him. “Shit.”

“You’re not supposed to swear while in uniform,” Isobel said.

Brooke contained the urge to wrap her fingers around Isobel’s neck and drove them back to the station.

The chief was there, waiting for her. “Blake isn’t at the hospital or at the fire.”

“What’s going on?” Cristina stood in the doorway, looking unnerved. “What’s the matter with Blake? Eddie went to go get him but he couldn’t find him.”

“He’s missing,” the chief said. “And he’s not answering his cell.”

“He was at the Third Street fire,” Brooke told Cristina. “He was walking with a crutch, definitely disoriented—oh my God.”

The chief turned on her. “What?”

“What if he went into the fire?”

“Why would he do that?” Panic raised Cristina’s voice. “He wasn’t suited up, he wasn’t working—”

“But he wasn’t himself,” Brooke said slowly, reviewing their conversation. “He was rambling, not making much sense, and just staring at the flames.”

“Rambling about what?” Cristina cried.

“He kept saying sorry about the fires, like he was trying to confess.”

Cristina gasped and covered her mouth. “He didn’t—he wouldn’t—”

“He didn’t look good, and then we got a call. He’d vanished.”

The chief headed for his truck with long strides while Cristina dragged Brooke inside, where she sank to the couch in the living room.

“That building is gone,” Brooke said. “Completely gone. I should have stopped him. I should have—”

“You couldn’t have stopped him,” Sam said, coming in behind them. “And he’s not that stupid.”

Cristina let out a low sound of grief.