Or…malicious intent. Joe looked closer. On the wall beneath the burn pattern had hung a toilet paper holder. The paper itself was long gone, but he eyed the wall and saw it as it might have been before the fire.

Paper hanging down, dipping into a puddle of gasoline, or paint thinner, whatever accelerant had caused the reading on his meter. It would have acted as a wick, and if the roll had been full, all the better.

A match could have been lit, tossed into the puddle of gasoline.

Poof.

Above the toilet paper had been a towel rack, with at least two towels on it. More fuel. By that time, the flames had been hot, leaping straight up, catching the wood paneled walls, the wood ceiling.

A tinder box waiting to explode.

All hidden by the more obvious “evidence,” the conveniently left-burning candles.

The flames would have leapt across the ceiling and down the other walls, and then outward. And with the store closed, and the bathroom right in the middle of the place, it had grown hotter and faster, burning out of control before anyone on the outside caught the scent.

There were any number of motives here. Revenge, excitement, insurance fraud. They both knew it. They’d both seen it all.

Kenny opened his evidence-collecting box. “Better get everything. We just went from accidental to God knows what.”

“Yeah.” Joe swiped at his brow and set his camera aside. Together in the hot, damp, tiny space they meticulously began to sweep the entire bathroom.

“So were you up all night or what?” Kenny asked when Joe couldn’t hold back his umpteenth yawn.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Ah.”

Joe scowled and sat back on his heels. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means now I get why you’re so prickly. You must not have gotten laid last night.”

A lot he knew. “I’m not prickly.”

“As a porcupine, but forget it. You don’t want to talk about it.”

“That’s right, damn it.” Joe shoved his flashlight into his kit. “Look, I was just trying to help her.”

“Because she’s nobody to you.”

Joe gritted his teeth and eyed what was left in the room. After the fire, the water, and now what he and Kenny had done over the past two hours, there wasn’t much.

“A mess,” Kenny muttered. “And if this is connected to the warehouse fire…”

“Yeah. A bigger mess.” Joe thought of how Summer had been in the basement, asleep, alone. Vulnerable. If she hadn’t had her cell phone, if she hadn’t woken up…

His gut clenched hard.

“What?” Kenny asked.

“She could have died.”

“Yeah. Now let’s use what we found here to prove whether or not it’d have been murder.”