“Very. And then there’s Ally.”

“From Ally’s Treasures.”

“Red mentioned seeing her a lot lately.” Joe read his notes. “She was at the opening party, and seen driving by the next morning as well. She has a definite grudge, though given she’s as successful as she is, it doesn’t make much sense.”

“If we’re talking grudges…Have you noticed any grudges against any one particular employee?”

“You’re talking about Red.” Joe’s stomach clenched. “And how they all seem a bit wary of her.”

“Yes.”

“That’s the past reaching out to bite her on the ass.”

“Relevant here?” Kenny asked.

“I want to say no,” Joe said slowly. “But…”

“Never say never.”

“At least not in this business.” Wearily Joe pushed to his feet. “Let’s go scour the site again.”

As the sun set, Joe and Kenny showed their badges to the patrol officer and entered the Creative Interior II fire site.

They’d already taken all the pictures they needed of the still wet, charred building. They’d investigated the point of origin. Now they needed to finish the tedious task of going through each room to see if there were any more clues or evidence.

They split up. Kenny worked the front room and Joe took the employee break room where Summer had ended up trapped. The actual fire destruction there had been minimal, mostly just smoke and water damage, but he went through it meticulously, including the purple beanbag that gave him more than a few bad flashbacks.

He climbed the stairs as Summer must have done, stood where she’d said she’d stood when her cell phone had gone off.

Camille had called her. If no one else but Joe thought that was strange, he wouldn’t back away from it. Camille and Summer were circling their way around their mother-daughter relationship. By Summer’s own words, Camille hadn’t yet made a real stand there. Any progress, any contact, had been made by Summer herself.

And yet Camille had called at a most interesting time…

“You done down there?” Kenny called.

“Yeah. You find anything?”

“Nothing. But I have more questions.”

“Me too.”

They moved outside, working their way around the perimeter of the building, searching for anything out of place. The parking lot was concrete. The Dumpster sat on a dirt pad off the concrete lot, and there in the dirt lay a cigarette butt. They stared at it, then Joe let out a breath and pointed just ahead.

In the dirt in front of the Dumpster was half a boot print with diagonal tread.

Just like the one at the warehouse fire.

Standing there, heart thumping, Joe squatted down, opened his kit and pulled out his accelerant meter.

It registered.

Kenny swore softly.