The loud, arrogant voice cut through the noise of the fireground.
I pulled the oxygen mask off my face and turned. Arthur Sterling, the property landlord, was standing near the police tape, his hands on his hips. His expensive suit was entirely untouched by the chaos. He was talking to a man in a cheap grey blazer carrying a clipboard—an insurance adjuster.
“I told the city,” Sterling was saying loudly, making sure the gathering crowd of neighbors could hear his narrative. “I told them that kid was dangerous. Probably smoking drugs up there. Cooking something illegal. You saw him dangling that poor girl over the edge! He’s unhinged. And now he’s burned my entire top floor to a crisp.”
The insurance adjuster furiously scribbled on his clipboard. “We’ll have to investigate the point of origin, Mr. Sterling, but if the tenant caused the fire through illegal activity, your liability is totally shielded.”
I felt a hot spike of rage pierce through my exhaustion. I wiped a layer of greasy soot from my forehead, tossing the oxygen mask onto the hood of my car. I wanted to march over and slap the diamond ring right off Sterling’s finger, but I didn’t have the breath or the authority. Not yet.
“Unit 4 to dispatch,” I coughed into my radio. “I’m heading to St. Jude’s Hospital to follow up on the juvenile victims. Send another unit to handle crowd control here.”
I got into my cruiser, the smell of smoke permanently baked into my uniform, and drove to the hospital.
The emergency room at St. Jude’s was a stark, freezing contrast to the inferno I had just crawled out of. The harsh fluorescent lights buzzed overhead, reflecting off the pristine white linoleum floors. I sat in a plastic chair near the ICU double doors, letting a triage nurse wrap gauze around the second-degree burns on the back of my hands.
“The boy is in critical condition,” the nurse told me quietly, taping the gauze tight. “He has third-degree burns over forty percent of his body. Mostly his upper back, shoulders, and the backs of his arms. The little girl is completely fine. A little smoke inhalation, but no burns at all. He shielded her completely.”
“Is their mother here?” I asked, my voice still raspy from the smoke.
“She just arrived. She works a double shift at the diner downtown. She’s in the room with the little girl now. They’re prepping the boy for emergency skin grafts.”
Before I could ask anything else, the automatic sliding doors of the ER lobby hissed open.
Arthur Sterling strode in, looking highly annoyed. He was still flanked by his insurance adjuster, but now he had a leather briefcase tucked under his arm. He marched straight up to the main triage desk, completely ignoring the line of waiting patients.
“Excuse me,” Sterling snapped, tapping his gold watch against the plexiglass window. “I need the medical report on the teenager brought in from the Spring Street fire. Leo Vance. I am the property owner, and I need documentation for my insurance claim immediately.”
The triage nurse blinked, clearly taken aback by his aggressive tone. “Sir, I can’t release patient medical records to a landlord. That’s a massive HIPAA violation.”
“Look, lady, I don’t care about your hospital policy,” Sterling sneered, leaning closer to the glass. “That delinquent just caused half a million dollars in damage to my building. I need to know his toxicology report. I need it in writing that he was high on narcotics when he started that fire. My adjuster needs to file the claim before the weekend is over.”
I stood up from my plastic chair, the pain in my burned hands instantly forgotten.
“He wasn’t high,” I said, my voice echoing loudly across the quiet waiting room.
Sterling whipped around, his eyes narrowing when he saw me. He scoffed, looking me up and down, taking in my ruined, soot-stained uniform. “Oh, the patrolman. Still playing hero? I saw what I saw, officer. That kid was dangling his sister off the balcony. He was trying to kill her before the fire even started.”
“He was dangling her off the balcony to keep her away from the heat,” I corrected him, taking a slow, deliberate step forward. “He didn’t start that fire, Sterling. The flames were already blowing out the windows when I pulled up.”
“You don’t know anything!” Sterling barked, his face flushing dark red. He pointed a finger at my chest. “You’re a beat cop. You direct traffic. You don’t know the first thing about arson. These low-income tenants, they live like animals! They plug a dozen things into one outlet, they smoke indoors, they leave space heaters running on dirty carpets. It’s negligence. And I am not paying for it.”
“Then why were you screaming at me to shoot him?” I asked quietly.
Sterling froze, his mouth hanging open for a fraction of a second before he recovered. “Because he looked dangerous! I was protecting the little girl!”
He was lying. It was suddenly so incredibly obvious. Sterling wasn’t just acting like a callous landlord worried about his premiums. He was acting like a man desperately trying to control a narrative before anyone else could get a word in.
Before the argument could escalate further, the ER doors hissed open again.
Captain Barnes, the head investigator for the city fire marshal’s office, walked in. He was a massive, barrel-chested man, still wearing his heavy fire boots and suspenders. He was carrying a large, clear plastic evidence bin filled with charred, wet debris from the apartment hallway.
“Miller,” Barnes grunted, nodding at me as he walked toward the nurses’ station. “Heard you took a beating in there. Good job getting those kids out. The floor gave way entirely about two minutes after you pulled them over the threshold.”
“Thanks, Cap,” I said. “Do we have a point of origin yet?”
“Basement,” Barnes said, setting the heavy plastic bin down on an empty waiting room chair. “Fire traveled up the walls through the old ventilation shafts. Hit the fourth floor first because it’s the highest oxygen point. By the time the alarms went off on the top floor, the entire staircase was compromised.”