Jill Jackson - 04 - Watch the World Burn by Leah Giarratano Read Free Book Online Page B

with. It doesn’t make sense, and I’ve never seen anything like it before.’
    ‘So you’re positive that there were two accelerants?’ said Gibson. ‘I mean, she was an old lady. Maybe what was on her blouse was enough to kill her.’
    ‘There were two accelerants,’ said Chin. ‘Methyl alcohol has a high vapour pressure, which will flash and scorch a surface, and that’s why the fire flashed so quickly on the blouse. But whatever was on your victim’s face had higher boiling components. These take longer to ignite, but when they do, they’re going to wick, melt and burn, leaving stronger burn patterns.’
    ‘How revolting,’ said Gibson.
    ‘Quite,’ said Vrisakis.

8
    Friday, 26 November, 6.14pm
    Troy kicked on the door to his apartment with his foot.
    ‘We don’t want any,’ Lucy said from inside.
    ‘Open up, smartarse,’ he said. ‘These bags are heavy.’
    When she opened the door, he immediately scanned the floor for Chris’s bag. Frowned.
    Lucy caught his expression. ‘Don’t worry, Chris called. He’s having dinner over at Makayla’s.’
    ‘Yeah, well, he knows he’s not supposed to. He’s supposed to be home with you after school.’
    Lucy shrugged, then helped him with the groceries.
    ‘Tim Tams!’ she said. ‘You’re a good brother.’ She ripped the packet open.
    Troy took it from her hands. ‘Dinner, remember?’
    She snatched the packet back, grabbed a biscuit and ducked out of her brother’s reach.
    ‘What do you think of Makayla, Luce?’ asked Troy.
    ‘She’s all right,’ said Lucy.
    ‘And what would you tell me if you weren’t being loyal to Chris?’
    ‘Oh, if that was the case, I’d tell you that I think she’s a particularly unintelligent, disrespectful little street girl, who’ll be locked up or knocked up, possibly both, within the next year.’
    ‘Well, good thing you’re loyal to Chris, then, and you didn’t tell me that, or I’d have to stop him seeing her.’ He met Lucy’s raised eyebrows with his own arched look, and they both laughed. As if Chris would do what Troy told him, anyway.
    Troy’s neck ached. He stabbed a steak knife into the shrink-wrapped plastic around his six-pack of beer. He twisted a cap off and hooked it towards the bin. Half the bottle was gone by the time the cap hit the bottom of the bin.
    ‘Don’t you think you should just buy cartons?’ said Lucy, watching him. ‘They’re more economical than buying a six-pack every day.’
    ‘I don’t drink a six-pack every day,’ he said.
    She gave him the eyebrows again. ‘You know we’ve got the addictive gene from Mum. You’d better check yourself before you wreck yourself.’
    Troy finished the bottle. What a frigging day. ‘What a frigging day,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘The fire investigators came out to Incendie again. They’re pretty sure Miriam Caine was murdered.’
    ‘That’s horrible,’ Lucy said. ‘I mean, it’s horrible for the woman, but you were there. You could have been hurt.’
    ‘It could have been me or anyone in the restaurant.’ He explained further when he saw Lucy’s expression. ‘Oh, I don’t mean that I could have been killed, it’s just that anyone could have been the killer, even me.’
    ‘Oh, that’s much better,’ said Lucy. ‘I’m so relieved.’
    ‘I’m just saying, you know, that the cops are now going to look at everyone as a suspect,’ he said. ‘But don’t worry, sis, they’re not going to think it was me.’ I hope, he thought. ‘But it is freaky that I was so close to a killer. Bloody hell. I might as well have stayed a copper. I thought I’d be safer in a restaurant.’
    Lucy put the remaining five beers in the fridge. ‘God. Poor Mona,’ she said. ‘She came over this arvo.’
    ‘Yeah?’ said Troy. ‘Did you guys have much to do with each other before this?’
    ‘No. She’s in a completely different crowd. But I think us being at the hospital when her grandma died – I don’t know, I think she feels