Round and Round by Andrew Grey Read Free Book Online Page A

ready the equipment for the next call. Angus handed his cloth to Frankie, who took it with a flash of concern. They all knew that tone of voice. Angus wondered what he’d done as he climbed the stairs and went into the captain’s office. “There was another one last night.”
    “Arson?”
    “Yeah. Cameron United took the call. It was at a halfway house for former gang kids. The entire building went up, and three people didn’t get out—one of the counselors and two of the kids. This guy’s body count is starting to stack up.”
    “Are there any leads?”
    “No, and cameras in that part of town are nonexistent. You’ve been involved in this since the beginning, so I wanted to let you know. I told their captain to make sure your best friend in the police department was involved. He probably was anyway, but you know how organizations work. Right hand and left hand, and all that.” Justinian stopped. “You look like hell.”
    “It’s been a long week.” Angus resisted the urge to look at the clock yet again.
    “The guys will start to arrive in a few minutes. You get out of here as soon as turnover’s done.”
    “Thanks,” Angus said, though some of the joy in going home had been sucked away. “I really want to get this guy.”
    “I know. We all do.”
    Angus shook his head and took a deep breath. “There’s something more, isn’t there?”
    Justinian paused, giving Angus one of those steely stares that was supposed to get him to open up. Angus had become immune long ago. “You’re a gifted firefighter. Sometimes I think you understand what the fire is going to do before it does.”
    “It’s like a living being to me,” Angus said. He stopped there. There was more, so much more, but he wasn’t in the mood to tell the story. He hadn’t in quite a long time, and he thought he’d buried the ache deep down where it would never show its head again. “Is there anything else?”
    “No. But I talked to the chief today, and he’s asked in his own way”—which meant he’d told him and Justinian was softening the blow—“that you be the point man for the department on this. You’re the only one who can get squat out of Reyes.”
    “We have a history,” Angus explained, but that was as far as he was willing to go.
    “I don’t want to know. The two of you fight like cats and dogs when you’re together, yet you always get the goods.”
    “He isn’t a bad guy. I just know how to get around his pain-in-the-assness.” He made light of it. Antonio’s life in the closet was his business. It was no longer Angus’s.
    Voices rose and overlapped as people gathered outside the office. The station was filling with men and women from his shift and the next one. Angus allowed himself a look at the clock and waited for Justinian to nod before leaving the office. He joined the others as he wondered just what being the department point of contact for this arsonist would involve… and the toll it would take on him.
    After turnover, he left right away. He wished he’d ridden his motorcycle, but the weather report that morning had been iffy. He was in his Mustang and pulling away from the station when he heard the rumble of the alarm, and a minute later the trucks started pulling out. He pulled to the side of the road and silently wished for all of them to be safe as they whirred past, honking the horn as they went. When he’d first joined the department, he would have followed and checked to see if he was needed. At the moment, he was too tired to be of any use to anyone, so he continued to his house in the historic Shipoke area of town, pulled into his garage, and then went up to his living quarters.
    The house was newer construction. This part of town had a tendency to flood every few years, so having the garage on the first level meant his living space and possessions remained high and dry. He left his gear in the garage and made a note to clean it soon. He carried his laundry up with him and started the