Cited to Death by Meg Perry

behind me and said, "Hey, we’ve got to get you out of here. You can't be breathing in this crap."

    I turned and looked at him. The look on my face must have frightened him. He took my arm and guided me back into the living room. The firefighter spotted us and walked over. “Lt. Evers. I’m an arson investigator. You’re Detective Brodie’s brother?”

    “Yes, sir. This is Pete Ferguson.”

    Evers shook Pete’s hand. Pete asked, “What happened?”

    Evers turned back and looked at the room. "They came in through the sliding glass door in the bedroom. So far we haven't found much in terms of evidence. We know accelerant was used, but we’re not sure what yet, except that it wasn’t gasoline." He turned back to me. "It’s hard to see if anything is missing because of the mess. Kevin hasn’t noticed anything yet. We’ll need you both to take a closer look at some point."

    "Sure."

    "We'll need to take your fingerprints too, so we can exclude yours from the ones the techs are lifting."
     
    "Sure." That seemed to be all I was capable of saying. I reached for the inhaler in my jacket. The smoke was definitely getting to me now. Pete asked Evers, "Can we go outside for this? We came here from the emergency room. Jamie had a bad asthma attack this morning, and he spent most of the day there. He needs to get out of this smoke."

    "Sure, sure. Let's do that." Evers went back to where Tim and Kevin were standing. "Tim, the brother’s here, but he’s getting over an asthma attack and needs to get out of the smoke."

    Kevin apparently hadn’t noticed I was there. He whirled around at me. "What are you doing in here?" He grabbed my arm and started hauling me outside.

    "Stop dragging me." I yanked my arm out of his grip and kept walking. We made it to the outside stairs, and I turned to face all of them. Kevin paled at the look on my face, and Tim started moving towards the bench at the end of the hall. "Why don't we sit? I need to ask you some questions."
     
    "Sure." Again. I sat on the bench, and sagged. I was exhausted.

    Tim pulled out a notebook. "Do you have any idea who might have done this?"
     
    I shook my head. "Not who, no. No idea. But I might know why." I gave him the basics, with Kevin and Pete filling in when I got too short of breath - Dan's death, his letter, the articles, the visit from Oliver, meeting Goldstein at the funeral, the computer attack. "All I've been doing is research into these two articles, and I haven't even turned up anything suspicious in my research. But someone seems to be trying to discourage me from looking."

    Tim looked unhappy. "Where was this death?"
     
    "Cedars-Sinai."

    "That's Wilshire Division. I'll talk to whoever took the call and see what the status is on the autopsy."

    “Don’t bother.” Kevin was leaning against the opposite wall, scowling, his arms folded. “I already did. No sign of foul play.”

    “Okay, but I’ll call and get a copy of it for this file.” Tim turned back to me. "The fire was on your bed. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think that this was focused on you."
     
    "No." I sighed. "And whoever is behind this either doesn't know about Kevin, or doesn't care, right? Anyone that would willfully incur the wrath of the LAPD must be nuts, right?"

    Tim snorted. "That'd be one way to describe it." He tucked his notebook into his pocket. "Let's get you fingerprinted. Then you can get out of here. There's nothing else you can do in there tonight. Tomorrow, after the place has aired out and the crowds are gone, you can go through and see if anything's missing and if anything's salvageable. You gonna bunk with Ferguson tonight?"
     
    What? "Uh - no -"

    "Yes, he is." Pete's tone said he would brook no argument.

    Kevin chimed in. "Good."

    I whirled on him. "Where are you going?"

    “To Abby’s sister’s. She’s already there. And no, you can’t come.”

    Pete slapped me on the back. It looked hearty, for public consumption, but was gentle.