Page 48 of Flint’s Strike

“Will you two stop being all cutesy and awkward and get in here? We’ve got work to do.”

Nate’s at the head of the table, all five highlighters lined up neatly in front of him and a cup of station coffee at his elbow. His eyes narrow at the drink holder in my hand. “You went to Alabaster’s?”

“It was on the way.” I shrug, set his coffee down first, then place my iced quad shot Americano and Eliot’s hemp milk latte side by side before either of us takes a seat.

“It was not on the way,” Nate mutters. “Three years, and you’ve never driven across town for my coffee order.”

“No, but when you had your appendix out, I drove all over Hell’s half acre for fresh, cold-pressed wheatgrass juice. I spilled a single drop going over the hospital speed bumps, and my car still remembers what it smelled like.”

Nate chuckles, while Eliot watches the two of us with an expression I can’t quite read. “That was good juice.”

Five minutes later, we’ve all picked our favorites from the two pink boxes—a lemon jelly donut for Eliot, glazed with chocolate icing for me, a maple bar for Nate—and settled into seats around the table.

Eliot picks up his latte, takes a sip, and his eyelids flutter briefly. “Damn,” he says. “Forgot how good Alabaster’s is.”

His knee brushes mine under the table. It could be an accident. It’s probably an accident. But a small kernel of warmth settles in my core.

“So,” Nate says, tapping a few keys on his laptop, “here’s where we left off last night. The inspector who did the original walkthrough on the Round Rock facility—Jayson Granville—moved out of state a few years ago. Got a job in Maine. Three messages, and nothing. I’m starting to take it personally.”

“They have moose in Maine, don’t they? If you had the choice between seeing a moose and talkin’ to a Ranger about somethin’ you did ten years ago…?”

“I’d pick the moose every time,” Nate mutters.

Flipping through one of the stacks we left in the center of the table last night, Eliot frowns. “Buildings go through up to two dozen inspections when they’re sold or go through a retrofit. I’ve got five names with two different companies.”

“Is that unusual? Wouldn’t one inspector handle the whole building?” I ask.

Eliot shakes his head. “That ain’t how the certifications work. I can inspect a suppression system in a pinch. I’m trained for it. Firewall assemblies too. But I don’t know shit about plumbing or electrical.” He pulls his laptop closer and logs into his office’s internal system. “I’ll see if I can get a handle on how many of the faulty systems were looked at by the same idjits. Keep goin’, Nate.”

My partner clicks the remote, and starts entering inspector license numbers into the city database. One clears. He’s retired and drawing a pension. The second is still working in Austin.

“You could pay him a visit.” I offer Nate my sweetest smile. “Since I’m on desk duty…”

“You clearly have no issue driving to Alabaster’s. This guy’s office is ten minutes from here.” He gives me a pointed stare. “I’m filing a protest.”

“System’s slow,” Eliot says, returning his focus to the paperwork in front of him. “But the signature on this first report is illegible. It looks like someone dragged a pen across the page and called it a day. Ain’t no one gonna be able to match this to an actual name.”

I lean closer, my arm brushing his. He doesn’t pull away. “They weren’t even trying to form letters.”

“You ran the license number?” Eliot asks. He still hasn’t moved, and the heat of him seeps through my dress shirt.

Nate huffs. “Doesn’t exist. Mr.—or Ms.—Scribble is a ghost. Or a figment of someone’s imagination.”

Before it becomes very obvious that Eliot and I are closer than we should be in the middle of an arson investigation, I scoot my chair away a few inches and bring him up to date on my search for the inspector who signed off on the retrofit—Roger Haight. No current address, an expired driver’s license, and nothing in LexisNexis.

“Parker?” Nate drags his fingers through his shaggy black hair. “What about searching for John Does? Dead John Does.”

I polish off the last bite of donut and lick a bit of chocolate glaze from my fingers. Eliot makes a small, almost choked sound, and quickly turns back to his laptop.

Shit. Watch yourself, Parker. Or Nate will never let you hear the end of it.

I can feel my partner’s stare across the table, but refuse to look up. “Austin and surrounding counties. Male, mid-to-late fifties, medium build. The last vital records hit on Haight was eighteen months ago, and his driver’s license expired five months later.”

Twenty-six results. More—and less—than I expected. The conference room settles into a reassuring quiet. Nate and Eliot are working the inspection angle, while I page through case after case APD closed without a name attached. Outside the door, the dull hum of voices is nearly constant. Occasionally, someone laughs—usually the new guy, Vintner. The man has exactly two volume settings: whisper quiet and shatter your eardrums loud.

Twenty minutes later, I’ve seen more gunshot wounds and overdoses than anyone should have to look at. On the thirteenth file, I stop.

“Nate.”