The optimism in Isabella’s chest flamed out about six seconds after she got her boots on the pavement. Okay, so maybe she shouldn’t have gotten ahead of herself, thinking that between the evidence she might find at the scene and the fact that she’d convinced Kellan to walk her through this off-the-books recon mission in the first place, she might actually catch the break she needed to take this back to the FBI.
But karma was clearly not waving its pom poms in her corner after all, because the scene in front of her was nothing shy of a total nightmare.
While the street and the surroundings were much like Isabella had remembered, the house itself had sustained an absolute landslide of damage. Sheets of plywood had been slapped over more than half the first-floor windows, all of which bore thick black scorch marks around the casings and the brick beyond. Most of the second floor—and the roof along with it—had burned down to the building’s frame, the charred, warped boards completely discordant with the deep blue sky and the glittering, golden sunlight coloring the backdrop above them.
Her stomach clenched before dropping to her shins. How was she supposed to find enough evidence to help these women in a house that was barely standing?
Isabella let go of a heavy breath. “God. This place looks like a war zone.”
A flicker of something odd hardened the angles of Walker’s jawline, gone before she could tag the expression with a name. “Yeah,” he said, flipping the latch on the chain link fence’s swinging door. “I guess.”
A thought stuck into her, as cold and sharp as a three-inch pin. “The house isn’t going to collapse on us or anything, is it?”
Walker paused, his ocean-blue eyes taking a tour of the structure from the top down, but his hesitation didn’t last long. “Nah. The foundation and the first floor are still structurally intact, and at this point, everything that was gonna fall in from upstairs already did. We’re lucky the house is brick on three sides. It should keep everything from caving in on us.”
“Who’s got a weird definition of lucky now?” she asked, and hey, how about that? Walker remembered how to smile.
“Yeah, yeah. So how do you want to do this?”
Isabella ran a hand through her hair, sweeping her gaze from one end of the street to the other. Funny, Walker had just given their surroundings the same sort of spot check. “From the outside in. I know you said there wasn’t anything out of the ordinary when you got here, but walk me through it anyway. Step by step.”
Kellan dialed back his smile, although one corner of his mouth still kicked up against the dark stubble of his goatee. Crossing his arms over the front of his navy blue RFD T-shirt, he pegged her with a cool, impenetrable stare. “You’re the boss, Detective.”
The words held just enough attitude to make her cheeks prickle. God, between his pushback and the condition of the scene, she’d had her work cut out for her by a blind man wielding a hacksaw. Then again, she probably should’ve known he was going to sling shit in her direction every millimeter of the way.
“Okay,” was all she said, tamping back the you moody, broody jackass part for the sake of the greater good. “Let’s take it from the top.”
Walker studied her for a minute before loosening his arms and turning toward the front walkway. “When we arrived on-scene, there were already flames showing in the first and second-story windows. My captain sent me and three other firefighters to do search and rescue inside the house.”
The door to the waist-high fence clanged shut behind them, rattling the NO TRESPASSING sign attached to the chain links. “Is that standard protocol, or did you think someone was in the house?”
A witness—or better yet, a suspect—was a complete Hail Mary, Isabella knew, the same way she was also ninety-nine-point-four percent sure both the captain and Kellan would’ve mentioned any suspicions that the house had been inhabited when they’d responded to the fire. But in her line of work, assumptions weren’t just dangerous. They could be deadly. Better to ask and be sure.
“Standard protocol,” Walker confirmed, moving over the concrete walkway that led to the house. “We do S&R on all residences showing flames unless the scene isn’t secure enough for us to enter.”
“And the four of you went in through the front door?” Isabella gestured toward the porch facing the street, now decorated by wide bands of bright yellow caution tape strung between the two posts on either side of the bottom step.