In Texas, the weather had a temper of its own. And tonight was no exception. Lightning lit up the burn sight and thunder rumbled, shaking the ground around them. “Come on, Max, let’s do what we gotta do.” Grimm and Max combed the still-smoking wreck of a community skate park. The K-9 drew gazes as he climbed through the cooling burn site with his chest thrust forward and the working dog vest displayed proudly. He was like a completely different dog.

At least one of them seemed to know what he was doing.

Charred skateboards with peeling paint still hung on the one remaining standing wall. The small facility went up in flames faster than anyone expected.

He glanced around the ruin, expecting to see a ghost or two since he the DC’s order to leave the bandages off. Nothing.

Familiar scents surrounded him. Smoke, fire. The moment he stepped on the ash covered floor, nostalgia and the ache over a job he’d had to let go simmered in his gut. Remember why you’re here. He would never run into a burning building again as a firefighter, but he could do what needed to be done to keep his friends safe by nailing arsonists to the wall.

Torres waved him over.

Grimm nodded his compliance, but let Max sniff as he needed. The quick briefing given to him over the phone by the arson dog trainer suddenly seemed way too little in his desperate need to find the accelerant before the rain hit them.

Max was carefully sniffing in a spot for a moment, so Torres came to him, instead.

“Anyone injured in the fire?” Grimm had to know. He’d always asked, even when he was riding with Station 58.

“One kid from smoke inhalation and another from getting slammed up against the doorjamb as the kids ran out of the park. No deaths, but it was close. The fire started over here.”

Grimm could see the burn patters from where the fire had burned the hottest, longest. This was his first site as an investigator. “What makes you think this was arson?” He watched Max sniff his way through. The dog froze for a moment and then rushed forward. Grimm’s heart thundered in his chest the same way it had when he ran into a burning building. He chased after him, Torres on their heels.

“The way it burned. And the secondary explosion.”

Grimm eyed Torres as they chased Max. Max barked, pointed with his nose at the spot, and then sat immediately. Tail wagging, he looked up at Grimm with a dog grin. Grimm tossed him a chicken biscuit treat and Max caught it midair. He rubbed his head as the forensics team rushed over to start bagging evidence.

“Where was the location of the secondary explosion?”

“From behind the building, on a weak part of the support wall.”

No wonder investigations had immediately deemed it arson. “Just like the fire from two years ago.”

Torres slapped him on the back and jerked his head toward the rear of the rubble. “We need to see if he can find anything else.”

As soon as they were out of earshot of the others Torres leaned close. “There have been over a dozen of these types of fires. Dallas PD is in the middle of this one right now, and our jurisdiction is limited to your help. If not for Max, we might have been elbowed out of this one entirely. They’ve already got a suspect in custody, a local kid who had been busted spraying the walls with graffiti last weekend.”

“You’re thinking this kid is a serial arsonist?” Max tugged at the leash, and Grimm let him take the lead again. They climbed over rubble and through a cracked portion of the wall barely big enough for Grimm to squeeze through. Max barked and went a little nuts, running around in circles. He jumped at Grimm’s leg and back to a spot, frantically digging at something in the ground.

“Whoa! Does he always do that?” He jerked Max back, but the dog kept diving back at the spot.

“First time I’ve ever seen it. What did you find, boy?” Torres climbed through as well and Grimm glanced around the small room, or what was left of it. He had watched multiple videos of post-fire investigations, had been inside the charred hull of multiple burned buildings during training, but there was nothing like the real thing. The scent, the still smoking pieces of a building that could crumble on them at any moment, while working against a different kind of clock. One that could mean all the difference between success and an asshole getting away with murder. He might just get used to this.

Torres worked the area where Max had lost his shit.

At that moment, Max went completely still and pressed against Grimm’s side. His entire body shook and trembled and Grimm knelt down beside him. He offered a treat, expecting the dog to take it willingly, but instead he just stared at the spot as Torres dug through the rubble.

Grimm’s eye burned and he closed them both, hating the dread that welled up inside him. The last thing he needed was to see Ryan’s ghost. Not now.

The feeling remained, and Grimm finally let his eyes come back open. Standing next to them was a man Grimm had only seen in a picture with Max earlier that day. He looked older. And tired. If a ghost could ever be those things.

Max whimpered. The man touched the dogs head but passed through. Another tap of the head and a ruffling gesture, and then he stared pointedly at Grimm.

Grimm reached up and mimicked the movement on Max’s head. The dog eyed him for a moment and then swiped the side of his face with a giant lick.

The ghost of Alexander Mitchell gave him a wink. He walked over to Torres’s side and eased down next to the arson investigator.

“Holy shit.” Torres whooped and pulled out an evidence bag. “We’ve got an ID bracelet of some type. With the way Max was acting, this might be…well, there’s no reason to speculate yet. Let’s just hope he wasn’t too overenthusiastic.” Torres got up and moved to the open hole in the wall. “Get me forensics. I need to talk to the officer in charge of the scene.”

Torres took off his glove and scratched Max behind the ears. “Good boy, Maxie. Alex would be so proud.”

Alex smirked from where he still sat beside the hole Torres had dug. Grimm glanced over at Torres, who had already climbed out of the hole. He moved toward Alex’s ghost and knelt down next to him. “You don’t think this is an accident.”

Alex shook his head.

“The person who did this, you know him?”

Alex tilted his head slightly. Lightning struck, bright and white, and thunder exploded. The sound echoed off the walls and even some of the rubble from above fell. The room was unstable, but he had to keep asking questions.

“You’ve seen him before?”

A nod.

Grimm squeezed his eyes shut for a moment. He was talking to a ghost. Or himself. Maybe he’d taken a plunge right off the deep end.

Max nuzzled his arm and Grimm wrapped it around his neck, pulling the dog close to his side. He opened his eyes and stared at Alex. If this was the real deal, if he really could see the dead, he needed answers.

“Your death wasn’t an accident.”

Alex smiled and arched his eyebrows.

“What, now you’re not going to talk to me?” His frustration echoed another flash of lightning and clap of thunder.

“Who you talking to, Grimm?” Torres asked from behind him.

Grimm let go of Max and spun around. “Max. “ He hesitated for just a moment and then cleared his throat. “The guy doesn’t seem to want to do any more searches in here.”

“No worries. Get him to sweep the rest of the area. With this find, we got the PD off our backs about interfering with their investigation. A quick tip. Don’t let him dig. He doesn’t usually do that, but we need the evidence contamination-free.”

He nodded and felt like an idiot. “Got it.”

Another sweep found nothing. Max was still sniffing, but seemed unconcerned. At the end of the final sweep, he gave him a treat like he’d been instructed. Torres trotted over. “We’ve got a lot of work ahead of us tonight. Did you find anything else?”

“Not a thing.” He rubbed Max’s head the way Alex had showed him and the dog settled against his side, content despite another rumble of thunder.

The skies opened up and rain pelted them with icy abandon. The still-burning embers sizzled and sputtered before being completely consumed by the deluge.

Torres cursed. “That’s all we can do for now. At least for Max. We have paperwork that needs to be filled out. You’re in training so, you’ll need to be part of it. Head back to the office, and Erickson or someone on his crew can get you started. I need your statement of events, and Max’s assistance.”

“Doesn’t the primary investigator fill out the paperwork?” At least that’s what he’d read. “You wouldn’t be sticking me with all the admin work, would you?” He grinned.

Torres eyed him up and down. “I’m not even sure you can spell, you wet-behind-the-ears firebrat. Like hell, I’d trust you with my paperwork.” Water poured off the brim of his hat as he smirked at Grimm.

“Firebrat? Seriously?”

“I’m always serious. And the truth is that we need Max and a future arson dog. If we don’t prove that he’s an asset, we lose funding. As Max’s new, albeit possibly temporary if you turn out to be a pain in my ass, handler, this responsibility falls on you.” He smacked Grimm on the shoulder and water went flying. “Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Grimm tugged on Max’s leash. The rain pelted them as they made their way back to the truck. The vest hung on Max’s body like a sodden blanket.

He let the dog in through the passenger side and then ran around to his. Max waited until they were both in the truck before he let loose with a full body shake off. Water, ash, and mud exploded across the cab and Grimm sighed. He dropped his hands on the steering wheel. When the truck roared to life, he dragged on his seatbelt. This was not a fun night. Give him a raging fire and a controlled burn off any day over one minute of paperwork.

He glanced at Max who panted in the contented way only a dog could pull off.

Maybe it wasn’t so bad after all.

As he pulled away from the crime scene, his phone rang with a familiar song that echoed through his Bluetooth connection. He activated the call through his steering wheel control. “If you’re calling, it must be two in the morning on a slow night.”

“Hey Grimm, how was your first day?” His old captain from Station 58 was a voice he hadn’t heard since his graduation from arson investigation training.

“Busy. First night and already on a case. Did you know we have a K-9 in the division?”

“Yeah, Stephanie Lowe mentioned it once. Don’t tell me the dog bit you? What did I tell you about trying to be the alpha dog in a new den?”

Grimm’s stomach did a flip at the mention of her name. “You know Stephanie?” He couldn’t control the way his muscles clenched, or the sudden possessiveness that spiked through him.

“I met her at the hospital the same day you did, man. Don’t you remember?”

The icy shiver down his spine had nothing to do with his rain-soaked collar. “I don’t remember much from then.” He remembered screaming, panic, and refusal to believe Ryan was dead. That was a time he’d rather shove into the memory banks and bury at sea. Forever. “What was a veterinarian doing at a hospital?”

A low whistle came over the line and Max perked up from where he’d plopped down to rest in the passenger seat. Grimm’s grip on the steering wheel tightened.

“Sorry, man. I didn’t know you couldn’t remember. Stephanie Lowe is Ryan’s cousin. She had graduated from vet school the same day of the fire.”

Suddenly it hit him. Grimm pulled over on the side of the road. His hands shook. Her smile. If he added some freckles, turned her dark hair into bottle blonde, and replaced her womanly curves with a knobby teenager who was all knees and elbows, and you’d have the girl in the photo that Ryan always loved to show off. He called her his sister because they’d been raised together.

“Hey you okay?”

“Yeah, Captain, I have to go. This rain isn’t letting up, and the roads are crap.”

“Living that glamorous life, huh? Gimme a call tomorrow. Let me know how things are going.”

His stomach clenched. “Will do.”

“And Grimm, you’re always welcome at the station. The guys miss you.”

“Yeah, I miss them too.” Grimm ended the call and rested his head on the steering wheel.

Stephanie and Keith, the cousins who had lost everything in a fire, and the reason Ryan had decided to take the path he’d chosen.

He remembered Stephanie’s disappointment earlier that day. The way she’d seemed to expect something. He hadn’t remembered her, because remembering her would be inviting every excruciating moment of that day to swallow him whole.

The rain let up, and Grimm beat down his emotions. Grief and guilt were old companions, choking him as he pulled back onto the road. He battered the memories and tried to stuff them back down into the little boxes he’d been able to close off for two years.

Stephanie Lowe. She had to have known who he was. Why didn’t she say anything?