Logan crouched down to pet the cat, who was licking his paws. There was a can of tuna on the ground, most likely left by Harper he assumed. He knew she was mad at him for telling her to stop playing Nancy Drew and trying to find whoever was sabotaging things, but he also didn’t want her in any danger. The fact the person had left that picture on her desk was really telling. He'd seen a lot of sickos when he was a cop, and the ones who taunted people were the worst. There was no way he would let Harper get near this guy. Maybe he was being a little overprotective, but too bad, Harper was starting to become important to him and he wasn’t about to let her get in harm’s way.

He stood and looked around, thinking about how he was going to catch the person. He'd scanned the crowd in the parking lot when the fire happened, and George had been missing. It didn’t necessarily mean he'd set the fire, Logan knew a few people had exited towards the back of the building during the alarm, and it was totally possible George was one of them. Harper had also mentioned Ben, he'd been in the parking lot. Then there was Noah, he'd been in the smoking area and seemed kind of sketchy.

George and Ben both had access to the room where the lights were, as well as the rooms where the runway had been staged, and the makeshift dressing rooms. But he'd done extensive background checks on them both, and for the most part, they were clean. Minor problems in their past, and they'd worked together before, but that wasn’t unusual. Coworkers often recommend friends or people they worked with in the past to be hired. He'd noted each of them must have had hard times financially based on their addresses and poor credit scores. It even looked like each had been homeless for a while. But did that have anything to do with this case? Logan couldn’t figure out how it could.

Maybe the dressing room was the best place to start. Maybe, whoever it was that had set the fire, had left a clue behind.

He made his way to the dressing room, lifting the yellow caution tape up so he could walk under it.

“Sorry, only authorized … hey, Logan! Long time no see!”

Logan shook hands with the burly cop, someone he'd known for years back on the force. After some small talk he looked inside the room.

The brick walls were smattered with black soot. The ceiling was the original high exposed one with no ceiling tiles and just the metal ductwork. That had been good, because if everything had been wood or Sheetrock the place would have completely lit up and spread outside the room. Instead, it was just the clothes that had burned, their charred remains scattered all over the floor.

Gertie was already inside, barking orders at everyone. Logan chuckled because even the cops and the arson investigator were deferring to her.

He approached the arson investigator, someone else he knew from his past.

“Any idea how this started?” he asked, looking around at all the burned clothing and trying to make some sense of it.

“The only thing we found out of place was the remnant of a cigarette butt. Camel, non-filter. We think that’s how the fire started, someone used it to light some cloth then tossed it aside.”

Logan nodded his head slowly. He knew Ben and Noah smoked. Who else did? And what brand did they smoke? He needed to find that out, now.

Big T walked slowly down the hospital corridor, the overhead fluorescent lights humming softly. The grey and white industrial tile floor pattern seemed to go on forever, the colors blending into the drab off-white walls. He hesitated before he opened the door to his mother’s room, dreading what he was about to tell her.

The machines inside her hospital room whirred and beeped as usual, the constant noise having no effect on Big T’s mother’s sleep as she lay quietly in the bed. Her eyes opened as Big T sat in the chair next to her bed.

“Bad news, Mom. The DNA wasn’t a match.” He struggled to get the words out, knowing he'd failed her. He'd been positive they would have been a match. That this would have fixed everything and given his mom the kidney donor she needed.

His mother nodded her head a little, the tubes that carried oxygen into her nose moving slightly. “It’s okay,” she said softly.

“No! It’s not okay, Mom. Our lives would be so much different if this hadn’t happened to begin with.”

“Don’t think that way. She did what she had to, I don’t hold any grudge against her. You should know that, I raised you better than to blame others for things going wrong in your life. It is what it is, dear, everything will be fine.”

She closed her eyes after talking, as if it had taken so much energy to say the words that she needed to rest. It killed Big T to see her like this.

“I’m going to make things right, to make her pay for what she did. If it’s the last thing I do, I will make things right!” he said, his face getting red from anger and his hand tightening into fists.

His mother opened her eyes and sat up a little, pointing her frail finger at him.

“I don’t like the way you are talking! I know you have a lot of anger, but you need to let it go. Forgive. It is not good for you to carry around all this anger.”

Big T knew he was upsetting her and settled back into his chair, reaching out for her hand.

“Sorry, Mom. I just wish things could be even.”

“Be careful what you wish for.” She squeezed his hand lightly then closed her eyes, drifting off to sleep again. Big T stood slowly and left the room as quietly as he could, wondering if, maybe, he should follow her advice and let things be. Nah. Maybe his mom could forgive and forget, but he couldn’t. He needed revenge, and he would get it. Besides, he was too smart for those dimwits at O’Rourke’s. He knew Logan was a PI and he’d been putting cameras all over to monitor what’s going on, but the joke was on him, everything was arranged to throw him way off track.

And tomorrow night, well, tomorrow night would be the perfect opportunity for him to finally get his revenge.