Scarlett flipped open the next folder, spreading the paper out across the table. She’d been at it for hours, and getting nowhere fast. After deliberately making herself scarce at the usual scenes after the last shift, she’d spent the day at the station, hiding away in a conference room in the hopes her captain wouldn’t notice she was still there. Today was supposed to be her first day at the firehouse, but it was also the day Connor and his crew were back on duty. Scarlett was putting off actually being in the same building as Connor for as long as possible. She tried to ignore the skitter under her skin from just thinking about it. Part pleasure, part nerves, and everything in between, it made her jumpy, something a cop couldn’t afford to be. Sitting across the table from him at the firehouse would set her foot tapping and her nerves jangling. She huffed and rubbed at her gritty eyes. Hell, who was she kidding? Just being in the same town as Connor McClellan was enough to do that.

She forced her eyes back to the piles of paperwork she still had to go through. A stack of photos lay on top, the official record of what had been left of the building after the last fire.

It had been a small miracle that neither of the houses on either side had been caught in the flames. One spark is all it would have taken. She shivered at the thought. They were still trying to figure out if anyone had truly lived in the house that had been destroyed that night. She knew for sure, though, that the houses on either side sheltered young families. She’d interviewed them herself. Scarlett’s stomach roiled. How did people wake up every day, eat breakfast, go to work, and carry on as if everything in the world was okay? How did they live their lives without being constantly terrified of what was just around the corner? You were never truly safe. She’d learned that lesson brutally that cold morning, and it was one that she’d never forget. There was no long, happy life together, no retirement at the end of a successful career. No one could guarantee that.

She thumbed through the images, trying not to see them but at the same time unable to tear her eyes away. One spark. Just one, and those people’s lives would have changed in an instant.

Scarlett threw the photos back on the desk, closing her eyes in disgust at herself. It was time to stop sniveling. She hadn’t been able to save her husband’s life—hadn’t even known the big bad was out there hunting him. No amount of sitting there feeling sorry for herself was going to change her life. Did the men who had killed her husband know that they’d been killing her at the same time? They might as well have been. Even lying naked and sated with a gorgeous man like Connor McClellan hadn’t been able to bring her back to life. He’d taken the edge off—and God, it had been a hell of a ride—but shame had washed over her the moment he’d left. What the hell had she been thinking? She still saw Derek’s partner at work every day. The man still looked haunted every time he looked at her. She knew why. He still felt it, too. The crushing guilt that Derek was gone and they were still alive.

Connor had been a tasty distraction, but she couldn’t let herself go there. She still wasn’t sure if she’d survived what happened to Derek some days. If she started a relationship with another first responder, another person who placed themselves in the line of fire every day . . . no. Scarlett shook her head, forcing her attention back on the papers. This, she could do something about. She didn’t know who had destroyed her life, but this time evil had shown their hand. The clue was in there somewhere. All she had to do was find it, and perhaps she could stop anyone else from joining her in hell.

Someone cleared their throat, and she looked up. The desk sergeant looked at her with a half-smile, holding out a folder. Scarlett forced what felt like an almost permanent scowl off her face and tried to smile back. It felt foreign, but at least she wasn’t glaring at the poor guy.

She sighed, opening the folder. Maybe after this case was done, after she’d caught the bastard terrorizing Monroe, she’d finally take some of the time off her captain had been practically begging her to take. She could leave town for a while, clear her head of everything—and everyone—keeping her awake at night. Maybe after that, she’d finally be able to move on with her life, whatever was left of it. But first, she had to figure out what the hell was going on.

She read the report, findings from swabs around the hottest part of the fire, as well as in the room where she and Connor had found the surprise. Even if they were some fancy type of scuba gear, what were piles of it doing in a suburban house in Monroe? Tybee Island was over four hours away. The nearest place to dive was nearly two hours in the other direction in Atlanta, and a quick internet search had revealed that they supplied all the equipment. Whatever that stuff was for, she’d bet money that it wasn’t for going for a swim.

Her eyes skated over the findings, her brow furrowing. Nothing. Nothing she could use, anyway. The lab rats had found the usual; residue from melted furnishings, along with the chemicals used to put out the damn thing. She flipped the page, her frown deepening. No, there was nothing there to indicate someone was cooking meth, or doing anything that was the stuff of law-enforcement nightmares in recent times, like dirty bombs or chemical warfare. But there was something—she couldn’t put her finger on it, exactly, but her gut knew it. After the last few years, Scarlett would never ignore her gut again.

There was no nitrogen found—the key component to any homemade fertilizer bomb everyone knew about. She rolled her eyes. No one was that dumb. They’d gotten extremely good at detecting it, and anyone who wasn’t a complete rookie would have gone with something smarter, something more sophisticated—or maybe something more simple. No, what was scaring her more every second was the traces of acetone, hair bleach, and battery acid—everything needed to create a compound that was incredibly hard to detect, and even more unstable. Used in terrorist attacks as far away as London and as fucking close as Oklahoma, the stuff could be made from products bought at the local hardware store, and created something containing only hydrogen, oxygen, and carbon—only some of the three most common elements on earth. Detecting it was still experimental, and more high-tech than anyone local had access to, possibly even the Feds in Atlanta.

She sat back in her chair. The stuff was as unstable as it was powerful, and could easily account for the damage done to the house last night in only small quantities. God, she hoped she was wrong. Either that, or she hoped that whoever had been experimenting had died in the blast. If someone was still out there in Monroe who knew how to cook TATP, they were all fucked.

Scarlett slammed the file shut. Even if it was the deadly concoction that even terrorists had nicknamed “The Mother of Satan,” she didn’t have the first clue what to do next. Ban everyone from purchasing cleaning products? Blow their entire yearly budget on getting one of the alphabet-soup agencies down there with a detector on a whim? Her captain would have her head for bringing the Feds in unwarranted as much as for the expense. It was one thing they could still agree on. She had to find something more than just suspicions, or they’d lose control of the investigation entirely. So what . . .

Her cell rang in her pocket, interrupting her train of thought. She cringed at the name on screen—Connor—but answered it. At least this way, she had a hang-up button. If she didn’t answer, he’d probably show up at the station within ten minutes. Scarlett mentally rolled her eyes at the small smile that slid across her lips at the thought. It had only been minutes since she’d told herself it wasn’t going to happen—for what felt like the billionth time that day, but her body didn’t care. Her entire body tingled, lit up with imagined sensation, every time she pictured his face in her mind, lying over her, moving deep inside her . . .

“Scarlett? You there?”

Her face burned when she realized she’d answered the phone and then disappeared into her own thoughts, leaving Connor hanging on the other end of the line. If he hadn’t already figured out she was a complete idiot, then that ought to do it. She swallowed, then finally found her voice. “Yup. What’s up?” Damn it, she sounded way too perky.

Connor didn’t seem to notice, his voice low as it came through the phone. “We’ve got another fire.”