Page 15 of Head Room

I clicked my tongue to convey a high level of irkedness, but kept looking.

Burned stuff, burned stuff, burned stuff.What did she—?

Oh.

Maybe...

I shifted myself, rather than the camera.That let me view an adjacent area.Then I went back to my original position to look at the original area.

As she had, I straightened to look at the scene not through the camera, then repeated the whole cycle.Original area, additional area, back to original area.

“There’s a pattern,” I said.“Barely visible to the naked eye, but once you spot it through the lens, you can see it faintly.”

“I’m using a filter to cut through the lingering smoke haze.”

I looked back through the lens, then straightened again, this time turning away from the scene to face Diana.

“I said pattern, but it’s nothing regular.It looks more like—” Our eyes locked and I saw her agreement before I spoke the words.“—what might result from splashing accelerant around.”

“Sort of.You’re right it’s irregular away from the fireplace, sort of in the center of what must have been the main room.But check beyond that.”

I gave her a look, using it rather than words, to sayJust tell me already.No dice.“What am I looking for?”

“C’mon, Elizabeth.You don’t need hints.”

I breathed out through my nose and applied myself to the viewfinder again.The tripod allowed me to shift it without destabilizing the camera.The image moved toward the outside perimeter.Guessing from the orientation to the entry road, the most likely spot for a front door.Then I followed the line of debris to the right.

Before I reached the corner — of the debris field and most likely the exterior wall — I straightened and looked at Diana again.

She said only, “Keep looking.”

I did.

All around the rough rectangle of what had once been the home of the Jardoses.

I also checked the area on either side of the fireplace.

Then I straightened again.“More of that pattern we’re taking for accelerant all around the exterior walls.It’s not where I’d think the interior walls for bedroom and bathroom were.Only place I spotted it inside is that oversized splash mark about a body length from the fireplace, where the head was,” I finished grimly.

“Agreed.What first caught my attention was around this back wall.Then I followed it all the way around, before crisscrossing the interior.I’d just finished and returned to the area inside when you came up.”

“Why didn’t the firefighters spot this?”

“Like I said, the filter.And I don’t know if it would be as clear from ground level.I’m going to grid the area, make sure I’ve documented it.It’ll take me a while and it’ll be boring.If you want to leave...”

“No.I’ll stay.We’ll have to go to Shelton.”

“And Russ.”

I tried not to grimace at her adding the sheriff — Russ Conrad, who happened to be her significant other — to the prospective confab.

“I’ll wait for you down there.”

At leastdown therehad access to the water bottle in my vehicle.Diana, of course, had come prepared, with water bottles in her bag.But I wasn’t going to use up her supply.

It would also give me a chance to look more closely at the scene.

As I descended with only moderate skidding and sliding, I acknowledged I’d been wrong.This scene wasn’t nothingness.