Elena leads the investigation as she tries to determine to cause of the fire. She does her walk-around of the ravaged structure, looking for the fire's point of origin. The west portion of the store is destroyed, and the east side shows heat and water damage from the building's sprinklers and the fire hoses.
Skip loaders and bulldozers are already moving debris while Elena, with the assistance of Damon's firemen, armed with shovels and wheelbarrows, tries to find the bodies of the missing victims. Each time a skip loader snares a load, they have to carefully look inside for the remnants of charred human beings.
Elena sees the crane remove twisted steel beams from the center of the building where the roof has collapsed and talks with the store manager who has been called to the scene.
Joshua Parker, tells her that there were racks full of polyurethane foam products, which, he tells her, "explode like wildfire."
After her initial hour-and-a-half investigation, Elena is unable to eliminate the possibility of electrical shorting. This fire is very hard to read because there was so much potential fuel in the store, and that overhead burning, which causes ceiling material to drop and start secondary fires, could have ignited numerous hot spots.
Monique Devereaux tells Elena she observed a column of dark smoke nearly two feet in diameter in the southeast part of the store.
Joshua Parker explains that he had not only seen smoke but an amazingly fast fire that chased him and created a draft of its own, blowing him out the door.
"Over here!" Damon's stomach roils when they uncover the charred remains of Violet and Billy Fell.
Pulling off his helmet, Damon wipes his dirt and sweat-drenched brow with the back of his forearm. Looking over the burnt and still smoldering ruins, he swallows back the revulsion he feels at the needless death and devastation.
With his axe in hand, he collapses onto it. The sun is streaming through the trees surrounding what remains of a once vibrant business... It almost looks surreal to see such beauty amid such destruction.
After the bodies are carefully removed and transported to the morgue, they continue sifting through the ruins.
"Are you okay?" Elena approaches him.
"Not now, but I will be," Damon states with a steely resolve. "We need to catch this bastard!" he stares at her for a minute before turning his head and spitting.
"I've been looking for signs of the fire's direction. Normally, fire moves upward through a heat-transfer process, and as it hits a surface, a wall, or a ceiling it follows the path of least resistance, spreading out in a V, upward and outward. The V or convex pattern reveals the point of origin in a simple fire."
"And?"
"The roof collapsed in the center of the building after temperatures in the location reached 160 degrees and melted the doors' fusible links, both north, and south steel fire doors had rolled down as they were designed to do. The speed and heat of this fire are astonishing, and those doors sealed egress quickly, very quickly."
"Could this have just been a tragic fire?"
"I can't possibly make that assumption yet. As I said the fire moved very fast. It caught up with people trying to outrun it, so there had to have been a large load of fuel."
"It's too coincidental to have an accidental fire on the same night that our arsonist would have struck. It had to have been set."
"Let's get back to work." Elena puts her helmet back on and trudges with her rubber boots deeper into the building. A few hours later, as she and the others are about to call it a day, she finds a delay device that's different from most cigarette-matchbook devices. This one, or what's left of it, is a cigarette with three paper matches attached to it by a rubber band. Such devices provide up to fifteen minutes or more for an arsonist to leave a store before the burning cigarette ignites the matches, which in turn ignites flammable material around them.
Very carefully, Elena drops the device into an evidence bag and goes in search of Damon. When she finds him, she holds it up for him to see.
"So something this simple started this disaster?" Damon asks as he meets her eyes.
Elena nods. "Chief Forbes will need to add 2 counts of murder to the list of charges when we catch this guy."
He hasn't attempted such a large-scale fire before.
But with it being near closing time, no one would give him a second glance as he checked out with the supplies needed to do an oil change on his vehicle.
The first fire truck came to a stop, scattering groups of people who'd already gathered to gawk at the blaze.
The bright orange flames began to arc high above the single-story building.
He never wanted anyone to get hurt.
He screwed up.
Sheriff Forbes walks through the puddles in the parking lot to where Elena is standing in the rubble. She turns her head and shows Liz the evidence bag.
"I found this. It's an incendiary device."
"I've seen these before. It's unbelievable that something as simple as this could cause so much damage and heartbreak and yet somehow it wasn't incinerated." Liz shakes her head. "I don't know how Mark Fell is going to get through this. Sometimes, although not always, I believe in divine intervention."
"Divine intervention?" Elena looks at her curiously.
"He and Violet have an older child, Michael, who fortunately is with her parents in Richmond. If he had been home, he might have died along with his mom and little brother."
"I guess I see your point." Elena agrees.
"Shouldn't you get some rest? It's five o'clock already. You have been here since last evening." Liz looks at one of the most highly qualified FBI agents in her field. "I'm sure Damon would agree."
Elena begins to argue, but soon realizes the futility of it. Sheriff Forbes is likely to call Elijah who will read her the riot act for not taking care of herself.
"I need to get this to the office and log it in. I intend to drive back here when I'm done. I expect you to be gone by then." Liz gives her a firm look before walking to her squad car.
"You need a ride?"
Elena's head snaps around at the sound of Damon's voice.
"I was pretty much commanded to go back to the boarding house."
"What's that?" he asks when he sees a blood smear on her arm.
Elena looks down, only now noticing the dried blood on her forearm. "I must have scratched myself."
Damon's brow furrows as he studies her. He lifts her arm gently to get a better look at it.
Her breath hitches at the unintended intimacy of his fingers on her skin. "Really, it's nothing."
"It needs to be cleaned out if nothing else. Didn't they teach you anything when you took this job?" He asks with a healthy dose of sarcasm as his eyes flash with something she doesn't want to identify.
"Fine." she huffs, and reluctantly follows him to his car.
She clicks her seatbelt and hesitantly turns and studies his profile. "How are the guys? It's always hard to find bodies in that condition."
He sighs as he looks in her direction. "Yeah, it's not something we deal with regularly. The last deadly fire in Mystic Falls was in 2016. The victim was trying to start a wood stove with gasoline. He lingered for a couple of months in the Richmond burn unit before succumbing to his injuries."
"There are counselors who do this thing for a living. I can recommend a couple..." Elena shifts forward in her seat and holds her head in her hands. The adrenaline is beginning to leak away, leaving her more tired than she's felt in a very long while - much too tired to be in such close proximity to Damon.
"Any injuries?" she asks with a yawn.
"Evan got the worst of it. He slipped and sprained his ankle. Enzo got treated for smoke inhalation. He'll be released in the morning. And we'll be working short-handed. Logan is Mark Fell's brother so he'll be off in addition to Evan."
"Such a tragedy." Elena lets out a long sigh.
"What's it going to take to catch this guy?"
Instead of answering, she turns and looks out the window as the countryside rushes by.
"Elena?" He pulls the car to the side of the road. "Hey, look at me." Silence hangs heavy in the car. "What are you thinking?"
Elena swallows thickly, unaware that they aren't moving until she turns back to face him. For just an instant, her eyes are a little too bright. She's too tired to even think right now.
"Look, although the device was simple, this was a complex fire. Either his person is extremely lucky or he is not an amateur."
"I have faith in you. He will slip up and we'll catch him. It may take longer than we'd like but it will happen." Damon holds her stare for several moments before starting the Camaro and driving her back to the boarding house.
Damon walks with Elena into the boarding house where they're immediately met by Zach and Jenna.
"Are you okay?" Zach looks over his nephew, sizing him up.
"I'm fine. A couple of the guys got minor injuries but that's all," Damon assures his uncle.
"And how are you?" Zach asks Elena as he nods at her arm.
"It's just a scratch. I'm fine, just tired." Elena admits with a yawn.
"So you found their bodies?" Jenna asks, her eyes drifting from Elena to Damon.
"Yes. Violet had her arms wrapped around little Billy. Monique Devereaux said she tried to get her to leave the store. I suspect she was searching for Mark but we'll never know," Damon explains. "They were transported to the morgue in Richmond for autopsy."
"If you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a bath and get some rest. We have a lot of work to do yet. Goodnight." Elena nods as she ascends the staircase and disappears.
"Are you hungry, Damon?" Jenna asks, looking at him with concern.
"I'm too tired to be hungry. I'm just going to go home and crash." Damon gives Jenna a hug.
Zach follows him outside to the car. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I will be. Goodnight, Zach." Damon gives him a nod as he slides inside the Camaro and drives away with a wave of his hand.
Elena closes the door to her room, shuts her eyes, and leans back against the door for several moments. Her stomach grumbles - trying to give her a third option for consideration, and she realizes she hasn't eaten anything since this morning. She walks over and rummages through her bag, sighing when she finds a Cliff bar. After setting it down on her bedside stand, she goes into the bathroom.
"Damn it! Elena hisses as she tugs her shirt over her head. Her sleeve sticks to the blood and pulls off the small clots that had formed, making it bead up with blood again. It does sting but it looks worse than it is.
Stripping out of the remainder of her clothes, she turns on the faucet to the bathtub. She needs to clean up. She needs to think. She needs to sleep.
While waiting for the water to fill, she reaches for the travel-size bottle of cinnamon roll-scented bubble bath that's sitting on the sink. She pours a generous amount of the bottle into the filling tub. Instantly, a thick foam coats the top of the water. Elena grabs a towel and steps into the water. Using the towel as a makeshift pillow, she leans back into the water and closes her eyes.
Blinking awake, she catches herself just before she slides beneath the water. Elena blows out a breath, pulls the stopper out of the drain, and steps out of the tub. The open bathroom door allows the cooler air from the room's air conditioner into the steamy room. She shivers against the temperature change. Gently toweling off, she stands in front of the mirror and brushes through the tangled mess of her hair. After putting it in a ponytail with a scrunchie, she slaps a couple of bandaids on her scratch, grabs her Mac book, and crawls into the bed.
Reaching for her Cliff bar, she peels back the wrapper and gobbles it up. Using her laptop, she types what she knows about the fires into a database. The arsonist is escalating with his targets.
An old bandstand, an ice cream shop, a dog kennel, an abandoned drive-thru restaurant on the outskirts of Mystic Falls, and a photo studio. Insignificant targets at first- empty buildings, and now a thriving business that resulted in two deaths.
She suspects he'll continue to escalate until he's caught...
She's been awake for 36 hours now. Elena massages her temples and settles down into her pillows. Against her will, her eyes fall closed...
Thank you!
Chapter title: 'Sea of Red' by Michael Malarky aka Enzo. I'm not a fan of his music but Eva likes it. She went to see him perform in Prague and got her picture taken with him.
I actually had a co-worker whose husband tried starting their wood stove with gasoline. He lingered for a couple of months in the burn center before he passed away leaving my friend and their 5 kids behind. She never came back to work at the hospital because he had worked there, too and it reminded her too much of him.
Take care and have a lovely day.
