Chapter 8
Twenty minutes later, Vance’s unmarked command car pulled up to a modest, peeling-paint bungalow on the quiet side of Elm Street. The neighborhood was a quiet grid of small houses with overgrown lawns and rusted chain-link fences, sitting in the long shadow of the downtown skyline.
Vance stepped out into the steady drizzle, pulling his coat collar up against the chill. Harrelson parked right behind him, cutting the headlights.
“You think there’s actually something in that house?” Harrelson asked, checking the clip of his heavy-duty flashlight. “If Miller was running from something, the place might be flagged by now.”
“Only one way to find out,” Vance muttered, walking up the warped wooden steps of the front porch.
The front door wasn’t locked, just as Maya had said. It swung open with a dry, protesting creak into a small, dark living room smelling of damp laundry and cold linoleum. A television set sat silent in the corner, its screen reflecting the gray light from the rain-streaked window.
Vance moved directly into the tiny kitchen at the back of the house. The linoleum flooring was old, curling slightly at the edges near the battered gas stove. He dropped to his knees, running his fingers along the edge of a warped seam where the plywood subfloor met the baseboard.
“Give me the pry bar from the trunk,” Vance murmured over his shoulder.
A minute later, Harrelson handed him the short steel tool. Vance wedged the flat end into the seam and pressed down with a sharp, controlled heave. The old nails shrieked as they pulled free from the rotting timber, lifting a square section of flooring with a dry, dusty snap.
Beneath the cutout sat a heavy, water-resistant blue vinyl binder, bound with a thick rubber band.
Vance reached down, pulled the binder free, and flipped open the cover under the harsh glow of his flashlight. The pages inside weren't standard department paperwork. They were certified municipal inspection logs, architectural schematics of the Industrial Avenue textile mill, and a series of hand-written financial ledgers detailing payoffs routed through shell companies tied to the city’s urban renewal zoning board.
Highlighted in bright yellow marker on the final page was a single, devastating sentence: Scheduled demolition and controlled burn of Block 4 to clear title for commercial development, regardless of historical occupancy status.
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Harrelson stared over Vance’s shoulder, his breath catching in his throat. “Jesus Christ. They didn't just let that warehouse burn, Vance. They cleared it.”
“And Tom figured it out,” Vance said, standing up slowly, the binder clutched tightly in his big hand. “He wasn't trapped by a sudden collapse, Harrelson. He found out the fire was set from the inside, and someone made sure he didn't make it out to tell the report board.”
