Page 19 of Finding Home

They were both fighting for relevance, for purpose beyond their past achievements. The difference this time, Julie thought, was that they might help each other succeed.

Chapter 13

The call came at six forty-seven in the morning.

Cole was already dressed, already on his second cup of coffee in the cramped kitchenette of his rental, when Noah’s number lit up his screen. The urgency in his voice arrived before the words made sense.

“There’s been a fire at Finley Point. You need to get here now.”

Cole set down the mug, grabbed his keys, and was out the door before Noah finished his last sentence.

He smelled the fire before he reached the gate. It was acrid and chemical, the pungent stench of lumber and insulation burning together. He parked behind one of the two county fire trucks and walked toward the chaos with dread collecting in his chest.

What remained of the large storage shed was a blackened skeleton. Charred two-by-fours jutted at odd angles against the pale Montana sky. The firefighters had contained it, but they hadn’t saved much. Cole could see the ruins of the survey equipment and other tools, wrapped in melted plastic and warped beyond use. Behind that, slabs of timber that would have been made into bespoke furniture sat in collapsed, smoking heaps.

“The fire started around six this morning.” Noah fell into step beside him, his jaw set with controlled anger. “One of the security guys we hired saw the glow and called it in. The fire department got here as fast as they could.”

Cole looked at the towering pine, oak, and spruce trees surrounding the site. If sparks from the fire had landed on them, they’d be looking at an entirely different outcome. “It could have been a lot worse.”

Noah led him away from what was left of the storage shed. “The only saving grace is that no one was injured. The security guards were changing shifts. If they’d been here when whoever set the fire arrived, they might have gotten hurt.”

Sheriff Marcy Thompson intercepted them near the perimeter tape. Behind her, another deputy was heading toward the burned remains of the shed with a camera. “It’s probably arson,” she said with no preamble. “Accelerant was used on the eastern wall. There were no witnesses beyond the security guards who were on the far side of the property when it started. We’ll know more once the fire investigator from Kalispell does her assessment. She’ll be here in a couple of hours.”

Noah looked across the site. “How long will the assessment take?”

“We should have her report before the end of the week.” Marcy’s voice was steady and professional, but something in it acknowledged the gravity of what stood between them. “After what’s already happened, this wasn’t random vandalism. Whoever lit the fire was sending a message to you.”

Cole already knew that. He’d known it from the moment Noah called. The first incident had felt like intimidation. It was disruptive, costly, but targeted at machinery. This was different. This was destruction with intent, the kind of act that required planning and nerve.

Someone was getting desperate.

Cole calculated the loss while he stood there, a habit so ingrained he couldn’t stop it even now. The specialty windows alone had cost thirty-eight thousand dollars. And then there was the framing materials, the tools stored inside, and the entire contents of what had taken six weeks of careful procurement. He was looking at a direct financial blow somewhere north of ninety thousand.

That didn’t account for the delivery delays, the subcontractor schedule that would now need rebuilding from the ground up, or what this would do to the insurance carrier’s appetite for the project going forward.

He turned away from the debris and faced the lake, needing a moment to breathe air that didn’t carry smoke.

Flathead Lake was luminous this morning. It lay flat and pewter-bright beneath a sky just beginning to warm. He’d stood on this exact ground a hundred times now and knew this place was worth every complication, every delay, and every sleepless night.

Someone had vandalized the site and burned the storage shed to the ground, but they couldn’t take away what was in front of him.

“Cole.” Noah touched his shoulder lightly. “Julie’s here.”

He turned around.

Julie was hurrying across the site with her camera slung over her shoulder. She was wearing a fleece pullover and boots, her hair still down from wherever she’d been when she heard the news. There was no notebook in her hands yet, but it would be in her pocket, ready to record the answers to her questions.

He hadn’t called her, but she’d come anyway.

She paused beside a firefighter and spoke to him. Her gaze was already tracking the scene, taking in everything. The firefighter pointed toward the shed’s eastern wall. Julie lifted the camera.

Cole turned to Marcy. She already knew that Julie was helping to find whoever was responsible for the vandalism. “Are you happy for Julie to be here?”

Marcy nodded. “As long as she keeps away from the shed, she’ll be fine.”

Cole didn’t have to worry about that. Julie had been to enough crime scenes to know what she could and couldn’t do. She carefully moved around the edge of the wreckage without interfering in what the police and firefighters were doing.

Noah checked his watch. “I need to head home. Cassie’s flying to Dallas this morning, and I promised I’d see her off.”