Prologue – Part 4 – Six Years Ago

"Miss Jessica Mason?"

She turned around, expecting to see a uniform— police, paramedic, or firefighter.  But the man talking to her wasn't any of those, at least not to look at him.  He was stocky, in his late forties, or early fifties; older than her father.  He was balding, and what hair he had was slate gray.  The expensive suit he wore had been marred by standing in the snow too long.  Abstract salt stains rippled across the legs of his trousers and the lower edge of the black trench-coat he wore.  His tie pin was a golden bald eagle.

To Jessica, the eagle looked as if it had been caught in the midst of diving after some small mammal.

"Miss Mason?"

"Who are you?" Jessica asked.  They were the first words she'd spoken since her father's clothes had ignited.  It made her realize that her mouth tasted like smoke.

The man flipped out his wallet to show her an official-looking ID.  "Special Agent Fred Jackson, ASI."

The initials meant nothing to Jessica, and Agent Jackson only held out the ID long enough for her to see his picture and catch the fact that ASI stood for "Agency for. . ." something or other.

As far as Jessica was concerned, that meant this guy was a cop.  She felt an urge to run, but there were cops and firemen all over the place.  There was really no place to run to.  She realized that she wanted to be caught.  She had freed herself from her father, permanently, but she had also destroyed her home, and her life, in the process.  Her mother was dead, and she had no relatives to turn to.

She looked up at Agent Jackson.  He was smiling, trying to project a reassuring manner.  In it she thought she saw a hint of the same false sincerity that her dad projected when he wanted something from her.

It took Jessica a few moments to remind herself that her father was dead.  She nodded at Agent Jackson because she didn't trust herself to talk.

Agent Jackson obviously knew who she was.  He'd probably been watching her watch the fire for a long time.  "I'm sorry to come to you at a time like this," Agent Jackson said.

For some reason, that struck Jessica as funny.  As if there was any other reason to talk to her.  She wasn't anything.  The only fact that made her part-way noticeable was the fact she'd torched her only parent and the house she'd lived in.  Barely enough to make the news.

Jessica shivered and felt her eyes watering.

"I'm here to help you," he said.

"Yeah right," Jessica responded, sniffing.  She was long past anyone's help.  If anyone had ever bothered to help her, her father might still be alive.  She didn't want any help.

"We want to help you understand what happened here."

Not a cop, a damn social worker.  She tried to fix him with a withering glare.  The effect was ruined by the tears streaming down her cheeks.  "I know why.  I just think of daddy and I know why."

Jessica realized, belatedly, that she had just made an indirect admission of arson.  She also realized that she didn't care. Agent Jackson, however, looked unsurprised at her outburst.  Either he was too dense to read between the lines, or he already knew what Jessica had done.  Jessica looked at him and suspected the latter, even though there was no possible way he could have known.

"You know why," Agent Jackson said.  "Do you know how?"

Jessica opened her mouth, but no words came out.  It wasn't the question she expected.  It was also a question to which she had no answer.  She remembered her anger.  She remembered Daddy's clothing sprouting a dozen jets of flame.  She could remember that she had done it—

But she didn't remember what she had done.  Her own memory of what happened didn't make any sense.  She knew she had set him on fire, but she didn't remember touching him, or even so much as lighting a match.

The fact that this stranger saw so deeply into her own confusion was terrifying.

"We want to help you, Jessica.  We know what you're going through."

Jessica was frightened, but she also had an intense desire to understand what this man was offering.  The fact he knew so much scared her.  But it also meant he probably knew more than she did. She had done something to her father.  She was just beginning to understand that it might not have been anything simple or mundane.  She had watched her house explode into an inferno in a matter of minutes.  She had watched the walls of the living-room spontaneously erupt into rippling sheets of flame.

Maybe understanding exactly what happened was the only way she could prevent it in the future.  She looked at the smoking ruin of the house, remembering the power of the flames that had reduced everything to ash.

Maybe understanding exactly what happened would be the only way she could do it again.

Jessica looked up at Agent Jackson.  "What do you want?" she asked.