Free Incandescent by Madeline Sloane

and into his lungs. He tossed the match aside, and pulled a
folded yellow paper tube from his pocket. He removed the rubber
band, slid the lit cigarette into the tube, then snapped the band
back in place.
    He slid the incendiary device in a small gap
between bales of hay on the back of an 18-wheel tractor-trailer
truck.
    He didn’t wait to watch for the smolder.
Instead, he walked towards the one-story concrete building next
door with its promise of exotic dancers and triple x-rated movies.
He stepped into the obscurity of the adult bookstore. He heard
music and whistles from the back of the building, partitioned by a
black curtain and guarded by a bald man. The bouncer sat in a
wooden chair, one blue-jean leg crossed over a knee, his stained
and faded T-shirt straining against layers of fat. He raised his
eyes from the magazine in his lap, nodded once and went back to
studying the photographs.
    Instead of heading for the lounge where nude
women danced, the man walked towards the store and its pornographic
movies. He monitored the parking lot through the tinted front
windows. He timed his movements carefully, and watched the
red-capped driver climb into the cab of the truck. A minute later,
the truck ferrying straw bales pulled onto the highway and headed
north into the twilight. He squinted and could make out wisps of
smoke mingling with exhaust at the back of the trailer.
    Several minutes later, he paid cash for three
DVD movies and exited the shop. He pulled onto the roadway and
accelerated into the dark. It took him ten minutes at speeds close
to eighty miles per hour, before he caught sight of the flames. The
driver had pulled onto the shoulder of the highway and ran from one
side of the truck to the other. He slowed his car and made a
U-turn, parking on the far side of the highway. He became one of
several onlookers who watched, in fascination, as flames licked and
leaped from one hay bale to the next, until the entire cargo was
afire. The truck driver ran towards the growing crowd calling for a
cell phone. “Help! Someone call 911,” he begged. “I can’t get to my
radio!”
    The man sneered as heat radiated from the
inferno. Unlike the others, he didn’t flinch at the thumping sound
and blinding light as the truck cab erupted into a fireball. He
glanced at his watch. From start to finish, he destroyed the truck
and its contents in less than twenty minutes.
     
     
    Fifty miles away, lying on his motel bed,
Aaron thought about the Martin report and how it compared to others
he’d been researching. Could it be connected? Evidence the Martin
fire could be arson was non-existent, flimsy at best. He had no
doubt of the fire’s origin and its track through the house. But
that was the modus operandi of the Bronx Blazer. This cunning
criminal knew how to cover his tracks and leave enough evidence to
create doubt. Evidence indicated the victim had caused the fire.
And there always was a victim, often, more than one.
    Aaron closed his eyes and conjured the
dossier he’d been compiling on the firebug. The first fires had
been set in the Bronx. From there, the arsonist spread out and
defined his signature. Aaron discovered the pattern when he created
a spreadsheet with multiple variables, sorting data and studying
the percentages.
    He enjoyed numbers. His father had been an
accountant. Every night he came home from his office exhausted, yet
never too tired to play with his son while Aaron’s mother prepared
dinner. The games they played were always puzzles to challenge the
little boy’s intellect.
    Aaron’s heart thudded in his chest as he
recalled his parents. It always hurt to think about them, to
remember the fear and confusion he felt after they were killed.
They left Aaron at home with an elderly neighbor while they visited
Lebanon to bury his grandfather, a casualty of the Lebanese Civil
War. They became casualties, themselves, when Palestinian
guerrillas in a speeding car fired on the church.
    At the age of