Jonas laughed, then looked at him. “Why don’t you explain everything, and then we can get these fucking lights off and see what we’re looking at.”
Turning to the others, he nodded for the lights to come back on. “It was dark when I left last night, and as I flipped off the lights I realized that the pushpins that Beth brought in from her daughter were actually glow-in-the-dark. I stared for a moment, but nothing made any more sense than it had been. No shape or pattern that I could discern. I won’t go into the particulars except to say when I was growing up my dad used to have us look at the stars and constellations through a telescope. It was a hobby of his. I literally woke up in the middle of the night and realized that the pattern that I had seen of our arsonist’s hit sites seemed familiar. It may be a lark. It may be nothing but bullshit. But I wanted to come in this morning and see if my theory has any substance.”
Once again, his Captain did not question him at all. Instead, with a flip of his hand, the lights went off one more time. Turning back to the board, he made several pictures with his cell phone. Todd came up close behind him, as had Terrence and Jonas. Calling out to Beth, he indicated she could turn the lights on.
“I don’t know anything about constellations, but this doesn’t look like much.” Jonas stared at the board. Turning toward Sean, he shrugged. “But if you know about these things, what does it look like to you?”
“It’s been a long time since I’ve looked at constellations. I don’t mind doing the digging to see what it could be, though.”
“If I were you, I’d ask your dad,” Todd suggested.
Fuck, he’s right. “There’s a good chance my dad would recognize it right away if it was a constellation.”
With a chin dip, Todd looked at the board. “Good work.”
Beth laughed, and the others turned toward her in question. “I guess it’s a good thing I didn’t bring in the pushpins that look like unicorn heads.”
The others chuckled along with her as Sean sat down at his desk, pulling out his phone.
“Dad? I’m going to send you a picture through text. Tell me if it’s a constellation that you recognize.” He forwarded the picture, waited to make sure his dad had received it, and said, “Dad, take as much time as you need to look at it. I know you may have to study it, and turn it all sorts of ways, and look up information. That’s fine, you can just get back with me whenever you—”
“Hell, son, I can tell you right now what it is.”
Blinking, he jolted. “You already know?” He looked over, seeing Jonas’ gaze pinned on him. Catching movement to the side, he saw that Beth and Terrence and Todd had moved in closer. Grabbing a pen, he began scribbling down what his dad said.
“Okay, I’ve got it. Yeah, I’ll start looking right now. Dad, you’ve saved me a shit ton of work. I don’t know if it means anything right now, but I’ll let you know.”
He did not say a word when he disconnected with his dad but immediately began typing into his computer while the others waited patiently. Or at least Beth, Terrence, and Todd waited patiently while Jonas paced behind his back.
“Dad’s right. I remember him talking about this one when we were kids.” Looking up at the others, he said, “It’s the constellation Phoenix.”
“Uh… okay,” Jonas stammered. “You have to fill me in, Sean. I don’t know anything about this.”
With a few taps on his computer, he pulled up some information and began reading aloud, “It was named after the Phoenix bird in classical mythology.”
“The only thing I know about the Phoenix was what I saw in the Harry Potter movies,” Beth said. “I know it’s supposed to rise from the ashes when it dies, I think.”
“The mythical bird is sacred across many mythologies, including Greek, Persian, Arabic, Egyptian, Roman, Turkish, Indian, and Chinese, just to name some. It is said when the bird reached the end of its life span, it would build a nest at the top of a tree, then ignite the nest and die in the fire. A new bird would be born from the ashes.” His heart pounded as he looked back at the white board, observing the memorized pictures of the rock piles. “Fuckin’