She suffocates on smoke while she's asleep.

Like a drunk choking on his own vomit.

So there's that small blessing for Pamela Vale. She literally never knew what hit her.

They had to scrape her off the springs, but she was dead before the intense heat merged her flesh into the metal. She never woke up, that's all. The fire broke out, her system inhaled a lethal dose of smoke, and then the fire – fueled by all her belongings and her home – became fast and hot and strong enough to melt the bed around her.

An accidental fire, an accidental death.

It's one of those cruel but kind ironies of a fatal house fire. Cruel in the sense that it chokes you with your own life. Takes those crucial physical things – your furniture, your sheets, your blankets, the paint on your walls, your clothes, your books, your papers, your photographs, all the intimate accumulations of a life, a marriage, a physical existence – and forces them down your throat and chokes you on them.

Most people who die in fires die from smoke inhalation. It's like lethal injection – no, more like the gas chamber, because it's really a gas, carbon monoxide, the old CO, that kills you – but in any case you'd prefer it to the electric chair.

The technical phrase in the fire biz is "CO asphyxiation."

It sounds cruel, but the kind part is that you'd sure as hell prefer it to burning at the stake.

So there it is, Jack thinks.

An accidental fire and an accidental death.

It all fits.

Except you have the sooty glass.

And flames from burning wood aren't blood red – they're yellow or orange.

And the smoke should be gray or brown – not black.