Burning Down the House (32 page)

“H
ello there, princess.”

Jumping, I
twisted around in my seat to find Riley sitting directly behind me, chortling in delight at the way he’d startled me. His appearance shocked me in more ways than one. It had been less than a week since I’d last seen him, but in those five days it looked as if he’d shed fifteen pounds.

“What the hell are you doing sneaking around back there?” I snapped
over the recording of Tchaikovsky.

“Sorry
. Didn’t mean to scare you.” It was obvious he wasn’t sorry - he was still grinning like a jackass.

“What are you doing here? Besides taking
ten years off my life!” It was a bad choice of words, but I didn’t think about that until after they came out.

“Just thought I’d
stop by and say hello.”

“How
’d you even know I was here?”

He shrugged evasively.
When I continued to scowl at him, he finally rolled his eyes and confessed, “My uncle’s a professor at the college here. Happy?”

Closing
the textbook, I placed it on top of my backpack in the seat next to me, wondering if I should call someone. That didn’t make much sense though, did it - he’d been cleared. Hadn’t he? Still, I’d agreed not to talk to him.

Leaning forward, he propped his forearms over the back of my seat and clasped his hands together. “
So how’s life, princess? Everything good? Tell me, is senior year living up to your expectations?”

The sarcasm in his tone unnerved me, and with his close proximity the sour aroma of beer practically smacked me in the face.
Great - that was all I needed. “You smell like a freaking brewery! How much have you had to drink?”

“Not nearly enough
,” he replied, gazing at me intently.

I
started stuffing my books into the backpack, preparing to go join the other girls who were sitting closer to the stage. “Why are you here?”

“I just thought I should come by and thank you personally. For
being kind enough to share everything I said to you with the police chief. That was real nice of you. Can’t tell you how much I appreciate that.”

Oh, son of a
bitch… “What do you want, an apology? I didn’t really have any choice in the matter. I had to. I’m sorry if it caused you any grief.”

“
Grief?” His eyes narrowed into angry slits. “
Grief?
My life has gone to
shit!
I have. No.
Future!
Do you understand that? From now on, no matter where I go or what I try to do, this is always gonna follow me. I’m always gonna be that guy who everyone thinks got away with murder. I had an alibi, but nobody wanted to believe it. My prints were nowhere to be found at the scene, but nobody cared. It won’t make a difference that the baby’s not mine. No matter what the evidence suggests - I was already tried, convicted and now everyone’s just hoping I’ll blow my own fucking head off!”

“
Come on, you know that’s not true. Give it some time. It’s only been a few days. Once they find out who it was -”

“And what if they don’t?”
He began to tap his fingers absently on the back of the seat. “Funny how nobody’s looking at your pyro-loving boyfriend as a suspect. Everybody knows he roasted his parents while they slept in their beds.”

I sucked in my breath sharply. “
That is pure
bullshit!
It was faulty wiring - he had nothing to do with it!”

“Sure.
Right. Faulty wiring. So rule him out then. Where was he Saturday night around ten or eleven? Was he with you?”

I made the mistake of hesitating for a
microsecond before telling him, “Yes. He was at home with me
all night.
”

The smirk that crawled over his lips made me want to
slug him. “Now see, the fact that you didn’t answer right away would be enough to tell me you might not be giving me the whole honest truth here. You wouldn’t by any chance be trying to cover up for him, would you?”

“I have no reason to
lie!”

“Then why are you?
” His eyes flashed triumphantly. “Because I just happen to know he was filling the tank of that SUV of yours downtown around ten. And you weren’t with him. You wanna know how I know that?”

I
glared at him hatefully.

“Because I fucking saw him. My buddy’s apartment building is right across the street
from the store.”

“So he stopped for gas on the way home from work - so what?”

“Crawford’s closes at nine. I checked. Feed someone else your bullshit, honey. ’Cause I ain’t buyin’ it.” Suddenly aware of my furious expression, he lowered his voice to a syrupy sweet purr. “Look here, princess. All I’m doing is trying to review all the options. Just stop for a minute and think about it. Jordan used to hang out with him and his friends all the time, didn’t she? Even dressed like him, from what I heard. I mean, that was before my time, but one thing I do know is that they once had a relationship.”

“They didn’t have a
relationship,” I argued. “You’re talking about one isolated incident that happened two years ago.”

“Really,
Sara? How can you be sure? Have you been with him every single minute of the day? How do you know he hasn’t been gettin’ a little on the side? Or maybe even before you got here - say, sometime back in July or early August? Could be that was
his
little oopsie-daisy she was carrying. You’re the one who brought up the necklace she was wearing. How many other guys has she screwed whose names started with an ‘
R
’? ’Cause I can’t think of any. And I knew everything about her.”

“Obviously you didn’t know nearly as much as you thought
!” I snatched up my backpack and started making my way down the aisle, unwilling to listen to any more. He wasn’t quite done though. He had one last nasty remark to fire at my back.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger here. I’m just trying to help. Wouldn’t want you to end up like
Jordan, now would we?”

27

When you love someone, you don’t want to believe the worst about them. No matter how
much evidence is dropped in your lap, no matter how many smoking guns you pick up off the floor, you keep coming up with excuses and telling yourself there’s a logical explanation for everything. That what you’re stumbling over is a trail of random coincidences. And all the flashing signs, they just point to a road that leads nowhere.

You trust your instincts. You blindly follow your heart. Because to believe anything else will shatter
it.

But at some point reality sets in and you
need answers. You want to know what’s at the end of that road.

I’d like to be able to say with a hundred percent certainty that
I had no misgivings. That I wasn’t waiting impatiently for him to get home that night just so I could demand that he put those nagging doubts to rest.

I’d like to.

But I can’t.

So when
Rob walked in the house sometime after nine, I was waiting - not to interrogate him but simply to gauge his reaction to one very simple question. I barely gave him time to get in the door. He had just closed it behind him and was resetting the alarm when I cornered him.

“Where
did you go Saturday night?”

I was prepared for surprise, possibly even annoyance, but not for the strangely
deadpan look he gave me. I’d sprung this on him out of the blue, and yet he seemed somehow to have expected it.

“Where’s this coming from?” Unwrapping his scarf, he hung it
with his coat on the hook by the door, then leaned down to untie his boots before kicking them off.

“I just want to know. You never told me where you
were that night.”

“I see. And now all of a sudden it’s imperative that you know.”

“That’s right. All of a sudden it is.” The cold air he’d brought in with him chilled me through my cotton nightgown and I wrapped myself in my arms, shivering.

Without speaking,
Rob strolled over to the fireplace and opened the damper. I watched him suspiciously as he started stacking split logs on the grate.

“What are you doing?”

“Building a fire. Isn’t that what I’m supposed to be good at? Starting fires?”

It was stated so matter-of-factly
, with no detectable rancor, that I was at a loss as to how to respond. He left the room and when he returned a minute later with a newspaper in his hand, I was still standing uncertainly in the same spot. Wadding up several sections of the paper, he stuffed them underneath the logs along with a few pieces of kindling. Then he reached on the mantel for a box of long matches.

He looked me
square in the eye as he struck one.

Turning his back on me, he leaned into the fireplace and l
it the newspapers. The blaze caught up quickly. Orange flames began to devour the paper ravenously, leaving behind a sooty pile of glowing black embers.

“Would you like to tell me what brought this on?”
he finally asked quietly.

“Can’t you just answer the question?”

“Answer mine first. Then I will.”

“
Fine. Let’s just say…someone was insinuating that you may have been the father of Jordan’s baby. And…other things.”
More unspeakable
things.
I wet my lips nervously. How angry would he be when I told him where these allegations had originated?

“May I ask who it was that was making those accusations?”

I steeled myself. “Riley was at the theatre this afternoon running his mouth.”

He turned around to face me,
eyes glittering coldly. “Was he now.”

“I told him you were with me that night.”

“And why would you do that? You know damn well I wasn’t.”

“Because he was…saying these
things,
Rob! He was - first he was all pissed off because I talked to Chief Landry, then he starts blaming you for what happened to your parents. Then he tries to convince me that you and Jordan were still hooking up. And I - I know that’s not true but I just want to know where you
were
that night! It’s not a difficult question to answer! Just give me a location - any location,
please!
”

The
ice in his eyes began to thaw. Shaking his head with a sigh, he lowered himself onto the rug in front of the fireplace, stretching out on his side while resting his head on one arm. “C’mere. Lie down with me.”

After a moment’s hesitation
I joined him on the plush rug, lying on my side so we were face to face, my back to the fire. He looked into my eyes while I waited for him to make everything all right again. I only prayed he wasn’t about to break my heart.

“I thought you weren’t going to talk to him
anymore,” he softly admonished me.

“
He
was the one doing all the talking.”

“He wouldn’t waste his time talking if you weren’t listening. You have to learn to listen to the voice within yourself. That one never lies.”
He pressed his free hand against my chest, leisurely moving his fingers around until he found my heartbeat. “I don’t want to know what Riley thinks. I want to know what this tells you. Does it see me as someone capable of murder? Is it afraid to trust me?”

“I trust you.” My response was automatic, but it was honest. Lying beside him, gazing into
the depths of his soulful eyes, all I could feel was safe. Safe and undeniably secure. It was only when he wasn’t around that my mind was assailed with cruel doubts.

“But you want explanations.”
His lips curved into an indulgent smile. “I can’t fault you for that. Just know that I’m not the villain here, Sara. Don’t you know he was only using me as a pawn to get back at you? In his mind, he probably believes you betrayed him by talking to the police. He was looking for a way to retaliate.”

While
I couldn’t deny the truth in that, it still didn’t answer my question.

The fire crackled
as the flames grew hotter against my back.

“
Green Ridge Forest,” he said unexpectedly.

“
What?”

“That’s where I was. You wanted to know, so I’m telling you.”

I remained silent, listening in rapt attention.

“
Trent’s grandparents own some undeveloped acreage near Green Ridge Forest. They’ve never done anything with it - I don’t know why they hang on to it. You’d think they’d sell it or something. Anyway, I guess that’s beside the point. When I was about twelve, Trent’s dad took us out there so he could try out this pellet gun he got for his birthday. And the place just…I don’t know, stuck with me. It was only a few miles from where I lived at the time, so I got in the habit of hiking out there when I wanted to escape for a while. Or if I just needed a quiet place to think. I’d build a campfire and just sit out there for hours, listening to the night and looking at the stars. I felt less alone there than I did at home. It’s hard to explain.

“
After I heard…what I heard that night, I just headed out there without thinking. I’ve always been bad about doing that. If there’s something I don’t want to deal with, my first impulse is to run. And the forest is usually where I wind up. It’s always been the only place I could find any peace. Only, this time there was no peace for me there.” Pausing, he propped himself up on an elbow.

“So that’s why you smelled like smoke - you had a fire going?” I watched the dancing flames mirrored in his eyes as
he gazed over my shoulder into the hearth.

“Mm. There’s just something about a fire. Something about knowing you have control over something so potentially uncontrollable. Like I said before, it’s therapeutic.” Still mesmerized by the flames, he
languidly began to comb through my hair with his fingers. “I stayed out there for the longest time, trying to decide what I should do. And the more I thought about it, the more I realized there was just no way I could let you go that easily. I came back fully prepared to forget anything that might have happened and put it behind us.”

“
You would have forgiven me? Just like that?”

His eyes shifted from the fire to penetrate mine
with their intensity. “I don’t think you have any idea what you mean to me, Sara. For the longest time it seemed like the whole fucking world was determined to beat me down. All I ever saw in myself was some worthless scapegoat, a bullseye for everyone else’s target practice. And then you came waltzing back into town and I knew, I just
knew,
you were destined to be the last blow. That one final push that would send me over the edge.

“
But that push never came. Instead, you reminded me what it was to
feel
something. To want to open up and let someone in. To trust again. You literally picked me up and put me back together and every time I saw your smile and felt your touch I found one more reason to let go of the past. To forget all the rest. So, yes - you’re damn right I would have forgiven you. Just. Like. That.” With each of those last three words, he tapped my lips gently with his finger.

It was
nearly inconceivable that he could find it in himself to have such unwavering faith in me. Never before in his wretched life had he been given one single reason to place his trust in anyone. Yet against all odds, he’d chosen to open his heart to me. How could I offer him anything less than my own enduring trust in return?

“I never meant to make it sound like I was accusing you of anything.
I wasn’t implying…I just wanted…”

“You wanted clarification. I understand.”

“I’m sorry.”

“You have nothing to be sorry for. I
’ll admit, the timing was pretty coincidental. Shit, I hope Riley doesn’t decide to take his whacked-out theory to the police. I’d have a hard time proving where I was that night.”

“You think he would?”

“If he thought for one second they’d take him seriously, he would. That guy would love nothing better than to take me down. I have to say though, I’m still not a hundred percent convinced he isn’t the one responsible.”

“His fingerprints weren’t on the lighter,” I pointed out. Not that I was trying to defend that asshole, but didn’t that kind of rule him out?

“What lighter?”

“The one
Dana said the investigators found at the scene. I…guess I never mentioned that to you.”

Huffing a brief laugh,
he reached up to rub his forehead. “And then I told you I chucked my lighter…God, no wonder you were starting to believe all that crap!”

“I never believed it
,” I insisted.

“I’m happy to hear that.”
He dropped his hand and smiled at me. “But just because they found someone’s lighter lying around doesn’t necessarily mean it was the one used to start the fire. The killer would have to be pretty damn stupid to leave it behind.”

“Dad thinks that friend of
Riley’s, the one who provided the alibi, could have been covering up for him,” I reflected.

“
True, he could have been paid off. I wouldn’t put it past Riley…or his parents.”

“
But he must have been where he said he was at least
part
of the time. He told me he saw you getting gas across the street from the apartment complex around ten o’clock. Or did he make that up?”

Rob
’s face registered surprise before creasing into a frown. “No…no, I did stop to fill up at the Quickie Mart. Huh. I don’t know - I suppose he could have left right after that. There would have still been time.” He shook his head dismissively. “Whatever the case, I still don’t want you having any contact with him. If he shows up at the theatre again, I want you to call campus security - tell them he’s harassing you and needs to be escorted off the premises. Then call me. Okay?”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“I’m not kidding, Sara. You give me your word that you’ll do that.”

“You have my word
- I’ll have him tossed out on his ass.” Somehow I didn’t think he’d come back though. I got the feeling he’d said all he wanted to say. “You’re going with me to the funeral tomorrow, aren’t you?”