from parents of boys worried about their sons. Worried about the school. Worried about the state of education in general.
One parent felt it was all linked to an alien invasion.
Timothy’s head showed up in the doorway. “I have to close up fairly soon, Miss Campbell.”
“You can kick me out whenever you need. I appreciate your letting me stay here as long as you have.”
“It’s not a bother. Hardly anyone goes to the trouble of digging into the microfiche records anymore. But I can’t leave an outsider alone here. When I have to lock up, I’m afraid you’ll have to go.”
“Okay.”
“In about twenty minutes.”
“Okay.” She didn’t look up. She was getting closer to the time of her parents’ fire. Her eyes were burning from staring at the old screen. She tried kicking off a shoe, sitting on one leg. Then kicking off the other shoe, sitting on the other leg.
Then she forgot how tired she was, because she found
“Miss Campbell?”
She squinted closer, squirmed closer. It was in an adult’s home, but the fire took place in a teenage boy’s bedroom. Same setup. A heap of debris and clothing were piled together, this time on the boy’s bed, and then soaked with gasoline. The fire took place while the family was out to dinner. The Frasiers-the family involved-were bewildered and upset and terrified. They had insurance, but as Mrs. Frasier was quoted in the article, they’d “never feel safe again.” Mr. Frasier said, “There has to be a serial arsonist in town, and nobody is doing a thing about it.” The head of the fire department at the time, Rubal Whitney, was fired. A town meeting was called. Herman Conner urged everyone to stay calm, that he was as concerned as everyone else, but the bottom line was a lack of evidence. So far, they had failed to find a link between the fires, if there was one. They needed concrete information. They needed…
“Lily.”
Lily whirled around at the sound of Griff’s voice. Griff was standing in the doorway with the round-faced Timothy. “Sugar, it’s past eight at night. This nice man has kept the place open for you. He could see you were engrossed. But you can come back tomorrow.”
“Oh, my heavens. Timothy, I’m so so sorry. I never meant to be a pain. I had no idea how much time had passed.”
“It’s all right, Miss Campbell. I just started reading a book. But when Griff came in, I thought it was all right to interrupt you then.”
“Of course it was. Oh, I feel terrible to have made you stay so late. It was so inconsiderate, I…” She scrambled to her feet, found one shoe, couldn’t find the other. Grabbed her purse, put it down, leaned forward to turn off the machine. Her heap of notes and papers skidded to the floor. “Timothy, I owe you dinner. Or lunch or something. Whatever or whenever you have time. And I promise, if I come back, I’ll keep track of the-”
Griff moved in, switched off the machine, scooped up her notes and legal pad, then claimed her hand-tight and snug. “Got room for a few gallons of Griff’s Bliss?” he asked Timothy.
Timothy’s mouth dropped. “I’d be so grateful. And so would my mother. She loves your ice cream.”
“Okay. Maybe I’ll send over a sample of a new flavor, too, so your mom can say she was the first one to taste- test it.”
Lily wasn’t sure how it all turned into a little fiasco, but Timothy, trying to be hospitable, seemed to be tripping all over Griff. And she was carrying all this stuff, bleary-eyed and kind of trip-tired herself. And Griff…well, by the time he bundled her into the car, he started laughing.
“After one of the worst days in the universe,” he said, “somehow we found a way to laugh, didn’t we?”
She leaned back in the seat. “It’s a miracle.”
“Nah,” he said. “It’s just being together. Now let’s hear it for everything you’ve been doing.”
She sobered immediately. “You won’t believe what I discovered,” she said.
“Good stuff?”
“No. Scary stuff. And I’m getting darned tired of finding out scary stuff. You know a place called Silver Ridge?”
He shot her an odd look. “Sure.”
“Could we go there?”
Chapter 9
Over a fast dinner of burgers off the grill, Lily relayed all the new information she’d discovered to Griff. The three different teenage boys targeted by arson. The escalating damage of the fires. The original label of vandalism, then arson, then serial arson. And although gasoline was a common accelerant, its repeated use in those arson incidents made up part of the pattern.
“The investigation report covering our fire said there was no link found to those other arson events. But what if there
“Like what? There was no teenage boy in your house.”
“I know that. But the place next to us was for sale, empty. And the site of our fire was between the two houses.”
“But there was no teenage boy in the empty house either,” Griff said reasonably.
“Would you quit being so darned logical!” She tried again. “The police never found who caused those other fires.”
Griff nodded. “But there were no more arson incidents after your parents’ fire.”
“Maybe that shocked the arsonist into quitting-because people died in our fire,” she speculated. “The question is, why there’ve been three arson fires
“One fire could have been accidental. Three-no way,” Griff said grimly.
“That’s what I think. That there has to be a reason this started up again. And I still don’t understand why the sheriff thinks I should leave town. Maybe that
“He’s a dad. With kids not far from your age. And he knows how much your family was hurt then. So maybe he doesn’t want to see you hurt, sugar.”
“I don’t want to be hurt either,” she grumbled. “But I’m running out of stuff to research. Everything I’ve found so far seems to verify that my dad never had a single reason to start that fire. But there’s no solid proof that the fire wasn’t accidental. I don’t know if proof like that even exists. Especially after all these years. And you know what?”
She knew it was a child’s question, but still he played along. “What?”
“At this point-I’m happy, Griff. I’ve learned a bunch about my dad. For my sake, for my sisters. That he was a good man. A man of honor. Not a coward. That’s all I really needed to know. That he was the man I thought he was.”
“And did you need that proof?”
Something in his voice made her look at him, really look. By then they’d finished dinner, popped their few dishes in the dishwasher, and then went out to his car. During the conversation he was driving, and even though the sun was dropping fast, she could see his profile clearly, see the oddly guarded expression when he’d asked that question. “No,” she said slowly. “I always knew my dad was a good man. Yes, I wanted the public proof, if I could find it, to clear his name. But I really don’t care what anyone ever said about him-I knew what was true in my heart.”
“So you trust your heart, do you?”
She kept looking at him. “I do. I have extraordinary judgment with people,” she murmured. “Particularly with men.”
