After a perfunctory knock on Rafe’s door, he opened it and stopped short, spotting Greg sitting across from Rafe. The seriousness in his brother’s expression had the little hairs on the back of his neck standing at attention.
“What’s going on?”
“Come in, Brody, and close the door.” Rafe motioned to the chair beside Greg. “We have a situation.”
“You have no idea,” Brody muttered under his breath.
“Greg, you want to tell him or should I?”
Greg’s shoulders slumped, and he couldn’t quite meet Brody’s gaze. “I’m turning myself in. I’m the one who set the fires.”
Fires? Plural?
“Okay,” he drawled out the word, his gaze shifting to Rafe.
“I’ve read Mr. Summers his rights, and he’s waived his right to counsel. Greg, why don’t you start at the beginning, and tell Brody what you told me.” Rafe pointed to the recorder on his desk, and Brody raised his brows, looking at his brother.
“Like I told Rafe, I mean Sheriff Boudreau, I started the fire on our property. The barn. I was desperate. My dad was calling me all the time, moaning and groaning about how the land wouldn’t sell, how he needed the money for Mom’s treatments. I’m overextended. My savings are gone. I wiped out any credit I had, borrowed money from any place I could get it, and it’s never enough.”
“But you maintained the insurance policy on the land. You told me yesterday.” Brody couldn’t help the spark of anger burning in his core at the almost emotionless way Greg recounted burning down his own family’s property. There had to have been another way, a better recourse, a solution which didn’t include breaking the law.
“I know. Dad couldn’t. Living on their savings and Social Security wasn’t cutting it. Medicare covers a lot, but not everything. The condo they’re renting wasn’t gonna let them go another month without some kind of assurance they’d make the rent. Mom’s worsened enough the doctors are mentioning hospice care. Dad’s at his wit’s end, and I’m the only one he could turn to.”
“Start with the fires, Greg? More than one.”
He nodded, his head hung in shame. “I knew if the family property was the only thing destroyed, me and my family would be the first suspects. Heck, the only suspects. So, I burned down that derelict shack, the one off Cumberland. Place was practically falling down anyway. Nobody around who’d care what happened to it. I waited a couple of weeks, then did it again. Figured I’d establish a pattern. After the first two fires, once things quieted down, I torched the barn.” He raised a pleading gaze to Brody. “I’m sorry. You have no idea how much I hate putting you in a position to deal with my actions, but I couldn’t see another way out.”
“I get it. Nobody suspected you, since you had no ties to the first fires. So when it happened on your family’s land, nothing would point to you or your dad.”
“Exactly. When you called, and told me you suspected arson, I lost it. You and Rafe, you’re smart. You’re thorough. I knew it was only a matter of time until you figured it out. But I hoped if I could destroy any evidence before you’d have a chance to look too close, maybe, I don’t know—things could have turned out different.”
“Greg, evidence was collected immediately after the fire. It had already been turned in to the forensic laboratory. Photographs were taken at the scene. A thorough investigation was underway before you torched what little remained of the barn. All you did was reinforce what we already knew, it was arson.” Brody turned in his chair, watching his childhood friend, head bowed, eyes downcast. It couldn’t be helped, Greg was in a butt load of trouble, looking at some serious time behind bars, and as much as he wanted to help him, he didn’t have a whole lot of options.
“Setting the second fire simply raised my suspicions. You panicked, didn’t you? That’s why you showed up in Shiloh Springs. You wanted to know what I’d found.”
Greg nodded. “I couldn’t stand the not knowing. Sitting and waiting for the other shoe to drop, you know. It was stupid, but I figured I’d be able to read you. When we were growing up, you were like an open book. But you’ve changed.”
“I’m not the only one who changed, Greg.”
Brody turned away from Greg, turning his attention to his brother. “Rafe, I heard back from the forensic lab in Austin. They confirmed arson. Gasoline was the accelerant. They passed along the pieces of glass found at the scene, and found two usable fingerprints. Both belong to Greg.”
He ignored Greg’s barely audible gasp, pulled up the reports on his cell phone and passed it to his brother.
“Greg, you’ve admitted to starting at least four fires.”
“Five.”
Brody’s head whipped around. “Five?” A horrible thought popped into his head. “Santiago’s last night? That was you?”
“Yeah. After I got home, my girlfriend confronted me. She’d heard your messages on the answering machine, and demanded to know if I knew anything about the fire. I lied, told her I didn’t have any idea who’d set the fire at the barn, like I lied to you. But the more I thought about it, I knew you were closing in. I figured if I could distract you, turn your attention in another direction, I’d buy some time to figure a way out.”
“Greg, have you submitted a claim to the insurance company for the fire?” Rafe leaned back in his chair, with a subtle glance at the recorder, still taping Greg’s confession.
“What? No!”
“Why not? After all, that was the point of this whole fiasco, wasn’t it?” Brody couldn’t quite keep the edge out of his question, cutting off the flow of words before he lost his composure. He needed to stay professional and not let the whole situation become personal. Because it felt personal.
“I…I thought I’d better wait. You know, until
