“As you already know, I’m not fond of confinement.” He shifted in his rocker and leaned back until he seemed to settle on a comfortable spot.
“Do your doctors know you left?” she asked.
“I’m sure they do by now.” He sniffed. “How was the half-birthday party?” he asked.
“You know about that?”
He shrugged. “I keep up.”
She sat in the rocker beside him and steered the conversation away from the boys. “I would like to run a hypothetical scenario past you.”
His eyes brightened with interest. “All ears.”
“If someone had several empty milk jugs, rags, and gasoline in their house, what conclusion would you draw about them?”
“You have not given me enough variables,” he said. “What else can you tell me about the individual?”
“All those elements could be put together to make an incendiary device.”
“Sure. But it’s certainly not a given.”
“This person burned papers on a backyard grill.”
“Nothing out of the ordinary there, either, Joan.”
“Could a small, controlled fire on a grill be a way of a guy letting off steam?”
“Maybe. It’s also an efficient way to dispose of important papers. Identity theft is a real problem these days. My cellmate was doing time for that very crime.”
She should have been having this conversation with Gideon, but he would never have approved of her methods. And he had been Clarke’s friend since childhood. Their boys were best friends. As much as she wanted to do it all by the book, she wanted—no, needed—to catch the arsonist more.
“We can keep playing this game of guess who,” Elijah said. “Or you can tell me what you’ve really been up to.”
It was so tempting to trust him and tell him about her suspicions of Clarke. He had a calm voice that lulled her into believing that they had somehow become friends. But they were not friends. She sensed in her gut that though he might not have set the fires, he had an agenda that might one day put them at odds. She recalled the scorpion and the frog fable and was damn sure she was not going to end up the poor, trusting frog.
“Maybe later. I need more before I name names.”
“Be very careful, Joan. If you know about this individual, chances are you’re on his radar.”
“Where have you been?”
Gideon’s rough voice reached out from the darkness, halting Joan midstep as she approached the side entrance to the garage apartment. She paused and turned slowly, doing her best to look casual.
“You startled me.”
He stepped out of the shadows. “Where have you been? Ann said you left a couple of hours ago.”
“Checking up on me?”
“I thought you might have gotten lost on the road.”
“You could have called me.”
“I did. Twice.”
She reached for her phone and glanced at the Two missed calls. She turned her ringer back on. “Sorry about that. I must have turned it off during the party.”
“Were you with Elijah?”
“I did go visit him. I wanted to see how he was doing.”
Moonlight slashed across his face, sharpening the hard angles. He had always been attractive, but the last decade had brought a few gray hairs and deepened the lines around his eyes. All looked good on him.
“If I told you the truth, you would not be happy,” she said.
“That’s almost a given,” he said. “I still want to hear it.”
A cold wind blew across the open land and coiled around her. “How about we talk in hypotheticals for a bit.”
“I’d rather you just spill it.”
“It would be better if we spoke about potential situations. Otherwise, we don’t talk at all, Gideon.”
His feet braced, as if he were ready for a hard tackle. “Okay. Let me have it.”
She considered her words, knowing honesty was likely going to get her booted out of town. “What if a town had an arsonist?”
“Okay.”
“And this arsonist was good at what he did. He didn’t leave traces of himself behind. In fact, he was so careful about what he did, he killed two women who could have told the world the truth about him.”
Gideon stared at her, silent, his gaze unwavering.
“What if this arsonist not only burned structures for money but also because he loved to see things consumed by fire. Fire energizes him. Fire makes him feel in control when his life is out of control.”
“You’re describing Elijah.”
And here was where the rubber met the road. “I’m also talking about Clarke.”
That provoked a mirthless smile and a shake of the head. “You’re joking. Clarke is a firefighter.”
“Some of the most prolific arsonists have been attached to fire prevention. They set the fires and then get the glory when they put them out.”
Gideon shook his head. “You’re wrong, Joan. Clarke is a straight shooter. I’ve known him for almost twenty years.”
“How well do you know him beyond sports, work, and the boys?”
“He’s a good father. He loves Ann.”
“I have no doubt he loves them very much, and he would do anything for them.”
“That’s not a bad thing. I’m the same with Kyle.”
She was sorry that she was about to torch the fragile bridges they had cobbled together these last few days. “Consider the College Fire. Ann had just broken up with Clarke. She was on the verge of moving east to study.”
Gideon’s frown deepened, as if his mind had tripped back to that time. Joan wondered if Clarke had said or done something that now struck Gideon as odd.
“And then her house burns down. Clarke rescues me from the flames, and then he rides in the ambulance with Ann to the hospital, where she soon learns she is pregnant. Mr. Superhero.”
“Elijah’s DNA was found at the scene.”
“He also reported to campus police a week earlier that his backpack had been stolen.”
“We’ve been through this. The backpack was found twenty-four hours later, which was nearly a week before the College Fire.”
“Elijah insists a sweatshirt was missing from the backpack after it was recovered. A portion
