Jessica's feet seemed to be attached to the asphalt. Everything around her seemed to be in slow motion. Weapons drawn, the officers were no longer moving forward. The crowd, frightened, dispersed quickly in every direction but that of the barricade. It was an impossible situation for him, Jessica thought. He must know he can't get away! The look in his eyes was one of a cornered wild animal.
"What are you doing?" Audrey cried. "Why are you doing this?"
Unseen to anyone, a third officer had gotten a call, too. From behind a parked car, he yelled at Todd. When he whipped Audrey around to face him, the other officers quickly rushed him and pulled Audrey to safety. There was a scuffle, but Todd was no match for the officers.
Jessica ran to Audrey and threw her arms around her. Shaken but unharmed, the woman exclaimed, "That's the boy I told you about! The one who was so upset by the fire and identified the boy who started it! The other boy, my friend's son, who killed himself!"
"Except, I didn't," Worth said as he joined the women, gently taking Audrey's hand. "Do you remember me?"
Audrey's face paled. "Vince? Vince Alexander?"
Todd Granger, faced with the very person he'd tried to blame so long ago, crumbled under interrogation. He had not loved the librarian and her husband. He told the detectives that they were horrible people. They had abused him in despicable ways. Other children, too. Children like himself, who had no one to tell, troubled kids, the children of drunks and addicts. And the town loved the couple! They held them up like pillars of the community! Who would have believed him anyway?
He hadn't planned anything, but when the opportunity had presented itself, he'd snapped. He knocked one out, then the other, and set the fire to cover it up. "I'd been in foster homes all my life," he said, a broken man. "I couldn't go to prison—juvey, maybe, but what did I know? I was just a kid." He started to cry. "I'd seen the Alexander kid with his mother and knew he kept to himself. I hoped he wouldn't have an alibi. All the rage I felt toward all the people who had hurt me, I directed at him. If I couldn't have a mother or a nice house, why should he?"
Todd held his face in his hands. "I didn't expect anyone to believe me. I just didn't want them looking into me, suspecting me. And suddenly, everyone was acting like I'd done something good by ID-ing him. They believed me! I couldn't take it back. I thought rich people always got away with things, that he'd get off. I thought I'd run away after it was over and maybe put it all behind me."
The guilt over Vince Alexander's apparent suicide had led him to despair, Todd told the detectives. "I started to drink and do drugs." There was a haunted look in his eyes as he spoke. "I'm not right in the head," he said softly. "I know I'm not." He glanced quickly around the room, as if looking for someone. "I hear voices. They tell me to do stuff. It's them you need to lock up. I'm sick. I need help." His tone was pathetic.
One of the detectives laid photographs of the city's last three fires on the table in front of Todd. "Did they tell you to start more fires?"
Watching from behind a two-way mirror, Jessica and Worth saw Todd flinch and then compose himself. When he spoke, it was like another person was sitting there. "No one tells me to do anything. They used to. My parents used to order me around, then that librarian bitch and her twisted husband," Todd hissed. "I am the fire. I say when. I say who. I watch them try to control it, but I have all the control."
Todd threw his head back and laughed maniacally then suddenly stopped, grim once more. When he spoke, his voice was calm, strangely upbeat. "I've started lots more fires than this. I should never have come home." Whoever Todd Granger used to be had split into different personalities, it would seem, unless he was possessed by sheer evil.
Chapter 15
Finally
Early the next morning, Worth drove Jessica to her apartment. It had been a very long night at the police station, but it appeared that old mysteries were put to rest. As they maneuvered the still-darkened streets, Jessica couldn't get the sight of Todd Granger out of her mind—first, soulful tears, then the devilish laughter. "Do you think he's insane?"
"He's something," Worth said. He smiled tiredly. "But not something we need to worry about."
Jessica stretched her head back and forth the way she'd seen her mother do so many times. "Poor kid, though. The scar was just the beginning of the horror for him. And what that couple was doing…I feel sorry for him."
Worth sighed deeply as he parked the car. "I do, too. But, Jessica—"
"What, love?"
"You should know something. It has haunted me all my life."
Jessica's heart was pounding. "The librarian?" she asked quietly. "You hated her because…oh, Worth! What did she do to you?" She began to sob at the thought of anyone hurting him, hurting any child.
Worth grimaced. "Far less than she wanted to, but I thought it was my fault. It cast a shadow over every relationship I've ever had. I see that now." He smiled sadly at her. "I don't want anything to get between us, Jessica. Ever. I'm sorry I wasted all this time, that I couldn't tell you before."
There, in the car, the two of them kissed and wept together and laughed as the sun began to rise. Never had Jessica felt so "one" with anyone. There was nothing between them, no secrets, no misgivings, no
