It belonged to Booker, but she enjoyed sleeping in it. Not that he complained seeing her in his clothes.
Offering a seat to Nathaniel on one side of the table, Caitlin and Booker sat across from him, waiting expectantly.
“Look, I know things have been… tense lately,” Nathaniel started.
Caitlin coughed to cover up her snort of laughter.
“Honestly, I don’t blame you guys for being upset. I’m angry too, and I blame myself partly for letting the fire happen. I mean, Jesus, I was a fireman in New York. I should have been paying better attention.”
“So why weren’t you?” Caitlin asked, not caring if her tone was just shy of bitchy.
Nathaniel shrugged, staring down at his hands. “I guess I was focusing on everything else going on. Setting up for more Ark escapees, planning for possible crops, personal stuff…”
She decided against mocking the fact that getting laid again distracted him.
“And…” Nathaniel looked up at them. “I guess part of me didn’t want to believe we’d have someone that sick and twisted in our group. When the Rejects first found each other, we were like a family. We loved each other, cared for each other, watched each other’s backs. There was no way any one of us would do something like this. But now…”
“Guess your Brady Bunch time ran out,” Booker said, leaning back against the bench’s ragged upholstery.
“I guess so,” Nathaniel agreed, disheartened.
Caitlin narrowed her stare on him. “Nathaniel, what got you to change your mind?”
“You know the supply run Brooke and I went on yesterday?”
She nodded.
“We didn’t just go look for food,” he said. “We went back to the school.”
“You what?”
He leaned forward on his elbows. “I wanted to see for myself,” he said. “Look for any clues as to what happened.”
Booker shifted in his seat. “And?”
“And the fire didn’t just start in the clinic,” Nathaniel said. “There were multiple ignition points and an accelerant was used—probably cleaning solutions from the janitor’s closet.”
A rock sunk to the bottom of Caitlin’s stomach.
“Where were the other fires set?” Booker asked.
“Other than the clinic, one was set in the library, one in a bunk on the west side of the school, and then the cafeteria.”
Caitlin’s head snapped up. “The cafeteria?”
“Yeah, from the burn pattern, it was probably the last one set,” Nathaniel said with a nod. “Why?”
Flashes from that horrible night flickered behind Caitlin’s eyelids.
“I know who set the fires,” she said. “And I think I can prove it.”
* * * * * * *
Breakfast was a quiet, tense affair as everyone tried imagining the flavorless, watery oatmeal they ate was anything else.
Caitlin barely registered the food she forced down.
She was too busy tracking Seth as he wandered around the camp, saying hello to a few people, bringing firewood over, smiling at the cluster of children playing some version of hopscotch in the frost covered grass.
Chewing, she rolled her options over in her head again and again, examining them for possible weak spots.
She and Nicole were witnesses to an extent. They’d only seen Seth come out of the cafeteria with fire extinguishers, they hadn’t seen him enter with chemicals and they couldn’t be certain no one else went in after he left.
They needed him to slip up. To admit some element of guilt.
And the only way to do that was to interrogate him.
Caitlin just needed the prime opportunity, believing the element of surprise would give them an advantage.
If they let him know they suspected him too early, he’d have time to come up with explanations to everything, maybe even get rid of evidence.
She watched as Seth took a seat close to some of the older kids as they poked sticks into the burning logs of the cooking fire. Smiling, he chatted quietly with a few of the boys and then handed another forked twig to Desi.
Whatever he said made her smile, but something rotten coiled in Caitlin’s gut.
Why would a grown man be sitting that close to a child he barely knew? A child he didn’t look after or love.
“Hey Desi,” Booker called sharply. “Why dontchu help Scott and Nicole with the washin’, alright?”
Caitlin turned to look up at him, and caught the suspicious fury barely hidden beneath the surface.
Booker saw it too. Felt it. And no way in hell was Seth getting any closer to Desi on his watch.
With a blessedly oblivious shrug, Desi stood up. “Okay.”
She might have been borderline genius, but Caitlin was forever grateful Desi didn’t have knowledge of what they were all thinking. She’d been kept from that horror at least.
Seth cocked his head, expression questioning and deceitful at the same time.
Feigned innocence.
It set Booker off instantly.
Dropping the hatchet he was using to break up firewood, Booker strode over, motioning for Seth to come talk to him.
“You stay away from her,” he warned the moment Seth was close enough. “In fact, stay away from all of these kids. Ain’t a single good reason to be buddy’n up to ‘em.”
Seth held out his hands in subtle defense. “Hold on, I wasn’t… Booker, I’m sorry if you thought I was being inappropriate. I’d never—”
“That’s what they all say,” Booker cut in, keeping his voice down.
“I was only trying to keep them entertained,” Seth explained, a little too calm given the circumstances. “It’s hard for these kids. No families, no structure. I just thought—”
“I don’t give damn what you thought,” Booker snapped. “Y’keep your hands and your words to yourself.”
Taking a step as if to leave, Booker thought again and turned back, pointing a finger at Seth.
“If I catch you near Desi again, I’ll string ya up a tree and leave ya for groaner bait.”
Bewildered, Seth stayed put, running his
