“The warehouse,” Nick guessed.
Sesame winced. “Yeah. See, the raves were thrown by a couple of low-level drug dealers. It was pretty smart actually. They charged a cover and then exclusively sold their drugs inside. Anyway, someone saw Tommy give a guy seven Tic Tacs in the bathroom and, well, you can imagine our hosts weren’t very happy with him.”
“You double-crossed a bunch of dealers in downtown Harrisburg,” Kellen summarized, pinching the bridge of his nose.
“It wasn’t a real double-cross,” Sesame assured him.
“Looking back, I can see it wasn’t the smartest move professionally,” Tommy admitted.
“Don’t talk,” Kellen said, still refusing to look at him.
“Was one of these dealers named Blight?” Nick asked.
Sesame pursed her lips together and looked up at the ceiling. “Honestly, Nicky. It’s been so long. I don’t even remember.”
She was definitely lying.
“You don’t have to be afraid of him. He’s in prison. Your brother and I put him there. And if he set the fire, you can help make sure he stays there,” Nick said.
Sesame shrugged daintily. “I’m sorry. I just don’t remember. Do you, sweetiekins?” she asked Tommy.
Nick couldn’t be sure, but it looked as though those pink nails were sinking into Tommy’s skin.
“Nope, honeybear,” Tommy squeaked without looking away from his wife’s eyes.
“Anyway, back to the fire. You see, I was afraid that these scary criminals were going to do something bad.”
“They were talking about cutting off my fingers and stuffing them up my own butthole,” Tommy said cheerfully.
Kellen took six long swigs directly from the bottle.
“Tommy, my eyes are a little dry. Do you mind getting my eye drops from the bathroom? They’re in my makeup bag.”
“Anything for you, Ses,” he said.
She waited for Tommy to leave the room. “Look, the fire was a total accident. Those guys were roughing Tommy up, and they all but threw him into that tiki torch.”
“You’re saying Tommy burned down the warehouse?” Nick’s eye was twitching again.
“It was an accident. And neither of us knew there were propane tanks on the ground floor.”
Kellen got to his feet so abruptly his chair fell over backward.
“Don’t be mad, Kelly,” Sesame pleaded.
“Your husband firebombed a ten-thousand-square-foot warehouse!”
“You sound mad. Are you mad?”
“Mad?Mad?Why would I be mad?”
“This is exactly why I didn’t tell him,” Sesame said to Riley.
“What happened next?” Nick asked.
“Well, Tommy was going to turn himself in. But the drug dealers were so mad at him. First they catch him selling Tic Tacs, and then he burns their headquarters down. I did the right thing.”
“Which was?” Riley asked.
