Where to begin? How did anyone describe finding out their best friend and mentor had been incinerated?
Or worse, that his memory and reputation had been incinerated as well?
He cleared his throat. “Let me tell you about Thad first.”
Faith didn’t speak or look up, but she nodded, and he took that as approval. “Thad is ... was ... married to Rose. They have two kids. Twins. Elizabeth and Robert, but they go by Betsy and Bobby.”
“Cute.”
“They’re cute holy terrors. And that was before their dad died. Since then, they’re either crying, destroying the house, picking fights with kids in the neighborhood, or cutting their hair.” The moment he saw Betsy’s dark locks in a swirl on the kitchen floor, he’d known things had reached a whole new level of trauma in the Baker house.
“Understandable.” Faith didn’t look up, but her pencil flew across the screen.
It was easier to talk without her staring at him. “Rose is trying to cut them a lot of slack, but it’s been hard. We all went to their birthday party on Sunday. Pizza and arcade stuff with the kids, then back to the house for cake and ice cream with the family.”
He tried to force away the image of Jared teaching Betsy how to swing dance while Michael discussed the latest superhero movie with Bobby.
“We’ve tried to be there for them, but it isn’t enough. We’re busy, and we can’t be around as much as she needs us to be. And the truth is, our presence is partly comforting and partly agonizing. The very fact that we’re alive is a reminder that Thad isn’t. And”—here came the hard part—“she’s not sure who to trust.”
“By she, you mean Rose?” Faith continued writing.
“Yes.”
“Why is that?”
Frustration bubbled up. “Like you don’t know.” He closed his eyes and fought a surge of anger. He could understand that Faith hadn’t been briefed on the case in an official capacity, but Thad’s death had been all over the news, and the court of public opinion had burned Thad at the stake for infidelity and treachery. The facts had been irrelevant.
It didn’t help that actual facts were thin on the ground at the moment.
When he reopened his eyes, she’d stopped writing and was looking at him. She held up a hand in a pacifying gesture. “I know what I’ve heard, but I’d prefer to hear it from you. Your version might not jibe with what I’ve been led to understand, and I’m trying to go into this with an open mind.”
The anger dissipated, replaced with chagrin. Was it possible he had overreacted to a valid question? “Fair enough.”
Faith resumed her writing, and he went back to staring at the river behind her.
“We’ve tried to piece it together on our end, although we’ve been blocked more than I think is appropriate from other official entities.”
Her gaze flicked to his, then back to her notes. Good. She knew he was talking about the FBI.
“We know Thad went to dinner that evening. It wasn’t on his calendar, and there were no emails or text messages mentioning it. The restaurant cameras hadn’t worked for over a month, and none of the footage retrieved from patrons’ phones shows Thad. We know he got into his car, and we know it exploded a few seconds later.
The memory of that night threatened to overwhelm him. The stench of burning plastic and flesh. The horror of the charred remains. The flicker of hope that it wasn’t Thad and the phone call that confirmed it was.
The trip to the Baker home.
The disbelief in Rose’s eyes and the way it was replaced with agony.
The funeral.
He dropped his head. There would be two more funerals soon. More crying mothers, more stunned children, more trembling wives.
“Luke?”
He didn’t know what kind of look she would have on her face, but he didn’t want to see pity or suspicion.
“Luke—”
“Look, we have no idea what he was doing there. We don’t know who he met. When we arrived on the scene, we didn’t expect to find anyone but Thad in the car.”
