“Were you watching closely enough to be certain you weren’t followed?”
She shook her head and took a deep breath, willing her heart rate to slow. “Well, did you get any pictures?”
Mick opened a photo on his phone and enlarged it to show that the SUV had no license plate. “I guess we could still take it to the police.”
“What would I tell them? That someone with no plate and illegal window tinting drove too close to my car?”
He crossed his arms, frowning. “Whether you go to the police or not, you have to take this seriously. Just like the emails, it was a warning.”
It felt like more than that, but she decided not to say so. She didn’t need for him to push her harder to report the incident. “I’m taking it seriously,” she said instead. “Right now I just don’t know what I’m up against. Or who’s even on my side.”
“I am.”
Two little words shouldn’t have been so powerful, but her throat filled over them. And for just a moment, she didn’t feel so alone. “I suppose you’re expecting me to ask you to help me now. For the girls’ sakes.”
The side of his mouth lifted. “Wouldn’t be the worst idea you ever had. And it looks like the driver didn’t see me, so I can still be that back channel.”
He crossed and uncrossed his legs, signaling it still bothered him that he’d failed to be there for her.
“But how can I be sure you won’t take everything I tell you and give it to the investigators trying to build a case against Riley?”
“You can’t.”
She squinted at him, holding her hands wide. “And how will I know that you won’t be one of the people searching for evidence against my brother?”
“You won’t.”
Then he looked into her eyes, his gaze steady like her dad’s as he asked her to trust him when her history told her she shouldn’t. She swallowed and nodded.
“Now go start your truck, so I can get back to the school.”
His lips lifted. “That’s why you didn’t drive back earlier. You couldn’t bear to leave me stranded. You’re a good person.”
“Whatever.” He was wrong, but she found his words strangely comforting.
“Thanks for the ride.”
He hopped out of the van like he had earlier. Only this time he glanced over his shoulder as he returned to his pickup. Then he climbed inside and started the engine.
Rachel waved as she drove past him, her throat as tight as when the driver had been so close to her. She’d just put her trust in someone who would have access to information that could hurt her brother if she were wrong to believe in him. But like with so many other things in her life lately, she didn’t have a choice.
* * *
Mick shifted in that miserable office chair at the end of his workday, wishing he could stay focused on the binder filled with printed applications in front of him. He flipped through the pages, each packet containing reference letters added at the back and photos of hopeful teen boys and girls paper-clipped to the cover letters.
This was supposed to be a fun part of his job, where he would help select candidates for the Mount Isabel Fire Cadet Program. But today he found their optimism exhausting. Most of them had used the wordherounder the question: “Why would you like to explore firefighting as a possible career?” Good firefighters never thought of themselves as heroes, and always credited their training rather than their own skills.
These kids wanted to throw on capes and wave in parades, and what they were really looking at was a job with dirty and often grueling work, even if it came with an undeniable adrenaline rush. A calling where the tragedies rubbed some of the shine off victories. Someone needed to tell them the truth, but he wasn’t the one for that job.
He shut the binder. In this mindset, he wouldn’t give the candidates a fair evaluation, anyway. He returned the book to the organizer on top of the filing cabinet and went back to the stack of files he’d been studying. How was it possible that since mid-January, the Mount Isabel PD had recorded sixteen intentionally set fires of sheds, barns, garages and now a residential home? A normal rate would have been one or two total fires a month, sometimes less, with cooking incidents accounting for nearly half of them.
The fire investigator’s reports showed that some of the events were sophisticated, with multiple ignition points. Others were haphazard, as if the suspect had tossed a burning, automotive-grease-covered rag behind him and hoped flames would catch. Nothing seemed to connect them other than an intent to destroy property by fire.
Mick stared down at the reports until the words blurred on the pages and then closed those files as well. He rubbed the back of his neck with both hands, shifted in his chair, then stood and paced.
How was he supposed to keep his mind on even the most recent incident when he couldn’t stop thinking about what had happened to Rachel earlier when she’d driven him back to the scene? A tremor slid through him at the memory of watching that white SUV creep past her van, the driver’s identity masked behind smoky glass.
“You just left her out there,” he muttered, his belly knotting over his failure to recognize the driver’s target earlier. He hated even thinking about what could have happened if those inside that vehicle had come with more sinister plans than a warning.
