Noah jumped out of the truck and ran up the porch steps.Cassidy collected her backpack and paused before opening her door.
“Gray?”
“Yes?”
“That was a good answer.The one about fixing things.”She hesitated.“My dad left for a fire and didn’t say goodbye to us, either.”
The air in the truck went very still.
“I’m sorry, Cassidy.”
She nodded briskly, got out, and walked into the house with her shoulders straight, looking for all the world like a child who had everything under control.
Gray sat in the driveway for a minute after she went inside.The mountains turned from gold to pink to violet as the sun dropped behind them.Cassidy would have been five when she lost her father.The same age he’d been when his dad left.
He knew from personal experience that she wouldn’t remember much about her father in years to come.Whether that would turn out to be a blessing or a curse for her, only time would tell.
A sharp need came over him to be there for her down the road.He could help her find her way to peace with having lost her father so young because he’d lived through the same loss.Different circumstances, but losing a parent was losing a parent.
He turned off the truck and went inside to help Noah with his homework and to make the same offer he did every day, to help Cassidy if she got stuck on any of her homework.She never did, of course.
Cassidy insisted that she could look after Noah for an hour until their mom got home.But he declined her offer politely because leaving wasn’t something he did.
Sunday afternoon, he backed the fire engine into the bay.
Three times in a row.
Zero cones.
He’d set up the traffic cones in the same pattern as always: the configuration the Apple Pie Creek captain had marked on the pavement for him during his first humiliating lesson, the one that had ended with four flattened cones, a dented dumpster, and the pinochle group placing bets on his total cone count by the time he finally got the firetruck back into the bay the first time.
The cones stood upright and untouched after all three passes.Orange sentinels, perfectly aligned, their smugness almost audible.
Nobody saw it.Noah was at a friend’s birthday party and Cassidy was at the house reading.The pinochle group stayed home on Sundays.Even the usual birds in the parking lot had found somewhere better to be.
He sat in the engine after the third successful attempt and allowed himself a moment of deep satisfaction, made even sweeter by how big the challenge had been and how hard it had been to stick it out.But it had been worth every flattened cone, every joke he’d endured, every hour of frustration.
He pulled down the garage door and went back to his workspace in the training room.
The Shoemacher evidence was spread across the big round table.He’d pinned the blueprint copies to the wall with Tucker’s photographs arranged in a grid beside them.His notes, complete with citations and footnotes, filled a spiral notebook twice as thick as Noah’s.
He’d been over it.All of it.Dozens of times.
He had systematically eliminated every possible accidental explanation of how the fire started.All that remained was a single cause.Arson.
It was time to tell Bonnie.
Over the past two weeks, he’d asked her on three separate occasions if she was ready to sit down and walk through the evidence.Each time, she’d refused.Not angrily, Bonnie didn’t do anger, at least not the kind that showed.She deflected.Changed subject.Suddenly remembered an errand.And each time, the set of her jaw said clearly enough for even him to get the message,I’m not ready for this conversation, and if you push, I’ll make you regret it.
He understood why.But the evidence was complete and he needed to turn it all over to Cooper and the sheriff.Soon.He’d already sat on it too long as it was.
He picked up his phone and typed Bonnie a text.
Can we meet tomorrow?At the fire station.You know why.
He hit send.
The reply came six minutes later.He knew because he counted every one of them.
