“Hawke, can you see his face?”Jagger pushes.
“I can’t see anything,” he mumbles.
I push to my feet.“What?”
“There’s nothing.”He sits back, stunned.“Nothing’s there.”
“What’s not there?”Roman demands.
Tearing his attention from the screen, Hawke looks up and closes the laptop.“From 11:13 pm to 12:37 am this morning, the cameras were off.There’s no footage.”
My pacing stalls.“You’re telling me you don’t know who started the fire?”
“I’m telling you that whatever evidence we could’ve had was mitigated when our cameras went down,” Hawke snaps.
Roman stands and reaches for the laptop as if he’ll have the power to find the missing files.It’s possible.Roman’s kind of a jack of all trades.But if the expert can’t find it, how will Rome?As he opens the laptop, Roman asks, “So, what does this mean?”
“It means we’re fucked,” I announce from the opposite side of the room.
Jagger cuts me a scathing look.“Not now, Ford.”
“If not now, when?”I push.“I know you guys love a Positive Pete, but the cameras mysteriously went down at the same time our house went up in flames.Tell me that’s a coincidence.”
“No one’s saying it’s a coincidence,” Uncle Judge interrupts from behind the desk.
Shit, he’s been so damn quiet I almost forgot he was here.
“At least Cobes was home to call it in,” Jagger says.
A haze hits Roman’s eyes.He goes still.“Not sure I’d put it that way.”
“It could’ve been worse,” Hawke offers.
“Not sure how,” I mutter.“Almost half of the west side is burnt to a crisp.”
“From the photos, it looks like it’s a quarter at best,” Hawke argues.
I give him the bird in response.
“We’ll repair it,” Jagger announces.“It’ll be fine.”
Fine?Someone tried to burn down our house, and all Jagger can say is it’ll be fine?I’ve always trusted my brothers to know what to do in any situation, but this feels like a new low for all of us.
Sitting my ass back on the couch, I rest my elbows on my knees and take a deep breath.“Sure, it will.”
“The question is, what are the odds of our security system failing for no reason ten minutes before the fire started?”Hawke says.“And the fact it came back on afterward?”His teeth grind.
Statistically speaking, I’d say one percent, if that, but I’m pretty sure it’s a rhetorical question.Besides, it doesn’t take a math genius to piece together the most plausible culprit.
“You think it was Morgan?”Roman asks Hawke, circling back to our earlier assumption.
Instead of answering, Hawke looks at Jagger.
Scratching his jaw, Jagger murmurs, “Yeah.Yeah, I kind of do.We already know he, or at least someone he’s connected with, knows how to infiltrate our system after stealing the footage of Violet at the haunted house earlier this year.Now our surveillance goes out, covering whoever started the fire?”He shakes his head.“It’s almost too perfect.”
Perfect.Bullshit.Toe-mae-toe, toe-mah-toe.My blood boils at the thought of anyone in this room complimenting that asshat’s plan.I squeeze my hands into fists.Yeah, Morgan might be behind this shit, but I sure as hell am going to enjoy setting his life on fire the same way he did with our house.Only this time, I’ll make sure the entire thing burns to the ground.
Feeling someone’s stare, I glance up, finding Roman watching me.As if he can read my thoughts, Roman says, “We can’t retaliate until we have solid proof.”
