Page 136 of Burning For You

“I get it. But I was with her the whole time at dinner. Do you really think I would have pulled my phone out at the table and written an email?” Sean asked, his voice full of sarcasm.

“Since you’re being so accommodating, can you verify where you were the nights of the fire?”

“Because my parents died in a fire when I was a kid you think I’m setting them now? You’re fucking joking, right?” Sean asked. Starting to lose some composure, but not horribly.

“Afraid not,” Ash said. “We can make this more formal if you want. Your choice.”

“No reason to,” Sean said, opening his phone back up, after he shrugged. Like he had to force himself to do it. “Anything to get you out of here. Does Skye know you’re doing this?”

She didn’t, but Sean didn’t need to know that.

Tate listed off the dates in question, Sean was on his phone. “Do you have alibis for them? Any of them?” Tate asked.

“I was working for them all but the first one,” Sean said. “Here are my paycheck stubs with dates and times punched in. Not up to your income standards but puts me right here. That first night, I was probably home with Sara like I am if I’m not working.”

Tate scrolled through while Ash looked over his shoulder. “Thanks. Sorry. We are just looking out for her. I’d think you’d understand, even if you’re not close anymore.”

Ash could see the snarl on Sean’s lips, but the tone was dialed back when the words came out. “You’re doing the whole protective thing,” Sean said. “I get it. Now can I go back to work?”

“Yeah,” Ash said.

“I didn’t expect him to talk to us that long,” Tate said. “Least of all answer the questions.”

“Me neither,” he said. “Maybe he has changed.”

“No clue,” Tate said. “But he has alibis for the nights of the fires. Even handed his phone over without being asked.”

“If he’s using a burner, then it wouldn’t matter.”

“It doesn’t matter. He had alibis for the fires,” Tate repeated.

“Except the first,” he said. “Unless we talk to Sara.”

“For now, we’ll hold off. The same person is doing them all, so it can’t be him if he was here.”

“It was a long shot,” he said, “but it couldn’t be overlooked.”

“Nope,” Tate said.

They drove to the job site in silence, then got to work.

An hour in, Ash remembered to talk to them about what Clay got out of Skye.

“Why didn’t I hear about this guy?” Tate said to Ash. “Before now? Before we even talked to Sean?”

“Because Ford wanted to do it,” he argued. “And we were dealing with Sean and I knew to just hold off until I heard more. But realize now that I should tell you.”

The remains of the fire from last week were cleaned up. The homeowners surprisingly wanted to continue. They were more understanding than others would have been.

The foundation hadn’t been touched, the weeks’ worth of putting the shell up would begin again and it was all hands on deck.

Tate was here with Holden, Ash, Keegan was on the way, Jim was lending a hand when he didn’t normally work at this stage of a build, and a whole different crew lead by Garrett, a foreman who’d been around long before Ash started working.

They needed every hand they could get to get back on track.

“Yeah, you should have told me or all of us before,” Tate said. “That’s bullshit.”

“I think it’s bullshit too,” Corbin said. “Right, Dad?”