Page 91
She nodded. “Good. Let’s get clear.”
“We need to drag him with us,” Brandon pointed out.
“And Waddell is a good ways back. We need to grab him as we exit,” Desiree informed Brandon.
“Waddell? Really?”
She nodded.
He whistled. “I guess our trap really did work.” He pulled the nephew up by the arm, and they guided him toward the door between them. Waddell was where she left him. She cut the zip-tie from the pipe, then secured her last one around just his wrists. “Don’t try anything stupid,” she warned the uncle.
It wasn’t long before they could see the night sky at the end of a hall, the world outside turned blue and red by the flashing lights of half the county’s response units.
The parking lot was chaos—engines, medics, deputies, half the town awake and watching from behind the tape. Desiree felt the cold hit her face, sharp as a slap, and realized she’d been shaking for the last five minutes.
They handed both men off to the waiting deputies and made their way over to his truck. They plopped down inside and reached for water bottles he had tucked away.
Brandon glanced at her, eyes rimmed red, and grinned, the smile cracked and lopsided. “I can’t believe you zip-tied Waddell to a pipe.”
She couldn’t resist smiling back. “Yeah, he deserved it. I might have broken his nose, too.”
“That’s my girl,” Brandon praised as he leaned down and placed a kiss on her lips.
Kimble and Ruiz spotted them and ran over, probies in tow. “You okay?” Ruiz shouted, voice nearly swallowed by the sirens.
Brandon nodded. “We’re fine. How about you, Kimble?”
“Nothing a hot shower can’t fix,” he told his boss with a grin, before the group of firefighters turned around and sauntered off.
The two of them sat together in the truck, framed by emergency lights and the gutted silhouette of the fire station. Neither spoke. There was nothing left to say.
As the adrenaline faded, Desiree leaned into Brandon, her head against his shoulder. His shirt smelled like smoke and sweat and something tangy beneath it all.
She felt the press of the silver cross at her neck, comforting in a way she hadn’t anticipated—and let herself believe—for the first time in years—that maybe this was what hope looked like. Not the promise that things wouldn’t burn, but the faith that you could walk through the fire and make it out the other side.
She held on tight, determined never to let go of him, or hope, again.
CHAPTER 13
Christmas morning in Sweet Bloom always started the same: too cold, too quiet, no sound other than the hum of twinkling lights that never turned off. Brandon Holloway sat in his home office, elbows on the desk, staring at the file that had shadowed his entire life. Only now, it had new information and potential for real closure.
The county seal was stamped in blue, the paper so crisp it still fought to close itself, like a flower that didn’t want to bloom. At the top, under
“FIRE REPORT—UPDATED FINDINGS,”
was his father’s name in stark, all-caps black.
HOLLOWAY, ROBERT JAMES.
Below that, three lines of text:
“RECLASSIFIED: ARSON HOMICIDE. PRIMARY SUSPECT: WADELL, BRYAN E. (IN CUSTODY). ACCOMPLICE: WADELL, TIMOTHY S. (IN CUSTODY).”
Brandon flexed his hands and tried to steady them on the edge of the desk. The skin at his knuckles was raw and split from days of fire scene cleanups, but the old ache in his left wrist was nothing next to the throb behind his ribs. He made himself read the whole page—every line, every date—like he owed it to the man who taught him to spell “integrity” before he knew how to ride a bike. His father’s name was everywhere. In the incident log, the investigator notes, in the victim section.
He turned the page. There was a grainy, color photo of the fire scene from that night: the pickup in the driveway, the shell of the outbuilding, the yellow tape looping the whole thing like a careless bow. He traced the outline of the car with one finger. He remembered the heat and the sirens and the reporters, in detail, but most of all, he remembered the white knuckles of his mother’s grip as they watched it all from the other side of the road.
He shut the folder. Not a slam—just enough, so the sound didn’t echo in the small room.
