I can’t,” she said. He realized that she was trembling.
“It’s okay. They’ve got this. You might even be able to rebuild this shed.” He offered to take the hose from her, but she shook him off. “Don’t be afraid.”
“I’m not afraid,” she said fiercely. In her tense posture, he saw the same fearlessness he’d witnessed in Kate. “I’m furious.”
“I’d be, too. Kate feels terrible—”
“Kate? This has nothing to do with Kate!”
He stared down at the eighty-two-year-old in mud boots. “Are you saying you know who did this?”
“Yes, I know. I told them to stay in the Ford until you got here.”
He swung toward the truck but couldn’t see inside the windows. “Are they dangerous? Armed?”
She snorted. “Dangerous to themselves, that’s it. Where’s Kate?”
Kate was hurrying across the lawn as she zipped up her hoodie. “Emma, are you—”
“Follow me,” she interrupted. Dragging the hose along with her, she marched over to the truck. A hunting rifle was propped against the truck.
“Emma!” Kate gasped. “You didn’t—”
“It’s not loaded, but they don’t know that,” Emma grumbled. With the rifle in one hand, hose in the other, she gestured for Darius to open the truck door.
Inside, he found two suspects huddling together. Two soaking-wet teenagers. S.G. and a boy he didn’t recognize.
“What the hell?” His voice must have come out louder than he meant, because the two kids shrank back against the seat.
Kate peered over his arm. “S.G.? Dylan? You guys did this?”
“Yes, they did. I caught them in the act.” Emma waved the hose at the kids, getting them even wetter in the process. “They snuck over from Denaina’s property. That’s why my geese didn’t wake up. But I don’t sleep much anymore and I saw them.”
S.G. shot a look at the boy, Dylan. She seemed to be urging him to say something. But he set his jaw and refused.
“Who are you? Who are your parents? Why’d you do this?” Darius demanded.
The kid stared back with a mulish scowl. With his wet hair and soaked clothing, it was hard to tell much about him. He seemed to have brownish hair and bluish eyes and looked much like other kids in town.
Darius turned to S.G. instead. He knew her—or thought he had, up until now. “What’s going on here? Why would you do something so stupid? Denaina has a zero-tolerance policy for this kind of shit. Do you want to get kicked out of Denaina’s place?”
That was a little unfair, because Denaina loved S.G. and would probably be willing to give her some leeway because of her very strange history. But he intended to get the truth here, one way or another.
His strategy worked. S.G.’s pale eyes filled with panicked tears. “I didn’t do it! I was trying to stop him. I saw him out the window at Denaina’s. I got up and followed him. By the time I caught up he’d already started the fire.”
He looked back at Dylan. “Is that true?”
Dylan glared at him, all sheer stubborn bravado. “I want to speak to a lawyer.”
“I’m a lawyer,” said Kate. “I’m not an Alaska lawyer, but I’m happy to advise you that your best chance here is to answer the question. All the questions. Like why you’d try to hurt the people who are employing you.”
“I wasn’t trying to—” Dylan stopped and folded his lips together.
Ah ha. That sounded like a confession to him. All they needed now was a motive. Why the hell was this strange kid running around Lost Harbor setting nuisance fires?
Darius exchanged a look with Kate. He lifted an eyebrow and jerked his head toward the house. She nodded slightly. Maybe it was all the time they’d spent in bed, but they seemed to understand each other perfectly.
Kate turned to the two shivering kids. “How about this? You’re both wet and probably freezing your butts off. Let’s go inside the house and warm up. You can sit by the fire and … never mind, we’ll skip the fire. But we can get out of this truck and have some food and then we’ll try this again. Deal?”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Darius had to check on the firefighting crew, so Kate and Emma led the two teenagers into the farmhouse. Emma was still muttering furiously as she turned on the light in the mud room.
“Setting fire to my shed. What a stupid, stupid thing. What was the damn point?” As the kids crowded into the entry, she added, “Take off your shoes!”
Kate tugged her grandmother into the warm living room, ahead of the