Burn You Twice - Mary Burton Page 0,78

toward the crime scene tape.

She moved to the kitchen and made a single cup of coffee, figuring if the dynamic duo wanted coffee now, they could make it themselves. Cup in hand, she trailed them outside. The air was still cool, but the sun was bright and warmed her skin. She burrowed deeper into another one of Ann’s jackets.

“What woke you up last night?” Gideon asked.

“An explosion.” Last night’s memory had mirrored the long-ago past far too well. But to her credit, her voice did not break. “Then I put on my boots, ran outside, and grabbed the hose.”

“And you saw no one?” Clarke asked.

“Wish I had. It would have made last night a lot calmer.” She sipped her coffee. “It’s always the unknown that eats at you.”

“I’m going to walk the woods and see if there’s anything,” Clarke said.

Joan shoved her hands in her pockets, promising herself to buy gloves before the day was out. “Have at it.”

When Clarke vanished into the woods and they were alone, Gideon said, “You’re very calm.”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” she challenged.

“Last night had to be traumatic. A reminder.”

She crossed her fingers. “Haunting memories and I are well acquainted. I don’t run from them anymore.”

His brows knotted together. “Are you still troubled by the College Fire?”

“Troubled is a strong word.”

“You said haunting memories.”

“A figure of speech.” The emotional scars, unlike the physical ones on her hands, were very much alive and painful.

“What aren’t you telling me?” he asked.

Again, Gideon lingered, his head cocked, as if searching for any small clue lurking behind her expression and tone. Her skin tingled, and a restless energy surged inside her. Finally, he shook his head as if whatever he had been stalking had eluded him.

Clarke returned from the woods and strode toward the burn site. Gideon joined him, and the two poked through the ashes. Clarke stopped in what had been the center of the shed and knelt down.

“See anything?” she asked.

Clarke held up a blackened, twisted blob covered in charred mulch and dirt. “It’s plastic. Likely the delivery device for the accelerant.” He held it up to his nose. “Gasoline. And there’s a burn track in the grass. The arsonist trailed the gasoline from the shed to the woods.”

She imagined someone placing the jug in the shed and setting it on fire knowing she had a front-row seat. She tried to imagine Nate at the center of this storm, but the more she thought about him as an arsonist, the less it made sense. Christ, if genetics were a precursor to trouble, she and a lot of other folks were screwed.

“If there’s any chance of pulling prints or DNA, our best bet is the state lab or the FBI lab at Quantico,” Gideon said.

Clarke carefully bagged the remnants of the homemade device and handed them to Gideon. “It’s got to be similar to the other one. Joan, you might want to find out where your pen pal Elijah was last night.”

There were several cars parked in front of Elijah’s boardinghouse when Joan arrived. She had decided to make this visit without Gideon because she sensed that Elijah would be more forthcoming if it was just her asking the questions.

Striding across the front and up the steps, she rang the bell and was shown to the den by Mr. Pickett. She found Elijah on his laptop studying video clips of arson events.

“You do this for fun?” she asked.

His gaze did not waver from the screen, but a smile curled the edges of his lips. “Back so soon? People might start to talk, Joan.”

She moved into the room and took a seat next to him. “Don’t you have class today?”

“I did. Class was an hour ago. When did you start sleeping in late? And why do you smell like smoke?”

Despite a shower and a clean shirt, her jeans still reeked and would until she could wash them a few times. “Someone torched Ann’s shed last night. I had the pleasure of putting it out.”

He paused the video and faced her. All traces of humor had vanished. “What happened?”

“Fire set outside my window.”

“How?”

“I’m not supposed to say. It’s an active investigation.”

“I didn’t set it.”

She held up her hands. “I suppose you have an alibi.”

“For last night? Yes, I do. Was anyone hurt?”

“No.” She searched for traces of Nate in Elijah’s features and found several. “How old were you when you set those dumpsters on fire?”

“Are we relitigating old news?”

“Humor me.”

“Twelve and thirteen.”

“Why did you do it?”

“My mother had kicked my