Firestorm - Ellie Masters Page 0,69

lay out my concerns. Brody and Cage listen while Mom watches. She won’t say it, but she’s thrilled we’re all back home. I get to see her every week, but Brody works in the city and Cage is often on assignment, gallivanting across the globe.

She worries about each of us. That we’re not settling down. That none of us have ever had a steady girlfriend. I had Erin, but that blew up in my face when she fucked Felix. Mom’s afraid we aren’t going to find our soulmates and never know what true love feels like.

She had us before turning twenty-one. The desire for grandbabies stirs in her eyes, but we’re not holding up our end of the deal, which frustrates her to no end.

“I don’t see what you can do.” Cage slaps the drying towel over his shoulder. “The arson report is going to be tough to beat.”

“Yeah, but Pete Sims is a putz. He does the bare minimum. Besides it’s all circumstantial.”

“I hear you,” Cage says. “You want to believe her, but her fingerprints are all over everything.”

“Yeah, it’s weird that they picked up prints.” Brody drains the sink and watches the suds swirl down the drain. “I thought the fire would have burned everything up.”

“You’d be surprised what survives a fire. Things you think shouldn’t be affected are unrecognizable. Other things, like paper, are surprisingly resilient.”

“And fingerprints?” Cage asks.

“In plastic, they’re incredibly durable.” My brothers have a point.

Everything points to Evelyn, but they weren’t there. They didn’t see the terror in her eyes. She wasn’t concerned about the fire or its threat to her life. Her fear came from thinking I was the man who knocked her out.

“If we could find this man who assaulted her.” I blow out my breath in frustration, “That would clear Evelyn of everything.”

“And how do we do that?” Cage flips the towel in the air, folding it in half. He hangs it on a drawer handle. “There’s no proof he was there. Other than footprints, but wasn’t your crew working there? If you can identify the center of the fire, then you could try that, but it’s been over two weeks. I’d think any prints would be gone by now. I think you’re fighting a lost cause.”

“Think about it.” I persist in my defense. “After he knocked her out, he had the perfect opportunity to pin the whole thing on her. He could’ve shoved that receipt in the bottom of her bag. Who keeps receipts like that anymore? And he could’ve put the bottle of lighter fluid in her hand. There’s plausible deniability.”

“I think you mean reasonable doubt,” Brody corrects.

“Whatever.” I kick back and lean against the kitchen island. “She didn’t do it, and if we had her cellphone, there would be proof.”

“What do you mean?” Cage perks up, interested.

“She said she took some selfies and he’s in the photos.”

“What happened to her phone?”

I shrug. “She said it was lost with the rest of her stuff.”

“But they found her backpack,” Cage says. “Her phone could’ve survived.”

Brody scratches his head. “I still don’t see how her backpack survived that fire.”

“She was in the epicenter. It burned outward from where she was.”

“Ah, then we go up there and look for it.” Brody says it like it’s so damn easy.

“Wouldn’t they have found it during the investigation?” Cage still isn’t convinced.

“Only if they were looking for it, and Pete Sims found what he needed to string together his case and stopped.”

“So, we saddle up and go look ourselves.” Cage grabs the dishtowel, spins it real quick, then snaps it at me.

“Mother fucker!” He scores a direct hit on my hip and gives me a cocky grin, pleased with himself.

I snatch the towel out of Cage’s grip and quickly twist the end.

“Game on!” I flick the towel at him.

Cage tries dancing away, but I score a direct hit on his ass.

“Fucker!” He spins around and snags one of the drying towels.

Mine’s wetter, which means it snaps better and is more likely to leave a welt behind.

We used to prank each other all the time growing up, covering one another with welts over our wet bodies as we ran semi-naked through the house after a shower. Our father would sit in his overstuffed chair and mutter ‘Boys will be boys’ while our mother scolded us to stop hitting one another.

We’re almost thirty, but we’re racing around the house, snapping each another with towels. Not to be left out, Brody grabs a towel and joins in on