between us. My body hums while the sickening sensation coils through my veins. I let this man enter my body. He’s crawled into my heart. He stole my soul.
“Tell me why you went to prison, Jake.”
“Rita,” he whispers, taking a step toward me, hands lifting to touch me, but I stalk backward down the ramp, keeping space between us.
“Tell me,” I demand, fisting my hands at my sides.
“I was accused of setting a fire.”
I shake my head at the simplistic answer. “Not enough, handsome.” The endearment is bitter, and Jake flinches at the term.
“What did you hear?” he questions, but I’m not here to speak. I’m here to listen.
“Talk,” I command.
“There was a fire at a local high school.”
“Which one?” I snap, not wanting anything left out and briefly closing my eyes as I brace myself for the truth.
“Waterson Community. It was a misunderstanding. I’d seen the blaze and stopped to investigate. As I was around the back of the building, an explosion happened.”
My imagination runs wild. Visions of Ian I don’t wish to see haunt my thoughts like ash floating in the air.
“Because you started the fire,” I clarify, shaking so badly I’m surprised words even form in my mouth.
Jake sighs and tilts his head for the ground, shaking it side to side. “I was seen on the school surveillance cameras. It looked like I was exiting a side door and then wandering behind the building when the blast occurred, but I had not been inside. I’d been driving home after an arson investigation—”
“How ironic the arson investigator committed arson,” I interrupt, not happy with his quiet tone or the sketchy holes in what he’s telling me.
“It is ironic,” he snaps back at me, his head lifting. “I didn’t do it. And I wasn’t allowed to investigate a crime I hadn’t committed because it was determined before I was even tried that I had done it. There were holes all over the reports. It was completely inconclusive to catch me on camera at a door without proof I ever entered or exited the building that night, which I did not.”
“There was someone in that building,” I say through clenched teeth. “He could have let you inside.”
“He didn’t. I didn’t know anyone was inside until after . . .”
“Until after the building burned and he died in those flames.” My voice carries as my too-calm voice recounts what happened. Tears stream down my face at the truth.
“You set the fire that killed the love of my life.”
15
Jake
“What?” I step toward her, hands primed to grasp her arms, but she backs up again, putting even more distance between us. “Rita, no.”
Tears stream down her face, and my heart clenches from the hurt written in her expression. The hurt she thinks I caused her.
“Rita, I didn’t do it,” I say, pleading with her to believe me. Reaching for her once more, she trudges to the end of the ramp to keep space between us, and I stop halfway down the slanted structure.
“Then who did?” She turns back to me, her eyes question everything.
“I don’t know.” Please don’t doubt me. It was difficult enough that I was going through a divorce when the fire happened but the added doubt from my ex-wife, a woman I’d loved, drove nails deeper under my skin. I couldn’t handle that level of distrust when I’d been nothing but loyal my entire life. Loyal to my brother, to the department, to my wife.
“The arson investigator doesn’t know who started the fire.” Rita scoffs.
“I just told you I wasn’t allowed to investigate the scene once I was a suspect.” I couldn’t defend myself. The department heads were afraid I’d tamper with what little evidence they had, and I wasn’t allowed to examine the ruined building even though I’d been the best investigator the State ever had.
“Rita, you have to believe me. I didn’t do it.”
“Well, I don’t.” The finality in her tone tells me I have no hope of convincing her otherwise. After all we’ve shared, after all we’ve done, she didn’t want to give me the benefit of the doubt. So much for second chances and fresh starts.
“I sure as shit didn’t know anyone was inside.”
“Stating that makes you sound guilty. It makes you sound like you set the fire where someone was inside.”
“I didn’t start that fire. I had been a volunteer fireman. I was the arson investigator. Why would I ever do such a thing? Why the hell would I start a blaze?” It was a