I returned his smile with a sigh of relief. “Of course. See you then.”
We didn’t touch again because I knew I’d grab on to him like a fucking limpet if he came near me. I wanted to steal him away just the two of us and go hide out somewhere until the mystery of the fires had been solved. But I was a responsible adult and so was he. No running away for either of us.
I entered the firehouse with my head held high. Teri and Chief Paige were waiting for me in the meeting room. They offered me something to drink as well as something sweet from a bakery box, but I declined. It galled me being treated like a guest in my own damned station.
“Lieutenant Wilde, thanks for coming,” Teri said with a welcoming smile. “Thank you for agreeing to talk with us again.”
I nodded.
“First things first. We need to clear up a few things you answered before. Where were you when the Walker fire started?”
“I’ve already answered that question,” I said calmly. “Several times.”
“We’d like you to answer it again,” Chief Paige said. He wasn’t gruff or anything, just conversational.
“Am I a suspect in these arson cases?” I asked.
The hesitation from both of them was too long for my comfort, and when it came, Teri’s answer wasn’t reassuring.
She sighed. “We just want to ask you some clarifying questions, Lieutenant Wilde. That’s all.”
I nodded again. “And I just want to be sure that if these questions are geared toward the implication I may have been involved in setting these fires, that I have adequate representation from counsel. Are you asking these questions today with the intent to connect me to this crime?”
“We’re trying to determine who committed this crime, Otto. We’re not trying to pin something on you that you didn’t do,” Evan interjected.
I turned to face him. “So are your questions about who may have committed this crime or are they about me and my actions, specifically?”
“Well, you, of course,” Teri explained. “Your experience is the only one you can testify to.”
“Then I would like to request union representation, please.”
Teri spoke first. “Several years ago, in Round Rock versus Rodriguez, the Texas Supreme Court—”
I held up a hand. “I’m familiar with the case. Are you denying me my right to union representation? Because that case was about internal investigations and discipline action. This case is about a very public arson. Two of them, in fact.”
Chief Paige butted in. “I’ll call for a rep. Sit tight.”
The process took a while, and when the union rep finally arrived, I was pleased to learn he was well versed in this type of situation. Under his advisement, I ended up explaining again that I was at Jolie’s house getting the shoe size when the first fire was presumably set outside, and I was in my cabin on the ranch when the fire was presumably set at my parents’ house.
“Do you or have you recently owned a bottle of Patron tequila?” Teri asked, scratching notes in her ever-present notebook.
The question came out of nowhere and took me aback. “Excuse me?”
She repeated the question while my mind raced.
“I do own a bottle of Patron currently. I also recently gifted a bottle to John Walker.”
Teri and Chief Paige’s heads raised in a type of double take.
“I also happen to know you can probably find a bottle of it in a quarter of the personal residences in this county, so if you think that’s evidence of a crime, you’re mistaken.”
Teri met my eyes and I knew by her look things were getting ready to get exponentially more complicated.
“No, but a bottle of Patron with your fingerprints on it is.”
The union rep shut things down very quickly after that, asking if I was being charged with a crime. When both Teri and the fire chief shook their heads, the rep escorted me out and advised me to stay cool while he looked into things further.
My hands shook with anger the entire way home. I wanted to scream and shout that the arsonist had to be John Walker, but at the same time, I didn’t want to believe it. How could Seth’s brother do such a thing? And why?
When I pulled past the main ranch house, Doc came out on the porch waving his arms for me to stop. I parked and joined him and Grandpa in the kitchen.
“It was John,” Grandpa said while Doc poured us some iced tea from a pitcher in the fridge.
“What?” I spluttered. “How do you know? You think he set the fires?”
They both stood there and stared at me. “Well, no. I don’t know,” Grandpa said. “I was just telling you who was trying to buy Bill and Shelby’s house. It was John Walker.”
I smacked my hand down on the kitchen table. I was pissed as hell. “Dammit, I knew it. I need to call Chief Paige.”