Her brain turned over slowly. “So, someone started the fire deliberately.”
“It looks that way.” Sam’s voice was calm, but she caught the underlying menace.
“I thought he wanted me to go to him. Why would he try to kill us?”
“I don’t know. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he just wanted to freak you out. Which he did,” Sam pointed out.
He was right. The fire had freaked her out. When she’d woken up and smelled the smoke, she could literally hear her brothers’ screams echoing in her head. It was like being transported back in time. She knew no one else was in the house, that no one was going to die this time, and yet at the same time it was like her brain didn’t know it.
“She’s shaking worse now,” Jonathon said anxiously.
“I can't help it. I keep hearing their screams.” She shuddered.
“Whose screams?” Allina sounded confused. “Did you two see someone else at your house?”
“She means her brothers’ screams,” Sam answered for her. “From when she was a kid.”
“We need to know everything you remember about that day, Naomi.” Allina squatted in front of her.
She didn’t want to think about it, she didn’t want to talk about it, but she knew there was no escaping it. “Do you think they were wrong? That the fire wasn't an accident?”
“We don’t know anything yet, but he keeps leaving pictures of you from just before the fire, and then your house catches fire with you and Sam inside, we have to consider that a possibility. Can you look at the photo he left at Oscar Yla’s house? Tell us when it was taken? It looks like around the same time as the one he left at Nicole Carmichael’s murder scene, but we need you to confirm.” Allina retrieved a picture and held it out, but Naomi didn’t take it.
Another life over because of her. Nicole and now Oscar. Who was next? How was she going to live with herself?
“No, not another life over because of you,” Sam said firmly.
She looked at him, surprised. Had she said that out loud?
“No, you didn’t say it out loud, I just know how your mind works.” He gave her a small smile.
Yes, he did. He’d gotten closer to her in the last forty-eight hours than in the entire twenty-two years they'd known each other. He also hadn’t gone anywhere. He knew it was dangerous to be around her right now, he’d seen her in a hysterical mess after the fire, and he was still here. At least for now. But he would be out the door so fast her head would spin if he found out the truth about her. Half of her wished he’d just leave and get it over with, the other half wished there was a way for him to know and still stay.
“Naomi?” Allina’s hand lightly touched her knee. “When was this photo taken?”
The physical contact jarred her mind back into the moment, and she reached out a hand from inside her little cocoon to take the picture. As soon as she saw it, she knew exactly when it had been taken.
“Do you remember when this was taken?” Jonathon repeated when she just sat frozen, her eyes riveted on the photo.
“Yes. It was the last dance competition I ever participated in.” She had performed a ballet solo and won her entire age division. She’d received a plaque, a sash, and a crown. It had been her eleventh crown. She was a good dancer and she worked hard at it. She had wanted to be a ballerina when she grew up and even at eight, she had known that to make her dreams come true she was going to have to put in a lot of time and effort. And ithadbeen a lot of effort, but she had loved every second of it.
“How long before the fire was it?” Allina was keeping her voice gentle, but it wasn't making this any easier.
“The weekend before. The fire was a few days later.”
“Can you tell us everything that you remember about that day?” Jonathon asked.
“It was a long time ago,” she hedged. Her memories were bad enough as it was without intentionally reliving all the details. “And I was only eight.”
“That’s fine. Just tell us whatever you can remember.”
She sighed but obediently begun. “It was November, and the weather had just started getting really cold. There was some snow, I remember because Ruth kept bugging our parents to go skiing because she had a crush on some boy in her class whose dad was a ski instructor.” Naomi had forgotten how her older sister had driven her crazy in the days leading up to the fire by carrying on and on about that boy. Ruth had been ten and just beginning to develop an interest in the opposite sex. She had been eight and still in the boys are icky phase. “That day, after school, Seth and David were driving Mom crazy because they were fighting over everything. Eli was getting sick, he kept crying every time Mom put him down. He wanted her to carry him about everywhere, but she was trying to cook dinner and supervise Ruth, Seth, and me doing our homework.” The more she talked about that day the more it started to come back to her.
“What happened next?” Allina prompted.
“My stepdad was late home from work, again, and Mom was annoyed. She said it wasn't fair that she had to go to work then come home and take care of us, while he got to come home from work and relax. She gave the boys their baths and put them to bed, but Eli wouldn’t sleep, so she put him in the living room with the portable heater next to him because he had a fever and was getting chills.” She paused, her forehead crinkled as she tried to catch hold of something that suddenly seemed important.
Exchanging hopeful glances with the others, Sam asked, “Did you remember something, Naomi?”