Chapter 25
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Ravenswood, Illinois
Bruce was quiet for several seconds, probably sorting through two decades of buried memories. Before he spoke again, he cleared his throat. “You were seventeen, Jason. You were focused on school and getting into Stanford. You weren’t home as much, didn’t see what I saw.”
“Which was?”
“Dad was scared. Really scared. He’d get phone calls and afterward he’d pace the house for hours.
He started keeping a gun in his desk drawer.
He’d drive different routes to town, check his mirrors constantly.
” Bruce rubbed his forehead with work-scarred fingers.
Each callus told a story of metal shaped by fire and force.
“I thought he was just stressed about the business. I had no idea about the DEA thing until years later.”
Harry Fisher’s fear had been visible to at least some members of his family. Flint filed that tidbit away. “When did you last see Tantanella?”
“Few days before the fire. He came by to fix a section of fence that had blown down in a storm. He seemed jumpy, kept looking over his shoulder.” Bruce’s eyes focused somewhere beyond his camera, seeing something from long ago. “After the fire, he just disappeared.”
“Did anyone look for him?”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” Bruce shifted, and Flint heard the creak of a wooden chair. “Nobody thought to connect him to what happened to our house, as far as I heard.”
Flint replied, “Was there anything about Tantanella’s behavior in those last few days that seemed off? Anything that might suggest he knew what was coming?”
Bruce was quiet for a long moment. He’d cocked his head and closed his eyes, as if he were reliving those days in the past, before the fire, when his family was still intact. The pain of memory etched lines around his eyes that hadn’t been there as a teenager.
Behind him, rain was streaking past the workshop windows.
Droplets caught the light and cast moving shadows across the metal sculptures behind him.
“There was one thing I noticed. The day Frankie came to fix the fence he asked me about our family’s schedule.
Wanted to know when we’d all be home together.
Said he had something he wanted to tell Dad. ”
“Did he say what it was?” Flint asked.
“Dad wasn’t there that day. Had driven to Lexington for some kind of meeting.” Bruce shook his head and frowned. “I told Frankie we’d all be at the basketball tournament that Friday night. The whole family always came to the games.”
The weight of implication settled over the conversation like a heavy blanket. The only sounds were the SUV’s heater and the rhythmic sweep of windshield wipers.
Finally, Jason asked, “Are you saying Frankie Tantanella might have set the fire?”
Bruce’s shoulders sagged as he shook his head. “I’ve spent twenty-four years trying not to think about that night. Trying not to wonder what we could have done differently. How we might have saved the others. Lizzy, too.”
“Did you have a crush on Lizzy?” Flint asked.
“Every boy in town had a crush on Lizzy. She was hot. Kind, too. And sweet. Everybody loved Lizzy, including the parents and the teachers,” Bruce replied. “The whole town mourned when she died.”
“Including Frankie Tantanella?” Flint asked.
Bruce shrugged. “Sure. Frankie, too.”
“Were they dating? Lizzy and Frankie?” Flint asked.
“It’s possible. Sure, Lizzy might have dated Frankie. She would have felt sorry for him, like the rest of us did.” Bruce replied.
“None of this was your fault, you know,” Jason said. “We were kids. We didn’t even know there was anything going on with Dad.”
“I was sixteen, you were seventeen. Old enough to pay attention and ask questions. But we didn’t.
We’ll never know whether we did the right thing.
” Bruce looked directly into his camera.
“Jason, think carefully about what you’re doing here.
We believe these people killed Dad’s DEA contact.
What about Mom? If you keep pushing this, they might come after her. We’re both here, like sitting ducks.”
“Live the rest of your lives in fear? Never knowing what happened to the others?” Jason frowned. “I can’t do that. If they want to find us, they will, whether we go looking for them or not. We need to expose them. Find the truth. That’s the only way we’ll all be able to live in peace.”
“Or we could simply let sleeping dogs lie,” Bruce said firmly.
The brothers stared at each other across the video connection. All these years of processing the same trauma in completely different ways had carved different paths through their lives.
Jason had escaped Kentucky and built an empire.
Bruce had stayed home, caring for their mother, channeling his pain into art. Two different responses to the same devastating loss.
“I can’t stop now,” Jason said quietly. “Not when we’re this close.”
Bruce nodded slowly, as if he’d expected that answer. “Then be careful. Both of you.” His gaze shifted to Flint. “And find out what really happened to our brothers and sister. Whatever it takes. We’ll have no peace until you do.”
Bruce ended the call and Flint’s screen went dark, leaving only the reflection of his face in the black glass. He closed his laptop and stared out at the swirling snow.
The storm had intensified while they talked. Silvery flakes danced in the headlight beams like ghostly moths.
The pieces were starting to form a picture, but it was a dark one. Tantanella had known the family’s schedule. He’d asked about it specifically. He’d been nervous and jumpy in the days before the fire.
But if he’d been hired to burn the house, why had the children survived? Why had Lizzy Pace ended up in Illinois with the Fisher kids? Why had Tantanella disappeared only to reappear as her boyfriend months later? Where had he been all that time? How had he found Lizzy again?
“So Tantanella was involved,” Drake said, breaking the silence. “He might have torched the house. He may have helped Lizzy disappear. Who knows what else he was involved in?”
“Looks that way,” Flint replied, still mulling the new facts.
Drake navigated around a slow-moving snowplow. Orange lights flashed through the gray afternoon like a lighthouse beacon in the gathering gloom. “Maybe Frankie couldn’t go through with it when he found Lizzy and the kids were still in the house.”
“Or maybe there’s more to the story than we know.”
“Meaning what?” Drake asked.
“Sounds like Frankie and Lizzy were dating,” Flint replied slowly. “Frankie thought the house would be unoccupied that night. Say he gets there to torch the place and finds Lizzy and the kids are upstairs. You think he would have killed her and the kids intentionally?”
Drake wagged his head slowly. “Doesn’t sound like that to me.”
“Yeah. Me neither,” Flint replied. “So Frankie helps Lizzy and the kids get away. Then he torches the house.”
“Makes sense,” Drake said. “More sense than anything else we’ve come up with, anyway.”
“The rest unfolds afterward. Lizzy shows up in Ravenswood. Takes care of the kids. Frankie comes later to join them.”
“And then Lizzy has a run of bad luck. Gets cancer. Dies. And the kids get adopted,” Drake murmured as he tried the idea. “Okay. I can buy that. But what happens to Frank Tantanella?”
Flint shrugged. “I don’t know. But we do know that the bus driver involved in Lisa Peterson’s death has moved to Florida. Tampa, I think Patel said. Let’s start there.”
“Works for me. At least it won’t be snowing in mid-March,” Drake replied with a smirk and headed toward the airport.
“Back to Houston, first. I’ve got a few things to do. We’ll head to Tampa in the morning,” Flint said as Drake maneuvered the SUV through the traffic.