Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
WEST
“ W hat the fuck are you talking about?” I demanded into my phone. It was the only thing I could think of to say. Jim had arrested Avery for arson? “Back up and tell me again what happened.”
Jim went through it a second time. The call to emergency services reporting a trespasser at Wild Haven Brewing, someone claiming they’d seen a tall woman with dark hair carrying gas cans inside.
A second call reporting flames at the back of the brewery.
Jim had arrived along with the firefighters to see smoke pouring from the building.
Then Avery exploded out of the door. He said it looked like she’d used a metal stool to break her way out.
They’d already seen gas cans by her car.
There wasn’t a world where I could picture Avery doing something like this. But the evidence was damning all around.
Whatever had happened, Avery was in the thick of it.
I drove by the scene. The cans had been taken into evidence already, and it looked like they had the fire under control.
It had been dry the past few weeks, and there were dead leaves everywhere.
It was just good luck that the wind had been quiet enough not to spread embers.
As it was, the fire crew had been busy beating down the flames that had popped up in the grasses around the brewery.
“I had a word with the fire chief,” Jim said. “Definitely arson. You could smell the accelerant.”
And Avery was in jail. My jail.
I got back in the car, made the short drive into town, and parked in front of the station, my mind slowly turning over everything I knew.
The thing was, when I’d arrested Ford for killing Prentice, I’d been seventy-five percent sure he hadn’t done it.
After I’d talked to him, I’d been ninety percent sure he hadn’t done it.
But with people, you never knew. I’d learned in doing this job that you could think you understood everything about a human, but there were always hidden layers.
Everyone had secrets. I hadn’t had a choice with Ford.
The evidence had been too good. My gut wasn’t any help when we had the murder weapon in his closet, witnesses who saw him fleeing the scene, and his footprints outside his father’s window.
With Avery, I had a caller describing her at the scene and the gas cans by her car.
But if what Jim and the fire crew had told me was true, she’d been trapped in the building.
My heart stuttered at the thought of what would have happened if she hadn’t found that stool and broken through the door.
I couldn’t function if I let the picture develop in my mind.
Avery, on the floor, passed out as flames raced closer, the air gone.
Stop thinking about it.
Right now, I had to focus on being a cop.
I had an arson to deal with—that I knew with one hundred percent certainty.
I’d smelled the gas myself through the acrid black smoke.
But was Avery my arsonist? My heart and my gut said no fucking way.
But there were those gas cans. And the witness who described her at the scene.
I walked through the front doors, nodding at Amanda at the front desk. She called out, “Chief,” but I waved her off. I unlocked and pushed through the multiple sets of doors between the reception area and the cells.
Avery sat on the bench in the first cell, her arms braced on her knees, head down. At the sound of the door opening, she looked up. Soot and sweat streaked her face, her eyes bloodshot and swollen.
“West! West, I swear I didn’t?—”
I held up a hand, but she kept going.
“I know they said they found gas cans, that someone saw me, but I?—”
“I know,” I said, cutting her off.
She fell silent, staring up at me from across the cell. I didn’t say anything else. I knew, down to the core of my soul, that Avery Sawyer had not set that fire. It didn’t matter that all the evidence said she did it.
This was where I was supposed to turn around and walk away.
Let her have her phone call, probably to Harvey, or Cole Haywood, since this was a criminal offence.
My job was to get the wheels of justice turning and leave this to the system I believed in.
That was my job. I was West Garfield. I always did my job. No bending the rules. No exceptions.
But looking at Avery—her sweat-stained face and tangled hair, the smell of smoke poisoning the air around her—all I could feel was grateful that she was alive. Fire moved fast, and she’d been trapped. I forced the thought from my mind. If I thought about what could have happened…
I needed a clear head. I had to follow the evidence, but this time the evidence was pointing at the wrong person. And this time, I couldn’t let the wheels of justice do their job. Not if it meant keeping Avery locked in a cell.
“Do you need anything?” I asked. “Water, coffee, food?”
Her eyes slid away as she realized I wasn’t going to let her out. She shook her head, then said, her voice scratchy and low, “Water. Can I have some water?”
I nodded and turned for the door. I grabbed a few waters and a granola bar from my office, brought them back, and handed them to her through the bars.
“Do I get a phone call?” she asked, hesitant, trying, I guessed, to read my mood.
I couldn’t give her anything.
“Not yet,” I said. “Drink that water. Eat the granola bar. I’ll be back.”
I turned to leave. From behind me, I heard her call, “West!” but I didn’t stop. I couldn’t.
I left the station as abruptly as I’d entered, ignoring Amanda at the front desk yet again. Jim caught up to me as I strode into the parking lot .
“Chief, I’m sorry. I had to. We got that call, and the cans were right by her car. But, Avery? I wouldn’t have thought— Maybe I shouldn’t have?—”
I shook my head. “You did exactly what you’re supposed to.”
“She had her phone call?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Not yet.”
“Should I?—”
“She’s fine. I gave her some water. I have to check on a few things, then I’ll take care of it. You do your job. Process the evidence. Go take another look at the scene. Bring someone else out with you. Find out who called it in. Talk to the fire crew. Get their statements. You know the drill.”
“Yes, Chief,” he said, ducking his head as he went into the station. He didn’t like this much more than I did. Avery wasn’t her father. Not even close. No one in town would want to see her in jail for arson. And there wouldn’t be a thing I could do about it if I didn’t find a reason to let her out.
I went to the only person who could help me. Normally, I’d walk to my parents’ house, but I didn’t want to run into anyone on the street. I drove the short distance and let myself in, finding my father in his study, watching a football game.
“Can I turn this off for a minute?” I asked.
He looked up in surprise. “West. Didn’t expect to see you today.” He paused, taking in my expression. “What happened?”
I sat in the leather armchair opposite his. “Avery Sawyer was just arrested for arson. Wild Haven Brewing. No casualties, but it’s looking like a total loss; burned to the ground.”
He stared at me, jaw dropped. I didn’t think I’d ever seen such an undignified expression on my father’s face. He recovered quickly, snapping his mouth closed. He rose from his chair slowly.
“That calls for a bourbon.” He raised his eyebrow my way.
Normally, I’d say, “No, I’m working.” But it was my day off, and a bourbon sounded like a great fucking idea.
I answered with a short nod, and his eyes flared just enough to let me know he’d been expecting me to decline.
I would have expected myself to decline.
But I was upside down and inside out, and nothing felt normal. Avery was in jail. My jail.
“You arrested her brother when you knew he was innocent,” my father said, handing me a cut crystal glass with a finger of bourbon.
I leaned in and took a sniff. He’d gone for the good stuff. That wasn’t a great sign. I sipped and then nodded. “I did,” I said.
“Even though you knew he didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t know,” I said.
“But you were pretty damn sure.”
“I was pretty damn sure,” I agreed. “But the evidence—we had too much pointing to guilt and none pointing to innocence. I had to do my job.”
“You always do your job, West,” my father said, sitting back down in his chair and taking a sip of bourbon.
“I give you a hard time about it, but I’ve always admired that about you.
You don’t take shit from anyone, and you do your job—even when it’s hard and uncomfortable and inconvenient.
You do your job.” He sat back. “What kind of evidence do you have on Avery?”
I told him.
He shook his head. “Seems a little thin.”
“Agreed,” I said. “The problem is, she was there in the building while it was burning. Jim already checked with Bob—he didn’t ask her to come to the brewery. She didn’t have a reason to be there, but she was.”
“Someone is messing with her,” he said, taking a slow sip from his glass. “Sounds like she almost died. Anyone checked her lungs out?”
Both thoughts sent a spike of fear through me.
Someone had tried to have her killed; that was obvious to me now.
And her lungs? Shit. No. She wasn’t coughing, seemed like she was breathing okay.
Other than being disheveled and dirty, she hadn’t looked injured.
The shock of seeing her in jail had knocked all logic out of my head.
“I should have had her checked out,” I said under my breath.
“Well, you still can,” my father said reasonably.
Sudden urgency to get Avery to the doctor pushed me forward. “I need a favor.”
My father’s eyebrows flew up, and he took another sip of bourbon. “Well, pigs must be flying if you’re asking me for a favor. What can I do for you, son?”
“I need you to call Judge Claremont. I want her released on her own recognizance.”
My father drew in a long breath and let it out slowly.
“I’ve never asked—” I reminded him .