Chapter 21 Caleb
CALEB
“I was getting worried” is the first thing that comes out of my mouth when she finally returns.
I was counting down the time on the clock. Minutes passed, and nothing. I was only one more minute away from going in there and rescuing her.
Nothing about her father sits well with me. Piper never went into elaborate detail about her past, but I knew what kind of man he was as soon as she told me about him. Gambling. More interested in bees than his own daughter’s school progression. What a prick.
She collapses into the passenger seat, and I start the engine not a second later. We’re out of there in a flash, driving down the road to head back to town.
“He’s in serious debt. And my father is in no position to pay.”
“So, what’s the verdict?”
“To put it simply—death.”
“Whose are we talking?” My stomach churns at the thought.
“His, of course. But it could’ve been mine and Sonny’s too. The fire.” She pauses, still out of breath. “My father was under the impression that the hire set my place on fire.”
“The one from Boston?”
“Uh-huh.” She stares out the side window, following the lines of trees as we fly past them. “The hire broke in a day before the fire.”
“What?” The shock has me slamming on the brake, my speed reduced by almost half. “Didn’t James Taylor mention something about—?”
“My thoughts exactly.” Piper turns to me, staring hard at my profile as if to try and draw a conclusion. “He said there were signs of break-in, and Maple Crossing never has those…or so I thought. I set the fire on the stove, but the flames tripled as soon as they hit the floor.”
“Causing an explosion…” I turn a sharp corner and use this next long stretch of road to search Piper’s face. “Did you spill anything flammable?”
“Jess had used some bleach in the sink, but it wouldn’t have been on the floor.”
I think for a moment. “You’re sure there was nothing else around?”
“What are you saying? The guy purposely spilled something flammable, hoping to burn down the house?”
“No. Spilling flammable liquid wouldn’t set the house on fire on its own; it has to be ignited. Unless you told someone ahead of time what you were planning to do, he wouldn’t have planted anything.” I glance at her sidelong. “Did you tell anyone?”
“No.” She winces. “It was a spur-of-the-moment decision. I spoke to an online insurance consultant, but that was minutes before I went ahead with the plan. The break-in happened the day before. Both my father and James Taylor confirmed this.”
“Which means that if he spilled a flammable substance, it was accidental,” I say. “The guy who broke in wasn’t planning to cause a fire. He was probably just trying to find your father, if he assumed you two were living together.”
“Now would be a good time to tell you about the Chevy.” I feel her pitch her eyebrow up at me in my peripheral. “Remember when I mentioned about the two cases being intertwined?”
“He’s looking for your father,” I state.
“Yeah, hoping I’ll eventually lead this hire to him.”
I clench my hand on the steering wheel, overcome with too many thoughts to contain.
This is bad. We’re getting somewhere with the fire and the cause, but her father’s carelessness is now affecting all of us, including the kids.
Their lives are at risk if there’s a stalker in town, desperate to track down Philip Hart.
Anger rushes through me, unfiltered. “That selfish fucking bastard. He’s using you as a cover-up to buy him more time, and risking our kids’ lives as a result.”
“It’s my father they want. Not Ellie and Sonny.”
“True, but it’s always the innocent ones who end up being used as leverage.” My fingers dig into the leather of the wheel, threatening to rip the material.
I knew in my gut that this was coming.
It’s only possible to dedicate your attention to one person at a time. Inviting Piper into my home, spending time with her, and looking out for her today by waiting around in the motel parking lot is bringing me closer to her, and further away from my own daughter.
I’m not with my own daughter today. And I should be, even though she’s at school. She’s not safe there while the hire from Boston is stalking us.
“You need to tell the stalker where your father is.”
The silence isn’t sounding promising.
“Hart?”
“He’s my father—”
“Who never did right by you. Him staying in the shadows, hiding, is putting Sonny and Ellie in danger. The hire is only going to keep following you around until he has what he came here for—your father’s head on a spike, by the sounds of it. We have to lure him to the motel somehow.”
Crickets.
“Hart!”
“I know!” she snaps, turning to face the side window. It’s as though she can’t bear the thought of looking out the same window as me. Or bringing harm on her father. “I get where you’re coming from. But there has to be a way we can get everyone out of this mess.”
“It’s impossible to save everyone.”
That gets her head steering back toward me.
“I know the trust is gone for you, but if there’s one thing you’re still gonna trust me on, let it be this—you can’t rescue everyone. It’s not a case of being strong, physically and mentally. You can be the smartest, strongest person in the world and still fail.”
“How endearing.” Her voice is tiny but her eyes are shrewd, watching mine like she’s seeing straight through me.
“That’s what made you want to become a firefighter in the first place, isn’t it?
You faced loss and wanted to make up for it by saving others.
” Her gaze deepens. “Except it never quite filled the void…”
My fingers are about to wreck this steering wheel in a minute. I turn the corner back onto Main Street and rush through two sets of lights before they flicker red.
“My father was an ass to me my entire life, I’m well aware,” Piper continues. “But he’s my father—the only parent I ever had. I can stomach him leaving the state, never wanting to reach out, but him being dead is a completely different ballpark.”
“Yeah,” I murmur, turning onto my street. Once parked, I pop open the door and get the passenger door for Piper.
Her eyes are a beautiful blue color in the sun, as she looks up to meet my gaze. This time I feel like she’s penetrating my soul, which feels even more vulnerable than it did in the truck.
“Who did you lose?” she asks.
“Family.”
“I’m sorry.” Her voice is a whisper but her eyes are just as loud as before.
“Don’t be. It was a long time ago and the fire was an accident. I made the decision to save myself over them. I heard my mother scream and I still didn’t think to—” I cut myself off. This is more than she needs to know.
“You had no time to think. Your house was burning down. It’s all instinct.”
“Exactly.” I point a finger at her. “And my instinct was to save myself over the family that would’ve saved me over themselves, if given the chance.” I rip my gaze from Piper and step onto the lawn.
She shuts the door and skirts behind me, saying nothing. The silence continues in the kitchen as we’re preparing lunch. I butter sandwiches and she prepares the coffee. We sit at the table, eating and drinking what we don’t really have any appetite for.
“Shit!” Piper shouts after staring into her coffee for a worrying amount of time. “Acetone.”
“What about it?”
“Nail polish remover. The cap. I remember it now. It wasn’t fully screwed on.”
I perk up in my seat. “You think…?”
“My kitchen worktops were always cluttered—my fault, nobody else’s. But when the hire broke in the day before, he could’ve knocked it over and spilled it. The bottle was sitting on the edge of a pile of documents.”
“Acetone is highly flammable.” I take a sip of coffee. “Did you not smell anything?”
“All I could smell was bleach in the sink. It was overpowering everything else.”
Relief fills my chest. “Hart—it wasn’t you that set your house on fire. It was the spilled acetone. That’s what caused the explosion.”
There was always that stubborn feeling in my gut, telling me she didn’t do it, couldn’t cause that much damage. I knew something wasn’t adding up.
Piper abandons the coffee and takes off. “We have to tell Taylor.”