Chapter 37 Zandra
THIRTY-SEVEN
Zandra
Leo Mackenzie was in Silver Ridge. He’d been at Hearthstone the night of the fire.
The shock of seeing him faded, but so many questions remained.
It wasn’t clear if Leo was the same person who’d sneaked through the back door after Ian. Unless Leo had taken off the dark clothing, then stuck around in the parking lot to watch the flames. Callum told me that sometimes arsonists liked to see their handiwork.
Leo hadn’t been small-framed in high school, though. He’d been tall and broad, like Callum. Could that smaller figure in the video really have been him?
Whatever the truth, Callum called Silver Ridge PD to share the fact that we’d seen Leo on the video. Just in case the police had missed it, and it turned out they had.
At least the police had arrested Ian. Thank you, Dixie Haines, for that bit of info.
Then we learned they’d also picked up Tommy Pickering the morning after the fire for drunk and disorderly conduct, and he was being questioned.
Now, they were looking for Leo Mackenzie too.
They’d already known Leo was wanted for assault and jumping bail over in Fort Collins—the bar fight incident Teller Landry had told Callum about.
But that just meant more waiting for us. More wondering where Leo was and whether he was responsible for the fire. Wondering if Jessa’s brother had meant to destroy the brewery.
Or if he’d actually known I was inside.
If he’d wanted to kill me.
The gate around my parents’ property provided a little more peace of mind, so Callum and I stayed.
He helped Gladys cook dinner one night, and the next Callum and I did the cooking because it was Gladys’s night off.
Mom and Dad didn’t even notice the pasta was gluten free.
Though there were complaints about lack of cheese until we brought out the parmesan.
While neither of us had been back to Hearthstone, we’d been getting updates from my grandpa. Repairs would start soon. He was paying all the employees for their missed days of work with the brewpub closed.
Two days after I’d left the hospital, Mom knocked on the guestroom door. “Zandra? There’s a call for you on the house phone.”
Yes, my parents still had a landline. And I still didn’t have a cell of my own. Ian had apparently tossed my phone out his car window onto the highway, and by the time the police found it, it was crushed. I’d ordered a new one, but it hadn’t arrived yet.
“Just a sec, Eliza,” Callum called out.
I heard Mom grumbling out there.
It was morning, and Callum and I had been lounging in bed, doing absolutely nothing but kissing and talking. For a girl with an overachieving streak, it was kind of amazing to have zero goals except being with my man.
Over the last couple days, my throat had gotten better, and my headache was nearly gone.
I could actually speak without much pain or a coughing fit, though my voice was still hoarse.
Callum and I had even been able to make love the night before, his body heavy and solid over mine, seeming to surround me with his woodsy scent and slow, hypnotic caresses.
My limbs still felt languid from the afterglow.
“It’s Chief Nichols,” Mom added.
My adrenaline shot up, and any pleasant thoughts about last night vanished. Callum and I exchanged a look as I kicked off the blankets.
I threw on a robe over the SRFD T-shirt I was wearing. Then answered the door with Callum just behind me. He’d pulled on some sweats. “Chief?” I rasped, holding the cordless phone to my ear. I cleared my throat. “This is Zandra.”
“Ms. Alvarez, I’m calling because Leo Mackenzie just turned himself in.”
“Leo? You have him in custody?”
Mom’s hands flew to her mouth, while Callum’s arm went around my waist.
“We do,” the chief said. “But Mr. Mackenzie has refused to speak to anyone. He says he’ll only talk to you.”
Callum pulled up in front of the police station, but he didn’t switch off the engine. “Z, I don’t want you to do this.”
After the phone call from Chief Nichols, I’d gotten dressed as quickly as possible. Mom and Dad had already freaked out about the idea of me coming to meet with a man who might have tried to kill me. Who was wanted for arrest on an unrelated assault charge.
Callum had waited until now to voice his objections.
“Leo could easily talk to the police himself. But instead, he’s making demands to get you in the room with him. We’re just supposed to trust this isn’t some sick ploy to hurt you?”
“He turned himself in. Doesn’t that suggest some kind of remorse? Or that, at least, there’s a lot more going on than we knew? He’ll be in cuffs. I’ll be fine.”
“But who knows what kind of shit he might say to you.”
I turned to face Callum fully. “I can take it. And I can dish out plenty too. Maybe he’s the one who should be worried.”
Callum reached up to cup my face, his thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “There’s my fierce girl,” he murmured, then leaned forward to press a gentle kiss to my forehead. “Just wish I could be in there with you.”
“I know you’ll be close. This is just something I have to do.”
Beyond that, I didn’t really know how to feel. It was possible Leo had blamed me, hated me, for Jessa’s death this whole time. Maybe he was the person who’d harassed me by leaving those notes, even though he’d never said a word to my face.
It made me sick to think that could be true. But at the same time, not knowing was so much worse. That was exactly why I had to see him and hear what he had to say. So we could finally have this out.
Callum and I went inside the station. After a short wait, Chief Nichols approached. “Zandra, we’re ready for you.”
I followed her down a hallway to a closed door. She turned to face me before we went in. “I just want to stress again, this is completely voluntary.”
“I want to be here,” I assured her.
“If Thomas Pickering was more forthcoming about what he saw outside Hearthstone the other night, maybe this wouldn’t be necessary. But that man’s clammed up too, and I don’t know that we could trust what he says anyway. Everybody knows Pickering is a drunk who likes to stir up trouble.”
That was my impression of Tommy exactly. “Is he still here at the station?”
“Well, we let him sober up before questioning him, but after that we let him go with no formal charge. Now your former boyfriend, Ian, he’s going to be a guest of Hart County for a good while longer.”
I’d already heard that. Ian’s bail had been set high for being a flight risk, and since he couldn’t pay, the police had transferred him to the county jail to await more hearings.
I’d probably have to testify about his attempted robbery of Hearthstone at some point, unless he pled guilty, but I was trying to think about Ian as little as possible.
“Now, we’ll be recording this,” the chief said. “I’ve given Mr. Mackenzie a Miranda advisement, letting him know anything he says to you could be used against him. I’ll also be watching the video feed, and we have an officer right outside. You can stop this at any time.”
“Okay.” I took a deep breath. “I’m ready.”
Chief Nichols opened the door, and I stepped into the interview room.
Leo Mackenzie was sitting at a table with his hands in his lap. His blond hair was longer than he’d kept it in high school, and he had more lines around his eyes, but his features still struck a chord in my heart. So much like Jessa.
“Zandra. You came. Didn’t think you would.”
I walked closer to the table, but didn’t sit down. “Then why did you ask to talk to me?”
“I had to try. I need to explain this to you first, because you’re the one who was hurt most by it. I had to tell you to your face that I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry?” Conflicting emotions flashed through me. Sorrow for the fact that he’d lost his sister. Building anger at his seeming admission that he’d hurt me. “Did you start the fire at Hearthstone?”
“No.”
“Tell me the truth, Leo. That’s the only way this will work.”
“I didn’t do it. But I know who did. I’ll tell you, but I need you to sit down first. There’s a lot I have to explain.” He nodded at me. “Your voice. That’s from the fire?”
“The smoke.” My stomach churned, nausea rising.
A look of despair crossed his face. “This is awful. All of it.”
If Leo was faking, he was putting on quite a show.
The chair scraped against the floor as I pulled it out and sat down. “Then go ahead. Explain it to me.”
Leo brought up his hands to swipe his fingers through his hair, and the metal cuffs jangled on his wrists. “I guess it starts way back. Even before Jessa died.” He was quiet for a moment, like he was gathering his thoughts. “My sister and I…we argued a few days before.”
I sat forward, putting my elbows on the table. “I remember. What was that about?”
“Well, I…” He grimaced. “I read her diary.”
“You did what? You read your big sister’s diary?” I huffed. “Not okay.”
It was strange how I suddenly felt pulled back to those days. Remembering Jessa. How alive she had been, how vibrant. It almost made me want to laugh, thinking of how animated Jessa would get when talking about her arguments with her brother.
I was so eager for any new trace of her. Maybe that was another reason I’d come here to see her brother.
“I’d seen her texting with someone,” Leo went on. “She’d put the name in her phone as ‘Him.’ In her diary, she wrote about having a secret. She’d written that she felt bad about this secret, and she didn’t know what to do. It had to be about this guy. I couldn’t let some creep mess with my sister.”
“She didn’t tell me his name either. That was her choice.”
“But if Jessa was keeping the guy’s identity from even you, that seemed like a bad sign. Right?”
I’d had a similar thought back then. If I’d read that stuff in her diary, I would have freaked out too. Why hadn’t Jessa told me this secret if it was upsetting her?
Was it really about her crush, or about something else?
“A few days before she died, I confronted her about it. Demanded to know who this guy was. And she wouldn’t tell me. Yelled at me for invading her privacy and said I was way off base.”
I blew out a breath. “Okay, but why are you telling me this now? With everything that’s going on?”
“Because I believed you after she died. You said there had been someone else there at the creek that night. Who else could it be but the guy she was supposed to meet? Him.”
Chills raced over my skin. “But who could it have been? The police thought I imagined hearing someone else’s voice, but they still checked on where our school’s football players were that night. Everyone was at the bonfire.”
Leo looked down at his hands. “I know. I was at the bonfire too. Getting drunk off my ass while my sister was… How could anyone be sure we were all there the whole entire time?”
The same thing I’d always wondered.
Yet Leo didn’t know who Jessa’s crush was, and neither did I. Maybe it was wishful thinking, the idea that somebody else was there that night. Somebody was responsible. When it could just as likely have been a terrible, random accident.
It would’ve been so much easier to have someone to blame. But that didn’t make it true.
“What does any of this have to do with the fire at Hearthstone?” My voice cracked from using it so much.
“Or the fact that someone has been harassing me and did the same to me back in high school. Accusing me of being a murderer. Maybe even the same person who spread the rumors that I pushed Jessa into the creek. I assume you heard the rumors too?”
He glanced down guiltily. “I’m just trying to make you understand. Some people might’ve thought you were responsible for Jessa’s death. But I never did. I knew how much you loved my sister.”
I pushed back from the table, standing up and wrapping my arms around myself. “But you didn’t say anything when those rumors were going around. When I felt completely alone.”
He scrunched up his face. “Because it got complicated. I found out who was harassing you.”
I spun on my heel to face him. “You knew about that? The person who broke my car window. Left those sick notes for me. And you knew?”
“It’s the same person who broke the window at the brewery earlier this summer. Started following you and harassing you again. I tried to stop it. I swear. If I’d known it could lead where it did, to arson and you being in real danger—”
“Who?” I demanded.
He scrubbed his trembling hands over his face.
“It was my mother.”