Ten #2
Her stomach constricted and she looked at Trevor. “Do you see this?”
“I see it and I admit it doesn’t look good.”
Further down the list, four fires in Lavender caught her eye, each one marked suspicious but ultimately ruled accidental. All within a fifteen-year span. Her father’s name appeared in every single report, leading the charge to put out the flames when he was a firefighter.
Her pulse ticked faster as she scrolled, another name appearing over and over in the fine print. Brody Baird. He had signed off on every one of those fires as tragic accidents.
Helena leaned back in her chair, her mind racing through the implications. Fires that had burned hot and fast, swallowing evidence, and always the same names circling the flames.
“What were you hiding, Dad?” she whispered into the dusty gloom of the loft, her fingers clenching into fists as the truth ignited in her mind.
“Brody mentioned he and your dad were buddies in school. Ran track together. Fished and occasionally hiked together. I’m getting some bad vibes here, Helena.”
Had Brody been covering for her dad setting fires all these years, and possibly killing Alicia?
Had Dad covered for Brody if he was killing college girls or setting fires?
They still had too many missing pieces to try and figure out what was actually happening.
All they did have was Dad and Brody on all the scenes, but they should have been.
“I would rather believe my dad suspected Brody of the fires or the college girls’ deaths.”
“That makes more sense than your dad being a killer or even just a firebug, but he was there that night at the barn.”
Seemed they both wanted to shape a narrative where Bruce Rutherford was a hero and not a villain.
“If Brody is the arsonist killing girls, why set your house on fire and why the continual attacks?” Trevor asked and rubbed Lark’s head.
“Again, he might think I know something or have something hidden away.”
“Then wouldn’t you have told the police already? Taken them the evidence? Why didn’t your dad if he suspected Brody of wrongdoing in any form?”
Helena swallowed hard. “Plot hole. Unless…they were covering for each other. One a killer. One a firebug. Maybe Brody thinks I have incriminating evidence and won’t go to the cops because it also incriminates my dad and his good name.
So killing me means removing the only other person he believes might know something. ”
Trevor folded his arms over his chest. “This might be conjecture, Helena. But it’s feeling real. Too real.”
It felt like an emotional earthquake, with her father’s name now stained with doubt. She had spent her whole life seeing him as a hero, the steady, unshakable force who’d taught her the language of engines and the crackle of a well-tuned exhaust.
He had been her anchor, the one who’d pulled her through grief and heartbreak with grease-stained hands and the quiet, reassuring rumble of a V-8 engine coming back to life. She’d been his girl, his apprentice, his legacy.
But what if that legacy was nothing but a carefully camouflaged pile of ashes? What if the man she had idolized, the one who’d shaped her into the person she was, had been hiding a darker hunger for the flames he’d claimed to master?
The thought wrenched something deep in her chest, making it hard to breathe in the stale, smoke-laden air. She wasn’t sure if she could survive this kind of betrayal, the kind that crumbled the foundation of everything she thought she knew.
“I want to talk to Brody. See what shakes loose. But we have to tread lightly. We have no real proof and we don’t want to tarnish names or reputations,” Trevor said.
“Fine. I’m driving. I need to focus on something other than my thoughts for a few minutes.”
“And one other thing.” Trevor opened the passenger door on her truck.
“What if someone knew about the particular accelerant used in the car fires and murders—someone like Brody—and made your house fire appear to be from the same killer? If that’s true, then we have two killers.
Our serial killer and whoever is targeting you, someone on the inside. And we have no real clue why.”
* * *
Trevor’s knee bumped the underside of the dash as Helena took the corner a little too fast, her truck’s engine growling in protest. He gripped the door handle, glancing sideways at her, her mouth grim. She hadn’t said much since they’d left the garage.
He couldn’t blame her for being tightlipped. Everything she believed about her father and their lives was now unraveling like thread that couldn’t stop. He hoped she was wrong. But with all the information coming from multiple places, how could she be?