“Was it?” Nothing but guarded inquisitiveness rings true in Grayson’s deep tone.
My voice is calm and neutral when I reply, “I don’t know. I wasn’t in the right frame of mind at the time to take in the tiny flicker of a flame. It could have been.”
“‘Could have been’ isn’t a definitive answer, Brandon. I won’t let you perjure yourself for a ‘could have been.’”
“I’m not asking you to place me in the witness box. I’m asking you to do your job. Was the candle dusted for Crombie’s prints? An arsonist is an arsonist, Grayson. Placing a lit flame in front of him would be the equivalent of cutting three lines of cocaine in front of an addict. He wouldn’t have been able to resist himself.” When he remains quiet, I gently coerce him over the ledge. “All we need is a fingerprint. If there’s a fingerprint on the candle, we have the intent to commit a crime. That’s all we need. Intent.”
I release the breath I’m holding in hope when Grayson mutters, “All right. I’ll have the candle run through forensics.” I stop fist-bumping the air when he murmurs, “But…” he pauses like Joey always does, “… if there’s no print, you’re going to spend your summers combing old case files of mine for spelling errors.”
I smile, not the least bit concerned. “And if there is a print?”
My smile doubles when he grumbles, “You’re going to spend your summers combing old case files.” He didn’t say for spelling errors, which can only mean one thing. He wants me on his team as much as I’m dying to become a member.
TWO WEEKS after the incident in Melody’s dorm, David Alan Crombie was charged with intent to commit arson. Five weeks after that, he was found guilty by a jury of his peers for stalking, intent to cause bodily harm, and felony arson.
Three conclusive fingerprint matches were found on the candle from Melody’s dorm. Along with the damning evidence, he was carrying a box of matches, and the fire forensic team believed the blaze spread quickly because an accelerant had been sprayed on Melody’s curtains. The defense disputed that the chemical residue could’ve been placed there months earlier, but an empty bottle of hairspray in Crombie’s truck had the jury siding in favor of the prosecution. It had the same chemical compound as the accelerant on the curtains.
The jury agreed with the ADA’s claims that Crombie was stalking Melody’s family because Mr. Gregg busted him attempting to set fire to an abandoned barn of a neighboring property and called the police. He blamed Mr. Gregg for his subsequent arrest and the loss of his sports scholarship. The gap between his previous stalking and this one was due to his nine-month sentence to a minimum-security prison.
Melody asked the ADA to seek any links between her parents’ accident and Crombie’s wish for revenge. Both the ADA and Grayson assured her they were not linked.
And that brings us to today, two months after Crombie was sentenced to ten years of hard time and six days out from Melody’s admission interview at Browns. Her interview isn’t being held by Mr. Darcy. Shockingly, he resigned from his position not long after our confrontation—right around the time my father endorsed him for a position in the District Attorney’s Office in Miami. Coincidence? I highly doubt it. My father was endeavoring to keep Melody and me apart. I just need to find out why.
“Wear that one. It is perfect.”
“Are you sure?” The hem of the designer dress Melody is trying on swishes around her luscious thighs when she nervously twists on the spot. “It kind of feels too risqué for a professional lawyer.”
I screw my nose up. “Why? Lawyers can be sexy. You sure will be.”
She does a face that reveals I did good with my compliment before spinning back around to face the mirror. She peers at herself for a few minutes before signing, “I am still not convinced. Let me try on one more outfit.”
She giggles when I flop onto a studded daybed with a groan. I’ve been watching her try on interview-suitable outfits for almost three hours. The two hours before that was spent scouring for an outfit for her to wear to Joey’s summer-break party tonight.
I’m so fucking bored, not that I’d ever tell Melody that. I love seeing her like this. The past few months have been good for her. She handled the anniversary of her parents’ deaths with the grace and maturity a lot of almost nineteen-year-olds don’t have, and she maintained her dignity when Crombie tried to pawn her off to the jury as being an adulterer.
They were as unbelieving of his story as me. Melody is beautiful, and she gains the eyes of men everywhere we go, but she’s so pure and wholesome, nothing but virtue beamed out of her on the witness stand. Even if Crombie’s fingerprints weren’t found on the candle, I’m confident the jury would’ve still found him guilty. That’s how convincing Melody’s testimony was.
We’ve grown stronger than I could’ve ever imagined. I just wish it could have been done without so much interference. There has been so much drama in our lives since we became a couple, it feels like we’ve been doomed from the beginning.
I glance down at my phone when it vibrates, smiling when I notice it’s a call from Grayson. He checks in every couple of days. I wouldn’t say we’re friends, but he’s definitely a close confidant of mine.
After popping my head into Melody’s dressing room to tell her I’ll be back in a minute, I make my way outside of the dress boutique, swipe my finger across the screen of my new phone, then squash it to my ear.
Before I can greet Grayson, he says, “Tell her to buy the green one in the window, and then she can wear it again on St. Paddy’s Day.”
I scan the street quicker than usual, sighing in relief when I spot Grayson’s black truck a few spots up from where I’m standing. I was getting worried he had installed a tracker on my phone. He’d never admit it, but he’s sneaky like that. It’s a known trait of rookie FBI agents willing to do anything to prove their worth.
“Can you spare a minute? I need to show you something.”
When I spot Grayson’s blue eyes in the side mirror of his truck, I jerk up my chin before lowering my phone from my ear. Since I told Melody I’d be a few minutes, I don’t bother popping back into the dress shop to tell her where I’m going. Excluding my father, there are no known threats to her at the moment, and she’s also packing heat.
Don’t come at me with your gun-toting gripes. It was Grayson’s idea for Melody to get a gun, not mine. I wouldn’t have objected, anyway. We’re both extensively trained in good gun ownership. Melody just now legally carries.
When I pry open the passenger side door of Grayson’s truck, he flips up the visor housing half a dozen pictures of his girlfriend. In all honesty, I don’t know if the redhead is his girlfriend. I’m just assuming. He doesn’t speak about her, but I’ve caught him a few times peering at her photographs, and the admiration in his eyes isn’t one a brother would get for his sister, so they must be close. Perhaps they’re best friends like Melody and I once were?
Recalling how much it sucked being in the friend zone, I say, “What’s up? I didn’t think you were coming back this way for a few months.”
A smile curls my lips when Grayson speaks to me as if I’m an equal. “We had some new developments pop up, causing us to return east side earlier than planned.” I don’t know anyone in his team but him, but he says ‘we’ often when we’ve chatted.
