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Alan Hulster! Of course! Taylor had been talking about the fire the next day in class.
Had Gabriel seemed upset? Had he known about it?
Layne tapped her pencil on her paper. She couldn’t remember.
She skipped to the next article. Another fire, another suspected arson. The firefighters had been ordered out, but one fell through the floor. He should have been trapped he should have been killed.
But again, someone dragged him out.
So Wednesday, Thursday . . .
Friday was the night of the party. Layne had been with Gabriel, until late.
No arson.
Saturday. A day full of highs and lows. A day that ended with her father being a jerk in the Merrick driveway.
She scrolled to the next arson article and clicked on the link.
A day that ended with a fire in a townhome community. She’d already seen this article Ryan Stacey had forwarded it to her with mocking comments.
This time she actually read it. A four-alarm fire, an entire row of homes completely consumed.
No fatalities. Only one serious injury.
She stared at the timeline she’d drawn on her paper.
One of those articles quoted a fireman as saying “this guy has a hero complex.” That the arsonist was setting fires just so he could go in and save the victims.
That didn’t match Gabriel at all.
Or did it? Had he done that exact thing this morning?
She remembered her question from the hillside. Did you hurt someone?
And the haunted look in his eyes. No. Just the opposite.
That seemed to point in both directions.
Her head hurt.
A knock sounded at her door, and Layne turned off the mon-itor before her father could see what she was looking at.
He leaned into her room, looking frustrated. “What time is Simon supposed to be home?”
She glanced at the clock. It was after four. “His first game is today. The activities bus drops us off around five-thirty.”
“His first game?”
“Yeah. His first basketball game.” She folded her arms on the back of her chair. “Though he’s probably not playing.”
“He was serious about that whole basketball thing?”
“Yeah, Dad.” Layne stared at him, feeling sorry for him and wondering if he deserved it. She’d never sided with her mother, but maybe the woman was right about him working too much.
He and Simon never talked, and she’d always thought it was because Simon resented his father.
She’d never really thought about her father making no effort to remedy the situation.
