“How’d you do that?”

“I watched when you punched in the numbers to turn it off, so I knew the code.”

“Oh.”

“I made up your bed and brought along your handbag. It’s still in the truck, by the way.”

“But not my phone.”

“No.”

She assimilated what he’d told her. “You left no sign of a struggle.” He nodded. “You covered your tracks but made me look like a fugitive from justice.”

“Basically. That was the general idea.”

“Great. Fabulous.” She sighed with asperity. “How did you get me out of the house?”

“Carried you. I was trained to carry people, remember?” Without waiting for a response, he continued. “I drove your car to where I’d left my truck.”

“I remember you transferring me from my car.”

“I knew you were conscious at that point.”

“Where is my car?”

“At an abandoned airstrip. In the middle of nowhere. A road dead-ends at it. No one goes out there.”

“How did you know about it?”

“Jay’s uncle had a deer lease near it. We used to do target practice out there.”

Mention of Jay’s name brought a pained expression to her face. “I still can’t believe he’s dead, and that he died in that manner. He must have put up a struggle.” Lowering her head, she rubbed her temples. “I want to remember. I do. But I can’t.”

“The police said he was too far gone on whiskey to have put up much of a fight,” Delno said. “Course he was sick with the cancer, too. That would have made him even weaker.”

“Weak enough that a woman could have killed him,” Raley said.

“That’s what the cop speculated,” Delno said as he scratched his armpit. “ Clark, I believe his name was.”

“He’s one of the detectives who questioned me.”

“I know him,” Raley said. “He’s a good cop. Dedicated to his work. And one hundred percent loyal to everyone on the police force, especially Jay. If the evidence indicates you killed him, Clark will move heaven and earth to see you tried and convicted.”

She turned away to look out the window above the kitchen sink. Raley looked over at Delno, but when he saw a question forming on the tobacco-stained lips, he shook his head and Delno remained quiet.

Finally, Britt turned back. “Tell me what happened to you, Raley.”

“Sit down.” He nodded toward the chair opposite his. She did as he asked.

Delno got up. “Heard it already, and it ain’t a story I wish to listen to again. I’ll be outside with the dogs.”

The screen door slammed closed behind him. The hounds whined in welcome, then stood and stretched and began weaving themselves around his legs. He disappeared, trailing the pack and a stream of muttered curses.

“Quite a character,” Britt remarked.

“You don’t know the half of it. He has an obsessive hatred for mankind. He tolerates me. On occasion, and only then just barely.”

“Once he recovered from his shock, he was friendly enough toward me.”

Raley gave her a quick once-over, then he looked away, mumbling, “You’re different.”

He left the table abruptly, but only long enough to get himself a bottle of water from the refrigerator. Sitting down again, he asked, “How did you know that Jay and I grew up together?”

“He told me once. He said you were best friends almost for as far back as he could remember.”

“From kindergarten through college and beyond. Our parents thought we shared the same brain. We shared everything else. Bikes, toys, food, clothes.”

“Girls?”

“Sometimes. In our wilder days,” he said without any embarrassment that she could detect.

She could imagine them almost at every stage, but especially as college men. Equally attractive. Jay: fair, suave, and charming. Raley: dark and…And what? Not as suave and charming. Or maybe he’d been quite charming before his life was turned upside down. Maybe the bearded, scowling man sitting across from her now had once been more of a charmer even than Jay.

“We grew up knowing that Jay was going to be a cop, and I was going to be a fireman.”

“These were childhood ambitions?”

“Always. We enrolled in college knowing what we’d study.”

“What was your degree in?”

“I got dual degrees. Fire science. Environmental health and safety. Then Jay and I went through the police academy together.”

She looked at him with puzzlement. “You went through the police academy?”

“In order to become an arson investigator, you must first be a peace officer. Otherwise, once arson is detected, a fire inspector must turn the case over to the police.”

“I see. So you got the police certification first.”

“Then did my fireman’s training and went on to get my certification as an arson investigator.”

She was impressed by the amount of education and training he had.

He continued. “Jay and I excelled in our respective fields. I was working my way up through the ranks of the CFD. Jay made detective before the deadline he’d set for himself. We remained best friends.” He paused to take a sip of water.

“And then?”

“And then there was the fire at the police station. That changed everything.”

He scooted aside the bottle of Tabasco and reached for the box of toothpicks he’d toyed with earlier.

She was impatient to hear what he was about to tell her, but she said nothing, giving him the time he needed to arrange his thoughts. She tried not to think of police officers with a warrant for her arrest, cruising the streets of Charleston in search of her, believing not only that she’d committed murder but that she had fled to avoid capture.

She knew what she would have done with that news story if it had been about someone else. What she had done with similar stories. Had the subjects of her breaking news bulletins been as frightened of their futures as she was of hers now? Not once had she put herself in the shoes of the accused. She’d never stopped to consider their desperation. All she’d thought about was how much face time on camera she would have to report their crime, their flight, their capture.

“I was off duty that day,” Raley said, drawing her from her disturbing thoughts. “But I lived near downtown and heard the sirens and was already on my way to the fire station when my phone rang.” He glanced at her. “I carried a cell in those days.” She gave him a weak smile; he continued. “The blaze had gone to two alarms. I was told to get there as soon as possible.”

She watched his expression change as he reflected on that day. “I’ll never forget it. You can’t imagine the heat.”

“Actually I can. I covered the sofa factory fire.”

Another disastrous fire in which nine firemen had died.

“Did you know any of the men who died in that blaze?” she asked.

“Three really well,” he replied sadly. “The others by face and name.”

Neither of them said anything for a moment, then he picked up his account of the other major fire in Charleston. “The police station fire burned just as hot. Heat like Hell must be like. Consuming and inescapable.”

“You went into the building?”

“No. By the time I got there-I think it took me six minutes-it was an inferno. The roof had already collapsed. Which caused the floors to cave in one by one. Everyone who could be evacuated already had been. I got into gear, but our captain wouldn’t let any more of us go in. For anyone left inside, it was hopeless.

“The best we could do at that point was try to confine the blaze to that building. The first alarm had come in at six oh two p.m. Twelve hours later, we were still putting out hot spots.” He looked across at her. “Were you living in Charleston then?”

“I came about a month later. The building was still a pile of charred rubble. An investigation into the cause was ongoing.”

“Yeah. My investigation.”

“You were investigating the fire?”

“You didn’t know that, did you?” His facial features hardened. Anger radiated off him in waves.