Page 61 of Serial Burn

“So what have you found out?” she asked. Maybe listening to him and concentrating on the case would take her mind off her throbbing leg.

“The officers scouring the local sources for the chemicals—pool supply companies and hardware stores—came up with seven possible suspects in a thirty-mile radius who bought both items in the last three months,” he said. “I’ve got their names and addresses. If it’s not one of them, we may have to expand our search and/or our time. Maybe go to a hundred miles and six months. And bring in other departments to help because that’s a big undertaking.”

Nathan raised a brow. “Well, it’s a start. Between that and the list of names Jesslyn just wrote down, we’ll have our work cut out for us.”

Andrew nodded. “But if our arsonist already had the stuff in his garage for a while—say someone who has a pool—we’re just chasing our tail.”

“Or he ordered from an online service.”

“Yes, we covered that possibility once.” Andrew groaned and dropped onto the built-in seat under the window while Nathan rolled his eyes and shook his head.

He pulled out his phone. “I’ll get Lindsay on that too with all of the big distributors.” He tapped the screen for a few seconds, then looked up. “All that is well and good, but there has to be another way to track this guy down before he strikes again. He’s going to have time to burn the whole town down at this rate.”

Yes, there had to be another way. Guilt slammed her. She shouldn’t have poked the bear. What if someone died because she’d said what she said? But what if this gave her the opportunity to take a killer off the streets and possibly save someone else by doing so?

It was a Catch-22.

“Did anyone find a connection between Kenny and my family?” Jesslyn asked.

“We looked,” Andrew said. “His parents are about ten years younger than yours would have been. They’re well off, well thoughtof, and are active in the community, their church, and various charitable organizations. If your parents were still alive, it’s possible your families would run in the same social circles, know some of the same people, et cetera, but with you? There doesn’t appear to be an obvious connection.”

“Okay, then let’s focus on something else for a minute.” Jesslyn rubbed her eyes, then picked up her phone and scrolled to her pictures. “I keep coming back to the jewelry. If he’s planting it, it means something to him. He picked those pieces for a reason. Maybe it has to do with the store.”

“But why?” Nathan asked. “If he’s got a grudge against the shop, why not just burn it down instead of other local businesses?”

“I don’t think he has a grudge against the store per se, but...” She googled the store and noticed it had a blog. “Oh, this is interesting. They just did a renovation about two years ago. The woman we met, Isabelle Sims, put up simple posts so customers could follow the progress.” She noted the excitement in the comments. “Wow. Who knew people were so passionate about their favorite jewelry store? I have about three pieces of jewelry to my name and those belonged to my grandmother.” She jerked as a memory surfaced.

“Just because, darling,” her father said, handing her mother a slim rectangular box.

Her mother opened it, stared at it a moment, then snorted and tossed it on the counter. “You can’t buy forgiveness, Owen. At least not mine.” Her mother’s voice caught on a sob, and she ran from the room while her father stood there, his face like granite, nostrils flaring. He spotted Jesslyn in the doorway and walked over to pick her up.

“Jess?” Nathan snapped his fingers in front of her eyes and she blinked the image away. “You okay?”

“Yes, um ... just a memory. A verystrangememory.”

“Anything you want to share?”

She frowned. “It was just a moment when I was five or six and my parents were arguing in the kitchen.” She gave a shake of her head and shoved the past away. “I have no idea why I’d rememberthat now. I mean, I do remember arguments, but that one really stuck with me.”

Another memory that had to have been shortly after that floated to the surface.

Her father slammed the door behind him. Sobs came from the den. She walked over to the couch to find her mother swiping tears from her eyes while Gabby and Maria argued over a toy. Jesslyn marched over to her sisters and snatched the item. “Stop it. Both of you. Stop it!”

The girls looked at her wide-eyed, then Gabby burst into tears and fled. Maria moved on to another toy, shooting a scowl at Jesslyn over her tiny shoulder. Jesslyn went to her mother and climbed up beside her. “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

Her mother sniffed. “Nothing, baby. I’m sorry. I should have stopped the girls arguing. That wasn’t your responsibility.”

“You’re sad. Why?”

“It’s nothing for you to worry about. I’m fine.” But she pulled Jesslyn into a tight hug and held on for a long time.

“No you’re not. Daddy was mean. He’s a meanie.”

“He doesn’t do it on purpose, Jessie-girl. He’ll apologize later. You have to understand, mommies and daddies argue sometimes, but never think that your daddy doesn’t love you and your sisters. You’re all so very precious to him. You know that, right?”

Jesslyn blinked again. And again. Where were these memories coming from? And why now?

She shoved aside the images and continued scrolling the blog. She stopped when she came to the “before” picture of the store. There were six pictures and the post was titled “A bold step out of the past and into the future.”

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