Page 53 of To Hold and Protect

“Should I tell her, or should it come from Willow?” Everly did need to know, and maybe if she did, she wouldn’t feel betrayed when Willow left.

“You and Willow need to talk about it first, then the two of you can decide who should tell her and how,” Harper said. “However, my feeling is that she needs to hear it from Willow.”

“That’s a good idea. I’ll—” His phone blared an alert.

“Marsville Dispatch to Marsville Fire Department. Respond to a tree on fire at 24 Deep Creek Road.”

Parker frowned. “That’s Mrs. Stubble’s address. We were just there this morning, rescuing her cat from the tree again.”

“I’ll send a text to Andrew, let him know Harper and I are here,” Kade said.

“Thanks.”

Ember raced past him to the door. Harper chuckled. “I can’t believe she heard that alert all the way from Everly’s room.”

“Apparently she has excellent hearing. Catch you later.”

When he arrived at Mrs. Stubbles’s, Josephine’s tree was fully engulfed, and the crew were pulling the hoses to it. He rolled down the windows for Ember. “Stay.”

“Oh, Parker,” Mrs. Stubble wailed when she saw him. She fell into his arms, and this time her anguish was real. “Josephine’s tree is burning up.”

“I see that. How did it happen?”

She gripped his shirt. “I don’t know. I looked out the window, and it was just on fire. How does a tree just catch fire? It wasn’t lightning or anything.”

No, a tree didn’t just catch on fire all by itself. The back of his neck prickled. He scanned around him. Neighbors were out in force, but all their eyes were on the tree. Someone was watching him, though.

“Greg,” he called. When his captain, reached them, he pried Mrs. Stubble’s fingers from his shirt. “Get someone to stay with her.”

“Why don’t we go sit on your porch, Mrs. Stubble,” Greg said, leading her away.

Parker retrieved Ember from the SUV. He first went to the closest group of people. While he questioned them, Ember sniffed them for accelerants. Finding nothing interesting, she sat next to his leg. No one had seen anything suspicious, so he moved on to the next group. The entire time he talked to them, he tried to sense who was watching and from where.

“Chief,” Greg said, coming up next to him. He leaned toward Parker’s ear. “You need to come see this.”

No one in this group had seen anyone near the tree, and as Parker walked with Greg back to Mrs. Stubble’s, the feeling of being watched faded away. The arsonist was here, or had been, but where had he watched from?

While he’d been talking to the spectators, his firefighters had put out the fire. Parker’s gaze took in the blackened tree. “I don’t know much about trees. Think it can come back from this?”

Greg shrugged. “Don’t know. She’ll need someone who knows about trees to come take a look. At the very least, it’ll need a good trimming.”

“Like Mrs. Stubble said, a tree doesn’t catch on fire all by itself. Have a couple of the guys go around the neighborhood tomorrow to see who has doorbell cameras. Maybe someone caught something that’ll help us find out who’s doing this.”

“Will do. A little warning, Chief. You’re not going to like what you’re about to see.”

Greg was right. He didn’t like it at all.

Chapter Twenty-Three

The engines and crew returned to the station, and Mrs. Stubble went inside her house with a neighbor friend. Parker had called his brother, and Tristan and Maurisa arrived on the scene.

“You know that it’s not the man Willow saw,” Parker said to Tristan as they waited for Maurisa to take photos. “To get around to the different locations of the fires, our arsonist would need a car, and that man didn’t have one.”

Tristan nodded. “Yeah, I was already thinking that.”

“I think we have one of those rare cases where the arsonist is a female.” A red piece of tin cut in the shape of a heart had been pinned to the tree with a wicked-looking dagger. Parker couldn’t see a man doing that and then setting the tree on fire. Considering the envelope with his name on it they’d found at Tommy’s, this message was meant for him, too.

“Someone’s not happy with you, baby brother,” Tristan said. “If you dated, I’d say you broke some woman’s heart, but you don’t date.”

---