Page 59 of Slow Burn
“Makes him look bad,” Cole suggested.
“And why would it make him look bad if her death and that fire were both accidents?” She raised a brow at him.
“You said yourself they aren’t.”
She whipped her head to look at him.
“And I already told you I agree.”
“That’s all they were to everyone else,” she said, brows folding. “So he’s either lying or he really doesn’t remember.”
He heard the steel in her voice. The pain under it, too. “And you need to figure out which.”
She was quiet a moment, something bubbling below the surface. “I might’ve hedged about why I was in town, and I…”
So there was some guilt there. Part of him felt the twinge of resentment about that, about the fact that she’d feel bad misleading Frank when she came out swinging at his pop. But he also knew the questions had been chasing her for decades, and he was supposed to be helping.
“You deserve your answers, Jocelyn.”
“Do I?” she murmured. It was like she knew what he’d been thinking.
And he found himself forgiving her for asking the questions because he couldn’t shake the sadness in her expression just then. It wasn’t quite like she regretted any of it or like she wanted to give up, and he could admire that. Two decades was a long time to wonder about something so traumatic, and there sure had been a lot to rattle her cage the last twenty-four hours. Unfortunate, his had to get rattled right along with.
“Frank was the closest thing to a father to me, and he was still so kind to me the other night.” Her voice rolled over him like a mist, soft and gentle, as he turned into the parking lot of the auto shop where Frank worked.
He put the truck in park and turned to her. “It won’t matter what you ask him if he cares about you, Jocelyn. But you have to ask. You have to know.”
His own words landed heavy. Came from knowing they were for himself, too. Because it was true. If he cared about her—which he couldn’t deny anymore—he had to let her do this, keep asking, keep digging, even if it hurt. She’d warned him, hadn’t she?
He’d said the words, but this was a moment when he had to decide if he believed them.
Jocelyn studied him, her posture edgy while she searched. And maybe she could see how he had to fight himself. But she finally nodded, satisfied with the grit she saw him shoring himself up with.
Cole trailed a little behind her as she headed for the shop’s front door. Not much activity was going on, though the sign told them the place was open for business. Slow day, apparently.
A bell above the door announced their arrival, and the smell of engine grease and warm metal hit him hard. It was something familiar and foreign, tying him to other memories—taking his first truck in for an oil change because his daddy didn’t have time to teach him. When he’d rolled that same truck and sat sulking after they’d told him it was totaled.
Instead of sitting, Cole leaned against the wall near the door, the memories making him edgy.
“Help you?” a man’s voice, grizzled and worn, called as he walked out from a back office.
Robbie Clayton had graduated with Cole, an all-state football player who’d run with the high and mighty crowd. Cole hadn’t been interested in sports, though he heard plenty about it. In a small southern town like this one, football was a religion.
Looking at Robbie’s craggy face and thin hair, the greasy coveralls over his paunch, Cole didn’t suspect it had gotten him far once they’d gotten out of school.
The other man looked from Jocelyn to Cole, his squint going tighter.
“I was looking to talk with Frank,” Jocelyn said. “Is he here today?”
Robbie jerked a thumb behind him. “Was on his lunch break. I’ll send him out. You that Hill Drive fire girl?”
Cole watched the muscles snap tight along Jocelyn’s back.
“Heard you was hangin’ around the Hollow, askin’ questions.” Robbie set his scrutiny back to Cole, sizing him up. “Heard you was runnin’ with Hauser, here, too.”
Something about the look and tone had Cole’s hackles rising, but he didn’t move a muscle. People always talked, always embellished. And he sure had plenty of experience with it taking on a negative spin. Was plain Robbie meant it that way, too.
“Jealous, Clayton?” Cole asked.
