Page 77 of Slow Burn
She pinched the edges of her plate. “I’ve been putting it off, but I know I need to go talk to Daniel Abbott.” Tension had her stung tight, and it bled into her voice.
“Sure you’re ready for that?”
She shrugged, but the movement sure wasn’t casual. “It doesn’t matter. This is what I came here for, and if my uncle’s house burning down taught me anything, it’s that someone in this town has something to hide.”
Didn’t surprise him that her mind went there. His had, too, while they stood there watchin’ that fire eat through her uncle’s place like it had her mama’s. But now there was a new kind of fear sitting heavy in his gut, turning his breakfast to dust before he could even swallow.
“And what if they’ve moved past warnings?”
She glanced up so fast, she might’ve snapped her neck. “You think they might do something to hurt me?”
He played over the conversations he’d had with folks about getting rid of Jocelyn. Felt like townie nonsense—folks with too much time on their hands making a big deal out of a festival that didn’t much matter in the grand scheme. Might’vebeen something more buried there, though, some bad blood somebody was hiding under a concern about the town.
“Jocelyn, your mama died. Even if it was an accident, somebody still lit that match. And they know damn well what they did.”
They know. Those words echoed in his head like somebody else had said them. She looked just as shaken. But deep down, she knew, too. Hell, it was why she came back—to dig into what really happened that night. ‘Cause even if nobody said it out loud, there was always something that didn’t sit right.
“No way you didn’t think it’d be dangerous.” He worked at keeping his voice from rising.
“I knew people wouldn’t be happy,” she started, her mind clearly spinning.
But he was close to spittin’ now to think she’d never considered the danger of it all. “It was just revenge on your mind, not a killer covering his ass.”
“His?” she repeated, voice already dark.
“Figure of speech.” A pit opened up in his stomach, threatening to swallow him whole. The notes, the fires, the things that didn’t add up.
“You think I’m here for revenge?” she asked now, soft and low.
Dangerous ground. But the accusation was there in her voice, and it made him stiffen.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s a bullshit answer, Cole, and you know it.” She stood then, slim hands balling into fists at her sides.
He planted his palms on the counter top, the cold surface cooling his overheating skin. “Seems like it sometimes. The way you go off half-cocked at people.”
She reared back. “Half-cocked? All I want are answers! You agreed that things were suspicious. Your own parents said to find out who did this.”
“If that’s all you were doin’—”
“To hell with you, Cole.” She snatched her purse and sandals off the floor and made straight for the door. Didn’t even stop to put ’em on—just stormed out, barefoot and burning mad. The door slammed behind her hard enough to make his teeth clack together.
twenty-nine
“Fire and gunpowder do not sleep together.” - Proverb
Jocelyn rode the high of rage all the way across town, passing boxy brick homes that harkened back to the sixties and seventies and the little craftsmans from the early half of the 1900s. She was hellbent on reaching that long road that wound along the rolling hills to the huge estate up above town.
An unseen force had kept her from driving up that lane before—a mix of fear and resentment. It was the anger that gave her the courage now as her car wove its way up, passing under gnarled old oaks stationed like sentries along the gravel.
It was anger, too, that kept her from admitting part of what Cole had said was true. She wasn’t ready to acknowledge it yet, let alone look in the mirror and see where she might’ve been wrong. She’d spent her life painting this town as her enemy, but how much of that had been fodder fed to her by a bitter old woman and a mama who hadn’t always made the best choices?
And what of this blooming relationship with her sister? And… Cole? Thinking of them made it harder to hang onto the fire and the steel it had forged in her spine.
So she shook those thoughts from her mind as she pulled into the circle drive, stopping in front of the house. The massive facade seemed to watch her—columns stretching two stories, aged but well-kept brick shaded by double-decker wraparound porches. What a place to grow up. She could picture ladies from a century and a half ago in wide hoop skirts, fanning themselves through the blazing summer heat.
When she rang the bell, a deep gong reverberated through the stately house. While she waited, she traced the length and width of the porch. The sheer size seemed like overkill, but its age reminded her it needed to be wide enough for those skirts to pass two by two.
