Page 26 of Falling for the Hot Billionaire

Justine agreed, but for some reason, she still looked guilty. I wanted to tell her that everything was going to be fine, but it felt like too much of a lie to say more than once. Nothing was going well, that was the truth of it. Justine leaving to go to the police station didn’t sit well with me at all. Why would they even think that she would do something like that?

Also, if they thought that, it meant that it was arson, and somebody had done it to her. That was worse than the supposed accident that it was supposed to be. An accident was easier to deal with. Purposely though, that was a bit more complicated.

She left, telling me that she needed to do it herself, and I had no choice but to agree with it, though I wish I could be with her. I wanted to make life easier for her, but she was the one that made it hard. At this stage of it, I didn't think there was much I could do. I could only try to be there for her when it was all over. That felt possible.

20

Justine

“Iam not trying to be dense; I just truly don't understand what you're saying.”

“What I'm saying is your house did not burn down by accident. Someone set the fire. There is proof of use of an accelerant, and we want to know your side of the story.”

I took a deep breath. “My side of it is I came home from work and the house had already burnt down. I was at work when it all happened, and the fire department left it a soggy mess.”

“So, you had no inclination that something like this would happen?”

I looked at the cop and told him I had no way of knowing. Why wouldn't I have tried to stop it? My house meant everything to me, and the scenario that he was trying to come up with didn't make any sense. Why would I burn my own house down?

“Do you have any enemies?” the officer asked in his clipped voice. His blue eyes were the color of slate and they looked at me like I was in the wrong. I hadn’t done anything though.

“I don't think so. I really don’t have too many people that I don't get along with.”

“Someone burned your house down, Justine. There has to be some bad blood somewhere that you can tell me about. Most people don’t get their houses burned down. There has to be a reason.”

“I can't think of anyone.” I was a nurse. I worked most of the time, so I didn’t have time to make many enemies.

“What about Tyrell, your lover? Do you think that he would do something like this?”

I was horrified of the title he gave Tyrell. I told him that he wasn't my lover.

“I'm not here to judge. I'm just here to get to the bottom of things. Do you think it could have been him?”

“Tyrell? You think that Tyrell burnt my house down? Do you know who that guy is? There's no way that he would waste his time with such an activity. I can't say a lot about what happened, but I know that it wasn’t him.”

“Well, you have no suspects, and it's not your lover. Can you see how this could be problematic?”

Problematic to him was life altering to me, so yeah, I understood it. I finally asked him if I needed to get a lawyer. It wasn't something that I thought would even be an issue, but he suggested that I get my rich lover to pay for a lawyer. I almost corrected him again, but really, there was no point. He was looking at me as if we had already done it, and what was I supposed to say, well, technically not yet? That would have been even more embarrassing to say out loud.

“I really can't think of anybody that would do such a thing.”

“If we don't have a suspect, you are going to become it.”

“But I had nothing to do with it. It's my house that got burnt down. Why in the world would I burn my own house down? It doesn't make any sense.”

“People do things like that all the time for insurance purposes. You do have insurance on it, don't you?”

I was a little bitter about the insurance because it's not like it was going to put me back where I was. It's going to pay for the house, and then I'm going to be starting from scratch again. All the improvements that I had painstakingly made over the years to make it a better place to live no longer existed. I was staying with a neighbor because I had nowhere to go. How did that fit into my plan?

“Can I tell you a secret about insurance?”

“Shoot.”

“My insurance is barely going to pay back what was left on the mortgage and to replace the house. It's going to cost much more than they would give me. Your theory about it being worth it to do it is wrong. The math is off. The insurance will cover the bank, not me. I've lost everything. All of that time, energy, and equity that I put into this place is gone.”

The cop didn’t care about my problems; he didn't roll his eyes, but he might as well have. That's about as much attention as I felt he was really giving to the situation. I couldn't even believe I was here. There was no way I would do such a thing. I was a nurse, not a criminal.

The more I talked to Officer Lee, the more I realized that I really was going to need a lawyer. It was one thing to accuse me; it was another thing to think I actually did it. I wasn't going to jail for this. Someone else did this, not me.

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