Page 148 of Fire Fight

“If you insist,” she said, damn near gliding across the space to the armchair across from us.

“We have reason to believe you’ve got information that could help us catch the Prom Night Arsonist.”

“Moi?” she asked in a horrible French accent, placing a hand on her chest. “Who would say such a thing?”

“Thewhodoesn’t matter so much as thewhy.”

“You were a senior with Vicky Lee and Roger Stanhope, right?”

Lane nudged me with his shoulder, a silent reminder of his earlier directive:keep my mouth shut. But we didn’t have time to sit here and dance around the matter at hand. I was merely cutting to the chase.

“I was…” she said slowly.

“Anything weird happen that night that you can remember?” Lane asked.

She snorted. “You mean other than two of my classmates being burned alive? Nope, can’t think of anything.”

Her flippancy grated on me. This was fucking serious. People haddied.

“Did you have any personal connection to the victims?”

“It’s a small town. Of course I did.”

“I mean…intimately.”

“Not with Vicky,” she said slyly.

“So you were intimate with Stanhope?”

I’d been so focused on Missy that I hadn’t noticed Lane had taken out his phone and started recording the conversation, the device balanced on his knee. Missy, however, had her eyes glued to it.

Coming back to herself, she leaned over to a side table and lifted a gold case—a cigarette holder. She withdrew a smoke and lit it up. After a few drags, she finally spoke again.

“He and Vicky were constantly on and off. It’s always a grey area when you’re that age, you know? We’re all aware we’re not destined forever with our high school sweethearts.” She paused, as if recognizing whose company she was keeping, and added, “Your parents not included, of course. Birdie and Jase were soulmates. But around prom happened to be one of those times Vicky and Roger were off. So Roger and I got a bit hot and heavy. We had an understanding.”

“What kind of understanding?”

She hitched a bony shoulder, blowing a stream of smoke out her nose like a dragon. “It was just sex. Emotions messed everything up, so we were having fun. Nothing more. Plus, I think he alwaysthoughthe’d end up with Vicky, and the back and forth of their relationship was only growing pains.”

“Do you remember if they went to prom together? Were they back on by then?”

“Nah,” she said, reclining in her chair, grinning.

“Did you go with him?”

“I didn’t.”

“Then who?” Trey asked before Lane could, taking the words right out of my mouth. The three of us leaned forward, and my breath stalled in my lungs as I waited for her answer.

That gut feeling that we were onto something, that whatever Missy was about to say would change everything, was back with a vengeance, twisting my stomach into knots.

She smirked. “Roger went to prom with Kelly McAllister.”

“McAllister, McAllister,” Lane chanted quietly. “Why does that name sound so familiar?”

It didn’t ring any bells with me, but Trey caught on almost immediately.

“McAllister,” he said softly, his tone so full of pain that my head whipped in his direction, “is Kelly Saunders’ maiden name.”