Page 151 of Not Quite Dead Yet

‘Pasta.’

‘Look, Jet, I get it,’ the chief sighed.

‘Do you?’

‘Something awful happened to you, and you’re mad. Maybe you thought you’d use the time you had left to take your anger out on someone else. Maybe you’re mad at your dad, at your brother, that they weren’t there to help you when JJ attacked you. Thought you’d teach them a lesson, burn down the company. Is that it? Talk to us, Jet. We’re here to help.’

‘Like when you solved my murder?’ she asked.

‘Jet,’ Jack said softly.

‘I. Did. Not. Burn. That. Building. Down.’

The chief banged the table. ‘Then. What. Were. You. Doing. There?’

‘I was in the truck. I just parked there. It’s a quiet road.’

‘Were you alone?’

Jet swallowed.Alonedidn’t count as an alibi. But she would not let any of this fall back on Billy, not that. He was the one who had to live.

‘No, I was with someone,’ she said.

‘Who?’

‘I can’t tell you that,’ she parroted him.

‘Billy?’ Jack said quietly, dipped up as a question, but not really.

There was no other answer.

Jet didn’t say anything.

‘And what were you and Billy doing in your truck, on that road, at that time of night?’ the chief said, sitting back, like he’d won.

‘What do you think?’ Jet scoffed, actually just trying to give herself time to think.

‘You tell me.’

A flash of memory: Billy, his pale eyes wide and troubled, worrying that passersby would spot the truck from the road. Jet telling him not to worry, giving him a reason, actually just trying to make him laugh.

Jet smiled, reused those exact same words now.

‘We were screwing, like teenagers.’

Jack dropped his eyes to the floor, chair creaking, drawing attention to him just when he was trying to hide from it.

‘Sorry,’ Jet said in his direction, then back to the chief. ‘I’m dying, and having sex in a truck was on my bucket list, OK?That’s why I was there. We didn’t even know about the fire. We heard the sirens and got out of there. That’s all.’

The chief shook his head. ‘I don’t believe you. I know you did this.’

‘Do you have any evidence that I went inside the building?’

The chief glanced over at Jack, a silent conversation, cop speak forno.

Jet leaned forward. ‘Then let me go.’

Jack ran a hand over his stubble, like he was torn between his uniform and the man beneath, Jet’s neighbor, someone who’d known her since she was born. ‘We can’t,’ he said. ‘The judge issued a warrant for your arrest.’