Page 22

TWENTY-ONE

As soon as Jesslyn buckled up, her phone buzzed with a call from Carol. “Hello?”

“Hey, sweetie, you needed me to call?”

“Yes, good timing, thanks. So there was a bank that burned down a few days before the church fire. I was out of town at a conference, and no one realized there was a connection to the other two fires until recently.” She told her the name of the bank. “Can you think of any connection I might have to that bank?”

Silence.

“Aunt Carol?”

“Jesslyn, your mom almost took a job at that branch just a few days before she died.”

A taser hit couldn’t have shocked her more. “What? Why? I didn’t think she needed to work.”

“Money wasn’t an issue. It was more her wanting some independence. She had the jewelry, of course, but the job was her safety net in case...”

Jesslyn swallowed. “Right. In case she wound up leaving Dad. What did Dad say?”

“He wasn’t happy when she told him she’d taken the job. He put two and two together and said if she was planning a future without him, then why were they even trying? She didn’t have an answer for that. He disappeared that night like he’d done so many times, and she packed up you kids and came over and cried on my shoulder a while. Then she pulled herself back together and said he was right and she was going to tell them she wasn’t going to be able to take the job.”

“But that’s not fair,” Jesslyn said. “What if she really wanted to work it?”

A sigh filtered through the line. “I think she wanted to, just for something different in addition to it being more security for her and you girls. But her marriage was her priority, and if staying home was what it took to keep it together, then that’s what she’d do.”

“Sounds like Dad was really good at gaslighting people.”

“Well, yes. He was. In fact, I pointed that out to your mother that night and asked her if she was going to let him do that to her.”

Jesslyn pinched the bridge of her nose. “And?”

“She said she recognized the ploy, but just in case it was real and he really meant what he was saying, not just trying to manipulate her, then she had to give it a shot. She went to the bank the next day and asked if she could delay her start date. They told her no.”

“I see.” Jesslyn bit her lip, thinking, processing, trying to keep her emotions out of it. “It’s almost as if the fact that she could leave made her try harder to keep their marriage together.”

It made sense in some weird way.

Her phone buzzed and she glanced at a text message. “Oh boy,” she muttered.

“What?”

She covered the speaker on the phone and said, “Head to the Lake City General Store. It’s on fire.”

“What?” Nathan gunned the engine.

“Thanks, Carol. I’ve got to go. If I have any more questions, I’ll call.”

“I know you will. Your cousins are coming home for a visit next week. We’ll put them to work on the benefit.”

“Sounds good. I look forward to seeing them.” She hung up, and five minutes later, Nathan pulled into the back of the parking lot of the Lake City General Store. Smoke billowed from the log cabin–type structure with flames shooting out from the windows.

Her heart shuddered. She shopped here on a regular basis.

She stared at the blaze, the conversation with her aunt lingering in the back of her mind, but her focus on the scene before them. “He knows I shop here,” she murmured. “Often. This is my go-to store.”

Nathan nodded. “Yeah. Unfortunately.”

They climbed out of the car, eyes on the fire. Nathan’s presence beside her offered more comfort than she wanted to admit. “I go a lot of places,” she said. “I have a connection with just about every place in Lake City. How do I warn them all? How do I...” She waved a hand at the enormity of the idea.

“There’s no way.”

There really wasn’t, but ... “I feel like I need to try.”

“Who else would you call?”

“The fire station for starters.”

“Oof,” he said, “yeah. Tell them to be on the lookout for anyone hanging around and showing unusual interest in the place.”

Fire trucks screamed into the parking lot and Jesslyn waited for them to stop a safe distance from the blaze. Firefighters she knew and respected spilled out of the trucks and went to work in their fast-paced, well-practiced choreography of courage.

To anyone else it might look like chaos, but to Jesslyn it was poetry in motion. Familiar. Safe. “Do you know if anyone is in there?” she asked a bystander.

“No, I don’t think so,” the woman said. “There were about ten of us, and as soon as we realized smoke was coming from the back area, we all ran out.”

Jesslyn motioned to one of the firefighters. “I know this store has a gas fireplace. Has the gas been shut off?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll make sure. Thanks.” He trotted off and Jesslyn turned to Nathan. “I’ll be back.” She had duties to attend to.

He nodded. “I’m going to walk through the onlookers and see if I spot anyone I recognize.” He glanced at his phone. “Andrew is on his way too.”

Jesslyn found the chief and waited for a break in his spiel of orders to approach. “Chief Laramie.”

“Jesslyn. What are you doing here? Thought you were taking some time off.”

“I am, but...”

He raised a brow. “Right.”

“You’ll let me know if you find a piece of jewelry?”

“ASAP.”

“Thanks.” She spent the next two hours talking to people at the scene, questioning if they’d noticed anyone hanging around, looking suspicious. She didn’t get much to work with, but wrote everything down. She’d return when the fire was out and safe to walk through. When she finally took a break, Nathan walked over and handed her a bottle of water. She chugged it. “How’d you know I needed that?”

“I’ve been watching.”

He had, huh?

“Listen, I’ve got to run. I got a weird text from Eli. I typed out a response, but never sent it. I just realized that and called him, but he’s not picking up his phone.”

“What kind of weird text?”

“I’m not sure, but it doesn’t sound like him.”

“You’re worried.”

He nodded and she patted his shoulder. “All right. Go find him. I’ll text you when I’m done here and ready to head home.”

“Thanks. Just don’t go anywhere unless you have someone with you. Someone who can use a gun.”

“I have a gun and I know how to use it.”

He narrowed his eyes. “I know. I just think it’s best if you’re not alone right now.”

“I know. I feel safer with someone watching my back, so don’t worry, I’ll make sure to stay with people I trust.”

“Good.” He hesitated. “Jesslyn, I like you.”

She blinked. “I like you too, Nathan.”

“No, I mean, I like like you. I want to ask you out on a date, but I’ve picked up on your ‘keep your distance’ signals and I’m trying to honor those.” He glanced around. “I know this isn’t the best time to bring this up, but I’ve been thinking about this awhile and just wanted you to think about it. Think about going on a date with me. I won’t ask you for anything you’re not ready to give, I just want to get to know you more. Spend time with you away from all of this.”

It was all Jesslyn could do to keep her jaw from swinging. He was right. This wasn’t the time. “Nathan—”

“Nope. Not right now. Focus on the fire. We’ll talk about us later.”

Us?

He squeezed her fingers and then he was gone.

All righty then. She had some thinking to do.

Her phone buzzed. Lindsay from the bureau. “Hello?”

“I’ve got some interesting information for you. You know how you wanted a list of all the people who lived in the neighborhood the same time you did?”

“Of course.”

“I’ve got that. I’m sending it to your email.”

“That was incredibly fast.”

“I pulled in reinforcements.”

“Awesome. Be sure to send it to Nathan and Andrew too, will you?”

“Already done. Check your inbox.”

She would just as soon as she was done with this fire. She’d use it as a distraction from obsessing over the fact that Nathan like liked her.

NATHAN DIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE HER, but he had a bad feeling in his gut about Eli. Some internal warning was telling him to go find his brother. Before their conversation and the last text from Eli, he’d never have believed his brother was suicidal but had to admit that thought was in his head. He could only pray it wasn’t in Eli’s, but...

His parents were out of town for the week with friends at Hilton Head. Carly and her husband, Kip, had left yesterday while Brandon, his nephew, stayed with friends.

Eli was well and truly alone, and if he was planning to self-harm—he had a hard time thinking “kill himself”—this would be the time to do it.

Please let me be wrong, God. Let me be wrong.

He gunned his vehicle toward his parents’ home and his mind went back to Jesslyn and the look on her face when he’d told her to think about going out with him. He was an idiot. That had not been the place or time to do that. What had he been thinking? Obviously, he hadn’t. But she was a professional. She wouldn’t let that little moment of his weirdness interfere with what she had to do at the scene. Comforting himself with that thought, he pressed the gas a little harder.

The drive took only fifteen minutes, but he tried Eli’s phone four times and each time it rolled to voicemail.

Eli never turned off his phone. Ever.

Nathan turned into his parents’ driveway and spotted Eli’s silver sedan in the third parking spot. He climbed out and pressed a hand to the hood. Stone cold.

He jogged up the front porch steps and knocked on the door. “Eli? You here?”

No answer.

He found the key under the little porcelain bunny in the mulch, opened the door, and stepped inside. “Eli?”

All appeared well in the house. Nothing out of place. He cleared it quickly, then stopped in the den to look out on the deck. The exterior lights were on and Eli sat on the top step facing the backyard.

Nathan walked back into the kitchen, grabbed two bottles of water out of the fridge, then went back to the sliding glass door. He rapped his knuckles on it, and Eli started so bad, Nathan was glad his brother had a healthy heart. He slid the door open. “You okay?” he asked. Eli turned, his face ravaged with a sorrow so deep Nathan almost fell to his knees. He set the bottles on the table and walked toward him. “Eli, man, what’s going on?”

“What are you doing here, Nathan?”

“You sent me that weird text so I came to check on you.” He walked to the steps and sat next to his brother.

And then noticed the gun in Eli’s right hand. Nathan stilled, doing his best not to react. His heart thudded and he couldn’t help drawing in a steadying breath. “What are you doing with that?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I answered your text. I just got distracted and didn’t hit send until about thirty minutes ago.”

Eli looked up, the dark circles under his eyes giving him a haunted appearance. “I thought you were ghosting me.”

“So you were going to kill yourself?”

“Maybe. Thought about it.”

“You’re holding a gun. That’s more than thinking about it. Can you put that thing down, please?”

“No.”

A chill swept through Nathan and he was more certain than ever if he hadn’t come now, Eli very possibly wouldn’t be alive to see tomorrow.

“Why not?” Nathan asked. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the divine nudging to come check on his brother.

“Because I’m not completely sure I don’t want to use it.”

“You have it aimed at the ground.”

“Well, with my luck, I’d change my mind and the stupid thing would go off anyway.”

“You really want to die?”

A hefty sigh escaped Eli’s lips. “No. I really don’t. I just don’t know how else to make the pain stop. I don’t know how to move on from the past. I don’t know how to repair the damage to us.” He swiped a sliding tear. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? I talk to clients all day long and offer words of advice and what I hope are wisdom, but I can’t seem to put into practice those words for myself. I don’t know how to heal—or forgive—myself.”

Nathan wanted to press his palms to his burning eyes but couldn’t bring himself to take his gaze off the gun. Should he address the whole idea of self-forgiveness now or save it? Maybe just talking would help. “A lot of people think they should be able to forgive themselves, but that’s not really a thing.”

“What?”

“After Danny died and after a couple of years of counseling, I finally started doing research on how to forgive myself for what happened.”

“What’d you find, because it must have worked.”

“I figured out that forgiving yourself just isn’t something you can do.”

Eli huffed. “Well, that’s just great news.”

“The better news is all forgiveness comes from God. The need to find a way to forgive ourselves comes from the need to be released from the guilt we feel about something.”

“Yep, that guilt is a real killer.”

“But guilt isn’t from God. There’s no condemnation in him, remember?”

“I feel condemned. Condemned to a lifetime of pain and guilt. I can’t get away from it.”

“Eli, the issue isn’t you forgiving yourself, but accepting the forgiveness that God offers you. In doing that, you’ll find that he gives you the ability to release the guilt and shame that’s got a stranglehold on you.” He sighed. “Once I realized that I have no power of forgiveness over my own sins, that it was up to God, then because I believe he is who he says he is—which is a loving, forgiving God who has a plan for my life—then...” He rubbed both hands down his cheeks. “I chose to grab on to that and hold it tight. Some days it’s more tangible than others. But I feel it. I feel his forgiveness. And even when I don’t feel it, I still know it because I know him. That’s why I know you can too.”

Eli had been hanging on every word. His eyes started to glow with a fragment of hope. “You really think so?”

“I know so. One hundred percent.” He eyed the weapon. “We’ve gone years, Eli, without all of ... this. Why now?”

“You know, Mom and Dad never once accused me or blamed me for not watching out for you guys. They never said a word. And they never looked at me with accusation in their eyes. And because they didn’t, it helped me bury it all.” He flicked his gaze to Nathan. “That and the fact I could tell you didn’t remember that I was supposed to be there, that there were some gaps about some things. Like my best bud came by to hang out and we had the music going so loud, I didn’t hear the screams until it was too late.” More tears swept down his cheeks and he swiped them away with his sleeve. A shudder rippled through him. “Anyway, I’d buried it for so long that I figured it would stay there. But then I had a client who was responsible for the death of her brother. She’d done something similar—played a mean trick on him—and he died. She was devastated. Turned to drugs and alcohol to dull the pain. In rehab, she had to face it, and one of the things she’s supposed to do upon leaving the inpatient facility is to get counseling three times a week. Guess who was assigned to her?”

“You.”

“Of course. When she was telling me about it, you can imagine the memories that dredged up for me. I tried to stuff it all back down, but it wouldn’t stay there. I wake up in the night from nightmares of trying to break into the shed to get you and Danny out. I can’t eat. I can’t focus at work. I can’t do anything but grieve and try to figure out what I need to do to fix it. The only thing left was to come clean.”

“That explains a lot.” Nathan hesitated. “We’ll work through this, Eli. You didn’t mean for anything to happen to Danny. I know that.”

“You can’t tell me you don’t blame me.”

Be honest or say what his brother needed to hear? Eli would see through anything less than honesty. “Yeah. I blame you. But the truth is, you’re not completely to blame. I was a dumb kid too. We both were. Unfortunately, sometimes stupidity has tragic con sequences. We can’t change that, but we can make sure we do our part to help other kids going through the same thing. You in your counseling and me”—he lifted a shoulder—“however I can do that in my role as an agent. Even though I despise public speaking, I speak to schools and other groups, and I think sometimes my words make a difference.”

“I’m sure they do.”

“Can I have the gun, Eli?”

Another harsh breath left his brother, but he handed the gun over to Nathan, who unloaded it, noting with relief no bullet had been chambered. “Any other weapons I need to know about?”

“Just in Dad’s gun case and I don’t have the key.”

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t find a way to get the case open if he really wanted to. “Why don’t you come stay with me for a while at the Airbnb? At least while I’m in town. When this case is over, we’ll figure something else out.”

“So you can keep an eye on me?”

Nathan met Eli’s gaze once more. “Yes.”

Eli hesitated, then nodded. “Okay.”

“You know you can’t be alone for a while. You need counseling. Help to work through this.”

His brother fell silent. “I know that’s the protocol and we can follow it, but honestly, the fact that you thought something was wrong and came here to check on me is more than...” His throat worked and he cleared it. “More than enough. I have hope now. Whereas before, I didn’t.” He paused. “I mean, I just didn’t know I did. Never mind.”

“There’s always hope. You’re my brother and I love you. I don’t ever want anything bad to happen to you.” The words were hard to say. He meant them and he knew they were true. And Eli needed to hear them.

“Even though I did what I did?”

“Even though.”

“So you forgive me? That’s biblical, right? Forgiving those who’ve wronged you? ‘Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors,’” he whispered. “Can you forgive me for what I did?”

“I...” Could he? “Yeah. Yes, of course it’s biblical, and yes, I forgive you.” His hands fisted, but he forced the words out. “I’m making the decision to forgive you. My heart might not be completely behind it yet, but it’ll get there. You know as well as I do that forgiveness is a decision, not necessarily a feeling. The feeling will come. But we will get through this. We will. I want that and I need you to believe that.”

Eli nodded and more tears coursed. He sniffed and used his sleeve to scrub his face. “I haven’t cried since that night,” he said. “I was afraid if I started, I wouldn’t stop.” Another tear leaked out. “Looks like I was right.”

Nathan refused to let his own tears fall. “One more thing.”

“What?”

“I need you to forgive me.”

Eli gaped. “What for?”

“For being a dumb kid and being selfish. For wanting my own way that night and not caring what anyone else said. Including you.”

More tears tracked his brother’s cheeks, but he nodded. “Of course,” he rasped.

Nathan squeezed Eli’s shoulder. “We’ll get through this,” he said again, “but you have to swear you’ll talk to me if you feel like picking up a gun again—or any other weapon.”

“I will. I don’t know what came over me. I know ending things isn’t the answer. I wouldn’t want to do that to Mom and Dad or Carly. Or you. I wasn’t thinking clearly, obviously. I don’t want to die, Nathan, I just want things to get better.”

“And they will. From this moment forward. Okay?”

Eli sniffed again, but nodded. “Yeah. Okay.”

“I still want you to see someone.”

“I will.”

“Good. Make the appointment.”

“Now?”

“Yes. And put the phone on speaker.”

Eli’s eyes glittered with more unshed tears, but he actually barked a short, humorless laugh. “Okay.” He made the call, and Nathan listened as his brother told his friend and fellow psychiatrist what had happened. The fact that he held nothing back gave Nathan hope that Eli was serious about getting help. He hung up. “He can meet with me tonight after his last client.”

“Good.” He patted his brother’s shoulder. “Now, for the next step. We need to tell Carly about this.”

Eli frowned. “Why?”

“You need the support of the family. I understand if you don’t want to tell Mom and Dad, but Carly and Kip need to be a part of your support system. What would you tell one of your clients?”

After a few seconds of silence, Eli said, “The same.”

“Exactly.”

Twenty minutes later, Carly was informed and, while shocked at the news of Eli’s current mental state, promised to be there for him. Eli’s shoulders had loosened and he looked to be in a better place. But there was one last thing.

“Danny’s parents and siblings don’t need to know any of this,” Nathan said.

“I thought about telling them.”

“I figured you did, but I think it’s better if you don’t. I keep in touch with them. They’re doing well. Let’s not bring it all up again for them.”

“You think that’s best?”

“What purpose would it serve? Yeah. I think it’s best not to say anything.”

“I’ll think about it.”

Nathan patted his brother’s shoulder. “All right. Come on. Pack what you need. The spare room is yours for as long as you need it.”

“I don’t know what to say.” More tears slipped down Eli’s cheeks and Nathan wrapped his brother in a tight hug. Seeing Eli’s desperation and deep pain had snuffed out his anger like water on an open flame. He snorted at the analogy, but it was accurate. Maybe God would give him the ability to forgive completely and there could be healing all around.

His phone buzzed with a text from Jesslyn.

Heath is here.