Page 101 of Up In Smoke
Padilla arches an eyebrow at him. “Nooo…” she says, dragging the word out. “I’m here about the massive fire some asshole set. What you do you mean, take him away?”
I know my husband well enough by now to tell he’s exhausted and not thinking straight. “To take him to a family with a real home?”
She frowns and glances between me and Jesse. “After that display of heroinism? Are you kidding me? I thought because Ihadn’t heard from you, you’d completely foster failed. I haven’t even been looking for a new home for him.”
Jesse’s jaw drops and he shoots me a watery look. “What do you think?—?”
“I’m not even going to let you finish that question,” I say in exasperation. “Of course he’s staying, baby.” I glance back at my smoldering apartment building. At least the fire seems to finally be calming down. “Stayingwhere,I’m not sure, but—oof!”
Jesse crashes into me with a fierce hug. “Thank you,” he sobs against my chest.
I melt a little and kiss the top of his smokey smelling hair. “We’re a family, sweetheart. That means forever in my book.” He takes a shuddery breath and looks up and me with such joy it makes me want to marry him all over again.
“Well, that’s that sorted then,” Padilla says, slightly too loudly, suggesting she’d rather we’d knock off the lovely-dovey stuff in front of her. “I’m, um, really sorry about your place, you know…”
She makes an explosion noise and expands her fingers while grimacing in the direction of the charred building behind us.
“So that’s why you’re here,” I say. “Because we think it was arson.”
“You do?” Jesse asks, his eyes wide.
“We do,” Padilla says grimly. “Plenty of evidence already that someone syphoned gas out of a couple of cars to create a flammable trail that they then lit it with a few Molotov cocktails.” She shakes her head. “Whoever it was, they were angry and sloppy. Don’t worry, I’m sure we’ll catch them.”
“Um,” Jesse says in such a tone, it makes both me and Padilla raise our eyebrows at him. “I don’t want to create drama or anything, but I might have a suspect for you.”
Padilla blinks at him. “Uh, hell yeah. Yes, please and thank you.”
Jesse looks guiltily at me, and for just a second, I worry.
But only a second.
“So remember how Emerson showed up at my work?”
Rage sweeps through me. “No,” I rasp.
Jesse gives me a one-armed shrug. “Somehow, he found our address. I don’t know if he’s been following me or what, but I should probably file a report about that at the very least.”
“Uh, yeah, you should,” Padilla says with a raised eyebrow. “I’m sorry, who is this guy?”
“A crazy fan from my AA meetings,” Jesse says, sounding bone tired. “So I don’t know his last name. But he arrived on our doorstep with a bottle of whiskey wanting to be friends.”
My rage turns to something even more violent and white hot in the blink of an eye, but Jesse squeezes my arm through my coat.
“I got mad at him and made him leave. It was fine.” He glances back at the scorched apartment building. “For me, anyway. But…he was really upset, Captain. And you said this was a crime of passion possibly involving alcohol fueled grenades…”
“Say no more,” Padilla interrupts. “I’m on it. I’m going to need an official witness statement from you ASAP. But I have a feeling that these guys aren’t going to let me hog your attention any longer.”
She waves us off and I turn around. Although Sawyer and Teddy are still manning the hoses, the rest of the One-Thirteen firefighters are calling us to them. Even Gene looks mildly interested as he hangs out the window of the truck.
“Is this him?” Lochlan asks as we approach, looking like a kid on Christmas morning. “The infamous husband?”
Lili smacks his chest and rolls her eyes. “Their apartment just got smoked, dude. Besides,” she adds with a smirk as she flicks an eyebrow at Jesse. “I already told you this was him and how right I was all along, and you definitely owe me a hundred.”
“I don’t think we agreed on a hun?—”
She snaps her fingers in front of his face. “One. Hundred. American. Dollars.”
He glares at her. “Well, obviously I don’t have it on me right now.”