as well as detectives. That’s why they’re in a conference room instead of one of the smaller interview rooms.”
She wiped her suddenly sweaty palms against her jeans and headed toward the open door. But ten feet away, he stopped her with a hand on her shoulder.
“Do you know where Brian’s hiding?”
“No. I don’t. I swear.”
He nodded. “All right. We’ll talk later, in private, and try to figure out where he might be holed up. But if you do have any ideas and are asked about him in that room, tell the truth. Deal or not. Lying will only get you in more trouble.”
“But I don’t want Brian hurt. Won’t telling them put his life in jeopardy?”
“Tell the truth,” he repeated. “The second you feel like you know where he might be, I’ll be the first one out the door trying to find him. I’ll do everything I can to protect him. You have my word.”
“Why? Why do you even want to help him, or me? And don’t tell me it’s because of my parents.”
His brows raised. “You and I may be over, but I loved you once. If nothing else, for the sake of what we once were to each other, I feel obligated to keep you both safe. Is that so difficult to understand?”
“After everything that’s happened, yes. It is. You’re a far better person than me, Colin. In your place, I don’t know that I could be so accommodating.”
He frowned and started to say something but the officer who’d waved at them earlier motioned at them again.
Peyton didn’t move. “Should I be asking for a lawyer?” she whispered.
He turned his back to the officer. “Probably. Are you asking for one?”
She considered her meager finances and the staggering cost of Brian’s continued legal bills that had crippled her entire family financially. It would take her years to pay off her portion of his lawyer fees. Adding more legal costs on top of that would be devastating. “No. I’ll just wing it, I guess.”
He frowned. “If you can’t afford one, I can take care of—”
“No.” She cleared her throat and lowered her voice. “No, but thank you for offering. That’s very...nice of you, especially considering...” Her voice trailed off. The air between them seemed to thicken with tension. She glanced at the white lines on his hands. How he could have gone through what he had and offer to help her was beyond her comprehension, in spite of his insistence that he felt obligated because of their past.
It felt a thousand ways wrong.
She could never take his money, even though she knew he’d never miss it. Money had never been a concern for any of the McKenzies. They’d become wealthy the old-fashioned way. They’d inherited it. Colin didn’t work because he had to. He worked because he wanted to. But that wouldn’t make it right for her to take advantage of his generosity.
He studied her, as if deciding whether or not to argue the point. Then he shrugged and led her to the conference room.
It took a supreme effort of will not to turn around and run when she saw the people waiting for her inside. A dozen men and women went silent at her approach. Each of them had a legal pad or an electronic tablet on the table in front of them. And every one of them was watching her like a scientist observing a particularly nasty insect through a microscope.
“Over there.” A lean, middle-aged man with skin the color of an old saddle waved toward two empty chairs directly across the table from him.
She took one of the chairs. Colin took the other.
The man who’d motioned them to sit down gave her a smile that was polite, but far from warm. “I’m Chief Landry. Obviously, you already know Deputy US Marshal McKenzie. Everyone else in this room is either a regular police officer or a detective working for me. Miss Sterling, I want to make it clear that you’re not under arrest. I’m going to ask you some questions and, hopefully, you’ll do me the courtesy of answering them. You’re free to go at any time. Do you understand?”
She glanced longingly at the door but nodded. She understood more than he realized. The legal system wasn’t exactly a stranger to her given her family’s history fighting the charges against her brother. By not arresting her, the chief didn’t have to tell her about her legal rights or remind her that she could have an attorney present. She probably should go ahead and ask for a lawyer, in spite of the cost. But she didn’t want to prolong this any more than necessary. She’d just see how things went. Although how they could look worse than they did right now was beyond her.
A stack of folders sat to Landry’s right. He took the top one and set it on the table in front of him. He flipped it open, revealing an ugly window into the past, half a dozen color photographs that he methodically lined up in the middle of the table.
The burned-out hull of a building, smoke rising as fire fighters doused the embers.
The dance hall with scores of students clustered in small groups, being questioned by the police.
The ambulance taking Colin away.
Beside her, Colin tensed in his chair.
“Brief history for those in the room unfamiliar with Brian Sterling’s case.” Landry pulled a sheet of paper from the thick folder and ran a finger across a bulleted list. “The only son of Molly and Benjamin Sterling, Brian was suspected of setting five separate fires as a juvenile but was never convicted, mainly because no one was hurt, the damage was minimal and his parents agreed to make restitution to the property owners as well as take their son to a therapist. That all changed when, at the age of nineteen...” He frowned and flipped the page as if looking for something else. “This doesn’t look right. He was a senior in high school? At nineteen?”
Peyton’s chest tightened. She hadn’t known about the fires. That hadn’t come out at the trial. It must have been part of a sealed juvenile record that the chief had convinced some judge to let him access. Her parents, and her brother, had hidden that information from her. Why? To keep her from doubting her brother’s innocence? If whatever had happened in his past was relevant in any way to the accusations against him when he was nineteen, the judge at his arson trial would have unsealed the records. Her parents should have trusted her to understand that, and to know that she would continue her support and faith in her brother. She knew him better than anyone. She loved him. Unsealed records thrown at her in a room full of police who wanted to hurt him didn’t change that. She drew a shaky breath and forced herself to answer the chief’s question.
“Brian had...difficulties in school. He was held back a year, so he was a senior the same time I was even though he’s a year older than me.”
“Thank you, Miss Sterling. Says here that a few weeks before graduation, Gatlinburg–Pittman High School held a dance at a place called The Barn, a combination restaurant and dance hall on a nature preserve just inside the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Toward the end of the evening, Brian poured accelerant on the dilapidated original barn that was no longer used for dances, and set it on fire.”
“Wrong.”
He glanced up at Peyton. “Excuse me?”
“My brother didn’t set the fire.”
“Twelve
