store, ready to be taken home and hooked up to a grill.
But she had no grill. Her bakery ran on natural gas and electricity, not propane. She’d not had any need for a propane tank.
Jammed into the tank’s collar, next to the valve, was a scrap of metal and a heap of ashes.
She straightened up, her heart sinking to her toes. “It looks like a propane tank. For a grill.”
“Yep,” Rob agreed.
“It’s not mine.”
“That a fact?” he asked.
Now she met his eyes, and she could tell in the gray light of dawn that they were blue, a very dark blue that she hadn’t seen ever before—but she’d seen the speculation that filled them in others’ eyes—plenty of times.
“Is that what started the fire?” she asked. “This tank?”
“I couldn’t tell you yet. I’ve only just started to investigate.”
“Investigate? You?” Now it was Kari’s turn to look speculatively at her companion.
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m the fire marshal and arson investigator for Levi County.”
A renewed wave of nausea flooded through her. “Arson?” she asked and sagged against the scorched cement of the exterior wall. But she hadn’t needed to ask him to repeat it. She’d heard it the first time.
“It looks that way. That tank’s valve is open, and it appears to be the remains of a road flare stuck in there.”
Kari’s knees wouldn’t hold her up any longer. She found herself sliding to the wet ground, the masonry wall digging into her back as she descended. “Not again,” she whispered. “Oh, please, not again.”
“Again?” Rob knelt down beside her.
“You might as well know...” She stared down at the cookbook in her arms, the one thing she’d been able to salvage from the ashes of her fresh new start.
“Know what?” Rob prompted.
“You’ll find out soon enough. I was convicted of arson when I was fourteen years old.”
ROB SAT BACK on his heels, stunned. Had she really said what he thought she’d said?
Yes.
But she’d said it in a curious, distancing way. Not “I started a fire,” or “I burned down a building.”
No. “I was convicted.” That was how Kari Hendrix had put it.
He took in her eyes. They were gray and flat and dull, devoid of the hope he’d seen sputter in them when she’d found the cookbook.
So the question wasn’t if this was arson. Rob switched his gaze away from Kari and back to the propane tank.
Revenge. That was the first thought that popped in his mind when he’d made his initial sweep after the firefighters had put the blaze out. He’d seen the way-too-obvious point of origin—an open valve on a propane tank, the remains of a safety flare jabbed into the tank’s collar—and it was impossible to miss the “take that!” message the arsonist had sent loud and clear.
Rob had taken Kari through the building in hopes she could fill him in on who it was she’d so badly ticked off. A boyfriend? A customer?
But now...
Now he had to consider whether Kari was the culprit. The propane tank was easy enough to acquire, as well as the safety flare. She owned a bakery—and any food-based small shop hemorrhaged money like nobody’s business at first. And she certainly knew the lay of the land and when no one would be around.
Means, motive and opportunity...and a past criminal history, albeit self-confessed.
Her head was bent, and Kari appeared to peer deeply at her knees as though the secret to the universe were there. He could see the fabric of the denim stretched over those knees was thin and threadbare—not some high-dollar distressing of the jeans, but literally worn through.
Kari hadn’t done this.
Rob knew it. It was a bone-deep knowledge he couldn’t explain, but he was just as certain that Kari Hendrix had not set this fire as he was that his big brother Daniel would throw back his head and roar with laughter at his conclusion. Daniel was always telling Rob that Rob was the cynical, suspicious one.
Still...
“Ahem. I should read you your rights,” Rob said. Funny how his voice seemed to strain and crack. “You have the right to remain silent—”
Kari lifted her head. Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Yeah. I know. And whatever I say, you’ll use against me in court, and I can have an attorney—you’ll even give me a really, really bad one since I can’t afford one. I know the drill.”
“So? Did you? Do this?”
“No.” There was no equivocation, no hesitation, no fancy I-swear-on-a-stack-of-Bibles, no how-dare-you outrage. Just a plain and simple, no-frills, direct, “No.”
“Do you know who might have?”
But now Kari lied.
Not at first. Her initial headshake was vigorous and heartfelt. But somewhere in mid-shake, a lightbulb must have gone off. She froze—just for a split second. He could see more pain flare up in her eyes, the deep anguish of betrayal. And for a moment he was sure she was going to spill out a name.
Instead, she pressed her lips together in a tight, thin line and clutched the cookbook to her chest. “How could I know who burned this place? Why would they want to?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Do you have trouble with your landlord?”
She laughed. It was a dry, bitter sound that would have been more fitting for a jaded seventy-year-old than someone Kari’s age. Kari pushed herself up to a standing position, wobbly on her knees, but still pointedly ignoring Rob’s outstretched hand.
“I take that as a yes?” Rob pressed.
“My landlord, as you probably already know, is Charlie Kirkman, and everybody has trouble with Charlie Kirkman. And when you ask around, you’ll probably find the customers who heard me screaming at him the other day when he refused—again—to send somebody to look at the roof. Or the air conditioner. Or the vent fan. Or the water heater. But if everybody who got into a screaming match with Charlie Kirkman burned his buildings down, Charlie Kirkman would have no buildings left to burn.”
She was right about that, Rob knew. Charlie was as skinflinty a landlord as he’d ever come across. Rob had had dealings with Charlie—and not in a good way—when he’d followed up with Charlie’s residential tenants about fire safety complaints. And he knew that Charlie was famous for finally getting around to repairing
