Once Burned (Task Force Eagle) by Susan Vaughan Read Free Book Online Page A

didn’t recognize. The scent of late lilacs drifted on
the light breeze.
    “There’s another reason I wanted to talk to you,” he
said. “Something you don’t know about the night of the fire. Something I’ve
regretted every day since.”
    The pain on his face made the breath clog in her chest.
She forced herself to inhale slowly. Keeping her sore hands still in her lap
took effort. “Regret. About what?”
    He swigged down some of his soda and closed the
distance between them. The force of his emotion reached out to her like the
heat of his body. He dropped into the seat beside her as if he could no longer
stand and rubbed his left thigh.
    His aquamarine eyes bored into hers. “Gail was
different that night. Edgy and jittery, like she wanted me to leave. We’d been
having problems.”
    “Like what?”
    “Broken dates. Rants about how she felt smothered. We
used to have great talks, about everything—college, sports, our dreams. But for
weeks before the fire, she was quiet a lot. Not sad, just distant. Other times
she was almost manic.”
    “I noticed her moods too,” Lani said. “Dreamy. And
sometimes giddy. Or bitter. Gail was always moody but this was more. I called
her on it, but she wouldn’t open up.”
    “And there’s something else you should know. Gail didn’t
dump me that night. I broke up with her .” He drove fingers
through his hair.
    Lani shook her head. Jake had no reason to lie about
it. “What? Because of the moods?”
    He stared out the screening as if seeing a replay of
that night. “I asked about another guy. She shrugged off the question. She
called earlier and broke our date. Said she wanted a quiet evening. Another in
a string of lame excuses. I went over anyway. Never got past the driveway. Told
her if she didn’t want me around, we were done. I didn’t need the hassle.”
    “She came inside saying she’d dumped you .” She’d
also called him boring. It was nuts. He’d always made Lani laugh, was fun to be
with. “And then?”
    “I drove around in the truck—used to be Dad’s—for a
long time. An hour or more. Ended up at Todd Hokkanen’s house, his parents’
place on Ridge Road. The guys had a poker game going. I played cards about
twenty minutes or a half hour before we heard the sirens.”
    She dragged her eyes from his tortured ones while she
got her mind around this new reality. “So what’s your regret?” Although she
could guess.
    He shifted in his seat, rubbed his thigh. “Don’t you
see? If I hadn’t left her that night, she might still be alive. And you—”
    “Wouldn’t have been burned. We’ve been through this.
Spare me the pity party, Wescott. I should’ve saved her but I was too late.”
    “I should’ve made an effort to get at what was going
on with her.”
    “What was going on with Gail? I don’t know
either.”
    Jake’s cheeks flushed red and as he swallowed, his
Adam’s-apple jumped a mile. “There’s something you don’t know. Gail had sex
with someone that night.”
    She must look like she’d been socked with a
fresh-caught halibut. Working with wily teenagers had taught her most people
didn’t lie well. She watched him for signs of dissembling. “With you?”
    “Not me. Sure as hell not after that argument. The
report says apparently consensual sex, not forced. Traces of condom lubricant
but not enough DNA to trace. Dammit, there was another guy. She lied. Son
of a bitch .” He shot his gaze upward, blinking, as if fighting for control.
    He’d been a victim of the arson too. The fire had
snuffed out that carefree guy. A sad note among many. She sank back against the
wicker. “That explains my vague memory of someone—the investigator—asking me
about Gail having sex.”
    “He asked me too, but I told him we had an argument
and I left.”
    “I’ll bet what’s left of Birch Brook Farm that fire
was no accident. The guy she had sex with started the fire. Did he kill her and
use the fire to cover up his crime?”
    In