Total pages in book: 102
Estimated words: 97185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 97185 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 486(@200wpm)___ 389(@250wpm)___ 324(@300wpm)
“So, wait. He doesn’t know his cabin was on fire?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”
Chief Paige stepped forward. “From what we can gather, there was another portable incendiary device thrown through his bathroom window. He must have been aware of it, because he was able to put it out with a fire extinguisher and escape the house. He headed toward the barn, which is when Mr. Wilde here,” he said, nodding toward Grandpa, “heard a commotion in the barn and came out to see what was going on.”
Grandpa took over. “He told me the bathroom had caught on fire, but that he’d put it out. Then he asked me to check to make sure it was all the way out. That’s when he took off on Gulliver.”
I spun around on my heel, looking in all directions. “Which way?”
Doc met my eye and seemed to be sending me a silent message. But there were too many places he could be. His parents’ house, the weeping willow, a clearing where we used to build forts.
I looked back at the fire chief. “Who called it in?”
“Alarm company. Apparently when Felix originally built this place, he put in a high-end fire detection system both here and in his glass workshop because of the gas furnace. When it sensed the fire, it called it in automatically.”
I began walking back to my vehicle. “I’ll go find him.”
Before I got to the car, the chief called out. “You’ll bring him back here, won’t you, Sheriff?”
I felt my teeth press together in annoyance at the implication I’d skirt the law. “I’m gonna pretend you didn’t ask that, Chief.”
When I pulled up in his parents’ driveway, I saw him sitting alone in the far edge of the front yard. Gulliver was snacking on some long blades of grass and meandering around close to his favorite guy.
I got out and approached him.
“You pulling a Paul Revere on us?” I called out softly.
He turned to face me, revealing deep creases on his forehead.
“You know I always did like a midnight ride,” he said with a smirk. “Good for what ails you.”
“And did it work?” I asked, looking around for signs of anyone else. I’d hoped and prayed he’d lit out of the barn in pursuit of someone else, but it looked like he just wanted to return to someplace meaningful.
“Not so much, no.”
I sat down next to him and put my arm around his bare shoulders. He looked to be in his damned underwear, but upon closer inspection I saw they were baggy shorts of some kind.
“What happened, Otto?” I asked.
He leaned his head on my shoulder and I could make out the smell of smoke in his hair.
“Bathroom caught fire.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I heard.” I pressed a kiss to his forehead. “I want to know how.”
He looked up into my eyes and lied right to my face. “Dunno. Maybe I left a candle burning.”
I closed my eyes and counted to ten to keep from ripping into him.
And then I did it again since ten wasn’t nearly enough.
“Unless you’ve started using liquor bottles as candles, that isn’t what happened. Care to try again?”
Suddenly he looked up at me with worry on his face. “You didn’t go in there, did you?”
“In where?”
“My cabin.”
“No. I came out here to find you. Why?”
He seemed relieved, and it reminded me he’d been hiding something from me earlier that night.
“No reason. I just don’t want you going in there.”
“Dammit, Otto. What the hell are you hiding? Fucking talk to me, baby,” I cried. “You’re deliberately being obtuse. Why won’t you let me help you?”
He stood up and brushed off his shorts before grabbing a handful of Gulliver’s mane and hopping up on the big horse’s back. “I’ll meet you back at the barn.”
And that was that. He didn’t look at me, touch me, or say another word to me.
“Fuck,” I muttered. “Who the hell are you protecting?”
I hopped in my patrol car and made my way back to the barn where Chief Paige didn’t even wait for him to put Gulliver away before he directed my deputy to take Otto into custody.
Poor Shayna looked at me for direction, and I looked at my boyfriend standing there in the dark in his fucking pajamas. I felt like my heart was being shredded all over again like it had when I’d left him for Minnesota. We’d been standing right by this same stretch of fence when I’d told him.
There must have been something awful and desperate on my face because Otto walked right up to Shayna with his hands out to the sides and lowered to his knees so she could cuff him. The sight of him turning himself in to prevent me from having to authorize his arrest made me want to vomit right there in front of everyone. Instead, I began to step forward, to stop this from happening, when I felt strong arms around me from behind and Doc’s soothing voice in my ear.