Chapter 25
Alex

Alex sighed as he pulled off his thin T-shirt and wiped the sheen from his face. Faith trudged along beside him. All morning they’d assessed the damage as best they could.

“It’ll take us a while to get out there,” the Saint Rose fire department had told him over the phone yesterday afternoon.

“A while?” Alex had asked. “What does that mean? What else are y’all doin’ over there?”

“Alex, you know we’re almost all volunteers,” the fire chief had said softly.

He did know. He’d volunteered with them himself the summer before college. Fires on Saint Rose were rare. Even during dry seasons, most locals knew well enough how to prevent them. It was one of the first things he remembered Mama teaching him and Caleb as kids.

“I don’t know what to tell Craig,” Faith had said that morning as they boarded his plane for the island. The phone was cradled in her lap. “He’s going to, I don’t know. I don’t want to let him down if the project can’t move forward.”

“Don’t tell him nothin’ yet,” Alex said. “We don’t even know what we’re up against. Besides, worrying about disappointing Craig should be the last thing on your mind.”

Thank God she’d had the water turned back on at the property so Craig and his crew would have access. It hadn’t been easy to put out the flames with Caleb. When the two of them had returned to the inn, they looked like they’d been to war.

“Faith! Caleb!” Mama had cried. “Y’all had us worried bein’ gone so long. What . . . what happened?”

Caleb had sat down, dazed. “Sorry, ma’am,” he’d said quietly. Slowly, he began to tell the story. Faith sat at the far end of the table, soothed by a cup of tea from Gwen.

“Y’all could see the smoke from the boat?” Mama asked. “And you went to it, instead of getting your behinds to the mainland and calling the fire department?”

“Like the fire department could do anything!” Caleb said. “Hell yeah, I went to the fire. Sorry, ma’am,” he said. Caleb was always quick to correct himself when he cursed in front of Mama.

“Why didn’t you call?” Alex demanded.

“No reception. Remember?”

“What about the radio?”

“I . . . I forgot it,” Caleb said. “Fucking stupid.”

Mama sighed. “So? How bad was it? Was it same as here?” she asked under her breath.

“It was pretty rough,” Caleb admitted. “There were, yeah, there were similarities to here. But the whole house was ablaze.”

“Was anyone there?” Alex asked. “Did you see anyone? Jesus, you could have put Faith in danger.”

He noticed the look she shot him when he said that, but he was too fired up to care.

“No! There wasn’t nobody,” Caleb said. “Dang, Alex, you really think I’d put her in a situation like that?”

“Well, it certainly sounds like it! Bolting over there, not even having a clue what was going on.”

“Yeah, okay, that was dumb,” Caleb admitted. “But it was instinct! You woulda done the same.”

Alex didn’t respond. He couldn’t. Who knows what I would have done.

“But it’s out now?” Mama asked.

“Good enough,” Caleb said. Mama gave him a look. “Trust me,” he said. “We cleared the area, and it was dying down fast when we left. But I reckon it’s gonna take overnight to fully go out.”

Mama sat down with a thump, a fresh cup of hot tea in her hands. “My word,” she said. “I just, I just can’t believe this. Who would do this?”

“No idea, Mama,” Caleb said.

“And to you!” Mama said as she turned to Faith. “Such a sweet girl. There’s no way you deserve this. What kinda enemies you made, baby?”

Faith pinched her brows together. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “There were these guys. Some kind of hillbillies—”

Mama snorted. “Honey, you’re Gonna have to be more specific than that. You’re in the South.”

Faith blushed. “They said they were my cousins,” she said.

“Cousins?” Mama asked. “Caleb, Alex, you know ʼbout this?”

“We were there,” Alex said.

“When?”

“Couple of weeks ago. At the ferry dock on the mainland.”

“You know ʼem?” Mama asked.

“Nah,” Alex said. “Never seen ʼem before. But they were local. Real local locals.”

“An’ what they want?” Mama asked.

“Don’t know for certain,” Caleb broke in. “To scare her. Maybe let her know they thought Lydia’s place shoulda gone to them.”

Mama frowned. “Lydia didn’t have no closer living relatives,” she said. “Sorry, baby,” she told Faith.

“You sure ʼbout that, Mama?” Alex asked. “They seemed real certain.”

“And mad as a cat in a bag,” Caleb added.

“Well, I’m not positive, no,” Mama sniffed. “I don’t know everyone’s business. But then again, this island is pretty good at keepin’ its secrets, and if they thought the property shoulda gone to them. . .”

“Exactly,” Caleb said.

“And, Faith? You didn’t know anything about them?”

Faith shook her head. “No, but that doesn’t mean much. I didn’t even know about Hannah until a couple of days ago. And, turns out, we used to play together at Lydia’s as babies.”

“Huh,” Mama said. “Like I said, this island is real good at keepin’ secrets, then lettin’ ʼem slip out at the worst of times. Well, the important thing is you two are safe. And the fire’s under control.”

“Yeah, and I’m gonna feel this in the mornin’,” Caleb said. “Spent an hour puttin’ out those flames.”

“You still shoulda figured out a way to call us. Or the fire department,” Alex said. He wasn’t so much worried about the property and island as he was the two of them.

“I did the best I could, big brother,” Caleb said. “Trust me, when that adrenaline’s goin’, you’re kinda on autopilot.”

“He did good,” Faith said. Caleb gave her a smile that drove a stake through Alex’s chest.

“Yeah, I’m sure he did,” Alex said.

“Look, y’all, what’s done is done,” Mama said. “Fire crew said they couldn’t have done nothin’ different, right?”

“Right, Mama,” Caleb said.

“Well, then. Let’s just put it outta our heads till tomorrow.”

“I wanna go back,” Faith said. “First thing in the morning.”

“I’m sure Alex can take you.” For the first time, Mama volunteered him, and he didn’t mind.

“Sure,” he said. “I wanna get a look at it myself anyway.”

“Y’all knock yourselves out,” Caleb said. “I’m gonna smell like smoke for a week.”

“What time did the fire crew say they were coming?” Faith asked Alex. She examined some of the charred siding, a deep frown carved into her face.

“They didn’t,” Alex said. “When they can, I s’pose.” The radio he’d slid into his jeans crackled, and they both paused. But nothing came through.

“This is bad,” Faith said. “Isn’t it?”

He didn’t know what to say. It is bad, that’s for sure. He’d thought maybe it was the shock yesterday that made it look so burned up to her. How she and Caleb described it, the property sounded like it had exploded. He had hoped that it wasn’t as bad as they said. But it was. He wasn’t positive, but it looked like the house might not be salvageable.

“It’s not that bad,” he told her. She smiled at him. They both knew it was a lie.

She let out a gust of breath. “At least Caleb was right,” she said. “It burned itself out in the night. And a good chunk of the house with it.”

Alex crossed his arms and took in the house. A smoking ruin, that is what it looks like. Then again, it was no great beauty to begin with, he thought.

Faith let out a whimper as she touched one of the window frames and it crumbled in her hand. Seeing her like this, so frustrated and hurt, and him not being able to do anything was hard. What was even harder is that the fire was no accident.

“Bastards,” he said softly.

“What?”

He shook his head. “It’s the dry season. They coulda easily made it look like an accident. Or at least tried.”

“Yeah, well, those aren’t exactly meant to be subtle.” She nodded toward the series of charred crosses staked in the front yard. They were even bigger than the one put on Mama’s property. “God, it got some of the trees, too,” she said.

Some of the oaks and magnolia trees that skirted the property were burned to nothing. Others were covered in soot and largely blackened.

“Do you, uh . . . do you want to show me? Where the . . . the thing is?” he asked.

“Might as well,” she said. “Not like you can miss it.”

She led Alex to the start of the old overgrown drive. “Is it that?” he asked, incredulous. “That big?”

“Yep,” she said. “It was quite impressive when it was all lit up.” She pointed to the outline of the message burned into the ground. Without the fire, it was a little tougher to read. However, the black message that bore into the otherwise green landscape looked fierce and deadly. “Ur Next.”

He shook his head. “I thought I saw it when we were landing,” he admitted. “But, Jesus, it was so big, I thought I was imagining things.”

Faith furrowed her brow and approached one of the crosses next to the X. With her beside it, the full seven feet of the cross looked even more imposing.

“Hey,” he said. “Don’t . . . don’t take this so personally.”

“Don’t take it personal?” She whipped around to face him. “How else am I supposed to take it? I mean, God, they came all the way out here? And for what?”

“It’s not your fault,” Alex said gently. He approached her and wanted to put a reassuring arm around her. But all he could manage was to close the distance.

Faith shivered, even in the Georgia heat. “No? Whose, then?”

“Whoever set this place on fire!”

Faith made a face. “We should go,” she said. “I don’t want it getting dark on us.”

He thought about telling her it was far from dusk but stopped himself. Still, he couldn’t figure out why she seemed to be taking this so much to heart. Sure, she’d gotten excited about the idea of renovating the property, but that was easy when you just got a windfall of money. Since when does she actually care about the land? Not that he could blame her. Hell, she hadn’t even known her roots were here.

For the first time, Alex opened the passenger door of the plane for her. She paused briefly before she crawled in. It took him two attempts to slam the door shut.

On the now familiar flight back, he racked his brain for something—anything—to talk about. To take her mind off the property and the threat. Alex came up short, instead grateful for the rumble of the engine.

As soon as they landed, Faith hopped out of the plane and started to walk back to Greystone. “Shit,” Alex said under his breath as he rushed through his postlanding checks. He caught up to her when she was halfway there.

“I’m going to find out who did this,” she said coldly. Faith stared at the ground. “And they’re going to pay. Starting with my cousins.”

“Hey, slow down,” Alex said. “Why do you think they’d do something like that? Sounded to me like they wanted the house.”

Faith sighed in exasperation. “I don’t know! But do you have any better ideas of who was behind it? Maybe . . . maybe it’s not the house they want.”

“What do you mean?” Alex stopped her where the trail turned to asphalt. He was aware of his hand on her waist but didn’t want to move it. She gazed toward the inn, but Mama wasn’t in her familiar spot on the porch.

“Maybe there’s something about the land, or the water around there, or, God, I don’t know.”

He had a feeling there were things she wasn’t telling him, but it wasn’t the time to dig. “You have to be careful,” he said.

“Why?” She looked up at him with defiance. “Those guys think they can scare me; they’re wrong.”

“Faith.” He cupped her face in his hand. It brought her stillness, but her eyes filled with questions. He wanted to comfort her but didn’t know how. “Whoever they are, they’ve shown they can and will come after you.”

Faith looked at him with a strange cocktail of longing and confusion. Finally, she pulled away from him with a step back. “I’ll be fine. I can look after myself.”

“Faith . . .”

She looked at him with a jolt of anger but shook her head and looked back at the inn. “I need to go inside.”

As she stormed away from him, he felt a surge of protectiveness move through him. What the hell is wrong with her? Or me? Finally, though he hated himself for it, he followed her into the house.

Like a goddamned puppy, he thought.