CHAPTER TWELVE
LAUREN HURRIED UP the long circular steps to Tim’s place. When they’d been kids, the home was a colorful mixtures of shapes, like the lake house had been built of Lego blocks with each one a different primary color. Now the outside was painted the sandstone colors of the rocky ribbons that striped the canyon walls down toward the lake. The home blended into its surroundings, almost disappearing to anyone above looking down.
Tim took his time coming to the door. Not surprising. He often wrote at night and slept during the day. Lauren knocked again.
When the door swung open, Tim was fully dressed and fully alert. He also didn’t look surprised to see her. He simply stepped back, held the door wide and waved her in.
“Lucas is in the den.”
Lauren walked slowly, trying to decide if she was here as a friend, or a reporter. But, the moment she saw Lucas, she knew she had to be a friend. He looked terrible. He still wore the clothes that had smelled of smoke last night when he’d talked to her on her father’s deck.
Only now, his eyes were bloodshot and worry wrinkled his forehead.
“You may need a lawyer,” she said as she stood in front of him. “Pop wants to question you.”
“I am a lawyer and I’ve already heard I’m on his list to question.”
Lauren sat down next to him. “It’s probably only routine.”
Tim sat on the other side of Lucas. “No, it’s not, L. One of the cowhands called Lucas an hour ago to say that the sheriff has clues indicating that Lucas set the first fire. And whoever set the first fire probably set the other one.”
“What clues?”
“I was the first one there. That’s the clue.”
Tim shook his head. “If you had set the fire, you wouldn’t have rushed over to look at your work.”
“What are you going to do?” She laced her fingers with Lucas’s. “Do you want me to go with you?”
“That won’t be necessary, but thanks.” His words came fast and cold.
“But I know you weren’t there when the fire went up. All I’d have to say was that I was with you and then you wouldn’t be a person of interest to them.”
“Or,” Tim tried again since no one seemed to be listening to him, “the sheriff might think you both set the fires. A kind of Bonnie and Clyde thing.”
Neither looked at him.
Lucas stood and stared down at her as if he were memorizing her face. His tired gaze told her he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. “Don’t say a word, Lauren. If you do, I’ll deny it. I don’t want you involved in this mess.”
“But what else can we do? You and I both know you didn’t set the fires.”
“I can go down to the county office and see what evidence they have. I’ll simply say I was driving by. That’s why I was the first one there.”
Lauren couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Her gut told her there was more that Lucas wasn’t telling her. He knew something else...about the fires, or maybe about the body.
Before she could think of anything to say, Tim joined Lucas in the center of the room. “I’ll drive you to the sheriff’s office,” he said as he put his hand on Lucas’s shoulder. “I don’t know what’s going on, buddy, but I want you to understand I’m on your side.”
“No. Not this time, Tim. I have to do this alone.” Lucas pulled away. “I’ll go clean up, tell my parents not to worry, then I’ll walk into the sheriff’s office alone. I don’t want either of you involved.”
Lucas kept his hands at his side as he glared at her as if he’d just lost something dear to him and there would be no going back at this point. “Stay away from me, Lauren. Goodbye.”
Lauren stared as Tim walked Lucas to the door. She could hear his footsteps on the winding walk outside the door. Then nothing. No farewell kiss. No simple “I love you.” Nothing.
She moved to where Tim still stood by the open door. “I don’t understand. Lucas didn’t do this. Why would he cut us out of his life?”
Tim pulled her against his side. “I know that he wouldn’t set the fires and so do you, but I wouldn’t be surprised if he confesses to something he didn’t do to protect another.”
She could hear Lucas’s old pickup pulling away but she couldn’t move. Lucas might confess to a crime he didn’t commit. It made no sense. Lucas never lied. He was the one totally honorable person she’d ever known.
She’d been with him on Kirkland land when the first fire started. She was the only one who could swear he didn’t do it and he’d told her to stay out of it.
All the world went silent as she curled into Tim’s arms. Tears silently dripped down her face, but she didn’t cry out. She felt like she’d just witnessed all her might-have-beens die.
Reporting the news didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. Lucas, who’d worked so hard all his life to make something of himself, might just toss it away, and she had no idea why.
As the tears slowed and her breath finally stopped coming in gulps, she realized something. Guilty or innocent, Tim O’Grady had stood beside Lucas no matter what he planned to do.
But she wouldn’t. She planned to fight, even if she had to fight Lucas for the answer. She pulled a few inches away and looked up at Tim. “I don’t know about you, but I’m not staying away.”
Tim grinned. “That thought never crossed my mind. Maybe the best way to help Lucas is to find out what happened.” He raised his hand.
She placed her hand, palm to palm, against his. A silent oath they’d done since they were kids. “We do this.”
He nodded. “We do this, all we can, for as long as it takes, till we find the truth.”
“Agreed.”
This time, somehow, she’d save him, even if she had to break Lucas Reyes out of her father’s jail.