My breath came out in a huff and I clenched the steering wheel harder.
“Cassi knows you’d never intentionally hurt her; I can see her struggling with what she knows and what she saw for that split second. I think she’s running away just while she tries to work through that, Gage. I saw the way you were beating yourself up before she asked me to leave the room, which means she saw it too. I know Cassi better than anyone. I have no doubt that what’s going through her mind is that her struggle to get through this is hurting you more. She probably thinks running away is what you want her to do.”
“How the hell could she think that I’d want her to leave?” My voice was shaking and low, but if I tried to push harder, I’d break. My girl was gone, and while I wanted to believe Tyler, I didn’t know if I could after all the times he’d screwed Cassi and me over.
“This is Cassi we’re talking about,” Tyler reasoned. “She’ll probably be back soon; I should go before she catches me on the phone.”
“I can’t lose her, Tyler.”
He groaned out a breath. “Yeah, I know. Just give her a little time; when she slips away, she’s usually gone for a few days at least, a week at most. You’ve never seen her like that because when I brought her to Texas, a couple times when she began to slip away, I was able to remind her we were away from her mom and Jeff. The only time she’s actually gone away since we’ve been here was when you moved out, so you weren’t there for that either. That was the worst I’ve ever seen it, and this one has to do with you too, so it might take a while. Don’t give up on her, and I’ll keep you updated, all right?”
“Why are you doing this? You’ve been trying to come between us this whole time, so why back off now?”
He was silent for a second. “I can’t lose her either. And last night, it finally hit me that I was about to. If nothing else, she’ll always be my best friend and I will always take care of her. Giving her ice packs at night or helping her not make the biggest mistake of her life by running from you—either way, I’ll take care of her.”
“Thanks, Tyler, I appreciate it.”
“Gotta go, bro.”
“Keep her safe for me, yeah?”
Tyler grunted in agreement. “Always. She loves you, Gage. She’ll come back to you.”
I knew she loved me, but nothing could convince me right then that she would come back to me. My head slowly shook back and forth as I dropped my phone onto the seat next to me.
CASSIDY
“THIS IS JUST so—I don’t even know,” Tyler said with an exasperated sigh.
“It’s weird, right?” Weird didn’t even begin to describe it. It’s like I was looking at some stranger’s smoldering lot and melted Lexus, which now resembled a marshmallow that had caught on fire, not my mom’s. Other than that sick sense of relief, I felt nothing. No pain, no heartache, no longing.
According to the investigators, the fire started in the bar area, which wasn’t a surprise. As I said, that house had just as much liquor as an actual bar, and if Mom and Jeff were in there like the investigators believed, that settled that. Jeff smoked a lot, but being the rich prick he was, he liked smoking expensive loose tobacco out of a pipe like he was freaking Hugh Hefner, so he was always lighting up matches to take a couple puffs. Spill some Everclear, Jeff’s spirit of choice, and try to light his pipe next to that . . . and poof. There goes the bar and house.
We watched as a couple men and one woman walked cautiously around the ashes, searching through piles of brick and avoiding support beams that were still standing. Tyler wrapped his arms around my waist and drew me close into his chest as one of the men called out to the others. They all slowly made their way to him and peered closely for a few moments, called an officer over to them, and showed him whatever it was they’d found. I held my breath and Tyler’s arms tightened as the officer spoke to a detective and that detective walked over to where we were standing with Ty’s parents and half the neighborhood.
“Miss Jameson?”
“Yes?”
“I’m Detective Sanders, could we talk somewhere a little more private? Or if you would prefer we can speak in my car or at the station.”
“Why don’t we take this into the house, Cassidy?” Tyler’s dad, Jim, suggested.
Detective Sanders looked at a notepad quickly and clicked on a pen. “And you are?”
“This is James Bradley. The Bradleys are practically family and their house is just right there,” I answered, and pointed in the direction of their house.
“I’ll follow you.” Detective Sanders swept an arm out at the same time he motioned to another man wearing a suit who I had noticed watching me and Ty for some time now. I did a double take when I finally looked at his face. I would have sworn I knew him, I just couldn’t think of how. The man followed us and was introduced as Sanders’s partner, Detective Green, once we were in the house. “Miss Jameson, would you prefer to do this alone?”
“No, as I said, they’re practically family. And please, call me Cassidy.”
Sanders nodded and accepted a chair from Ty’s mom. “Cassidy, I know you already went over this when you arrived on scene, but to confirm what was reported to me, where were you this morning around midnight?”
“I was at my house in Austin, Texas.”
“And what brought you to Mission Viejo?”
“Tyler”—I waved over to Ty, who was sitting practically underneath me—“texted me close to three this morning, err . . . central time, asked if I’d heard from Mom or Jeff. I told him I hadn’t and after I called him he told me his dad had just called him saying there was a fire. He explained everything and said that he was coming to pick me up, we got on the first flight here, and here we are.”
Sanders nodded and scratched his cheek before flipping his notepad shut. “Cassidy, unfortunately it looks like we have some bad news.” He paused for a moment and looked up from his hands into my eyes. “The investigators seem to have found two bodies under some of the debris. They are beyond recognition at this point, so we’ll have to run some tests to confirm that they are your mother and stepfather. Unless you knew anyone else who was staying there, it looks like once the records come back, we’ll find them to be matches.”
I nodded and leaned into Tyler’s side when he wrapped his arm around me.
“Bradley family, would you please give us a few minutes?” he suddenly asked when Detective Green leaned forward to mumble something.
“You want me to go?” Tyler asked in my ear.
“Might as well, Ty, I’m fine.”
He nodded reluctantly and kissed my forehead.
“Miss Jameson—” Detective Green began.
“Cassidy,” I said, cutting him off, and studied him. Why did this guy look so familiar to me? There was something about him, but surely I’d never forget a face like that, especially those eyes. He and his partner were complete opposites. While Sanders was probably in his late forties, with dark red hair and graying sideburns, a stomach protruding over his belt, and height that any professional basketball player would kill for, Green was achingly handsome, probably in his late twenties, a little over half a foot taller than myself, with a lean muscular build and short brown hair that he obviously styled only by running his hand through it, just like Gage. Air filled my lungs in a rush as I thought about Gage.
“Cassidy, I find it quite interesting that you don’t seem upset in the least that your home just burned to the ground or that it’s most likely your parents’ bodies that were just found underneath the debris,” Green said with a weird, calm intensity that for a split second made my mind go blank and my heart flutter. What. On. Earth?
“I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel, Detective Green.”
“Well, I would understand if you were in shock, but you don’t seem to be that either. Like I said, it’s quite interesting.”
“Are you implying something, Detective Green?”
He leaned forward, putting his elbows on his knees. “When was the last time you spoke to your mother or stepfather?”
Was he serious? Was I really being interrogated right now? Wait! Weren’t we supposed to be in a police station for something like that? Deciding that not cooperating would only make this worse, I thought about it for a few seconds. “I haven’t talked to Jeff since the morning I left for Texas; same with my mom. But she did text me on my birthday about a month later. So if you count the text, then I would say it’s been over a year and a half since I’ve had any type of communication with her, though I didn’t respond.”
“Bad relationship with your parents, Cassidy?” Green asked, looking at me with his steely gaze; Sanders had his notepad out again.
“Something like that.”
“Bad enough that you would want them killed?”
I looked directly into Detective Green’s pale blue eyes. God, those eyes seemed so familiar to me; my stomach fluttered again and I shook my head slowly. “I’m not a violent person, Detective Green, so much so that I can’t stand to even watch movies where there’s violence. So, no. I would never wish for anyone’s death.”
“Even not being close with your parents, Cassidy, it’s odd that you have no emotion regarding this entire situation.”
Taking a large breath, I was finally able to tear my gaze from his and worked at clearing my thoughts. “That house held memories that haunt my every thought; those people are what made those memories into nightmares. So no, Detective Green, I have no feelings regarding any of them being gone. I’m sorry if you think that means I somehow had something to do with this, but I don’t have one fond memory from California since the morning of my sixth birthday.”
Sanders stopped writing and shared an odd look with Green before Detective Green asked, “And your biological father? Would he have any reason to start this?”
My spine had straightened at the mention of my dad. “Detectives, do you believe this was arson?”
They shared another look and with a sigh Sanders admitted, “Investigators don’t believe it was, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be looking for someone who had a reason to want them dead.”
“Well, seeing as my dad died on the afternoon of my sixth birthday from a heart attack, I would say it wasn’t him either.”
When understanding hit both of them, Sanders attempted to hide a sheepish look as he scribbled more notes, and Green’s eyes softened; there went the stupid flutter in my stomach again.
“Honestly, no, I’m not upset that they’re both gone. But if you knew about my life, you wouldn’t blame me. And no, I had nothing to do with what happened this morning, and I doubt anyone did. Those people were drunks, and they were awful, but they didn’t have enemies, because for the last dozen years they’ve kept to themselves and their liquor. Which is why I’m not surprised the entire house went down so quickly. With the kind of stuff they kept around, it wouldn’t be much different from having bottles of gasoline just waiting to explode.” I stood and straightened myself to my full five feet, two inches . . . yeah, I’m sure I was real intimidating. “So if there’s anything else you need, detectives, I’ll leave my number with you so you can get ahold of me. Because of legal matters and funerals, I’ll be in California for a while. If you need me here longer, all you have to do is say the word.”