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Garret’s eyes were rimmed with shock. “Do you think that you were… sabotaged on… purpose to hinder you from getting here quicker?”

The firemen shrugged. “I don’t know. It seems like an awfully big coincidence to me.”

“Me too,” I said and nodded to Garret. I took him aside privately. “I’m pretty sure that what happened to the firefighter’s trucks was done intentionally to prolong them being able to get here in time to save the building.”

One of the firemen was apparently listening to our conversation. “I’m angry too. It’s one thing to have our equipment tampered with, but it puts everyone in town at risk if there’s a big fire. What if this one had spread before we got here? It’s dangerous. Someone’s going to have to answer for this.”

Garret looked at me with a glare darkening his features. “And I know exactly who.”

12

Garret

Felix and I walked silently back up the steps to my apartment after the adrenaline of witnessing the fire and giving our statements to the police had died down. My legs felt like they had lead weights attached to them. I tried to keep myself calm, but I was fuming about what had happened. I suspected Nelson to be behind the whole thing. I was also dangerously exhausted and mentally drained. It was a lethal combination, the perfect storm that made me an enemy even to myself.

“We need to talk about this Nelson problem,” Felix said.

“There’s nothing to talk about,” I said and unlocked the door to the apartment.

I stepped inside and quickly walked away, heading to the window to glance outside. It was infuriating to see the building across the street turned to ashes.

“What a fucking eyesore,” I said and scoffed.

I didn’t know why I had said it. It was just my first reaction. I needed to say something to fill the void of silence because the noise in my head was too loud. I felt terrible for Saul. He was going to go through hell and back with the burned down restaurant and trying to pick up the pieces. I hoped the authorities would be able to peg the blame on Nelson somehow, but I didn’t want to discuss it with Felix right now.

If he kept pushing me to talk about it, pressing me to my limits, I was going to explode. I could feel it. I knew myself. I couldn’t help it. I was like a pot of water filled to capacity and threatening to spill over the brim.

Felix stood behind me. He attempted to cup his hand over my shoulder, but I rejected his soothing gesture and stepped away again.

“Come back here, Garret,” he said a little too forcefully for my liking.

“I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do,” I barked.

“It’s not healthy to keep all this gunk in your mind bottled up. You need to vent it. I’m a willing, listening ear,” Felix said.

If I hadn’t been so on edge already, I might have taken Felix up on his offer to talk. I probably would have responded well to his attempts to pacify me, but not this early in the morning, and certainly not with the river of stress I was currently drowning in.

“I already told you I didn’t want to talk about it right now,” I said.

Sometimes I couldn’t help myself but shut down. Sometimes, it was the only way I felt like I could protect myself.

“At least let me make you breakfast,” Felix suggested, eyeing me with that troubled expression as if he was worried about me jumping from the roof or something.

I wasn’t looking directly at him, but through the corner of my eye, I saw the pitying way he stared at me. It was maddening, but I bit my tongue hard—until I tasted blood—because I didn’t want to have a confrontational, combative argument with him.

I turned to look at him, my hands planted on my hips. It didn’t take a rocket scientist to read my standoffish posture, but I had to give him credit for trying to break down my walls.

“All right.” I nodded.

“All right?” Felix asked, arching his eyebrows as if he needed more confirmation to proceed.

“I said all right,” I announced again. I didn’t mean to come off so brazen. I needed to do something to take the edge off. “You can make us breakfast.”

Felix relaxed slightly. “Okay, good.”

He shuffled to the kitchen and began picking out various items from the refrigerator.

“Do you want bacon and eggs? I could make it with some toast. I make the best toast in the world—”

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