Page 90 of Serial Burn

“I pulled in reinforcements.”

“Awesome. Be sure to send it to Nathan and Andrew too, will you?”

“Already done. Check your inbox.”

She would just as soon as she was done with this fire. She’d use it as a distraction from obsessing over the fact that Nathanlike likedher.

NATHANDIDN’T WANT TO LEAVE HER,but he had a bad feeling in his gut about Eli. Some internal warning was telling him to go find his brother. Before their conversation and the last text from Eli, he’dnever have believed his brother was suicidal but had to admit that thought was in his head. He could only pray it wasn’t in Eli’s, but...

His parents were out of town for the week with friends at Hilton Head. Carly and her husband, Kip, had left yesterday while Brandon, his nephew, stayed with friends.

Eli was well and truly alone, and if he was planning to self-harm—he had a hard time thinking “kill himself”—this would be the time to do it.

Please let me be wrong, God. Let me be wrong.

He gunned his vehicle toward his parents’ home and his mind went back to Jesslyn and the look on her face when he’d told her to think about going out with him. He was an idiot. That had not been the place or time to do that. What had he been thinking? Obviously, he hadn’t. But she was a professional. She wouldn’t let that little moment of his weirdness interfere with what she had to do at the scene. Comforting himself with that thought, he pressed the gas a little harder.

The drive took only fifteen minutes, but he tried Eli’s phone four times and each time it rolled to voicemail.

Eli never turned off his phone. Ever.

Nathan turned into his parents’ driveway and spotted Eli’s silver sedan in the third parking spot. He climbed out and pressed a hand to the hood. Stone cold.

He jogged up the front porch steps and knocked on the door. “Eli? You here?”

No answer.

He found the key under the little porcelain bunny in the mulch, opened the door, and stepped inside. “Eli?”

All appeared well in the house. Nothing out of place. He cleared it quickly, then stopped in the den to look out on the deck. The exterior lights were on and Eli sat on the top step facing the backyard.

Nathan walked back into the kitchen, grabbed two bottles of water out of the fridge, then went back to the sliding glass door. He rapped his knuckles on it, and Eli started so bad, Nathan was gladhis brother had a healthy heart. He slid the door open. “You okay?” he asked. Eli turned, his face ravaged with a sorrow so deep Nathan almost fell to his knees. He set the bottles on the table and walked toward him. “Eli, man, what’s going on?”

“What are you doing here, Nathan?”

“You sent me that weird text so I came to check on you.” He walked to the steps and sat next to his brother.

And then noticed the gun in Eli’s right hand. Nathan stilled, doing his best not to react. His heart thudded and he couldn’t help drawing in a steadying breath. “What are you doing with that?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“I answered your text. I just got distracted and didn’t hit send until about thirty minutes ago.”

Eli looked up, the dark circles under his eyes giving him a haunted appearance. “I thought you were ghosting me.”

“So you were going to kill yourself?”

“Maybe. Thought about it.”

“You’re holding a gun. That’s more than thinking about it. Can you put that thing down, please?”

“No.”

A chill swept through Nathan and he was more certain than ever if he hadn’t come now, Eli very possibly wouldn’t be alive to see tomorrow.

“Why not?” Nathan asked. He sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the divine nudging to come check on his brother.

“Because I’m not completely sure I don’t want to use it.”

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