Page 5 of Up In Smoke

So far, no one had put him in handcuffs and dragged him away. So he was counting that as a win.

The fact that he was still standing here a free man, made him suspect the others didn't have the information that he did. Thus, he would hold out a little bit longer, see if he could figure out what was happening with a minimum of damage to himself and those he loved.

“Hernandez!”

The voice came from over his shoulder and, lightning quick, all of his blood froze.He hadn't fooled anyone, had he?

Trying to act normal, and wishing he could remember what normal looked like, Luke turned to see the chief waving him into his office.

Fuck.

So much for not being hauled away.

The chief was a wonderful boss, and he was likely letting Luke know that the officers would be here at any moment to arrest him.

Trying not to let any of his thoughts show, Luke headed in. The chief didn't make him close the door, which either meant the news wasn't that bad or else Luke was simply the last to find out.

Looking at his boss, Luke tried to keep his face neutral and hoped that any odd responses would simply be chalked up to the crazy evening and the fact that everyone was exhausted.

“Why'd you trade out for Kelly?” The question was somehow both blunt and pointed.

Luke lied through his teeth. “One of my friends lived there growing up and I know the layout. I knew it was weird.”

“What do you mean weird?” Taggart asked, tapping his pencil on the desk. He’d leaned back in the way that they all knew meant he was thinking things through but hadn’t reached a conclusion yet. The good thing was the chief was easy to read.

“The room where I found Ivy— I mean Miss Dean—” he corrected himself, “—was a room off of a room.” He hoped all of this made some semblance of sense. He hoped it passed for the truth.

“The family that lived there—”true, he thought, though notthe truth, “—had several kids. I don't know if that family did the work or not, but they divided the one bedroom into two with a flimsy wall, and between the rooms they still only had the one hallway door. The other bedroom came off from the first one.”

He was motioning with his hands, but Taggert was still frowning at him. Luke quickly grabbed a pencil from an old tin can and a scrap of paper, sketching out the odd shape of the room.

“So it was evenly divided?” Taggart asked.

“Right. But if you look at the layout, I don't think there was any way to connect this room into the hallway.” He pointed to each space, showing how the odd little room was tucked too far into the corner of the footprint. “And it wasn't a very good job, either. The wall was flimsy, and I don’t know the materials it was made of. And I’m sure it wasn’t on the blueprint. But, because I knew the house, I volunteered to go in.”

After a few more moments of explanation, Taggart was nodding at him, “Good call.”

The praise fell heavily onto his shoulders. It was entirely unearned and Luke only nodded and headed out as soon as he was dismissed.

He hit the showers, as though he could wash away the lies. Then he waited out the few remaining hours until the shift was over. His body ached for him to go home, crawl into bed and sleep for the next day, the way he was relatively certain the rest of A-shift was going to do. But he couldn't.

Instead, he climbed in his car and made his usual right hand turn out of the station, so as not to tip anyone off. But very quickly he doubled back, hoping he knew where to find his prey.

Chapter Five

Luke groaned and lifted his head as his phone buzzed loudly at him a second time.Notokay.

Then again, he thought, none of it had been okay. He hadn't found what he'd been looking for despite the fact that Redemption was plenty small and he shouldn’t have had to try so hard.

He'd fought the urge to follow a path that would take him past the old arson sites. It wouldn't do to be seen there, especially if Kane and chief Taggart had caught on to the pattern. He could almost feel his heart breaking, thinking about watching his beloved childhood memories burn, one after another.

How many more would it take before someone else saw where the path led?

There were only a few options for how this could play out, and none of them were good. None of them were safe for Luke. He would either rot in prison or go down in flames himself … Unless he could get ahead of it.

Today hadn't helped though. He'd certainly tried but, eventually, he'd given up, come home, and tumbled face first into bed. While everyone else had been asleep since maybe eight-thirty or nine, he’d now barely had a few hours.

So as his phone buzzed at him with another text from Ronan, Luke cursed it and tried to decide what to do.

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