Page 36 of Up In Smoke

“Because it puts your brother in a holding cell for twenty-four hours around the time of this fire being set.” Ivy pointed to the report for the fire at one of the abandoned houses.

They sorted through the other documents and quickly crossed all three Hernandez brothers off of their list of suspects.

Luke felt his heart settle inside his chest. “Thank you.”

“For what? This is my fire too, now. I mean, I'm happy to help but, please understand that this—” She waved her hand at the table and all the notes that surely represented hours of her own precious time. “—It wasn't entirely for you.”

He was looking down. Though he’d known that, it was still hard to meet her eyes. He shook his head as though shaking her off. “It doesn't matter why you did it. I've been afraid it was one of my brothers all this time. And I'll sleep so much easier now.”

Finally seeming to understand, she slid her fingers over his and held on. It was Luke who turned his palm upright and laced his fingers through hers. He looked at the two hands together—his large and rough, hers slim-fingered, dainty with neat nails. A hand that spoke of a life of refinement, a life she built for herself from absolutely nothing.

Even Luke had always known that, if he lost everything, he could crash with one of his brothers. He could go back to his mother and beg a room. It would suck, but a roof would exist over his head and food would be on the table, even if he had nothing. So how had Ivy clawed her way up from being tossed onto the streets at sixteen with no life skills? She’d been so naive that the world should have simply swallowed her whole, yet she was the one with delicate, unmarred hands. His looked like he’d been scrambling for purchase his whole life.

Though their hands looked so different, he wanted to believe they belonged together. He wasn't sure when he'd gone from wanting to live a simple life, where he worked, paid his bills, and occasionally got laid, to wanting to be with Ivy. And he had no idea when that had transformed intoneedingto be with her.

He only knew that it had happened.

“Thank you.” He had to say it again.

Her smile was soft and sympathetic. This time, when he looked her in the eyes, he expected a smile. But Ivy was on to the next task, and he’d better keep up.

Her expression fell. “The problem now is that we don't have a suspect at all.”

He looked at her, still worried about these supposed-to-be-sealed juvenile records. “I don't know how Orlando got his hands on those.”

Ivy didn't either.

“I remember Carlos and Mario getting picked up by the police as kids, but my mom handled it. She pretty much kept me and Tiago away from it. If I remember correctly, the lawyer got it pled down or something.”

Ivy wasn’t working from memory. Easily putting her finger on the document she wanted, she plucked it from the pile and read it. “It looks like he got it down to a misdemeanor.”

Then her eyebrows rose. “This was originally a class D felony, Luke.” She was pointing to a spot on the page.

But Luke didn’t look. That sounded bad. “I remember Mario confessed and went to therapy for it.”

For all that he was pleased that his brothers weren't arsonists, the search had brought out new information about their pasts that bothered him. Mario had killed an animal as a kid. Those horrifying acts indicated bigger problems. Tiago had been arrested recently, something Luke hadn’t known about.

He would have to ask his mother. Was she keeping up with her children? Or had she simply decided they were all adults, and could make their own shitty decisions?

He didn't have answers. When the silence settled in, he noticed that Ivy's own expression had fallen, too. “I don't know what to do about that.” She shrugged. “But what do we do about not having a suspect? If it's not one of your brothers, then who is it? The fires are too close to your family history to be a coincidence.”

He didn’t know. He’d been thinking about this for several months, and he had a few names to toss out. Like with his brothers, calling these guys under investigation would mean upending their lives. It would possibly end an uneasy truce between his past and his present.

Maybe he should have moved out of Redemption like Carlos had. He was understanding his little brother better now. Their mother had hated it that Carlos left town, even though he was barely over an hour away, but Luke was thinking that maybe the youngest was the smartest. He’d always been a little too clever.

Except, if Luke had left, he wouldn’t have met Ivy.

She asked him her next question, clearly not having the same existential crisis that he was. “So the question is, who else followed that same path? Is it an old friend? Is it someone after one of your brothers?”

She waited a moment, while he debated who to throw under the suspicion bus first. But then she said, “I feel like we should have some ideas to take to Taggart. Because it's definitely time to take this to him and Kane and let the arson investigators know what we suspect and what we found.”

What she found.

She was a damned genius.

Luke nodded. The heaviness that had lifted from his heart was replaced with a new one. He knew he had passed the background check when he had been hired to work at the Redemption Fire Department. Getting notice that he’d been hired meant that his own juvenile record hadn’t held him back. That had been a weight off of his shoulders. It should have stayed sealed forever.

But somehow, Ivy had put her finger on the right button and cracked the seals on those. When they took this to Taggart, Taggart would know more about him. What if it changed what his chief thought about him? Would he lose his job?

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