From Ashes (From Ashes #1)(75)

“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?”