Ruined (The Eternal Balance #1)(37)

I did as told, and rung by rung, we descended the ladder until there was blissfully solid earth beneath my feet. I would have dropped and kissed the ground, too, if it weren’t for the fire engine and four police cars that came rocketing into the lot.

The Harlow Police Station was, unfortunately, a place I knew well. Jax and I had our fair share of trouble as kids. No formal charges had ever been filed, but any time anything went wrong in town they looked to Jax first. Granted sometimes he was the culprit, but nine times out of ten, it was just simple minds and the overinflated rumor mill of a small town.

I got into nearly as much trouble, but that, too, was Jax’s fault if you asked, well, anyone. Everyone blamed him for dragging me along as though I had no mind of my own. Then, after he’d left town, they explained my delinquent behavior as acting out as a result of the horrible tragedy I’d suffered at such an early age, and of course, added in that Jax must have messed with my head. That had always pissed me off. The truth was, I’d been a juvenile delinquent all on my own.

Frank Spencer was the police chief now. He’d been a close friend of my mother’s, and had always looked out for me. I knew he felt bad. The entire Harlow Police Department did. They’d never caught the man—thing, I knew now—that murdered my parents. It was one of the town’s only unsolved crimes.

Frank, a short, stocky man with a scant patch of thinning brown hair and a crooked grin, slid into the seat across from me wearing his standard frown. The poor guy had to get out more. He always looked like he was having a bad day. Pasty and irritable, he never smiled. “You want to tell me what the hell you were doing in that office, kid?”

They’d separated Jax and me the moment we got to the station. I knew the drill. I sighed. “Would you believe we were on a scavenger hunt?”

Frank rolled his eyes. “This is serious, Sam. You’re over eighteen now and that means criminal charges. You were just caught breaking and entering, and are suspected of possible arson. Give me something. Please.”

“Arson?” I balked. “Because we tried to set ourselves on fire?”

“So you’re saying you didn’t set the fire?”

“I didn’t set the fire.”

Frank slid a pen and note pad across the table. Tapping it twice, he asked, “Did Flynn set the fire?”

“No!”

“Why do I find that hard to believe?” As a patrolman, Frank had pulled Jax over shortly after he’d gotten his license. Jax thought it’d be funny to roll his window down a few inches, order a burger and fries, then roll up the glass and flip the man off. Needless to say, there was no love lost between the two.

“He didn’t do it. Neither of us did.”

Frank sighed. He leaned back in the chair and kicked both feet onto the tabletop. A watery memory fought its way to the surface. Frank, at my parents’ house, doing the same thing on my mother’s coffee table. She’d hit him with a rolled-up newspaper. “I see your choice in companionship hasn’t improved since we last saw each other. I’d hate to have to haul you in when he goes down—because we all know he will. You’re just starting to get your life together.”

I was over eighteen, so they wouldn’t call my aunt, but Frank wouldn’t just let me walk out of that office without some kind of explanation. So I gave him one. The real one. “I was searching for information on someone who rents an apartment in that building. Me. My idea. My reason. Jax was helping me.”

“So he came back to town to help you break into an apartment office building?” Frank snorted. “And who were you digging for information on? And why?”

“I wanted to find the man who attacked me at school,” I said. Did it without a warble, too. “You can call the Huntington police if you don’t believe me. It’s the truth. Some guy attacked me.”

Whatever he expected me to say, that wasn’t it. Frank’s demeanor changed instantly, going from hard-ass cop to concerned family friend. “Sam, if something happened, you can’t take matters into your own hands. You need to let the proper authorities handle this. Does this have something to do with your car ending up in the river?”

“I think so. Yeah.”

He scribbled notes on the pad. I tried to see what he was writing, but Frank kept the pad tilted up, away from my prying eyes. “What makes you think this person—who did you say it was?—is the one who attacked you? Did you see his face?”

“I did some digging. That’s all I can tell you. His name is Bob Dowdy.”

All the color drained from Frank’s face. “When did you say the attack occurred? You went to Huntington, right?”

“Last month,” I said. “And, yeah. Why?”

“I don’t know where you kids are getting your information from, but you’re wrong about Dowdy.” He leaned in, hesitating for a moment before blowing out a loud sigh. “Bob Dowdy was a person of interest in several cases involving local missing girls, but he was found murdered. He couldn’t have been the one who attacked you. He’s been dead for months.”





Chapter Seventeen




Jax

When Spencer brought Sam out of the interrogation room, I was relieved to see the man didn’t look angry. It shouldn’t have surprised me. The guy had a soft spot for her—which had helped get her out of a lot of the trouble I’d gotten her into over the years.