Even in the gloomy storm, the flashing lights of the car were unmistakable.
Louella had the door open before Herman Conner was halfway up the veranda steps. “Why, Sheriff Conner,” she started to say, but apparently the sheriff wasn’t in a Southern, courteous mood.
He looked past Louella, saw Lily, motioned a come-on with his forefinger.
“You and I need to have a talk,” he said curtly.
“Sure,” she said. “How can I help?”
“You can help by getting in the car. I won’t put cuffs on you if you just don’t make a fuss. We’ll talk at the station.”
Lily’s stomach clenched into a tight fist. “What? Are you telling me I’m under arrest?” She wanted to laugh. She really wanted to believe this was funny.
“Lily. Get your fanny in the car. I mean it. Now.”
“Now, sheriff, there’s no call to speak to Lily that way-”
“Louella, you stay out of this. I’m hot and I’m tired and I’ve had enough right now.”
The station was as dark as everywhere else. Electricity was still down. Daylight was coming on, but the only thing easy to see was the stale coffee in yesterday’s pot. Conner still poured himself a cold cup and offered her one. He motioned her into a back office with windows-not a jail-but the only place that had enough light to talk. The chairs were hard-core metal, the table a battered gray institutional type.
“Am I under arrest?” she finally had a chance to ask again.
Even in the poor light, she could see the hound-dog bags under Conner’s eyes and the pallor of exhaustion behind his ruddy skin. The patience and kindness he’d shown her before was missing in a raw way. He was having trouble even meeting her eyes, was antsier than even she was.
“Darned if I know,” he said. “I’m thinking on it. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear the sirens an hour ago.”
“I did.”
“The fire was in the library. Where you were yesterday.”
“Oh, no-”
“Yeah. ‘Oh no.’ I’m getting tired of these oh-nos. You come in town, suddenly there’s arson. Specifically, everywhere you’ve been. Sarah-Leigh, she’s the head librarian-”
“I know.” At his glare, Lily decided not to interrupt again.
“Sarah-Leigh saw you talking to Mr. Renbarcker at some length yesterday morning. She saw you in the childrens’ section and in the adult section. She didn’t specifically see you in the back reference room, but she didn’t know of a soul who was back there yesterday, either. That’s where the fire started. The old microfiche machines. The old newspaper records and archives.”
“Oh, no,” she said again.
“Just in case you didn’t realize, this town thinks of the library as a treasure. And in case you didn’t know, Griff’s Secret is one of the favorite haunts in town. Everybody loves that ice cream. Then there was the first fire in the old mill, just days after you got here. At least there was no harm done in that one, but that’s now three cases of arson. Three where a gasoline accelerant was used. And that’s a for sure, because there were the same burn patterns in the debris, which is how we all know there was an ignitable liquid in a fire, but not diesel, because diesel burns a whole lot different than gasoline. I suspect you know all that. Because every one of those places has a connection to you. And the fire your daddy and mama were killed in, back when, was a gasoline-started fire, too. Now. What do you expect me to make of all this, Lily Campbell?”
“That this is awful. That this can’t be coincidence.”
“Well, now, we’re sure on the same page there. So far, nobody’s been hurt. It’s just financial losses. Time, trouble, money. I put on an extra man these last few days, thankfully got to the library within two minutes of the alarm going off. Some records destroyed for sure, but nothing worse than that.”
“Thank heavens,” Lily breathed.
“No. There’s no more ‘thank heavens’ in this story. I don’t have, at this time, any concrete evidence to arrest you. But you’re the one and only suspect. The only one with a connection to these arsons. The only one. You have anything you’d like to say about that?”
“I didn’t do it, Sheriff. I’ve never set a fire in my life, anywhere, anytime. I teach school. You can check anything about my past you want, my school records, my work record. I had one speeding ticket when I was nineteen-that’s all. You’ve talked to me. You’ve surely gotten a feel for my character-”
“Yes, I have, honey. I don’t get any of this. None of us do. And I don’t want to believe you’re our arsonist, but I can’t separate you from these crimes either. I’m not arresting you. Not this minute. But this would usually be the moment when I say you can’t leave town-only, I’m real, real tempted to say the opposite. Get out of here. Go back to wherever you’re from. Stay away from Pecan Valley. Don’t show your head here again.”
The lights suddenly popped on. An air conditioner wheezed to life, and phones immediately started ringing. Lily hadn’t answered the sheriff, didn’t know what to say, when she suddenly saw Griff pushing through the heavy metal doors. He looked out of breath, wrinkled, unshaven and downright ticked off.
Griff gave her credit-more than credit. She held it together until he got her out in the fresh air, and then she leaned into him as if her spine suddenly turned liquid.
Getting his hands on her felt better than anything he could remember-better than air or water. Even better than sex. She clutched him tight enough to bruise. He let her. The rain had stopped, leaving a fresh-washed morning and Georgia sunshine so bright it stung the eyes.
Lily finally took a long breath and looked up at him. “I have to admit, being taken to a police station isn’t the most fun way I’ve ever started a morning.”
She clearly wanted him to smile. Unfortunately, he had to let her go when they reached his EOS, but he hustled her inside before anyone could conceivably get near her. Once he climbed in, he reached over to kiss her, just one hard, fast kiss, and then started the engine. His heart was pumping in thick, noisy thuds. His right hand made a white-knuckle fist on the steering wheel.
He wasn’t angry, of course. He was just…a little tense. For a long time-maybe forever-he was going to have the picture in his head from when he’d walked into the police station and saw her. She was just sitting there, her face whiter than paper, Conner looming over her. Her dark eyes had looked rattled and lost and…
No, he wasn’t mad.
But he was definitely tense.
Lily leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, curling up as much as she could curl with the seat belt trapping her. Her palm pressed tight against her abdomen. “I can’t swear, but I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for a life of crime. There’s still a chance, of course. But I don’t think effective criminals would likely get this sick to their stomachs in a police station.”
“You’re not hurling in this car, sugar.”
She chuckled. A watery chuckle, but still a chuckle. “You can always throw me out. I won’t mind. All I want to do is curl up in a ball on the wet grass and talk myself into a nice, calm coma for a while.”
He said casually, “How come Louella had to call me? Why didn’t you call yourself?”
She opened one eye, studied his face. “It wasn’t even five in the morning, Griff.”
“So?” His voice was so smooth and calm, you could have spread it on toast. He was sure.
“So the sheriff just suddenly showed up in the middle of the storm. I had no idea why, or what was going to happen. And when he said something about putting cuffs on me…to be honest, I just completely froze up. I don’t think there was a clear thought in my head.”
There was in Griff’s. The penalty for murdering the sheriff just might have been worth it if Conner had dared put cuffs on those fragile wrists.