Out Of The Ashes

Yes.

But she’d said it in a curious, distancing way. Not “I started a fire,” or “I burned down a building.”

No. “I was convicted.” That was how Kari Hendrix had put it.

He took in her eyes. They were gray and flat and dull, devoid of the hope he’d seen sputter in them when she’d found the cookbook.

So the question wasn’t if this was arson. Rob switched his gaze away from Kari and back to the propane tank.

Revenge. That was the first thought that popped in his mind when he’d made his initial sweep after the firefighters had put the blaze out. He’d seen the way-too-obvious point of origin—an open valve on a propane tank, the remains of a safety flare jabbed into the tank’s collar—and it was impossible to miss the “take that!” message the arsonist had sent loud and clear.

Rob had taken Kari through the building in hopes she could fill him in on who it was she’d so badly ticked off. A boyfriend? A customer?

But now...

Now he had to consider whether Kari was the culprit. The propane tank was easy enough to acquire, as well as the safety flare. She owned a bakery—and any food-based small shop hemorrhaged money like nobody’s business at first. And she certainly knew the lay of the land and when no one would be around.

Means, motive and opportunity...and a past criminal history, albeit self-confessed.

Her head was bent, and Kari appeared to peer deeply at her knees as though the secret to the universe were there. He could see the fabric of the denim stretched over those knees was thin and threadbare—not some high-dollar distressing of the jeans, but literally worn through.

Kari hadn’t done this.

Rob knew it. It was a bone-deep knowledge he couldn’t explain, but he was just as certain that Kari Hendrix had not set this fire as he was that his big brother Daniel would throw back his head and roar with laughter at his conclusion. Daniel was always telling Rob that Rob was the cynical, suspicious one.

Still...

“Ahem. I should read you your rights,” Rob said. Funny how his voice seemed to strain and crack. “You have the right to remain silent—”

Kari lifted her head. Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “Yeah. I know. And whatever I say, you’ll use against me in court, and I can have an attorney—you’ll even give me a really, really bad one since I can’t afford one. I know the drill.”

“So? Did you? Do this?”

“No.” There was no equivocation, no hesitation, no fancy I-swear-on-a-stack-of-Bibles, no how-dare-you outrage. Just a plain and simple, no-frills, direct, “No.”

“Do you know who might have?”

But now Kari lied.

Not at first. Her initial headshake was vigorous and heartfelt. But somewhere in mid-shake, a lightbulb must have gone off. She froze—just for a split second. He could see more pain flare up in her eyes, the deep anguish of betrayal. And for a moment he was sure she was going to spill out a name.

Instead, she pressed her lips together in a tight, thin line and clutched the cookbook to her chest. “How could I know who burned this place? Why would they want to?”

“That’s what I’m asking you. Do you have trouble with your landlord?”

She laughed. It was a dry, bitter sound that would have been more fitting for a jaded seventy-year-old than someone Kari’s age. Kari pushed herself up to a standing position, wobbly on her knees, but still pointedly ignoring Rob’s outstretched hand.

“I take that as a yes?” Rob pressed.

“My landlord, as you probably already know, is Charlie Kirkman, and everybody has trouble with Charlie Kirkman. And when you ask around, you’ll probably find the customers who heard me screaming at him the other day when he refused—again—to send somebody to look at the roof. Or the air conditioner. Or the vent fan. Or the water heater. But if everybody who got into a screaming match with Charlie Kirkman burned his buildings down, Charlie Kirkman would have no buildings left to burn.”

She was right about that, Rob knew. Charlie was as skinflinty a landlord as he’d ever come across. Rob had had dealings with Charlie—and not in a good way—when he’d followed up with Charlie’s residential tenants about fire safety complaints. And he knew that Charlie was famous for finally getting around to repairing the problem—and then upping the rent and gleefully evicting the poor tenants.

So it was par for the course that Charlie’s commercial ventures would play out the same way.

“Why’d you keep renting from him, then? Why not move somewhere else?” Rob asked.

Kari shrugged slim shoulders. “Location, location, location. I haven’t been in business long enough to have a reputation yet, or a real customer base that would follow me if I moved. The location was perfect. Plus, I’d signed a year’s lease. It won’t be up for...gosh, another six months.”

Rob couldn’t believe that the Lovin’ Oven had been in business for six months already and he hadn’t availed himself of its goodies. But he hadn’t. Maybe it was because he could get all the free dessert he wanted at Ma’s...or maybe he’d somehow looked down on a boutique bakery that sold things like four-buck cupcakes that couldn’t be any better than the boxed brownies he made for himself whenever he had a snack attack.

If I’d known the cupcakes were baked by someone like you...

Rob gave himself a mental slap upside the head. What was he thinking? Four-buck cupcakes were four-buck cupcakes, and a suspect was a suspect.

Even if he knew she wasn’t.

“So what next?” Kari asked wearily.

“Next? I investigate. You say you didn’t do it, so that leaves me with no choice but to find out who actually did it.”

Rob could have sworn that Kari flinched at his words.

“I’d like to go home now,” she said quietly. “Is that okay? Can I?”

“You’re not under arrest.”

“You read me my rights,” she pointed out.

“Because I’m very careful about procedure. It would be like you—I dunno—reading a recipe before you start baking a cake.”

An even bleaker look filled her eyes. She made her way to the shop’s back door and leaned against the blackened doorjamb. “I won’t be baking anything for a long time yet. Maybe ever. The insurance—the insurance won’t pay if arson was involved.”

“Not if, Kari. It was arson. There are no ifs, ands or buts. It was definitely arson. If you tell me—”

She whirled around. Anger tightened the grim lines of her face. “I can’t. I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I can’t tell you why anybody would want to hurt me like this. I hate fire. I hate it. It destroys everything.”

And with that, she pushed past him and made her way down the back alley behind the burned-out hulls of the buildings. In the shadows formed by the dawn’s gray light pushing through the gaping holes of the buildings, Kari Hendrix appeared small and frail and bowed over with pain. And she was running—running away from something? What?

Rob was determined to find out.

* * *

“SO LET ME get this straight,” Daniel said, his words laced with amusement. Rob’s brother leaned back in his squeaky desk chair and stretched out his feet on an open desk drawer.

“What’s there to get straight? And are you asking as my brother or the chief of the fire department?” Rob stretched his own feet out on the concrete floor of his brother’s office at the fire station.

Daniel shrugged. “Brother, chief, what does it matter? I’m curious. You know it’s arson, I know it’s arson, and the owner of the business where the fire originated tells you she was convicted of arson, but you believe she didn’t do it? Wait. Who are you and what have you done with my got-to-believe-the-worst-in-everybody little brother?”