Spark (23 page)

He couldn’t. Even now, even after this morning, he could feel need burning under his skin, like a junkie going through with-drawal.

He wished he had his lighter.

They waited outside the gym to congratulate Simon, kicking at loose gravel as kids streamed through the doors around them.

Mostly students first, finishing up after-school projects and clubs. Then the JV cheerleaders, arm in arm and giggling as they half danced across the parking lot to the activity busses. Then basketball kids, half damp from the showers, but high-fiving over the win.

When the flow of students dropped to a bare trickle, Gabriel wondered if he’d somehow missed Layne’s little brother.

But he hadn’t seen Ryan Stacey either.

Gabriel swore and went for the doors but on this side of the school, the doors were locked to the outside. He pounded, but no one answered of course, since he’d stood here like an idiot watching everyone leave.

“Come on,” he said to Hunter, turning to sprint for the front entrance.

“What happened?”

“Ryan Stacey.”

They tore through the halls, shoes squeaking on tile as they skidded around corners. A teacher yelled at them to stop running, but Gabriel didn’t recognize her and they were well past before the words registered in his brain.

The gym: empty, aside from a few girls hanging a banner for a bake sale next week.

The locker room: empty. Boys’ bathroom: empty.

Gabriel swore again. The school was huge they could be anywhere.

“Wait.” Hunter caught his arm. Gabriel froze and listened for a moment, but he didn’t hear anything.

Hunter stepped across the narrow hallway and pushed on the door to the girls’ locker room, opening it a few inches. The lights were off, revealing a well of shadowed tile and the edge of a trash can, but he yelled through the gap. “Anyone in here?”

Silence.

Hunter hit the light switch. Pink tile came to life, leading to pink steel lockers.

Empty but Hunter strode forward anyway, rounding the corner into the girls’ shower area. That’s where they found Simon, shivering behind one of the pink shower curtains, sporting a black eye and a split lip.

And absolutely no clothes.

Layne had never been a clock-watcher in class. Now it seemed every class took sixteen hours, the minutes ticking by until she could see Gabriel.

She still couldn’t sort her feelings about him. Anger, at what had happened? She had no idea whether that was his fault. Curiosity? Absolutely. Intrigue, for certain.

Fury. Fear.

Desire. Longing.

All of it.

This morning had been torture. She’d woken before sunrise, as usual. Her hands had gone immediately to her side, seeking the familiar foreign texture, sure she’d dreamed that part.

Nope. The scars were still gone.

How?

She couldn’t go to the farm the surviving horses had already been trailered to another facility ten miles away for the time being. She couldn’t call Gabriel, not with her father still moni-toring her cell phone every minute. He was already on edge enough from Simon’s black eye.

It had taken every ounce of Layne’s restraint to keep her mouth shut instead of reminding her father that she’d suggested they go to the game. That if they’d been there, Simon could have just walked out with them, instead of relying on some other kid to drop him at home after god-knew-what happened. Simon wouldn’t have had a black eye and he wouldn’t have had a reason to lock himself in his room without explaining it.

But now, finally, the bell was ringing, signaling the end of second period.

Layne bolted for math class.

And Gabriel’s seat, of course, was empty.

She stood there in the doorway, dismayed. Had he been hurt yesterday, and she just didn’t know about it?

Or maybe this was intentional. Maybe he’d ditched class.

Maybe he didn’t want to see her.

Her hands curled into fists. Disappointment felt just as crush-ing as the fury that had her pressing fingernails into her palms.

As usual, she wanted to hit him and hug him at the same time.

If only he’d show up.

“Layne.”

She spun around, hands still clenched, ready to swing.

Gabriel caught her wrists, his fingers gentle through the sleeves of her turtleneck.

But then he just held her there. He didn’t push her away or pull her closer. His voice was rough, low, just for her. “Don’t hit me.”

She stared up into his blue eyes, so close and full of emotion.

It took a minute to find her voice. Six billion questions had been rattling around her head all morning, and now all she could manage was, “Why?”

Gabriel winced, almost imperceptibly. “Well, at least wait until after school. Then you can beat the crap out of me if you want.” His hands slipped free, releasing her. “Fighting in class is an automatic one-day suspension.”

She swallowed. Now that he stood right in front of her, she was terrified to ask.

No, she was terrified of the answers.

Students were pushing through the doorway. Gabriel moved fractionally closer. “You all right?”

Layne kept flashing on that moment on the hill when the sunlight had danced along her skin, and Gabriel had kissed a path across her stomach, stealing her breath and her fears and making her feel perfect for the first time.

And then her sanctuary their sanctuary had gone up in smoke.

She pulled his lighter out of her pocket and held it out. “I think I need you to tell me.”

A panicked look crossed his face. He snatched it out of her hand and slid it into his pocket. And then he was even closer, leaning in to speak right to her ear. “Getting caught with one of those is an automatic suspension, too.”

His breath tickled her neck. She shivered.

Focus.

“Truth?” he whispered.

She nodded. “I want to know everything.”

The second bell rang, and Layne jerked back. Her heart was in her throat.

“Free period?” he said.

“Yeah,” she choked.

Then Ms. Anderson was coming through the door, urging them to their seats, calling the class to order.

Layne did the six questions of the warm-up automatically, grateful for the distraction, for the need to keep her eyes on her paper.

A folded piece of notebook paper landed in the crease of her textbook. Layne unfolded it under the edge of her desk.

Are you afraid of me?

The breath poured out of her lungs in a rush.

Then she put her pencil to the paper.

A little.

She watched his face as he unrolled her note. No regret, no disappointment. Just flat acceptance.

With a little spark of challenge.

Layne’s palms were sweating on the pencil. She scraped them across her knees.

All of a sudden, she couldn’t wait for that free period.

The intercom over the chalkboard crackled to life. “Ms. Anderson?”

“Yes?”

“Could you please send Gabriel Merrick to the guidance office?”

Just about everyone in the classroom turned to stare at him including Layne.

“Are you in trouble?” she whispered.

He shrugged and shoved his math book into his backpack. “I have no idea.”

Then he swung out of his chair and moved down the aisle. He was gone before she noticed the new fold of paper tucked beneath the corner of her notebook.

Truth: don’t be.

Gabriel walked down the silent halls, his shoulders hunched, his backpack a dead weight.

The guidance office? If you were in trouble, they called you to the principal’s office. He knew that routine by heart.

The guidance office called if there was a college recruiter here for an interview and that had happened exactly zero times in Gabriel’s high school career. The guidance office called if you were involved in an altercation with another student, and Vickers thought you could talk it out but that wasn’t something they’d call you out of class for.

Then he remembered the first week of school, when Allison Montgomery had been called to the guidance office during chemistry. Her father had been killed in a car crash.

Nick. His heart stopped in his chest.

But then it kicked back into action. Nick was here, at school.

If something serious had happened, Gabriel would have heard about it. Same with Chris.

Michael.

But if something had happened to his older brother, wouldn’t he be running into Chris and Nick in the halls, right this very second?

Then he remembered what had happened last night. Gabriel had no idea whether Ryan had made it to school today, but he remembered the way they’d found Simon in the girl’s locker room. The way the poor kid had had the crap kicked out of him.

Maybe this had nothing to do with Gabriel at all.

He pushed through the double doors into the main office.

Completely empty. No secretary behind the desk, no students waiting on the bench outside the principal’s office.

Weird.

But he shoved through the swinging door into the guidance area. The school worked hard to make it look welcoming: a red and blue shag rug covered the tile, and four plush armchairs lined the back wall.

The five policemen standing there killed the welcoming vibe.

Gabriel stopped short. He actually felt the blood drain from his face. Didn’t they send cops to tell you something bad had happened to your family?

He couldn’t even remember the last words he’d said to his older brother.

And where were Chris and Nick?

Fear had his chest in a vise grip. He had no idea how his legs were holding him.

Ms. Vickers was standing in front of her closed office door.

She looked as pale as he felt. “Gabriel?”

He’d never seen Vickers look rattled. His mouth was dry.

“Yeah.”

One of the cops stepped forward. He was the oldest of the five, probably in his late forties with salt-and-pepper hair. “Gabriel Merrick?”

“Yeah. Yes.” His voice cracked. He could barely get the words out.

“Could you set the bag down, please?”

The backpack? It hit the floor with a thunk. “What happened?”

The officer took another step forward. “You’re under arrest.”

Layne sat with her father and Simon, but she couldn’t eat her dinner.

Really, she was amazed the food on the table was even edible, because she hadn’t paid one bit of attention to cooking it.

Gabriel had been arrested.

He’d disappeared from math class, but she’d heard about it in the lunch line. It was all over school. The wild stories were completely unbelievable Gabriel was wanted in three different states, he’d attacked the guidance counselor with an aerosol can and a lighter, he’d been caught running a meth lab. But the most common story was that he’d been arrested for arson, for starting the fires all over town.

The most popular story included the detail that someone had reported him for starting the fire at the farm.

Simon had found her, had demanded answers. Did she know?

Did she believe it?

She didn’t want to, but she couldn’t forget that lighter tumbling out of Gabriel’s sweatshirt. The haunted look in his eyes.

She also couldn’t forget the note he’d left her, when she’d admitted she was afraid.

Truth: don’t be.

She’d given Simon the only honest answer she had: I don’t know.

Layne had gone looking for his brothers, but she didn’t know their schedules and had no idea where to search. She’d looked up the number for the landscaping business as soon as she got home, but the phone went unanswered.

So she’d spent the last hour gathering her nerve.

If her imperfections had been enough to drive her mother away, what she had to tell her father might be enough to do the same to him.

As if sensing her gaze, her father glanced up from his iPhone.

“You’re quiet tonight.”

She swallowed. “I have a hypothetical legal question.”

He put the phone down. “In my experience, hypothetical questions usually aren’t hypothetical at all.”

She swiped her palms on her knees. “If you had a case where someone could give your client an alibi but that person would get in trouble for speaking up, would you still want the alibi?”

An eyebrow rose. “Define trouble.”

She looked at her plate, pushing the beef in a circle. “Her father would disown her.”

Now she had his full attention. Simon’s too.

“Are we talking about you?” her father said. His eyes narrowed. “Who needs an alibi?”

“Gabriel Merrick,” she whispered.

“For what exactly?”

“For arson.” Her father’s face looked like thunder now, so she rushed on, stumbling over her words, afraid she would cry before she got it all out. “They think he started the fires that have been in the paper, but I know I know ”

“You know what, Layne?” Her father’s voice was ice cold.

“What do you know?”

“He didn’t. I know he didn’t. At least ”

“You don’t know anything, Layne.” Her father’s fist was tight on the table. “Arson is a big deal. They don’t just arrest someone on suspicion. There will be proof, and an investigation ”

“Apparently someone reported him for starting the fire at the farm. But he didn’t do it. He couldn’t have done it.” Her hands were shaking. “Because he was with me.”

Her father was staring at her. Simon, too.

Neither said anything.

She took a deep breath. “We were lying on the hill by the back paddock. He ”

“Lying? On the hill? ”

“Talking!” she said. “Just talking! But the fire started while he was with me, so I know he couldn’t have done it.” Her father wasn’t saying anything, so she rushed on, feeling tears prick her eyes with sudden emotion. “Can you call the police? Can you tell them? You can ground me forever. You can hate me. Just, please ”

“No.”

Layne flinched. “No?”

“This arson case has been all over the news. Unless you can provide an alibi for all the fires ” His eyes narrowed. “You can’t, can you?”

She shook her head quickly.

“It won’t matter. And I’m not dragging you into some investigation just because you had a fling with the local bad boy.”

“It’s not like that! He’s my friend ”

“Sure he is. Go to your room, Layne.”

“But ”

“I said go!”

She backed away, feeling tears on her cheeks now. “I’m sorry,”

she whispered. “Please . . . just . . . we could help him . . .”

Her father’s eyes flashed with anger. “He doesn’t deserve your help.”

Simon scraped his chair back from the table to stand. “Yes,”

he said emphatically. “He does.”

Her father looked speechless with shock.

“He’s my friend, too,” said Simon, anger almost making the words unintelligible. He signed while he spoke, but even his hands were tight with rage. “You would know that if you ever bothered to talk to me.”

Their father looked almost bewildered. “Simon . . . you don’t ”

“Shut up! You wanted me to talk, so listen.” Simon had to pause for an emotion-filled breath. “Gabriel Merrick deserves her help.” He glanced at Layne and touched the bruising around his eye. “He deserves mine, too.”

“Why?” she whispered.

Simon glanced at their father and scowled. “Are you sure you don’t have to check your e-mail?”

“That’s not fair, Simon.” But her father put his phone in his pocket without even glancing at it.

“No,” said Simon. “What’s not fair is you treating us like we left with Mom.”

Now her father flinched.

Layne caught Simon’s wrist to stop his verbal assault and signed. Please stop. He’s all we have left.

“Wait a minute,” said her father. “What does that mean, I’m all you have left?”

Layne snapped her head around. “You . . . you followed that?”

“Of course I followed that. What does that mean?”

“But . . . you never sign ”

“Because I think Simon’s going to have a challenging enough life without being entirely dependent on sign language. Especially,” he emphasized, giving Simon a look, “when you can speak perfectly well.”

Now it was Simon’s turn to look shocked.

“I’m not going anywhere,” said their father, his voice just a touch softer. “You have my full attention now. Tell me what I’ve missed.”

They left Gabriel in an interrogation room.

A relief, really, since he’d gotten a glimpse of the holding cell, somewhere between fingerprinting and mug shots. Fifteen other guys, some sitting, some standing. Most were twice his size. One guy slumped against the back wall, and he’d puked on himself at some point. More than once, from the stains on his clothes.

He was the only one who didn’t look up when Gabriel walked past.

The rest of them watched him. Especially a pale guy in his twenties with track marks down his forearms, who stared at Gabriel in a creepy, dreamy way.

Gabriel avoided eye contact with everyone.

He wished he could call Michael. He didn’t even know if his brothers knew what had happened.

And he thought he’d been alone before.

He’d been holding it together, though. He’d had a brief burst of panic in the school which blew out the lights in the guidance office. Suddenly, he’d been on the ground, with a knee in his back.

They had pinned him there until Vickers started babbling about recent electrical problems.

And then they’d searched him.

The cops had found the lighter in his pocket and another one buried in his book bag. Had Layne turned him in for what had happened at the barn?

It made him remember the way she’d looked at him in the classroom this morning, breathless and wide-eyed and barely able to speak. Or her scripty handwriting on that piece of notepaper, when he’d asked if she was afraid.

A little.

Like he could blame her.

Just now, he could relate.

The interrogation room was just like on TV shows, barely twelve feet square with a table and four chairs. White walls, steel door with a tiny window. He got to sit, but they left him cuffed. And they left him alone, with the assurance that someone would be in to talk to him in a minute.

It was a long minute.

His stomach assured him it had been many hours since he’d eaten, though really, Gabriel had no idea how much time had passed. His shoulders were starting to hurt from being cuffed so long, but he didn’t want to complain, because this was ten times better than that holding cell.

He wished he knew how long they could keep him here.

Wasn’t there something about seventy-two hours? Or was that just on cop shows?

So he sat. Waiting. Long enough that anxiety started to feel like something alive, consuming him from the inside out.

Maybe that was the whole point. A passive-aggressive mock-up of the clichéd good cop/bad cop routine. Maybe this could be called no cop.

He was under eighteen. What was the worst that could happen? Juvie?

He kept thinking of Michael’s comments in the car, about how trouble with the law could lead to trouble with custody.

The overhead light buzzed, flaring with power. Gabriel took a deep breath. The electricity evened out.

And then someone came in. No preamble, no knock. Just a twist of the doorknob, a slow entrance, a man with a stainless-steel mug and some papers. This was a new guy, in his late forties, though gray had just started to streak its way through his blond hair. He wasn’t in uniform, just jeans and a sweater, though a badge clung to his belt. His eyes were narrow and blue and gave away absolutely nothing.

This guy had some authority; Gabriel could tell just from the way he carried himself.

“Gabriel Merrick?” He didn’t wait for an answer, just sat down across the table and dropped some folders and a notepad in front of him. “I’m Jack Faulkner. The county fire marshal.”

Faulkner. Hannah’s father.

Gabriel didn’t know what to say to him.

Marshal Faulkner leaned back in his chair and took a sip of coffee. “Been waiting long?”

The way he said it implied he knew exactly how long Gabriel had been waiting.

Maybe this was why he’d been left in handcuffs. So when someone deliberately acted like a tool, he couldn’t punch the guy in the face.

“Is my brother coming?” he asked. His mouth was dry, and his voice sounded rough.

“Your brother?”

“You can’t question me without a legal guardian or something, right?”

Marshal Faulkner leaned forward and lifted the cover of a manila folder. “You’re seventeen?”

“Yeah.”

The cover fell closed. “You’re charged with first-degree arson.

Right now, it’s one count, but it’ll likely be more, given the events of the past week. That’s a felony, which means you’re automatically charged as an adult. That’s why you’re here and not at the juvenile facility.”

Gabriel couldn’t move. The room suddenly felt smaller.

“You’re allowed to have an attorney present.” Marshal Faulkner clicked his pen. “Do you have an attorney?”

Gabriel shook his head. One of those other cops had read him his rights, something about an attorney being provided, but he had no idea how that worked. If he asked for a lawyer, that sounded like he was guilty.

“I didn’t start those fires,” he said.

Raised eyebrows. “You want to talk about it?”

“There’s nothing to talk about. I didn’t start them.”

Except maybe that one. The one in the woods. But if he admitted he’d lied about that, it would make everything else sound like a lie. Gabriel looked away.

After a moment of silence, the marshal leaned forward in his chair. “Would you like me to remove the handcuffs?”

Gabriel’s eyes flicked up. “Yes.”

When he unlocked them, Gabriel rolled his shoulders to get the stiffness out, then wiped his palms on his jeans.

He hated that he felt like he owed this guy a thank-you or something.

Especially when Marshal Faulkner hesitated before sitting down and said, “How about some food?”

Gabriel would kill for some food, but he shook his head.

“You sure? If you’re stuck here overnight, we have to feed you. Might as well be in here, where no one’s going to take it away from you.”

There were too many shocks in that sentence to process them all. Overnight. Gabriel thought of that pale freak in the holding cell and completely lost any appetite he might have had.

He shook his head again. “What time is it?”

“Just after six.”

Six! Somehow it felt both earlier and later than he’d thought.

Gabriel heard his breath hitch before he could stop it. His brothers would definitely know he was missing.

Marshal Faulkner reached into his back pocket and withdrew a pack of cigarettes. He held them out. “Smoke? No offense, kid, but you look like you need it.”

“I don’t smoke.”

The marshal dropped the pack on the table and picked up his pen again. “Then why’d you have two lighters at school?”

Oh.

Gabriel scowled.

“And,” said the marshal, “I understand there are a lot more at your house. Want to tell me about that?”

Gabriel froze. “At my house?”

“Officers are executing a search warrant right now.”

At least it answered the question about whether Michael knew what was going on.

Thank god Hunter had the fireman’s coat and helmet.

“I didn’t start those fires,” he said again.

“Is someone else in on it?”

A new note had entered the marshal’s voice. Did they know about Hunter? Gabriel was wary after getting trapped by the lighter question.

He looked at the table, running his finger along the plastic stripping on the edge. “I don’t know anything about it.” His voice was nonchalant, but he felt in danger of choking on his heartbeat.

“You sure?”

Gabriel looked up, meeting the marshal’s gaze evenly. “Pretty sure.”

“Let me explain something.” Marshal Faulkner dropped the pen on his folder and leaned forward. His voice gained an edge.

“You can jerk me around all night, but you’re not doing yourself any favors. One count of first-degree arson carries a penalty of thirty years. That’s one. We’ve got at least four. No matter what you tell me, we’ve got enough to keep you in the county detention center for a while.”

Gabriel swallowed. His hands were sweating again. “I didn’t start those fires.”

“You know about the one on Linden Park Lane?”

The first one. Alan Hulster’s house. The piercing fire alarms, the dead cat. The little girl. The anguished scream from the front lawn, the relieved, sobbing mother.