“You just always drive like you’re behind in the Indy 500?”
His lips twitched like he wanted to laugh.
“Was all of that true?” I asked. “Someone killed the senator?”
“Yes.”
We rolled to a stop at the bottom of the hill. If we turned right, we would head down to the highway. Left we went up to my house. He didn’t turn the car. He didn’t press on the gas.
“I’m that way,” I said, pointing left.
“I can take you anywhere,” he said. “Right now. Any place away from here.”
He wasn’t looking at me and it wasn’t . . . romantic. It wasn’t about me and him. It was about the Constantines and the Morellis. It was about Caroline and being clever.
I realized with a sinking heart that maybe everything, every moment between us was about Caroline and being clever.
Motherfucker.
“I need to go home,” I said. “Frankly, I don’t know if any of this is true.”
“The fire chief—”
“Talked to you? And not me? That’s convenient.”
“You think I’m lying? You think Caroline is lying?”
“I think I’m being manipulated. You talk to the fire chief; she has some private coroner. Suddenly every terrible thing that’s happened to me is about the Constantine and Morelli feud. I mean . . . listen to how ridiculous all that sounds.”
“Call the fire chief.”
“I will. When I’m home. When I’ve had a goddamn cup of coffee.”
“You can’t stay there, Poppy. It’s reckless. Stupid. You could—”
“I know!” I shouted. “I know I can’t stay there and I won’t. Okay. I won’t stay. But my stuff is there. My . . .” I looked down at my dead phone. “My phone charger. My purse. Money. I need to get organized to leave. I can’t just vanish.”
He turned and looked at me. Really looked at me. And my mouth was dry and my anger fizzed and popped but so did everything else I felt for him.
“There’s something going on,” he said. “Something . . . I don’t know about. And I know about everything. Everything, Poppy.”
“You mean the fire?”
He glanced away, to the right and the highway past it. And for a second I thought he was going to ignore what I was saying and drive me away. I put my hand on the door handle, thinking I would run before I’d let him take me away.
“I don’t know if the fire was to hurt you or warn Caroline or destroy something.”
“Destroy what?” I asked. “The house doesn’t have—” Oh. The paperwork from the lawyer? That would be . . . ridiculous.
“What?” he asked. “What are you thinking?”
“Nothing,” I lied. “I’m not thinking anything. Just take me home,” I said.
He turned left and gunned the engine.
The front of my house was covered in yellow tape. There were black scorch marks on the side of the house. Half the trees were blackened sticks. It was so much worse than I thought. So much more real.
Ronan sat, stone still, eyes on the house.
“I’d invite you in,” I said with a laugh. “But—”
“Go,” he said, like he was just so done with me.
All-righty. Carefully trying not to show him any part of myself beneath the robe, which was ridiculous when I’d already shown him so much, I opened the door. “I suppose I’ll see you,” I said. “Lurking in the shadows somewhere.”
“Just be careful,” he said, and when he looked at me, the words dried up in my mouth. Anger, such pure anger it was like being frozen in place, radiated off him.
“Goodbye,” I whispered and got out of that car. Away from him with as much of myself as possible. God, when would I learn to stop giving men pieces of me just because they wanted them? I ran to the front door of my house, which had been unlocked after all the drama of the night. The floor inside was wet and sooty. Muddy.
I followed the cold draft coming in the back of the house from the kitchen.
“Oh my god,” I breathed. The glass was shattered from the sliding glass door and shards of it were blown all around the kitchen. More yellow tape fluttered in the breeze on the patio outside.
I looked at all this damage. The absolute ruin of my house and wondered . . . why I didn’t care. My cage was finally destroyed.
I pulled my dead phone out of the pocket of my silk robe and plugged it into my charger sitting on the counter like nothing had happened.
They’d turned off the gas last night in an effort to prevent my home from going up like a bomb. But my electricity was still on, and my little coffee pot was working and so was my fridge. Within a few minutes I had a hot cup of coffee with milk. And in the closet, I found my sweatshirt and put that on over my robe. The phone was going to take a few more minutes so I found myself standing in front of the door that led to Jim’s office.