I knew it was Dolores. I called her brother. Anonymously. So that he could claim the body. I couldn’t bear to look at her.”
“Or to have the balls to come forward,” Travis stated flatly.
“I was an ex-con. Sure I’ve been exonerated, but I just bet the charge is still on some police computer next to my name. I figured the best way to help out was to nail the son of a bitch who set the fires. To find the damned Stealth Torcher.”
“On your own?” Shannon felt so betrayed she could scarcely speak.
Travis said, “You thought you could catch this guy when the professionals couldn’t? A police department with trained investigators and expensive equipment and specialists? Is that what you’re saying?”
“I’m saying they hadn’t done such a great job of it.”
“What made you think you could do better?”
“I didn’t know if I’d do it better, but I sure as hell planned to try. I grew up learning how to hunt and track, spent time as a mountain guide. To help pay for college, I spent my summers fighting forest fires. During the winter, while going to school, I was a member of the volunteer fire department. I figured that’s qualification enough.”
“And your murder charge? That wasn’t a lie?” Shannon asked.
His eyes drilled into hers. “Unfortunately, no. The time in jail? Yeah, that happened too. Just the way I told you.”
“But you bumped into me on purpose after my own trial, after it came out that the police thought my husband was the Stealth Torcher.”
He nodded. Looked at the boards of the porch as Khan, hunting squirrels, sniffed around the side of the house and woodpile.
“You set the whole damned thing up and lied to me,” she said angrily. Travis put his hand on her arm, but she jerked away, tired of men manipulating her.
“I thought getting close to you might help me figure out what was going on, give me an inside look,” he admitted, his face flushing angrily. “But it backfired, okay? Because what I discovered from being with you was that Dolores wasn’t the only woman in the world for me. She wasn’t ‘the one.’ Hell, I don’t even know if I believe that anymore because I fell for you. Hard.”
“I don’t believe you!”
“It’s the truth.”
“Jesus Christ, Nate. You could have told me.”
“If he told you, he’d blow his cover and then he wouldn’t get the information he needed,” Travis said. He stood near her, his eyes squinting against the sun, his hair showing streaks of gold, his mouth a thin, hard line.
“You got that right,” Nate said, glaring back at him. “But then, you understand, don’t you? You’re using Shannon to get what you want.”
“No.”
Something in his denial rang false. Shannon took a step back. “You, too?” she whispered, thinking of their lovemaking, how she’d playfully teased him this morning. She’d known the reasons he’d come down here had to do with his child, the one he’d called “theirs.” Yet in the light of day it now seemed sappy, a ploy to get her to trust him.
“It’s not like that,” Travis said.
“Of course it is, Settler,” Nate cut in. “You came here because of your kid, met Shannon and thought you’d hang out, get close, figure out what she knows.”
Shannon knew Nate’s words were true. Hadn’t she suspected as much from this man who had been lurking on her property, spying on her the night she’d been attacked? But she’d put those feelings aside, let herself believe, if only for a little while, that they cared for each other, could learn to love each other. What an idiot she’d been! Again. She felt as if she’d been kicked in the gut. “Go ahead, Nate,” she said, her gaze cutting from Travis, with his damned sun-streaked hair, bedroom blue eyes and solid jaw, to the man she’d worked with. “Tell me what else you think you know. Did all the time we spent together pay off?”
He took the shot and didn’t flinch. “I think one or more of your brothers is involved in the fires.”
“What!” she said in disbelief. “My brothers?”
“Ryan Carlyle wasn’t the Stealth Torcher. He was just the fall guy.”
“What the hell are you trying to peddle now, Santana?” Travis growled.
“This is nuts!” Shannon couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “You think that Aaron, or Shea or Robert is…the Stealth Torcher? That one of them started the current fires and is killing off other members of my family? That…that…what? That Aaron or Shea or Robert attacked me, killed Mary Beth and Oliver?” Her voice rose in fury and something near hysteria.
“You’re out of your mind, Santana,” Travis agreed tautly.