Sacrifice. Brigid Kemmerer
her and crushed her against his chest. His breathing was shaky, and he didn’t trust his voice, but he held her, and she let him.
No, she held him back.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “It’ll be okay.”
“It’s not,” he said, his voice thick. “Not even a little bit.”
Despite everything his family had gone through, they’d always had a home. He’d made sure of it. The shelves were never overflowing with food, and there’d been a year when he’d turned off cable and made the guys share one cell phone, but they’d had a roof over their heads and beds to sleep in. Always somewhere to come back to.
And now they had . . . what? The truck? The car? Considering the earthquake, he wasn’t sure they even had that much.
Then one of the demolished homes on the cul-de-sac caught his eye. They had a lot more than some of these families.
All this destruction. How much had been his fault? If these homes hadn’t collapsed, would the radio be reporting rescues instead of dead bodies?
His breath shook again. He wanted to ask how many people had been killed, and whether Hannah knew names yet.
At the same time, he was afraid to ask.
“When you two are done, I have a few questions.”
At the sound of the dry voice, Hannah pulled back quickly, and Michael let her go. He recognized the man standing behind the ambulance, and he wondered if it was a good thing or a bad thing that the county fire marshal had shown up.
“Dad!” Hannah said, for all the world sounding like a teenager caught with a boy in her room. “What are you doing here?”
“Working.” He paused, then raised an eyebrow. “Aren’t you?”
Michael knew he wasn’t imagining the disapproval in the man’s tone. Hannah and her father had a tense relationship. If Hannah’s mother weren’t in the picture, they probably wouldn’t speak at all. Jack Faulkner was never rude to Michael—but he wasn’t exactly patting him on the back and inviting him over to watch the game, either. The fire marshal had arrested Gabriel and charged him with arson six weeks ago. Once the real arsonist was behind bars, Jack had been civil to Michael. Not quite friendly, but not cold.
Suspicious? Michael had no idea. Hannah said her father treated everyone like a potential criminal—including her.
But to his surprise, when Jack turned steely grey eyes his way, there was compassion there. “How are you doing, Mike? You okay?”
The question, the casual concern, threw him off. Michael’s own parents had always been warm, their home always open to others—to their detriment—and Hannah’s father was the opposite of that. They’d sat across a table for dinner on Hannah’s birthday and talked business and sports. Easy topics, nothing personal.
That night felt like a year ago.
But maybe this was the real Jack Faulkner. Maybe a crisis brought out the dad in him, breaking down the awkward barriers.
Michael nodded and had to clear his throat. “I’m all right.”
“What about your brothers? Are they holding up?”
Michael nodded. He rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. Sweat and grit. Sand, soot, whatever. He’d kill for a shower. A hot one. “More or less.”
“You have somewhere to go?”
For an instant, the question didn’t make sense. Why would he go anywhere?
Then reality knocked on his skull. The fire marshal was asking if he had a place to stay.
It hadn’t even occurred to him yet, but now that he had to consider it, Michael had no idea where to take his brothers. Insurance would come into play at some point, but it wasn’t like he could call up his agent and money would appear in the checking account tomorrow. They could ride on credit cards for a while, but feeding and housing five people on Visa’s dime would only last so long.
But what was he supposed to say? He knew from experience that he couldn’t admit uncertainty in front of anyone official. He held back any emotion and wished his voice didn’t sound as if he were speaking through ground stone. “I have to make a few calls. I’ll work it out.”
Hannah slipped her hand under his and laced their fingers together. The motion felt comforting—but somehow defiant, too.
Michael couldn’t tell if Marshal Faulkner noticed. Rain was collecting on the shoulders of the man’s jacket. “It might just be smoke damage. There are a few local companies who can help with that. You’ll have to get an engineer out to check the foundation after that earthquake.”
Or Michael could just walk a loop around the house and feel it out for himself.
As if the insurance company would take his word for it.
Marshal Faulkner turned and looked past the ambulance, his eyes on something in the distance. “A lot of damage here. You guys are lucky.”
Lucky. Yeah, right. Michael hadn’t felt lucky since . . . ever.
The fire marshal stepped closer. “How did you put the fires out so quickly?”
Michael opened his mouth to respond, but Hannah squeezed his hand, hard. “Don’t answer that.”
Michael blinked. She’d asked him pretty much the same thing. “I—I . . . what?”
Her tone was even. “He’s not being nice. He’s trying to interrogate you.”
The fire marshal barely spared her a glance. His attitude didn’t change; it was still official, reassuring. “Hannah, why don’t you let me speak with Michael privately?”
“Why, so you can try to trap him with questions?”
“No, so I can spare him a trip in a squad car and his brothers a night with DFS.”
Michael straightened. DFS was the Department of Family Services.
“What does that mean?” He suddenly wanted out of this ambulance, as if social workers had secreted his brothers away already. Tension held him rigid, and the only thing keeping him sitting here was the knowledge that acting like a panicked freak would do more harm than good.
“It means if I take you in for questioning, I’m responsible for making sure your brothers are taken care of.”
“We just dragged him out of his house, unconscious,” Hannah said. “Why don’t you find someone else to question?”
“There is no one else right now, Hannah.”
The words hung there in space for a moment, and Michael flinched, realizing what that meant.
The fire marshal continued, “I had one of your brothers under arrest a month ago. Should I have kept him that way?”
“My brother didn’t do this.”
“Then help me prove it. Answer my questions. Take a walk through your house with me.”
Michael hesitated. The night had been too long, the events too quick to string together. He needed an hour to sit down and think.
Marshal Faulkner took a step closer. “A rookie cop could put two and two together on this one, Mike. Your brother was a prime arson suspect a month ago—and while he ended up with a rock-solid alibi during interrogation, you didn’t. Your house is the only one still standing. They’re talking about bringing in bomb dogs to see if that earthquake was really a natural occurrence. I’m not trying to rough you up here, but I need something that doesn’t look so damning or I’m going to have to drag you in on principle.”
Michael looked away. Didn’t an officer need a warrant to search the house? Should he be calling a lawyer? Could he even get one at three in the morning?
When