Page 57 of Studfinder

“I just wanted to take care of you. For once, I wanted to do right by you.” Nolan awkwardly reaches out from my face and pats my cheek several times until he’s nearly slapping me. I catch his hand and crush his fingers.

“Nolan, what are you talking about?”

“I wanted them to know we were needed. The State needed more manpower. We needed you.” His eyes widen in emphasis, coherent for just a moment, but I’m the one confused.

“What are you talking about?” I repeat.

“The warehouses. We needed their attention. They needed to see how important we were. Firemen put out fires.”

“Nolan,” I hiss, eyes rapidly blinking as fear courses through my veins. “What did you do?”

The mystery of those three warehouse fires comes back to me. Electrical tampering. Chemicals nearby to ignite the flame further. The judge’s voice as he sentenced me, saying he’d seen it before. Firemen setting fires to save a department.

“Nolan,” I whisper, my throat thick. He shakes his head from side to side, his face lowered.

“I never thought they’d catch me.”

“They didn’t!” I suddenly shriek. “They caught me. They thought I did it.”

Nolan’s head shakes more vigorously. “I messed up.”

“Tell me you didn’t set the fires? Tell me you didn’t burn down that school?”

I’m going to be sick. For all the guilt I felt over a crime I didn’t commit, my heart races faster as I think of Rita.

“They weren’t paying attention. The empty warehouses weren’t enough of a sign for them.”

“A sign?” I question, not understanding his thought process.

“I needed to go bigger. No one cared about the warehouses. I needed to go somewhere where they’d take notice. Someplace with more meaning.”

“The school,” I whisper.

“An empty school.”

“But the school wasn’t empty,” I remind him, tightness filling my voice.

“I didn’t know,” Nolan says, finally lifting his head, tears in his liquid, red-rimmed eyes. “I didn’t know.”

My fist clenches in his shirt, tugging him forward in his chair. “What the hell did you do?”

“I just wanted you to keep your job. I wanted that promotion to chief. No one was going to get hurt.” My eyes drift to his legs, paralyzed in the chair where he sits. Bitterly, he laughs, following my gaze.

“When I came out of that coma, you were arrested. I had faith in the system. They wouldn’t find a thing.” A tear slips from Nolan’s eye. “You’d get off. There wasn’t any evidence it was you.”

Releasing my brother, I fall back on my ass to the cold kitchen floor and stare up at him in his chair. A shaky hand swipes over my mouth. “But there was evidence.”

Circumstantial but substantial evidence.

“The images at the school were me. The wire cutters were mine.”

Suddenly, I recall the tools submitted as evidence for stripping wires, intended to shorten them. As a case was built against me, the tool was discovered in the garage. They belonged to me, but I hadn’t used them. My brother had.

“Nolan, why . . .” Why didn’t he tell me? Why didn’t he come forward? Why did he do this? Although he’d just explained himself, I still cannot comprehend what he’d done.

“I went to prison,” I remind him, my voice hardening. His head snaps up, eyes wide but spilling with liquid.

“I know. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.” A sob cracks through the room before my brother falls apart, shaking uncontrollably with guilt and tears.