Shirlee McCoy - Falsely Accused

Not a bullet. He rolled sideways, pulling his gun, aiming at a man who was swinging a baseball bat in the direction of his head. The shot hit its mark, but momentum kept the bat spinning through the air. It hit Titus in the temple.

He saw stars.

Then he saw nothing at all.

Black smoke rose from the back of Abigail’s farmhouse, the dark streaks of soot-filled heat drifting into the sky. No flames that Wren could see, but that didn’t make the situation better. Something was burning. The house or the porch behind it. Not an outbuilding. The smoke was too close.

“What in the world?” Annalise Rivers muttered as she pulled up in front of the house. One of the FBI’s top-notch defense attorneys, Annalise had arrived at the hospital two hours after Wren had called the field office and requested help. She’d brought Special Agent Radley Tumberg with her. A member of the Special Crimes Unit, Radley had been part of Wren’s work world for years. Determined and tough, he knew how to go after the answers he needed to solve some of the most complicated crimes.

Any other time Wren would have found comfort in having him there. Right now, all she felt was confusion, grief and anger.

“Call the fire department!” she shouted as she jumped out of the vehicle, the soft cast the hospital had set her wrist in banging against her chest as the sling bounced with her movement. She’d had the bullet wound cleaned and stitched and the bone set. Until the stitches came out, her arm would remain in the soft cast. She had been released from the hospital with instructions to keep the arm elevated and to rest.

She had planned to go to the rehab center, explain to Abigail what had happened and then return to the farmhouse. Instead, she’d received a call from a nurse at the rehab center. The sheriff had broken the news of Ryan’s death, and Abigail was distraught, begging someone to bring her the photo album that contained pictures of Ryan when he was young.

Wren had been enraged at the sheriff’s callousness. She knew he had intended to arrest her. Only Annalise’s law enforcement savvy had kept that from happening. Wren’s hands had been swabbed for gunpowder residue. When it wasn’t found, she’d been told she was free to go.

For now.

If her arm hadn’t been broken, she’d have been at the rehab center before the sheriff. Instead, she’d headed to the farmhouse to get the photo album.

The farmhouse that seemed to be on fire.

She shouted for Annalise to stay back and raced to the side of the house, feet pounding the packed earth and soft grass. She’d planned to pull up the shrubs that were edging too close to the siding this week. The Realtor Abigail had hired had suggested it.

Now her only concern was keeping the old house from burning to the ground.

“Wren!” Radley yelled, grabbing her good arm and dragging her backward. “Go back to the car. I’ll handle this.”

“In what world would that ever happen?” she replied, her voice tauter and sharper than she’d intended.

“In my perfect world,” he muttered, letting go of her arm and running around the back of the house with her.

He knew she wouldn’t back down, and he wasn’t going to waste time trying to convince her to. That was one of Radley’s strengths. He knew how to take charge and how to concede leadership to someone else if necessary.

“In my perfect world, there wouldn’t be smoke billowing out from the back of my foster mother’s house,” she replied, sprinting up the porch stairs.

The back door was cracked open, the threshold singed black.

She slammed her good hand against the door, and it flew open, banging into the wall behind it. If Abigail had been there, she’d have chastised Wren. She wasn’t, and neither was Ryan. The closest thing to a kid brother she’d ever had, he’d been living with Abigail after divorcing his wife of five years. Darla had moved to Boston after the divorce was final, and Ryan hadn’t been able to afford the house they’d bought together. The property had gone into foreclosure.

Wren knew that had been a blow to his ego.

He’d prided himself on doing better than his biological family had, of making his way in a world that wasn’t always fair or equitable. He’d been almost too prideful about his accomplishments, something she’d never had the heart to tell him. He was Ryan—bighearted and bigheaded.

Now he was gone.

She crossed the threshold, barreling into the kitchen.

A room that had always been Abigail’s favorite, it had once had fifties vintage charm that permeated all Wren’s best memories. Now it was a disaster, water flooding the floor, smoke billowing up from curtains that were smoldering.

“You have a sprinkler system here?” Radley asked, stepping into the kitchen behind her, his gaze darting from one corner of the room to the other. She knew he wasn’t looking for a sprinkler system. He was looking for danger.

“No,” she responded, toeing an old green garden hose that was snaking through the kitchen and into the dining room. “Someone turned on the garden hose.”

“To put out the fire?”

“I can’t think of any other reason.” She inhaled, the harsh scent of smoke stinging her nose. “I think I smell gasoline.”

“I was thinking the same. Someone set the fire, and then tried to put it out?” Radley grabbed the hose and tugged it back into the room, turning the nozzle to shut off the water that had still been flowing out of it.

“That wouldn’t make any sense.”

“Does any of this?” he asked, following her as she moved cautiously into the dining room.

Unlike the kitchen, it had no deep char marks on the walls. She was so busy noting the condition of the room that she almost didn’t see the man splayed out on the sopping area rug near the table. His face was turned away, his hair wet, his clothes soaked. Her heart jumped.

“Titus?” she murmured, rushing to his side, every thought of the hose, the water and the fire gone. Even now, even after so many years apart, she would have known him anywhere.

Seeing him like this—unconscious and vulnerable—tore at her heart.

She touched his neck, feeling for a pulse and praying she would find one. She’d already lost Ryan. She didn’t want to lose Titus, too.

His eyes flew open. Not green or blue. A shade of teal that reminded her of the sky at dusk.

“Wren?” He snagged her hand.

“What happened?” she replied. “Are you okay?”

“I think so.”

“Is this our perp?” Radley asked, his hand hovering near the holster that was nearly hidden by his suit jacket.

“This is Titus. A friend of mine,” she responded.

“That doesn’t mean he’s not the perp,” Radley pointed out reasonably.

“I’m not,” Titus bit out, his eyes blazing. “Your perps are gone.” He got to his feet, Wren’s hand still in his.

She could have pulled away.

She probably should have.

Their friendship had ended years ago.

She hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day she’d told him she’d seen his wife with another man. She had thought she was being true to their friendship, honoring the honest and caring relationship they had.

He hadn’t taken it that way.

He’d called her jealous and petty, and had accused her of lying.

And she had stepped out of his life.

Just like that.

The hurt had felt like the worst kind of betrayal. That he hadn’t known her well enough to have discovered the truth about who she was and what she was capable of had nearly broken her heart.

She’d survived by walking away and cutting herself off from him the same way she cut herself off from anyone who didn’t respect her boundaries. She had learned plenty of hard lessons watching her mother, and she had vowed to never repeat the mistakes she’d witnessed. She wanted mutual kindness in her friendships, mutual care and respect and affection in all the relationships in her life.