He spent a few minutes talking to the firemen first, looking at where they had identified probable trails of accelerant. Sterling felt sicker and sicker as he took it all in.
As they approached Sterling's house a few minutes later, they heard the murmur of Britta's voice through the open bathroom window.
Lyle's voice rose loud enough for them to make out the words. "...I'd offer support if I had a fucking job!"
"I'm not talking about money, although it would be a nice surprise to see you open your wallet more than once a month. No, I meant the only involvement I want from you with this one is financial."
Sterling's step faltered. Did that mean what he thought it meant? Cam's color deepened.
"I don't want you to see this baby," she added, in case Lyle was having trouble connecting the dots.
"I sobered up for this shit? Christ, Brit, can't we have this conversation in a couple of months? Maybe when I don't have a hammer in my hand?"
Cam hopped onto the porch and through the back door in two steps.
Inside, a door slammed.
As Sterling followed, he found Britta and Cam face to face in the hall, like a pair of cats, ears back, tails twitching.
"I was just taking a meeting with the father of my child," she told Cam with a go-screw-yourself smile. "For the record, it was one time, it happened three days before you asked me to dinner, and I didn't even know I was pregnant until you and I were already involved. Where's Zack?"
"In here," he called from the parlor. "And I didn't need to hear that."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Paige woke, startled.
She was in Sterling's parlor, on his sofa. Zack was in Sterling's recliner, watching women's beach volleyball on the T.V. Someone nearby was running a power tool.
As she sat up, she smelled stale smoke in her hair and clothes.
The house. Loss tore through her, sharp and fresh in the confused moments between sleep and awakening.
She tugged the quilt closer around her, staving off the chill in the room, alert enough to know she didn't want to be. She felt awful. Sad and grubby and stuffy-headed. Why hadn't she packed her things into her father's car last night? At least she had her glasses. She'd grabbed them last night when she'd woken, to see what the hell was going on, but she would kill for a toothbrush right now.
Sterling came in from the hallway, his face and clothes still filthy, his gaze critical as he studied her.
She swallowed, so dopey from her nap that her love for him was right there, ready to well up and spill out.
She should have gone back to Seattle last night.
"Are you and Dad finished?" Zack asked as Britta came from the hall with Cam.
"So done." Britta was in her sweats and looked puffy-eyed and teary.
"I can go help him?" Zack asked.
"Have at it."
Zack clicked off the T.V. and slipped by his mother, down the hall.
"Help him what?" Paige frowned. It hurt to talk.
"He's fixing the bathroom. Sorry we woke you. How're you doing?" Britta sat down next to Paige and hugged her.
It hurt Paige's skin to be touched. She stayed leaning on Britta anyway, allowing herself some self-pity.
"Sweetie, I think you're running a fever." Britta's hand was uncomfortably cold on her forehead, causing a shiver that started at the base of her spine.
"It was that walk in the rain yesterday," Sterling said in a gruff voice.
Paige scowled at him. No one liked an I-told-you-so. She would have told him, too, but when she tried to find her voice, she wound up coughing hard enough for her chest to sting.
Everyone looked at her with pained frowns.
"I caught a cold," she said, her voice thinning into a strained pitch. She turned to Britta. "Are you up to driving me to Seattle? I don't have a car."
"That's the flu," Sterling said. "And how ‘bout we figure out who almost killed you first?"
"I would have thought that was Cam's job." Man, it hurt to talk. And it just made her cough. "Can I have a drink of water?"
Britta popped off the couch, but Sterling was already doing it.
Paige sat back, bundling the quilt around herself while Britta settled back down beside her.
Cam moved to sit on the edge of the recliner. Britta stiffened.
"I'd like to talk to you about who might have had reason to set that fire, Paige. Are you up to it?" Cam asked, not looking at Britta. "‘Cause I could come back."
"It's just a cold," she insisted, but fighting not to cough brought tears to her eyes.
Cam looked skeptical.
Sterling came back with a glass of water and two pills. "For the fever."
"Thanks." As soon as she'd picked the pills out of his palm, he raised the backs of his cool fingers to each of her cheeks. He let out a breath heavy with aggravation. "I should have put you in the damned truck myself. You want some tea, too?"
She wanted to tell him where he could put his tea, but it sounded so good she nodded, and said, "Yes, please."
"I'll do it." Britta leapt off the couch.
"Thanks, Britta," Sterling said. "Are you up to making coffee too? I'm wiped, but I want to hear what Paige has to say about the fire."
"Sure, big guy." Then, for Cam's benefit, "That's why I'm here, to mother everyone."
The remark made Cam go all stoney-faced. He didn't look at Britta as she walked through the archway into the kitchen.
Sterling sat down beside Paige, exhaling with relief.
Great. Now all she wanted to do was curl in his direction until her head rested on his shoulder. While he sat there with that disapproving glower. Grudges are heavy and they don't have handles, mister.
"So, who was home? Were you two-" Cam waved his pen between them.
Paige shook her head, heard Sterling say, "No," in a tone she couldn't interpret.
She didn't look at him. In fact, she could barely raise her gaze to Cam's, she was so hyper aware of the foot-wide chasm between her and Sterling. She had barely projected to the end of their relationship when they'd started it, but she hadn't imagined it would feel this hostile. So raw and sensitive, like her skin had been peeled off.
"What about Lyle? Was he home?" Cam asked.
"He left for the detox clinic in Lasser yesterday afternoon," Paige said.
Cam exchanged a silent I'll-check look with Sterling that made Paige pinch her lips together.
"You weren't supposed to be home," Britta said from the archway. "You told us you were going back to Seattle."
"Who is ‘us?'" Cam demanded of Britta.
"My family," Paige hurried to clarify, and explained who had been in the house last evening and why.
"What happened with the factory share?" Cam asked, as she finished up. "Why did you have to tell them Grady had no claim on it?"
She glanced at Sterling, but all he said was, "Go ahead. Tell him."
But it was so sordid. So typical of her dad. And she was still mad and hurt and even though this was her opportunity to blurt out his mother's fallibility, she couldn't bear to hurt Sterling. She told Cam what she thought was relevant.
"Dad had a loan with Sterling's parents that he never repaid. He used his share in the factory as collateral."
She looked again at Sterling.
He said nothing, wore only a neutral expression.
She didn't want to say anything else, but added, "I don't think the Roys had anything to do with the fire. They could have claimed that loan any time in the last number of years, but didn't." Which was true.
"Dad didn't want to get the factory back that way." Via his mother's affair with Grady as payment, Paige surmised, even though he didn't spell it out. "He wants to negotiate in good faith," Sterling added, more to her than Cam. "They've destroyed the note. You don't have to walk away from your father's share in the factory. Everyone will be taken care of."
Paige shrugged, not relieved. She preferred to walk away, rather than be sucked back in.
Britta broke her concentration, coming in with a cookie sheet covered with a tea towel, steaming mugs balanced on top of it along with a creamer and a sugar bowl. She gave Paige a significant, I-want-to-hear-more-later look. Paige reached for her mug, cupping it in her weak hands.
"Honey and lemon," Britta said. "Good for your throat." Then she smiled at Sterling. "I saw you have pancake mix. Would you like me to make some?"
"I'd love it. I'm starving." His voice was heavy with gratitude.
Britta gave him an easy smile that Cam appeared to note.
"And what was Zack's attitude when he heard about the factory not being part of the estate?" Cam asked Paige.
Britta snapped her head around to glare at him. "You son of a bitch."
"Cam." Paige hurried to intervene. "You don't really think Zack would have torched that house."
"I'm just doing my job, trying to eliminate suspects," Cam said, ignoring Britta while aiming his deadpan expression at Paige.
"You're trying to piss me off," Britta said.