Forsaken by Sarah Ballance Page A

matching his fast pace.
    “Truck is registered to a Chuck Weston. He’s an upstanding citizen without any arrest warrants, nor is he a person of interest in a murder investigation.”
    “What if they track down the truck and ask for a driver’s license to go with that registration?”
    “They probably won’t have the chance, but I can assure you, it looks good. And it’s not mine, other than the photo.”
    “Then why not wait and tell your side of the story? His house is burning down, Gage. I feel terrible.” She sounded watery, on the verge of tears.
    “Because,” he said, nearing the edge of the woods. “Once they get Chuck in their system, Maverick’s got to set up a whole new good ol’ boy identity. We’re not supposed to use them unless we have to.”
    “And if—or should I say when —they run the license plate?”
    He sighed. “Right. Let’s just stay off the radar if we can. No need to make it any worse. There is the little matter of breaking and entering.”
    Riley snorted. “ Now it’s breaking and entering.”
    Gage turned to look at the house. The fire was still contained within the walls, only a wisp of smoke trailing upward from the backside of the house where he’d broken the window. Unless Old Biddy had her binoculars keyed in, the fire might not be obvious…yet. They still had time.
    Twenty yards stood between them and escape. “Try to look casual,” he said. “We’re going to get in the truck and go. We’ll call the fire department once we’re on the road.”
    “Shouldn’t you call them now? Before the whole house burns down?”
    “Nope.”
    “Gage—”
    “That fire was rigged. There’s no way it just happened to catch fire with us in it, especially not all over at once. Did you see how the fire almost instantly blocked both doors—one at the front, one at the back? Not an accident.”
    “Okay, a coincidence might be a stretch, but how does that work? Rigging a fire, I mean.”
    He shrugged. “No telling. My guess is either some sort of a trip-wire or a motion detector. I don’t know about you, but with all of that junk in there I wouldn’t have noticed a trigger mechanism. Hell, if the guy is good, it’s not something a person would notice even without the stuff everywhere.”
    They reached the truck. The street was still quiet, but the house was beginning to show outward signs of fire. The calm wouldn’t last.
    She didn’t say anything until her seat belt was on. “Trip wires? Motion detectors? Where do you come up with this stuff?”
    He placed his gun in the cardboard box console and slid his phone from his pocket. Handing it to Riley, he said, “Call it in. Anonymously.”
    She took it, hesitating. “The fire…we caused it, then? We’re the reason his house is burning down?”
    “There was something in there he didn’t want anyone to see. Burning to the ground is exactly what Tom Rigby wanted. The house and whatever damned secrets went with it.”
    Maverick’s ability to spew profanity had improved significantly in the handful of months since Gage signed on. It took a good sixty seconds before Gage could understand a word Maverick said…or maybe it just took that long for him to say anything intelligible. Either way, it was impressive.
    “What the hell were you thinking going into his house? I told you—”
    “You told me not to kill him,” Gage said, cutting him off and earning a sharp look of alarm from Riley. “And I didn’t touch him.”
    “You burned down his house.”
    “No, he burned down his house. The question is, why.”
    Tense silence filled the connection. “I’ll give you that one. There’s something there he—or someone—doesn’t want anyone to know about. It may have something to do with that hospital bed, but it’s unlikely it ends with it.”
    “There’s no way he was living there, much less anyone with mobility issues. Why not just destroy whatever evidence or get it out of the house? Why take the whole house