“You need to come home, boss,” Roxie said. “There’s been an incident. A house burned down. The fire department is trying to save what they can right now, but I don’t like their chances.”

“Whose house?”

He knew the answer before she said the words. “It’s Lila’s place.”

He stood up because their night out was over.

chapter thirteen

“I don’t know what you want me to say, Sheriff.” Bobby Petrie stood in the small cell, his hands on his hips. “Obviously, I couldn’t have burned down anything. I was here.”

“I’d like to know where your brother was last night.”

He suspected Donny Petrie had been busy the night before. Lila’s small home had been completely gutted. They’d made it back to Papillon in the middle of the night, but the morning had brought with it the sight of her destroyed house. She’d held his hand tight as she’d stared at the house she’d briefly called home and then she’d gone to work.

And so had he.

Bobby looked like he’d slept perfectly fine. He was bright-eyed this morning as he looked at Armie through the bars on his cell. “You would have to ask him, but I suspect he was busy trying to find me a lawyer since the only one in town turned us down. He probably spent the whole night on the phone trying to work something out. I assure you my brother wouldn’t have burned down some random woman’s house.”

He could feel Roxie moving to stand beside him. Likely she was going to try to make sure he didn’t murder their prisoner. “She wasn’t a random woman and you know it. You’re lucky Dr. Daley wasn’t in the house at the time.”

Bobby shrugged. “Why would I want to hurt Lila Daley? All she’s ever done is try to help my wife out. She doesn’t understand how sick Carrie is. I blame myself. I should have talked to her. I should have let her know that Carrie can be delusional at times and she loves to get my attention. That’s all this is. You should talk to Doc Hamet. He knows all about my wife’s problems.”

“You can’t fool Dr. Daley the way you did Hamet.” He wasn’t about to let Bobby muddy the waters by bringing the doc into this.