Outback Flames: Australian Rural Romantic Suspense (13 page)

The sergeant
must have thought she was a real nut case. Wouldn't the town know she and
Jordan had been seeing each other? They were together a few times in the
street, and that would have sent tongues wagging.

Zoe no longer
cared. She knew how the fire started, and who was responsible. Her predication
for a future with Jordan Townsend was severed before it had even begun.

Zoe's mobile rang and she
snatched it up from the bed to hit answer.

'Hello.'

'Zoe. It's
Jordan. What time would you like me to pick you up?'

'Um...Pick me
up.'

'For the
barbeque at Mum’s.'

'I'm not going
Jordan. I don't want to see you again. It's over. Not that anything really
started. I'm sorry.' She clicked end. Her fingers trembled, and she dropped the
phone onto the bed. Her entire body tensed. She wanted to say more, but what
was the point? She glanced around her bedroom. Jordan had knocked the wall down
between two bedrooms, and added an ensuite adjoining her room. Everywhere she
looked Jordan's work glared back at her and she hated it.

She didn't eat
dinner, couldn't. The thought of food forced her stomach to squirm with nausea.
Her mind and body were failing her. Wandering about the house didn't ease the
pain, nor did a warm shower.

The word
'trust' wobbled in the dictionary of her mind, and she wondered if she would
ever learn to 'trust' anyone ever again. She doubted it, not after everything
that had hurtled her world into an abyss and kept her there for fifteen years.
Jordan was no exception. For a moment there, she thought... She clenched her
teeth, ground down on them and hissed into the air.

A loud rap on
the front door caused her to jump. The knocking grew louder and she crept
downstairs to peer through the front window. Her breath died in her throat.
Jordan's vehicle nosed into the front fence.

The knocking
continued.

'Zoe. I know
you're home. Can you open the door? We need to talk.'

Over her dead
body. There wasn't anything he could say or do to make her open that door. She
didn't want to speak to him let alone face him. Trapped in between wanting a
man, and hating a man for the careless torching of her parents’ home and brutal
death of her family her insides burnt, heated with an unknown fire. She hated
him for hurting her family... hated... yet something inside kicked up her heart
swelling it with love...impossible. How could she care for a man that ripped
her life out from under her feet, destroyed her childhood, her upbringing and
her family?

And here he
was back for another go - to obliterate her.

'Zoe.' The
rapping continued. 'Please open the door.'

She remained
quiet, tried to still her quivering body.

'I'll knock it
down. Get an electric screwdriver and take the damn door from its hinges.'

Would he do
such a thing?

'I mean it,'
he yelled. 'I won't hesitate.'

Silent moments
followed.

'Zoe. Come on;
open up?'

She wasn't
about to chance having no front door for the entire night and reluctantly
opened the door a crack.

Bad mistake.
One big bad mistake. Moonlight tripped over his hair reflecting its silky
inkiness and shadowed his face before he stepped into the light.

'I need to
speak with you. I'm sorry. I gather you've found out. I was going to tell you,
Zoe.'

'When? Next
year. Two years later or the year after that.' She jammed one hand on her hip,
as nausea rotated in her stomach.

'Can I come
in?'

She glanced at
his booted foot against the front door. 'You're half way in already. Why not?'

He walked in
and she stepped aside, crossing her arms against her chest as he slammed the
door. She shivered and glanced up. Lines furrowed across his forehead, and his
eyes were pools of heartache.

She forced her
lips into a lopsided smirk.

'How about we
sit?'

She lifted her
hand and signalled towards the dining room, then followed him feeling the crush
of heartache, and the impact of his presence. She eased onto a chair and
stiffened when he sat in the chair beside her.

'I wouldn't
have broken down your door.'

'I hope not.'

He smirked.
'Sorry.'

'Apology
accepted.'

'Zoe, I didn't
try to burn the house down. I swear on my son's life. I swear on my parents’
grave. Anyone's. You have to believe me.'

'Why didn't
the police believe you then? Why did they charge you? You...you were charged
with the fire...my parents.' She gasped, struggling to draw in enough oxygen
against a restriction in her throat. 

'Zoe, please
listen? There was another sergeant here at the time. He stayed for six months
and left. No one got on with him, and he had it in for anyone that got in his
way. I think he wanted as many convictions as he could get. I had a box of
matches in my pocket that night. Do you remember when matches would come in
handy? Lighting candles, fires in winter on our pretend camps?'

She nodded.

'That's why I
always carried matches. I wouldn't dream of hurting you, Zoe Never. Or hurting
your parents. It's insane. Mum and Dad believe it wasn't me. My entire family
is and was behind me on this. Half the town, three quarters of the town believe
it wasn't me. I went to prison for something I didn't do, while whoever was and
is responsible got off scott free.'

She tightened
her arms around her waist, as though trying to hold her emotions intact. The
edge in his voice, his plea, hinged with such conviction he seemed to be
telling the truth. When the sergeant told her about his conviction, she wasn't
sure if she'd believed him or not. She'd known Jordan as a child, knew him now,
and he wasn't the type of person to be an arsonist, let alone a murderer. The
Jordan she knew wouldn't ever contemplate of doing something so horrific.

'You have to
believe me. Please?' He reached out, moved a lock of hair from her eyes. 'I
wouldn't purposely hurt you or your family. They were like a second family to
me. Do you remember? I loved them as well, Zoe. Do you hear me? Loved them as
well.'

His voice,
loaded with desperation, while his eyes deepened to the colour of midnight. Had
she overreacted? But wouldn't anyone think and react in a similar manner,
especially one so intense, so close to the heart, and especially being told of
his conviction by a police officer?

'When...when I
found out, it was such a shock. I wanted to believe the sergeant, wanted to
hold someone responsible and put an end to this nightmare. At the same time, I
didn't want it to be you. I'm sorry.' She sniffled, and fought back tears.

'I can well
understand, but I'm no arsonist. I intend to find out who is, if it's the last
thing I do.' He ran a hand through his hair. 'I'll prove to you it wasn't me.'

'The sergeant
said a Molotov cocktail bomb, petrol bomb, may have caused the fire, along with
a few other ideas.'

'They're easy
to make. I didn't want to say anything but now I have to. I have a suspicion
that your aunt might have been involved.'

Zoe
straightened in her chair, raised her eyebrows. 'I do too. But how do we prove
it?'

He reached
over, rested his hand on her arm and moved closer. 'I'm so relieved. I thought
I'd lost you all over again.'

'For a moment
I thought I'd lost you too Jordan. I couldn't face it. I couldn't.'

'I am telling
the truth. I'll prove it to you one day. I'll prove to you that it wasn't me.'

'There's no
need. I believe you. You always carried matches, and always hung around the
house.'

'I'll see what
I can find out. How about we start with Sergeant McPherson tomorrow? We can see
him together. Did he tell you that he has never believed I was guilty, that he
believes I'm innocent?'

'No. I don't
think I gave him a chance. I took off in a bit of a rush. I'd like it if we saw
him together.'

Zoe reached
out to him with both hands and wiggled closer only to slip her arms around his
waist. Jordan wrapped his arms around her shoulders, pulled her closer.

'We'll get
this sorted out once and for all. Before you arrived, I had no idea who the
culprit could possibly be, or where to start looking. It does point to your
aunt, but we have to be careful. She may not be responsible.'

She glanced up
into the sincerity of his eyes knowing and understanding that he didn't hold a
mean bone in his body. He wouldn't harm anyone. That was evident in his
mannerisms, in the way he cared for his son, and for his family. She released a
pent up breath as his lips moved toward hers.

***

Jordan
returned at ten the following morning. Zoe was waiting on the front veranda,
and gave him a wave before taking the steps toward his car.

 He reached
over and opened the passenger door.

'Thanks,' she
said as she climbed in, leaning toward him to exchange a kiss.

She wiggled
back, and clipped on her seatbelt. 'How'd you go this morning with Luke? Did he
ask where you'd been?'

'No. Mum told
him I had some work to do and I was swamped and too tired to drive out to pick
him up. He's pretty content to stay with Mum and Dad. He gets spoilt.' Jordan
chuckled.

Zoe crossed
one jean-clad leg over the other and glanced at the scenery as they headed into
town.

'It must have
been hard for you Jordan...I mean when they thought it was you who set the
house on fire.'

'Harder than
hard. I couldn't believe it. As I said Sergeant McPherson believed me, but he
was only a constable at the time. It was the other sergeant in charge, a
Sergeant Banner. Greg Banner. I'll never forget his name. He had it in for me
the second he knew I was at the scene of the fire that night. He was more ego
driven than the rest of them. He didn't blink and automatically assumed I was
the arsonist. He made up all sorts of evidence. Even when the city detectives
arrived up here for the case, Banner fed them false information and false
evidence. The 'D's' were convinced. '

'I'm so sorry.
How long did you spend in prison?

'I went to
juvenile detention for three years until I was eighteen. After that it was
three years doing hard time. It was tough. I barely got through. If it wasn't
for Mum and Dad, and Jade well, I don't know where I would have ended up.'

Zoe shook her
head, and tears filled her eyes. She blinked them away.

'I had no
idea. I'm sorry.'

'It's in the
past now. I was on parole for five years. Thank God that ended when I was
twenty-six. The thing is we both did it tough. Your sentence was far longer
than mine.' He forced a grin to his lips.

'It wasn't too
bad after I turned eighteen. My aunt laid off a bit and her partner didn't
spend much time at the house. If it wasn't for the family next door life would
have been pretty empty. They were kind.'

'I'm pleased
to hear that.' He shot her a wink, and her heart skipped a beat.

'Did the
police ask you about me? Wonder where I went?'

Jordan
chuckled. 'Did they ever? They thought someone else was with me, an accomplice.
They asked me what I had done with you. Imagine that? Here I was in love with a
girl and they were saying I did away with you.' He shook his head. 'The entire
case was warped.'

Zoe slipped a
hand to her stomach. 'When I got my memory back I never imagined anything like
that happening. We have to clear your name.'

'Your belief
in me is good for now Zoe. If your aunt had anything to do with torching the
house we'll find out somehow.'

'I'm praying
we'll find out. I need to put it behind me, us, so we get on with our life.'

'I agree.'

Jordan
reversed into the kerb, and jammed on the handbrake. He turned off the ignition
and they walked into the police station.

A bell
tinkled, and Zoe glanced over to where Jordan had given the silver bell sitting
on the reception desk a ring. A few moments later and a voice caught their
attention.

'Jordan. Zoe.
I've been expecting you. Come in.'

Sergeant
McPherson stood at the end of the hallway and Zoe approached him.

'Hey Jordan.
How's things going?'

'Andy. Good
thanks and you?'

The men
exchanged a solid handshake and Zoe was surprised by the admiration in the sergeant's
eyes.

'Zoe.'

She shook his
hand. 'Hello Sergeant.'

'Andy,
remember.' He smiled. 'Come on in, through here.'

They followed
him into his office, and sat down in front of his desk. He took a seat opposite
them.

'I've been
going over some of the files on the case.' He directed his attention to Jordan.
'I was a probationary constable at the time, therefore I had to follow orders
from Sergeant Banner. I didn't necessarily believe in everything that went
down. You know how it goes. I didn't believe for a start that you were guilty.
But as I said I was a young fella. Carrying a box of matches, and being at the
scene of the crime, especially when you were practically family didn't add up.'

'Thanks, Andy.
What we want to know is anything surrounding Zoe's aunt. She was in town three
days before the fire. She met up with Zoe's mother.'

'Not much we
can add to that. They had coffee here in town. The aunt left in a huff and
that's all we know.'

Zoe shook her
head. 'Did she really leave? I have a feeling she's been hiding something for
the last fifteen years. She's so vindictive. Something has set that in place.
The fact is she was at the house the night of the fire. That woman dragged me
away from everything I had ever known.'

'So it was
your aunt? Was she responsible?'

Zoe
reluctantly nodded.

'You were
under fifteen, a minor. We have to go after her.'

'Oh God no. I
don't want her to know where I am. There's no telling what she or her partner
will do.'

'We can say we
have found you, that you're safe. She doesn't have to find out where you're
living.'

'Zoe's been
through a nightmare Andy. She's lived like a slave with this woman for years.'

'I think I'll
head to Tamworth and see her myself. I'll tell her I'm from Tamworth Station,
and take a few of the local guys with me.'