“Because you didn’t want to get caught,” she inferred. Anger was simmering now, melting some of the ice in her veins. Anger was her least favorite emotion, the one she avoided at all costs. But just now, trying to square the look in Casey’s eyes with the facts he was telling her . . . She was pissed, yeah. “Only because if you did get caught, and somebody had gotten hurt, you’d probably be in way more trouble.”
“Yes, because of that. But because I didn’t want to hurt anybody, period. We were careful. We made sure no other buildings were in danger of going up. We made sure there were no people around, no pets in the buildings. Hell, I did industrial jobs where we had to make sure we weren’t going to release a load of toxic smoke too close to a residential neighborhood. We were careful,” he repeated. “If anybody suffered, it was the multibillion-dollar insurance industry, and they’re a load of cons themselves.”
“But somebody could have,” she said. “A firefighter could’ve been hurt or killed, responding to what you did. They could’ve gotten trapped and died, had a ceiling collapse on them, or . . .” She was about panting now, feeling suffocated. “I can’t help but imagine it was my grampa or my uncle Hal who was in there. What could’ve happened to them.”
“Don’t picture a fire like you see on TV. We accepted these jobs because they were ripe for it. Remote, or out in industrial areas, dead after dark.”
“But you couldn’t know that something wouldn’t go wrong. That somebody wouldn’t get hurt. This was in Texas. You could’ve started a wildfire.”
His smile was weak, and definitely guilty now. “No, I suppose you can’t ever know for sure. All I know is that it all worked out. Every single job.”
She felt hot all over, agitated and verging on out of control. She hated this feeling. This feeling had made an addict out of her, made her want to feel nothing, rather than sit in the discomfort of her own emotions. She focused on other questions, to keep in control of herself.
“Who’s we? Who did you work with?”
“Small teams. Very small. I did the research and all the planning and set the fires. I worked with one of two drivers, who got me and the materials in and out, and monitored the police scanner. And then another one of us was in charge of brokering the deals—finding the jobs, setting the terms, working with me to pick the right time for it to all go down. Three people per job, just four of us, total, that I ever worked with. Though the woman who did the brokering, she worked with more teams than just the one I was on.”
“Woman?” Why was that so especially disconcerting?
Because we’re raised to be kind. To care about people and want to keep them safe. Raised to defer and be good and please others. Especially men. Though where exactly had those values landed Abilene, anyhow?
Casey nodded. “Yeah, she’s a woman. My partner.”
“How long did you work together?”
“A little over three years.”
“When was the last . . . job you did?” Job. That word tasted sarcastic on her tongue. Sour.
“End of June, last year.”
“And what was it? Where, and what kind of a building or whatever?”
Another apologetic smile. “I can’t tell you that. That’s beyond just my own business. But I can tell you that nobody got hurt, and the client got paid. So did we. I used a lot of that money to buy into Benji’s with Duncan, and some I gave to Vince, to help with our mother.”
She froze. So her wages were paid in dirty money. Jesus, she’d thought she’d moved past all this when she’d put her foot down with James, told him he had to go straight. But all this time, every bag of groceries Casey had brought her, every check she’d let him pay in the diner . . . Every single one of those dollars could’ve left somebody dead. Somebody who’d dedicated their own life to helping others, at their own risk.
Christ, she had fuck-all clue what to do with any of this.
“Say something,” Casey prompted after a minute’s silence. “You’re making me nervous.”
“You . . . But all of this is over, right?”
“Yeah, I’d say so.”