Page 107 of Jack

Elton howled.

“Calm down. You’re not hurt—yet.”

Scuffling. Jack looked over to find Job fleeing through the side door.

Steinbeck took off behind him.

That would be a race he’d like to watch. Instead, Jack looked down at Elton. “Let’s do this again. You torched my schoolie today. Why?”

“It was an accident!”

Elton was struggling, so Jack pressed his knee against his lower back. “Calm down and I’ll let you go.”

Elton had an opinion on that that Jack suspected his mother might not like.

“Fine—it was an accident. What do you mean?”

“We were hired to fire the other car. We missed.”

“You missed?—”

“Yeah, okay. We threw a rock—it bounced off the car and hit your window. It broke. We blew up the other car—but then Job said that we needed to cover up our fingerprints, so he threw in the firecracker. It was a junker, dude. Seriously—we thought it was abandoned.”

No comment. “Who hired you?”

“This guy—I don’t know his name. We met him at Echoes.”

“When?”

“Thursday morning. He gave us each five hundred bucks to torch the car. That’s all I know.”

“Thursday.” Jack sighed, rolled off him, let him go.

Elton scrambled away rubbing his arm. “What’s your problem?”

“My problem is that I’m homeless, thanks to you.”

And right then, the front door banged open. “Down, get down!”

Jack turned, his hands up, and Jenna came in, followed by a cadre of local deputies. She held a gun. “Jack. What are you doing here?”

“I’m having a chat with?—”

“He assaulted me!” Elton pointed at him. “He hurt my arm!”

Jenna lowered her gun. Sighed. Then looked at Elton. “Yeah, well, you’re both under arrest.”

“What?” Jack practically shouted.

“Elton Bridges, you’re under arrest for arson. And you”—she turned to Jack—“are under arrest for obstruction of justice.”

“I haven’t obstructed anything.” He turned as Jenna pushed him to the island. “We were just chatting.”

“How about trespassing?” she said.

“I didn’t?—”

“We received a panic-button alert,” said someone behind him. He glanced over—Eagle River security.