apter 205 Craving The Warmth
<i>Does </i>it always <i>follow </i><i>that </i><i>the </i><i>colder </i><i>one </i><i>bes</i><i>, </i><i>the </i><i>more </i><i>ravenously </i><i>one </i><i>longs </i><i>for </i><i>warmth</i>? <i>And </i><i>once </i><i>that </i><i>long- </i><i>sought </i><i>warmth </i><i>finally </i><i>settles </i><i>into </i><i>one’s </i><i>palms</i>, <i>it </i><i>grows </i><i>all </i><i>the </i><i>harder </i><i>to </i><i>surrender </i><i>it</i>.
He murmured in a voice so soft it was nearly lost to the night, “Quinn, I’ll find your brother.”
<i>Maybe </i><i>only </i><i>after </i><i>I’ve </i><i>located </i><i>Rowan </i>will <i>I </i><i>have </i><i>the </i><i>courage </i><i>to </i><i>tell </i><i>her </i><i>everything</i>.
A few dayster, apanied by herwyer, Quinn atst came face–to–face with the teenager who had kidnapped Sidonie.
Standing here without the mask he had worn during the livestream, the boy looked slender–thin to the point of seeming fragile–and the delicate lines of his face were a far cry from the menacing expression he had aimed at Sidonie that day.
The difference was so stark it was hard to believe this was the same person at all.
“I heard you wanted to see me?” Quinn asked.
“Yes.” Caleb Lamont fixed his gaze on her, unblinking. “I want to know why you’re helping me. I know Mr. Griffin is only defending me because of you.”
He had seen Quinn before, both on Whitethorn Ind andter at the orphanage. Although Andrew Griffin was the Whitethorn family’swyer, Caleb was well aware of the rumors the media spun about Julius.
He had even asked Andrew outright why he had taken this case. The reply had been brief. <i>Mr. </i><i>Whitethorn </i><i>is </i><i>helping </i><i>at </i><i>someone’s </i><i>request</i><i>. </i>
After turning it over in his mind, Caleb concluded that the only person close enough to Julius to make such a request was Quinn; only then would Julius instruct Andrew to defend him.
“I simply felt you needed help,” Quinn said.
Suspicion clouded Caleb’s eyes. “So what do you want from me?”
He had met far too many adults whose kindness came with a price tag. Charity events served to polish reputations, and orphanage visits were merely stages on which to parade their supposed benevolence.
“I don’t need anything,” Quinn replied. “I just don’t want you to ruin your life in the process of chasing the
truth.”
“And you’re really that kind?” Caleb’s wariness never left his face.
Quinn let out a smallugh. “If it will set you at ease, assume I’m not that kind. Maybe one day I’ll ask you for something–but that will have to wait until you’re free again.”
She had turned to leave when Caleb suddenly called after her, “Wait! If you truly mean well, I want you to clear my father’s name!”
With that, right there in the visitation room of the detention center, Caleb dropped to his knees before her.
Quinn froze in astonishment; the guard beside them hurried forward and pulled Caleb back to his feet.
She signaled the guard to stand down, then said to Caleb, “Whatever you have to say, say it straight. There’s no need to kneel.”
Caleb gave a bitter smile. Speak inly? Back then, when he had spoken inly, no one had believed a word he said.
Everyone had dismissed his words as the ramblings of a desperate child.
Even when he had knelt before those same people, begging them to investigate the truth, they had driven him away.
#
His father was already dead, and the dead could not cry out for justice.
But Caleb knew his father had been framed.
“Everyone said the fire was my father’s fault,” Caleb said, his voice trembling yet stubborn. “They imed he was smoking, that a single ash started the ze and it spread out of control. But he’d promised me he’d quit. When my father made a promise, he kept it. So it couldn’t have been him who caused the fire!”
Quinn knit her brows; back when that devastating fire had broken out, she had sifted through every news report she could find, so of course she also knew that the Fire Commission had ultimately ruled the ze was started by a cigarette butt that had not been fully extinguished.
Because the first person to perish had been the co–pilot, Howard Lamont. Investigators, taking that fact together with other pieces of evidence, finally concluded that he had been smoking, failed to snuff the cigarette, and in doing so ignited the inferno.
“Even if he promised you he would quit, there’s no guarantee he wouldn’t have slipped up and lit one anyway,” Quinn said.
“No way!” Caleb insisted. “When my dad gave me his word, he kept it. Besides, doctors had already found a ground–ss nodule in his lung, and it was in such a tricky spot they couldn’t operate. He told me he wanted to live longer so he could watch me grow up–he absolutely stopped smoking!”
By the end, his voice grew hoarse. “Please, Ms. Bridger, I’m begging you–clear my dad’s name. I don’t want him to carry a crime he nevermitted to his grave!”
As Quinn studied the teenager before her, she couldn’t help thinking that the fire might well be tied to Rowan’s disappearance.
There wasn’t any direct evidence yet, but her brother had gone missing right after the ze.
If the fire hadn’t been started by the co–pilot, then who was responsible?
She wanted the truth every bit as much as Caleb did.
“All right, I’ll take a look,” Quinn agreed, “but I can’t promise the oue will be what you’re hoping for.”
After all, five full years had slipped by; even if evidence had once existed, it might already have been erased.
And with the co–pilot gone, many details could no longer be rified.