Confrontations

"So, where do we go from here?" Jean asked, not looking at me.

"I don't know about you, but I'm going home," I joked. It was a weak, feeble joke but I wasn't sure exactly what I should say. What could I say?

We were driving back to our town, our work, our lives after a fairly magical Thanksgiving vacation. I knew, though, that vacations never lasted and that they always ended up as these ephemeral visions of happier times that were pulled out and looked at in the coming days, months and years. I wish it were otherwise, but life was what consumed your days between vacations. Vacations were just "time outs" from the rat race of life.

I couldn't deny that things had changed during this last vacation though. I was coming back different than when I'd left. I think we both were and I also knew that, for better or worse, there was no going back. The differences between now and then were just too great. Isn't that just how life is?

I'd come to terms with what I'd done, for one thing. I'd lived inside my head for so long, for all of those 3 months, I never realized it was firmly lodged up my ass. I'd come close, so close, to being this rotten, evil thing. The end, though, seemed so hollow – not the satisfaction I'd been looking for. Sure, it'd turned out exactly how I'd planned, almost to the letter, but it hadn't alleviated my suffering at all. If anything, it made me feel worse – guilty. I didn't like that ... so I'd set it aside. I'd swallowed it, burying it deep inside of me. Deep enough, I hoped, so that I'd never become that thing again.

Then there was Jean. We'd spent the past 4 nights and even some of the days making love. I think, if I were being honest, that I'd prefer to say we were fucking or having sex ... but I knew better. The closeness we shared, the tenderness, the passion – it was more than just a physical act for either of us. There was a light in her eyes when she looked at me, a gentle twist around her lips, a softness to her smile that told me that I was not the only one falling into love here.

And. That. Terrified. Me.

I wasn't fully over Amber. I knew I should be, I wanted to be ... but I wasn't. I loved her still, despite what she'd done to me. I so wished I could turn that part of me off, could just let it go – but I couldn't. I wasn't IN love with her anymore, I didn't even particularly like her anymore, yet I still loved her. What kind of future could Jean and I have with another woman sharing my heart? What kind of fucked up human being was I that I couldn't let go of my wife after she destroyed me?

The future. God. I wish that I could quit fucking thinking about the future.

I loved Jean. I was IN LOVE with Jean. I knew this in the very depths of my soul. Yes, I was worried about rebounding or about moving into a relationship so soon after my divorce but I couldn't help the way I felt. The problem was that Jean deserved so much better than me. She deserved someone who would love her unconditionally, with all of their heart. Right now, that wasn't me. Maybe one day it could be ... but not right now.

Damn. Things left unsaid and undone. What the fuck was I doing?

The confrontation with Anderson that I'd been half dreading, half looking forward to never materialized. I wasn't too happy about that. It felt like I was leaving something unfinished, something that could potentially bite all of us in the ass. I think it was Sun Tsu who said "Never leave an enemy behind you" ... or maybe it was Shaka Zulu. Either way, I felt that I'd not only left an enemy behind, but given him the key to our war room.

Anderson and I'd mainly just ignored each other for all of Thursday though there had been some glowering across the Thanksgiving table when no one was looking. Shortly after dinner, Rachel and he had left; evidently he had to get back to school for football practice early Friday morning. I watched Jean as they drove away feeling strangely unfulfilled and empty. The dichotomy of my life, again; I felt both happy that she didn't have to put up with that ass but also saddened that now she had to worry about her older sister.

I didn't approve of what she was doing. We talked about it and I tried to get her to go to her father or her mother, to let them know what was going on. I played on her worries and fear, asked her what kind of life Rachel would have if Anderson was willing to rape her sister? She was adamant, though, quickly countering by asking me what kind of life Rachel would have if her father was in prison for killing her boyfriend? What kind of life would the baby have if he was without a father or grandfather?

I didn't like it ... I told her I didn't like it. It was the closest we came to an argument, I think. In the end, though, she had to do what she thought was best. I hated it. I hated not being able to tell her father but I had to recognize that it was her decision; I hadn't earned the right to interfere. I just hoped she wasn't making a big mistake ... even though, deep down inside, I knew that she was.

Of course, even with Anderson out of the way and Jean and I making love 3, 4 and sometimes 5 times a day, life wasn't all roses. I kept running into Olivia. In the halls, in the kitchen, even out on the porch; every time I turned around, she was there. She'd give me this secretive little smile that made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. It was never anything overt; she never flirted, never made a suggestive comment. It was just seeing her, looking into her knowing eyes and watching them giggle back at me ... it made me uncomfortable in a way I couldn't quite explain.

"I mean, what are we going to do about us?" Jean asked more pointedly, breaking into my reverie. Her voice was almost a sigh of exasperation. "You and I? I've ... I know it's only been a few days but ... I've ... I've kind of gotten used to ... being with you ... I don't want it to end..."

I glanced over at her, her earnest expression, the mixture of hope and fear in her beautiful green eyes. I started to say something and then stopped, unsure of myself. Her question, and all that it implied, wasn't so simple I could make an off the cuff judgement. Was I ready to move from one relationship into another? Could I devote myself to Jean, knowing of all the parts and pieces of my previous life floating around? Was this even something I wanted right now?

It was the last question which brought things into clarity for me. I firmly believe that there are only so many chances and opportunities in life and that if you don't take them, you end up missing out. Jean was ... special; special in a way that I was only barely able to fathom. No matter how badly I wanted to be on the inside, to be in a family, to be part of a household, I was NOT one to allow people in. Perhaps my whole viewpoint on life was jaded but I'd grown up in places that could make Hell look pleasant; many of the people I'd dealt with in my life were the kind that could make you believe in literal evil. Of necessity, I'd built walls around me, walls to keep me safe, walls to keep people away. For Jean to get inside as she had ... I couldn't just ignore that. I hadn't let her in ... she'd just appeared ... and it wasn't because of loneliness or what had happened between Amber and I– I believed that. Hell, as much as I'd analyzed things in the past few days, I literally KNEW that.

Jean was ... an opportunity; one I might never get again. She was bright, funny, charming, beautiful, graceful, kind ... she was everything anyone could ever hope for in a partner. She was ... inside ... my heart and I wasn't sure I wanted to endure the pain it would cause to remove her.

I had to grab this ... this chance ... to be happy. It was a lot to risk – my heart, my sanity – but there were so many rewards, so many possibilities. Just the chance that I might be happy ... that was worth the risk, wasn't it?

I slowed the car and pulled over onto the shoulder of the road. It was a calculated effort to show her that I was taking this chance, and her, very seriously. Besides, I didn't want the distraction of the road to interfere.

"I'd like that," I said quietly, turning to her as the car came to a complete stop. Her expression, once filled with worry, relaxed and the smile on her face was like the sun emerging from a stormy sky. "These past few days have been ... special, to me." I looked down, trying to find the words. "I'm not sure ... I can't tell you ... I don't know what's going to happen. I'm ... I'm not used ... to this. I ... you ... I don't know how, exactly ... but you've ... it's like you ... you're..." I trailed off, the words not coming easily to me. I didn't do well with emotions like this. It was too intangible, too ephemeral. It was like the wind, something I couldn't grab hold of and control.

I swallowed, realizing without really thinking about it that I was on the verge of tears and wondering why. "These past few days have been ... they've been wonderful. They've been ... I just ... I don't want them to end either. I know ... well, I know that it ... uh ... it can't be exactly like the past few days. I mean, I know this was a vacation ... that it wasn't ... well, it's not real life, you know? Maybe, we can ... we can ... alternate ... or ... I know things aren't ... things can't be like that all the time ... but ... I'd like ... I'm hoping ... maybe we can ... I don't know ... go on dates ... just... BE together..."

I wasn't even finished before she reached for me, pulling me across the seat divide, her lips mashing into my own. I'm not sure how, but as our kiss devolved into passion and promises, I could actually feel the happiness welling from her, driving off her in waves. It was the most unusual and one of the most erotic things I'd ever felt in my life. There was some kind of connection there, beyond what we'd shared in the previous few days, a tether that somehow linked us. I couldn't explain it ... and, to be honest, I didn't want to. I didn't want to be rational in those few minutes, her lips pressed tightly to my own, her tongue insistently finding my own.

It was past the half-way point where we'd taken a snack, a bathroom break, and swapped driving duties that I allowed the real world to come crashing down on me. I'd been avoiding it as long as I could, wanting to remain in that dream that was this past vacation for as long as possible ... but I knew I couldn't avoid it forever. With a forlorn little sigh, I reached into my jacket pocket and pulled out my cell phone.

I'd turned it off before going to bed on Tuesday, knowing that if I didn't I'd be inundated with calls. I knew what was coming, knew that I'd eventually have to face it, but resolved to wait as long as possible. It had been part of my plan, actually, turning the phone off ... letting people wonder where I was, what I'd been up to. Now, though ... now it was time to face what I'd been avoiding.

I had 117 missed calls over the past 5 days and at least 80 messages ... there may have been more, but my mailbox was full at that point. Many of the calls were from Amber – she had tried using her cell, Dave's cell, Dave's home phone, Maddie's cell and her parents' phones – both cell and home. Beyond that, there were a bunch of numbers I didn't recognize, of course, probably from news stations and the like, maybe even from the police, possibly even Amber calling with friend's phones or the like.

The bad news was that I couldn't just delete all of the messages because they might have been work related. The good news was that I could get the envelope information before listening to the message so I could delete as many calls from Amber as I could recognize from the phone number. For the numbers I didn't recognize, I had to listen to at least the first part of the message.

I was right that Amber had used phone numbers I wouldn't recognize but as soon as I heard her voice – her crying, lying voice – I deleted the message. As soon as I could figure out the call came from a news station, I deleted the message. There weren't any from the police, though I had to admit that some of the reporters got creative enough to make me think they were from the police station. There were two that concerned me ... from the fire marshal. I was about ready to delete them, thinking they were from some news reporter trying a new angle, when they mentioned a fire at my house ... my old house ... and my own sense of concern caused me to listen to them.

I debated for a while about just forgetting about those messages but in the end I just couldn't. They both came from the same number and the voice purporting to be the fire marshal sounded very officious. Biting the bullet, I decided to call the number back; if it turned out I was wrong and it WAS a reporter, I could always just hang up.

"Fire Department, main terminal, deputy Mosson speaking," the deep, baritone answered after only a few rings.

"Hi, my name is Marc Breuster and I'm returning a call from Fire Marshall Akins," I replied.

"Sorry, Mr. Breuster but Marshall Akins is off today," the man said politely. "He won't be back in the office until Tuesday. Can I take a message?"

"Um, he called me about a fire ... at my home?" I questioned. With everything else running through my mind, it hadn't even hit me that I was calling up a Fire Marshall on Sunday. Still, I couldn't ignore the tightening in my gut and the tension in my own jaw. I had a really bad feeling about this.

"Oh, what's the address?" he responded, his interest picking up. There was a brief silence as I listened to computer keys click in the background while I gave him my address. "Here it is," he said, finally. "Marshall Akins attempted to call you twice after the fire."

"I was out of town and had my phone turned off," I replied, a little unnerved. This wasn't a reporter then. It was real. And that meant... "As a matter of fact, I'm still out of town ... I won't be back for a few hours. Can you ... can you tell me about the fire?"

"Yes, of course," the deputy replied evenly. "I hope you understand that I can't provide any confidential information but I can give you the basics. We were called by a neighbor to your home at 1:18am early Thursday morning. We arrived at 1:27am and stayed till about 3:15am putting out the fire. Marshall Akins was in charge of the evaluation and concluded the fire was deliberately set – multiple flash points at various places in the house but the same accelerant used in each case ... kerosene."

"How ... how much damage?" I asked. I could feel the heat of my anger running through me yet again. I could feel the rage roaring through me, filling me, making everything in my sight turn red. Strangely, though, I wasn't reveling in that rage this time. It wasn't consuming me completely. I could see it, sense it, acknowledge it ... but it was curiously hollow; it filled me, had my heart racing, but it didn't seem to be as important for some reason. It wasn't completely overriding me like it always had before.

"I'm afraid that he garage is the only thing left standing, Mr. Breuster," the deputy responded compassionately. "There were just too many starting points."

"I ... I understand," I replied through gritted teeth. I was angry, raging, but I was still able to think, still able to keep part of me separate. It was a victory, of sorts; I'd never been able to do this before. Maybe I was maturing ... or maybe, after what Amber had done to me, this didn't seem as bad somehow.

Amber. She had to be behind this. Not content with merely ripping my life from me, from taking my home from me symbolically, she had to take it from me physically as well. She'd pay for this ... I swear to god, she'd pay.

"Are you planning on being at the house anytime soon, Mr. Breuster?" the deputy asked.

I glanced at the clock and did some quick calculations in my head. "Probably around 5pm this evening," I replied, my mind still awash with anger and revenge.

"Okay," the deputy replied. He was silent for a second. "I'll meet you there at 5pm, then. I didn't do the actual investigation, but I can get the pertinent data from the reports."

"Thank you, I'll see you then," I said, my mind on other things. It never even occurred to me to ask why he wanted to meet me at the house.

"That stupid fucking bitch!" I snarled as I pressed the end button on my cell. I felt ... strange. I could feel the anger, sense the rage, but it was almost like it wasn't making it up to my brain. I felt as if I was in complete control, even through the rage. I snarled not so much in response to that towering anger but almost because I felt like I was supposed to snarl when I was this angry.

"What happened?" Jean asked, concern almost dripping from her words.

"That was the ... well, it was the fire department," I said, looking out my window. The rage was receding; I was still upset but not all of it was anger. Maybe because I was expecting some kind of retaliation, maybe because I'd been angry for so long that I was inured to the effects, maybe because things had changed for me recently but I found it hard to maintain that anger. "Someone burned down my house."

"Oh, god, Marc..." she said, her hand automatically grabbing my own.

"it's okay," I smiled at her absently, squeezing her hand even as I pressed my speed dial. "I'll take care of it."

"Diamond Investigations, Johnny Diamond speaking," an almost whining, sycophantic voice answered.

"Who was it, Johnny?" I asked dispassionately, closing my eyes but clutching almost desperately to Jean's hand. I have to admit that I almost didn't want to make this call. I'd lived in the sewer of my rage-filled thoughts for so long and ... I didn't want to go back. Maybe that was the difference, the reason that my rage had no hold on me. I had Jean now – a light in the darkness of my anger – and I didn't want to go back to what I'd been. "Who torched my house?"

I couldn't let this pass, of course. I had to retaliate. I couldn't let them think they'd won in any way ... but maybe my retaliation could be tempered. Maybe, if it didn't come from anger, maybe I could find an end to this.

"Boss, I swear it wasn't any of 'em," Johnny replied. I swear his voice was like fingernails on a chalkboard. "I had eyes on all of 'em, taps on they phone, everything. Dave was in jail when it happened, Amber was hiding with her folks in they house ... Marc, it can't have been any of 'em."

"What about Maddie?" I asked, thinking quickly. "She gave the reporters the slip."

"Boss," the whiny voice said deprecatingly. "My men ain't reporters, got me? That li'l tramp wadn't given my guys the slip. She had some neighbor play dress up in her clothes, but my guys didn't fall for it. They waited for her to come out and then tailed her ... she went right to the bus station. We didn't follow her once she hopped on the bus ... no need, you know? But we made damn sure she was on that bus. When I found out, I even thought maybe, you know, she hopped off the bus later ... but I checked up on her credit cards an shit ... she spent the night at a motel about two hunnerd miles away, hopped a bus the next morning that arrived in her brudder's home town and then took a cab to her brudder's house at three the next afternoon."

"Shit," I said softly. "Could they have hired someone?"

"Thought a that, boss," Johnny replied. "I had all they phones tapped ... they didn't make any call to anyone that mattered. Hell, they couldn't make a call out, most a de time ... the reporters was hounding them all day Wednesday and most a Thursday ... it couldn't a been them."

"Okay, Johnny, thanks," I said. "Anything else?"

"Well, the suit you got for her folks got gram and gramps custody by Friday," Johnny continued, obviously reading from his notes. "She's still dere, so that was something we didn't think of ... thought they'd kick her to the curb, you know, but ... other than that, things went more or less as planned."

"Anything from the police?" I asked, more curious than worried. My mind wasn't really on the conversation anymore, I was trying to think of who could have burned down my house. If it hadn't been Amber or her relatives, then who? The only other person I could think of with motive was Anderson but he'd still been at Jean's parents' house on Wednesday night/Thursday morning. Of course, he could have called someone...

"Boss," Johnny said patiently. "I been tellin' ya ... you didn't do nothing wrong, legal-wise. Everything was on the up and up. Closest you came woulda been having my people pretend to be cops ... but I found a way around that and didn't have to. You didn't break the law at all. Matter of fact, only illegal thing was the phone tap ... and I done that on my own. You're clear..."

"Okay," I remarked absently. "Keep me informed. See if you can find out who torched the house."

"A course, Marc," Johnny said confidently as I thumbed the end button again.

There wasn't much talk the rest of the way back. I was stuck in my own head, trying to figure out who would burn the house down but I didn't come up with any answers. Maybe it was just a random thing, maybe some kids decided to have fun with an abandoned house ... but I just couldn't get myself to buy it. Something felt ... off ... to me. Wrong. The timing was too near to my revenge for it to be completely random. Somehow, one of Amber's relatives had done this ... I just didn't know how.

Jean gave me space, though she held my hand for most of the drive. It was comforting and helped to keep the edge of my anger away from me. My thoughts, though, were just becoming more and more muddled.

Johnny was very thorough; if he said that this wasn't done by Amber or her family, I had to believe him. All that meant, though, was that somehow one of them had outsmarted him; not hard to do, Johnny was good but not all that intelligent. Based on his surveillance, I had to believe that the house hadn't been burned directly by any of Amber's family. That meant they could have called to have it done ... except Johnny had their phones tapped and their cell phones cloned.

The only wild card at all was Maddie – but she was 200 hundred miles away when it happened. For a brief moment, I thought maybe she'd called someone from the motel but I nixed that almost immediately. Even if she could have found someone to set fire to the house on such short notice, Johnny surely would have noticed any calls placed from her motel room. Maybe if she used a pay phone ... but that still left the question of who she could find on such short notice to burn down a house. Granted, I was sure Maddie could have pulled it off given time ... but she hadn't had that much time to do it.

I hadn't made any progress at all as Jean pulled up to my former home shortly after 5pm. I couldn't help but echo Jean's gasp ... there really wasn't anything left. Some blackened, burnt wall studs standing up and some of the brickwork in various places but not much else. The walls of the garage were mostly intact, but the roof of the structure was nothing more than a skeleton-work of blackened fingers clawing at the sky. Everything else lay on the floor, a large heap of ashy rubble.

We were met by two men – the first was in a sweatshirt with the fire department logon at the breast. He was rather tall, though not as tall as me, and about my own age or a few years older. The other man was older, late 30's at least, slightly over-weight and wearing a rumpled suit with a tie that hung from his open collar. While the fireman was actually clean cut and well-shaven with brown hair that bordered on blonde, the older man was grizzled with a cheesy brown moustache and short but unkempt mousy brown hair.

"Mr. Breuster, I'm Deputy Mosson," the younger man said, stretching forward his hand and shaking mine firmly. "We spoke on the phone. This is Detective Colton; in situations involving arson, we have to notify the police and I knew that Detective Colton wanted to speak with you."

I grabbed Detective Colton's hand and gripped it firmly. His hands were far softer than I expected but his grip was firm and steady. "I'm sorry to bring both of you out here on a Sunday. I'm not sure I'll be much help; I've been out of town for most of the past 3 months, though I was back in town briefly last Sunday. I haven't been to the house in 3 months, though."

Detective Colton pulled out a notebook and started writing in it. "Out of town, you say? Where've you been the past three months?"

"Well, Rochester, New York until last Sunday," I replied, a little on edge by Detective Colton's scrutiny. "I own a consulting firm and was doing some consulting for Avondale Pharmaceuticals. Since Sunday, I've been with my girl ... uh ... friend ... here ... Jean Malone."

"You don't sound so sure," Colton replied, looking at me intently.

"The girlfriend thing is a bit new," Jean smiled, raising her eyebrows at me. "He has been with me at my parent's house over 400 miles away the past week, though."

"Can anyone else corroborate that?" Colton asked Jean and I, his tone suspicious.

"My mom and dad were there and both of my sisters," Jean replied, her hand suddenly holding mine.

"I'll need their number to corroborate," he said and Jean gave him the number which he diligently wrote in his little notebook.

"Do you have any enemies that might do something like this, Mr. Breuster?" he asked, turning to me again.

"My ex-wife comes to mind but ... I don't think she would do this," I replied, looking around with a heavy heart at what remained of my home.

"Did she have equity in the house?" Colton asked, writing more in his notebook.

"No, she walked away from all that," I replied, trying to see what the Detective was writing.

"Did she ... wait ... Breuster ... weren't you married to Amber Creston?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yes, she's my ex-wife," I explained.

"So, you're the one?" Colton scowled as he flipped his notebook shut. "I already know how this one's going to play out. One of you did it but I'll never be able to prove it. Either you did it for the insurance or she did it to get back at you which, to be honest, you deserved anyway. Either way, it's a waste of my time."

"Excuse me, officer," I grunted, more than a little ticked off at his dismissive nature. Granted, he was probably right, there was likely no way he'd be able to trace it back to Amber and her family but he could still investigate. Maybe there was something, anything, that pointed to the culprit. "I still want you to look into this. I still want someone's ass for doing this to me."

"I'm sure you do, Mr. Breuster," Colton replied, looking me in the eye. "If you did it, you need my report for the insurance to get your money, if your wife did it then you'll be wanting to exact another pound of flesh from her. Don't worry about me, I'll do my job." He held out his card to me. "Call the precinct tomorrow and you'll get your report number."

I grabbed the card angrily and stuffed it in my pocket. "Between you and I, though," he said as he turned away. "What you did was wrong ... and I think even you know it, down deep..."

Deputy Mosson showed Jean and I around the remains of my house ... what little was left of it. Whoever had done this, did it well. There was nothing left but a burned out husk. All my belongings were gone, burned to a crisp.

It wasn't until we reached the garage that I realized the extent of the hatred that had resulted in the burnt shell around me.

Whoever had done this was very good. The garage hadn't been over-looked, it was left standing on purpose. Each of the walls were spray-painted with various epithets ranging from "cocksucker" to "motherfucker" to "dickhead" and everything in between. The storage boxes in the garage, some things I'd kept with me since my parents' deaths, were burned and useless. The Audi that Amber used was destroyed, all of the windows shattered, the tires slashed the motor ripped apart and even the interior hacked with what must have been an axe or something. Nothing was left intact – but it hadn't been completely consumed either. Whoever had done this had intended for me to see this.

There was no doubt in my mind that Amber or a member of her family had done this. What galled me most was that they were better than I was; my plans had taken me months of careful planning and they'd managed to pull this together in a few hours with basically the same results – no one could definitively say either of us had done anything. The big difference was that I'd done nothing patently illegal despite how Detective Colton felt while I was pretty certain arson was against the law.

Who could have done this, though? Which one of them? Johnny had been extremely reliable until now so I had to assume he did due diligence on everything ... but I rejected the conclusion that none of them had done it. Someone had outsmarted Johnny, that was all.

"What are you going to do now?" Jean asked quietly, her hand still in mine.

"Nothing I can do right now," I said back simply. Even the words left a sour taste in my mouth. I wanted someone to pay for this. I wanted to hurt somebody for...

I took a deep breath. This was a slippery slope and I didn't want to fall down that rabbit hole again. This wasn't over. I'd find out who did this eventually and then I'd finish this but obsessing over it wouldn't buy me that resolution. In fact, if the recent past were any indication, revenge wouldn't buy me anything at all. Even that left a sour taste in my mouth ... I wanted someone to pay.