Perfectly Matched
few months ago that Sean and Sam weren’t blood brothers, but had been adopted by the same family as teenagers. Sean didn’t talk much of his early years—especially the time after his mother died and he’d been placed in the foster care system.
    After they’d been adopted, they flourished under the care of the Donahues. Both graduated high school and college. Sam joined the military while Sean followed his adopted father’s footsteps and became a firefighter.
    Sam eventually left military service behind and settled down to have a family. And it had only been a couple of years since Sean had to leave firefighting behind because of a dangerous heart condition, one that required a defibrillator to be implanted into his chest.
    Fate had eventually led them both to private investigating. Sam opened SD Investigations (SDI), and rented the third floor office space from my father. Over the past eight months, our two companies had become intertwined.
    As happy as Sean was these days, childhood scars that didn’t show on the surface affected him almost as much as the visible scars on his chest.
    My heart beat just a little faster as I recalled how Sean had been shocked back to life by his defibrillator a few of months ago. I’d been terrified. For him. For me. Because as much as I feared commitment (thanks to a pesky family curse), I feared losing him even more.
    His pearly gray eyes stared out the window, seeming to focus on nothing at all. A muscle in his jaw jumped. Their silence was making me extremely nervous. “What’s going on?” I asked again.
    Sean carried a lot of emotional baggage, but until today I hadn’t seen much of it firsthand.
    Today, I saw him scared.
    And it terrified me.
    Six plus three is nine.
    I gave myself a mental shake. It was a longstanding childhood habit that when I was stressed, I solved simple math equations in my head. I’d been working really hard to break the habit—I hated math—but sometimes when I was really on edge it slipped back in.
    Sam sat rigid on the edge of his chair. There were only a few times I’d seen him so stressed. Usually, he was an easy-going, go-with-the-flow guy. “You’ve heard of the Beantown Burner?”
    The Beantown Burner was the ridiculous nickname the media had given the recent serial arsonist. “Of course.”
    Sean and I had just been discussing the case over breakfast. As a former firefighter, his interest in the arsonist bordered on obsession. Especially since he was very familiar with the neighborhoods where the fires had been set—he’d grown up in and around those very places.
    “Sean and I noticed a pattern today while talking about the case,” Sam said.
    “What kind of pattern?” I asked.
    After a long second, Sam said, “I think the firebug is someone I know, and I think I’m being targeted.”
    I looked at Sean. He was still staring out the window. His jaw was still clenched.
    “You’re serious?” I said. It seemed like quite a leap to make.
    “Maybe someone out for revenge,” Sam added, dragging a hand over his face. He glanced furtively at Ebbie.
    She was still staring at him.
    He frowned.
    “I think you’d better explain,” I said softly.
    He propped his elbow on the table, rested his face in his hand, and used his long fingers to block Ebbie from his peripheral vision. “I didn’t put it together until this morning when the Globe published the addresses of the places that had been targeted. The first fire was set in an apartment I rented off-campus during college. The second fire was at one of the high schools I attended. The third was my and Sean’s grandparents’ old corner store where I used to work. The fourth, this latest one that almost killed the old man while he was sleeping, was the first house Lizzie and I bought together.”
    Sean pushed his hand through his hair, raising spiky tufts in its wake.
    My mouth had gone cotton-ball dry. Now that he’d explained, his leap didn’t seem all that big. “Have you
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