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“Great. Another peon,” Earl grumbled.
Aidan didn’t hear him.
“What’s going on in here?” Aidan asked as he strolled toward us.
“Nothing,” Earl said. “I came in to see if I could offer any help. Isn’t that right, ladies?”
I stared at him.
“No. That’s isn’t right at all,” I said. To Aidan, I said, “He’s fabricating a story about Arthur. He’s going to tell the police we did it, but I have proof it was him.”
Oddly, Aidan didn’t seem surprised by this news.
Earl tugged at his collar. For the first time since he’d shown up in the kitchen, he looked a little uncertain. “I’ll say you were involved, too,” he warned Aidan. “You were there with them. The three of you were in on it together. And...and...” he sputtered. “And you’re planning to injure other people, too. You set the fire intentionally. I saw you! All of you!”
Denise gasped again.
Earl smiled triumphantly. “All three of you will take the fall.”
Aidan’s smile was just as bright. “You sure about that?” He held up his phone and Earl froze.
“You see,” Aidan said, “when you asked who had a phone, I volunteered. But what I didn’t tell you is that I’ve been recording this whole time.”
“You have?” I asked, hope blossoming inside of me.
Aidan nodded. “I got everything.”
Earl growled. “Give that to me,” he demanded.
Aidan chuckled. “Not a chance.”
Earl went apoplectic, his face turning a startling shade of purple. His mouth opened and closed several times, almost as if he were a fish struggling to breathe.
And then he lunged at Aidan.
For a man in his seventies, he moved with surprising speed and agility.
He apparently caught Aidan off guard, because Earl landed on him and Aidan flew backward, with Earl landing on top of him on the floor.
“Give me the phone!” Earl barked as he struggled to rip it out of Aidan’s hands.
I watched in horror, frozen in place.
I could tell that Aidan wasn’t fighting back. He didn’t want to hurt Earl; this much was obvious. But if Earl got ahold of the phone and managed to erase the recording, what did that mean for me and Denise? And Aidan?
I had to stop him.
The question was, how.
I looked frantically around the kitchen.
There were pots and pans stacked on a wire rack, and I knew there was a drawer brimming with knives.
The problem was, I didn’t want to hurt him, either. I just wanted the phone safely out of his hands.
My eyes finally lit on something that just might work.
My hand closed around the canister sitting on the counter. The metal was cold, and the canister itself was surprisingly heavy.
I shifted it into position and aimed, and hoped it had enough juice left to do what it needed to do.
A stream of white burst out of the extinguisher and directly at Earl. I didn’t know if it was the force of the propellant or the surprise of being hit with it that made Earl roll off of Aidan.
But I didn’t care.
Because Aidan leaped to his feet and the phone was still clutched in his hand.
I released the handle on the extinguisher. “It’s okay?” I asked him. “The recording?”
He glanced at the screen. “It’s good.”
Denise clapped her hands and a wave of relief washed over me.
Earl rolled around on the ground, groaning, but it didn’t sound like he was hurt. It was a groan of rage, of frustration.
I slumped against the counter, the fire extinguisher still cradled in my hands.
“You did it,” Aidan said. “You figured out what happened.”
Denise cleared her throat. “Now can I call the police?” She was holding her own phone above her head.
I managed a weak smile. “Yes. Now you can call the police.”