Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE CHARIOT

 

Cam’s treacherous ladder is still in the middle of the room. The door to the outside is ajar, but smoke gathers at the ceiling and the room reeks of charcoal starter fluid.

Crumpled newspapers and pieces of rotten wood from the exposed walls are ablaze in a pile against the wall to my left, igniting torn-apart paperbacks and ancient notebooks.

A chunk of a book lands on the flames, flung from the right. I crawl forward and peek over the top of the secret door.

Joanna is rifling through the shelf packed with old paperbacks, magazines and notebooks. Her brows knit into a grim frown as she pulls a slim hardcover, flips it open, then slams it shut and tosses it in the direction of the fire. She doesn’t see me or the opening in the wall.

Yet.

I shift from my knees into a crouch behind the door, ready to sprint across the room, around the fire and out the door.

Shiloh doesn’t wait. She springs out from behind me and bolts outside. Joanna’s head turns just as Shiloh’s plume of a tail disappears through the doorway, and I leap up to follow her. Joanna steps sideways and blocks my exit.

“You. You think you’re getting out of here? Think again. You’re going to burn with this cursed house.” Her eyes narrow when she sees the valise. “Aww. Isn’t that sweet? Taking some remnants of Jennie’s pathetic life?”

The scorn in her voice fills me with blood-pounding rage.

“You killed her! And Mary-Alice—for a stupid book of accounts!”

Surprise flits across her face, then her eyes harden.

“I wouldn’t have had to, if she’d have just told me where it was,” the murderer snaps back. “What’s it to her, anyway? Most people would have figured it out after the accountant turned up dead. But typical Jennie, living in her own world with zero common sense, she just moved to another part of town. Like I wouldn’t find that dump you two lived in. Like I wouldn’t keep looking.”

A wave of heat erupts through me, and it’s not from the fire. Those moments in our apartment when I was positive someone had been in there, it wasn’t the pervy landlord, it was Joanna. Jennie’s closet, my dresser drawers, the caller ID—ransacked for the evidence that would send her to prison.

Joanna sighs. “Stubborn Jennie, instead of just giving it up—”

“Shut up! Don’t say another word about her! Who’s the one standing in the middle of a burning house looking for a book that doesn’t exist?” I inch my way left.

“What do you mean, it doesn’t exist?” Her gaze bores into me like a drill.

Shit.

“You’ve been trying to find it, trying to cover your ass for years.” I hope being loud and hostile disguises the waver in my voice. A couple more steps and I can get past her if I catch her by surprise. “You spent weeks here, making up this whole aunt thing, all for nothing.”

“It wasn’t hard,” she sneers. “You’re weak, just like her. ‘Boo-hoo, quit saying bad things about my mommy’.”

“She outsmarted you, though.” I grip the bag tighter, ready to run. The smoke is thicker now, burning my eyes and throat.

Joanna shoots me a look of disdain. “Well, she’s dead and I’m alive. True, I didn’t find the book, but no one else will either and when there’s nothing left of this place I still win.”

“You’re the loser this time. You’ll see.”

“What do you mean?” she growls, eyes narrowing.

The fire snaps and a quick glance at the growing inferno floods me with adrenaline. Flames have caught part of the open wall, and are licking the rotted wood surrounding the exposed wiring. Joanna turns to see what I’m looking at.

Now.

I run, darting past her, just out of reach. The open door is just a few steps away. Pain shoots through my shoulder as she catches me by the shoulder strap, yanking me back. My fingers dig into the leather as she pulls me close, her face inches from mine.

“What do you mean?” she repeats. Then, realization breaks over her face. “You have it!”

Joanna grips the front of my shirt, wrenching the bag away from me with her other hand. I clutch it to me with both arms. She slaps me, but the sting makes me grip even tighter.

She digs her nails into my wrists and pulls her other arm back, but I see her fist coming and turn my head in time for the pain to explode in my cheek instead of my nose. Still, it sends me reeling.

Smoke swirls around her as she grabs me by the throat with both hands, forcing me back against the wall. Flames and dangling wires dance inches from my face.

I slam my foot into her knee as hard as I can, scraping the sole of my shoe down her shin and stomping on her foot with every bit of force I can muster.

She flinches and her grip slips. I manage to turn away, but only for a split second before she grabs my neck and bangs my head against one of the exposed studs.

I can’t breathe. She squeezes my windpipe, and what little air I’m getting is choked with smoke. If I have to let go of the bag. I’ll throw it into the fire. Even if the evidence gets destroyed, she won’t have it, ever.

I drop the bag and punch her in the gut as hard as I can with both fists, once, twice. She grunts and lets go. I spin away from the flames, gasping for breath, but she lunges and pulls me close. My feet stumble, and she’s got my throat again.

“You’re done, you stupid girl. Like mother, like daughter.” She slams her shoulder into me with all of her weight, barreling us both into the burning wall and the wires.

Sparks shoot out as an explosion of pain bolts through my body. Every muscle goes rigid, every bone feels ripped from its socket, and the roar of the inferno consumes every sound, turning into a raw, unending shriek that pulls me into the darkness.

~ * ~

The distant sound of barking penetrates the swirling, murky swamp of my consciousness. Before I can open my eyes, pain rockets through every limb, making me gasp. My lungs fill with acrid smoke, and explode with deep coughs that wrack my screaming, aching bones.

When my burning eyes peel open, there’s Shiloh standing in the doorway, just a few feet away, barking and pawing the ground. We make eye contact. She jumps forward into the room, frantic, barking nonstop.

I drag on my elbows toward the door, smoke pouring out from behind me. Nothing seems to be injured, but every movement feels like my joints are a string of funny bones and something just whacked the crap out of every one of them.

The pink bag is to my left, a foot out of reach. Every second counts, and every motion is excruciating, but I can reach the bag and save the evidence that’ll put Joanna away. Wherever she is.

Don’t look, don’t look, just keep moving, get out.

Lifting up to my knees is like crawling on knives, but it’s just a few more feet, another ten seconds of shallow, measured breaths. I hook my arm through the strap and creep toward the door, where Shiloh is hopping and barking encouragement.

When I cross the threshold, the gravel on the path digs into my knees, sending up fresh jolts of pain. I roll onto my side, clutching the bag. Shiloh bumps my head and licks my face, while bizarre red flashes light up the night behind her.

A voice. Someone has a hold of my arm—Joanna!

“No!” I clutch the bag, but my shout comes out more like a croak.

Another voice. A man. Ian? I lift my head, trying to see between the sheets of red light and the twilight behind it, but my eyes are burning and tearing up at the same time, and it’s all a smoky, watered blur. My fingers ache from holding the strap, but nothing on earth will make me let go.

Jostling. More voices. I’m on my back, being lifted up. The bare-boned pain recedes as I float effortlessly, moving somewhere I can’t see. Then come the sounds of engines and brakes, more trucks, men shouting orders, heavy footsteps.

It feels like forever and a split second at the same time, before faces come in and out of view, but they’re just shadow visions, not real, until Star’s face, haloed by dark curls, looms over mine. Red light pierces the smoke behind her, and I realize where I am—in the driveway, where I saw this exact vision the night I arrived.

“Star,” I manage to gulp before an oxygen mask gets placed over my mouth, muffling my urgent plea. “Joanna’s still in there!”

“It’s okay. Don’t talk.” She squints to her left. “They’ve got her out, she’s on a gurney. Surrounded by suits and badges. Oh my God, Rory. My dad knew there was something wrong with her. He called your lawyer—that Palmer guy—and found out she was a fake, just like we thought that first night, remember? Holy shit, she’s handcuffed.”

I struggle to my elbows, trying to see. Tears from the smoke stream from my eyes, washing away soot and ash. EMTs, the deputy from last night, and a pair of men in dark suits are huddled over her, blocking my view.

There—that’s Ian’s voice, but where is he? Then for one sweet moment I catch a glimpse of Joanna’s hand, cuffed to the gurney. Relief floods through me, swirling like a river before I collapse back in triumph.

They’ve got her.

Euphoria sparkles behind my closed eyes, there is no pain, only relief and elation. Joanna’s alive. She doesn’t get to take the easy way out by dying.

“Star. You were supposed to stay overnight. What are you doing here?”

She waves the question away. “I’m fine. As soon as we knew what was going on, there was no way I was staying, so Dad brought me home with him. Joanna was all fake-concerned about me on the ride home. We knew she’d never let us talk to you, so we sent Shiloh with that note.”

“That was bad ass.” Exhaustion rolls over me, and I lie back on the gurney, closing my eyes.

A moment later a familiar voice says, “Hey there. Hold still a minute.”

A pair of hands unbuttons my shirt and starts taping cold, gooey tags to my chest. My eyelids feel like two heavy weights as I raise them and meet Ian’s steady gaze. He’s in uniform, deftly peeling and placing the tiny electrodes.

“Where’s Star?” I can’t see her anywhere.

“She took Shiloh into the house.” He sticks two more cold dots on my ribs. “You’re going to be okay, Rory, but you took a hard jolt from those wires. We’re going to do an EKG.”

“I’m fine,” I protest, pulling the oxygen mask away.

I have to find Cam. I was so sure he’d betrayed me. He wasn’t talking about me on the phone, he was talking about Joanna.

Ian takes my hand away and repositions the mask. He leans close, plants a light kiss on my sooty forehead, and whispers. “Shh, Summer Winters. Stop talking. I need to check your heart. Since you’ve already stolen mine.”

Heat floods my face, and the heart he wants to check jumps into my throat. Did he really say that?

He holds my gaze, working quickly, only looking away to switch the machine on. A few minutes later another EMT scans the printed readout and takes it somewhere out of sight. I guess they’re satisfied my heart is still beating.

Ian’s back in professional mode. “You’ve got a nice bruise on your cheek. Where did your body touch the wires?”

“My back, up high.” Until now, I’d barely felt anything, but it’s burning where Joanna slammed me into the wall, and I’m aching all over

I turn on my side for him to see. His cool, assured hands lift my shirt and carefully unhook my bra—so different from his hands on my back when we kissed on the cliff a century ago, but his touch is soothing. Even though it hurts—everything hurts—I feel like I’m finally waking up from a bizarre nightmare.

His hand stops just above my shoulder blade, near my neck. “You have a burn here. Second degree, a few blisters. Not as bad as Cam’s hands. Hold still and breathe.”

I wait to feel some kind of cold compress or cream, followed by a bandage. Ian doesn’t move, though. He stands behind me, cupping his palm right over the burn. His breath is slow and deep, and I match him breath for breath, closing my eyes.

“Good, ohpitsa. Just like that,” Ian murmurs.

My skin tingles, as if someone spilled a soda on my back. Violet light blooms behind my eyelids, rolling into aquamarine. The heat in my shoulder gathers and pulls together like a drawstring bag, shrinking until the pain is only a small spot.

“What’s an ohpitsa?” I open my eyes. “Someone who’s been electrocuted?”

“It’s Apache for “sweetheart.”

The other EMT is heading our way. Ian lifts his hand away and pulls my shirt back down.

“She’s lucky,” he tells his partner. “There’s just a small first-degree burn on her back.”

“That is lucky. Normally we’d take you in for monitoring overnight,” the partner says, “but your EKG is normal and your oxygen is good. If you want to stay here with your family, we can release you.”

“This’ll be the third time in two weeks. Do I get frequent flyer points if I go?”

They both laugh. Ian says, “I’ll be here. But in a little while you’re going to feel like you’ve been hit by a truck.”

Behind him, the light from inside silhouettes Cam and Star in the doorway, Cam leans heavily on his crutches. Star’s left arm is in a cast, supported by a sling. And now here I am, fried by the wiring and punched in the face.

The only one of us not pummeled is Shiloh, watching now from behind the screen door, whose frantic barking woke me up and probably saved my life. This is one beat-up, battered family. But we’re still standing.

We.

Tears well up again, turning my family portrait into a watercolor.

My family.

I clear my throat. “Yes. I’ll stay here.”

A commotion erupts a few yards away, where Joanna’s gurney is being loaded into the ambulance. EMTs are collapsing the wheels, flanked by the two FBI agents.

“Hey! Stop!” I call, sitting up and swinging my legs over the side. I pull off the oxygen mask. “Joanna!”

The crew stops and looks at me. There’s no way my wobbly legs can walk over there, so when she turns her baleful face in my direction, I lift the pink valise above my head with one hand and point my finger at her with the other.

“Remember how worried you were about me doing something tragic?”

I unzip the valise and pull out the silk bag with the marked deck and the LSD. “Well, dear, I’m just doing this for your own good. It’s what families do.”

I gesture to the FBI agents. “The evidence is right here. Account numbers. Money-laundering, drugs, and she’s also a murderer.”

As they load her into the ambulance, her eyes furious behind the oxygen mask, I raise my hand and point my finger at her again.

This time it’s the middle one.

~ * ~

It’s after midnight when the fire trucks and tankers leave. The whole back of the house is a charred, water-soaked ruin. There’s red tape all around the front and the path leading down to the back is blocked off, but no one’s going to stop me.

I duck under the caution tape and open the front door. The huge hallway is intact, and the office to the left is untouched. The wind that turned the fire into a conflagration has died down, and the only sound is a steady conversation of drips from every corner of the stinking, blackened husk of what’s left of my house.

The oak staircase rises into gloom and wet ash, and I decide not to risk going up in the dark. To the right, the library I only had for a month is a pile of charcoal beams and waterlogged furniture.

I take a few steps into the kitchen, and where the back door once opened out to the glorious deck, the house falls away into the desert and the open sky.

Where the wall and window used to be, a scattering of stars against the velvet night fills the space, so vast I can’t recognize a single constellation. A sky Jennie marveled at, while living in a house that couldn’t contain her.

I was wrong about her, wrong about so many things. Not only was her ability to sneak through the cracks her biggest strength, but all the times I thought she was running from life, she was actually living the way she wanted.

I thought I was the brave one, setting out on a great adventure, driving alone across half the country to claim my home, but Jennie had done the same, more than once.

When disaster struck—first losing my father, and then being dragged into a murder case—instead of retreating to this desert sanctuary, she stood her ground and learned to camouflage her life.

Her only relief turned into the dragon of addiction, but Jennie never stopped protecting me, even when that addiction tore her away forever.

“Rory, you in here?” Ian’s voice echoes through the hollow house from the front door.

A flashlight beam sweeps across the entry hall.

“Yeah.” The word rasps its way past the huge lump in my throat.

“I’ll wait, whenever you’re ready.”

The sour smell of wet, burnt wood is overwhelming. I’ve had enough. Better to see what can be salvaged in the daylight. I turn, and as I walk toward the stairs, something small and light-colored catches my eye in the gloom.

The Moon card. Somehow it made it out of my room, survived a firestorm and landed delicately on the stairs. It wasn’t there when I came in just a moment ago, I’m sure of it.

“Hi, Mom.” Smiling, I put it in my back pocket. It’s a survivor, like my mother.

Like me.