Chapter Fifteen
I don’t know how long I stood there staring at the jumbled photos. The one on top was a snapshot of Mitch and Felicity standing in a parking lot beside a red car on a blindingly sunny day. They were the only people in the picture. The sun was behind them and their expressions were shadowy and indistinct. Mitch’s arm was extended, almost touching Felicity’s tan shoulder. I could tell she was smiling as she leaned toward him. I ran through my memories of the times we’d been with Dan and Felicity. Surely this was a picture from one of our visits to Alabama or maybe the family reunion? Felicity was wearing a light blue tank top that revealed every toned muscle and shapely curve. Mitch was in a white collared polo shirt and tan shorts. I scanned the blurry background, but didn’t see anything familiar that would help me place the photo in a recognizable context.
Finally, I reached out and touched it with the tip of my index finger, as if I might get a severe burn or shock from touching it. Carefully, I pushed it aside and revealed the next photo. Mitch and Felicity embracing. I closed my eyes and swallowed. This could not be happening. Mitch and Felicity? It was impossible. Mitch would never do something like that. Never. I opened my eyes and looked at the picture again. It’s happened to other wives, a little voice whispered. I grabbed the rest of the photos and quickly flipped through them. They seemed to have been taken only a few seconds apart. In the next photo, Mitch and Felicity were standing apart, then he handed her a small cardboard box. I was flipping quickly. It was almost like watching a stop action movie. There was another embrace, this time Felicity closed the distance between them and kissed Mitch on the cheek. That picture was the last one.
I pressed the stack to my chest. I felt weird. Light-headed. I turned around and slid down to sit on the floor. I tipped my head over and rested my forehead on my knees. For a while I sat there with my eyes closed, breathing deeply. Finally, when my head felt normal again, I leaned back against the cabinets and looked at the photos again. Okay, I lectured myself, calm down. You’ve always trusted Mitch. Don’t leap to conclusions.
Why didn’t I recognize the photos or remember this happening? Because you weren’t there, the small voice whispered again. And Mitch had been so quiet and reserved lately. I bit my lip and forced myself to focus only on the pictures. I rubbed the corner of the paper between my thumb and finger. It wasn’t photo paper with a glossy finish. It was plain typing paper. I frowned. The paper meant these pictures had probably been downloaded and printed from a computer. Had someone e-mailed them to Detective Rickets? I shook my head. Why would someone do that? Was this some sort of tip that the sheriff’s department received?
I went back through the photos, scrutinizing each one, but I didn’t see anything that would help me place where or when they were taken. The last one had a faint line down it that seemed to follow the outline of Mitch’s body. I squinted, pulling the paper closer. Was the line from the printer—too much ink? Or were these photos not even real? I’d only dabbled with photo editing software, but I knew some of the programs were pretty advanced. Could someone have photoshopped Mitch into those pictures? It might be hard to fake an embrace, though. I drummed the photos against my leg.
And why had Detective Rickets given me a set? The police didn’t usually go around handing out evidence, even copies, to people involved in an investigation.
He wanted to know what I would do with the photos, I realized. I scrambled to my feet and went to the front windows. No sign of his car, but I was willing to bet he was tucked away into some hidden driveway or curve of the road, waiting to see what I did, where I went after he’d dropped these photos on me.
My phone rang, startling me. I checked the caller ID. It was Mitch. I blew out a breath that sent my bangs flying. “Hello,” I said, my voice sounding strained and oddly formal.
“You okay?”
I cleared my throat. “Ah—give me a minute,” I said and swallowed, then cleared my throat again. “There. Mitch, did you ...” I paused, not sure if this was a conversation I wanted to have on the phone. Did I want to see his face when I asked him? “Ah ... today I saw some—,” I broke off. Should I even mention the pictures? Maybe it would be better to ask him point-blank about Felicity. Save the pictures, in case he denied it. My stomach roiled. “Never mind,” I said.
“You sure you’re all right? You sound ... odd.”
“I just swallowed wrong. I’m fine now,” I said brightly.
“Now you sound really weird.” He paused for a second. I didn’t say anything. “Okay,” he said, concern in his voice. “I’m at Mom and Dad’s house. I called Aunt Nanette and asked her to drive over and pick you up. Everyone is fine, but there’s been a fire.”
“This doesn’t look too bad,” Aunt Nanette said as she put the car in park in front of Mitch’s parents’ house.
“It looks exactly the same,” I said as I climbed out of the car. Mitch had assured me everyone was fine, that he had both kids with him. They hadn’t even smelled a whiff of smoke, much less been anywhere near the fire, but I ran around the side of the house to the backyard. Everyone was in a group at the far end of the pool. Nathan saw me and ran. “Mom! Mom, the fire truck came. A real one. It had its sirens on and everything. It was the coolest thing ever.”
I swept him up in a hug. “Where’s the fire truck now?” I asked.
His lower lip popped out in a pout. “It had to leave and the fireman said we can’t go back inside. Not for my Legos or for clothes or anything.”
Livvy ran up to me. “The Spiral Secrets is inside and I have to have it. And my blue purse. I have to have my purse. It’s got my reading list.” Tears sparkled in the corners of her eyes. Nathan wiggled out of my arms and sprinted off to Mitch, who was making his way toward us across the lawn. I squatted down to Livvy’s level. Losing her reading list would be a huge calamity for her. And she’d been so proud of her signed book from Maggie Key, too. Losing either—or worse, both—would probably be a tragedy. “Do you remember where you left them?”
“By the front door. Dad told me to leave them inside, so I did,” she said, and shot a dark look at Mitch.
“I’m sure your book and purse are fine. The front of the house looked okay, so they’re probably sitting right where you left them. We’ll get them as soon as we can. And if something happened to them, we can re-create your list. You’ve got your books at home that you’ve read and we can ask the library for a list of all the books you’ve checked out. It probably won’t be long before we can go back inside,” I said, and gave her a quick hug.
She swung away from me to follow Nathan sluggishly to a plastic playhouse set up at the far end of the backyard, as Mitch reached my side.
“How long have—” My words halted as I turned to look at the back of the house. Until that moment, I’d been facing the backyard, concentrating on the kids, but now the house had my full attention. “Oh, my,” I said, reaching for Mitch’s hand. The back corner of the house, the guest bedroom, and part of the sunroom looked like something from the local news. Charred window frames surrounded broken out windows. I could see at least three holes in the roof. Black smears radiated up from the windows, marring the white-painted brick. Water pooled in a few shallow spots on the patio and in the grass. The sunlight glittering off the surface of the water was an odd contrast with the dry, yellow grass. “No one was hurt? What happened?”
“No one was inside. Mom was out showing a house. I was in the garage with Dad, unloading the tools. The kids were playing in the front yard when we saw dark smoke drifting over the roof. We called nine-one-one and Dad used the water hose to wet down what he could until the fire truck got here, but there wasn’t much we could do.”
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” I said, leaning against him.
He squeezed me closer. “Of course, I’m okay.”
“And the kids ... ,” I said, and my legs suddenly felt like I’d run a mile or two. “If they’d been inside ... alone ...” I turned and looked across the lawn. Livvy was inside the plastic playhouse. Nathan was rhythmically opening and closing the shutters on the house as fast as he could.
“They weren’t,” Mitch said firmly, but I heard the slight quiver in his voice.
“How bad is it inside?” The sunroom and adjacent guest room formed the back wall of the house.
“I haven’t been inside, but the fireman who talked to Dad earlier said the rooms at the back of the house are the worst. Sounds like they’ll have to be gutted and rebuilt. I don’t know if the fire reached the family room or kitchen. Someone from the fire department is in there now.”
“Then that means everything we brought is probably gone,” I said, trying to remember what we’d had in our suitcases and what we’d left at home. I gestured at our clothes. “This is it—all we have are the clothes on our backs.”
Mitch nodded. “Everything else is probably ruined, either from the fire, or if it didn’t spread back that far, then from the smoke and the water.”
Mitch’s parents were a few feet away. Caroline was sitting motionless on the edge of a chaise longue near the pool, her hands tucked between her knees, staring at the decorative blue tiles that surrounded the patio. Bill had his hand on her shoulder, his gaze riveted to the house as he spoke on his cell phone. Caroline was still in her Realtor clothes, a taupe sweater and black skirt, and heels. I remembered she’d had a home to show after the reading of the will. She’d probably come straight here when she got word about the fire. “Your parents must be devastated.”
“I think they’re in shock,” Mitch spoke quietly, but I didn’t think he needed to worry about his parents overhearing his words. They looked so lost and withdrawn that I doubted they’d even noticed he was speaking.
“Someone should get them a blanket,” I said, making a move to break away from Mitch’s embrace. But at that moment, Aunt Nanette came into the backyard, carrying a lilac Windbreaker and a brown blanket. She draped the blanket over Bill’s shoulders and put the Windbreaker over Caroline, who reached up mechanically to hold it in place.
A man in full firefighting gear emerged from what had been the door frame on the back of the sunroom. He crossed the patio and walked around the end of the pool to Bill and Caroline. We were close enough that I could hear him as he said, “Well, we were able to contain the fire to the two rooms at the back of the house. The fire damage is minimal. The smoke and water damage are more severe. You’re fortunate that the French doors to the sunroom were closed. That helped keep the fire from spreading into the main portion of the house.”
I breathed a sigh of relief, since it sounded like Livvy’s most precious belongings were probably safe.
Bill asked, “Can we go back in?”
“Yes, you can go in now, but I wouldn’t recommend staying there. You’re going to need to get someone in here who specializes in fire cleanup—water and smoke removal. Contact your insurance company. They’ll have some names for you.”
“Can you tell us what happened? Where it started?” Bill asked. Caroline continued to sit on the chaise longue staring at the water lapping at the edge of the pool.
“Looks like a candle was the source of ignition.”
Bill’s forehead wrinkled and he looked toward Caroline. For the first time, she pulled her gaze away from the pool and looked at the fireman. “We don’t usually burn candles. They make me sneeze.”
“A candle fell onto a rug—a light brown rug. Woven. Natural fiber.”
“The sisal, yes,” Caroline said quickly, looking more animated.
“The burn pattern indicates that the fire moved pretty quickly. It spread to a sofa that was on the rug, then up the wall that separates the sunroom from the room next to it, the back bedroom. Not as much damage in the bedroom,” he added. “So why do you have candles in the house, ma’am, if you’re allergic?”
Caroline shrugged. “Gifts. I keep them because they’re a nice decorative touch, but we don’t burn them.”
I looked at Mitch and said softly, “Why didn’t you tell me? I sure hope the candle that caused all this trouble wasn’t the peaches-and-cream one I gave her for Christmas.”
“I didn’t realize. She never said anything,” Mitch said.
“She probably didn’t want to hurt our feelings,” I said. How many candles had I given her over the years?
The fireman asked, “You’re sure you didn’t light that candle? It could have been yesterday, even. We see that a lot—someone lights a candle and forgets to blow it out. These candles that are three, four, five inches in diameter can burn for a long time and people forget to blow them out.”
Caroline shaded her eyes as she looked up at Bill. “We’ve had quite a few visitors lately. I suppose someone could have lit a candle either today or yesterday ... ,” her voice trailed off uncertainly.
Bill ran his hand down over the scruffy stubble of his beard, then glanced in our direction. “No,” I said quickly. “It wasn’t us. I didn’t light it. Mitch never lights candles—doesn’t even notice them, actually,” I said, cutting a look at him, “and our kids know candles and matches are strictly off limits.”
“It could have been someone who came by yesterday,” Caroline said. “Maybe Julia? We’ll have to ask her or Wes. Of course, the whole family has been in and out of the house for days and we’ve had so many visitors.”
“It’s a fairly common occurrence. I wouldn’t worry about it, ma’am,” the fireman said.
Through the open gate at the side of the yard, I saw a police car roll to a stop at the curb. Detective Rickets’s insinuations came flooding back. I pulled Mitch a few steps away. “Did you meet with Felicity recently?”
I knew it was abrupt and there might be a better way to handle the question. Maybe I shouldn’t ask it at all ... just wait and see what happened, but there was something about seeing the burnt rooms and the smoke scars above the windows that made everything very basic. I’d never liked manipulation and innuendo and strategy. I’d much rather be straightforward. Either Mitch was sneaking around or he wasn’t. Either he’d tell me the truth or he’d lie. Better to get everything out there and find out what he had to say.
“What?” Mitch said, frowning. I knew him well enough to know he wasn’t playing for time. He was puzzled at the unexpected turn our conversation had taken. “Did you see Felicity? Give her a package?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah,” he said, his face clearing. Then he lowered his voice. “The birthday stuff.”
“What?” I scanned his face. All I saw was his normal open expression.
“Remember, Felicity threw that surprise birthday party for Dan about a month ago?”
“No.”
“She called and wanted to know if I had any pictures of him ... baby pictures, T-ball, stuff like that.”
“Why would she call you?”
“You know Aunt Jenny. How she’s always on the cutting edge—ready to try anything new. She’s into recycling and, what did she call it? Living light, I think.”
“Yes,” I said, thinking that was a phrase I’d have to remember. I could identify with trying not to accumulate clutter.
“Well, she scanned all her photos, everything from when Dan was born right up until a few months ago and saved it on her computer. Then she got a virus and lost all her data.”
“What does this have to do with you?”
“Felicity was throwing Dan a surprise party and wanted to do a slide show. Dan and I did almost everything together when we were growing up. I had tons of pictures of him in all those photos that Mom sent me last year after she cleaned out the garage.”
“So you gave those photos to Felicity. Why don’t I remember this?”
“Well, she called the day after Nathan got sick with that croupy cough. You were pretty tired.”
“Oh, yeah,” I said. “I vaguely remember you digging through photo albums and boxes one afternoon after work.” I’d been so tired, I’d gone to bed right after dinner and Mitch had taken care of the kids that night. The next morning, he’d left on a short trip.
“Why didn’t you just mail them to her? Or scan them?”
“Man, you really were out of it that night. You don’t remember that I had a RON in Montgomery that night before we went on to Oregon?”
“Your trips always blend together for me,” I said. The big ones, the long trips, stood out, and the exotic locations were easy to remember, but Mitch was always coming and going and it was hard to remember every destination.
I knew RON was military-speak for Remain Over Night, so that meant Mitch had landed in Montgomery one day and departed the next day for Oregon. “So you met with her in a parking lot somewhere?” I asked.
“At the gym. She didn’t want Dan to know, so I met her after work. Now, why the third degree?” Mitch’s normal relaxed and good-natured attitude had slipped into something more serious.
I blew out a breath, a sigh of relief, because I knew Mitch. I knew he was telling me the truth. This wasn’t some clever lie or elaborate scheme he’d engineered to cover up something. I remembered the next night with Nathan had been another rough one—I’d spent most of it holding him on my lap as we sat on the edge of the tub, the shower blasting hot water so the steam would help his croupy cough. I’d been dead on my feet the next day and I was pretty sure I’d slept every spare moment I could. Mitch probably had mentioned his meeting with Felicity and I’d been so tired and worried about Nathan that it hadn’t really registered. And now that I thought about it, I did remember pictures of Dan’s birthday party. Felicity had posted them on Facebook.
“And after you gave her the photos, you went back to your hotel?”
“Yes,” Mitch said slowly. “I went to dinner with the crew at—it was Applebee’s, I think.”
“So you were with someone? The crew can confirm you were with them at dinner and went back to the hotel?”
“Yes,” Mitch said evenly. “They can even confirm that I gave the package to Felicity. They drove me there on the way to dinner and watched me hand it off to her in the parking lot. Now, I’ve answered all your questions. Suppose you tell me why you want confirmation of my movements that night.”
“Oh, it’s not for me. It’s for the police.”
Ellie Avery’s Tips for Preserving Family Treasures
Digital Memories
• Transferring documents and pictures to digital files can be time consuming, but it does have advantages. Besides having a backup copy, you’ll also be able to copy, crop, and print at will.
• Be sure to create an organizing system in your computer. Most camera software programs download photos by date, but you can rename the file before you download if you’d rather organize by event or other category.
• Take the time to rename your photos with specific labels that will help you find them.
• To make sure your photos are looked at and enjoyed, download them to digital photo frames or create a slide show of your favorites and set it as your screen saver.
• You can even create digital scrapbooks.