| |
I’d always wondered what I would do in a life or death situation.
Would I panic? Be paralyzed by fear? Dissolve into hysteria?
With sirens wailing and plumes of smoke rising to the second floor, I did none of those things.
Instead, I ran straight to the source. The dining room.
Of course, I don’t know if that was exactly heroic. Foolish was probably a better word to describe my actions. But Denise and Aidan followed suit, with Denise surging ahead, screaming, “The residents! We have to save the residents!”
I lifted the hem of my shirt to cover my mouth and nose as we descended the stairs. The smoke wasn’t burning my eyes, which was a good thing, but it was still hazy enough that it made it difficult to see.
Patty, one of the other dining room staff, was already guiding residents toward the front entrance. She had one on either side of her, her arms looped through theirs.
I skidded to a stop in front of her just long enough to ask, “What happened?”
“Kitchen fire.”
I nodded and then hurried into the dining room, scanning the tables to see if anyone was still seated inside. The smoke was already beginning to dissipate, and I wondered if that meant the fire had been extinguished or if the smoke had simply shifted direction.
“I think everyone’s out,” Aidan told me.
He was right. All of the tables were deserted. Through the haze, I found the clock on the wall. It was just shy of noon, which was when lunch was typically served. That meant most of the tables would have been full, or at least filling up.
“Where is everyone, then?” I asked.
Denise pointed. “Looks like they’re all outside already.”
The front door was just visible from where we were standing, and I could see a cluster of residents standing in a semi-circle around the entrance to the building. Some of them were standing behind their fellow residents in wheelchairs, their own hands firmly wrapped around the handles. My heart swelled. These residents had assisted their friends, helped them get outside.
Anne appeared in front of us, almost like a deadly apparition. “What in the world is going on?” she demanded.
I stared at her. What did she think had just happened?
“Looks like there was some type of fire,” Aidan offered.
“Yes, I can see that.” Her frown was deep. “Where are the residents?”
Denise pointed again. “Out there.”
Anne swiveled in that direction. The alarms in the building had already gone silent but a faint siren sound was growing closer.
Fire trucks, responding to the call.
Anne glanced into the empty dining room but made no move to enter. “Anyone know where it started?”
Aidan arched an eyebrow. “I assume the kitchen?”
Her eyes narrowed behind the bright orange glasses she was wearing. They matched her red and orange-patterned blouse, which seemed like a weirdly apropos outfit for what had just transpired in the building.
Denise folded her arms. “Didn’t you hear the alarms going off?” she asked Anne.
“Of course I heard them,” Anne snapped.
“And you’re just now coming to see what happened?” Denise couldn’t hide her incredulity. “Your office is literally across the hall.”
Denise pulled herself up, clearing her throat as she did so. “I...I was in the ladies room.” Her face was turning a startling shade of red. “I came out as fast as I could.”
I was not Anne’s biggest fan, but even I felt a little bad for her. Denise, however, apparently did not feel the same way.
She gave Anne a withering look. “Well, it appears all the residents made it out just fine.” I could hear what she’d left unsaid. Without your help.
Anne took a deep breath. “I’m going to see how everyone is doing.”
“Good idea,” Denise muttered.
Anne walked toward the entrance.
And I heard yelling from the kitchen.
“I don’t know how this happened!” someone wailed.
Not someone.
Lola.
I made my way toward the kitchen. The smoke was almost all gone, and I could see Lola standing in front of the industrial-sized oven, a fire extinguisher still held limply in her hand. Soot coated the top of the cooktop, but otherwise the damage seemed remarkably minimal, especially considering the amount of smoke that had filled the dining room and drifted up toward the second floor.
Denise pushed her way past me. “What happened in here?”
Lola was breathing heavily, her chest heaving up and down. She lifted the fire extinguisher, sort of pointing it at the range. “Dishtowel caught fire.”
A dishtowel had created all of that smoke?
Tears filled Lola’s eyes. “It was an accident.”
“I’m sure it was.” Denise was immediately sympathetic. She rushed to her side and put an arm around the distraught woman. Lola stiffened but didn’t pull away. “The fire truck just got here.”
“What?” Lola looked panicked. “Why? I put it out! It’s fine!”
Aidan and I exchanged glances. Why was she freaking out?
“I’m sure it’s standard procedure,” Denise said, frowning slightly.
Lola dropped the fire extinguisher on the counter. It landed with a loud clank.
“Are you alright?” Denise asked.
Lola started to nod but it soon turned into a hard shake of her head. “I...no.” She turned and fled.
“Poor thing,” Denise murmured.
I was staring at the door Lola had run out of. “How do you figure?”
“She’s clearly upset.” Denise gave me a stern look. “Have a little sympathy.”
I wasn’t sure why I should feel sorry for Lola, especially if she’d been negligent and had left a dishtowel on a burner. But I kept my mouth shut.
Denise clucked her tongue as she looked around the kitchen. “It could have been worse,” she said. “Much, much worse.”
Two firefighters rushed into the kitchen. One didn’t look much older than me. The other was probably in his early forties, with graying brown hair.
“Looks like you had a bit of a fire,” the older one said, looking at me. I didn’t know why he assumed I was the one responsible.
“Not me,” I said quickly. “The cook.”
They looked to Denise.
“Not me, either,” she told them. “She stepped out. She told us what happened, though.”
I took a few steps back and Denise approached the range with the firefighters, pointing out what was left of the dishrag and the soot that covered the range. Miraculously, the stainless steel appliance looked remarkably intact, and there appeared to be very little smoke damage to the room. The air, however, was probably another matter.
“What do you think is up with Lola?” I said in a low voice to Aidan.
He shrugged. “Probably just feels bad about the fire. She might not be cooking in here anytime soon, and I don’t even know if it’ll be safe for the residents to eat in the dining room, either.”
“Really?” I looked at him. “Just because of a small fire?”
He nodded. “I’m not an expert, but we had a small grease fire in my house growing up. Burned up the range and put all these noxious chemicals in the air from the burnt plastic. We were out of our house for weeks while it was cleaned.”
I gaped at him. “Seriously?”
“Yep. I imagine regulations might be even stricter for facilities like this,” he said.
I cradled my head in my hands. “Oh, wow. I had no idea.”
“I could be wrong,” he cautioned. “It looks like the damage was pretty minimal. But still, they might need to do some air monitoring to make sure the air is safe, especially based on our population.”
I nodded.
He glanced toward the front of the building. “I think I’m going to head outside, see how everyone is doing. You feel like coming?”
I hesitated. I did want to check on the residents, but I also thought someone should probably check on Lola, too. Her reaction made a little more sense now in light of what Aidan had just told me.
“I’m going to see if Lola is okay first,” I said. “Then I’ll be out.”
“Good idea.”
“Can you make sure Billie is alright?” I asked. “She’s...” I swallowed. I didn’t want to admit she was my favorite.
But I didn’t have to. Aidan just grinned and said, “Of course. I’ll find her, make sure she’s fine.”
He left and I went in search of Lola.
She wasn’t hard to find.
She was standing in the hallway, about twenty feet away from the back entrance to the kitchen. She had a phone to her ear and she wasn’t speaking.
I immediately wondered who was on the other end of the line. Her husband? Her best friend? I realized I knew absolutely nothing about her life outside of Oasis Ridge, but then again, she probably didn’t know much about me, either.
I stood and waited, unsure what to do. Standing there without her knowing felt a little like I was spying on her. Eavesdropping. But I also didn’t think it would be appropriate to announce myself, especially when she was so clearly in the middle of a conversation. And a part of me didn’t want to walk away, for reasons I couldn’t quite explain.
“You don’t understand!” she erupted.
I jumped and then quickly clamped my hand over my mouth, trying to muffle my startled squeal.
Thankfully, she didn’t hear me.
She just kept talking.
“I am screwed,” she said loudly, to whomever it was she was talking to. “I thought I was out of the woods!”
She was quiet for a minute, listening.
Then, “First that evil Arthur tried to get me canned, and now I have to deal with this. How is it that I take care of one problem and then another one pops up? Huh? Explain that to me!”
My mouth dropped open.
I was fixated on one thing Lola said, one thing that brought me right back to what I’d been thinking about before the smoke had blown me off course.
I’d been convinced Ruth was responsible for poisoning Arthur. Everything seemed to point to her.
But after what Lola had just said?
Now I wasn’t so sure.