Dangerous Conditions

by Jenna Kernan

  “We’ll get you through this, Paige. I’m here for you.” As he comforted her, he didn’t want to let go. She was so broken right now, so wronged. He had to help make things right for her. Paige, of all people, didn’t deserve this.

  “You’ve always been there. But I just didn’t see it.”

  She pulled back and tipped her head so she could look up at him. They walked together to the porch that wrapped around the side of the farmhouse. At the top of the stairs she faced him, her cheeks pink and her eyes bloodshot. He paused at the bottom of the steps.

  “Thank you for posting bail.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  “You don’t have to worry. I’ll be making my appearances. You’ll get your money back.”

  “Not what worries me.”

  He switched subjects. “Have you narrowed the list of people who had access to your food and drink on Saturday?”

  “I’ve been thinking about it.”

  “Good.”

  Saturday, she had breakfast at home and then they headed to the festival.

  “I was eating all sorts of things at the festival.”

  “Concentrate on the drinks. It is a pill that is tasteless and colorless in liquid, though some manufacturers are adding a blue center so it will show up in some clear beverages. What did you drink?”

  “Hot cider from the apple orchard folks, a soda with lunch.”

  “Okay. Anything else?”

  “Coffee.” Paige sucked in a breath. The only thing she had drunk that was not from a vendor was a cup of coffee delivered to her by...Logan’s brother, Connor.

  “What?”

  “Oh, Logan.”

  “Paige?” He grasped her elbow and guided her to a seat on the snowy step. “You’ve gone white.”

  She gripped his arm so tight that her fingers began to tingle. Then she saw spots. His hand went to her back and he pushed her forward so that her head was between her knees. She could see their footprints on the snow-covered step, wavering now as if she stared at them through water.

  “Deep breaths,” he instructed.

  She gasped and pinched her eyes closed. The buzzing in her ears gradually receded. Paige opened one eye and then the other. Her vision was clear. Her fingertips no longer tingled.

  “I think I’m all right,” she said.

  His hand drew away and he squatted before her, staring up at her with troubled eyes.

  “You said you had coffee. Did someone give it to you? Who was it?” he asked.

  “Connor.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Logan stood so fast he staggered back off the step and into the snow. When he regained his balance, his skin was clammy, and he felt sick to his stomach.

  “He said you were drunk.”

  “If I was drinking, I don’t remember it. I do remember him bringing me a cup of hot coffee. He also brought me home. Mom told me that I was so drunk, Connor needed to help me upstairs.” She placed a hand over her mouth and stared at him with wide eyes.

  Logan absorbed this stomach punch. “He was upstairs.”

  She nodded frantically.

  “Was he alone up there?”

  “I don’t remember any of it.”

  Logan headed into the living room and asked Mrs. Morris the question. Had his older brother been upstairs alone at any point?

  “Yes. He asked me to go get her some water. I went downstairs to get the glass and fill it.”

  “How long was he alone?”

  “I went right to the kitchen, but then, there was mud all over the floor from where they’d come in. I mopped that up. Maybe ten minutes.”

  Long enough to plant whatever was necessary in Paige’s bedroom, Logan realized.

  His big brother was a village councilman, one of the few Realtors in the area, and his business had boomed when Rathburn-Bramley had built their manufacturing plant just down the hill, bringing new employees to the area who all needed housing.

  Could it be possible that he had done this to Paige? Logan didn’t want to believe it. But the evidence pointed directly at his brother.

  It was the hardest thing Logan had ever done, but instead of rushing over to confront Connor, he called Sheriff Trace.

  “Logan. What’s up?” asked Trace.

  He told him of Paige’s suspicions.

  “She’s accusing your town councilman, who is your older brother, of drugging her?”

  “She is. But I also witnessed her drinking a soda from one of the food trucks and having a glass of cider from a local orchard.” He prayed that anyone other than his brother had done this.

  “Do you know of any reason Connor would do such a thing?” asked Trace.

  “I don’t. I am just making you aware. My brother gave her a coffee. She drank it. Shortly afterwards she became confrontational, which is unlike her. Then she left our group and later that evening, Connor brought her home and carried her upstairs.”

  “So he also had access to Paige’s room.”

  “Yes.”

  “Was he alone with her there?”

  “According to her mother, yes again.”

  “I agree with Paige. This does not look good for Connor. I will ask you not to mention this conversation to him or confront him. You have an obvious conflict of interest and, if Paige is correct, to do so could further endanger her.”

  That possibility had not occurred to Logan.

  “I don’t think I can pretend that I’m not suspicious.”

  “I’m looking into this now. Give me until tomorrow. Then you can be there when I question him.”

  “All right.” But he wondered if he’d be able to keep from accusing Connor until then. If he did this, Logan needed to know why. Why set up a woman he professed to care for? Was he tangled up with the people who had killed Dr. Sullivan?

  Logan’s anger shifted to worry. Were the people who had killed Dr. Sullivan threatening his brother?

  * * *

  PAIGE TUCKED HER daughter into bed later than usual. It was a school night and it had been after nine before Paige had even thought to ask if Lori had finished her homework. She hadn’t and so they had sat together working on a language arts worksheet on punctuation before turning to her daily math assignment, measuring units. Cups to pints to quarts and before they were finished, Paige really wished the country had made the switch to the metric system.

  Her weariness seeped through her bones, and it was a struggle just to climb the bedroom stairs. Her mother had gone to bed over an hour ago, but her television still yakked away, the bluish light flickering under the bedroom door. Paige steered Lori into the bathroom. Her daughter emerged a few minutes later in her pajamas. The sky-blue fleece was covered with polar bears and penguins in ski hats. Paige tucked her in and left the hall light on, as always, before heading to her room on the other side of the hall at the front of the house. This was the smallest room and the only one that did not have access to the flat roof over the porch. Both her daughter and mother could climb out their window to that roof and walk to the back of the house where the grade of the property made it only a five-foot drop to the ground. Because of this, her father had long ago placed an escape ladder under Paige’s bed in case of fire. Her father, a volunteer with the local department, knew something about fires.

  Once in bed she tossed and turned and finally got up to check on Lori to find her on her laptop. She closed the device and took it with her to her bedroom.

  Lori appeared twenty minutes later and asked to sleep with her. Paige threw back the covers and her daughter slipped beneath the coverlet. Tucked in, safe and warm, they dozed in her big full-size bed until the acrid smell of smoke woke them.

  * * *

  LOGAN WOKE TO the sound of applause as if he were at a concert with many people cheering and clapping. He was already reaching for his trous
ers.

  “Logan?” his father shouted.

  “Yeah.” He sat up and threw the covers off in one motion. His heart began pumping at the alarm he heard in his father’s voice. “Someone is pounding on our door.” There was a pause and then his father shouting again. “It’s two o’clock in the morning!”

  Logan burrowed into an old sweatshirt and stood to tug on his trousers. At the bureau, he shoved his bare feet into his boots and stooped to tie the laces. As he left his room, he passed his father, whose room was on the opposite side of the staircase. His dad had his robe on over his traditional pale blue pajamas and was cinching the sash on the cranberry-colored terry robe as Logan passed him.

  “Who the devil?” said his father.

  Logan thundered down the stairs as the knocking continued. He saw a small figure beyond the glass. He opened the front door inward. Beyond the storm door, Mrs. Morris stood on his welcome mat in her bathrobe and bare feet.

  He didn’t need to ask what was wrong. The snow reflected the orange blaze of the Morrises’ house. He stepped out and across the porch so he could see. The entire second floor was blazing, and black smoke billowed upward as snow continued to fall from above.

  “Dad! Call the fire department! The Morrises’ house is on fire!” He grabbed Mrs. Morris’s shoulders. “Where’s Paige and Lori?”

  “I don’t know. Inside. I think they’re still inside!”

  He leaped from the porch and out into the snowy yard.

  It took an eternity to run through the seven inches of accumulation and cross the hundred and fifty yards that separated the two houses. He reached the porch and found the front door open. The draw of air sucked past him and up the stairs, fueling the fire above. He made it halfway up to find a wall of flames filling the upper hall. Smoke billowed outward through the opening where the window should have been.

  “Paige!” he shouted. The flames roared, stealing his voice, consuming the dry wood of the two-hundred-year-old structure.

  He pulled his sweatshirt up over his head and tried to reach the landing, but was forced back by the heat.

  Retreating out of the house, he went for the aluminum ladder in the Morrises’ shed. Running, staggering and slipping as he tried to find traction in the slippery snow.

  How long until the flames reached her? How long until the fire stole from him the only woman he had ever loved?

  * * *

  PAIGE CHOKED ON the thick smoke. The room was dark but there was an orange glow beneath her bedroom door. The smell of burning was all around, in every scalding breath.

  “Lori!” She shook her daughter. To her horror, her daughter jostled from her shove and then remained still as death.

  The carbon monoxide in the smoke—had it killed her daughter?

  Paige pressed a hand to her daughter’s chest and lowered her ear to her lips. The faint rise and fall accompanied the shallow release of air.

  The smoke billowed, so thick she could no longer see the door.

  “Mom! Mom! Fire!” Why hadn’t the smoke detectors alerted them? She changed the batteries every spring at daylight savings.

  Later, her brain instructed. Right now she needed to get them out. She wrapped Lori like a burrito in the bedding and pushed her to the floor. Then she crawled on hands and knees to the door, placing a hand on the antique glass handle. Reflexively, she jerked her hand backward before her brain registered the branding heat of the knob.

  “Mom! Fire!” Smoke filled her lungs and she coughed and choked.

  There would be no escape that way. Opening the door would release that deadly heat into the room. Paige retreated, crawling back until she hit the box spring with her head. Then she slithered on the floor toward her daughter.

  The air was so hot. Her eyes streamed with tears. Choking, she tried and failed to call to Lori. Where was she?

  Groping as she crept along, she realized that she was dizzy. The air was leaving the room. Her lungs burned with each scalding breath. She reached out and felt the bedding.

  Fists clenched on the blankets encircling her daughter as she dragged Lori toward the windows. Was she going in the right direction or was she heading back toward the door?

  Her shoulder struck the desk, telling her where she was. Releasing her daughter, Paige rose. The smoke was so much worse. Just a few feet higher and the air was scalding. Her face felt as if she had stuck it into a preheated oven. Dry heat sizzled as she flipped the latches and opened the window. Fresh air, sweet and cold doused the heat, driving it back. Paige inhaled as the bedroom door blasted open and flames exploded through the gap.

  She squatted, groping for Lori and finding her, dragging her to her chest and up onto the window.

  “Paige!” The male voice came from somewhere below her. The smoke now poured past her and out the window. She could not see.

  “Paige, drop Lori! I’ll catch her!”

  “Logan?” She tried to call his name, but the smoke turned her words into a scratching, crackling thing and she burst into fits of coughing.

  She heaved until Lori hung half out the window.

  “Are you there?” she called and could not hear her own voice.

  Catch her, Logan. Save our girl.

  She pushed, and Lori fell free, tumbling out into space.

  “I got her!”

  Paige smiled and crumpled to the floor.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Logan held Lori’s inert body as he reached the foot of the ladder. His father had arrived and took the girl as Logan returned up the extension ladder.

  “Is she breathing?” he called as he ascended.

  “Yes,” said his dad. “Hurry!”

  Paige had been alive a moment ago. His feet clanged on each flat metal rung as he ascended toward the window that now billowed with thick smoke.

  The black hole gaped, like the mouth of a dragon. He could see nothing within but the flames dancing like streamers across the ceiling.

  He grasped the ledge and pulled himself into the dragon’s jaws. The floor was so hot, he felt the wide painted panels of the wood peeling under his hands. He groped and found her, lying still on the smoking floor. He dragged her to him by her limp arm.

  “Paige!” He choked. The air was too hot to breathe. He scuttled backward to the window. There was a current of hot air pouring past them on its way out and into the sky.

  He had to get her out. He stood in the heat that burned his skin and lifted her out the window.

  “Here, son! I’m here.”

  Logan turned toward the voice. His father, his fifty-four-year old father, whom Logan thought too old to be on a ladder, was standing below the window, taking Paige from his arms.

  “Come on,” shouted his dad. “Out! Grab the ladder.”

  Logan went headfirst out the window, hanging on the back of the rungs just above his father who stood on the front side of the ladder holding Paige in his arms.

  The fresh air filled his lungs and he sucked in a breath.

  His father struggled down, holding Paige over one shoulder like a firefighter.

  A howling sound grew louder and louder, sounding like an opera soprano stuck on a high note. He glanced around to try and place the noise. Was that the fire?

  Logan looked back to the window. Flames poured out of the hole and reached up to the roof. The side of the building was black with soot and he could not believe anyone had escaped that fire. Bright red lights flashed across the white blistering paint as the singer grew louder. The fire engines, he realized, looking to the road and the approaching emergency vehicles.

  Logan scrambled down the back rungs of the ladder and climbed around the side, coming to the front half of the ladder and proceeding down.

  His father reached the ground and crumpled into the snow, still holding Paige.

  “You’re on fire!” shouted Mrs. Morri
s, stepping forward to pat frantically at his shoulders. Logan dropped and rolled in the snow, hearing the hiss of extinguishing embers. The smell of burned hair caused him to feel his head. He felt nothing burned away and so scrambled to Paige. Mrs. Morris had dragged her granddaughter beneath the large maples that stood witness to the human tragedy playing out below them.

  She hurried back to Lori and sat in the snow, tucking her bare feet within the bedding and bringing Lori into her arms.

  Lori cried, curling into the arms of her grandmother. Logan turned to his father, who sat panting in the snow beside Paige, who was motionless.

  Logan dropped to his knees beside her. He pushed her singed hair back and looked at the blackened, soot-streaked face. The tracks of her tears cut lines in the ash. She blinked up at him, her blue eyes wide with wonder.

  “I’m alive.”

  Logan was nodding, unable to speak past the tears that choked him.

  “Lori?”

  “With your mom. Both okay.”

  “Miracle,” she whispered, and then closed her eyes as her body went slack.

  * * *

  THE MORRIS FAMILY was transported to Mill Creek Medical Center for treatment by the Hornbeck volunteer fire department in the new EMS vehicle purchased by Rathburn-Bramley for the village. Paige was treated for smoke inhalation, scorched nasal passages and had first degree burns on her hand where she had touched the doorknob. That touch had likely saved her life, along with the help of her mother, who had run for help, Logan and his father, who arrived moments before the fire breeched the door, and the volunteers who had transported her and her daughter.

  Lori had carbon monoxide poisoning and was on oxygen overnight in the emergency room. This facility was small, with only ninety beds, and all of them were currently occupied. Paige and Lori slept on gurneys in the same ER examination room, side by side, their oxygen flowing into the uncomfortable clear plastic masks. Sometime very late in the evening, they were moved to a room. Lori barely roused, but Paige took the opportunity to shower before putting on a fresh hospital gown. Despite the scrubbing, she still smelled faintly of wood smoke and ash.