House on Fire (ARC)

by Bonnie Kistler

  This was none of her business, she told herself. If Stephen were her client, she might have an ethical obligation to pursue the matter, but her duty as an officer of the court didn’t require her to report crimes committed by nonclients. If there even was a crime to report.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  The Saab was parked in front of his cottage on Sunday. She pulled in behind it and sat there as dark clouds bunched up in the sky. It was late afternoon on a muggy August day. A quick tumult of a storm would clear the air and relieve all this pressure. Any moment now Stephen would step out the side door with glasses of iced tea in each hand and some words of gentle reassurance.

  But after five minutes, he still didn’t appear. She got out and walked around the pebble path to the Snuggery door. She could hear strains of music coming from inside. The notes of a single violin fluttered up the scale, higher and higher, in a piercing melody so beautiful it made her heart hurt. The sound seemed to shimmer in the hot sun like iridescent strings stretched so taut they were in peril of snapping. She recognized the piece. The Lark Ascending.

  He was there in the Snuggery, reclining low in his easy chair with his eyes closed. He didn’t stir as she came through the door. He held a snifter in his palm, and an open bottle of Godet sat on a stack of books on the table beside him.

  “I always picture Andy when I listen to this,” he said after a moment. His eyes were still closed. “It’s as if he’s ascending, too. Unbound from this earth. Free.”

  The orchestra joined in to ride the currents below the violin’s flight, and the music swelled to fill the jewel box room.

  Leigh cleared her throat. “You talked to Claire?”

  “She called, yes.”

  She took another step into the room. “I was thinking about your lecture that night at the university. About the good lie. I was so self-absorbed that I imagined it was all about Kip. That it was Kip’s lie that inspired you.”

  “It was a subject much on my mind.”

  “Because of your own lie. You’ve been struggling to justify it.”

  He didn’t answer.

  “Did you succeed? In justifying it.”

  “That’s not my call.” He opened his eyes and looked at her across the room. “Have you been to the police?”

  “That’s not my call.”

  “Ah. You mean to leave it to Claire.”

  “Or you. One of you will do the right thing.”

  He studied the swirl of liquid in his glass. “I believe I already did. I took steps to bring some good out of this tragedy. Thousands of lives will be saved thanks to the work of Andy’s foundation.” He sat up and leaned forward in his chair. “Sit, won’t you?” He lifted the bottle to refill his glass. “Help me finish off this cognac.”

  “Protects someone, hurts no one. That was your calculation, wasn’t it?”

  “Not mine—”

  “That was how you rationalized it.”

  “I suppose so. Why put her through that? Andy was gone. The harm was already done.”

  “Other people were hurt, though.”

  He looked up. “Who?” He seemed genuinely curious.

  “The police department. The taxpayers. All the resources wasted on a wild goose chase to find your fabricated burglar. Any innocent suspects who were hauled in and interrogated. And all your neighbors, who had to live in terror that their house would be next.”

  He shrugged, dismissing the point more than conceding it.

  “Then there’s the harm to Claire. Her guilt is tearing her apart.”

  He took a swallow from the snifter. “The guilt would be there in any case. The truth won’t alleviate it. All it would do is add shame and scandal.” He cocked his head and gave her a contemplative look. “I hope you’ll do that calculation before you go to the police. Weigh the help against the harm. Who would benefit from the truth? No one. But who would it hurt? Claire, of course. And what if the foundation collapses?”

  The music came softer now, in a lilting cadence that reminded her of a bird soaring and dipping over a rolling landscape. She pulled a business card from her bag and placed it carefully on the blotter on Stephen’s desk. “Here’s a lawyer you should call. He’s probably the second-best criminal defense lawyer in Montgomery County.”

  He smiled. “Ah. You gave the best to Claire.”

  “She’s facing a homicide charge. You’re only facing accessory charges.”

  “Neither of us is facing anything. To paraphrase Ben Franklin: so long as we hang together, there’s no way we’ll hang separately.”

  She knew that was true. The gun would never be recovered, and what other evidence was there? Nothing but her own testimony about the vague ramblings of a grief-stricken mother. “But she’ll confess,” she said. “She can’t bear it much longer.”

  “Her sister’s on her way as we speak. She’s taking her back to London with her on the next flight out.”

  Leigh’s mouth tightened. “Out of the jurisdiction.”

  “Yes. But don’t worry. I’ll still be here. Or rather, in Chevy Case. Now that I needn’t watch over Claire anymore, I’ve decided to return to my parish.”

  “And to the pulpit?”

  “That depends on you, doesn’t it?”

  She was silent, and for a moment so was the music. He held up a finger—wait; wait for it—and the orchestra returned in a lush chorus of strings. She felt the wave building, the volume swelling, the crest beginning to break over her head. “Good-bye, Stephen.” She turned away.

  “What would you have done, Leigh?” he called after her. “Tell me that. If you’d had the chance to turn Chrissy’s death into something meaningful.”

  She didn’t look back. “There’s no such thing as a meaningful death. Not for a child.” Her voice rang hollow in her ears. “It’s always senseless.”

  He let out a heavy sigh. “Peace be with you, Leigh.”

  The old familiar refrain came to her—And also with you—as she opened the door and stepped out into an eddy of hot, humid air.

  The wind whipped the treetops as she drove away, and a mile from home the storm broke. The rain pelted down so hard and fast her wipers couldn’t keep up. The water gushed over the windshield, and she drove almost blindly the final hundred yards until she reached the driveway. The garage door rose up, and she rolled in, and abruptly the lion’s roar of the downpour switched off, replaced by the steady plops of rainwater dripping off the car onto the concrete floor. She had to cross the breezeway to the back door, and the wind gusted so hard that the rain swept in under the roof and splattered her from head to foot before she could dash inside.

  She’d stabled the horses that morning, but she went to the window anyway to check that Romeo hadn’t somehow managed to break out. She knelt on the window seat and peered through the glass. The sky was charcoal gray, and the sheets of rainwater slapping against the house were nearly opaque. Lakes were already forming across the patio. Soon they’d join into one big ocean.

  A crack of lightning flashed in the eastern sky, and she started the automatic count she taught the children when they were small. One-­Mississippi, Two-Miss—

  The thunder cracked, and there wasn’t time for another Mississippi before a second bolt of lightning streaked the sky. The count died in her brain as the after-flash lit up the patio. A man stood on the other side of the glass.

  She pinwheeled off the window seat and lunged for the phone. The man was pressed up against the bay window, huddling under the overhang of the roof. She punched in 911, and it wasn’t until the instant before the call connected that she realized it wasn’t a man at all.

  She dropped the phone and yanked the back door open. “Kip!” she shouted out into the storm. “What are you doing? Get in here!”

  He came around to the breezeway but no farther. Water streamed from his shoulders, and his hair dr
ipped down over his face.

  “My God, you’re drenched!” She pulled him inside and ran to the laundry room for some towels. He was still standing on the threshold when she came back, and she flung a towel over his shoulders and pulled him the rest of the way inside. “What are you thinking, out in weather like this?” She shut the door behind him.

  “I didn’t know it was going to rain when I headed out.”

  “Headed out—what? On foot?” She scrubbed the towel over his head and shoulders.

  He shrugged.

  “Where’s your dad?”

  “Six Flags. With Mia.”

  “You walked five miles in the rain?” She draped a second towel around him and turned him to the stairs. “Go get out of those clothes and in the shower before you catch your death. Then get into bed. I’ll bring you some hot tea.”

  He didn’t move. “I’m only staying a minute.” He pulled the towel off his head and wiped at his face. “I just wanted this chance—” Carefully he hung the towel over a chair back. “I mean, this might be my last chance, and I wanted to say, you know, good-bye or thank you or whatever.”

  He made her feel cold just standing there. She turned to the stove and picked up the kettle.

  “I mean, letting me move in here like you did? You didn’t have to do that. You could’ve told Dad to send me back to my mom. So I just wanted you to know that I’m, you know, grateful. I had a good time here. The best.”

  She swung the kettle to the faucet and turned on the tap, and the water rang against the hollow metal as loudly as the rain outside. “You remember the first time you came here?” she said after a moment.

  “Sure. You had a big cookout, and we played badminton.”

  “We were all in a flurry that morning. I was busy cooking, and Dylan and Zack were out shoveling up the pasture, and Chrissy kept running up and down the stairs trying on different outfits. How does this look? she asked each time, and I always said fine, but she still ran back up to try on something else. Finally I said: Honey, just wear anything. It doesn’t matter. And she said—remember she was only nine, I couldn’t believe it—I only get one chance to make a first impression.”

  Kip sputtered behind her, more a cough than a laugh.

  “I said: What’s the big deal, anyway? It’s not like you don’t already have two brothers. And she said: Yes, but they were here for years before me. This one will be mine from the start.”

  “Like I was a new puppy.”

  “Exactly.” Leigh shut off the tap and put the kettle on the burner. “Like she was going to train you or something.”

  “She kind of did, though. She made me into a nicer guy. I don’t know. A better person.”

  Leigh put a hand over her mouth to hold back the sob.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “No. No, don’t be.” She wiped at her eyes. “That’s the best thing anyone could say.”

  “No, I mean—I’m sorry about—everything. I know you can never forgive me, but I had to come here and say it anyway. I’m so sorry, Leigh.”

  I’m sorry. Now she was supposed to say I forgive you. It was like a responsive reading from the Book of Common Prayer. The old familiar refrains engraved in her mind. The Lord be with you—And also with you. Lift up your hearts—We lift them unto the Lord. I’m sorry—I forgive you.

  “It was an accident, Kip. It wasn’t your fault.”

  “It was.” Water dripped from his hair as he shook his head. “It was all my fault. I lied.”

  Leigh turned from the stove. She could feel her heart tremble in her chest. There. He’d said it at last. It was what she’d been waiting for all these months.

  He took the towel off his shoulders and draped it over the chair beside the first one. “So. That’s what I came to say.” He turned for the door. “I’m gonna take off now.”

  “You can’t go back out in this weather.”

  He looked back at her, wet and cold and utterly exhausted. “I can’t stay either.”

  “At least let me drive you.”

  He looked at the floor and nodded.

  Five miles took twenty minutes through the teeming rain. Neither of them spoke, although in fairness they really couldn’t over the pounding of the rain on the roof and the relentless squeaking of the wipers. The creek along Hollow Road overflowed its banks and surged brown and muddy under all the little driveway bridges along the roadside. A car passed them, and it spewed so much water from its wheels that Leigh had to come to a stop before she could see again to drive.

  The driveway at Hollow House was blocked off with traffic cones and tape. She stopped on the road. “I’ll jump out here,” Kip said.

  It was a hundred feet up through gushing rain. “Wait,” she said before he could open his door. “At least wrap up a little.” She reached for the towel he’d spread over his seatback and pulled it over his head to protect him from the worst of the downpour. “There.” She drew the two sides together under his chin. “Now be sure to take a hot shower the minute you get inside.”

  He nodded and reached for the door handle.

  “No, wait,” she said again.

  He turned and peered out at her from under the shroud of the towel.

  She needed to speak the words. I forgive you. But her throat was too thick. All she could do was reach for him and hug him tight. For a moment he let her, his body shuddering, before he jerked free and ran up the drive through the teeming rain.

  The rain rang on the rooftop and roared inside the car, so loud she didn’t hear her phone ring either time. But when she got home she saw that two calls had come in. Andrea Briggs and Shelby Randolph. They both wanted the same thing—her testimony—but with two different spins. Necessarily different, because she played two different roles in this drama. Mother of the victim and stepmother of the accused. Andrea wanted her to tell the jury about Chrissy, and Shelby wanted her to tell the jury about Kip.

  She sat on the window seat in the kitchen with her phone in her hand and stared at the rain battering against the glass. Her own reflection stared back. Andrea wanted the jury to know what a truly special girl Chrissy was, and Leigh wanted them to know that, too. She wanted the whole world to know. But she couldn’t tell the jury anything of Chrissy’s story, not when the ending was so wrong.

  But Kip’s story—that ending wasn’t written yet.

  She gazed at the screen on the phone, and the missed calls from Andrea and Shelby. Here was her moment of truth. From the start of this ordeal she’d claimed to herself and everyone else that it was only Kip’s lie that upset her. Now he’d confessed the truth, and unless she was lying, too, she had to move past it.

  Shelby picked up on the first ring. “Leigh?”

  She answered. “Yes.”

  Chapter Forty-Four

  She dreamed of Chrissy that night. It was the grown-up dream again and Chrissy was unloading the dishwasher with her back to the room. Her hair was longer than she’d ever worn it, and the bright crimson curls had turned to strawberry-blond waves. She was tall and slender and there was a supple grace to her movements as she stooped to pluck out the plates and rose on tiptoes to stack them on the shelves. One by one the pieces of flatware slid into their grooves in the drawers and the glasses lined up in the cupboard. “There,” Chrissy said and closed the dishwasher door. “All done.” And she turned around and smiled at Leigh.

  There was a hammering in her head. Someone was trying to break in and steal this moment from her, but she wouldn’t let them in. Not while her grown-up daughter was smiling at her. She pushed the pause button and held the image there on the screen of her dream. Chrissy smiled with such love in her eyes, and when she woke, Leigh was smiling, too.

  But the hammering didn’t stop, and she realized that it wasn’t in her dream, it was at the front door. She pulled on her robe and ran downstairs and put her eye to the peephole. A ma
n stood on the front steps dressed all in black. He looked directly at the door and spoke loud enough for his voice to carry through it. “Sorry to disturb you, ma’am.”

  “John?” She clutched the lapels of her robe together and opened the door. “What time is it?”

  “Oh-two-hundred. Sorry. It’s an emergency or I would never—”

  “What? Is it Devra?” But that couldn’t be. John didn’t yet know about Devra’s escape from Washington.

  “No, ma’am.” He stepped into the light. His jaw was clenched tight. She’d never seen him look so tense. “It’s Jenna Beck, and it’s urgent.”

  “Jenna?” That didn’t make any sense either. She’d never involved him in Jenna’s case.

  “She’s in labor, and it looks like she’s planning to have the baby on her own. She won’t open the door for me, but if you could come with me—”

  “Wait. I don’t understand. How do you know Jenna?”

  “Mr. Beck hired me to keep an eye on her.”

  “Wait. He knows where she is?”

  “Yes, ma’am. For a while now.”

  “But—” Her head was swirling. “That doesn’t make any sense. Just this week he offered a reward to find her.”

  “That was for her benefit. To get her to come in on her own before the baby was born. I think he was afraid of something like this. I called him, but he won’t get down here in time, and anyway she won’t open the door for him either.” He looked at his watch. “Ma’am, we really need to hurry.”

  “Well, let me call her parents.” She turned to the phone on the hall table.

  “I tried them first. They’re not home, and they’re not answering their mobiles either.”

  “Oh.” She reached for the phone again. “I’ll call for an ambulance.”

  “We already tried that. She said she was fine and sent them away.”