Prescriptions and Promises

by Jessica Matthews

  ‘Let’s think positive,’ Jenny said, cringing at the picture Carrie had painted.

  ‘Rabbits are good at hiding,’ Noah said. ‘He’s probably found a nice shady spot and he’s waiting for you to take him home.’

  Carrie’s expression grew hopeful. ‘Do you think so?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ he said firmly. ‘Now, rather than all of us looking in the same areas, we’ll split up so we can cover more ground.’

  His take-charge attitude and self-confidence visibly restored Carrie’s hope. Determination replaced the fear on her cherubic face and she shouted for her friends to join her.

  ‘You’ve restored her faith in you rather quickly,’ Jenny remarked in a tone meant for his ears only.

  He shrugged. ‘It appears so.’

  ‘Don’t let her down.’

  ‘I’ll do my best not to.’ He paused. ‘I’ll do my best for you, too. You can count on it.’

  She cast a dubious glance in his direction, but let the subject drop. The four girls had gathered around Noah like children around the Pied Piper and were chattering away like a group of blue jays.

  ‘OK, girls. Listen up. Here’s what we’re going to do,’ he began. ‘Pair up and we’ll search the block. If Bugs is hiding under a bush or in a hole, we should see the leash. We’ll stay in sight of each other, and if anyone spies him don’t move and don’t try to pick him up. One of you signal for Carrie so she can get him. He’s scared and won’t run away from her.’

  All the girls nodded, their faces shining with purpose as he sent them on their mission.

  ‘I’m going back to the store to lock up for the night,’ Jenny told him. ‘I’ll join you after I’m finished.’

  ‘OK.’ Noah and Carrie started forward while Jenny backtracked to their starting point.

  She quickly hauled Carrie’s lemonade stand and her two chairs inside, and turned the front door’s deadbolt behind her. Later, after Bugs had been found, she would return to fold the card table, wash out the insulated Thermos of lemonade, and store everything away. Neatness took a distant second to finding Bugs.

  Jenny rushed through the building to the rear exit. Just as she reached for the knob, she heard a thump outside. Could Bugs have found his way back?

  She flung open the door and instant relief swamped her. Seeing the black and white rabbit waiting on the step like an invited guest, she wanted to shout for joy.

  ‘Why, Bugs, you rascal,’ she said, crouching down to scoop him into her arms. ‘Did you decide you’d had enough excitement?’

  Bugs nuzzled his nose in her elbow as she scratched his ears. ‘You deserve a treat for coming home by yourself,’ Jenny crooned. But as she turned to go inside something in her peripheral vision caught her attention.

  She stopped to slowly scan the area until she realized what was odd. The small basement window was open.

  How had that happened? Jenny hadn’t been in the basement for days. Carrie had gone down this morning in search of cardboard for her sign, but she wasn’t tall enough to reach the latch, or strong enough to push the window open.

  Determined to close it, she hurried inside and headed for the lower level.

  A strange, albeit familiar smell greeted her at the top of the stairs. Flicking on the light switch, she slowly descended the steps.

  Oddly enough, the smell grew stronger until she recognized it. Charcoal starter fluid.

  How had that got downstairs? More importantly, how had it spilled?

  As Jenny stepped off the staircase to walk around and survey the area, she couldn’t believe what lay before her eyes. Formerly stacked boxes were now scattered across the room with their contents strewn across the floor. Wet splotches covered everything and the lighter fluid fumes permeated the air. A pile of wet newspaper lay in one corner.

  Fear prickled at her nape. Bugs’s ears pricked up and his body tensed in her arms as if he, too, sensed the danger in the air. Suddenly eager to call for help, she turned toward the stairs and froze.

  Herb Kravitz stood on the bottom step, a box of matches in his beefy hand. ‘You had to quit looking for the rabbit, didn’t you?’ he accused.

  ‘You did this?’ She shook her head. ‘Of course you did. Why?’

  ‘I can’t find my books and I don’t intend for anyone else to find them either.’

  ‘You’re willing to burn the place down for your income-tax papers?’ Suddenly, everything fell into perfect order. ‘Those weren’t income tax papers, were they?’

  He scoffed. ‘Not hardly.’

  ‘Ledgers?’ she guessed.

  ‘Among other things.’

  ‘You took the missing medicine,’ she said in wonderment as the truth dawned. ‘What did you do with everything? Sell it?’

  ‘You’re not going to be around to repeat my story, so it won’t hurt to tell you,’ he boasted. ‘You’re right. I sold every vial and every tablet—my own little business on the side. I ordered extra stock and let Earl pay the bill. Then, after the products had sat on the shelf for a while, I hawked them at reduced prices to a select group of customers who wanted to pay less.’

  ‘Pocketing all the money for yourself.’

  His grin was feral. ‘Yeah. It worked great. Of course, I didn’t turn a profit if my family needed something.’

  ‘How generous,’ she said sarcastically.

  ‘Oh, but I was. For instance, take my nephew. A few months ago, his registered quarterhorse had a corneal abrasion. After doctoring it for weeks, the vet finally discovered it was caused by a fungus. My nephew couldn’t afford to treat the animal with fluconazole and other antibiotics for six to eight weeks at roughly eight hundred and fifty dollars a week, so I helped him out. Nice of me, wasn’t it?’

  No wonder the finances of the pharmacy had been in such terrible shape. ‘I thought Uncle Earl took care of the ordering and paperwork.’

  ‘I lied. We both did.’

  She frowned. ‘The handwriting wasn’t much different.’

  ‘Practice makes perfect, although I never did get it quite right.’

  To think he’d accused her uncle of drinking in order to account for the difference. Righteous indignation flared, but she knew she had to remain calm.

  ‘Why did you quit if you had such a great system in place?’ she asked. ‘I wasn’t around most of the time. You could have got away with it for years.’

  ‘You were digging into the records. I didn’t know how much Earl had told you or what you’d found. After years of trying to earn my family’s respect, I wasn’t about to take on a prison record. I thought if I left you’d close and no one would ever know.’

  ‘But I didn’t close.’ If not for Noah, Herb could have got away with his misdeeds. ‘Why didn’t you just take the evidence?’

  ‘I have most of it, except for one ledger which I couldn’t find. Earl threatened to go to the police, so I knew he had stashed my book somewhere for safekeeping. It wasn’t in his house—I checked after his accident—so it had to be in this building.’

  ‘You had plenty of time to search,’ she said, thinking of the month after Earl’s accident when Herb was basically alone.

  He motioned around the room. ‘There are fifty years’ worth of paper stored down here. I’ll bet every invoice and every ledger your family ever put their hands on is somewhere in this room. It wouldn’t take much for Earl to hide my records in the clutter.’

  Her relatives’ propensity for being packrats had been either a blessing or a curse. After she got out of this, she would figure out which it was.

  ‘Once you came to town, you hung around so late that I couldn’t get in and look. Still, I managed on a few nights. I had almost finished searching the basement when you changed the locks. The pie safe and a few cartons were all I had left to go through.’

  She thought back to the morning he’d dropped in. ‘No wonder you looked so surprised when you saw I’d restored the pie safe.’

  ‘Yeah. So then I had to start searching all over again. I de
cided not to waste any more time, so here we are.’

  She thought of the box in the closet of Earl’s study. Thank God Herb didn’t know she’d moved those documents elsewhere.

  And thank God that Carrie was searching for Bugs with Noah, instead of being trapped here with her.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  ‘IT’S time for me to leave.’ Herb struck a match against the side of the box, then threw it onto a pile of soaked newspaper about four feet away. With a whoosh, the fluid ignited instantly. The edges of the papers blackened and curled, sending up a dark plume of smoke.

  Bugs’s nose twitched and his hind legs dug into Jenny’s abdomen as he tried to escape her hold. She wasn’t about to let him go. She’d never find him again.

  Herb repeated the process, this time throwing the match in the opposite direction before he climbed three stairs. Jenny watched in horror as flames licked at a cardboard box.

  Tendrils of smoke filled the room and tickled her nose, but she didn’t let go of the rabbit. ‘You killed Uncle Earl, didn’t you?’

  He stopped and faced her. ‘His brakes failed. What a shame, too. That’s what happens when a person doesn’t maintain his vehicle.’

  Her eyes began to water and she coughed. ‘You won’t get away with this.’

  ‘Sure I will. This whole building is a fire hazard. Everyone knows the wiring is faulty.’

  Flames crackled around her. Sweat beaded on her skin, formed by fear and the rising room temperature.

  ‘Gib replaced every last strand. Carrie and Noah both know we don’t have any flammable liquids down here. You’ll be the prime suspect.’

  ‘I’m going to be long gone. Actually, you brought this on yourself. If you’d closed the business in the first place, this could have been avoided.’

  She coughed as her lungs started to feel the effects of the smoke. ‘I’m not responsible for your life of crime, so don’t blame me for your poor decisions.’

  His chuckle was eerie and reminded her of something out of a horror movie. ‘Yeah, well, I’m not the one who’s going to be part of a barbecue.’

  He backed up several more stairs, his features blurred by the smoke filling the room. ‘Enjoy your final moments.’

  Desperate times called for desperate measures. ‘Don’t be too sure of that. You’ll have to get past Noah.’

  As he turned to look, she loosened her hold on Bugs. Guided by his instincts to escape the danger, the rabbit jumped onto Herb in his rush to reach safety.

  Caught off guard by six pounds of energy in motion, Herb toppled over the railing and landed on the concrete to lie motionless on the floor. Carried along by Herb’s falling momentum, Bugs landed feet first on the cement. The loop of his leash caught on a broken piece of the wooden handrail and prevented his escape.

  ‘OK, Bugs. I’ve got you.’ Jenny freed the nervous rabbit, staying clear of his powerful hind feet until she’d grabbed him by his nape and tucked him against her. Knowing she couldn’t help Herb by herself, she hurried up the stairs, out of the smoke-filled basement and toward the nearest phone.

  ‘Where could he be?’ A worried Carrie slid her hand into Noah’s as they searched another block for the elusive pet. Everyone else had gone home and only Carrie and Noah continued their quest for the missing rabbit.

  ‘He’s around somewhere,’ Noah said, trying not to let his own concern show. Not only had he expected to find the bunny before now, but an hour had passed since he’d seen Jenny. An uneasy feeling had started to unfold inside him and he didn’t know if it was on Bugs’s behalf or on Jenny’s. ‘Let’s head back. Maybe Bugs found his way back to the pharmacy by himself.’

  ‘OK.’

  As soon as they rounded the corner to their block, Noah sniffed the air. ‘Smells like someone’s burning their supper.’

  ‘I don’t think I can eat until I find Bugs. My stomach won’t let me.’

  He tried to tease a smile to her face. ‘Not even pizza?’

  She shook her head.

  As he approached the alley behind Jenny’s building, Noah’s apprehension grew. The smell in the air was growing stronger and more unpleasant.

  ‘Stay here,’ he commanded Carrie before he jogged into the graveled parking area where Jenny always parked her car. Immediately, he saw black smoke curl out of the small basement window. Fear for Jenny bloomed instantly. Nothing could happen to her—he wouldn’t let it. And if it had…He quickly forced those thoughts out of his head. The idea of losing her was more than he could bear.

  ‘Call 911,’ he shouted to Carrie. The little girl’s face turned white and she scampered off without argument.

  Noah felt the back door and knob. Both were cool, so he pushed his way inside.

  ‘Jenny?’ he called, anxious to hear her voice.

  She coughed. ‘I’m here. In the office.’

  He met her and grabbed her by the shoulders, aware of Bugs in her arms. Relief at seeing her in one piece poured through him and he was torn between hugging her close and scolding her for remaining in a burning building. He settled on a quick hug—the rebuke would come later. ‘We’ve got to call the fire department,’ he said.

  ‘Already have.’

  ‘Then let’s go.’

  She stopped. ‘Can’t. Herb’s down there.’

  ‘In the basement?’

  ‘He started it. I’d be down there instead of him if not for Bugs. But we have to get him out. Not much time.’

  He made an instant decision. Knowing the town only had a volunteer firefighting force, they couldn’t waste the precious moments they had.

  ‘Do you have a fire extinguisher?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Get it. I’ll take care of Bugs.’ As soon as she handed him over, he hurried outside to tie the rabbit’s leash to Jenny’s car door handle. By the time he returned, Jenny had a fire extinguisher in her hand.

  ‘Stay here,’ he ordered, taking it from her. From the way she was coughing, she’d already inhaled enough smoke.

  She shook her head. ‘He’s too heavy for you. You’ll need me.’

  ‘I can handle it.’

  ‘It’s my building. My business. My fault.’

  He shook his head. ‘Stay here,’ he repeated, this time with more force. He turned away to test the door leading to the basement. It felt warm, but not hot. Holding his extinguisher at the ready, he cautiously began his descent.

  ‘He’s on the floor to the right of the staircase,’ she said in his ear. ‘The fire’s mainly along the right wall, by the window.’

  Before Noah could castigate her for following him, he stumbled over Herb’s feet. Jenny grabbed the extinguisher and sent bursts of chemical foam onto the closest flames. While she bought them a few minutes of relative protection, Noah examined the man responsible for their predicament.

  He found a knot on Herb’s head the size of a goose egg, and a foot twisted at an unnatural angle. However, breathing presented more of an issue than anything else.

  Jenny crouched beside Noah. ‘Extinguisher’s empty. Not much time.’

  He stifled his own cough. ‘Get him on my shoulders.’

  As Jenny helped Noah position Herb in a fireman’s carry, Noah ignored the moan of pain slipping out of Herb’s mouth. It couldn’t be helped under the circumstances and, if the truth were known, Noah didn’t feel much sympathy toward the fellow.

  Two fireman, dressed in full firefighting gear with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs, met them at the stairs where they immediately took over.

  Noah willingly surrendered his load to them, then grabbed Jenny at the waist to propel her outside into the fresh air and sunshine. He wouldn’t breathe easily until he knew she was well away from any threat.

  Before he could reach the ambulance waiting at the street near the rear of the building, a loud whoosh and a small explosion rocked the structure. The fiery beast had clearly found a new supply to feast upon.

  Noah pushed Jenny underneath him as they dove to the ground behind her
car. More fire trucks and police cars arrived on the scene, turning the chaos into organized pandemonium.

  ‘Noah! Jenny!’ Carrie’s scream floated over the sound of breaking glass and roaring flames.

  Not waiting for Jenny to find her own footing, Noah picked her up and hurried her to the far end of the parking lot where Carrie stood next to a policeman and the ambulance, clutching Bugs in her arms.

  ‘Are you OK?’ he asked Jenny, not caring that the EMTs could hear the frantic worry in his voice as they worked on Herb. He ran his gaze and his hands over her body, noting the small cut over one eye and her scraped knees.

  She coughed. ‘Fine.’

  Ignoring his own aching lungs, he plucked an oxygen mask out of an EMT’s hand and placed it over her nose and mouth before he accepted one for himself.

  Unable to see clearly through his smoke-coated lenses, he tucked one stem of his glasses in the front opening of his shirt. His vision clear in the bright sunlight, he watched Jenny’s labored breathing ease and hugged her in relief.

  Minutes later, he listened in stunned horror as she related her story to the waiting policeman. If Herb hadn’t already been unconscious, Noah would have enjoyed punching his lights out.

  Later, after the ambulance had left for the hospital, he stayed with Jenny and observed her carefully for signs of shock. To his surprise, tears streamed down her face, leaving sooty trails underneath the clear plastic mask.

  She waved in the direction of her burning building. ‘Fire. All gone.’

  He understood her message. ‘Nothing, I repeat nothing, in that building is as important as you are. I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t come out of there when you did.’

  She appeared startled by his vehement statement. ‘Really?’ she croaked in wonderment.

  ‘Yeah. What were you thinking of when you followed me down there?’ he bellowed.

  ‘Someone had to watch your back.’

  Even though he recognized the truth in her statement, he wasn’t finished airing his worries. ‘I should shake you for doing something so foolish.’

  A smile tugged at her mouth. ‘You are.’