Out of the Ashes

by Cynthia Reese

  Alarm exploded through her, arcing through her nerve endings. This was a side of Jake she’d never seen before. Sure, his sarcasm could scald, and his thoughtlessness was legendary, but she’d never been afraid of him.

  “Jake—” She tried to take a step back, but he’d pinned her between the cabinet and himself.

  “Tell me!” he insisted.

  “He—he knows about the convenience store fire. And he thinks you had something to do with that warehouse fire that same summer.”

  Jake shoved her, the counter’s edge digging into the small of her back. “Is that all? What’d you tell him to make him think that?”

  Kari rubbed the bruising pain flowering on her back. “I didn’t tell Rob Monroe anything to make him think that. You’re my brother, Jake. I went to jail for you.”

  “As if I haven’t had that crammed down my throat ever since,” he grumbled. “And how’d he know I torched that stupid warehouse, anyway? Why now? I mean, they leave me alone all these years, and only now are they chasing me down about it?”

  Kari’s breath caught in her throat. “Jake...”

  Jake rolled his eyes. “Oh, don’t pretend you and Mom didn’t know. Why else would Mom have so many smoke detectors in this place? And a dang fire extinguisher in every room? She honestly thinks I’m itching to burn every building I’m in.”

  “You didn’t.” Nausea permeated Kari. “Jake, tell me you didn’t burn that warehouse. Tell me you didn’t set the downtown fire.”

  “Why does an old abandoned warehouse matter, anyway? Old coot who owned it wasn’t using it—ran us out when we were hanging out there, having parties, not bothering anybody. What was it to him?” Jake’s beautifully shaped mouth curled in a contemptuous sneer.

  Kari’s vision blurred. She’d always heard of people passing out from shock, but it had never happened to her—never before now. She fought against it. “A man died in that fire, Jake—he died, and all he was doing was his job—to put out a fire before it could hurt people.” She closed her eyes, hearing Rob’s words echo in her head.

  You took a husband and a father away from his family—forever.

  Jake snorted in derision. “He was a firefighter—he knew what he was getting into. If he didn’t want to end up like that, he should have had better sense than to run into burning buildings, right? Besides, I’ll bet his wife got a pile of money from the county. Bet she was set for life.”

  Jake’s rationalization sickened her. “I went to jail for you—and you swore you’d never set another fire. Do you know what agony I went through? Do you have any clue how bad it was? Did it matter? Did it not mean one iota to you? It must not—not if you could start another fire, what, months? No, weeks, weeks after I went to jail. For you.” Tears streamed down her face. “And you killed a man—no, you killed Rob Monroe’s father.”

  He advanced on her again, backing her into the corner formed by the kitchen counters. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, St. Karina saved my bacon. I owe you my life. I should make something of myself. I should be just as wonderful as you are. Well, you know what? I never asked you to confess for me. That was all Mom. And if you were stupid enough to do it, well, you deserved everything you got—besides, Mom’s been taking care of you—she never would loan me money. Oh, no.” Jake shook his finger in her face. “It was always ‘Jakey, I’m broke,’ or ‘Jakey, you should have thought about that before I had to bail you out of jail.’ But you—you are the golden child. Whatever you want, she gives you. Need ten or twenty grand to start a business? No problem—but she wouldn’t loan me five hundred bucks to get out of a hole I was in.”

  “Oh, no—Jake—you didn’t—” Kari swallowed, pushing him back, away from her, needing space to think—or maybe not to think, not if what she feared he’d say came out of his mouth.

  He didn’t seem to notice her or the patches of white flour she’d left on his T-shirt where she’d pushed him away from her. Spittle had formed at the corner of his mouth, and his blue eyes were hard and cold. “You didn’t deserve that business. I figured if I burned you out, you’d haul off, go somewhere else. We were fine, Kari, fine, until you came back. And then suddenly, Mom was all, ‘no money, no how,’ and ‘Kari says this’ and ‘Kari says that.’ Do you know how sick I got hearing her say that?”

  “It’s not too late, Jake. You can turn yourself in. I’ll tell Rob that you’re sick and you need help—not jail. He’ll listen to me—I know it.”

  Jake whirled around. “I’m not going to jail, and I’m not going to be stuck in a psych ward. Not because you couldn’t keep your mouth shut. And as for Rob Monroe listening to you? You’re a convicted arsonist. I’ll tell him it was all you. He can’t prove anything about that warehouse fire.”

  “I’ll tell him the truth. I swear.”

  Jake picked up a heavy marble rolling pin and brandished it at her head. “Just try. Just try. Besides. I’ll bet that DA won’t be so picky. Way I hear it, he’s itching to convict you. He’ll listen to me. I’ll work out a deal, and it will be my word against yours. Then it will be Mom and me again, and you won’t be around to stick your nose in my business. Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ll do. Just as soon as I have Rob Monroe’s attention somewhere else.” He slung the rolling pin so hard onto the counter that a tiny piece of marble flew up and struck Kari on the arm.

  Her fear didn’t seem to touch him in his agitated state. He turned this way and that, and then smiled. “Ha. And here’s the way to do that.” Jake scooped up a bag of her organic confectioner’s sugar and slapped it against the palm of his hand. “Yeah. This oughta do it.”

  Then he was gone, leaving the door wide open and Kari full of remorse and regret.

  * * *

  ROB WATCHED AS Jake Hendrix bailed out of his mother’s house in a near run. He had something in his hands—a package? Rob couldn’t get a good glimpse before Jake had tossed it in his old beater of a car, slung himself in and peeled out of the drive.

  “There he is,” Rob told Tim, who sat beside him in the passenger seat of his truck. “One good thing about that press release. It sure has stirred up a hornet’s nest,” he said grimly. He eased out of his spot by the curb down the street from Kari’s mom’s house.

  Tim sat up. “You said he’d show up here sooner or later. Better not follow too close, or he’ll spot you. I knew I should be the one driving.”

  “Relax. I got this. Just because you’re a cop and I’m not doesn’t mean I’ll completely blow this.”

  But Jake apparently had his focus ahead, and it hadn’t even occurred to him that he might have a tail. He drove aggressively through the residential streets. “I don’t think he’s checked his rearview once,” Rob commented. “I think he’s rattled. What about you?”

  If Jake were this rattled, maybe he’d be desperate enough to do something that would give Rob clear proof that Jake had started the warehouse fire. And at this point? It could be that Sam Franklin was right. Maybe bringing his father’s killer to justice was all that mattered to Rob.

  Ahead of him, Jake yanked the wheel of the car and turned into a strip mall, an oncoming car laying on the horn in protest. Rob eased by the first drive, then came in the second. As he cruised closer to where Jake had parked, he saw Kari’s brother lope into a hardware store.

  “Now what’s our boy needing in the DIY department?” Tim scratched his chin and reached down between his knees for the bag of cookies he’d brought along for the stakeout. “He doesn’t have the handyman look about him at all.”

  Rob parked an aisle over, close enough that they could keep tabs on the car and the main entrance of the store. “Got me. I was hoping for something—but I didn’t expect this.”

  Tim offered the bag of cookies, shaking it so that the plastic rattled. “Want one?”

  More to shut Tim up than because he was actually hungry, Rob scooped out a couple of
the ginger snaps. He bit into one and immediately regretted it. Cookies reminded him of baking and baking reminded him of Kari.

  “Here. You can have this one.” Rob handed the untouched cookie to Tim. “It’s not very good. I’ve had better.”

  Tim lifted a brow and munched on the cookie. “Got all snobbish about your baked goods since you’ve been hanging around that Kari Hendrix.”

  Rob scoffed. “That was one thing Sam Franklin was right about. She is part of this.”

  “Huh?” Tim washed down the latest cookie with a healthy swallow of a soft drink. “You didn’t tell me you found that out. Granted, you hadn’t said much at all today since you dragged me out on this stakeout with you, but I’d have figured you would have mentioned a little something like that.”

  “No—no, I mean—she didn’t have anything to do with the actual fires. But she knew, Tim. She knew—and when she confessed to that convenience store fire, Jake was out and loose and set the warehouse fire. We all know what happened there.”

  “I gotcha.” Tim slapped a comforting hand on Rob’s shoulder. Rob tried not to notice that it was covered in cookie crumbs. “Listen, buddy. This girl—I can tell, she’s something to you. I don’t know what, exactly. I’m thinking maybe you don’t either, not yet, anyway. But can you really blame a—how old was she? Fourteen? Dang, you got two nieces that age or close to it. Now would you blame Taylor and Marissa if they did something stupid like that? I think what we got here is an unintended consequence.”

  Rob rubbed a hand over his face. “Maybe you’re right. She couldn’t have known then. But...didn’t she think it was odd, such a similar fire so close in timing? I mean, Sam’s right. How could she have not known it was her brother, especially after the downtown fire?” He drummed his fingers against the steering wheel. Had Jake pulled a fast one and used a back exit to ditch them?

  Tim munched noisily on a cookie, his face screwed up in thought. “From what you’ve told me, she’s a born optimist. Shoot, she’s been baking up a storm ever since her place burned, right? Kind of girl who’d crawl out with the cockroaches after a nuclear bomb went off, ready to take on the world or at least what’s left of it.” Tim sunk a hand back into the bag for another cookie. “You oughta give these another go. These aren’t half-bad, and I only shelled out a couple of bucks for ’em.”

  Rob thought back to that last angry exchange. Kari hadn’t had the air of ‘you’ve nabbed my brother.’ No, she’d been defiant in her defense of Jake. She honestly thought he was innocent, that Rob was simply trying to railroad him. Tim could have it right—she could have convinced herself that her sacrifice had been worth it.

  Still...she knew Rob’s father had died as a result of that warehouse fire. If she’d had any idea, any suspicion at all that Jake had started it, why hadn’t she said something to him the night she’d come over to bake brownies?

  “Hey, there’s our boy. Stump remover?” Tim pointed across the parking lot. Sure enough, Jake jogged toward his car, a container of stump remover in his hand. “What’s a guy who lives in an apartment need with a stump remover? Kari’s mom had any trees cut down lately?”

  A prickle of awareness crawled over Rob. He pulled out his cell phone and managed to snap one photo of Jake with the container in his hand before his cell phone battery died. “Shoot. Can you take another picture of him? Battery’s died and I didn’t bring my car charger with me.”

  “You think we need a shot of this? Okay.” Tim lifted his phone and snapped the photo.

  Rob waited to switch on the ignition of his truck until Jake’s attention would be focused on starting his own car. “Wait—he’s not leaving. Where’s he going now?”

  Tim squinted, shielding his eyes with his hand as he ducked forward to gaze across the parking lot. Jake had dumped his purchase into the car and taken off for the other end of the strip mall.

  “Drug store? Yeah, see? He’s heading into the entrance to that pharmacy on the end. Kind of odd day to be running errands. Especially the way he left the house a while ago. Man, it was like the hounds of the devil were after him,” Tim said.

  “I don’t think he’s running errands. He knows me—he’d recognize me. Can you follow him in there and see what he’s buying?”

  “Shoot, yeah. My legs need a stretch, anyway.” Tim propelled the door open and planted his feet on the asphalt surface. Even this late in the early fall, heat poured in the open door. “What are you afraid he’s buying?”

  “Petroleum jelly.”

  “Huh?”

  Rob ticked items off his fingers. “Petroleum jelly, stump remover and powdered sugar. You combine those into a ball, and you’ve got a handy-dandy fire starter. Add matches, and watch it burn.”

  Tim did a double take. “Listen, don’t ever cross over to the dark side. You must know a hundred ways to torch a place.”

  “It’s what I think he used along with the propane tank to start the warehouse fire. He didn’t use a safety flare on that one—but they found traces of all that stuff and bits and pieces of a magnifying glass,” Rob told him. “As for the dark side, you’ll see my dark side if you let him get away.”

  “Mite tense, aren’t you?”

  But the rhetorical question must have been just that, because he didn’t wait for an answer. Tim levered himself out of the seat and trotted off to the pharmacy.

  It left Rob alone with his thoughts. Tim’s words about his nieces kept haunting him. That’s how old Kari had been when she’d been locked up—and had stayed locked up for four years. He couldn’t imagine Taylor or Marissa surviving that sort of experience with as optimistic an attitude and as generous a spirit as Kari had.

  But his dad...his dad would still be with him except for Kari’s lie. Taylor and Marissa could have known their grandfather instead of simply hearing stories about him.

  An ache filled his heart. If Kari had only shown some remorse, some understanding about what her lie had cost his family, if she’d tried to make things right... He couldn’t think about Kari now—maybe not ever.

  Jake came out of the pharmacy in a fast walk, his eyes fixed on his car. Rob noted the smirk on Jake’s face as he let the bag of whatever he’d purchased dangle from his fingertips.

  What was it? He could tell nothing about the shape or size of the contents through the plastic shopping bag.

  “Tim, come on. We’re gonna lose him,” Rob muttered.

  But Tim was nowhere in sight. Rob gripped the steering wheel and swore as he saw a plume of oily smoke belch out of the exhaust pipe of Jake’s car. For a moment, Jake sat there, the car not going anywhere. A pulsing, relentless beat sounded from Jake’s speakers—he must have spent more on the sound system than he had on the entire car, Rob realized.

  Jake’s car slid out of the parking lot. He wasn’t in a hurry now, but almost poky, as though he had all day to do whatever it was that he had planned.

  Burn a building. Dollars to donuts, Jake was planning on torching something. He was mad, and when Jake Hendrix got mad, he used fire to get even. But what building? Who did he need to get even with?

  Who would be in his way? Who would he blame for his current predicament?

  Rob picked up his cell phone to call Tim, and realized the phone was a useless hunk of plastic and glass. He tossed it in the console and swore again. Where was Tim?

  Jake’s beater merged into traffic, no rush, no hurry, just a smooth right turn that headed back the way he’d come. There were about a dozen different directions he could take in the next five minutes.

  As Jake’s car disappeared from view, Tim came hustling out of the pharmacy and across the parking lot.

  “I was just about to leave you!” Rob snapped. “He’s already gone!”

  “Well, go!” Tim slid into cab and slammed the door. “We got to get him—you were right. He bought a big old container
of petroleum jelly. That boy’s planning on a fire somewhere.”

  Kari. Kari was one of two witnesses who could tell the truth about Jake. And Kari was in the direction Jake had headed.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  “MOM, MOM... I’VE got to go, I’ve got to find Jake!” Kari pulled free from her mother’s grasp, intent on getting to her minivan. “I’ve got to stop him—he’s going to kill Rob, I know it.”

  “No, Kari, wait, don’t leave—stay with me—we’ll call the police—” Her mother couldn’t finish. She sagged against the door, her face red and swollen with crying. Kari hadn’t seen her mother in such a state since the night Mom had begged her to take the blame for Jake.

  Jake. Who had killed a man.

  “Kari, Kari, please...” Mom whimpered. “Wait, just let me think. I’ve got to fix this, I know I can fix this. If you call the police, they’ll arrest Jake—but if you don’t—oh, we’ve got to call them. We’ve got to tell them to warn Rob.”

  “I did! I tried. Don’t you see? They don’t believe me. It’s like Jake said—I’m an arsonist. Why should they believe anything I tell them?”

  Her mother plucked at Kari. “You are not an arsonist. You did not start that fire. Not any fire. I am so sorry—it’s all my fault. I was just trying to save my boy...”

  She wept still more, but Kari had no time for her tears. Jake was out there, somewhere, and he was planning something awful. She hadn’t known about the warehouse fire that killed Rob’s dad. She hadn’t known Jake was intending to get back at her in some sort of weird twisted sibling rivalry by burning half the downtown. She couldn’t have stopped either of those fires.

  But she did know he was intent on something terrible now. She could—had to—stop this fire.

  Where was Rob? Not at the fire station, not at his office, not answering his cell phone. In desperation, Kari had even picked up the phone and called 911.

  But when the 911 operator had asked what her emergency was, and she’d tried to explain, it had made no sense and taken too much time. She’d finally given up and told the operator to forget it. Now her mother was taking up still more precious seconds, seconds she needed to be able to think.