by Lissa Bryan
To Carly’s surprise, Miz Marson kissed her cheek before saying, “Now, get some rest. We have a lot of work to do in the morning.” She climbed back down the ladder, and Carly heard her talking to Sam before she shut the barn door behind herself.
“Quite a story,” Stan said, his voice soft in the dimness.
Carly had forgotten Stan and Mindy were there.
“What did you think, Carly?” Mindy asked.
There was a small window at the back of the haymow. If Carly went back there, she’d be able to look out at the smoking ruins of her house. “I think I’m going to wait for the rain.”
Chapter Nine
Carly was in the train station again. She stepped through the doorway with slow, reluctant steps, because she knew she had been here before. Something bad had happened, but as hard as she tried to remember what it had been, the memory dangled just out of reach, like a word that danced on the tip of her tongue but just wouldn’t come to mind.
The air was hot and stuffy and smelled of dust. The floor felt spongy beneath her feet, and it creaked with every step. She didn’t want to go through the door in front of her, but every step propelled her inexorably toward it. Her hand reached for the knob, and it was cold as ice beneath her palm.
A shaky breath rattled from her as she pushed open the door. The hinges screeched loud enough that she might have jumped, but her feet seemed to have sunk down into that spongy floor. She looked down to see the top of her flower-decorated sandals disappearing beneath the floorboards.
There was a sound and Carly’s head jerked up. In front of her was an office covered in a thick blanket of dust. A computer screen flickered, green and black, and she thought of how long it had been since she’d seen a computer monitor like that—
“The black cowboy says you’re the seventh.”
Carly tried to scream, but all that came out was a choked moan. He was there. The man she’d shot. She remembered now, now that it was too late. Plump and friendly-looking, the man could have been a bank manager or an elementary school principal in his former life, but now he was someone else. Someone with hateful glee shining in his eyes as he swung a board at her head.
She ducked but could not run. Her feet were sunk into the thick pudding of the floorboards and Carly couldn’t free them. On his chest, she saw the three red blossoms her bullets had made, but she didn’t have a gun this time. But he still had the board, and he was ready to swing.
“Carly?”
Carly bolted upright, sucking in a gasping breath and began coughing again when the air caught in her throat. Her hand sought out Dagny and found empty space where the car seat had rested. That woke her fully, and she found Justin seated beside her on the makeshift bed. She tried to calm her breathing as she took stock of her surroundings and remembered how she came to be here.
“Dagny?”
“I’ve got her,” Mindy called. Mindy and Stan were seated over against the back wall of the hayloft, and Dagny was on Stan’s lap plucking at his shirt buttons. Pearl sat on the edge of the haymow beside the ladder. Kaden was below, unhooking Shadowfax from the wagon. He waved up at her and Carly waved back, still a little dazed. She must have been deeply asleep not to have awoken when they drove that rattling thing inside.
Carly hugged Justin tight. “I’m glad you’re home. I hoped you wouldn’t freak out when you saw the house—”
He kissed her, cutting off her words, and it was a moment before they came up for air. He pushed the tumbled hair out of her face, tucking it behind her ear. “I probably would have, but Grady caught me at the gate. First thing he said was, ‘Now, Justin, the most important thing is that Carly and Dagny are okay.’ ”
She smiled. “What was the second thing he said?”
“I don’t know. I didn’t stick around to listen.” He pulled her against him and shuddered. “Jesus, Carly—”
“Grady was right. The important thing is everyone’s okay.”
“Sounds like it was a damned close call.”
Her eyes stung and she blinked them hard to fight back tears. “I’ve been trying not to think about that.”
He shook his head. “How did you do it? Grady told me you lowered Sam from the window in a sheet.”
“Dropped him from the window might be a better way of describing it.”
“How did you manage to lift him at all, Carly? He weighs about the same as you do.”
“I don’t know. I just did.”
“It’s impossible.” Stan shook his head. “At least, it should be.”
“People can sometimes do the impossible when they need to,” Pearl said. She had her chin resting on her interlocked hands, her elbows propped on her knees as she stared down at the barn floor. “I once saw something … I thought no one would ever believe it, so I never told anyone.
“My cousin and I used to work on engines on the weekends. Once, he was working on a strut. We had the car up on blocks with the wheels removed. Something happened and it fell, right down on top of him. I ran into the house, screaming for my aunt to call 911. She didn’t even pause. She ran right outside, grabbed that car by the bumper and lifted it straight up. She shouted at me to yank him out, and so I did, though it felt like I’d fallen into Alice’s rabbit hole. She was small, probably no bigger than Carly there. Couldn’t have weighed a buck-twenty soaking wet, and she lifted that car like it was a cat flap.
“After he was out, she dropped it down again, sat down beside him, held his head on her lap, and told me to go call for help. She complained the next day about having a sore back, but we were so worried about my cousin, none of us said anything about it. Come to think of it, we never did talk about it, but I remember later hearing similar stories and thinking, that must have been what happened with Aunt Tricia. Adrenaline. But it still doesn’t seem like that was all there was to it.”
“Whatever it was, I’m grateful for it.” Justin kissed Carly again and gave Pearl a wry smile. “She likely wouldn’t have left if she couldn’t find a way to get the wolf out.”
“He saved us,” Carly said. “He’s the one who woke me up.”
She felt Justin go stiff under her arms. “The smoke detectors didn’t work?”
Carly shook her head. “I didn’t hear them.”
“Where was Sam?”
“In the bedroom with us. I put Dagny in the crib in our room because I don’t like having her away from me when you’re not home.”
“Was the door shut?” Justin asked.
“Yes.”
Justin swore and his hands clenched into fists.
Carly’s eyes widened. “Justin, you’re not thinking … oh my God.”
“That’s exactly what I’m thinking. Fuck!” He raked his hands through his hair.
“But who would—” Carly shook her head. “Justin, this doesn’t make sense.”
“Wait, wouldn’t Sam have barked if someone came into the house?” Pearl asked, her words nearly overlapping Carly’s.
Carly answered her. “Sam doesn’t bark. He whines and growls, and he’ll howl on command, but that’s about it.”
“Some guard dog.”
“He would have been very effective if he’d had free-run of the house.” Justin gave Carly a chiding glance.
“Anyone could have gotten into the house when we weren’t home. It’s not like we lock the doors.”
Pearl stood. “I’m going to go talk to Grady again, and I think we need to send up the Bat Signal and call everyone in for a town meeting.”
Justin glanced over at Carly when she turned to cough into her hand. “I know. Can we talk about this later?”
Pearl nodded. “Sure. I’ll see you at sunset, all right? That’s when we’ll have everyone meet at the courthouse.”
“Us, too,” Stan said. “We’ll take Dagny home with us for the afternoon. Stop by if you’d like a hot meal or a shower before the meeting.”
“And Kaden,” Mindy said. Downstairs, Kaden grumbled, and Carly shook her head with a smile. She i
magined Kaden was itching for all of the details of the fire, but maybe Stan and Mindy would be able to assuage his curiosity for a while.
She kissed Dagny before Stan handed her down to Mindy. At the barn door, Sam looked back at Carly and then at Dagny and gave a soft whine of indecision.
“Go on,” Justin said, and the wolf followed Stan and Mindy to watch over his pack’s youngest member. He was still limping a little. Carly would have to check his ribs again later.
“Come here,” Justin said, holding his arms open for her in invitation. Carly went into them and they lay down together, unable to hold one another tight enough to drive away the fear of loss, of separation. But she pulled back to give him a reproachful look.
“Why did you tell Pearl you wanted to talk about this later? You’re not trying to keep anything from me, are you? Because I don’t need to be sheltered, Justin. I’m—”
“No, honey, that’s not it. I’m not trying to keep you out of the loop. I just wanted a little alone-time with you before …”
“Before what?”
“Before we have to devote our energy to this. I don’t know where we’ll be staying or how this will work out.”
She burrowed closer to him, laying her cheek on his chest over his heart. “I understand.” And for a moment, she just lay there and relished the feeling of being held by him in the soft, dusty sunshine pouring through the barn’s window, his scent and the sweet smell of the straw on which they lay.
“I should have been here,” Justin said. “I’m sorry. I should have thought—”
“Don’t be silly. You couldn’t know.”
“I won’t leave again until … until we have this resolved.”
From the coldness of his tone, she knew how he intended to resolve it. She turned in his arms and kissed him, kissed him until she drove away grim thoughts for a while and it was just the two of them in a world of their own making.
He tugged off her pajama top, kissing every inch of flesh he exposed. “Your skin smells like smoke,” he murmured. “But it tastes as sweet as ever.”
She sat up and pushed him onto his back. “My turn.”
She inched up his T-shirt, kissing her way along the skin that was revealed, just as he had done. He sat up slightly to help her tug it over his head, and she worked her way back down to the waistband of his jeans. She flicked her eyes up to meet his as she used her teeth to pull the button free. His breath came in shallow gasps, and she noticed his hands were clenched, gripping so hard she could hear the straw crinkle beneath the tarp.
She pulled down the zipper and said in surprise, “Commando!”
“I forgot to pack extras,” he rasped.
She smiled. “That just makes things easier.”
This was why she believed in fate, she thought, reveling in the taste of his skin and the feeling of his taut muscles trembling with need beneath her fingers. Their connection on every level, including this one, their bodies’ needs in harmony with one another. When she thought of it, it seemed miraculous, for how else could it be explained that he had happened to be in Juneau when the Infection struck? That he would have lingered long enough to spot her? The other half of her soul … something like that could not be just random chance, could it?
Justin groaned and seized Carly by the shoulders, rolling her over until she was beneath him. Not random, she thought. This was meant to be.
She stroked the sweat-slicked skin of his back as he moved over her, her fingertips brushing over his scars, digging into the hard muscles.
“I love you, I love you,” she whispered against his lips, and he groaned her name as she arched against him.
At Stan and Mindy’s house, both Carly and Justin showered, Justin hopping into the cold spray after Carly had finished. He washed fast, not just to conserve water, but because he’d never learned to endure freezing cold baths as well as Carly had. He made a mental note to help Stan make a hot water reservoir, one of the ten thousand tasks on his to-do list. Jumping out as soon as possible, he dressed at light speed, just for the warmth of it.
He heard Carly speaking as he walked down the hall toward the kitchen. “… can’t imagine who it could have been. We don’t have any enemies. At least, I don’t think we do.”
Justin pulled out a chair from the table and sat down, propping his elbows on the table. “Everyone has enemies, honey.”
“Any suspects?” Stan asked.
“Yeah.” Justin felt uncomfortable. He didn’t want to say the name, as though he could somehow protect Carly from the truth.
She waited. Justin told the story of Marcus’s group, the words coming as though he had to pry them from his mouth. “They’ve disabled the other bridges in the area. I think they’re forcing travelers in their direction, straight through Clayton. And I think they’re ambushing and robbing them.” He described the people he had met.
Carly’s breath caught, and she started coughing again when he mentioned Viper.
“That guy with the girl?” she said, her neck jerking back with surprise.
Justin shook his head at the description but said, “Yeah, him.”
“I’m having a hard time believing he’s capable of it,” she said. “I mean, literally capable of it. He stuck me as being the all-talk-and-no-action type.”
“He could have had an accomplice, I suppose.” Justin would have to check the area around the fence again and see if there was any evidence of it around the opening or in his traps.
“Do you have any proof?” Stan asked. “I’m not saying I don’t believe you, because I do. I know you wouldn’t say it unless you thought there was damn good reason, but is there any evidence?”
“Do you remember that nylon fiber I found? Billy was wearing a jacket matching it that had a small tear in the side. I know it’s circumstantial at best. We don’t have a forensics crew to match up the fibers and an expert to say how many of those jackets were sold in the surrounding area. All I can say is he’s the only person I’ve seen wearing a jacket in this heat, and he’s the only person bearing a grudge that I’ve seen wearing something that matches the fiber I found.”
“Could he have made it here from Clayton faster than you did?” Mindy asked.
Justin nodded. “I could have made it back in a couple of hours if we didn’t have to stick to the roads because of the wagon or stop when it got dark.”
Carly sat back, tapping her fingers on the table. He noticed she’d been chewing her nails again. “I could see him stealing chickens or doing something like slashing our tires, but murder? If someone really did disable the smoke alarms before setting the fire … and why now? Months after we turned them away?”
Stan brought over a hot skillet of stir-fried vegetables, gripping the handle with a pot mitt as he dumped a portion on both of their plates. Carly smiled at him to thank him. Mindy pulled some hot cornbread from the oven and plopped a miniature loaf on each of their plates before sitting down at the table.
“He’s with Marcus’s crew now. Maybe he felt he had something to prove to them.”
“Maybe he wanted to get you out of the way,” Stan said.
Carly dropped her fork with a clatter. “But Justin wasn’t home.”
“He may not have known that. After all, he walked here in just a few hours. He probably assumed Justin came right back and didn’t know they were driving the wagon. And even if he did know Justin was gone, maybe he thought killing his wife and baby would … I don’t know … make him vulnerable.”
Carly shook her head. “He doesn’t know Justin.”
“Eat,” Mindy said, looking pointedly at the food cooling on everyone’s plates. They obeyed, picked up silverware and began to eat, but everyone’s face showed the distance of hard thinking. Carly picked at her food, but she hid it by taking a small bite whenever anyone looked in her direction.
“What’s the plan, then?” Kaden asked.
“Double the Watch,” Stan said. “Once we tell everyone what’s going on and what they did—”
Carly laid down her fork. “We don’t know it was a they. Viper could have been working on his own volition, and Marcus might have not known a thing about it. We’re assuming the guilt of a whole group based on the actions of one … and our suspicions are just that. Suspicions. We can’t even prove it was Viper.”
“Billy,” Justin said. “Let’s dispense with that idiotic nickname he tried to give himself.”
“I mean, we can’t even prove the smoke detectors were tampered with. Maybe the batteries were just bad.”
Justin gave Carly an offended look. “I test them regularly.” It was one thing he was adamant about using the batteries for. Every house in Colby was supposed to have a working smoke detector.
Carly gave a small shudder. “He would have had to creep through the whole house. Justin, he would have had to come up to the top of the stairs …” He would have been less than a few paces from their bedroom door.
“Now do you see the wisdom of letting Sam roam the house?”
Carly didn’t respond to that. “Why didn’t Viper shoot us if he was that close?”
“Maybe he did it earlier in the day,” Stan suggested. “Disabled the detectors at some earlier point and then set the fire that night when he thought you’d be asleep.”
Justin had known there was no possible way to patrol the entire island and prevent intrusion. It was why he’d created choke points, good firing positions from the top of the Wall, fallback positions and strongholds. But it still troubled him it had been so easy for an untrained young man to defeat their defenses. But then again, Justin had planned for defense against a group, not an individual.
