“Utley set this fire to slow us down.” Keith coughed. “It’s an arson tactic.”
“Why would he do that?” Joe had spent the entire trip hanging out the window like a dog enjoying a car ride.
“So he can get away.” Ben leaped to the ground.
Mandy climbed out more carefully. “He’s a lonely old man with nowhere to go.”
“He’s an arsonist,” Ben said firmly, leading her around the fire truck. “He’s looking for an outlet, and now he knows we know it’s him. He’ll be setting fires all the way out of town.”
Keith and Joe stood on the sidewalk. Keith waved his hand toward Ben.
“Mandy,” Ben said. “I’m going to show you how to attach a hose to a plug. Joe, you’re going to take the hose.”
Joe turned to Mandy. “Is it inappropriate to high-five? I’m going to knock down a fire.” He practically squealed like a girl. It was hard to reconcile the subdued teen with an abusive father who was once Joe to this man.
Mandy exchanged some skin, but she didn’t feel like celebrating. While Ben got out a hose and wrench, Mandy looked to the sky, searching for more smoke.
Ben showed her how to remove the fire hydrant cover and connect the hose. She struggled for leverage with the wrench but managed to get the job done.
A small entourage had followed them around the corner.
“Let’s hear it for girl power.” Rose applauded.
“Let’s hear it for Harmony Valley Fire.” Joe was giddier than Mandy had ever seen him. “I’m ready for the water.” When it came, the rattle and pressure in the hose almost knocked him to his knees.
Their audience applauded.
Mandy’s phone rang in her back pocket, which was beneath her fireman’s pants and her coat. She removed her gloves and dug for it. The name on the display filled her with relief. “Olivia? Thank God. Where are you?”
“I have no idea where Olivia is.” Teri sounded put out. “She jumped out of the car.”
“She what?”
“You heard me. I must not be a total reject as a mother, because I thought you should know.”
The phone went dead.
CHAPTER TWENTY
“OKAY, YOU TALKED me out of running away.” Hannah tilted her head. “Do you hear that?”
“Sounds like kittens.” Olivia was hungry and thirsty, growing tired of arguing with a little girl who didn’t listen to reason. It was only when she’d pointed out to Hannah that she’d be leaving the animals in the infirmary if she ran away that Hannah had relented.
“It’s coming from that old house.” Hannah put Iggy in the shade of the rock and skipped toward the white two-story.
“We’re not going inside.” Olivia caught Hannah’s shoulder before she’d gone too far. “That’s trespassing.”
She shrugged Olivia’s hold. “Are you afraid of snakes and kittens?”
“No.” She was afraid of houses that had peeled paint, broken windows and looked like a set for a horror film.
Hannah tapped her cheek in a fake gesture of deep thought. “My great-granddad Felix might keep me if I rescue some kittens.” When Olivia continued to balk, Hannah made the ultimate proposal. “If you go in there with me, I’ll let you do my nails.”
“At your house?” Olivia added, because she wasn’t totally irresponsible.
“Deal.” Hannah gave a big nod.
Olivia hitched her purse higher on her shoulder and followed Hannah to the house and up the front porch steps. The boards creaked and the mewing stopped, as did Hannah. She held a finger to her lips.
They stood listening long enough to give Olivia cold feet about going inside. “This is creepy. Anyone could be in that house.” A murderer. A pervert. Witches.
The mewing resumed.
Hannah opened the front door with the familiarity of someone who lived there, not a kid who didn’t belong. She didn’t hesitate. She led. And she led Olivia to the interior stairs. “This way.”
The stair treads groaned beneath their feet as if threatening to disintegrate, in which case they’d probably fall through to the basement where the vampires were sleeping.
At the top of the stairs, Hannah pushed a door open. The hinges sounded like the laugh of the knife-wielding psycho in the last horror movie Olivia had watched with Mandy.
The kittens quieted.
There was something wrong here, something Olivia couldn’t quite put her finger on. And it wasn’t her overactive imagination.
Hannah made a beeline to the closet and opened the door. “Just what I thought. Mama isn’t here.”
Olivia came closer. The room smelled like a backed-up toilet. The kittens squirmed on a pink sweatshirt, kind of like the one that Hannah had worn one day last week. “Those are baby raccoons.”
“Yes. About a week old.”
Olivia frowned. “You’ve been here before.”
“Yes, but Riley chased me away.” Hannah dropped to her knees by the babies. “She’s not a very good mom.”
“That’s it. Time to go home and get a manicure.” Olivia had been bamboozled twice in one day. Worse, she’d been bamboozled by a kid less than half her age. “Is that why you wanted to trap Riley? Because of the babies? You’re planning a reunion.”
“Yes. We’re going to put the babies in your purse and then in the trap at the post office. Riley will go in the cage and they’ll be together always.”
“Those things aren’t going in my bag. This is Michael Kors.” She may have bought it used online, but it was still designer. “Put those stinky things in your bag.”
“It’s too small. If Riley gets trapped and I don’t know about it, she’s going to be taken away without her babies.”
That was on Hannah, who’d put the trap there in the first place. “Sometimes moms and kids aren’t meant to be together.”
“Moms should never, ever, ever leave their kids.” Hannah crossed her arms over her chest and... Were those tears in her eyes?
Too late, Olivia remembered that Hannah’s mom was dead and Ben had tried to give her away to some stranger.
Something growled behind them.
Great. Riley wasn’t such a bad mother after all.
* * *
“YOU’VE GOT SKILLS, boy,” Granddad said to Joe while they cleaned up after the third front-lawn fire.
“Thanks, Mr. Libby.” Joe had a knack with the hose. His love of method and precision might have been a reason he was a good mechanic. After all, he’d gotten the fire engine running. “I’m really sorry about the high school fire. My wife says I was a troubled youth.” The fact that he grinned when he admitted this last fact didn’t cancel the sincerity of his apology.
Ben was grateful Granddad was in a magnanimous mood. So far, the trouble Utley had caused with his fiery breadcrumbs had been small. That didn’t change the fact that his handful of available volunteers—Mandy, Nate and Joe—were green and every new situation was a teaching moment. Two of the other five were away at business meetings. Two, including Will, had accompanied their wives to Cloverdale for their newborns’ first checkup. One was down with food poisoning. If nothing else, the day was teaching Ben that he needed a larger number of volunteers.
Dad sat in the engine’s shotgun seat with the door propped open. His eyes were small and his mouth pinched. His skin color had been better earlier in the day as had been his temper. The fire chief was at his physical limit, and he was extremely unhappy to have reached it.
Ben stood on the sidewalk beneath him. “It’s time to call Cloverdale Fire for reinforcements.”
“We can handle these—” wheeze-gasp “—small fires.” Wheeze-gasp. “Great training.”
The trouble with Dad wanting to be on top of things and in control was that Utley had fallen over the edge and was out o
f control. “We can handle it until Utley sets something bigger ablaze. With the sheriff and half the town looking for him, he’s got to be getting desperate.” The sheriff had mobilized their elderly audience into canvassing the area, looking for Utley and more fires. Ben leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “Swallow your pride, Dad. Make the call.”
He must really have been struggling to breathe, because he took a hit from his inhaler and then a long drink of water. “Not yet.”
“Yeah, it’s always fun until someone gets hurt.” Ben stomped back to the business of doing the fire chief’s job. The engine had to be ready to move when the sheriff’s call came in about the next fire.
“You’re making good on things now,” Granddad was saying gruffly to Joe. “At the next one, hit the edge of the fire closest to the building first rather than beginning at the sidewalk.”
“Save the asset first.” Joe nodded. “Gotcha.”
“You okay?” Ben asked Mandy, who’d just finished sealing the fire hydrant cover in place.
She’d been quiet since they’d argued over Utley’s innocence. Her ponytails were frizzed from the humidity created by dousing fire with water. Her face and gloves were streaked with grease from wrestling with fire hydrants. She didn’t smile. She didn’t look determined. She didn’t look at him.
She stared at the horizon. “How can you be here when Hannah is missing? Olivia left with my mother this morning. And then ran away from her this afternoon. I want these fires to end. I want to know my baby sister is safe. I want to apologize for the broken eggs. I want to know...” She flinched, her expression cracking like one of her emotional eggs. “...that no matter what, we’ll always have each other.”
“I’m compartmentalizing.” Ben touched her shoulder too briefly. He’d prefer to gather her in his arms. “And I’m able to do it because of who Hannah is. She plays it safe. She’s capable and responsible.”
Mandy flinched at his word choice. “She’s seven. You’ve already rescued her once.”
“My mom is searching for her. Nate told his team to look for her, too.” Ben couldn’t afford to think about Hannah now. “That kid has more independence than I did at her age. She spends hours with those animals at the infirmary. She’s not clingy. I give her space.”
“Seven year-olds don’t want space. They want love. And they need lots of it.” Mandy’s gaze trapped his. “I’ve seen the lights on at the fire station late at night. You spend time away from her on purpose because you don’t want to care too much. You can’t commit to being her father because you don’t want to break her heart. You can’t even acknowledge that you were born to lead because leading a fire crew would be like heading a family. And heaven forbid you put yourself out on a limb where people might disappoint you.”
Mandy’s words sent a shaft of ice through his chest.
But it changed nothing.
* * *
THE RACCOON WOULDN’T let them out the door. Riley had them trapped in a corner.
The afternoon sun beat through one of the only unbroken windows in the house. It felt like an oven and smelled like a litter box.
“Don’t worry,” Hannah said with false bravado, clinging to Olivia’s hand. “It’s hot and she needs food and water.”
“Our bodies are made up of about fifty percent water.” Why couldn’t chemo brain have taken that fact from her?
Hannah tilted her head and asked softly, “Do you think she knows that?”
Riley bared her teeth.
“Yes,” Olivia said.
Hannah pushed her glasses up her nose. “Then we should be still and quiet.”
Easier said than done when Olivia wanted to run screaming from the room. But she kept breathing deeply and standing still. If nothing else, cancer had taught her to be immobile when she was afraid. But cancer hadn’t taken her voice, and that raccoon wasn’t going to either. “I can’t believe you wanted to save that thing.”
“Even things need saving.” There was a wistful quality to Hannah’s words. “That’s what my mom used to say.”
Her dead mom.
That’s what this was about. Olivia channeled Mandy’s calm and compassion. She put her arm around Hannah and drew her close. The kid was hotter than a space heater, and comforting her made Olivia want to cry. How had Mandy done it all those years? Oh, yeah. Her smile and her humor. “When we get out of here, brat, I’m asking your grandmother for a raise.”
Hannah leaned into her the way Olivia used to lean on Mandy. “Forget it. John Smith will take me away.” Hannah looked up at her with tear-filled eyes. “He doesn’t like animals or snakes.”
“He’s a jerk.” Like Ben, who didn’t want her. “I could learn to like snakes.”
“Really? You’re brave.”
“Well, Mandy thinks so.”
Riley paced and curled her lip at them.
A gray car sped up the driveway toward them, kicking up dust.
“It’s Utley.” Olivia had never been so happy to see the crotchety old man. She banged on the window and shouted, “Hey! Hey, up here!”
Riley’s snarling increased. She crept forward on those creepy little clawed finger-paws.
“Stop!” Hannah shook Olivia’s arm. “You’re upsetting her.”
Olivia stopped yelling. After a moment, Riley did, too. Didn’t change anything. They were still hot. The room was still stinky. And they were still trapped.
Utley stood nearly beneath them at the front steps. He held a glass bottle with a piece of white cloth stuffed in the top.
“What is he doing?” Olivia was afraid she knew. She’d seen enough teen dystopia movies to recognize a Molotov cocktail. Her insides shook with the need for a bathroom.
Utley tucked the bottle under his arm and took out a matchbook. He lit a match, held it to the cloth and then tossed it toward the front door. The bottle thudded on the porch, making Riley growl and whirl, dividing her anger between the bedroom door and the two girls.
“No!” Olivia banged on the glass.
Utley glanced up but almost immediately looked back at the porch. He disappeared beneath the roof of the porch. Hopefully this was all some big joke and he was going to climb the stairs and save them.
Whoosh-boom!
The house shook.
Riley backed up and growled louder.
“What happened?” Hannah wrapped her arms around Olivia’s waist.
“It’s Utley. He’s the arsonist Ben’s been looking for. We have to get out of here.” Olivia could swear she smelled smoke. And there was no sign of the old man. “Come on.” Olivia took Hannah’s hand, grappling the rising panic inside. She hadn’t survived cancer to be cremated because of some crazy old dude and a cranky critter. She moved to the door, dragging Hannah along with her.
Or she would have if Hannah hadn’t dragged her sneakered heels. “I’m not leaving without Riley.” She bit her lip, glancing at the closet. “Or at least not without Riley’s babies.”
“No. We have to leave now.” Olivia tugged harder, but Hannah’s hot sweaty hand slipped from her grip.
“Don’t leave them,” Hannah pleaded.
Something crackled downstairs. Olivia was willing to bet it wasn’t Utley’s feet cracking boards on his way up to rescue them.
“I smell smoke, Hannah. And I hear fire.” Olivia edged along the wall toward the door, hoping that Hannah would come to her senses and follow. As she moved, Riley backed into the closet, crouching over her litter. Shoot. She should have tried moving this way earlier. “Come on, Han. If we don’t leave now, we’re going to be toast.”
“Not without the babies. Ben will come for me.”
Hannah’s jaw might have dropped on the floor. “Don’t be stupid. Ben doesn’t know where you are. No one knows where we are.” The truth of her words sank in. She
fell back against the wall, needing support. “I wish I had my cell phone.” She wished she’d never agreed to leave Harmony Valley with Teri.
“Hey. I have my radio!” Hannah dug in her pink shoe bag.
The smoke in the stairwell was thickening. The sound of a crackling fire was getting louder.
Olivia pushed herself up and went to the door. She couldn’t believe her eyes.
The fire was leaping up the stairwell. Its heat burned her skin.
How had this happened so fast?
She slammed the door and ran to the window, trying to pry it open.
Riley did no more than grumble, gathering her babies beneath her. She knew Olivia’s efforts were futile.
They were already dead.
* * *
THE RADIOS BEN and Keith wore squawked. The two men scrambled for the handhelds.
“Help!” A little girl’s voice came through the small speaker. “Ben! Grandpa! There’s a fire. We’re trapped!”
Ben climbed on the fire truck bumper and scanned the horizon.
Mandy had the strangest feeling, as if the world had slowed and suddenly tipped on the opposite axis. “She said we.” We as in she and Vanessa? We as in she and Olivia?
Keith took the lead on the radio. “Hannah, who’s with you?”
“Olivia and...” The rest of her answer was garbled until two words broke through. “Post office.”
“No.” Mandy succumbed to the weight of the heavy turnout gear, falling forward as she reached for a cleat attached to the side of the truck. She hung on to the sun-warmed metal and managed to stay on her feet. “No.”
“I see smoke south of here. By the post office.” Ben rushed around to the driver’s seat. “Everybody in!”
Joe hopped in a seat behind Ben. Felix moved toward his own truck.
Mandy couldn’t seem to let go of the cleat. The post office. Grandpa’s legacy. Olivia. She’d be left with nothing that mattered.
“Nobody’s dead yet.” Keith helped her into the truck, despite struggling to draw a breath. “First rule of emergency responders. Remain calm.” His phone rang as Mandy was strapping herself in. “Yes, Nate. Go ahead.”
Love, Special Delivery Page 23
