I tossed the pink top on the floor and was debating changing into a dress when I was interrupted by a knock on the attic hatch. I lowered the stairs with the help of the person below me, and a moment later Kaye’s white-blonde head popped up. “Hi! Can I come in?”
I smiled. “Of course. What’s up?”
“I thought you might like a lemon drop shot before the party starts. They kind of remind me of freshman year of college,” Kaye said apologetically, sitting down on my futon, “but our friends always ask for them. We’ve stopped trying to make them drink something classy. Ready?”
“Sure.” I joined her on the futon, and we downed the shots. I tried not to make a face. It was way too sweet for me, but I appreciated the thought. “I’m excited for the party tonight,” I said. “It’ll be nice to meet your friends.”
“You’ve probably seen most of them around town, or at the bar. But now you’ll have a chance to talk to them when you aren’t working. Or you can ignore them and just hang out with me and Andy.”
“That sounds nice.” I adjusted one of my carnelian dream-catcher earrings. “Have you and Andy always been such good friends?”
“Oh, you know how it is, we hung around with all the same people in high school. Not much choice with such a small school. After high school, I left for college, and we only saw each other once or twice, when I came home for…New Year’s, or whatever.”
Kaye did not quite look at me when she said this, and I repressed the urge to ask her for the uncensored version of this story.
She pulled on a thread on the hem of her shirt. “Then, when I moved back here after college, I got a place with my friend Violet—you’ll meet her, she’s coming up for the party tonight—but eventually Vi bought a place of her own, so I moved in with Andy, Scott, and Rusty.”
“Just you and the guys.”
“God, it was disgusting.” Kaye grinned. “I love having you here! Have I told you that? You clean up after yourself, and you smell nice.”
I laughed. “I try.”
“I’m sorry I’ll be leaving you alone with them next year.”
“You’re moving out?” I asked, dismayed.
“I’m going to move to Boston. I want to be a photojournalist. I’ve been doing it up here, part-time, for the last few years—boring local paper stuff, you know—but it’s time to try for something bigger. So I’m going to save some money and, even if I can’t get a job by then, I’ll just move there next year when our lease is up.”
“Wow.” It was hard to imagine Fall Island without Kaye, but at the same time I could totally see her as a kick-ass photojournalist. “You would be amazing at that.” I tapped her shoulder. “You should definitely go for it.”
“Thanks.” Her fair cheeks turned pink. “How about you? Do you really think you’ll stay?”
“I really do.”
She shrugged. “Well, you know, for you, it’s all new. I like it here, too, but I’m sick of… I don’t know. I could use a change. And I have to at least try to accomplish my goals.”
“I’m not sure I have those.”
“What? Goals?”
“Yeah.”
Stay away from Rhys. Stop dating douchebags. Those were my goals. But what about the rest of my life, besides relationships? I couldn’t remember the last time I’d given it serious thought.
“I think I might…” I stopped. I’d never said this to another soul. Not even to my mom’s grave.
“You might what?”
“I want to teach art,” I said, in a rush, “but I never went to college, so it’s a stupid idea.”
“It’s not stupid!” she said. “It’s not too late to go to college. You’re younger than me, aren’t you?”
“I’m twenty-four. I’d be in school with a bunch of nineteen-year-olds.” And when I was nineteen, I was taking care of my sick dad.
“The age range would depend on where you went,” Kaye said. “Andy only just finished getting his Bachelor’s part-time last year, and he’s twenty-eight, like me.”
“Really?”
“Really.” She beamed at me. “I think you should do it.”
“Thanks, Kaye,” I said, and I meant it. “Maybe I will.”
I stirred my whiskey with a plastic coffee stirrer that folded into the edges of the ice and irritated me excessively. I’d become trapped in a conversation with the man Andy had warned me about. Andy had sworn not to leave me alone with him, yet here I was, stuck with the Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse, Boredom.
“So what do you do?” Boredom asked.
“I work at the Widow’s Walk with Kaye and Andy.” I took a healthy swig of whiskey.
“Oh, really? I’m a lawyer.” He had introduced himself to me as Attorney something-or-other, so I already knew that. I watched him warily as he edged closer to me with his hands in his pockets, jingling his keys. “I just started working at the D.A.’s office.”
“The what?”
“The District Attorney’s office. I’m a prosecutor.” His oddly stiff smile widened at this. “I work in the same office as Sherri Lipkowicz.”
I stared at him blankly.
“You’ve heard of her, haven’t you? She is very well-respected.”
“That’s nice.”
“Thank you, yeah. I feel honored to be able to work with her. Even though she used to do defense, I can’t hold that against her too much. She’s still a brilliant attorney.”
I tried not to roll my eyes and downed the rest of my drink instead.
“I’m not a small-minded person,” Boredom continued. “I do believe in the law and the system, of course. I don’t think those people should just be out, roaming the streets, when they’ve committed terrible crimes. Sherri agrees with me, I’m sure, or she would never have switched from defense to prosecution.” He leaned in even closer to me, and bent down to whisper, very loudly, in my ear: “I’m sure she had some regrets about a certain case, if you know what I mean.”
“Sure. Sounds good.” I leaned away from him. “Anyway, I’m out of whiskey. Excuse me.”
I dodged him, praying he wouldn’t follow me, and slipped through the crowd to our breakfast bar, which was laden down with plastic cups and half-empty bottles of liquor and mixers. I dropped ice into my cup and filled it halfway with whiskey.
Where the hell had my housemates gone, anyway? I glanced around—Boredom had, I noticed, already cornered someone else; I could see his mouth forming the syllables in “Sherri Lipkowicz”—until, at last, I spotted Scott by the front door.
I pushed my way towards him, hoping to ask him where Kaye and Andy were.
“There you are.” Scott seized me by the upper arm, his fingers curling around my flesh. “It’s time.”
“Time for what?” My skin crawled.
“To go to the beach! The party always moves to the beach. You have to come, Miranda.” He leaned in, his hair falling onto his forehead. “Are you having a good time, Miranda? I want you to have a good time.”
He was about the same height as Rhys, and his hand felt the same on my arm, with his fingers digging into my skin hard enough to leave a mark. I forced myself not to pull away. I didn’t want to disrupt the party, or anger my housemate.
“Are you ready?” Scott thrust his cup of beer into the air and—thank God—released me. “To the beach!” he cried, and the people around us cheered. Gradually, the guests flowed out of the house. I trailed after them, tightening my sweater around my body and wishing I were with Kaye and Andy instead of this crowd.
It was strange to reach East Beach, where, about a half-mile north, I’d slept in my car for three weeks. I hadn’t come back here since I’d moved in with Kaye and Andy. It was like visiting a house I used to live in: familiar and alien, all at once.
A shock of white-blonde hair, bright even in the darkness, caught my eye. Kaye stood just out of reach of the waves, talking to two girls I didn’t know and—to my dismay—Jenny, whose dark bob didn’t seem to be affected by the sea breeze. She
shot me a cold glare, but I didn’t care: if she was here, that meant Owen was here, too.
“Miranda!” Kaye waved me over. “I was wondering where you got to. This is Jenny. She’s from Bellisle. And this is Violet, my old roommate, and Alice, who does half-marathon training with me and Andy.”
Alice was slender and seemed to hide in her sweatshirt and jeans. Violet, on the other hand, was almost as tall as Kaye. She wore an imperious updo, a denim jacket, and a clingy maxi dress.
“So you’re the new girl,” Violet drawled, looking me over. “Everyone’s been talking about you.”
“They have?” I glanced at Jenny, wondering if she knew about my car, or about Owen bandaging up the cut on my leg.
Up close, there was something different about her tonight. She wasn’t quite as put-together as usual, and her eyes were ever-so-slightly puffy. I felt a pang of sympathy for her, thinking of a law school party Rhys had dragged me to immediately after one of our fights. It’s terrible to be teary-eyed at a party. You might as well burst into tears on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange.
“What do you think of Fall Island, new girl?” Violet asked me, with a wide, wolfish smile.
I tore my gaze away from Jenny. “I like it.”
“I can’t believe I ever considered moving here,” Jenny snapped.
Violet turned her wolfish grin on Jenny. “Then you aren’t?”
“No,” Jenny spat. All traces of tears had vanished; her face looked like it was made out of steel. “I hate it here. It’s bad enough there are no decent restaurants and the people here are awful and ignorant. Then there’s the fact that the whole place is still obsessed with that stupid painter—”
“Careful,” Violet growled. “Suzanna and I were friends, you know.”
Jenny flinched—which, as scary as Violet was, seemed like an extreme reaction. I watched in bewilderment as Jenny touched her lip, cursing under her breath. Her fingers came away bloody.
“What just happened?” Kaye asked. “Did you bite yourself?”
Jenny’s only response was more inarticulate cursing. She pressed her fingers to her mouth as blood cascaded forwards onto her white fleece.
“Jesus,” I said.
“Are you okay?” Kaye stepped forwards to touch Jenny’s arm.
“Don’t touch me,” Jenny snarled, jerking out of Kaye’s reach. “I’m going home. I don’t know why I bothered coming—no one in this entire town is worth fucking!”
She stalked off across the beach, holding her mouth, while we watched in bewilderment—except for Violet, who licked her lips. “‘Worth fucking’? I wonder who she was planning to fuck? Not Owen, clearly.”
I glanced up at Violet in surprise. Not Owen?
“Yeah,” Kaye said, “it sounds like they had a fight.”
“You think?” Violet rolled her eyes. “Good riddance. Even Owen Larsen deserves better.” She laughed coldly.
Andy jogged across the beach towards us. “What happened? Is Jenny hurt?” He paused beside Kaye, reaching out as if he were going to rest his hand on her back, but he stopped himself.
Kaye shrugged. “I don’t know. Think she’s more upset than anything else.”
“Well, if she’s looking for Owen, she’s going the wrong way,” Andy said. “He was up by the Lodge with Rusty the last time I saw him.”
“I don’t think she’s looking for Owen,” Kaye said quietly.
I needed to know what had happened between him and Jenny. I slipped away from the others and hurried up the beach towards the Artist’s Lodge. I saw Rusty first, perched on a massive boulder with his gangly arms resting on his knees, his habitual slouch, fedora, and cigarette in place. Standing beside him, Owen was a silhouette of messy hair and big shoulders.
This was a bad idea. Owen wouldn’t want to see me right after getting into a fight with his girlfriend—especially a girlfriend who’d come to this party to pick up someone else.
I jerked to a stop, chewing on my lip, but they had already seen me. I took a few nervous steps towards them.
“How’s it going, Miranda?” Rusty slid off the rock he’d been perching on and tipped his fedora in my direction. “Good luck with everything, man,” he added to Owen, and shambled away, puffing on his cigarette.
Taken aback, I watched Rusty go until I couldn’t avoid looking at Owen any longer.
He stepped closer to me. When I snuck a glance up at him, the moonlight was playing on his lips.
“I just saw Jenny,” I said.
“So she did come.”
“You didn’t come here together?”
“No. We didn’t.”
I was painfully aware of his height and size, and also his scent—his nutmeg soap and something else. The scent of his workshop, perhaps, like wood dust and varnish.
“We broke up,” he said.
“Oh. I’m sorry.” My pulse quickened.
“Don’t be.”
“When—?”
“On Monday. After you left. That was why I had to go meet with her.”
“Oh.” I felt flushed and light-headed. He broke up with her after I left. He broke up with her because of me?
Owen stepped closer, reaching for me. The square of moonlight vanished behind him. His cheekbones and strong jaw were sharp angles, casting shadows deeper than the night. He looked different from the man who had tenderly bandaged up my leg and showed me his workshop—a harder man, a colder man.
“You flinched,” he said, drawing back. “Why?”
I hadn’t even realized I’d done it. I didn’t know how to describe the tension that spiraled inside me all the time. Anything that made me think of Rhys—Scott grabbing my arm, a hand raised in the darkness—terrified me, until my bones shook and my lungs felt crushed.
I wanted to explain. I thought he’d listen, if only I gave him a chance. But I hadn’t told anyone about Rhys. Not my dad, my friends, Claire…not even Kaye, who now knew my other, most jealously guarded secret. I couldn’t. To say it out loud would mean owning up to the mess I’d made of my life. And how scared I was, still, by what I’d done.
Owen was turning away—I had to tell him, so he would understand. I said his name, but then I realized what he had turned towards: a flare of cadmium orange atop a pulse of bright yellow light, stark and shocking against the night sky.
When the wind shifted, I could smell it, acrid and electric and unmistakable. There was only one explanation; only one building stood just off East Beach.
The Artist’s Lodge was on fire.
Chapter 9
I called 911 as we raced up the beach. The dispatcher promised to send help, though he sounded almost as shocked as I felt. Stuffing my phone back into my bag, I jogged up the stairs to the Lodge and almost bumped into Owen when he stopped short. My face tilted upwards involuntarily to mirror the column of yellow and gold stretching above us. The fire was tearing the left side of the house apart, hurling burning debris down onto the front porch, roaring like a wild creature.
“What if Matthew’s in there?” I cried out over the cracking shingles.
Owen glanced at me, his mouth tightening. He took off towards the house, jogging past the smoldering front porch and crossing through the scrub towards a side door.
I ran after him. “Don’t—it’s dangerous!”
With each step, the air grew hotter and denser with ash; the flames could have licked my skin. Owen reached the side door and pressed his palms to the wood.
“Wait!” I shouted, but he ignored me and shouldered the door open. Black clouds billowed out after him. He disappeared inside while I watched in horror. Didn’t he realize how dangerous this was? Didn’t he care? And where the hell was 911?
I did the only thing I could think of and called Kaye. “Where’s Muscles? He’s a firefighter, isn’t he?”
“What? Where are you? What’s that sound?”
A gust of fire swept down onto the front porch, snapping beams in half, scattering charred splinters across the yard.
<
br /> Stifling a cough, I told her about the Lodge, and about Owen. “I’m going in after him,” I said, steeling myself.
“Do not go inside!” Kaye exclaimed. “Are you insane? The fire department will be there in a minute. I’m going to call Muscles. He’s on duty tonight. For God’s sake, do not go inside.”
She hung up. I clutched my phone and stared at the fire, my chest aching with the effort to breathe.
Someone ran up the beach, but instead of Kaye or Andy, it was Rusty, puffing as he took the steps up to the Lodge two at a time. “Fuck, man! What the hell happened?”
I shot him an irritated look that I immediately regretted: Rusty’s face was incredibly serious. He held his hat in his hand, pressed against his chest, as if he were in church.
Despite Kaye’s advice and my own better judgment, I couldn’t stand by while Owen was in danger. I picked my way towards the house through the scrub and the simmering heat, wondering if the fire could jump to the dead grass behind me and encircle me.
When I reached the side door, I touched my palms against it, just like Owen had. It felt warm, but not hot. I pushed it open the rest of the way. Smoke poured out, searing my eyes and throat. Wiping my streaming eyes on my sleeve, I stepped forwards again.
Suddenly, my vision cleared, revealing Owen standing before me, holding a limp, sagging figure in his arms. A shirt covered most of the figure’s face, but tell-tale black glasses poked above the fabric. I jerked backwards out of the way. Owen lurched forwards and fell onto his knees. Matthew tumbled out of his arms onto the rocky sand.
“Are you all right? And Matthew—he’s not—?” I dropped to my knees across from Owen, with Matthew in between us. I reached out to touch Owen, but pulled back at the last minute and wiped the sweat and soot from my face instead.
“He’s alive.” Owen braced his hands on the ground, coughing. “Unconscious. Breathed in a lot of smoke.”
Set Me Free Page 6
