“Run!” Carrie shouted as soon as she saw the frantic farmer in the distance. No, there was more than one. There was a kid she vaguely recognized from school, some freshman or sophomore whom she didn’t personally know. He would definitely recognize her. And Leigh-Ann! “Get outta here before they recognize you!”
Leigh-Ann took off toward the nearby tree coverage. She was halfway to safety when she turned around, some of the smoke from the barn fire blowing their way and obscuring her face. All for the better. Carrie didn’t want her girlfriend being recognized by the locals. She also didn’t want to see the look on Leigh-Ann’s face when she realized what Carrie had done.
“Go!” Carrie shouted again, although she was soon on her knees, dry grass in her hands as she coughed up the smoke infiltrating her lungs.
She didn’t stop coughing. Not until someone in a uniform pulled her back, forcing her to look up at the sky while an oxygen mask covered her face.
***
There was no saving the barn, although the firefighters were lauded for their quick response time. Mr. Oswald Connor and his son Winston spoke with the firefighters and the county sheriff as soon as he arrived. Carrie sat in the back of an ambulance, the EMTs checking her vitals and asking her such stupid questions that she was almost insulted. They’re making sure you’re mentally sound. Didn’t matter. The more questions they asked about her name and who the president was, the more Carrie wanted to rip the mask off her face and leap from the back of the ambulance. Her family couldn’t afford this luxury, anyway.
“Sit still, please.” A large, gruff woman who looked like she was strong enough to conk Carrie out grabbed her by the arm and kept her in place. “We don’t know what kind of damage your lungs have sustained from that fire.” From her tough mannerisms, Carrie surmised that she was dealing with the kind of butch badass she could never aspire to be. Nor would this woman put up with her crap. Not from a kid, anyway. She must know I’m a suspect. Carrie accepted that as soon as was picked up by the firefighters and hauled away from the scene. The fire had grown to the point embers blew in her direction. A small, secondary fire started where Carrie had collapsed only twenty minutes ago.
The fires were mostly contained now. From the back of the ambulance, Carrie saw the smoldering remnants of the structure she had been in only an hour ago. Murmurings told her that there were no signs of accelerants – again – but the building was so old and dry, even after the light drizzle, that it didn’t take long for all the straw to take the building out with it.
Mr. Connor expressed both disbelief that this happened to him, and absolute acceptance that it was only a matter of time since the useless county sheriff’s office had yet to figure out who was behind it all. Carrie attempted to rehearse her statements implicating her cousin, but her brain was so fuzzy that she barely remembered Leigh-Ann had been with her.
“Is that her?” she overheard Mr. Connor asking the sheriff. “Is that the girl who did this?”
The EMTs kept him away from Carrie as they continued to treat her. “It’s really important,” the woman checking Carrie’s pulse said. “They’re saying there was another person with you who ran off. We need to find them so they can get treatment.”
So you can throw them in jail. Leigh-Ann was eighteen. She’d be tried as an adult before she had the chance to declare her innocence. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Carrie reiterated. She knew everyone would continue to say they saw “so and so” until they needed an oxygen mask, but Carrie would deny it. She had a story to get straight. That story could not include Leigh-Ann in any capacity.
The EMT looked at her as if it were clearer than the blue sky above them that she was lying. You’ve done your due diligence. Let’s move on. Carrie knew that as soon as she was cleared, she’d be turned over to the sheriff. That man postured more than anyone else she knew. This was… well, when Carrie said that Oregon was like the South in a parallel universe where everyone did the right thing the wrong way, she wasn’t kidding. That sheriff looked like he’d very publicly parade her through town to show everyone that he had caught “the kid.”
“There was no one with me,” Carrie said. “They must have been seeing things from the smoke.”
The EMTs let her go after a few more minutes. She sat on the back ledge of the ambulance, an oxygen mask still on her face until whatever fate came for her.
Naturally, it was the sheriff. His nametag said Peterson. His face said asshole.
“Looks like you’re in a world of trouble, young lady.” He tugged up his pants and put his hands on his hips. His puffed out chest and the handlebar mustache only made him look more comical, like he truly thought he was the toughest shit in the county. Carrie looked away before she threw up. “You wanna tell me what you were doing in the Connors’ barn before it caught fire?”
“Don’t know if anyone’s told you, sir,” at least her natural deference to authority was so deeply ingrained in her Southern roots that she didn’t think twice about it, “but I was caught inside. The fire clearly started in the outside. I couldn’t have…” She closed her mouth. Crap.
“Who said anything about you starting fires, girl? But if you wanna talk about that, by all means. I’ve got six other barn fires to solve in my county.”
Anything she had rehearsed completely left her brain. It wasn’t a lack of oxygen. It was the futile feeling settling inside of her gut. She wasn’t going to get herself out of this easily. Her only hope was to keep Leigh-Ann from boiling in the pot with her.
Leigh-Ann’s a good girl… she doesn’t have a blemish on her record. She has a town that likes her and respects her. I’ve got… I’ve got expulsions and being ran out of my hometown. Everyone already assumes it was me.
Carrie squared her shoulders and looked back into Sheriff Peterson’s sunglassed face.
“I can tell you whatever you need to know,” she said. “I know you probably won’t believe me, but I swear on my grandma’s grave I won’t lie about a single thing.” Oh, she would lie. She would lie about Leigh-Ann until she was sure her girlfriend was absolved of any blame.
Chapter 16
LEIGH-ANN
By some twist of fate, Leigh-Ann was only two miles away from Waterlily House, the closest place where she might get some help to save Carrie’s ass.
They had driven to the site in Carrie’s car, now left behind like an afterthought. Although Leigh-Ann wished she had her bike, her adrenaline was so spiked that she didn’t think twice about hauling ass through the woods and along the highway until she reached the meandering driveway to Waterlily House. By the time she reached the porch, she was out of breath and ready to dry-heave.
“What in the…” That wasn’t Sunny coming out of the door. Not on a Saturday, when she was likely to be out of town more often than not. Oh, no. Leigh-Ann’s day wasn’t terrifying enough. She had to come face to face with one of the last adults she wanted to see now. “What in the world is going on, Leigh-Ann?”
She lifted her head, the swift force of it nearly knocking her back down again. Ms. Tichenor reached to help her up, but Leigh-Ann waved her off and propped herself up against the porch’s sturdy handrail.
“Is someone hurt? My God, girl, do I start calling you Lassie? Where’s Timmy? He fall down a well?”
Ms. Tichenor joked, but that was pure concern on her face. The kind only a teacher or other woman of any maternal authority could adopt when faced with a girl rushing up to her with fear in her eyes.
“Fire…” Leigh-Ann heaved with her erratic breaths. “Barn fires. The Connors…”
A cell phone was out of Ms. Tichenor’s pocket before Leigh-Ann had the chance to continue. “I’ll call 911!”
“They’re already there.” Slowly, Leigh-Ann’s breath returned. “Carrie’s there, too.”
It took a few seconds for Ms. Tichenor to catch on. “Is she all right?”
“I think so. We were in the barn when the fire started. I’m… I’m afraid…” No, Leigh-Ann
was in too deep now. She needed to finish what she was thinking, lest Ms. Tichenor assume the worst. “I’m afraid they’re gonna think Carrie started the fire!”
“Slow down.” Ms. Tichenor put her hands on Leigh-Ann’s shoulders to steady her. “What’s going on?”
“There’s no time to slow down! Carrie’s dumb enough to confess to something she didn’t do, when really it’s her cousin that’s doing it!”
Ms. Tichenor tightened her grip on Leigh-Ann’s shoulders. “Slow. Down. Are you talking about Dillon Musgrave?”
It took way too long to explain, yet Leigh-Ann focused on getting the facts out as best as she knew them – and could convey them with the weight of the world threatening to burst from her mouth. Ms. Tichenor betrayed no emotion aside from her eternal concern on her face. Every time Leigh-Ann swore to God that she and Carrie had nothing to do with the fires, she half-expected Ms. Tichenor to ask what they were doing in the barn. I don’t remember now. We were fooling around… I can’t tell her that!
“Do you know where Dillon is right now?” Ms. Tichenor asked when Leigh-Ann finally ran out of breath.
“We didn’t actually see anybody before the fire started. We were inside, um… talking.”
Ms. Tichenor didn’t ask any further questions. She merely hopped down the front steps of Waterlily House and unlocked her car from five feet away. “Get in!”
Leigh-Ann had never ridden in a teacher’s car before, but now was not the time to think about how weird it was. Her classmates would want details about the smell, the music on the radio, and the charms hanging from the rearview mirror, but all Leigh-Ann could think about was getting to Carrie and helping her declare her innocence before she did something stupid.
“Wait, no…” Leigh-Ann watched as the turn-off toward the Connors’ farm disappeared in the other direction. “It’s that way.”
“We’re taking a detour.”
Leigh-Ann didn’t ask any questions. They looped around a back road that connected one end of Paradise Valley’s outer limits to the other, a convenient and scenic route to take if one didn’t want to be seen driving through town. It also dumped cars out at the base of Wolf’s Hill and the surrounding overlooks. A fun place for the more daring teenagers to park their cars in broad daylight, assuming how much exhibitionism they had been harboring through puberty.
“Don’t think we weren’t making out here when we were your age,” Ms. Tichenor muttered when they came upon Dillon’s old car at the far end of the overlook’s parking lot. The tiny river valley coursing through that part of the county made for a beautiful place to contemplate life, have a quiet chat with a friend, or to take picturesque photos as a tourist. It also provided a tiny semblance of privacy for teens looking to partake in one of life’s pleasures.
Ms. Tichenor left the car running as she snapped off her seatbelt and hopped out. Her knuckles rapped on Dillon’s driver side door, and the whole car shook as both occupants leaped out of their skins.
“Both of you out of there. Now!”
The only one espousing a sliver of fear – or guilt, for that matter – was Christina, who got out of the passenger side with her hands up. Dillon performed some creative swearing before finally relenting.
“The hell did you two do to the Connors’ barn?”
Christina’s mouth dropped, but it wasn’t the shriek that startled Leigh-Ann as much as it was how quickly Dillon took off running like an imbecile. He’s running right into highway traffic! Horns honked and tires screeched. More than one driver joined Dillon in the creative swearing, and Ms. Tichenor couldn’t look more annoyed.
“Christina,” she growled. “Something you wanna share?”
“I didn’t… I didn’t do any… we were… we were just making out…”
“I can see that.” Ms. Tichenor didn’t reference whether it surprised her. Maybe she really knows more than most teachers let on. How many people knew that Christina Rath was dating Dillon Musgrave already? Was it more than the number of students? “I don’t care if you two are brother and sister or kissing cousins. Leigh-Ann here tells me that she was in that barn when the fire started, and now the police are thinking she and Carrie are doing things they’re not. Anything you want to say about that?”
“Why are you asking me?”
“Because your stupid boyfriend ran out in traffic without saying a damn thing to defend himself!”
Tears formed at the corners of Christina’s eyes as she looked between Ms. Tichenor and Leigh-Ann in the passenger seat. “I’m… I’m sorry…” Was she crying because she was in trouble? Or because looking at Leigh-Ann reminded her that they used to be so close that nothing could ever come between them? “I didn’t do it! I didn’t know he was gonna… I was … I told him not to!”
“In the car.” Ms. Tichenor pointed to the backseat of her car. “We’re off to fix this. You better thank your luckiest star that your mother is the mayor.”
“You can’t tell her!”
“I’m not the one who’s gonna tell her.” Ms. Tichenor child-locked the doors as soon as Christina was inside. “That will be the sheriff, I’m sure.”
Sure enough, Christina attempted to open the back door and escape.
***
Leigh-Ann could hardly believe how quickly the barn turned to ash. Water continued to spray and the firefighters complained about the arsonist clearly on the loose. Mr. Connor and his son Winston sat in the grass by the trees, talking to the sheriff. Winston kept craning his head around to stare at the sheriff’s cruiser. Soon, Leigh-Ann figured out why.
Carrie was sitting in the back, her despondent face accepting her unfortunate fate.
Ms. Tichenor didn’t waste any time, although everyone and their bosses wanted to know what the hell she was doing there. Winston nearly shat himself to see his English teacher barreling toward them with Leigh-Ann and Christina’s wrists in her hands. Yeah, here’s a sight you don’t see every day, kid. When the sheriff – whom Ms. Tichenor was apparently on a first-name basis with – asked what the hell was going on, she informed him that she had a very interesting lead regarding the arsonist spree.
The rest of the afternoon blew by in a blur. Leigh-Ann wasn’t allowed to talk to Carrie in the back of the cruiser, but as soon as an EMT looked at her and a firefighter glanced in her direction, she was swept up in a flurry of questioning that made her feel like she was a TV show. Half an hour in, her mom arrived in a panicked state. Carrie’s aunt and uncle weren’t far behind.
Nor was the mayor. As soon as Christina saw her mother arrive, her knees buckled and she clung to Leigh-Ann’s leg like she was some potential savior.
Nobody knew where Dillon was, although as soon as his parents heard about his possible involvement, the man flew into a rage and the woman looked to Carrie in the back of the cruiser. Carrie wasn’t surprised, but she turned her face away from the commotion.
Everyone wanted to know what Carrie and Leigh-Ann were doing in the barn. Trespassing, of course, but what was the ulterior motive? While both parents and authorities begrudgingly agreed that nonfunctioning barns were common hangout spots for the local youths, the fact Carrie was new in town and Leigh-Ann was rarely seen with people brought out the suspicions. Leigh-Ann knew she had no choice but to take a play out of Christina and Dillon’s handbook.
“We were makin’ out,” she mumbled. Her mother looked like she wanted to scold Leigh-Ann, but her silence ultimately won out. Nobody else looked surprised by such an admission. “It was my idea to find a barn. I wasn’t thinking of the fires beyond which barns weren’t around anymore. I’m sorry about what happened and for trespassin’, Mr. Connor, but I had nothing to do with the fire. Neither did Carrie.”
“What makes you think my son had anything to do with it?” Mrs. Musgrave asked.
“Carrie told me about him being a pyrophile or whatever.”
“Pyromaniac,” Ms. Tichenor corrected. “It’s true. We’ve had issues with him at school. The boy has been in trouble many
times for carrying matches and lighters, which are not allowed.” Her countenance dared the Musgraves to deny that they had been called in multiple times about it.
As they continued to sling blame and demand answers from one another, Leigh-Ann cast a glance in Carrie’s direction. For a fleeting second, they made eye contact. While Leigh-Ann expected her girlfriend to shudder in fear, Carrie surprised her by flashing a giant grin.
At least someone was optimistic.
Chapter 17
CARRIE
The school sandwiches around her didn’t look much better than the one she brought from home. Leigh-Ann’s, for instance, was soggy with mayonnaise and had two thin strips of turkey to pass for protein. Carrie may have brought peanut butter and jelly, but at least the bread was loaded. One did not skimp on peanut butter if they went out of their way to buy three jars of it when she saw it on sale at Wal-Mart.
What else am I using my paycheck for? Gas? She supposed “bail money’ counted as well, but thankfully she had not gone that far after taking a trip down to the city jail that past Saturday.
“You ever seen sadder canned peaches in your life?” Leigh-Ann poked her fork into the syrupy sadness in another corner of her tray. “I don’t want to eat these. You want them?”
“Now, Leigh-Ann,” Carrie said, mimicking the faux-authoritarianism of their homeroom teacher, “you know you’re not supposed to share your lunch with others. You could get in big trouble, sug.”
September Lessons (A Year in Paradise Book 9) Page 12
