BM03 - Crazy Little Thing Called Dead (20 page)

A small shadow moved through the door, small and black against the red smoke of the interior. A firefighter scooped her up and brought her to me. It was Beagle Annie with Annabelle Cat in her mouth. They were both a mess, singed and black. I couldn’t tell if Annabelle Cat was alive, but Beagle Annie was whining.

“Good Girl, Annie.” I gently patted the top of her head, the one place that didn’t look burned and sore. Her tail thumped and she looked at me with her black rimmed beagle eyes. Tears gathered behind my eyes and constricted my throat. An EMT came to look at her. She knelt and gently removed Annabelle Cat from Beagle Annie’s mouth. She listened to Beagle Annie’s breathing and placed an oxygen mask over her nose, but I knew from the techs movements that she didn’t hold any hope.

“Sweet, sweet, dog,” I said. “Best dog. Brave, brave girl.”

Beagle Annie’s tail thumped twice more and then lay still. Her breathing stopped. I closed her eyes and stood up, needing to be out of the hustle and noise, away from all this. I practically ran to the barn forcing my legs to cooperate. I let myself into an empty stall, slumped into a corner. Curled in the hay. I almost didn’t recognize the keening was coming from me. I rocked and sobbed. Dust and grief clogging my throat, my face wet. I shattered, and broke and pounded my fist against the sawdust-covered concrete. I knew who had done this, and she would pay.

Eventually Hambecker found me. I was curled on the floor, numb. Not sleeping, but not really awake, I didn’t really become aware of him until he touched my shoulder. I blinked at him, unsure why he was there. He pulled me to him holding me close and I cried again while he rocked me in his arms and made soothing noises.

When I stopped crying he picked me up and carried me from the stall.

“I can walk.” More of a croak than anything, I wasn’t sure he’d understood me.

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” He took me to his SUV and set me in the passenger seat. “I’ll be right back.”

I watched him walk to a group of people standing in the smoke and say something. Tom stepped away from the group and they stood head together for a minute before Hambecker turned and came back. He got in and turned the key. “I’m taking you to Meg’s,” he said.

I sat curled in the seat, numb and raw and leaned my head against the window. I misjudged the distance and my head bounced against the window. Stabbing pains shot through my temple.
Good. I should hurt
. I willed Hambecker to hit some deeper ruts, bounce harder down the hill as if the pain in my head could erase the pain in my heart.

Hambecker took me to Meg’s and carried me upstairs to her spare bedroom. My face was bleeding again and he cleaned it with warm water and soap, applied antibiotic ointment and bandages. Then he pulled off my boots, turned down the covers and put me into bed, fully dressed.

I wanted to tell him that I couldn’t sleep, that I was hurting too much, but I couldn’t bring myself to talk. There just didn’t seem to be any point in it. He pulled the rocking chair over to the bed, sat and held my hand. I rolled toward him, curling around his hand. My link to sanity.

“I’m going to kill her.” It came out a dusty croak.

“I know. Now sleep.”

I did eventually sleep, and when I woke up Hambecker’s hand was still in mine. He sat in the rocking chair, his eyes closed. Morning had come and gone, the clock on the bedside table showed it was past two in the afternoon. I released Hambecker’s hand and sat up, feeling the stiffness and pain in my body. I had a burn on the back of my hand that I didn’t remember getting.

I was halfway to the door, walking as quietly as I could when Hambecker said “Where are you going?”

“To the bathroom.”

“And after that?”

“To kill Michèle Ledroit.”

“Hmmm. I thought so. Come back in here first, and we’ll make a plan.”

I nodded and left. The mirror in the bathroom was not kind. I had bruising and lacerations and bandages on both sides of my head. There was a burn on my cheek and my hair was sticking out all over. The circles under my eyes made me look as though someone had been using me as a punching bag and there were black soot marks everywhere. I was disheveled and disreputable and I didn’t care.

There was a knock at the door.

“Yeah?”

“I’m tossing in a towel. Get a shower and Meg will bring you up some clean clothes.”

The door opened and a towel appeared. Not that I cared what I looked like, but it would feel nice to be clean. When the water hit my hair the smell of smoke intensified. I gritted my teeth and kept washing refusing to dwell on the images that flashed through my brain.

Instead of making me feel better, the shower made me crankier. I got out prepared to pick up my stinky clothes and find Meg, but my dirty clothes had disappeared and on the counter was a stack of clean things. I almost cried when I saw the underwear, socks and bra were brand new.
Toughen up
, I told myself.
Crybabies don’t get to kill wicked old women
. I pulled on Tom’s sweats and T-shirt and went back to the spare room to get my boots.

Chapter Thirteen

My boots were gone, the bed had been stripped clean and the quilt from my bedroom was folded neatly on the dresser. It should have been charred to a crisp, but here it was. I picked it up and put my face in it. It had been cleaned so it smelled fresh, which was nice but not what I was expecting. I sat on the bed with my face buried in the last thing I had of my Grammy’s and cried for the loss of the cat hair and dog smell that I used to complain about, but now wanted more than anything.

When Hambecker came to find me I was curled on the naked mattress, my arms wrapped around the quilt, my face still hidden in the fabric. The crying had stopped, mostly because I was too exhausted to continue. Hammie sat on the bed and caressed my hair for a while.

“Come on, Trouble, we need to get some food in you. Then we need to make a plan.” He tugged the quilt out of my arms and laid it on the end of the bed and taking my hand he led me downstairs to the kitchen. Meg was chopping celery and when she heard us come in she set down the knife and wrapped her arms around me.

“I’m so sorry, Sweetie. Tom’s already got the team out there investigating; we’ll find who did this.”

“I know who did it.”

Meg looked startled. But a shrill bark from upstairs distracted her. “I almost forgot.” She walked to the stairs and called up them, “Sara, honey, bring him down.”

A door opened and the clicking of nails on the hardwood floor was followed by a little brown body dashing down the stairs. Beans’ feet slid out from under him as he rounded the corner full speed and hurled himself at me. I caught him and held him to me, laughing and crying at the same time.

“I’d forgotten he was here,” I said, sniffing. “Beans, you lucky, lucky dog.”

Beans licked my face and made whining noises that told me he’d missed me, then Meg insisted that I sit down at the table so she could feed me. Beans rolled himself into a ball in my lap while I ate scrambled eggs and toast, because Meg claimed I needed comfort food that wouldn’t upset my stomach. I was surprisingly hungry. I ate everything on my plate plus a banana.

“That’s enough for now,” Meg said, “you’ll make yourself sick. And dinner’s only a couple of hours away.”

“Where did my quilt come from?” I asked, and was dismayed when my voice caught in my throat. I still couldn’t talk about things.

“Max pulled it out of your bedroom; the stupid man could have been killed.” Meg banged a pot in the sink. “Everyone knows you don’t run into a fire.”

I made a note to tell him off next time I saw him, and then give him a hug.

Hammie and I took Beans out onto the deck. It was a pretty afternoon, not too hot, and a fresh breeze blew the fragrance of the river mixed with the flowers from Meg’s garden. I sat on the bench, watched Beans sniffing around the planters and tried not to fall into despair. Hammie sat beside me, just touching at the shoulder and hip. A solid and comforting presence.

“Shouldn’t you be out rounding up criminals?”

“I’m taking a few days off.”

“Oh.” I leaned against him a little and when he slid his arm around my shoulder I leaned more, resting my head on his shoulder. “The sky is very blue today.”

“Yep.” He planted a kiss on the top of my head. “I’ve never been more scared than when I heard your house was on fire last night. I promised myself that if you were okay I would stop pretending to myself that I didn’t like you.” He tightened his arm. “Don’t ever scare me like that again. I don’t think I could survive it.”

“I didn’t mean to.” Tears were burning the backs of my eyes. “Why wasn’t Ledroit in jail? I thought we were safe. A couple of days you said. She wasn’t even in there one night.”

“I’m sorry, Bree. We underestimated her influence. And she has a lot of money behind her. The Sheriff’s department was out gunned by a big city lawyer and a lot of bluff.”

“Can we talk about something else? Because I really don’t think I can stand it if I’m going to start crying again.”

“What would you like to talk about?”

I looked up him. “How about how long I’ve been waiting for you to kiss me again? I’m beginning to worry you didn’t like it.”

He leaned down and pressed his lips to mine. It was a sweet kiss that deepened into something more until I lost my breath and clung to him like a drowning woman.

“Nope,” he said when our lips parted, “I liked that just fine.”

He held me close and we sat together, not talking for a long time. I felt the ache in my heart lighten just the tiniest bit and thought about closed doors and open windows. Little wisps of cloud covered the sun for a few moments at a time, bees buzzed around the flowers and the birds sang in the trees. Beans puttered around until Meg’s pack came rushing out and then he ran around the house with them. Hambecker disentangled himself from me and got up. He stretched.

“You’re just doing that to show off your muscles,” I said.

“Gotta make sure to keep you interested.” He held out his hand. “Come on. Let’s go inside.”

We held hands as we walked back into the kitchen where Meg was cutting up potatoes. She looked up. “It’s about time. I was ready to give you both a smack.”

I grinned sheepishly at her but Hammie said, “You can’t rush these things,” and pulled me into the living room. We sat on the couch and he turned toward me and took my hands.

“I promise you, we will get Ledroit. It will take some time, but I promise we will get her.”

I nodded and leaned into him. “That’s good,” I said quietly, “because if we don’t, then I will.”

He looked me in the eyes and nodded. He believed me, and that was a good thing.

***

For a couple of days, Hambecker refused to leave my side. I had to negotiate bathroom breaks and showers. He was so sweet and funny that I found it hard to be annoyed. He slept fully dressed curled around me under my Grandma’s quilt the first night, but refused my advances. “There are kids in the house,” was all he would say. And to tell the truth, that just made me want him all the more.

He went into town with me, standing guard at the office while I worked on my story. When well-wishers tried to bring me things, he took the gifts, thanked them, and very gently turned them away. I pretended not to notice, but I was grateful, because one sympathetic face would be enough to shatter me into a million little pieces. I was holding myself together, but only just.

The heat was making me irritable so Hambecker drove Beans and me to Frosty’s Ice Cream. Beans got a vanilla creamy in a dish, I got Deer Tracks in a cone dipped in chocolate and sprinkled with jimmies. Hambecker even broke down and ate a baby-sized creamy twist, despite the fact he
never
ate sweets. We sat on the picnic benches near the river and I smiled while I planned revenge.

We spent time walking along the river, and sitting on rocks while the water swept around us, just listening to the sounds of the water and the rocks and the wind rushing through the trees. The pain of losing my home and my animals didn’t go away, but the ache in my chest became familiar, part of who I am.

Hambecker drove me and Beans up Royalton Hill, my heart started hammering as we neared my road, but we didn’t turn up it, and my heart settled. And when we got to Silver Lake Hambecker rented us a paddle boat. Beans sat in my lap as we paddled past the state beach, and the town beach where people were eating picnics in the grass. They waved. It was such a normal thing, people waving even though they might not know you at all, and we waved back, but all the time I was hiding the murder in my heart. She would die.

We were paddling back toward the dock as the sun was setting behind the mountains and shadow was starting to fall over the lake when Hambecker asked, “How’s the story coming?”

“It’s almost done, I just don’t know if I should try and compress the whole thing into one article or serialize it across several weeks.”

“You really think people are going to want to read about this over weeks and weeks? Fill one paper and let it go.”

“What do you know about what people want to read? You haven’t read a paper a day in your life.” I punched him in the arm, hard.

“Ouch!” Hambecker grabbed his shoulder in mock agony and while he was goofing around he managed to lose his balance and fall overboard. Beans jumped off my lap and stood in his seat barking down at him. Laughter bubbled out of me. I had to wipe the tears from my face.

“Are you going to sit there laughing all day, or can I get some help here?”

I clambered over to his side of the little boat, setting Beans on the seat behind me, and reached out my hand to Hambecker. He grabbed my hand, yanked and the next thing I knew I was in the water with him.

“You turkey!” I splashed him as hard as I could. He splashed back. I lunged at him, climbing on his back, laughing so hard I could hardly breathe. Hambecker submerged and I let go but he twisted and pulled me under, pulling me to him. He kissed me under the water. I wrapped my arms and legs around him, anchoring my fingers in his hair until I was dizzy with the kiss and lack of air. He kicked us up so that we popped up out of the water clinging to each other and gasping for air.