Burning Down the House (5 page)

EPILOGUE

BONUS EXCERPT

P
ROLOGUE

There are few things worse than flying when you
have a fear of heights.

Okay, let’s clarify - it’s not like I have a phobia or anything. I don’t
go all William Shatner and start having hallucinations of aliens out for a stroll along the wings. Nor do I require tranquilizers. It’s nothing quite so drastic as that. I just happen to prefer having my two feet planted firmly on the ground where they belong, thank you very much.

Besides, coach sucks. With my dad employed as a pilot for this
particular airline, I fly practically for free so of course I always wind up stuck in coach. And on this delightful trip I was lucky enough to have Chester the Molester in the seat next to mine, “accidentally” grazing me with his corpulent sweaty arm every time he moved. For a three hundred and fifty pound behemoth, he sure did manage to move around a lot.

I
was
so
not in the mood.

Not for
Chester, not for the cramped and stuffy cabin, and definitely not for the hyper, overly perky flight attendant who looked as if she just washed down a handful of antidepressants with a Red Bull. Or maybe it was a botched facelift that gave her that perpetual Sardonicus grin. Her mouth was stretched so wide she resembled an oversized Muppet. I expected at some point she’d open it just a little too wide and the top of her head would tip backward. Then the more restless passengers could use her as a Mr. Mouth game.

Seriously though
, all bitching aside, the flight really wasn’t unbearably long. It’s just that I was already wiped out from the wedding and a little on the testy side. Did I mention my mom and her brand new husband were, at that moment, sipping champagne in roomy recliner seats in first class on a plane headed in a different direction? Yeah.

Now don’t get me wrong -
returning to Maryland was actually my idea in the first place. I’d been looking forward to moving in with my dad for some time. It wasn’t until Mom announced her intention to get remarried - to a veterinarian, no less, and she doesn’t even like animals so go figure that one out - that I summoned the courage to propose that I spend my last year of high school back in Cumberland. I wanted to graduate with the same kids I grew up with and besides, Maryland was where I was born and raised. After the divorce, Mom dragged me off to Greenville, Illinois where the highlight of entertainment as far as I could tell was beer pong and cow tipping. Other than my best friend Dana Landry, I hadn’t seen the majority of those kids since the beginning of ninth grade. And that was almost three years ago.

The
other reason was my dad. I missed him like crazy. Easygoing and completely Zen, he’s the antithesis of my mom. There isn’t much that fazes him. Not even the divorce - while my mother, on the other hand, was a total basket case during the whole process. Elizabeth Marsh - excuse me, Elizabeth Ross now - does not tolerate disorder. Everything in her polished world has to be
just so
or she can’t stand it. You might call her a perfectionist and control freak compounded into one well-dressed neurotic flake. She means well, though.

If you ask me, t
heir personality conflicts were probably what sparked the divorce in the first place. Dad’s passive way of shrugging things off, while she’s always had a tendency to rant and rave and stress until things go her way. The coming year would provide a welcome break from her constant nitpicking and obsessing. Not that I love her any less, it’s just that he’s always been so much easier to deal with. He doesn’t get on my case about every little thing the way she does.
A B+ is nice, Sara, but maybe next time you could strive for an A. Are you sure you want to wear those sandals - it’s after Labor Day, you know. Why on earth would you choose drama instead of a more beneficial elective?
You get the picture.

To sum it all up, t
he main reason I was irritable was quite simply that I was bone tired. I’ve never been an overindulged brat or anything like that. Really. I do possess a dry sense of humor that can sometimes be mistaken for sarcasm, but I usually don’t intend to come off that way.

And I’ll admit
that maybe I was also just a wee bit envious because after all, my newlywed mother and her hubbylove Stanley were on their way to freakin’
Italy
, for crissakes. Two months away from turning eighteen and I’ve never even set foot outside of the United States. Touring Europe would have been preferable to attending classes, obviously.

So I waited
as patiently as I could, exhausted because I’d been up since 5 a.m. and the temperature in the cabin was sweltering and I needed to pee and El Pervo kept elbowing me in my left boob without so much as an apology. And between jabs I started to wonder if the pilot was ever planning to descend. With my luck it would be like that other Twilight Zone episode, the one where the plane just keeps circling around forever and never finds its way back. I was praying my dad wasn’t late picking me up because all I wanted was to reach my destination so I could finally unwind and relax. It had been one long, nerve-wracking day, and his house has always been a peaceful haven for me.

Which, after
the taxing day I’d had, was exactly what I needed.

It wasn’t even the ballpark of
what I was about to get.

1

“I should probably prepare you for something
.”

I
was trying to check my hair in the visor’s small mirror. It was still piled on my head in loose chocolate-brown curls the way I’d worn it for the wedding that morning. It looked awesome - too bad I could never do as good a job as the hairdresser with arranging it. Usually it’s just a tousled mess. Too wavy to be straight, too straight to be curly. I have a tendency to look like I just came in out of a windstorm. Just another thing my mom and I found to argue about. She wanted me to cut it off, but I adamantly refused. With it long, I can always tie it back in a ponytail on a bad hair day if I don’t have time to break out the flat iron. What do people with short hair do when they have a bad hair day? Hide under a hat?

“What’s that?” I ask
ed my dad, expecting nothing more momentous than news of recent home renovations or the enforcement of a stricter dress code at Hillcrest. Or maybe he actually had a serious girlfriend now. Ever since the divorce, I knew he played the field a lot. I made that discovery during past vacations with him. Alan Marsh has always been a magnet for the opposite sex. Dana thinks he looks like Jake Gyllenhaal, minus the blue eyes. I don’t see it myself.

“You remember
Buck and Rita Kensington, don’t you?”

“
Sure.” I did, but only vaguely. They were friends with my parents way back when, though not so much as I got older. I don’t think my mom was really crazy about them. I’m pretty sure she only tolerated their occasional presence because my dad and Mr. Kensington used to go to school together or something.

“Then I assume you remember
Rob as well.”

Ah
, yes. Their mutant offspring. Unfortunately, I did. He was the same age as me and last time I saw him was the start of ninth grade, before my parents split up and I was uprooted from my home. The guy gave new meaning to the word
weirdo
. Dressed like the Lord of the Underworld, even wore dark eyeliner and black nail polish. I couldn’t recall one single time when I’d actually seen him crack a smile. He used to hang around with this group of goth wannabes that spent their time putting everything down. If the majority of society accepted something, then they all made a point of rejecting it just to prove some stupid point. I couldn’t even tell you what that point was supposed to be. Frankly, I doubted they could either.

“Kind of,” I grudgingly admitted.

“Hey, did I ever tell you that Buck and I grew up together?”

“
No, I don’t think so.”

“
Ask your grandmother about it sometime. She practically raised him right along with the rest of us. When he was six his mother died of cancer, and after that his father stayed drunk most of the time. Ours just happened to be the closest house nearby, so one day Buck just sort of wandered over and before long he was staying with us more than he was at home. I guess you could say we were almost like brothers.” He gave a short, wistful laugh. “Got into all kinds of trouble together, too. He was a year older than me so of course I followed right behind him and tried to do everything he did. Not always the best idea. We usually got caught, and I’d be the one who wound up getting punished.”

I
smiled back, but the whole time I couldn’t help wondering what the point of this trip down memory lane was. It didn’t seem to have anything to do with anything. I never knew the Kensingtons that well - since Mom didn’t much care for them, they didn’t get invited over a whole lot. Mostly we just saw them around town now and then.

“Anyway
, I guess I’m getting sidetracked here. The reason I brought it up is because…well, about six weeks ago their house was destroyed in a fire.”

“Really?” Not the sharpest reply, but
what kind of response do you give to something like that?
That sucks
just didn’t seem to cut it. “That’s awful,” I added benignly.

“
Buck and Rita didn’t make it out.”

Okay -
now
that
I was not expecting. “
What?
You mean they’re
dead?
Both of them?”

“I’m afraid so. They were both trapped inside. By the time the fire department was notified, the house was already completely consumed.
There was nothing anybody could do for them at that point. Place went up like a tinderbox. It was an old Victorian house they were renovating, so I guess they hadn’t gotten around to adding smoke detectors yet.”

“Oh, God…Dad, that’s the most
horrible thing I ever heard. I’m so
sorry
.” I tried to suppress a shudder. Burning to death - ugh, if there was a worse way to go than that, I didn’t want to know what it was. I felt terrible that he’d lost his friend like that. “What started it? Do they know?”

“The fire marshal had a hard time determining the
source. I think eventually he blamed it on faulty wiring. Makes sense, considering the age of the house.”

It suddenly occurred to me that
he hadn’t mentioned their son. “Was Rob there?”

“No, fortunately he wasn’t home at the time. He was staying the night with a friend.”

How could a person be so lucky and unlucky at the same time? On one hand he’d lost both parents; on the other, his own life had been spared by a fickle twist of fate. I couldn’t imagine what he must be going through. Weirdo or not, nobody deserves to have something that horrifying happen to them. The thought of it literally gave me chills. “That’s good to hear. I’m glad he’s okay.”

“It hasn’t been easy on him.”

“I can imagine.”

“He doesn’t like to talk about it.”

“Well, I don’t blame him. I promise, if I run into him at school I won’t bring it up.” Not that it was a likely scenario. I could count on one hand the words that had passed between us during the years that I’d known him.

Dad started drumming his fingers on the steering wheel restlessly.
“Yes. Well. Ah…the thing is, you won’t just be running into him at school.”

Wait a second.
Hold the phone here… “Where else would I be running into him?” I asked suspiciously.

He
glanced over at me just long enough to catch my eye and that’s when I saw the writing on the wall. Because the look on my father’s face was one totally out of character for him. An expression of nervous tension and Alan Marsh never gets nervous or tense about
anything
.

“
I want you to look at this from my point of view. Buck was a very good friend. We may have drifted apart over the years but he was once like family to me. And he always had my back when I needed him.”

“
Dad, exactly what are you trying to say here?” I hoped I was misinterpreting the whole thing. I hoped he wasn’t trying to tell me what I
thought
he was trying to tell me.

“
Sara, I owed it to his father to take him in. And even if I didn’t, I would have offered to do it anyway. Rob’s lost everything - try and understand that. I only wanted to help him. He’s always been a good kid.”

Rob
Kensington didn’t exactly strike me as the archetype of a “good kid”, but that was pretty much beside the point. My suspicions were confirmed. Dad had officially lost his mind. “He’s staying with us? Are you
serious?
” I had visions of midnight séances and black masses and the smell of incense permeating the air. Maybe even a hearse parked in the driveway. “For how long?”

If possible, he looked even more
uncomfortable. “For as long as he needs to. At least until after graduation.”

“
The entire school year?” This had to be a joke. He couldn’t honestly expect me to live in the same house with Dracula’s twin brother.

Discomfort was quickly morphing into mild annoyance.
“Yes, the entire school year. You know, I really expected a little more compassion than that from you, Sara. The guy just lost everything. His family, his home - whatever stability he had has been wiped out. I would think you could understand why I wanted to restore just a little of that stability.”

Instantly guilt took over. “You’re right. You’re right
- I’m sorry. It’s just…it was kind of unexpected. Mom never mentioned a word of this to me.” Which led me to believe she didn’t know, since this was definitely not the kind of information she would’ve kept to herself.

I could have sworn I saw my father blush.

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding. You didn’t tell her!”

“Well…I was afraid
she’d throw a fit about you coming to live with me. You know how she gets.”

I knew all right, and that’s why I couldn’t help but laugh. “
That was a pretty underhanded trick. I don’t know though - she was so excited about the wedding and going to Europe, I’m not sure it would have made any difference.” I had expected her to try and talk me out of leaving. Instead, she bought me new luggage and helped me pack. I still couldn’t decide if I should feel insulted.

“Just the same, maybe it would be best if you didn’t mention it
. For the time being.”

“
You don’t think she’s going to find out?”

“Why don’t we just cross that bridge when we get to it
.” He didn’t seem concerned. Like I said before, not much fazes him.

“All right, I won’t say anything. But you get to do the explaining when she finds out!” I knew very well why my mom would disapprove. Dad’s job as a commercial airline pilot for United keeps him away a lot, and two teenagers sleeping under the same roof would be what she’d refer to as
“tempting fate”. Right, tempting fate with Creepy Kensington - as if! I’d be more afraid of him strapping me to a pentagram and covering me in goat’s blood. I sure as heck couldn’t picture someone as antisocial as he was hitting on me.

And then I felt another stab of guilt for thinking that way. I really shouldn’t be so judgmental. The poor guy was dealing with the loss of both parents. Now was not the time for me to behave like a self-centered twit. So I resolved to put aside my reservations and make every effort to be as gracious and friendly as possible. Even if he did resemble a vampire/zombie hybrid.

“Where’s he at now?” I asked.

“He’s at the house.
I thought we could all go out to dinner tonight and give you a chance to get reacquainted a little. I know it’s been a long time since you’ve seen one another.”

“I didn’t really know him very well even back then,” I point
ed out. “We never hung out with the same crowd at school.”

“Yeah, I didn’t think so.”

“He’s not still dressing like a serial killer, is he?”

It was Dad’s turn to laugh.
“No, I think he’s over that phase.”

“Good to know.” At least I
wouldn’t have to hide my eyeliner. Ha, ha.

“It won’t be nearly as bad as you think, ladybug. You know I wouldn’t put you in
a difficult situation.”

“I know you wouldn’t.”
Not intentionally
, I wanted to add.

“I think having you around
could be good for him.”

“Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll be
nice.”

“
Just don’t be surprised if he isn’t very social. He doesn’t talk a lot. I convinced him to see a therapist once a week but you need to keep in mind that this has been a very traumatic experience for him. Even so, I think it would be a good idea if you just treated him as you would anyone else. Be nice, but what I’m saying is don’t go overboard with the pity. What he needs right now is a sense of normality. You understand?”

Right about
that time I was really starting to second-guess my decision to switch schools. “Okay. I got it.”

“I’m hoping your presence will help bring him out of his shell.”

“I’ll do what I can,” I promised weakly. But in all honesty I had to wonder how much good I could do considering Rob Kensington has never liked me.