He lowered his voice. “She’s pretty lucky. When they brought her in, she went into cardiac arrest, but the folks downstairs in E.R. were able to resuscitate. Her burns cover the lower half of her body. Right now, it’s hard to say. Every second counts. Like I said, the main thing is to keep her from getting any kind of infection.”
“I understand.”
“Follow me.”
The nurse led her behind two swinging double doors. He had her scrub, put on a gown, gloves and mask. He then took her through another door where she was able to stand behind a plate of Plexiglas. Fluorescent lights beat down on her. She could see Rachel through the glass. The young woman looked even tinier than she normally did. Bandages covered her burns, her lower half wrapped like a mummy. Intravenous lines were hooked into several veins.
“Oh, sweet girl,” Helena gasped. The tears she’d fought back now readily trickled down her face. She didn’t bother to wipe them away.
Rachel turned her face towards the glass. A severe look of pain shone in her eyes as a tear fell from her face. She appeared much older than her eighteen years. Helena placed a hand on the glass. Rachel mouthed the word, “baby.”
“He’s okay. He’s good. Lindsay has him. I’m going over after I leave here. He’ll be fine, but you have to hurry up and get well.” Rachel closed her eyes. “I’m so sorry. I am so sorry this happened to you. I wish there was something I could do to change it.”
Rachel opened her eyes again, looked at Helena. They caught each other’s gaze for a long time. It pained Helena to see her that way. She wanted to scream, cry out. There was no explanation for any of this.
“Lots of prayers okay, Angel?” Rachel said in a barely audible voice coming over the speaker piped into the room.
“You got it, my friend. All the prayers in the world. And don’t forget, you’re my angel and so is little Jeremy. You’re gonna be fine, just fine.”
The nurse tapped Helena on the shoulder. “It’s time to go. She really needs to get some rest.”
As they walked out Helena asked, “Can you tell me anything else about her condition?”
“Each twenty-four hour period she makes it through without contracting any type of infection will raise her odds significantly.”
“Okay.” Helena left the hospital and drove straight to The Sober Living House. Walking in, she quickly noticed the silence and the absence of the usual buzz of activity. The atmosphere was somber. No one was in the game or TV room. Helena went to Lindsay’s office and tapped lightly on the door. A man with a slight paunch around the waist, wearing a tweed jacket, and smelling faintly of cheap men’s cologne opened the door.
“Hello,” Helena said.
“Helena Shea?”
“Yes,” she replied cautiously, sensing something wrong, knowing it was odd for a strange man to be at The Sober Living House at a little past eleven at night.
“I’m Detective David Collier.”
“He’s here about Rachel,” Lindsay said, her arms crossed in front of her long denim dress. Helena knew how much Lindsay disliked the police, a prejudice held over from her peace and love-in days during the 60s in Haight-Ashbury. She still wore the trademark braid; once strawberry blond, it now snaked down her back in a silver streak.
“I just came from seeing her, actually.”
“How is she?” Lindsay asked.
“She’s hanging on.”
“Ladies, I’m sorry about your friend, but I’m here looking into why the fire happened.” He pulled out a small notepad and pen.
“That’s a good question. I’d like an answer myself,” Helena said, having wary feelings about the cop. It was her motto not to judge too quickly, because she knew how it felt to be on the other side. However, Detective Collier was not what she would consider gracious or tactful.
“Yeah, uh, huh. Ms. Shea, were you aware of any gas leaks in the center?”
“Are you kidding? We haven’t even opened. We’ve had workers in and out of there for months. We’ve passed several inspections. We were just getting ready for a final inspection.”
“Do you have insurance on the center, yet?” The detective jotted something in his notebook.
“Of course I do. To obtain permits to even build a place like Shea House, I had to present proof of insurance up front.”
“Do you know how much the policy is worth?”
“I have the paperwork at home. But I can tell you that there are quite a few different types of coverage I had to get.” She really didn’t like the way the detective was looking at her, like a hawk waiting to swoop down on its prey. “I was opening a center for women and babies, and for pregnant women. You can bet I’ve had to purchase a great deal of insurance. Not to mention, these women are recovering alcoholics and drug addicts.”
“What about your personal finances, Ms. Shea? Have you put a lot of your own money into Shea House?”
The nauseating discomfort she’d felt earlier from her grief turned into a pit of anger as if she’d been socked in the gut.
“What’s with this line of questioning?” Lindsay interrupted. During the eighties, Lindsay had decided to give up the Birkenstocks but keep the braid and get a BMW, a house in the burbs, and a law degree. But she’d lost it all after investing everything she had into one case defending an embezzler who she’d fallen in love with. She’d successfully gotten him acquitted, following which he repaid all of her hard work and affection by cheating her out of every penny she had. She turned to drinking to ease the hurt and anger, eventually made her way into recovery, and then began counseling other women who’d been down the same dark tunnel. Helena watched her turn from therapist into attorney mode, glad to have her on her side.
“There’s reason to believe that the explosion tonight was caused by a pilot light hooked up to the stove. No one lit the stove, but the gas was on, and the arson team says they found a pack of matches lying only a few feet away. Looks like this fire was deliberate, ladies. Someone wanted to see Shea House come down in flames. We may even be looking at a homicide here, if your friend doesn’t recover from the serious burns she’s suffered.”
Helena’s dislike for this pompous ass deepened as his insinuations sunk in. But she was not afraid of him and replied looking him straight in the eye, “Yes, I have put quite a bit of my own funds into constructing Shea House.”
“Like how much, say a hundred thousand or so?” he asked.
“You know you don’t have to answer his questions,” Lindsay said.
“I have nothing to hide. I can tell you right now I had nothing to do with blowing up my own recovery center, and I love Rachel Winters like my own daughter. To see her in so much pain and not knowing if she’s going to make it just about killed me tonight. So, if you want to know how much I’ve put into my center, try close to a million dollars. Charitable funds have covered the rest.”
The detective let out a low whistle. “Pretty penny, especially if your modeling agency isn’t doing so well.”
“My agency is doing just fine.”
“That’s good to hear. It’s also good to hear how much you love Miss Winters. Like your daughter, you said?” The Detective arched his eyebrows, glaring at Helena.
“That’s right.”
“And, we all know how much that is.” A sardonic smile spread across his face.
Helena’s body shook, her balled up fists at her side.
Lindsay interrupted, “Detective Collier, I’m going to have to ask you to leave now.”
“No problem. I’ll be in touch.” He closed the door behind him, leaving his Irish Spring scent wafting in the air behind him.
Helena slumped down in a chair across from Lindsay’s desk. Lindsay placed her hands on her shoulders. “Oh, my God. I could never do what he’s suggesting.”
“I know. We all know that. He’s a real ass, typical tough cop bullshit. Forget about him.”
“I’ll try.” She shook her head. “Jeez, Lindsay, seeing Rachel like that was awful. She’s in so much agony, and I can’t help but feel it’s my fault,” Helena cried.
“It’s not, hon. You have to know that it’s not.”
“What about the baby?”
“He’s asleep. By law I’ve had to contact social services.”
“Are they going to take him?” Helena closed her eyes, praying that wouldn’t happen.
“I suggested that I take on temporary guardianship until we see what’s going to happen. That way he’ll be around people he knows and in a place he’s already beginning to feel comfortable in. He’s had so many changes in his short life. The last thing he needs is another disruption.”
“What did they say?”
“They didn’t give me a definite go, but let’s face it, not a lot of foster parents out there want to take on crack babies, and an African-American baby at that. As ugly as that sounds, we still live in a fairly close-minded society, my friend. They’re sending someone out tomorrow to interview and survey the premises. I doubt they’ll take him. They know I run a good operation here.”
Helena nodded, rubbed her eyes. “None of this makes any sense. Who would want to destroy my place? Why?”
“Who knows? Maybe the cop is wrong. It’s possible one of the construction guys screwed up.”
“What about the matches he said they’d found?”
“Lots of construction guys smoke. There’s an explanation, Helena. There always is. You need to trust that.”
“I can’t believe it. It’s gone.”
“It can be rebuilt.”
“I know, but I already had women waiting to get in. Where will they go? And what about Rachel? What if she doesn’t survive?” Helena buried her face in her hands.
“She will. She’s bullheaded. You know that. She’ll make it through this.”
A baby’s crying from the other room brought a smile to Lindsay’s face. “There’s Jeremy. Time for a bottle. You want to say hi?”
Helena shook her head. “Not tonight. I don’t think I can take much more. I feel horrible that his mother can’t be here with him. It’s probably better right now if I go home, see my dog, and get in bed.”
“I understand.”
She hugged Lindsay, then left. She was sure this night was the longest one in history. Who would’ve ever known at the beginning of the evening, being with Frankie with everything so wonderful between them, that it would end this way?
Helena walked to her car, got in and started to drive home, but first she headed towards Shea House. Passing it, she saw a couple of fire trucks still outside and an unmarked car. While she was stopped at the corner ready to turn into the parking lot, she saw Detective Collier. She stepped on the gas. Everything about his demeanor and ugly questioning made her want to stay far away from him. It was like he actually had it in for her. She started to dismiss this kind of thinking as pure paranoia, but when she remembered the way he’d spoken to her and glared at her, maybe she wasn’t paranoid. She knew that Lindsay saw it too. In his mind, he’d already convicted her of torching her own place and trying to murder a friend. Helena had seen the certainty in his eyes.
She quickly drove past where Shea House once stood, its doors ready to be opened to receive those in need. What remained was nothing like the white clapboard building reminiscent of the Victorian era. A lovely swing had graced the front porch—now gone. Arched windows, their sills filled with planters of colorful flowers meant to enhance the place—now all gone. Some of the framework still stood, but everything else had been burned to the ground. Once again, the question
why?
rose in her mind. She had no answers.
1995
Before . . .
Richard lived in the Fairfax district so he could get as close to Beverly Hills as possible without going over his budget. The nineties, so far, had been decent to him. Dear old Daddy James had made good on his promise to supply him a meal ticket for several years. When the old fucker died of a heart attack while enjoying his favorite pastime, Richard became a very rich man. What a sight for the good ole officers back home: Their favorite mortician sticking it to the corpse and then croaking right on top of her. Beautiful. Might even make good porn. Maybe a bit too scandalous for the general public, though.
Scandal was not something Richard craved. He’d chosen not to return for the funeral. He’d hired an attorney to sell the farm and make sure he received all of his monies. To be on the safe side, he’d done all the legal transactions from an apartment he’d rented in Utah. Richard didn’t want anyone to know his exact location, and he always used aliases. One had to be cautious in his line of work.
After murdering his aunt, it had taken him awhile to muster up his courage to do it again, but he had to, needed to. It was in him now, like a wolf that has had its first taste of blood. That taste—so delectable—would never go away. He’d tried to rid himself of it, knowing that it wasn’t in his best interest as far as society went to go around killing.
But it was his mother, really, who’d called to him from the grave to do these dark but necessary deeds. She wanted him to find a good girl, a beautiful, sweet, and kind young lady—one worthy of him. One like Herself, and he had tried. Oh, God, how he had tried. Yet each woman he met had been nothing but a bitter disappointment. None of them were even close to worthy. He’d meet them, court them, and then they’d turn on him, scorn him, ridicule him. Ugly whores, they’d all turned out to be, filled with hatred like that bitch aunt he’d done away with. So, he simply obeyed his mother’s wishes and did what she’d demanded of him—killed them. However, parting with them was another matter entirely. He knew Mommy didn’t like it, but there were some things he just wasn’t willing to give up.