A great night? Had he gone out for tacos after I’d ditched him? Shaking my head, I texted that I already had plans for Friday night—thank you, Mother—and I’d let him know.
Maybe the fire was God’s way of telling me that going out with Parker was a bad idea. I wasn’t all that religious and my faith wasn’t particularly fire-and-brimstoney, but I was desperate for answers about what was happening to me. Any answers.
And maybe I was also looking for an excuse not to see Parker again. I had a lot to figure out before I considered starting a new relationship. Especially with him.
The kids were waiting for me in the kitchen, and since I didn’t want to lie, I was purposely vague about how the evening had gone.
“Oh, by the way,” Harriet said, making a face, “Grandma Gertrude called.”
“Yeah,” I said with a sigh. “I talked to her.”
“Do we really have to go?” Jack asked.
I gave him a tight smile. “At least you won’t have to go to your dad’s until Saturday now.”
“I haven’t changed my mind. I’m not going at all.”
“Just think about what we talked about this morning,” I said, glancing at the microwave clock. “Time for bed, Elena. It’s after nine.”
She wrapped her arms around my waist and squeezed tight. “Are you okay, Mommy?”
I squeezed back. “I’m okay,” I lied, worried it wasn’t true, but I wasn’t about to scare her.
She headed toward the hall, and I noticed my grandmother standing at the edge of the kitchen. My heart tripped at the sight of her.
She handed Elena a peppermint that she’d pulled out of her pocket. “Put this on your pillow. Payment to the sandman to give you extra sweet dreams.”
Elena took the treat but frowned. “I don’t believe in the sandman.”
“Put it out anyway,” my grandmother said with a warm smile. “He might believe in you.”
Elena headed down the hall, and I called after her, “Don’t eat that after you brush your teeth.”
She groaned out of sight, clearly insulted. Fair enough. She’d never do something so irresponsible. In fact, she probably knew the top ten causes of cavities by heart.
“Hey, Nana,” I said. “Would you be up for a cup of tea?”
“With my favorite granddaughter?” she said, grinning. “Of course.”
Harriet laughed. “Hey, I’m standing right here, Nana.”
“I know,” Nana said. “You’re one of my two favorite great-granddaughters.”
Harriet kissed my grandmother on the cheek. “Good save, Nana.”
“Where do you think your mother gets her smarts from?”
I laughed as I reached for the kettle and started to fill it with water at the kitchen sink.
“Good night, Mom,” Harriet said. “I’m glad you had fun.”
Jack grunted, which I took to mean he wasn’t so glad.
Nana handed Harriet a peppermint. “Something tells me you need one too.”
Harriet grasped it in her hand and squeezed, then gave me a long look.
Jack walked over to give me a hug. “Love you, Mom.”
I tipped my head back to look up at him. “Love you too.”
It struck me that the nick on his chin was gone. Had I imagined seeing it this morning?
“Harriet told me that you had a date tonight,” Nana said, sliding onto a barstool at the island.
“Harriet’s been talking to everyone tonight,” I said. “By the way, I’m not sure if Harriet mentioned it, but we’re all having dinner with Mom tomorrow night.”
Nana made a face.
I pointed my index finger at her. “Don’t you even think about trying to get out of it.”
“I’ve done my time,” Nana said. “Why do I have to go back to the prison?”
“Consider it a visit with the warden,” I said. “And besides, I spent almost as much time living with her as you did.”
“But you had your father to soften her,” Nana said softly.
Mom had never been a doting mother, but my father had indeed softened some of her expectations of me during high school and college. But he’d died three years ago, and she’d lashed out at everyone and everything. I’d taken a different approach, internalizing my grief and pain so it wouldn’t affect the kids.
“Well, we’ll do our time and buy ourselves a few months until we have to do it again,” I said as I grabbed two mugs out of the cabinet.
“How was your date?”
I grabbed the tin of tea bags and set it in front of my grandmother. “It was eventful.”
She waited for me to expand on that, but I didn’t. I was looking for an opportunity to sneak in a few questions about her mother.
When I didn’t elaborate, she turned her attention to sorting through the tea bags. I selected my own, chamomile to help me sleep better, and dropped it into my cup. Since there was only so much subtlety a person could achieve when asking certain questions, I decided to just launch into it. “How old were you when your mother died?”
Nana’s gaze jerked to mine. “Why the sudden interest in my mother?”
“It’s just that you never talk about her,” I said. “Did you have trouble getting along with her like we do with Mom?”
She pushed out a sigh and shook her head. “No. Your mother has a stick up her butt. My mother and I were very close.”
“Is that why you don’t like to talk about her? Because it hurts too much?”
The kettle began to hum.
“That water’s ready,” Nana said.
I grabbed the kettle and filled our mugs, then got spoons and the honey bottle. I squirted a spoonful into my tea before handing the bottle to Nana.
“Nana, I heard the rumors about your mother, but I don’t know what’s true. I’d like to hear your take.”
“The past is better left there, Darcie.”
Which she’d said every other time I’d asked her about this. The pain on her face told me she meant it. I didn’t want to push her too hard, but I needed more from her.
“Not if it’s in the future.” Reaching up, I plucked the pins from my hair and let it fall to my shoulders.
Her face paled. “You bleached your hair.”
“No, Nana. I didn’t.”
“You’re turning gray in patches?”
“It’s not gray. The few gray hairs I’ve gotten were coarse and wiry. These are soft and fine.” I’d been hoping for an immediate reaction from her. If my great-grandmother had gone blond right around the time she’d started setting fires, then Nana Stella would know, wouldn’t she? But she didn’t seem to make the connection.
“Good for you,” she said, though it sounded forced. “You got married so young. You didn’t give yourself enough of a chance to sow your wild oats before you settled down. It’s not too late to live it up now.”
“I mean it, Nana. I didn’t do this to my hair. It just happened. After I started two fires. One streak for each of them.”
She was stirring her mug and her hand began to shake so hard it clanged against the sides. “Harriet said you were Ambien sleepwalking.”
“I didn’t take any Ambien last night,” I said, lowering my voice as I leaned closer. No sign of the kids, so I told her about the way my date had ended, finishing up with, “By the time I got to Cyn’s house, I had a new streak.”
She lifted her mug and began to blow across the surface. If I hadn’t known her any better, I would’ve thought she was immune to what I was saying, but this was how Nana Stella coped—she pushed on even as everything went to shreds around her.
“I heard that your mother set her house on fire,” I prodded.
She was silent for a moment. “My family home burned down.”
“Did she start it?”
“It was inconclusive.” She glanced at me, and the sorrow in her eyes dug into me. “But my father believed she was responsible. He called it ‘hysteria,’ although that wasn’t a medical diagnosis anymore.”
> I covered her hand with my own. “I’m so sorry, Nana. How old were you when she died?”
“I was in my mid-thirties. I wasn’t there for my mother when she needed me, and by the time I came home, she was already gone. I told myself I’d always be there for my daughter, but your mother shuts me out. And she shuts you out too.” Nana looked into my eyes and gave me a sad smile. “Are you okay, Darcie? I don’t want to wait too long and ask you when it’s too late.”
I wanted to tell her more about the fires. About the wings on my back. About the other weird and inexplicable things that were unfurling around and within me, but something in her eyes told me she couldn’t handle it. I’d have to get my answers elsewhere. I’d have to get them from my mother.
“I’m fine, Nana,” I lied, just like I’d lied to Elena. “Everything’s fine.”
Chapter Ten
I overslept the next morning, having spent roughly two hours the previous night googling spontaneous hair transformations and “hot flash + fire.” I did find some blog posts by a male conspiracy theorist who believed hot flashes caused forest fires, plus content from a woman who claimed she’d caused fires with her hot flashes. But her account was no more credible than his—she’d also laid claim to an assortment of other abilities that would have made her more powerful than all of the X-Men combined. My only real takeaway was the internet was somehow becoming an even weirder place.
I didn’t have time to wash my hair, but I planned on putting it up anyway, so I took a quick shower, then rushed out to the kitchen in my robe to make sure the kids were up.
“Mom,” Elena said in a slight whine. “You’re not even dressed. I have chess club.”
“Oh crap.” How had I forgotten it was Friday morning? Chess club day. Elena had to be at school forty-five minutes early. “Give me a few minutes.” I hurried to my room to get dressed and passed Jack in the hall. “I don’t have time to make you breakfast, but there are frozen waffles in the freezer.”
Fifteen minutes later, Elena and I were pulling out of the driveway. I’d only put on my foundation and blush, so I threw my eyeshadow and mascara into a makeup bag to take with me. After I dropped her off at school, I made an extremely necessary Starbucks run and headed for my office. I found a parking spot in the back, in front of the snowbanks the plow had created the week before. I pulled down my visor and opened the mirror, then started to apply my eyeshadow. I’d just brushed a coat of mascara onto my left upper lashes when several hard thunks hit the passenger-side window.
Startled, I released a yelp as I swiped the mascara up my forehead, then and turned to face the presumed serial killer outside my car. To my shock, it was the guy who had tried to save me the night before. He was staring at me through the window.
I rolled down the passenger window a few inches. “What are you doing here?”
He was wearing a gray dress coat, and I could see the top of his white button-down shirt and the knot of a red tie. His auburn hair was windswept, and his cheeks were pink from the cold. But it was his eyes that held my attention—brilliant cerulean orbs that were laser-focused on me.
“Darcie, open the door and let me in.”
Anger rolled through me, and I tossed my mascara tube onto the console. I’d offered to pay for his jacket and he’d refused. What on earth did he want? “How did you find me?”
He tested the locked door handle, then gave me an exasperated look.
There was no way I was letting him in my car. For all I knew he was a psychopath. I’d had nightmares for days after watching that Netflix show You with Harriet. But I could tell he wasn’t going to be dissuaded easily, so I opened the driver’s door and got out, migrating to the hood of my SUV. He shifted his position too, until we were facing each other over the still-warm engine.
“You stay over there,” I said, “and I’ll stay over here. Now how did you find me?”
He frowned, obviously not liking the fact that I was setting the rules. This was a man accustomed to getting what he wanted, all the more reason to be careful around him. “Your date. Now tell me what happened last night.”
“Parker told you where I worked?” I asked, incredulous. A gust of wind hit me, blowing my hair in my face, but he seemed unfazed.
“Please,” he drawled. “It wasn’t that hard to get it out of him. He’s not exactly the sharpest tool in the shed. Now what happened last night?”
I crossed my arms over my chest. “I left.”
“Yeah, I noticed,” he said in a dry tone. “But I’m not talking about that part. How did your dress catch fire? And how’d you escape getting burned?”
“I don’t know how it caught on fire,” I said truthfully, “and your speedy response must have saved me from getting burned.” My tone was snotty, and I was torn between being grateful that he’d helped me and skeeved out by the fact that he’d stalked me here. In typical Darcie Weatherby fashion, the nice me won out. “Thank you again for helping me.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he said, waving his hand as though speeding the conversation along. “That was nothing, so let’s get back to what happened. Your dress burned around you. It was reduced to ashes, but you and your…undergarments were completely fine. Why?”
It was then that I noticed his hands were wrapped with gauze. I gasped in horror. “Oh, my word! Were you hurt?”
My question made something shift in his eyes, and he stood straighter, his face becoming expressionless.
Was that why he was here? Did he hold me accountable for his injuries? Would my homeowner’s insurance cover something so bizarre?
“Darcie,” he said, sounding slightly panicked. “I really need to know what’s going on here.”
He couldn’t possibly know how much I wished I had an answer for him, or for any of the hundreds of questions floating around in my head. “I don’t have an explanation for you.” Shaking my head, I added, “I don’t even know your name.”
He gave me a hard stare, then pulled back his shoulders. “Stone.”
“Stone what?”
He reached down into his coat, and my heart leapt in my chest, my thoughts immediately springing to a half-dozen worst-case scenarios. Was he getting a gun? Was he going to kidnap me?
What on earth had possessed me to get out of the car to talk to a potential stalker?
Before I could react, he pulled out a black wallet and held it out to me, letting it flip open. “Special Agent Heath Stone with the FBI.”
Sure enough, that’s what it said across the top of his ID card: Federal Bureau of Investigation.
I took an involuntary step backward. “Why is the FBI involved in this?”
“It’s not,” he said, stuffing his wallet back into his pocket. “I’m not here in any official capacity whatsoever.”
“Then why did you show me your identification?”
“To prove you can trust me.”
I took another step back. “I think I should call my attorney.”
Although I suspected my divorce attorney wasn’t qualified to handle this sort of thing.
“For God’s sake, Darcie. I’m not here as Special Agent Stone. I’m here because of this.” He held up his wrapped hands.
Cinching my arms tighter around my torso, I said, “I’m incredibly sorry you got hurt trying to help me, and of course I’ll be more than happy to pay for any and all medical expenses.” Then I added, “And your jacket. Just give me copies of the—”
He glanced behind me toward a car pulling into the lot. “Can we get in your car to discuss this. Please?”
I knew I should say no. What if he intended to entrap me in some way? I wasn’t sure I was smart enough to outwit an FBI agent, but I didn’t have enough vacation time to cover him taking me downtown—or wherever his office was located—and I definitely didn’t have the money to pay my attorney, not that Mr. Afful would be of much use. He certainly hadn’t helped me come out ahead in the divorce proceedings.
“Fine. But make this quick. I have to get into work and I can�
��t be late.”
He nodded and moved toward the passenger door.
After I got inside and unlocked the doors, he didn’t waste any time getting in beside me.
“What do you want, Special Agent Stone?” I asked, thankful my voice didn’t break. I was scared out of my mind, but I didn’t want him to know that.
“Call me Heath,” he said in a stern voice. “I introduced myself as Stone out of habit.”
“Okay, Heath.” Was that out of some FBI handbook? Make your suspect feel at ease by using your first name? I wasn’t going to fall for it. “What do you want?”
He turned in his seat to face me. “You said you didn’t know how the fire started, but you must have some idea. Did you get too close to a candle?”
“The candles at Figaro’s are those fake battery-operated kind,” I said. “There were no candles.”
“Okay,” he said slowly, as though considering his next words. “Were you smoking? You caught yourself on fire but you’re too embarrassed to admit it?”
“What does it matter?” I asked in frustration. I wanted to puzzle this through with someone, but I doubted the best choice was an FBI agent who’d seen me burst into flames. Which meant continuing this conversation would be a waste of time for both of us. “It just happened.” But then I glanced at his gauze-wrapped hands and my tone softened. “Do you want my information so you can send me your medical bills?”
“I didn’t go to the doctor. There are no bills.”
“Then why are you here?” I asked, exhaustion creeping into my voice.
He started to unwrap the gauze on his left hand. “Even if I wanted to go to the doctor, I’m not sure how I’d explain this.”
The wrapping fell into his lap and he held up his palm—which looked completely unscathed.
I narrowed my eyes, wondering what I’d missed. “So you weren’t burned?”
He lowered his unwrapped hand so it hovered just above his lap. The top was bright red except for the outlines of my fingers where I’d grabbed hold of him.
Shaking my head, I glanced up at him. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I.” He quickly unwrapped his right hand and it was nearly identical. “Everywhere you touched me was unburned,” he said, rotating his hands back and forth. “How did that happen?”
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