I’d made it past several cars when an explosion ripped through the air. The force threw us to the ground, and I rolled to my side, pulling Harriet’s body down so I could protect her from the fallout.
We lay there stunned for several moments before I turned to look up at the night sky. Vee’s face came into view.
“Well done, Darcie. Well done.”
Then everything went black.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I woke up in a hospital bed, a light blue curtain pulled around me, and I bolted upright, shouting, “Harriet!”
A splitting pain shot through my head, and I nearly passed out.
“Mom?” I heard her call out from my right side. The curtain was drawn back and her face came into view.
“Harriet,” I said, some of my panic relieved. She looked pale, but she was safe. “Are you okay?”
She threw herself onto me, laying her head on my shoulder. “I’m fine, Mom, thanks to you. You saved me.”
I wrapped my arms around her and held on tight. “I was so scared.”
“You were scared?” she said in surprise, pulling back to look down at me. “You didn’t look scared. You looked fearless. And after the van caught fire, you shoved me out of the way.”
I stared up at her. “What?”
She turned serious. “The van caught fire and you shoved me hard out of the way. Then the guy who was attacking me ran off.”
I shook my head. “Harriet—”
“The police already took my statement, Mom,” she said, her tone a little sharp. “That’s what happened.”
My smart girl was one step ahead of me.
“Harriet,” a woman said in disapproval. “You’re supposed to be in bed.”
“I’m fine,” Harriet said, standing next to me with her shoulders squared back like a warrior preparing for battle. “I’m staying with my mom.”
A woman in scrubs came around the curtain. “We’ll have to ask the doctor. Your mother needs her rest.”
Her tone made it clear she didn’t approve of this plan.
I clutched Harriet’s hand. “No. I want my daughter here with me.” Then a new wave of panic hit me. “Where’s Elena?”
“She’s with Jack and Nana in the waiting room. She’s okay. Jack tried to call Dad, but he’s not answering his phone.”
He was a sleaze, but not enough of one to ignore Jack on purpose. At least I didn’t think so. But it wasn’t unusual for him to turn his phone off when he led a discussion group or had a rare night class. “I must have scared you all.”
“As long as you’re okay, that’s all that matters.” She sat in a chair next to my bed and told the nurse once again that she wasn’t leaving. After the nurse left the room, Harriet lowered her voice and said, “Mom, your hair…it’s blonder.”
My heart skipped a beat. “How blond?”
“There’s not much dark hair left.”
I was running out of time. While I’d gained some control over what was happening, Sylvia had thought she could control the fires too, and look what had happened to her. I had to get medication. I had to find Vee.
So when the doctor came in, I asked him. Harriet had gone out to grab a soda from the vending machine, so it was just me, the doctor, and two residents (perils of a teaching hospital).
“I see we’re here for a possible concussion and rib fractures,” the doctor said brightly, as if the hospital were a spa. His smile was almost alarmingly wide. I didn’t have high hopes for this conversation.
“Yes, but I was hoping you might be able to help me with something else.”
He nodded, waiting for me to continue, and I took a deep breath before launching into it. “I’ve started going through perimenopause, and my hot flashes are really powerful. Like I’m on fire. My ob-gyn can’t see me until next week. Is there anything you can do to help me before then? Some medication, maybe?”
The two residents leaned in close, as if taking notes, and the doctor tilted his head. He was looking at me like I was a junkie in search of a fix.
“Hm… you know, we really like for those sorts of drugs to be prescribed by a patient’s regular practitioner. Why don’t you buy some ice packs?”
“These are really painful, Doctor. Isn’t there anything you can do to help?”
“Some ladies have found benefits from vitamin E or other natural remedies,” he said with a small smile that told me what he thought of such things. “Now, let’s make sure you don’t have any broken bones, shall we?”
He wasn’t telling me anything I hadn’t already discovered on the internet, and while I planned to get some vitamin E—and another supplement or two—as soon as I got the chance, my gut told me it wouldn’t be enough. I needed the big guns. I needed drugs.
They spent hours x-raying and CT scanning most of my body. Ultimately, it was determined I’d gotten off pretty easily, all things considered: a mild concussion, bruised ribs, and a sprained shoulder. They wanted to keep me overnight, but I insisted that I was going home to my kids.
A police officer took my statement, and I gave one very similar to Harriet’s story. Her version only differed in one way: she’d caught a slightly better glimpse of the man who’d attempted to drag her into the van. Only he’d been wearing all black, including a black stocking cap, and the only feature she’d been able to detail for a sketch artist was the dark beard she’d noticed underneath it. I couldn’t help but wonder if she were holding something back, but I didn’t press. If she did have details she didn’t want to share with the officer, I hoped she’d tell me later.
After the hospital personnel let us know I wasn’t in critical condition, I gave Elena and Nana long hugs and told Jack to take them home. Harriet still refused to leave my side, and it didn’t surprise me when Jack returned and sat in the exam room with Harriet and me. It was well after midnight when I was released, and Jack treated us both like we were fragile glass, insisting on helping me get into bed. Harriet was still traumatized and insisted on sleeping with me, not that I had any intention of stopping her. I didn’t want to let her out of my sight.
On the way home from the hospital, I’d made Jack stop at the pharmacy—telling him the doctor had given me a prescription—and bought a bottle of vitamin E and some black cohosh, a supplement that might (according to the internet hive mind) help me. I knew there was a good chance it would give me a stomachache, but that was a small price to pay if it actually worked.
Harriet and I stayed home the next morning—Harriet because she was exhausted, and me because the doctor hadn’t released me to go to work. Jack and Elena wanted to stay with us too, but I insisted that they go to school. We needed some semblance of normalcy.
Around ten o’clock, while Harriet was still asleep, I was nursing a cup of coffee when the doorbell rang. I hoisted myself off the barstool and shuffled to the entryway, every part of me aching.
When I opened the door, I found myself face-to-face with Special Agent Stone.
“Darcie,” he said, his gaze sweeping me up and down as though assessing my injuries. “May I come in?”
My heart leapt into my throat. “Is this official business?”
“No, I’m here as a friend. So may I come in?”
Part of me wanted to tell him to stuff it, but I suspected he’d heard about the van and was here for answers. Maybe I could trade him. I’d give him some answers if he gave me something in return.
“Fine.” I turned around and padded into the kitchen, letting him follow me. “Do you want some coffee?”
“Yeah,” he said, shutting the door behind him. “Thanks.”
I grabbed a cup from the cabinet and gestured for him to sit on a stool at the island. “Cream or sugar?”
“Black,” he said as he took a seat. “You look like you went through hell last night.”
“You’re a bucket full of sunshine yourself,” I said, although the truth was that he looked good. More than good. Great. He looked even better than the day he’d ambushed me in my ca
r. Less pained. His blue eyes were sharper. And I…I was still in pajamas, hadn’t brushed my hair, and I was pretty sure I had raccoon eyes from not washing my makeup off the night before. And then there were the bruises on the side of my face.
Oh well. The night we’d met he’d seen me in shapewear and a bra—he probably expected this sort of thing from me.
“Your hair’s different.”
“Observant too,” I said, not that I could blame him for mentioning it. My previously dark hair was now ninety percent corn silk. Summoning the fire intentionally had done that.
“I heard that the doctor recommended you stay overnight,” he said, taking the mug I offered him.
“Yeah,” I said as I slowly slid onto the stool across from him, trying to minimize the pain to my head. “I don’t get the luxury of lounging around and being waited on. I have kids who need me. And hospitals in general…”
“I hate hospitals too,” he said with a teasing grin. “You can never get any rest there.”
My head was pounding, and I wasn’t in the mood for chitchat. “What are you doing here, Special Agent Stone?”
“Come on, Darcie,” he said, shifting on the hard stool. “Call me Heath. I’m not here on FBI business.”
“Then why are you here, Special Agent?” I asked as I nursed my mug.
“I’m here as your friend, and because I have some information you might be interested in.”
An FBI agent wanted to share information with me? This felt like a honey-trap, but I was so desperate for information, I couldn’t ignore the bubble of excitement rising in my chest. “And what’s that?”
“You started that fire last night, didn’t you?” he asked. His tone was casual, but my heart was beating alarmingly fast in my chest.
“I’m sure there’s a police report you can read,” I said slowly.
“I already spoke to the Perry’s Fall detective. He says you and your daughter claimed the van just caught on fire and then exploded.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“That’s crap and we both know it. You started that fire, Darcie.”
I tried to stare him down, but it was hard when there were currently two of him. “Do you expect me to confess that I’m a serial arsonist, Special Agent Stone?”
“Will you please stop calling me that?” he spat in frustration, raising his voice. “My name is Heath, and I’m here because I’m worried about you.”
“You’re here because you think I’m a freak of nature.” Or rather because he knew I was a freak of nature.
“No, Darcie. I promise you that’s not it. I want to help.”
There was no way I believed any of that. “Who says I need help?”
He gave me a look that suggested I’d lost my mind. “You blew up a van and gave yourself a concussion. You tell me.”
I burst out laughing, making my head hurt even more.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, looking offended.
“I’m sorry,” I said as I put my hand against my left temple. “Okay, Heath, how are you going to help me?”
He looked taken aback by my question. “Well, I…”
“Yeah,” I said. “That’s what I thought. You don’t have a clue.”
“Okay,” he said with a sheepish look. “But I don’t know how to help you because I don’t understand what’s going on.”
“And you don’t like not knowing, so you’re here to satisfy your curiosity.”
His gaze dropped to his mug. I would have bet money that he was about to leave, but instead he looked up at me and said, “You’re right. I’m beyond curious. Look at my hands.”
He held them out to me, and I almost gasped. The outlines of my fingers were no longer visible. In fact, all evidence of his burns were gone.
“How did this happen?” Without thinking, I grabbed his hand and pulled it closer to examine it.
“The parts you touched healed,” he said, “and then the healing spread. They should still be red and painful, but look at them. The burns are completely gone.”
I brushed my fingers over the back of his hand. I realized it had been years since I’d touched another man’s hand like this, and I was shocked by the fact that I kind of liked it. His hands weren’t manicured and moisturized like Parker’s—these were hands that had been used for work. That had spent time outdoors.
Not the time, place, or man, Darcie!
I promptly dropped his hand, not that he seemed to notice.
“Why haven’t you healed yourself?” he asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. Strangely, I hadn’t even considered it an option. But in fairness, I hadn’t actually tried to heal him. It had just happened. “Maybe it only works on burns.”
But if that was true, then how had I healed Jack’s shaving nick? Or had it just healed over the course of the day? Young skin was pretty miraculous.
“I take it you know more about what’s going on with you than you did last week?”
“Yeah,” I said, picking up my coffee cup so I wouldn’t be tempted to touch him again. “A little.”
“Well, are you going to tell me?”
“Maybe,” I said, surprised to hear myself say it. Now that I thought about it, though, he could be useful. He had resources I didn’t, ones not even Ella could match. “It depends on two things. First, what are you going to do with this information?”
He studied me for a moment, and then his eyes widened slightly. “You think I’m going to inform some government agency that’s going to put you in a lab and study you.”
I lifted my chin. “Something like that.”
“I’m not sure those places even exist outside of TV. Whatever you tell me stays with me, Darcie. Even if I wanted to tell someone, they’d just think I was crazy.”
He had a point.
“Does that answer your question?” he asked. “Does it make you trust me?”
“Not totally,” I admitted.
“So what’s the second condition?”
“I need you to find someone. I only know a first name, but I can give you a pretty good description. I’ve also seen her on a couple of occasions where she might have been caught on camera. Maybe we can get the footage or something. That’s all I have.”
“You expect me to find someone with such skimpy information?” he asked.
“You are with the FBI, aren’t you?”
He shook his head, mumbling under his breath as he glanced to the side. When he turned back to me, he said, “I’ll do the best I can, but that’s all I can guarantee. Is that good enough for our deal?”
I didn’t have to tell him anything, or I could just tell him a few bits and pieces and call it good. Sure, he might put some effort into finding Vee, but I would have no way of knowing how much or how little he would try. But I had an ace in the hole with that too.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll tell you, but I need you to start looking for this person today.”
He sat up straighter. “I can make some preliminary—”
“No,” I said, shaking my head and instantly regretting it. “Concentrated effort. Today.”
His blue eyes turned serious. “Okay, Darcie. Today.”
I sure hoped I didn’t regret this.
“I’ve started five fires now. With each one, I’ve gained more control, and with each one, my hair turns blond in sections.”
Even though he had come to me, part of me thought he’d laugh it off or look disbelieving. But he only nodded slightly and asked, “Do you purposely create the fires or do they just happen?”
“Until last night, they just happened. They started with a hot flash, like I told you last week. But last night was different. I saw a man grab my daughter and try to pull her into the van and I lost it. I had an overwhelming need to protect her, and the inferno in me just grew. For a split second, I considered torching him until the idea to blast the van hit me. So I held up my hands and the flames surged out. Just like a flamethrower.”
He stared at me w
ith a completely blank face. I was sure he was going to call me a liar, but he surprised me again. “So you set the van on fire. Then what happened?”
Out of habit, I ran my fingers though my hair, and the baby fine strands took me by surprise. “The man ran off. I could see how quickly the fire was spreading in the van, so I ran for Harriet, flung her over my shoulder with strength I don’t normally possess, then tried to get us both as far from the fire as possible. When the van exploded, the force threw us to the ground, and I rolled to my side to keep Harriet safe. Then I blacked out. I woke up in the ER.”
He was quiet for several seconds. “And this all just started out of the blue? Has anything happened to incite the changes? Have you been exposed to chemicals or eaten something new?”
“Have I been bitten by a radioactive spider?” I teased. “No. Nothing like that.”
His eyes narrowed. “But you know something. I can see it on your face.”
Did I trust him enough to tell him everything? Just because he had an FBI badge didn’t mean he was a trustworthy person, and I wasn’t doing this alone anymore. I had Ella, and Nana Stella knew everything too.
“Not really,” I said. “I’m pretty clueless as to why and how this is happening.” Then I used this as an opportunity to segue into finding Vee. “But I think I’ve met someone who does know.”
I told him about my encounter with Vee at the department store, then again at the basketball game. “That’s why I was out in the parking lot,” I said. “I chased her down, demanding answers.”
“That’s an interesting turn of events,” he said. “Especially given the fact that the van was a rental and the name used on the paperwork was an alias.” He held my gaze. “Whoever rented that van went to great trouble to hide their identity, which isn’t surprising in itself given the nature of the crime. But the timing of the attack…the way it perfectly coincided with your discussion with this mysterious woman.” He paused. “Darcie, I think she might have set you up.”
I started to protest, but I had to admit he might be right.
Every hair on my arms stood on end. Harriet’s near-abduction hadn’t been random. I had a sudden urge to run to my room and make sure my daughter was still there.
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