by Patti Larsen
“You tried to kill me.” Of course she had. My gaze shifted as someone else entered the room and I wasn’t shocked this time to see Ruth Wilkins had joined us. Except that the big, robust and daunting nurse I’d known as Pete’s intimidating sister had lost her edge, her face gaunt, her height diminished by a slouch that seemed to collapse her in on herself. The low light from the lamp wasn’t doing much for her looks, either, cheeks and eyes sunken, wrinkles deeply laced around her downturned mouth.
“We don’t have time for this.” She met my eyes, lips twisting. “We have to go.”
“Hush,” Peggy snapped at her. “I’m talking to Fiona right now. Aren’t I, dear Fee?” She giggled and I saw the insanity inside her, witnessed its surfacing like a whale broaching for air. Would it retreat again? Didn’t look like that was the case, though she was, if not completely in charge of her marbles, totally in control of that gun.
“Peggy.” I cleared my throat. “You tried to kill me.” I swallowed. “Twice.”
“Three times, actually,” she said in a sing-song voice. “You just didn’t notice the third one. Ruth botched the drive by.” She glared at her grandniece who sighed and shook her head. “And the brake line fiasco was a bust.” Peggy seemed far from satisfied with the quality of help she had available to her. Wow, was my brain really cracking jokes at a time like this?
Where was Petunia? That cut through my need for jocularity and my gaze roved the floor over Peggy’s shoulder, noting the silent fawn body lying on her side next to the closet door. I stared at her, willing her little ribs to rise and fall and almost wept when they did.
“The third time, that was a peach, but you evaded us.” Peggy shrugged like it didn’t matter. “If your father hadn’t arrived, you’d have gone in that lake, my dear, Malcolm Murray and his bodyguards or not.”
Yikes.
“And Petunia?” I would never forgive her for that.
She winked, licking her lips. “That stupid little beast was always such an easy target. She’ll eat anything, won’t she, the idiotic creature.” She didn’t glance my pug’s way, though Ruth did, looking a bit sick to her stomach.
“Killing innocent animals not your idea of a good time, Ruth?” I hadn’t meant to prod the younger woman and spoke before I could censor my anger.
She flashed me a grimace, but didn’t speak to me again. “This is a mistake,” she said, low and intense, leaning into Peggy. “We have to go.”
“Not yet.” The old woman spun and smacked her grandniece’s hands away. “Not until Iris knows why it is I hate her so very much.”
Ruth sighed then. “Fiona, Aunt Peggy.”
The old woman’s crazy showed up all over again. “Same thing.”
“You let a psychopath out of prison,” I said to Ruth. “Nice going.” Why wasn’t I scared? Where was my fear? Maybe reliving all of the nightmares in one go had cut off my ability to be afraid. Or perhaps I was just tired of this old woman and her nuttiness lingering in my life.
I had to get my hands on that gun.
“For what it’s worth,” Ruth said with grim regret, “I would have killed you quick and painless.”
Wow, how big of her.
“Quick and painless is too good for you, Iris.” Peggy cackled, poking me with one sharp fingernail. “I’m going to make sure you never, ever rise from the ashes.”
And, in that instant, when she jabbed me and spoke at the same time I smelled it. The unmistakable scent of gasoline. Understanding was a wave of nausea that rippled through my body and left me cold and panting.
“You stole him from me,” she hissed then, her lips pressing to my ear, the butt of the gun tight into my ribs. “And you’ll finally pay for that.”
“Daniel,” I whispered back. “This is about your husband.”
She jerked away from me, snarling, hand shaking on the handle, finger vibrating on the trigger. “Don’t you say his name ever again!”
“I’m not Iris, Peggy,” I said, but it didn’t matter. She was running off on a tangent with her eyes bulging and tiny flecks of spittle flying from her lips.
“Marie told me about it, you know. She was the one who turned you in.” Peggy’s cackling laugh returned. “Not that it matters. She got hers. And now the Patterson matriarch has her own secrets.” Peggy rocked back and forth, snorting and giggling. “She doesn’t think I know, hiding on her mountain all this time. But I know. I’ve known all along.” She leaned in suddenly then, eyes intent on mine. “I’ve known since it happened.”
“Known what, Peggy?” Why did I care what she had to say when my death loomed? Because even if I got control of the gun, I had Ruth to deal with, too, didn’t I? Panic and fear were finally coming to roost, the last of my curiosity still giving itself the leeway to ask the question.
Besides if I was going to die? I wanted to know everything first. Busybody to the end.
“Peggy.” Ruth’s voice came out in a growl. “Now.”
The old woman spun on her, shaking the gun in her face. “When I’m ready!” She tossed her head, turning back to me, sullen and childlike in her insanity. “You’ll go down with me, missy, if you don’t do what I say.”
Ruth swallowed, nodded. “I can’t go back to prison.” She held up a roll of duct tape. “I’m sorry about this, I really am.”
It only took her a few minutes to truss up my hands and feet, Peggy standing to one side, watching with a mix of glee and desperate need. I didn’t speak, knew begging wouldn’t help, my mind lost in Crew.
My chance at happily ever after. Gone in a puff of smoke. At least, once the flames died.
They were going to burn Petunia’s down.
No. It couldn’t end this way.
Peggy’s dissatisfaction with my silence grew on her face until she was waving the gun at me. “Beg, Iris. Beg for mercy.”
It wouldn’t help to correct her or to plead. Instead, I glanced at Petunia.
“My pug,” I whispered. “Save her.”
To which Peggy laughed out loud and said, “Because you asked, she’ll burn with you.”
They left abruptly, Ruth with a final grunt over my bindings, disappearing out my bedroom door. “Peggy, finish now. We’re leaving.”
The old woman came to me again, bending to plant a wet kiss on my cheek. “Goodbye, Iris,” she whispered. “I’ll dance around your funeral pyre, my dear, and delight in your passing.”
I’d expected her to linger longer, to gloat more. Hoped she’d give me time to escape. Instead, my desperate heart now pounding in my chest, I watched her go, heard her footfalls in the upstairs as she passed through the foyer, Ruth’s heavier treads following.
And then, just like that, they were gone, the house silent.
No, not silent. What was that sound? Like a giant inhale? As if Petunia’s held her breath?
In that moment I felt the oxygen leave the upstairs and knew, without having to see to understand, that I was out of time.
Petunia’s was on fire above me and it was only a matter of minutes before I was (pardon the damned pun and my brain) toast.
***
Chapter Thirty Seven
My father taught me a long time ago not to be a quitter. Mom, too. Between the pair of them? I’d had a formidable (if couched in loving attention for the most part disguising the lessons) education in taking care of myself.
But it had been that most amazing of women, Jill Wagner, who’d taught me not so long ago the very important and, as it turned out in the next few seconds, vital skill of breaking free of various types of bonds and escaping.
“Thing is,” she’d said as she’d wrapped the stuff around my wrists, “it’s not as hard as you think to break out. And, I figure, considering how many times you’ve been in a bad position the last few years…”
“Knowing how to free myself from bondage is a good thing.” I’d laughed at the terminology I’d used at the time, if only because I’d been thinking, not about life and death situations, but the man I was in lov
e with and the word bondage made me giggle like a wicked little girl.
She’d not only shown me how to cut a zip tie with a shoelace (I kid you not), and how to pick the lock on a pair of handcuffs with a rusty nail, she’d demonstrated and made me practice the rather simple and effective technique behind escaping duct tape.
I leaped to my feet, raising my hands over my head, bringing them down as hard as I could while trying to separate them and felt the lateral stress on the tape part the sticky stuff.
How cool was it when things worked under pressure just like they did when you were practicing?
Now free, precious seconds burned up (again, pardon the puns, but my weird brain, remember?), I leaped from bed and threw myself at Petunia. Yes, I’d seen her chest rising and falling, but she shouldn’t have been lying on her side like that, ignoring the fact Ruth and Peggy had been present. Despite her lingering weakness from the poisoning, if she’d been hale and healthy she would have been on the bed with me instead of limp, unresponsive, unconscious at the foot of the closet door.
I lifted her into my arms and scrambled for the bedroom exit, my pug bouncing in my grasp in that boneless manner that had me choking up over her state of wellness but unable to take even a second to check and be sure she was okay. First things first. Priorities, Fleming.
Like getting our asses out of my burning house before we died. That sounded good right about then.
Instinct carried me to the steps and the door at the top but the instant I set foot on the landing, I knew there would be no way out, not like this. Heat radiated through the panel between me and Petunia’s foyer, a thin line of smoke curling in almost pretty patterns under the lip of the door. I stared at it, fascinated horror controlling me for far too long.
The handle started to glow. Time to go, Fee.
Petunia twitched in my arms, groaned, shaking me out of my frozen reverie. Right, self-preservation was a thing. I raced back down the stairs, my pajama pants too long, tripping me a little as I stumbled on the hems. Normally I liked the fact they hung over my toes, used the excess to tuck around my feet when I sat and watched TV so I didn’t have to wear slippers. The perfect arrangement. And Crew seemed to appreciate the fact my feet weren’t freezing against his legs in bed, so… win-win.
That was, until I tried to run in them, down carpeted steps and across a slippery tile floor to the other side of the apartment with the dead (worst choice of words ever) weight of my pug in my arms and panic driving me with a crackling whip toward the window over the sofa and (hopefully) safety.
It had to be locked, right? As the ceiling above me groaned the deeply wounded sound of a dying house, the rushing noise of accelerating flames devouring everything so loud I couldn’t slow my heartbeat. I banged on the window, on the half circle latch, until it opened at last, slow, so slow. It took me another five precious seconds of swearing and fury, forced to set Petunia on the back of the couch so I could use both hands, to pry the screen from the window. Icy air washed over me while I panted sobs and harassed myself internally for not taking the damned screen out when summer ended. Such a simple detail, so small, that meant, in that moment, the difference between lots of time to get to safety and, well, maybe not.
I wasn’t taking that for an option.
Something crackled overhead, the sound of wood breaking a booming death cry. Ceiling tiles caved in behind me, dropping embers to the tile floor while smoke and fire wicked out with seeking fingers, crawling across the ceiling above me like a living thing looking for more to devour, destroy. I took one second to note the pale blue of the fingers, trailing with yellow and orange, and the ball of black smoke that oozed after them and, bending with desperate determination, grasped my pug, wrapped her firmly in the throw blanket I kept on the sofa and shoved her bodily out into the snow on the other side of the window.
Snow piled up against said window. Her body created a plow for mine, pushing back the soft stuff, meeting crust but no match for my determined shoving, until she was clear with one last grunting effort that sent her tumbling, over and over but still bundled in the blanket, thankfully, into the yard and clear of the house.
My turn. Slow motion never felt so real as it did those next few heartbeats. Thank goodness for the height of the sofa. The fact it sat right under the window. That I could stand on the back and heave myself out the opening, my stomach on the ledge, wriggling myself out into the snow after my pug.
When the hem of my pants caught on the latch, I almost screamed in frustration at the same instant the interior of my apartment disappeared in a cascading gush of fire and first floor detritus, falling through the ceiling and shaking the window, the entire house. I half turned, looked up. And caught my breath, lying beneath the furious heat and tumbling fall of embers, at the fiery tower above me.
Surreal, that moment, staring into death’s beckoning flames, the searing heat barely registering, nor the icy cold of the ground beneath me. Something hit my foot, sizzling and I kicked hard, tearing the hem of my pants, free at last.
Just in time. Smoke poured out of the window I escaped, slamming me with its acrid heat and I choked, coughed on a lung full while I flipped over on my stomach once again, pulling myself through the snow to Petunia. I reached her, gathered her into my arms, forced myself to my feet, toes going numb in the snow as I ran, not feeling the cold, deeper into the yard toward the Carriage House and safety.
Turning back only once I felt we were far enough to watch, tears now rising and falling freely, as Petunia’s burned.
Sirens in the distance. Time started up again, flashing lights appearing on the far side of the flames. Far too late, I was sure of that. The roof was already gone, and I’d experienced the collapse of the first floor almost too personally. The yard flooded with people, neighbors, faces I knew, guests from the annex, local volunteer firefighters whose masks and helmets and heavy suits hid their identities from me. But I knew them, too. Almost told them not to bother.
Petunia’s was lost.
Until I realized they weren’t here for my beloved bed and breakfast, but to save the other houses in the area. No bitterness there, and fair enough. I stood with my back to the Carriage House, accepting someone’s offer of a blanket to stand on, only then noticing the fact I couldn’t feel my feet.
Another blanket descended around my shoulders, my pug silent but breathing in my arms while I stared, unable to stop, at the flaming, smoking beauty of my home. It felt like it would never end, that the fire would go on and on forever while I was forced to stand there, like some terrible nightmare, and watch as she died endlessly.
I should have taken better care of her. Loved her more. It was like a part of me was dying with her, that noble house and her history. I know I was crying, probably sobbing. I’d lived through enough shock in my lifetime it was hardly a surprise. At least I wasn’t in a puddle on the ground. Or dead.
Or dead.
Was it my mind playing tricks on me I saw Robert watching? That he stood there, near the parking lot, for just ages, staring in my direction? It felt that way, especially when, superimposed over the image of him, was his shadow against the fire, tied to the shadow he was that day Victor French drowned.
Someone said my name, catching my attention, turning my head. Jill was running toward me, horror on her face. I turned back again, but Robert’s shade was gone and I let it and him go in favor of my friend’s firm hung.
“Fee.” She turned to look up, to watch the fire with me, both of us locked in our fascinated horror. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?” She looked me up and down, hissed at the sight of my bare feet on the blanket. “Fee, what happened?”
No questions, not yet, I couldn’t do it. I shook my head at her, biting my lower lip to keep from sobbing all over again. And couldn’t help it when, out of the smoke and mist from the water now pouring over the flames, the man I loved more than life itself appeared to engulf me in his arms and hold me and Petunia so tight I heard her chuff a protest, finally awake.
>
Not just him, then, but Mom and Dad, Liz and Daisy with Emile at her side, Dr. Aberstock and Bernice moments later. Vivian French, for the first time since I could remember free of makeup, her hair in a messy ponytail, nightgown under her long coat, grasping me from Crew’s arms to hug me and hug me and hug me.
And then, in silence because there was really nothing to say, the people I cared about most in the world stood by me, taking turns holding me and each other, and watched in solidarity for her old faithfulness as Petunia’s burn to the ground.
***
Chapter Thirty Eight
My reflection told me I’d lost weight, just like the bridal magazines ordered, only I doubted they’d recommend my particular method of loss as something conducive to mental health or a long, happy marriage.
Good thing I wasn’t your typical bride then, huh?
I’d felt pretty guilty over losing, not just my dress to Rosebert’s attentions, but Mom’s as well, the gown burned up with my bed and breakfast.
“The last of my worries, sweetie,” she’d said as I’d tried to apologize yesterday morning, the sun rising on the still smoking ruin of Petunia’s. I could see the thin black cloud in the distance from her kitchen windows and couldn’t help but stare at it in sick fascination while Mom did her best to distract me.
When Daisy appeared with a garment bag and a giant smile on her face, Vivian French in tow, I had forced myself into a happier state and found it turn to real pleasure at the sight of the gorgeous dress they showed me.
“Grace sends her love,” Vivian said like it was no big deal a world-famous designer was my friend. Our friend. “She heard about the fire and wanted you to have this.”
This. Yeah, not the word I’d use to describe the stunningly simple and yet utterly divine slip of a silken gown of perfection that, when draped by its dainty spaghetti straps seeded with endless pale pearls and empired at my ribcage with another two inch row of matching multi-hued gorgeousness made me look like a redheaded goddess.