Cause to Burn

by Mairsile Leabhair

  “You need to understand something from the start, big sister. You may be my father’s daughter, and my half-sister, but you don’t mean Jack shit to me, got it?”

  I peeked through my fingers and saw that he had put his hand down. My heart was racing and I inhaled to calm it, then I tried to engage him again.

  “So, are you my half-brother or sister?”

  “Nice try, Sis, but I didn’t go to all this trouble to make it easy for you. Besides, you are a means to an end, well, actually, two ends. Our father and my revenge.”

  “Are you talking about my biological father, Patrick? Patrick Sanders?”

  “Yeah, our biological father.”

  “So, is your last name Sanders, too?”

  “No, it’s not and I’m not going to tell you my life story so it can end up in your book. I’m not some dumb cop looking for his fifteen minutes of fame.”

  “I’m writing a new book about firefighters this time. I would love to feature you in it.” As the villain!

  “No, thanks. I won’t be here that long,” he said and leaned forward, pointing the phone at me. “Smile for the camera, Sis.”

  “And if I don’t feel like it?” I quipped, rolling my eyes.

  He slapped me again, this time splitting my lip. For a second, I thought I would hyperventilate, I couldn’t catch my breath. I could feel my lip swelling as I finally inhaled, choking on the blood.

  “Now, I’m sure that Jordy would rather see your pretty smile, don’t you agree?”

  My head shot up as my heart leaped at her name. “Jordy?”

  “Yeah, I want you to give her another message,” he stated.

  “What do you mean by another message? When did I give her the first one?”

  He laughed that macabre laugh of his and asked, “Don’t you remember? Oh, that’s right. You were unconscious, at the time.”

  I abstractedly rubbed the bump on the back of my head.

  “You left a note in her car that said you were going back to New York.”

  I gawked at him. Oh, no! She’ll think I ran out on her, too, just like Tina. “Why? Why leave a note, why go to all this elaborate pretense if you’re just going to kill me anyway?”

  “Well, anticipation is half the fun, right?” he asked, pulling something from his pocket with his free hand. “She won’t be looking for you, now. That is, until she sees this video. I needed time to tape our little chat and get it edited so I can send it to her. Now, read this,” he demanded, shoving a folded sheet of paper at me.

  Unfolding it, I started reading it to myself.

  “Out loud, damn it!” he shouted.

  My eyes darted from the paper to him, and back down again. “Um, okay. Dear Fire Station 61, aka the Stringfellow Firehouse…” I look up at my abductor. “Jordy never told me the station was named for her father.”

  “Maybe she’s ashamed of the fact that the station is named for a coward.”

  “He was not a coward. How can you say that?” I asked, bracing for another crack across my cheek.

  “That bastard and his friends ganged up on our father, almost killing him.”

  “Is that why you’re doing this?” I asked, careful not to be accusing. “Are you the one who killed my stepfather?”

  “I wish, but no, and I’m through answering your questions. Get back to reading.”

  I lowered my head and began reading again. “The brilliant artist who created the Homeless on the Range fire has asked me to inform you that I will be dead in…” My hands began to shake as I looked up, seeing only my reflection in his helmet.

  “Ah, now you’re starting to understand,” he said. “Keep reading.”

  I put my fingers to my trembling lips, my eyes blurring with tears. He leaned forward and I flinched. I held the paper up and began reading again. “Um, I, um…” I closed my eyes and inhaled, then tried again. “I will be dead in forty-eight hours and there’s nothing you can do about it…”

  He reached over and pulled a white plastic bottle from the bag, unscrewed the lid, and then stood up. “Keep reading,” he said, as he pointed his camera at the floor.

  “What you see being placed on the floor is chlorine.” I don’t know why he’s putting chlorine on the floor, but it can’t be good. “As any good arson investigator would know, chlorine and brake fluid make an…”

  “Explosive combination,” he said as he walked in a circle around me, kneeling every few steps and pouring the granulated white powdery on the floor before sitting down again, rolling his finger to remind me to keep reading.

  With one hand still holding the cell phone camera, he reached into the bag again and pulled out a coffeemaker and placed it on the floor. Then he pulled out a plastic cup, bottle of brake fluid, and a timer.

  “Here, hold this for a second,” he said, handing me his cell phone. “And don’t even think of trying to call 911. I’ve got an app that will keep filming even when my phone is locked.” He knelt on the floor and began assembling his contraption. While he was busy pouring the brake fluid into the plastic cup, I turned the camera on the door, the single lightbulb in the ceiling, the walls, and finally, the concrete blocks holding my feet hostage. I knew this madman would probably delete it, but I clung to the hope that Rosa might be able to work her magic again. I pointed the camera at me and mouthed, tornado. That was all I had time for before he stood up again, and took the cell phone from me. He sat the coffeemaker in the far corner and sprinkled chlorine around it, making a trail over to where I was at. Then he sat down in the lawn chair and tossed the empty brake fluid bottle into the bag. He glared at me and I began reading again.

  “Do not risk sending anyone in here, it’s a death trap. So, this is it for me.” Tears cascaded down my cheeks as I realized I was reading Jordy’s words of goodbye, spoken when she was trapped and preparing for death. Something I was now forced to face, as well. “Jordy,” I continued reading, “tell my mother that I love her and…” I stopped when I read the final line and shook my head angrily. “No, damn it! I won’t finish this, you heartless bastard! I won’t hurt her like that.”

  He raised his hand, as if to hit me again, but I let the paper fall to the floor and stuck my jaw out, daring him to strike me. I didn’t care anymore. He was going to kill me anyway. I had forty-eight hours to live, and I wasn’t going to spend it cowering like a child.

  He laughed and leaned back in the chair. “Afraid that she can’t handle the truth?”

  “This isn’t the truth,” I retorted. “You’re the reason I’m about to die, not her.”

  He used the cell phone to point at me. “And yet she will blame herself.”

  He was right, she would and I didn’t want that. “Jordy is too smart to play your silly games. She will see right through your lame attempts to break her down. When she catches you, and rest assured, she will find you, she’ll throw you in prison next to that man you call daddy.”

  “Now you see, that’s where you’re wrong. Dear old Dad will kill me long before we make it to prison.”

  The room spun around so fast that for a split-second, I thought he had hit me again. This guy, or whatever he is, was doing all this for his father, knowing his father would kill him? That was a higher level of crazy than I’d ever seen before. Shaking my head in confusion, I asked, “Then why are you doing this?”

  “I told you, revenge.”

  “Revenge against who? Your father? Jordy? Me?”

  “All of the above,” he said liltingly. “It’s the ultimate retribution, don’t you think?”

  “I don’t know what to think.” The reporter in me was asking me questions that I couldn’t answer. How did this happen? Why did the earth tilt on its axis and slide me into this insane person’s trap? Did it begin when my birthright was sold for five hundred dollars? Or was it predestined when my mother married that bastard? Did she even conceive of this happening to me? “What did I ever do to you? I don’t even know you.”

  “Oh, but I know you. You were the shini
ng example of what I could never be. You were the reason I was never good enough. The reason I was beaten, locked in a closet for days, and ridiculed day in and day out.”

  I gasped at the picture he was painting, feeling sympathy for the pain he must have suffered and revulsion for the hate I heard in his voice.

  “You see, Daddy brought me up to hate those who ruined his life, but what he’ll soon find out on the six o’clock news is that it was you who was ultimately to blame. You were the one he taught me to hate the most. The catalyst who set it all in motion.”

  Astonishment wasn’t even a big enough word to describe what I was feeling. Revulsion. Torment. Anguish. The realization that this person had burned people to death because of me overwhelmed my heart and shut down my brain. “No! God, no!” I screamed, lunging at him, my hands seeking his throat. He jumped up and moved back, knocking over the chair as he stepped out of my reach.

  “Kitten has claws,” he said, picking up the chair again and folding it. “I’d love to stay and play more, but unfortunately, I must go. I’m late for work. We’ll just have to save your righteous indignation for another time. Oh, wait. I won’t be back. It was nice knowing you, Sis.”

  The lights went out as the door slammed shut. I was alone again in the dark. “Oh, God, Jordy. Find me.” Suddenly the door opened again, and the lights came on.

  “By the way, Jordy thinks you’re on your way to New York,” the bastard snickered. “She won’t be looking for you. Yes, I have thought of everything.”

  The lights went out again, and just as the door slammed shut, I screamed from the pit of my stomach.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Jordyn Stringfellow

  Dear Jordy,

  This is all too much for me and I am going back to New York.

  Sincerely,

  Robbie

  Cold, emotionless, unapologetic. I didn’t want to believe it. Robbie wasn’t heartless; she was headstrong, stubborn, relentless, but she wasn’t heartless. Maybe she thought it would be kinder to just to say it, point blank, instead of trying to sugar coat her rejection. That’s what it felt like. A slap across my face. A kick to my gut. Two rejections in one week begged comparison, and surprisingly, this rejection stung worse than Tina’s had.

  I tried to see it from Robbie’s point of view. To understand why she would want to hide in New York, but it left me dumbfounded. Yesterday she seemed so determined to find the person responsible for our father’s death, and today… today she was gone. I thought she was interested. I knew I was. Damn it, I wanted more. I let myself get excited at the possibilities between us. What an idiot I am.

  “Shake it off, kid,” Uncle Joe said, slapping me on the shoulder, shaking me from my frustrated, confused, chaotic thoughts.

  “It doesn’t make sense, Uncle Joe.”

  “It never does, Jordy,” he said, pulling me out of the street as the firetruck passed by. “Kandyce is back at the station. Didn’t you want to talk with her?”

  “Absolutely,” I replied, happy for any excuse to keep from rereading the letter for the fifth time. “Where’s she at?”

  “She should be at the station by now. She’s on the late shift tonight.”

  I turned toward my car and saw Mom’s car parked where I had left it. “What about Mom’s house? I can’t leave it open to vandalism.”

  “The inside was gutted, but the front door and patio doors are still intact and lockable. I asked Larry and Donny to board up the garage door from inside the house. The house can be repaired, Jordy. If your mother wants to do that.”

  “Whatever she wants to do,” I replied, still distracted by Robbie’s letter. “Can you take her car to the station for me? I mean, I know it’s a good neighborhood and all, but—”

  “Jordy! Jordy, over here!”

  I turned to see who was calling my name and recognized my mother’s bridge club friends, all gathered together behind the police tape, waving at me. As I walked over to them, I saw that two of the ladies were crying, and I inhaled sharply, preparing for the onslaught of questions.

  “Jordy, is your mother all right?” Evelyn wiped away her tears.

  “Was she home?” Beatrice asked.

  I held up my hands in surrender. “She’s all right. She’s in Germantown staying with a friend. She had just arrived home and hadn’t even gotten out of the car when the fire broke out.”

  “What will she do now?” Deloris sobbed.

  “Does she need anything?” Beatrice asked.

  “Jordy, I heard you talking with Joe just now,” Evelyn said. “There’s room in my carport. Why don’t you let me park the car there until Lillian comes for it?”

  My eyes lit up and I smiled at her. “Evelyn, thank you,” I said gratefully, pulling out Mom’s keys and handing them to her. “That would be a great help and I know that Mom would appreciate it.”

  “Tell her that we’re praying for her and to call us, as soon as she feels up to it,” Beatrice said.

  “I will, thank you all.”

  I called my mom and checked on her as I drove back to the station. I could hear in her voice that she was tired, but she assured me she was enjoying catching up with Gloria. I didn’t go into detail about what we found in the fire, the elaborate setup of devices that the arsonist painstakingly planted to send a message. I didn’t think it was faulty wiring that caused those devices to malfunction. That was done deliberately. He wanted to let us know that he was in control. That he was the puppet master, pulling our strings. I did think though, that he meant to kill my mom. That’s why he rigged the electric door to blow when she used the remote to open it. If he thought he was playing a game before, he had definitely underestimated the wrath of a daughter who would do anything for her mother. And I mean anything. She’s all I have left in this world.

  I ran by the hardware store that stays open all night, and picked up a few things before returning to the station.

  As I walked through the station looking for Kandyce, Larry and Donny stopped me and offered their sympathies and support. I thanked them, but as I did, I couldn’t help but wonder if one of them was the bastard who torched my mother’s house. I found Kandyce in the mess hall getting a soda from the refrigerator. A sudden flash of anger prickled under my skin as I looked at her. Are you the killer?

  She closed the fridge door and turned around, jumping when she saw me standing so close to her. “Hi, Jordy. What are you doing here so late?”

  “Can we talk?” I asked, ignoring her question.

  “Of course,” she replied, pulling out a chair.

  “Not here. In my office,” I said, sharper than I meant to.

  She tilted her head and looked at me curiously. “Sounds serious.”

  “It is,” was all I said as I waved my hand toward the door and let her lead the way. My office was just around the corner from the kitchen so I didn’t see the need to elaborate more. She walked in and stood in front of my desk. “Give me just one second,” I said, putting down the bag of items I bought at the store and picking up the evidence board from the table. I set it on the floor, leaning against the wall. Then I pulled out a chair for her to sit in and I sat down across from her.

  When Kandyce first came here, I didn’t take her seriously. Like so many others, I couldn’t see past her breasts at first. She told people that she was a lesbian, but her body language said otherwise. As a lesbian, I’ve never felt the need to make sure everyone knew it. I am just me, take it or leave it.

  “Have I done something wrong, Jordy?” she asked.

  “You’re from Alabama, right?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Born and raised,” she replied proudly.

  “So tell me, why do you use the fake accent?” That was the odd peculiarity that nagged at me from the first day I met Kandyce. My college roommate was from Alabama, and I was fascinated with her twang. Even as an English Lit major, she couldn’t keep that drawl from her voice. It drove her crazy, but I loved it.

  “Fake? I reckon I don’t
know what y’all are talking about.”

  “See, that right there sounded like somebody trying to impersonate a Southern accent. Someone who grew up in Vegas, maybe.”

  “All right, fine. But I didn’t grow up in Vegas,” she stated as if Vegas was the last place she wanted to be associated with.

  “Why the pretense?” She faked her sexual preference and her accent. What else was she faking?

  “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to stand out. You know, be different from the rest.”

  “But you did, in fact, live in Vegas for a couple of years, correct?”

  “Yes, and hated every minute of it,” she replied. “Wait. How did you know that?”

  “I’m an investigator, remember. So tell me, how did a little girl from Alabama wind up in Las Vegas with a suspected serial arsonist?”

  Her eyebrows arched up and her mouth fell open. “Wha… what?”

  “When was the last time you saw your stepfather, Patrick Sanders?”

  This time, her face reddened and her lips narrowed. “Do you mean that bastard who killed my mother right in front of me?”

  “Yeah, that’s the one,” I replied sarcastically. If I was going to catch her at another lie, I needed to keep playing the antagonist. She was hiding more than a fake accent and I wanted to know what that was. “When did you see him last?”

  “When I was thirteen, and I pray to God that I never see him again.”

  “And you haven’t seen him since he got out of prison?”

  “Why the hell would I want to?” she asked, crossing her arms and leaning back in the chair.

  “Where did you go after your mother died?”

  “To live with my aunt in Boulder.”

  “I’ll need to verify that. What’s her name?”

  “Ethel Farmer, but you can’t, she’s dead.”

  That’s convenient. “I’m sorry. When did she die?”

  “Last month. She was murdered at a damn hospital by a serial killer, okay?” she snapped.