by Joan Boswell
* * *
Hollis jerked awake.
MacTee pawed her shoulder. He was barking frantically with his face inches from hers. What was wrong? Why could she see him? It should be dark. Light flickered from somewhere.
She smelled smoke.
Fire.
“Okay. Stop. I’m awake.” She pushed MacTee to one side and crawled out of her sleeping bag. Flames flickered in the stairwell.
She grabbed Etienne’s shoulders and shook him. “Etienne, wake up. There’s a fire.”
Etienne barely stirred.
She gripped his shoulders and dragged him from his sleeping bag.
“Stand up.” No. Wrong thing to do. Close to the floor there wasn’t any carbon monoxide. The fire burned below them. They couldn’t use the stairs. The double doors—the only escape.
“What? What the heck?” Etienne sat up. “Pull your T -shirt up over your face and crawl.” She clicked her flashlight on and aimed it at the doors. “There. Crawl there. Now. Follow the beam. There’s a fire.” Panic welled. She pushed it down—she had to stay calm. The block and tackle. She’d lower Etienne then MacTee. Thank heaven for Curt’s huge paintings.
“Get going. I’ll let you down. Run to the house. Yell ‘fire’ as loud as you can.”
“What about you and MacTee?”
“We’re coming after you. Move!”
Etienne scooted across the floor. MacTee and Hollis followed. Smoke drifted through the room. If it hadn’t been for last night’s mosquitos, the open skylight would have been a giant chimney sucking smoke up to asphyxiate them. She fumbled for the door frame. Her hands locked on the ropes fastening the sling to the wall.
She coughed. When the doors opened, there’d be a draught. Smoke would funnel upward and billow out. They had no time.
“Hang on and jump. I’ll keep you from crashing,” she said as she fastened the rope around Etienne.
He swung out. His weight nearly jerked her off her feet, and she clutched the rope with both hands.
“I’m down. I’ll wake Maman and call 911,” he yelled.
Hollis yanked the rope back up. And coughed. The smoke thickened. The T -shirt over her mouth kept slipping. While she fastened ropes around MacTee, she tried to breathe shallowly. Smoke killed.
She shoved MacTee’s bulk toward the door. He braced his feet and resisted, but he went.
A yelp. Oh no. Brilliant, really brilliant.
Etienne’s gone. MacTee’s tied in the sling. How to release him? How to save herself? Hang on to the rope and let herself down? Too thin—not like a knotted bed sheet. She’d jump.
The air mattresses. She’d throw them out to land on. Drop— not throw. Right below. She’d hang by her hands and let go.
She pulled her T -shirt up over her mouth again and crawled back to where they’d been sleeping. The smoke was thicker. She didn’t want to breathe. How to pull two mattresses and crawl? Impossible. One would have to do. On hands and knees, she pushed it ahead of her. At the door, she dropped it down.
Ready to let go. Back to the edge, hang on and...
Howling sirens. Flashing lights, trucks roaring down the street. Thank God.
“Help. I’m up here.”
Firefighters below.
They leaned a ladder against the wall. Hollis didn’t wait. As soon as it thumped into position, she scrambled down, assured them she was okay and raced to MacTee. She freed him from his tangle of rope and urged him away from the fire. He stood up but whined and lifted a front paw. When Hollis, hand on his collar, coaxed him to hobble away, he lurched forward on three legs, refusing to put his weight on the other one.
Something was seriously wrong.
Etienne zoomed toward them. Manon, white cotton eyelet robe flowing behind her, slippers flapping, tore after Etienne. Curt followed more slowly.
“Stand back,” a firefighter ordered. Firefighters were everywhere. One wielded an axe to smash the lock on the garage door.
Through opened doors, they saw fire crackling under the stairs and licking toward the vehicles. A firefighter directed a torrent toward the flames.
Curt hugged Manon and Etienne close. His grip appeared to hurt Etienne, but the boy didn’t pull away. Curt’s white face and wide-eyes betrayed his ill health and his shock. His gaze met Hollis’s.
“What the hell did you do?” he said as he pulled Manon and Etienne closer.
“What did I do?” Her voice shook with rage. “I saved your son’s life—that’s what I did.”
“Curt, stop.” Manon commanded. She grabbed his arm. “Stop. Fires start. It happens.” She tightened her grip. “Hollis saved Etienne.”
“Thank MacTee. He woke us with his barking.” Hollis could hardly speak; her teeth banged together like tin cans in a mill race. Her body shook. She was freezing. Shock—a delayed reaction to adrenaline flooding her body. What if MacTee hadn’t been there? What if he hadn’t barked? She wouldn’t be here—they’d be dragging her corpse from the fire. She and Etienne would be dead.
Had the killer struck again? Had it been arson?
Twenty
Curt muttered an apology. Hollis heard but didn’t care. She’d nearly died—the enormity engulfed her.
“I wonder if it was arson,” Manon murmured.
An ever-growing crowd watched the hoses pour gallons of water onto the fire, creating clouds of hissing steam and stinking smoke. Flames consumed the door and interior stairs before they flickered out. The firefighters’ prompt arrival saved but soaked the remainder of the building.
Arson—a frightening thought. If an arsonist had lit the fire, aware that a person was in the studio, he’d intended to cut off the escape route, to trap them upstairs. Without MacTee’s frantic barking… Hollis’s stomach churned with nausea. Had the killer intended to murder her and Etienne? Impossible. She didn’t have enemies in Toronto. But how could she argue with facts? The fire had started in the stairwell. There was nothing there that would have ignited spontaneously. Someone must have stuffed something—gasoline-soaked rags maybe— through the mail slot in the antique door. One flick of a match, and the dry, paint-laden wood would have exploded. She didn’t want to think about it. Practical things—she’d focus on them.
“Our vehicles have had it,” she said to Manon.
“Insurance will cover them—the vehicles and the building,” Manon said in her practical banker’s voice.
“Only the vehicles,” Curt said.
Manon’s head snapped up. “What do you mean?”
Curt refused to meet her gaze. “I never got around to extending the house insurance to cover the studio,” he said apologetically. “But what does it matter—Etienne and Hollis are okay.”
No matter how arrogant or insensitive to others Curt might be, he had suffered about as many blows as any man should have to endure. She had worried almost exclusively about Etienne and Manon. In fact, she’d blamed Curt for bringing disaster not only to himself, but also to his family. Whether he had or not, it was impossible not to feel sorry for him and to worry what havoc shock was wreaking on his already fragile health.
“What’s done is done—we can’t do anything about the vehicles tonight,” Manon said.
Hollis focused on MacTee. Although he lay quietly at her feet, he hadn’t been able to walk on all four legs when she’d helped him away from the fire. How could she have ignored him when he’d saved their lives? She knelt down and gently felt his legs. He pulled away and whimpered when she lifted the right front one.
“He may have broken a bone.” She stroked the dog’s head. “Which taxi company picks up a fare accompanied by a dog?” she asked Manon.
Manon bent over and stroked MacTee’s head. “Our life saver,” she said affectionately. “You need treatment.” She shook her head. “None of them do. They only take seeing-eye dogs.”
“He has to get to a vet.”
Manon straightened up and considered the problem.
“He can’t walk with his sore leg.” Etienn
e squirmed from his father’s grasp. “Come on, Maman, Papa, you have to know someone we can phone.”
“We drove Beau to the clinic ourselves, but not everyone owns a car. The SPCA must have a vehicle or know who to call. There’s an emergency veterinary clinic on Belmont or Merton. I’ll call them,” Manon offered.
“I’ll call—they’ll want to ask what’s wrong,” Hollis said.
Minutes later, she returned. “Either the SPCA or the veterinary vehicle will take more than an hour to arrive. I didn’t want to wait, so I called David Nixon, who’s in our class. He brought me home after the show. Since he told me to call him if we needed anything, I took him up on his offer. He drives a van and lives close by—somewhere on the Danforth. Etienne, grab a large towel. We’ll improvise a sling and move MacTee to the front porch.”
“I want to come with you,” Etienne said.
Manon shook her head, but Etienne persisted. “Maman, MacTee saved my life. I should go with Hollis and make sure he’s okay. Anyway, Hollis needs someone with her—someone who really cares about MacTee.”
“When you put it that way...” Manon pressed her lips together and half-smiled at Etienne. “Of course you may go.”
Manon waited on the front steps with them, while Curt spoke with the captain. The firefighters were gathering their equipment.
Arson. The word hung in the smoky air.
“If it was arson...” Manon’s voice broke.
“If it was—who was the intended victim?” Curt had returned.
He posed the question Hollis didn’t want to consider. Too bad Etienne hadn’t gone to bed—he didn’t need to hear this discussion. But, being a clever kid, he’d probably already asked himself the same thing. Maybe it was better to have everything in the open. She remembered her ninth summer and how distressed she’d been when her parents had whispered and shut her out.
“Not Etienne or me,” Hollis said. “Who knew we’d be stargazing?” Hollis hoped she’d chosen a reassuringly reasonable tone. But, even as she spoke, she flashed back to class break, when she’d said that Etienne would be stargazing. Then she thought back to their walk and her impression that someone who hadn’t wanted to be seen lurked in the lane.
“Maybe it was all of us,” Curt said conversationally.
“Why on earth would you say that?” Hollis was furious. Manon’s fear for Etienne gripped her like a straitjacket; she didn’t need it tightened.
“The explosion would have rocked the neighbourhood if the gas tanks had blown.”
“But it wouldn’t have killed us unless it set the house on fire and trapped us inside. Be serious. If someone intended to murder us, they would have targeted the house.” Manon’s tone was chilly.
Hollis expelled a deep breath. She’d feared Manon would fall apart when she heard Curt’s suggestion. Instead she’d come close to mocking him. Nevertheless, it felt surreal to sit on a Toronto porch discussing how someone might have set out to kill all of them. MacTee, lying at Hollis’s feet, whimpered, an ordinarily imperceptible sound but one easily heard in the quiet, windless air. It was almost dawn. Thin drifts of magenta-tinted cloud added colour to the paling sky.
David arrived, and together they half-carried MacTee to the van. Minutes later, they shuttled him into the clinic’s waiting room. A faintly antiseptic smell assaulted their noses. Even at five a.m., worried pet owners huddled on the beige molded plastic chairs. They gripped sad-faced dogs or clutched cats bundled in blankets or yowling in cages. After they checked in with the receptionist, whose pallor betrayed her fatigue, Hollis and David sat down. Released from his sling, MacTee hobbled to Etienne and lay down.
“Poor dog, he’s as gimpy as I am,” David said.
Etienne, a polite eleven-year-old, normally would never have asked David about his limp. David’s comment gave him permission.
“How come you’re gimpy?”
“I was in the hospital and contracted osteomyelitis. The doctors operated, but I was left with a permanent limp.”
“Why were you in the hospital?” Etienne persisted.
David’s jaw clenched. His eyes narrowed. “Something or other,” he shrugged. “I don’t remember.”
Clearly, he remembered very well, but whatever it was, he didn’t intend to talk about it. Time to rescue him from Etienne’s curiosity. She’d focus on animals and veterinary clinics. “I wonder which night they see the most patients?”
“Obviously Saturday and Sunday, when regular vets aren’t available,” David answered. “Was it arson?”
“Curt talked to the firefighters. They said it probably started inside the front door of the studio but that he’d have to wait for a definitive answer until the fire marshal had done his thing.”
“How can they tell where it starts?” Etienne asked.
“From the ashes—they’re different where the most intense burning takes place. That’s how they pinpoint a spot or spots where a fire originated.”
“But a fire has to start somewhere. How can they tell if someone used something to start it?” Etienne persisted.
“They have a machine to test for gases and for a residue of whatever accelerant the arsonist used,” Hollis said.
“Could Lena Kalma have set it?” David said.
“Why would you say that?” Hollis asked.
“After seeing the show, I believe she’ll stop at nothing. If she thought Curt was up there…”
Hollis glanced at Etienne. He’d heard about Lena’s show but not about Lena’s threats to hurt Hollis and the family— everyone she blamed for Curt and Manon’s marriage. She wished she could protect him.
“No one knew we were there,” Etienne said.
“Not quite true. I saw someone in the lane when you and I took MacTee out.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Etienne said.
“It was only a glance. And it isn’t against the law to walk in the lane. Besides, I didn’t want to frighten you.”
“Man or woman?” David asked.
“I couldn’t tell. I glimpsed someone step quickly into the shadows.”
“Why would Lena burn Papa’s studio?” Etienne asked.
“She’s angry at everyone since Ivan died. She swore to avenge his death—whatever that means.”
“It sounds like something from Harry Potter,” Etienne said.
“It does. If she saw the studio light when we were eating our pizza and didn’t see anyone leave, she’d assume Curt was spending the night. On the other hand, maybe she targeted his work, thinking nothing would upset him more than destroying his paintings.” She patted Etienne’s knee. “I’m sure whoever set the fire wasn’t after us.” Whether or not this was true, it might make Etienne feel better. Until the police caught the arsonist, no one would know whom he’d intended to kill. It was healthier for Etienne to think he and Hollis had not been the targets.
“Curt must have other enemies.” David seemed unwilling to drop the subject.
“He does.” Hollis ticked them off on her fingers. “His exagent, Arthur White, the SOHD opponents, Sebastien Lefevbre—the list goes on and on.”
Etienne absorbed Hollis’s words. “Wow, how come I didn’t know these things? I’m not a baby, I’m eleven. You or Maman should have told me. I’m good at keeping my eyes open.”
“We intended to spare you, to stop you from worrying.” Hollis smiled at his intensity and willingness to assume grown-up responsibility.
“MacTee Grant.”
The vet, a young man in green operating room scrubs, called them in. David and Hollis lifted MacTee to the examination room. Inside, the vet gently probed his leg.
“It’s very swollen. It’s a break, a torn tendon or a severe sprain. Probably the latter, but he needs an X-ray. When did he eat last?”
“Six thirty.”
“Enough time has passed. We’ll anesthetize him to keep him still. He’ll stay here until it’s worn off. Call tomorrow morning after ten. By then we’ll have identified his problem and treated it.”
“Be a brave dog,” Hollis said to MacTee, giving him a last hug before she rejoined the others.
David returned them to the Hartmans’. His last words were, “Make sure you lock all the doors.”
* * *
Thursday night or early Friday morning, the phone shrilled. Rhona had trained herself to come awake almost instantly when it rang. She’d had years to perfect the skill and took pride in her ability. She slithered from her king-size bed to reach the phone on the night table.
“There was a fire at Hartmans’.” It was the duty officer.
The other shoe. She and Zee Zee were racing to identify and arrest the killer before he struck again. They hadn’t run fast enough. Who was dead?
“Give me the details. When did this happen?”
“Shortly after two. No one was hurt. A dog barking woke them in time.”
She peered at the bedside clock radio—five thirty.
“Why am I hearing about it now?”
“Initially, fire and police didn’t connect it to the motorcycle murder.”
“Was it arson?’
“Too early to say for sure, but they’ve called in the fire marshal. They’re running the appropriate tests.”
“How badly did it damage the house?”
“It wasn’t the house—it happened in the studio out back.”
“Anyone inside?”
“A house guest and a kid.”
Hollis and Etienne. Had the killer targeted them because Hollis was sharing information with her? Surely not. Curt’s studio—the arsonist had thought Curt was there. If he had been, he wouldn’t have had a dog to warn him. This was attempted murder.
“Have you called Zee Zee?”
“After you.”
“Tell her I’m on my way—I’ll arrive at the shop in half an hour.”
Rhona hauled herself out of bed, washed and slapped on a minimum of makeup. Yesterday’s wrinkled pantsuit would have to do.
Opie twined around her legs, complaining loudly. He was not an early riser.