Fire Storm

by Nancy Mehl

  “Yeah, some,” he said. “I thought I mentioned that.”

  “No. I don’t drink.”

  “Oh, Kaely. I apologize.”

  “No reason you should,” she said. “I’m sure I’ll be okay in a little bit.”

  Sam didn’t say anything as he took a turn off the main road. The lights that had lined their path faded into the background. At one point, the car fishtailed, but Sam brought it under control.

  A few minutes later, he pulled into a long driveway. At the end was the shell of a large house. “319 Harbor Lane,” Sam said. “All that’s left of it, anyway.” He sighed. “Time to end this.” He got out of the car, came around, and pulled Kaely out. The only light they had was from his car headlights.

  “Stop,” she said, but he dragged her through the snow until they stood in front of the forlorn structure. “Please don’t do this.” Her words came out slowly, and she found it difficult to speak.

  “Seriously, Kaely, I only put four sleeping pills in your cocoa. You have a really low tolerance.”

  “I don’t take prescription medicine. My mom . . .” She realized she didn’t need to explain anything to him. She pulled up all the strength she could muster and wrestled out of his grasp. She stumbled back a few feet and turned to face him. The headlights illuminated him from behind, hiding his face, but that was okay. He’d been hiding his face for a long time.

  “So we meet officially, Jack,” she said, taking a deep breath of fresh icy air. It helped clear her mind a little.

  He was quiet for several seconds. “How did you know?” he asked finally.

  “It had to be you. I needed to suspend my disbelief to figure it out. When you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.”

  “Sherlock Holmes? I don’t get it.”

  “It means I had to eliminate everyone who couldn’t be the arsonist.” She fought the light-headedness that battled her determination to see this through. “It had to be someone who knew who I was. Marvin Roberson didn’t meet me until after my mother’s house was set on fire. It couldn’t be Josh. Losing the election didn’t bother him at all. He didn’t want to continue being sheriff. From everything I’ve learned about Sam, he wasn’t the type of person to hurt anyone. That left one person. The improbable one.”

  “You think you’re pretty smart,” Jack said, his smile more of a sneer.

  “What happened to your scar?”

  Jack leaned down and picked up some snow, then he rubbed it on his right cheek. The scar became visible. It had been covered up with makeup.

  “All conjecture. What was it that finally convinced you it was me? What actual evidence could you possibly uncover?”

  “I suspected it for a while. But then I saw you at Bucky’s today. You had blue eyes. Aaron Pollard had brown eyes when I met him. You forgot to put your contacts in.”

  Jack laughed out loud. “I wasn’t planning to run into you,” he said, overemphasizing the southern drawl he’d used when he was Aaron. “But I didn’t think you’d notice. I underestimated you.”

  “I assume the real Aaron Pollard is dead.”

  “As a doornail. I met him in a bar when I came into town. He told me about staying at his mother’s. And that he’d never been here before. It was the perfect place for me to hide. I followed him home . . . and the rest, as they say, is history. Good ol’ Aaron is in the basement.”

  Kaely heard a sound from behind them. She stepped to the right of Jack and saw someone on the ground behind them, tied to a large piece of rebar coming out of the ground. “Sam?” she called out. “Are you okay?” She almost cried with relief when she heard his voice.

  “I’m all right, Kaely,” he said. “But I think he plans to kill us.”

  “Ding, ding, ding, brother! You win the prize!”

  “Why did you come back to Darkwater?” Kaely mumbled, hoping he could understand her. “Why set those fires? Why do you have to kill us?”

  Jack pulled a gun from underneath his coat and pointed it at her. “You’re the profiler. You tell me.”

  Kaely gathered all the strength she could find to say, “You hated your family. You wanted them all dead, including your brother. You believed your parents loved him more than you. You killed poor Raymond Berger, hoping everyone would think he was you. That’s why you gave him your bracelet. Your brother escaped, so you’re back to finish what you started.”

  Jack sighed dramatically. “You’re partially right, you know. I got tired of my parents treating Sam like the good son. I was always the bad seed. They sent me away once, did you know that? To a mental hospital. They hoped the doctors would straighten me out. Didn’t work, obviously. Just made me angry. I came home and pretended to be fixed. That’s why they didn’t see it coming.” He grinned as if remembering something funny. “I asked nerdy Raymond Berger to stay the night. That dumb kid would have done anything for me. It was embarrassing, really. I hated giving him my bracelet. That was the hardest part of my whole plan.”

  Kaely felt a chill run through her that had nothing to do with the cold. Jack killed his parents and an innocent boy but the only regret he had was losing a bracelet?

  “How . . . how did you do it?” Kaely needed to get Jack to admit to everything, but a wave of fatigue crashed over her entire body. It took everything she had to get the words out. All she wanted was to sink down into the soft snow and sleep.

  He grinned at her, the headlights from the car highlighting only half his face. The half with the scar. He looked frightening, like Heath Ledger as the Joker in The Dark Knight. Gone was the handsome Sam Lucas. In his place stood madness. Unrestrained lunacy.

  Jack sighed, as if tiring of her questions. His eyes burned into hers. “I offered to make hot chocolate for everyone that night. I put my mother’s sleeping pills into the chocolate, just like I did to you tonight. After the five started, I left town.” He sighed. “We made one mistake. We didn’t realize they could identify bodies with dental records. Thankfully, we lucked out. Raymond was cremated before anyone knew the truth. We got away scot-free. It’s easy to hide when you’re dead. No one looked for me.”

  “You said we. I don’t understand.”

  He walked closer, until he was inches away from her face. “The great Kaely Quinn who thought she had it all figured out. You made a mistake, profiler. I didn’t set the fire.”

  As Kaely stared into his eyes, she believed him. “Who . . .” She gasped, breathing in more cold air. It reenergized her a little. She turned around and looked at Sam. “It . . . it was you?”

  Sam broke into sobs. “My parents planned to send Jack back to the hospital. He said he’d kill himself if they did that. I didn’t know what to do. Jack came up with the plan. I . . . I don’t know what made me go through with it. Jack had a way of manipulating me back then. He said that after our parents were gone we’d inherit everything, including the insurance money from the fire. We were only months away from turning eighteen. I didn’t do it for the money, I really didn’t. I did it because I wanted my brother to live, and I was angry that Mom and Dad were going to send him away again. I shouldn’t have gone along with it. I’ve regretted it every day of my life.”

  “You were so smitten by the great Sam Lucas, you couldn’t see the truth, could you?” Jack said with a sneer. “You made a major mistake and here we are. I won and you lost. Big-time.”

  Kaely fought to ignore Jack’s accusation. There was more truth there than she wanted to admit. “The s-s-space . . .” It took all the strength Kaely had to get out the questions she had to ask him.

  “That’s how I started the fire,” Sam said through his tears. “We used space heaters in the winter because my mother turned down the heat every night. She thought it saved money. So I tipped one of them over. I set it up and went to my friend’s place. It took a while for the fire to engulf the house. Everyone thought I was gone when the fire started.”

  “I stayed and watched for a while,” Jack said. “Th
ey all slept through it, you know. The smoke killed them before the fire consumed everything. Sam didn’t want them to suffer. He was always such a thoughtful person, you know. Caring about people and animals.” He laughed, but it wasn’t joyous. It was sick. Kaely swallowed the sour bile that rose up from her stomach.

  “But . . . but why come back? Why start these fires now?” Kaely choked out. She stepped back a few feet from Jack, not wanting to be so close to him.

  Jack swore loudly. “Questions, questions, questions. You’re a real pain. It will be a relief to shut you up for good.” He sighed. “It’s a boring story, really. Bar fight. Killed a guy. Went to prison. Under another name, of course. I contacted my brother. Asked for help. Told him I expected to get my share of the money. He never answered. Never tried to contact me. I knew he had no plans to give me my half. So I had a friend in prison write him a letter a few months ago. Told him I was dead. Gave me time to plan my revenge. Sam thought I was gone for good. He could have stopped this, you know. All he had to do was write to me. Tell me he planned to give me what was due me. My father had a small pension from being the fire chief, but he had a tidy inheritance from his parents. And there was the insurance money. Altogether it was quite a substantial amount. Enough to give me a better life than what I’ve had.”

  “I spent it all,” Sam said. “Bought the veterinary practice. It wasn’t as lucrative as I thought it would be. I was sure I could earn back what I’d spent and pay Jack his share of the money. When I thought he was dead . . . well, I guess I was relieved in a way. I’m so sorry.”

  Kaely turned once more to look at Sam, but she was overcome by the pills and slumped down into the snow. “You didn’t think it was Jack because you thought he was dead. That’s why I never picked up signs you were lying.”

  “I didn’t believe it until I saw the note. I would have done anything to stop him. You’ve got to believe me.”

  “Sorry, dear brother.” Jack’s voice came from behind Kaely. “I spent the last several months planning my return to Darkwater. I wanted to ruin my brother’s reputation. Frame him for setting the fires, and then kill him. That way I could take everything away from him. Just like he did to me.” He sighed dramatically. “But I made one mistake. Forgot to hide my scar the night of the fire on Mayfield. I’m so used to it, I didn’t think about it.” He laughed. “Oh, sorry. Two mistakes. Forgot about those stupid contacts.

  “I started out using space heaters here. You know, to re-create that night. I figured my brother would get the hint. It was important to me that he realize he was finally paying for what he’d done to me. I followed people home from the store where they bought them, picked the families that way. But then the town got spooked. I actually had to purchase one myself and bring it into the house on Mayfield. I needed to set that fire. Twin boys. Just like Sam and me. Now that was my pièce de résistance. A clear message to Sam. But in the end, the space heaters were too much trouble.”

  “Then you wrote . . . wrote the le-le . . .”

  “The letter?” he finished for her, laughing. “Yeah. I decided to show my hand, let Sam know for certain I was back, if he wasn’t already convinced. Then I switched to good ol’ gasoline. You can make a much bigger fire that way, you know.” He stared at Kaely. “Sure thought I’d taken care of you the night of the fire at your mother’s house, but just in case you made it, I walked past the window. I hoped you’d suspect Sam might have set the fire. But still, nothing. You kept him out of trouble. Just like everyone has all these years. Just like my parents did.” He stopped and sighed loudly. “I’m tired of talking, and I don’t have a lot of time to kill.” He laughed hysterically at his choice of words and went back to his car.

  Kaely could only watch as he removed two large containers and carried them back. He unscrewed the lids. Kaely could smell the gasoline. He swept his arm toward the shell of the house behind them. “Tonight this evil house finally comes down. You’re my last victim, Kaely Quinn. And my brother will finally die. This is delayed justice, brother. You betrayed me. I’ve hated you all these years. Tonight I get my revenge.”

  Jack came over and grabbed Kaely, pulling her to her feet. Then he ran his hands up and down her body, searching for her holster. She tried to fight him off, but she could barely move her arms. They had no strength. It was like hitting him with limp noodles. He pulled out her gun, then he tucked it into his waistband. Jack reached down and scooped her up in his arms, carrying her over to the house. As they approached it, Kaely could only pray.

  Jack stepped through the doorway of the ramshackle structure. The door was long gone. He carried Kaely over to where Sam was tied up. Then he pulled a piece of cord out of his pocket and tied her to a nearby beam. He stepped back, clearly admiring his work.

  “This will be the most glorious fire of all,” he said, his breath like smoke. Snowflakes swirled around him in a mad waltz, as if becoming a part of his insanity.

  forty-nine

  Although she knew she had to stay conscious, Kaely began to drift away. She was startled awake by someone whispering in her ear. She turned to see Georgie crouched down next to her.

  “Wake up,” she said. Then she whispered again. At first Kaely couldn’t understand her, but her words became sharper. Louder. Kaely prayed that God would give her strength for what she needed to do next.

  “Time to see this monstrosity come down once and for all,” Jack was saying. “In case you’re wondering, Kaely, the ropes holding Sam to that rebar will burn away. There won’t be anything left of your corpses except bones. I’m leaving these canisters right next to my brother. Everyone will think he started this fire. Killed you and did away with himself. Overcome with grief for what he’d done. Good plan, huh?”

  Kaely could punch several holes in Jack’s plan, but this wasn’t the time to make him angrier. All she could do was pray and try to hold on to consciousness.

  Jack picked up the canisters and took a step toward them. Kaely could hear him chanting, “‘Jack be nimble, Jack be quick, Jack jump over the candlestick. Jack jump high, Jack jump low, Jack jumped over and burned his toe.’” His high singsong voice made the old nursery rhyme sound ominous.

  “Don’t do this,” Sam said. “Please, Jack. I’m your brother. I never meant to use all the money. It was a mistake. Let us go. I’ll make sure you get everything you’re owed. I promise. I should have come to you when you were in trouble. I . . . was afraid. Afraid that if I was connected to you in some way, people would figure out what we’d done.” His voice broke. “I’ve always loved you, Jack. I never stopped. We . . . we can leave here. Start over. Just you and me. Please . . . please don’t hurt us.” He looked at Kaely. “Or just punish me and let her go. I’m begging you.”

  “Oh, stop it,” Jack spit out. “Although I do like to hear you beg.” He shook his head. “You never liked me. And you certainly didn’t love me. The only thing I ever saw in your eyes was fear.”

  “You need help, Jack,” Kaely said, her voice breaking. “Let us help you.”

  “No one can help me. Nor do I want it. When I’m done here, I’ll start a new life. No ghosts. No one looking down on me.”

  “But you’ll still be sick.”

  Jack walked over and slapped Kaely in the face. “I may be sick, but you’re going to be dead.”

  “I can’t believe you think I wouldn’t do anything after I realized who you are. If you’re so smart, why didn’t you figure that out? Seems pretty obvious to me.” She took a deep breath, trying to revive herself once more before losing consciousness. “I feel sorry for you, Jack. I really do.” Kaely gulped in one more large breath, sucking in as much cold air as she could. Then she said, “9-1-1.”

  Suddenly, lights flicked on from the police cars that surrounded them, filled with officers just waiting to hear her call for help.

  “What’s going on?” Jack said. His face was locked in an expression of shock and rage.

  Kaely, who was barely hanging on, said, “I’m wired. They’
ve heard everything we’ve said.”

  Jack took several steps back, the gas canisters still in his hands. He put one down and reached into his pocket, pulling out a lighter.

  Josh walked slowly into the ring of light. “Jack, put the lighter down. You’re not going to use it.”

  “I burn people,” Jack said. “It’s what I do. It’s what I have to do.”

  “We’re going to get you some help, and I’ll be with you every step of the way.”

  “I’ll be there too.” Tuck came walking up next to Josh. “Put it down, Jack. Let’s get out of here. It’s cold and we need to get inside, okay?”

  “It is cold.” Jack’s voice was tinged with madness. Before anyone could stop him, he poured the gasoline on his head and clicked the lighter.

  A week later, Kaely and Noah met Tuck and Josh at another diner Tuck recommended. Tuck was better than an app when it came to finding good places to eat. The Washington Street Grill was packed with locals who liked to meet and gab.

  Kaely and Noah were heading back to St. Louis right after breakfast. She’d had dinner with her mother and Jason the night before in the nice condo the insurance company had found while Marcie’s house was being rebuilt. The doctors couldn’t have been more encouraged about her condition, and Kaely was convinced her mother was going to recover. She still had treatments ahead, but her attitude was great, and she was looking forward to overseeing the rebuilding of her house.

  Before she left last night, Kaely and her mother sat down and talked. Really talked. Although they still had a lot of things to work on, at least they were finally communicating—and trying to forgive each other. Kaely apologized for her role in their problems. She’d realized that since God had forgiven her a great debt, she had no business holding on to the past, trying to make her mother pay for her mistakes. Her mother’s debt was nothing compared to hers.

  After her apology, Kaely’s mother had taken her hands. “It goes two ways, Jessie,” she’d said. Her mother’s eyes had filled with tears. “When your father was arrested, it shocked me to the core. I . . . I tried to carry on for you kids, but to be honest, I felt like a robot. It was hard just trying to put one foot in front of the other. I didn’t want to break down in front of you. But the truth is, it probably would have been better.” She shook her head slowly as a tear ran down her cheek. “I cut you off emotionally because I . . . I couldn’t deal with my hurt and my anger.” Her eyes searched Kaely’s. “It was the only way I could keep living. Keep moving. But it wasn’t fair to you. I’m so sorry.”