ONE MORE RIDE

by Sophia Gray

  “No mistake, ma’am,” said the officer. “The fire department is there now, but it doesn’t look good. You’d better come down to the station.”

  After that, he said a few more things and I must have responded, though I couldn’t say what I answered with. I felt like I was walking through a haze, my body running on autopilot while the rest of me quietly freaked out inside.

  At least it’s quiet, I thought idly. Cody was still lingering at the door, probably freaked out because I was freaked out.

  When I finally put the phone back in its cradle, I ended up just staring at the wall. The Cut was on fire. It was burning. The fire department was there. But could they save it? Was there anything left to save? Was my whole world going up in smoke?

  “Fuck!” I yelled before remembering that my six-year-old son was standing right there. I winced, fought against what felt like an oncoming torrent of tears, and then put on a brave face. Bracing myself, I turned towards Cody. “I’m sorry, baby,” I told him in a sweet voice that felt fake. “Go back to bed, okay? I’ve got some work to do tonight, but Jessie will be here for you in the morning.”

  Cody didn’t look happy with my words, probably sensing that something more was going on. After all, he was six, not stupid. Frowning, he took a step out of his room. “Why do you have to work? The store is closed at night.”

  Blinking in an effort to keep from crying, I made myself smile. “I just have some paperwork to do. It’s nothing you should be worrying about.”

  When he still looked scared and a little lost, I pulled up my mommy panties and walked over to him. I worked hard to try to look calm and natural, but I still felt stiff. Numb. When I reached him, I knelt down and took him by the shoulders. “Everything’s fine. I didn’t mean to get so upset. I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?”

  He thought about it, then asked, “You promise?”

  I nodded. “I promise. Now get back to bed.”

  He agreed and I pulled him close for a long, lingering hug. Whatever happened, I’d make it work. Everything would be okay. Pulling away, I walked him back to his bed and tucked the covers in around him. I leaned forward and planted a quick kiss on his forehead. “I love you, Cody. Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “I love you, too, Momma.”

  He turned over in his bed and settled back in to go to sleep. I watched him as rage swallowed me. Maybe I wouldn’t have made the connection so quickly if I hadn’t just been dreaming of the man, but somehow I knew this fire wasn’t an accident.

  It was Ethan.

  That motherfucker.

  Chapter 5

  When I was sure Cody was asleep again, I headed back out into the hall and grabbed the phone. My cell was in the kitchen hiding in my purse, so the hall phone would do for now. With angry punches, I dialed Jessie’s number. It rang several times and I thought maybe she wouldn’t answer—it was around three in the morning—but then I heard the click followed by a muffled, “Hello?”

  “Jessie, it’s me,” I began, finding myself choking on my own words.

  I heard her yawn, then, “If this doesn’t involve a Chippendale’s dancer, free tequila, or a million dollars, I’m hanging up.”

  “The Cut is burning.”

  That woke her up in a hurry. “What did you just say?”

  I swallowed and took a deep breath, doing my best to keep my shit together. “I said the store is burning. Firefighters are there now, but I don’t know how bad it is. Bad enough that the police called me at three in the damn morning and woke my son up.”

  I forced myself to stop and take a minute to regain my composure. I was pissed at the police, but it wasn’t their fault. They were just doing their job and I reasoned that it was better than waking up and going to the shop the next morning to find it nothing but ashes.

  “Jesus Christ,” Jessie finally said. She sounded numb—in shock maybe. God knew I’d been there just a second ago. Or maybe I still was. “It’s burning?”

  I nodded, then remembered I was talking on the phone. Rubbing at the bridge of my nose, I leaned my forehead against the wall. “Yeah. Burning. Or maybe they’ve stopped it by now, I don’t know. The point is…” For a second I couldn’t remember what the damn point was. “Cody. The point is I have to go down to the police station and talk to them. But Cody has school in the morning and—”

  “Say no more,” Jessie interrupted. “I’ve got you. I’ll head over now. Bruce has been good lately. I’ll bet he’ll even start for me without an issue.”

  She was being forcibly chipper, which I appreciated. “When are you going to replace that piece of crap?” I teased. Bruce was her car, a beat up old junker that probably wouldn’t fetch a hundred dollars in scrap and was worth less than the monthly insurance on it. It was the main reason I gave Jessie a ride every morning, other than carpool and saving the environment. Crap that suddenly seemed so utterly stupid given my situation.

  “Next paycheck,” she said, the chipper tone dropping from her voice. It was the same thing she always said, but suddenly reality wasn’t making that very funny anymore.

  I wasn’t sure if there would be another paycheck.

  “I’ll be there in ten.”

  “Thanks,” I told her.

  We hung up and I let myself slide down the wall to the floor. I slumped there and thought very seriously about letting myself cry my eyes out. Then I remembered I was an adult woman. I didn’t have time for crap like that. And, besides, I was strong. I would take whatever life threw my way and deal with it.

  “Yeah, right,” I muttered. I let myself cry for a whole minute, then I got up off the floor and headed to the bathroom. I had a few minutes to get cleaned up. Might as well look decent for the police, since I wasn’t leaving before Jessie got here.

  # # #

  I was dressed like it was a normal workday—fashionable black jeans, a button down blouse, and a pair of stylish boots that cost me about ten bucks at a discount store because the brand name was misspelled inside —and had my hair piled on my head in a halfway decent twist when Jessie showed up. She knocked once, then poked her head inside.

  “Diana?” she called in a half whisper.

  I hurried to the door, grabbing my purse on the way. Her expression was one hundred percent genuine sympathy as she stepped the rest of the way into the apartment. “Oh, honey,” she said, then pulled me into an embrace.

  I took half a second to squeeze her tight, then pulled away before she set me off crying again. One minute. That was all the crying I was allowed this morning. “Thanks for coming by,” I told her gratefully.

  She lifted one corner of her mouth up in a smile. “Of course. I’ll make sure Cody gets to school.”

  I thanked her again. “I don’t know how long I’ll be, but take the day off. I have a feeling The Cut isn’t going to be open for business today.”

  Her shoulders slumped, but she nodded. “How bad is it?” she asked timidly.

  I shook my head. “Honestly, I don’t know yet. I’ll get ahold of you as soon as I know what’s going on.”

  She nodded, then waved as I headed to my car.

  I drove to the station in a daze, more going through the motions than anything else, but I was aware of one thing: if I found out Ethan Chambers had anything to do with this, I’d kill him. With my bare hands. Strangle him, shoot him, throw him off a cliff, whatever it took. I’d make him pay for this.

  When I arrived at the police station, as requested by the officer on the phone, it was pretty dead. There were obviously a few officers on duty, but it was early enough in the morning that I’d arrived at that sweet spot between the craziness of the night and the beginning of a new day.

  Hurrying up the steps, I went in through the front door to find a couple of people waiting in the lobby and a woman at the front desk. I headed right to her.

  “Hello, I’m Diana Leone. The owner of The Cut? I was told to come down…”

  The woman looked at me for a second like she didn’t know what I wa
s talking about, but then it seemed to click. “Oh, right. Mosher called you. Head right down there, second door on your left. He should be in his office.”

  I thanked her, then followed her directions until I stopped outside a door that read Sgt. Mosher. I knocked. The door opened from the inside and standing by it was a man in his mid to late thirties with brown hair that was already graying and a notch taken out of his left eyebrow. He wasn’t bad looking or good looking. He was just sort of…normal. Boring, even. The kind of guy someone might pass on the street, then immediately forget they’d ever seen.

  “Ms. Leone?” he asked, stepping aside to let me in.

  I nodded and stepped into his office. He closed the door behind me, then indicated one of two chairs in front of his desk. Part of me wanted to remain standing, to be strong, but I ultimately decided to sit. I was afraid I’d only be strong if I was angry, and probably being angry with this Mosher guy wouldn’t do me any favors.

  “I know it’s early, so I really appreciate you coming down. Coffee?”

  I shook my head even though I was dying for a cup. I just wanted to get to the point already. “How bad is it?” I asked evenly.

  He sighed, leaning back in his chair and folding his arms over his stomach. “Bad,” he told me bluntly. “But we’ll get to that in a minute.”

  I opened my mouth to tell him that no, we’d be getting to that right now, but he continued on as though I were no more than a poster on the wall.

  “As I mentioned, the fire department is dealing with the situation right now. On our end, I feel like we should talk about some things before you go see the damage.”

  “What things?” I asked, wondering what we needed to talk about that wasn’t the actual shop.

  He leaned forward again, settling his hands on the desk top. He looked pleasant, as though he were talking to an old friend about the weather. Which didn’t exactly make him likeable to me in that moment. “You’ve got insurance, right?”

  My stomach dropped. “Yes, of course,” I answered. And I did. Unfortunately, it was the bare minimum. I couldn’t afford much more than that and depending on how bad the damage was, there was a really good chance the insurance company wouldn’t compensate me for much. If anything.

  He smiled and nodded. “Glad to hear it. I’m sure once you contact them, they’ll be happy to cover the damages.” He reached for a folder then, seemingly oblivious to the way my face paled. He opened the file and scanned over some documents there, then asked, “I notice you’ve been late on a few insurance payments here.”

  That got my attention. My brow furrowed as my mouth turned down. I crossed my arms defensively across my chest. “What does that have to do with anything? How do you even have that information?”

  He lifted a shoulder in a shrug, then smiled at me as though to tell me it was all fine. “Just some standard notes I’ve got here. Want to make sure you didn’t set fire to your own place.” He said it almost like a joke, then winked at me.

  My jaw dropped. Recovering, I found myself standing. “Are you crazy? Did you seriously call me down here to accuse me of arson? Of deliberately destroying my own business?”

  “Whoa, whoa now.” He held up his hands, palms facing me, motioning for me to settle down. “Take it easy. I know you might be feeling a little hysterical right now, but I’m only doing my job. These are just routine questions.”

  Hysterical. He thought I was being hysterical.

  I was up and out of my seat before I even had a chance to tell my body to rethink that aggressive move. My hands clenched tightly against the rage that was quickly building inside my chest.

  Hysterical. What an ass.

  “Routine?” I demanded incredulously. “You can’t be serious!”

  He ignored me, and continued perusing his documents. “Has business been good?”

  “Does it matter?”

  He looked up at me from his files, waiting for my reply.

  Gritting my teeth, I forced myself to answer as honestly as possible. “It’s been okay. I doubt I’ll ever be the salon choice of the rich and famous, but I get by.”

  He nodded. “And the store attached. The convenience store. Does it do well, too?”

  I was practically shaking with suppressed rage, but I kept my tone calm as I said, “Yes. It does fine.”

  “Good, good,” he said more to himself than to me. He was quiet for a moment, then said, “It’s hard being a small business owner. Finding the funding, then making the payments for the business on top of what you need to make personally. And raising a kid on your own, too.”

  I froze. Stopped trembling, stopped breathing. At the mention of Cody, I felt my hackles raise, sensing danger before I even understood where it might be coming from.

  When I didn’t answer right away, Mosher looked up at me again. He smiled. “I’ve got a little girl myself. But at least I’ve got someone to look after her while I’m at work. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if I didn’t have that kind of support.”

  I stared at him. My mouth felt like it was all of a sudden stuffed full of cotton. It took me three times to swallow, then I forced myself to sit back down in the chair. A moment later, I found the words to speak. “It’s hard. But we do okay.”

  He nodded. “Good.” It seemed to be his buzzword for this conversation. “I just have a couple of more questions for you, ma’am, then we can head down and take a look at the store.”

  I nodded mutely.

  “Do you have any other means of income to tide you over while your shop is out of commission?”

  I failed to see how that was any of his business or had anything to do with the incident, but I was finally understanding that this wasn’t really about the shop or the fire. It was about taking a shot at me. At putting me in my place. And it only added more evidence, in my opinion, that Ethan Chambers was behind this whole thing. “No,” I answered flatly.

  “I see. And do you have any enemies, Ms. Leone? Anyone that might hold a grudge against you personally?”

  I felt his gaze on me, hot and hard, but I found I couldn’t meet it. Yes, as a matter of fact, I knew someone who was very likely to hold a grudge against me. Someone I deemed an enemy as of right now.

  But I wasn’t stupid.

  Chambers had connections. It was pretty clear he had enough connections to set fire to my shop and to get the police to dig into my personal background whether they had any right to or not. Which meant he had someone on the force who got his salary from Chambers, not just the city.

  Slumping, I shook my head. “No, sir. I can’t think of anyone who would want to do something like this.” It was the first blatant lie I’d told, but I couldn’t risk ratting on Chambers. If he really did do this, pointing the finger at him wouldn’t make him back off.

  “Great,” Mosher said. I glanced up to see him wearing a smile that I desperately wanted to smack off his face. Instead, I rose when he rose. “Let’s go take a look at the damage, shall we?”

  # # #

  It was bad.

  I’d been expecting bad, but this was worse. The little convenience store where Jessie worked was toast. Barbequed. It looked like the site of a lightning strike mixed with a fire pit. Nothing got away unscathed.

  Except about half of the register.

  “The Cut is fine,” I muttered under my breath as I stared at the two places. They’d been attached and with one register between them, that desk where the machine sat was half on one shop and half on the other. Which was why it was so strange, comical almost, that just half the register was toast. Almost like someone had drawn an invisible line right where one store ended and the other began, then made sure to burn only that.

  Deliberately.

  My hands clenched tightly into fists at my side as I stared with suppressed rage at my store. The officer—Mosher—standing beside me was talking with one of the firemen. He was a younger man, in good shape, and barely looked like he’d broken a sweat even though he’d supposedly just been fighting
a fire.

  “Definitely an electrical fire,” the young man said, nodding his head as though this were the most obvious and mundane thing in the world. “Probably from some loose wiring in the back storage area.”

  I had to clench my teeth from screaming. The back storage area. I could have killed someone. The message ringing in my ears was loud and clear. Everyone would say this was an accident and I’d lose not only the income from the convenience store, but my insurance wouldn’t be enough to cover the damage. I wouldn’t be able to repair the charcoal that was my shop. And that storage area Ethan had wanted? A non-issue now.