Flash Point

by Metsy Hingle

  “Oh, my God!”

  Suddenly, Kelly froze. Her heart began to race. The phone rang twice, then stopped in the middle of the third ring. And then she smelled it—smoke.

  “Son of a bitch!” Jack punched the car’s accelerator, heedless of the speed limit, and cursed himself for not figuring things out sooner. “She’s not answering,” he told Leon.

  “Try her again.”

  He punched out the number to Kelly’s apartment again, but this time he got a busy signal. “It’s busy. I’m going to try Meredith’s store.” But this time he got the answering machine.

  Desperate, he tried his sister’s cell phone.

  “Hello?”

  “Meredith, where’s Kelly?”

  “Jack? Jack is that you?” she asked as static came over the line. Cursing the wind and weak connection, he shouted and prayed she understood him.

  Amid the static all he could hear her say was “What?”

  Giving up, Jack zigzagged in and out of traffic, ignoring the blare of horns and the several near collisions he caused. “Try your cell phone again,” he urged Leon.

  Leon did. “It’s dead. I forgot to charge the battery last night. I’m sorry, Jackson.”

  And his battery might have juice, but the weather conditions had evidently taken out a tower, so service was nonexistent. He stared over at the photo of Lianne and her daughter that his partner held. If only he’d thought sooner to check behind the picture frame. Thank God Evelyn had been lucid when he’d gone to her to ask to examine the frame where he’d found the birth certificate—a birth certificate filled out by Martin Gilbert, signed by both Lianne Tompkins and Senator Van Owen, but never filed.

  “You think the old lady knew what she was talking about?” Leon asked him.

  “Yeah, I do.”

  Evelyn had told them everything. About Lianne’s affair with the senator, his wife’s fury when he’d asked for a divorce, the terrible fight between the senator’s wife and Kelly’s mother. And the fire that was supposed to claim both their lives.

  Nearing the city limits, Jack grabbed the cell phone again. The battery light flashed, indicating a low signal. Deciding not to search for Meredith, he called Alex.

  “Kusak,” he answered on the second ring.

  “Alex, it’s Jack. I don’t have time to explain. Kelly’s in danger. You need to get over to the apartment and call the police.”

  “Where’s Meredith?”

  “I don’t know,” Jack told him, and the line went dead.

  Kelly fought back the terror that had bile rising in her throat as she smelled the smoke, heard the crackling of flames. She shoved open the door of the darkroom and stepped out into the apartment. The electric space heater glowed as Alicia tore pages from Sister Grace’s journals and dropped them atop it. Flames leapt to life. There were small fires all over the room, she realized as Alicia doused her sofa bed with gasoline and tossed a match to it.

  “We need to get out of here, Alicia,” Kelly said, terrified, yet hoping to reason with the woman.

  “You’re not going anywhere. This time I’m going to make sure you die.”

  Panic made her throat tight. Kelly fought it back. “We’re both going to die unless we get out of here.”

  “No,” she told her, and the voice sounded so much like a child’s. “I was there that night, you know. I was going to burn your room, too, but you locked the door.”

  “But you were just a child.”

  “I was old enough to know that you were stealing what was mine,” Alicia spat out. “My mother told me how Daddy was going to leave us for you and that whore mother of yours.”

  “I heard them arguing,” Kelly said more to herself than to Alicia, remembering the sound of the woman’s raised voice.

  “She hit her, then Daddy came. He took my mother home and told your mother that he’d be back. But Daddy didn’t know I was there, that I’d gotten out of the car. When he left, I went in and hit her with the fire poker. I always loved fire,” she said, and Kelly could see the light of madness in her eyes. “So I grabbed the matches by the fireplace.”

  Kelly stared at the curtains now shooting up in flames. She had to get out, had to get past Alicia to the door. Don’t panic, she told herself. The smoke alarm would go off and then the sprinkler would come on. It would be all right. Everything would be all right.

  Only it wasn’t happening. There was no scream from the smoke alarm, no water spitting out and dousing the flames. Don’t panic, she told herself again. Any moment now, the alarm and water sprinkler would go off. Then someone would come. Jack would come.

  “No one’s going to come to save you this time. The smoke detector and sprinkler don’t work. You see, I never did get around to returning the key that Peter gave me to this building when I had it listed and was looking for a tenant. Before that little bitch Meredith came alone and took over everything. So I used my key to come in here and take the battery out of the smoke alarm. Then I disconnected the sprinkler.”

  Oh, God, no one was coming.

  “That’s right, Sarah. No one is coming to save you this time.”

  Stunned that she’d known what she’d been thinking, Kelly stared at the other woman. Alicia laughed and the sound sent a chill through Kelly’s blood.

  “I told you my grandmother was fey. Did you think you were the only one who could sense things?” Suddenly the smile died, turning to a look of bitter hatred. “But you even stole that from me. Mine was never as strong as yours is. Maybe once you’re dead it will be.”

  Kelly began to cough. “Alicia, we’re sisters.”

  “No,” the other woman shouted. “I’m my daddy’s girl, not you. I killed you. You should have stayed dead.”

  Kelly coughed again, tried to fight back the panic. Aware that Alicia could read her thoughts, she tried to blank her mind as she searched for a way to escape.

  “Daddy forgave me, you know. He realized what I had done when he came back that night and found the house burning and me outside watching it. I told him that I’d killed you because you’d try to take him away from me. He promised me that I would always be his little girl and he’d never leave me. But he lied.” She struck another match and tossed it into a corner, where it began to lick at the walls.

  “He didn’t leave you,” Kelly pointed out. “He died in an accident with your mother. Remember? You told me about it.”

  “He died because he lied to me. All those years he paid that bastard Gilbert not to tell anyone I set the fire, and then Gilbert found out that bitch nurse of his got you out. He told Daddy you were alive and Daddy was going to leave me for you.”

  “No, he wasn’t, Alicia. He loved you,” Kelly said, and began to edge her way toward the door.

  “No, he didn’t. If he did, he wouldn’t have written up that new will. He was going to leave you half of everything—everything that was mine! But I fixed him. He and Mother had a little accident.”

  Horrified by the other woman’s admission, Kelly moved a few more steps toward the door.

  “Get back,” Alicia told her. “It’s your fault he’s dead. It’s your fault that nun is dead, too. She said Daddy contacted her before he died. She said she had proof that he wanted you to know about him and she was going to tell you.”

  “What proof?”

  “I don’t know. She wouldn’t tell me. Just like she wouldn’t tell me what name you were using. But I knew if I got rid of her, you’d come back.”

  “It was you in the chapel that night. You killed her.”

  “Yes,” Alicia admitted, grinning insanely. “You had me worried for a while that you knew it was me. That’s why I found you at the party that night, and tested you. But you didn’t know. You couldn’t see it was me.”

  No. She hadn’t been able to see it was Alicia because her sister had been filled with a darkness, an emptiness of heart, of emotion, of soul. One of the crown moldings fell, slamming down on the floor and shooting flames across the wood flooring like an arrow
.

  In the distance, Kelly could hear the fire engine sirens. But she knew too well that the narrow streets of the French Quarter were never designed for safety and one of the greatest dangers to the old buildings was fire. They would never get here in time. “Alicia, we have to get out of here. The whole place is going up. We’ll both die.”

  “I won’t. I’m not afraid of fire like you are. I like the fire.”

  When Alicia grabbed Lianne’s watercolor and started to toss it into the flames, Kelly charged her, tore it from the other woman’s hands and stumbled toward the door.

  Alicia tackled her. Kelly kicked at her, got up and started for the door again. When Alicia grabbed at her once more, Kelly swung around and hit her with the painting, using all her might. Alicia fell back into the burning window. Alicia screamed. And arms flaying, she fell out of the window onto the street below.

  Horrified Kelly turned away. Sobbing, she stared at the door and the flames licking around it. Paralyzed by fear, she couldn’t move. She stood there clutching the painting, tears streaming down her cheeks as she gasped for breath. Suddenly the past and present blurred.

  Have to get out. Have to get out. But I’m afraid. I’m afraid. Hurry! Hurry!

  “It’s Nana Eve. Where are you? Unlock the door! You have to unlock the door.”

  “Kelly, it’s Jack. Kelly, are you in there? Unlock the door, Kelly. Unlock the door.”

  Kelly heard Jack at the door, heard the slam of body weight against the thick wood. But it didn’t give.

  “Sarah, it’s Nana Eve. Sarah, hang on baby. Hang on, I’ll get you out.”

  “Kelly, hang on, baby. Hang on, I’ll get you out.”

  Suddenly Kelly raced to the door. She screamed as she turned the locks, singeing her fingers on the hot metal. And then Jack was grabbing her, scooping her up in his arms and rushing down the stairs with her.

  The cold air hit her like a slap in the face as they exited the burning building. People were all around, fire truck sirens screaming, flashing red lights everywhere.

  “Where is she?” Alex demanded as he hurried up the street to where Jack stood with Kelly. “Is Meredith still inside? Jesus! Tell me where she is!”

  When he started to barge past a fireman, he was blocked. “You can’t go in there, fella.”

  “I’ve got to. Let me by.”

  “Alex! Alex, here I am,” Meredith cried out, and rushed over and into Alex’s open arms. “Oh, Alex. It was awful. Kelly was inside and I couldn’t get there. And—”

  “Thank God,” Alex said, and held her close. “When I got here and saw the building in flames…I thought…” A breath shuddered through him. “God, Meredith, I thought I’d lost you.”

  “I’m here. But Kelly almost died and the shop’s gone,” she said, weeping against his chest.

  “I don’t give a damn about the shop. We’ll build another one. I thought I’d lost you and I never told you I loved you.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me. I love you and if you’re crazy enough to still want me, we’re getting married.”

  “Oh, Alex,” Meredith cried, and threw her arms around him.

  But Kelly didn’t hear what followed next because the coughing started again and so did the shivering. “Hang on, baby. Hang on,” Jack told her. “Where in the hell is the ambulance?”

  As if in answer, the red-and-white vehicle came tearing down the street with sirens blaring and lights flashing.

  “We’ll take her now, sir,” the paramedic told him moments later.

  “Jack,” she called, and began coughing again as they lifted her onto a stretcher. Despite the coughs racking her body, she reached out for him with one hand while she held on to her mother’s painting with the other as they lifted her into the back of the ambulance.

  He climbed in beside her and held her hand. “I’m right here, baby. I’m right here.”

  The paramedic put an oxygen mask on her face. She pulled it away to speak. “Jack, there’s so much I need to tell you—”

  He shoved the thing back on her face. “There’s a lot I have to tell you, too. But we’ll tell each other later. In the meantime, feel free to take a peek inside me and see how much I love you, what kind of life I have planned for us.”

  But she didn’t have to look inside him. She had only to look inside herself now to know that she was loved for who she was. That she’d had parents who’d loved and wanted her. That she had a grandmother who’d risked her own life to save hers. That she and Jack would have a life together. That she was home and she had a family.

  A home and a family. The two things she’d wanted all her life. And now they were hers.

  ISBN: 978-1-4603-6383-6

  FLASH POINT

  Copyright © 2003 by Metsy Hingle.

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