Fire plumed into the room, hot, black, acrid smoke fogging the ceiling. Her eyes watered; her head hammered. She wanted to retch with the pain. Rolling onto her stomach, she tried to find her feet.
Then, like a hand over her eyes, everything went dark.
* * *
“Wake up. Wake up!”
A hand on her face, slapping, and not gently either. PJ roused, then bent over, coughing.
Smoke blackened the house, filling every corner. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Except for a flicker of light from the flames.
And in the flicker she saw a face.
She screamed.
The roar of the fire ate it. “C’mon, soldier, let’s move it.”
Hands around her collar, pulling her by the scruff of her jacket. Pushing her close to the floor as she obeyed. Next to her the man crawled as if in a combat zone. They reached the stairs to the basement, and he yanked open the door.
“Down!”
She found her feet, but he kept his grip on her shoulder as she stumbled to the basement, her hand dragging down the side for balance. Light buzzed in cages, illuminating the underground passage past the service door.
“Move it; move it!”
“What about Boone?”
“Not now, PJ.”
PJ turned. In the wan light, she saw the Kellogg hobo, Murph, gaping at her. Brown teeth against a beard tangled like seaweed. His grimy stocking cap pulled low. And blue eyes, that seemed, at this moment, clear and bright. “Get moving!”
Then he pushed her down the passage.
PJ half ran, half stumbled in front of him. The musty smell of the tunnel pressed against her as they tripped into the darkness.
Halfway in, Murph hooked her arm. “Up! We go up!”
And sure enough, a door in the wall opened out and emptied into the little room she’d fallen into that first day. The gaping hole opened to the glowing sky.
“How do we get out?”
He bent down, hooked his fingers together, and she stepped into the web. He hoisted her up, hard, and she found herself airborne as if he’d actually tossed her from the pit. She landed on her stomach, her breath whooshing out.
Ten feet away, Boone stood with a group of EMTs, hands on his knees, bent over, coughing, spitting out something from his mouth. One man kept trying to give him oxygen even as he pushed it away and stared at the house.
“Boone!”
His eyes landed on her, some sort of disbelief on his face. “She’s here! Jeremy, she’s here!”
From out of nowhere, Jeremy came at her without stopping, a crazed expression on his face, in his eyes. He grabbed her forearms and yanked her off the ground. “How’d you get out? I thought you were still in there. I thought . . .” He looked unable to breathe as he pulled her to himself.
He didn’t even bother, it seemed, to hide his emotions. Just let them shake out of him, his arms so tight around her, his breath erratic as he picked her up and carried her away from the tunnel.
“Where’s Max?”
“He’s hauling Windchill out of the lake.”
She looked over his shoulder, and her stomach lurched at the flames curling like tongues over the house.
Her mushroom house.
“My house . . .” She sucked in a tremulous breath. Shook her head, her hand over her mouth. “Oh . . . my house.”
A fire engine had already arrived, firemen in full gear, running with hoses inside her front door. She heard a yell over the din: “We found her!”
Jeremy set her down but kept ahold of her and now took her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. Tears pooled in his eyes despite his ferocious expression. “Are you kidding me? You’re worried about your house? I thought you were burning alive. I tried to get back in—”
“I’m okay. The—” She looked past him, at a fireman now hauling Murph from the cellar opening. “Murph . . . saved me.”
Jeremy wore a strange expression, that information registering as something besides shock. “He’s the one who’s been squatting in the carriage house. Boone had a little chat with him last night after I brought you home. Apparently he knows the way into the house.”
PJ considered Jeremy, the way he didn’t quite meet her eyes, the way he ran his hands down her arms, the way he looked like—
“You know something.”
He clenched his jaw. “I’m just glad you’re okay.” He pulled her again to him.
Okay. PJ wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Pushed her face into the well above his collarbone. He smelled of smoke and sweat, his breathing still too fast.
“How did Windchill get the drop on you?” PJ stepped away, knotting her fingers into his shirt.
“He had already shot Boone when I showed up. He came in by boat, so I didn’t see his car and was waiting for Max. . . . Like you said, he got the drop on me.” Frustration flickered over Jeremy’s face. “I walked through the door, and Windchill must have heard me coming because the next thing I knew, I was waking up, and Max and Windchill were killing each other. I don’t know when Max came in. But then you shot them.”
He smiled. “I underestimated your sharpshooter abilities with a nail gun.” Then his smile dimmed. “Actually, I think I underestimated you in general.” A tenderness, almost a fear, touched his expression.
“I do make a good partner, don’t I?”
He ran his hand over her hair. Nodded. Then he wrapped his hand around her neck and kissed her. Just dove right in as if . . . she belonged to him. As if he wanted to belong to her, too. PJ molded herself to him, kissing him back. When he pulled away, he didn’t let her go, just kissed her cheekbone, then her neck, her nose.
“Jer—”
He leaned back and took her face in his hands. “I’m sorry for what I said. I didn’t mean it.”
“I know.”
“No, listen. I know you’re not Lori. I know that. But sometimes, those feelings—helplessness, panic . . . I’m just back there, and I hate it. I see the person I was, what I did.”
What he did? Her intake of breath voiced her question. “You didn’t . . . hurt the person who killed Lori?”
“No. But, oh, I wanted to. I lay in bed at night and conjured up ways I could take the guy apart. I let my anger seep through me like tar, take over my thoughts, my lungs, my soul. Worse, it took everything good I’d done as a SEAL and twisted it. Along with knowing how to defend my country, I realized I knew a hundred ways to kill this guy with my bare hands. I . . . plotted to kill him, PJ.”
“Why . . . why didn’t you?” She let the question trickle out, slowly, gently.
“Because God stopped me. He gave me a glimpse of myself, and I saw a killer instead of a hero. I managed to stumble my way into a church, into forgiveness. That’s when I got my tattoo. It’s the Christian symbol of the Trinity with a circle. I wanted it to remind me of grace and how to find my balance.”
“You still see yourself as a killer?”
He blew out a breath. “Not when I’m with you.” He squeezed her hands, almost too hard. “But when I go back to that place . . . it sucks me in. I feel the shame and the anger. I see that I could so easily be the person I don’t want to be.” His eyes burned into hers when he looked up. “I think I’ve been holding on to that anger. It does give me a sense of power. Maybe you’re right—I don’t want a fresh start . . .”
PJ loosened her hands from his and cupped his face. “Jeremy. You do want one. And I want to help you find it. Maybe you just don’t know what it looks like.”
“And you do?” He said it softly, without rancor.
“I . . . think so. I think it’s standing up and seeing life from a new place. Like when I went skydiving and I saw the big picture. I can’t explain it except it felt—”
“Breathtaking. You told me, remember?”
“Yeah, breathtaking. I think that’s what a fresh start is all about. Not ignoring the past, but seeing it through the eyes of God, through the eyes of grace. Knowing where we’
ve been and where we’re going. A fresh start isn’t about forgetting; it’s about perspective.”
She watched another hose attack the blaze from the front. Water misted in the night air. Steam rose into the sky.
“You’re the one who said it: ‘A fresh start has no meaning unless you understand what you left behind.’ Jer, we can be each other’s fresh start. We’ll point out the grace, give truth to the past, and help each other recognize the future. We’ll be mercy and compassion to each other. That’s our fresh start.”
As Jeremy took a breath, he touched his forehead to hers. “You know why I love you?”
“You love me?”
“For months now, Princess. It’s because somehow you always figure it out. And you take me with you.”
“Is that a good thing?”
“An amazing thing.” He managed a smile, his eyes sweet and light.
She rose on her tiptoes and kissed him. Slowly. Gently. The blanket fell to the pavement. He seemed to hold his breath, collect himself, and then he returned the kiss, leaning forward, reaching out for her, kissing her with a sort of hunger that made her wrap her arms around his neck.
“Are you two about finished?” Boone stepped up. He looked like he’d survived a bombing, his face blackened, blood on his lips, his eyes red and still watering. He held a pack to his shoulder, where he’d been hit. “We need a statement from you when you’re ready, but I’m headed to the hospital.”
“Are you going to be okay? That looks pretty bad.”
His smile was slow. “I think my tattoo might have been destroyed, but other than that, I’m going to pull through.” He gave her a half smile but trailed it with a wink.
His tattoo of her name. Obliterated. Maybe it was time for hers to go too.
She couldn’t help but smile back.
“Am I going to have to relive your relationship with Boone every time I see him?” Jeremy spoke into her neck.
“The important part is, it’s in the past.”
The front yard resembled a convention for emergency services. Two more fire trucks, three police cruisers, and an ambulance had arrived. Moisture hung in the air, spray drifting over PJ’s hair, landing like icicles on her body. The flames had diminished to a few die-hard tongues, and even those disappeared as another plume of water spilled over the house. The air smelled of creosote and ash.
“My poor house. I don’t even know if I have insurance.” Now what? Back to her car? Back to Connie’s house? She stood there for a long moment.
PJ’s glance went to Murph, slumped on the side of the cellar hill, his hands over his face. Through the smoke, she could see his shoulders shaking. “Is he crying?”
Jeremy glanced over, then took her hand. “Yeah, I think that’s a good guess.”
She edged toward the weeping man, but Jeremy stopped her.
“He might need to be alone, Princess.”
“Why?”
“Because the woman he loved lived in this house. He’s probably reliving the night she died.”
PJ looked at him. “I don’t understand.”
Jeremy slipped his hand around her waist. “That’s Hugh Murphy, PJ. The guy that Joy Kellogg ran away with so many years ago.”
“Hugh Murphy? Murph was Joy’s husband? But I thought he vanished.”
“How’d you know that?”
“Connie and I read Joy’s diary. She did some sleuthing of her own.”
“It’s in the genes.”
PJ smiled at him. “Something like that. But how do you know he’s Hugh?”
“I’ve been doing some extracurricular investigating. I took the name from the locket, Hugh, and I did a trace on anyone with that first name from Kellogg. It shot back a Hugh Murphy. From there, I found out that he was MIA and then deserted in 1965.”
“Weren’t the draft dodgers pardoned by Carter?”
“Yes—but Murphy was a deserter. It’s a different situation.”
“So could he still be arrested?”
Jeremy’s mouth closed to a tight line. “At this point, Hugh Murphy the deserter no longer exists, as far as the military is concerned. But Hugh Murphy the man who loved Joy is sitting over there, remembering the grief he brought to his wife.”
“I don’t understand.”
“After we found out that someone was squatting in the carriage house, I went through his belongings. I found an old picture of a farmhouse, asked around, and someone at the library said it looked like the old Murphy house. I discovered the woman had died, so I went to the grave of Murphy’s mother and found evidence that someone had left flowers. I left a camera there and when I checked on it, I discovered that Hugh had made a cameo. I tracked him down, sobered him up, and had a little chat.”
“So that’s what you were doing this morning.”
“Yeah. Hugh is from Kellogg. He returned on his daughter’s seventeenth birthday. He thought he was pardoned, see, and it was only when he fled to his mother’s house after the drowning that he realized he might never be pardoned—and I’m not talking about the law.”
“Did he kill Joy?”
“No. But he did try sneaking into their house to talk her into leaving with him. According to him, he was waiting in the carriage house, hoping she’d change her mind. He saw her come outside, saw her walk around the grounds. He said he knew something was wrong and went out to talk to her, but she was drunk. Sitting on the end of the pier. She told him to let her go. To start over. He told her he couldn’t . . . but she told him to leave, and he did.”
“You don’t think he’s lying?”
“No, he’s broken. I saw it in his eyes. And he’s never left. I think Joy’s death was an accident, PJ. Not murder.”
PJ watched Murph’s shoulders shake, an outline of grief amid the haze of the night. A picture of a man stuck on the outside, unable to move into grace.
“That’s not all, Princess. . . .”
Chapter Twenty
“In my defense, I was trying to help.” Jeremy placed a large pepperoni pizza on the granite countertop of Connie’s kitchen—a peace offering, if she read his posture correctly. Even showered, his hair wet, he still reeked of smoke. PJ did too, probably.
PJ opened the lid and slid out a piece.
“As a lawyer, I want to suggest not qualifying your statements. Just lay it out there.” Connie sat at the table, wrapped in her fuzzy robe, wearing her game face. PJ had a feeling Connie had invited everyone over just so she could get a handle on where to put her emotions after seeing PJ, disheveled and grimy, nursing a softball-size bump on the side of her head. Which still throbbed, despite the shower, the pizza, and the fact that everyone survived the fire.
Even Dog. Who lounged at Sergei’s feet, having been washed of Boone’s blood. PJ had agreed to dog-sit while Max went to the police station to give a statement.
Windchill hadn’t exactly confessed, but a trace on his fingerprints had turned up—surprise, surprise—Lyle Fisher. The same Lyle Fisher who had been arrested for speeding the night of Max’s disappearance . . . shortly after throwing his body off the bridge. And the same Lyle Fisher who had gypped his Hopkins landlord out of her last month’s rent. Figured.
PJ would probably live a long and happy life if she never heard that name again.
And maybe tomorrow, they’d head over to Flora’s house. Introduce Max to his son. For once it didn’t matter that he didn’t remember. Tyler didn’t know him, either. It seemed like a good place to start.
“Okay, fine. Here’s the bottom line,” Jeremy said, handing Connie a piece of pizza. “Ever since PJ moved back, she’s believed she brings trouble with her.”
PJ made a face at him.
“I would agree that perhaps she has a knack for finding mysteries . . . but I never saw her as trouble.” His eyes softened. “I overheard something Connie said—about her and Sergei wanting to have something better than they had before. That knowing her past gave him the chance to prove that he loved her better. To heal her wounds.” J
eremy dragged his hand around the back of his neck. Never had she seen him quite so nervous.
She had to admit, it suited him in a way. Just like his role as her boss. And current hero. Okay, so she loved all sides of Jeremy Kane.
Yes, loved. He was the face of God’s grace to her, just like Clayton had been to Prudence Joy. And although Boone would always be in her past, she loved Jeremy better.
All the way to the happy ending. Or at least she hoped there’d be one. Because with her house still smoking and her front lawn shredded and her bathroom plumbing in pieces and her Bug at the bottom of the lake and Dog still nameless at her feet and her PI license three years in the future, a happy ending seemed a little like Davy’s Jell-O cubes—wiggly and oozing between her fingers. Impossible to hold.
Still, she knew what she wanted to reach for.
Jeremy closed in on her. “I wanted to do that for you—to prove to you that whatever was in your past, it didn’t matter to me. That you weren’t trouble, whether it was in your blood or in your upbringing. I didn’t mean to dig quite so deep.”
PJ glanced at Connie, who lifted a shoulder.
Jeremy took her hand. “So I took the name you found in your mother’s yearbook—PJ—and added Barton to it. Sunny Barton popped up in my Google search—class of 1978, East Minneapolis High. The reason she didn’t show up in the senior yearbook from Kellogg was because she and her father, Clayton, moved away after Joy died.”
Connie put her hand on the journal. PJ had filled her in on the rest of Joy’s story while Jeremy showered.
“She went to Wheaton—she knew your father from when she attended school here, and she made friends with his girlfriend, Elizabeth Mulligan. Your mom. That’s why she’s in your mother’s yearbook. She changed her name, at least socially, to PJ, which incidentally are the initials of her middle names—Prudence Jewel, the maiden name of Hugh’s mother.”
PJ’s eyes widened. Uh-oh.
Jeremy smiled. “Jewel? Of course. I would have guessed that eventually.” He winked at her, then took a breath. “I didn’t expect there to be an audience for this.”
“It’s okay—whatever you have to say, Connie can hear it.”
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