On Fire

by Carla Neggers

  Sig felt the strain in her lower back, knew she needed to slow down and stay calm. She simply wanted to allay Matt’s fears, then tackle the police and all their questions.

  Louisburg Square was quiet, bathed in sunshine, as if to remind her of the life she used to lead. She slowed her pace, tried to consider her actions. Was she being like her sister, like Emile? Acting first, thinking later?

  No. She’d thought this through, if rapidly.

  “Sig!” Riley jumped out from the private park and landed at her sister’s side. “What are you doing here?”

  Sig put her hand on her heart. “Scare me to death, why don’t you?”

  “Sorry. I was lying in wait for Emile, hoping he’d walk by and I could nail him. How’s Matt?”

  “I left him in the ER.”

  “What? Why? Did you sneak out or did he let you go? Forget it, you snuck out. He’d never voluntarily let you come up here.”

  Sig inhaled through her nose. “I make my own decisions.”

  “Just as well he’s in no condition to come after you,” Riley said.

  “You’re exasperating. Did Emile give you the slip?”

  “I never picked up his trail. He must be ex-CIA or something, I swear.”

  “What about Straker?” Sig asked. “He went after you—he looked ready to throttle you.”

  But John Straker, Sig could see, had her sister in knots. “He drove past me once. I thought about flagging him down.” Riley glanced sideways at Sig. “I didn’t trust him not to run me over and call it a day.”

  “Anyone in his place would.”

  “Look who just abandoned her beaten and battered husband in the ER. You’re worried about the same things I am.” Riley frowned, a bundle of pent-up energy and frustration. She pointed at an expensive car parked in the square. “Look, there’s Abigail’s car. I rang her doorbell a little while ago, but she didn’t answer.”

  “Maybe she’s indisposed.”

  But Riley clearly didn’t believe it. “And maybe she was there when Matt got helped down the stairs.”

  Sig licked her lips, which were dry and parched, and her babies gave a fluttering little kick; the skin on her lower abdomen felt tight, stretched. She cleared her throat and focused on the mission at hand. “I have a key.”

  “Good. Let’s let ourselves in and hope we’re just catching her in the tub.”

  “Do you suspect Abigail?” Sig asked bluntly.

  Her sister seemed surprised. “No, of course not. She wouldn’t know how to sabotage a ship engine or dip a rag in linseed oil and set Emile’s cottage on fire, never mind want to do something like that.”

  “Then why are you here?”

  “Emile.” Riley marched up to Abigail’s front door. “Matt followed him here, says Emile pushed him down the stairs and beat him up. So what was Emile doing here? What did he see that he didn’t mention to us? And if he didn’t attack Matt—which he didn’t—then who did?”

  “Abigail?”

  Riley groaned in exasperation. “Sig. I just said she’s not on my list any more than Emile is. If you apply the process of elimination and a little common sense, you come up with—”

  A stab of pain nearly brought Sig to her knees. She almost couldn’t speak. Her head pounded. “Henry. He was here yesterday. He and Abigail are having an affair…damn.”

  “The only problem is he doesn’t strike me as someone who’d know how to commit arson and blow up ships, either. He’s an administrator. He studied oceanography, but he hasn’t really been in the field in years and—” She stopped, stared at her sister. “What is it?”

  “But he would. Riley, remember?” They stopped at Abigail’s brass-trimmed front door, and Sig swallowed, her throat tight and dry. “Henry was one of those volunteer wildfire fighters out west. That’s how he and Bennett met.”

  “No, I didn’t know. I didn’t pay much attention when he was hired. We were revamping the recovery and rehab program.”

  Sig smiled feebly. “You and your one-track mind.”

  “But fighting wildfires isn’t the same as committing arson.”

  “Who knows what all those firefighters sat around talking about during breaks? The fires at Sam’s house and Emile’s cottage were both caused by crude time-delayed devices. Henry could have chosen his timing.”

  “And he was desperate,” Riley said.

  “Yes. If he sabotaged the Encounter, he’s responsible for the deaths of five people. He’d lose everything, including Abigail.”

  “I hate this. Explosions, fires, assaults and murder—they aren’t exactly my area of expertise.”

  “Maybe we should find Straker,” Sig said.

  “I don’t see Henry’s car. He’s probably still at the center. Maybe he and Abigail rode together and no one’s here.” She gave Sig an encouraging smile. “This could be our best chance to look around her house and settle our minds. Maybe we’re way off the deep end here.”

  “Do you think so?”

  Riley shook her head. “No.”

  Sig wasn’t sure. All the threads and pieces seemed to float past her, and she couldn’t put anything together. She fumbled with her keys, too nervous to single out her copy of the key to the Granger house.

  Riley, ever impatient, grabbed them from her. “Which one?”

  Sig pointed, her hand shaking. “That one.”

  Riley grasped the key, stuck it in the door, pushed it open. “It’s not really breaking and entering,” she whispered as they slipped into the cool, elegant home. “We’re just taking a look around.”

  Sig called out, “Abigail? You home? It’s me, Sig.”

  Total silence. Given her mood, it seemed eerie. On another day, it would be refreshing, soothing to encounter such a place of peace and elegance in the heart of the city.

  “I’ll check the kitchen,” Sig said. “You look around here and upstairs.”

  Riley nodded.

  Sig stifled a surge of guilt. Her sister-in-law had never faltered in the past year. She’d been strong, capable, determined. Without her energy and focus, the center might never have survived Emile’s downfall and Bennett’s death.

  Thinking of her husband’s battered body, Sig started down the kitchen stairs. She looked behind her after every step, not wanting someone to shove her from behind, then give her a few kicks while she was down. She shuddered, pushed the images out of her mind. Matt was in good hands now. He’d be okay.

  She peered down the stairs, balanced herself with one hand on the wall. She could see something at the foot of the stairs. She leaned forward to get a better look.

  Abigail.

  She was sprawled on the floor at the foot of the stairs. Sig jumped back, shrieked. Her breath went out of her. She lost her footing and grabbed the railing, caught herself before she could tumble down the stairs.

  “Sig!” It was Emile, down in the kitchen. “Run! Get out!”

  She turned, tripping on her long skirt, and, almost on her knees, scrambled up several steps.

  Something tugged at the hem of her skirt. She kicked backward, and a hand grasped her lower leg, twisting. If she didn’t go with it, she’d break her leg. She turned over, sat on the step.

  Henry snatched her hand and jerked her to her feet. “Abigail’s alive.”

  Sig gasped for air. “What the hell’s going on here? Henry, for God’s sake—”

  “Shh, shh.” He put a finger to his lips. He was dressed casually in a cotton sweater and trousers, handsome, totally calm. “It’s okay. Shh. I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Riley. Her sister must have heard the commotion in the kitchen. She would call the police. She would get Straker. She would run out into the street and get someone in here. Sig couldn’t give her away. She had to be brave. She kept her eyes pinned on Henry, refusing to glance back up the stairs and alert him that Riley had come in with her.

  “What did you do to Abigail?” Her voice was hoarse, breathless. “Did you push her down the stairs and beat her up the way y
ou did my husband?”

  “I could have killed your husband. I didn’t. Be grateful.”

  “You monster.”

  “If your husband had minded his own goddamned business, we wouldn’t be here right now.”

  “His father’s death is his business.”

  Henry’s eyes darkened, and he jerked her down the stairs, not caring if she stumbled, if he had to drag her. She managed to stay on her feet. Adrenaline shot painfully through her. Her knees weakened. She should have found a gun, grabbed a poker from the fireplace.

  He tightened his grip on her arm and elbowed her in the chest to break her momentum and keep her from toppling into him. She tried to pull herself free. “Ouch—Henry, you’re hurting me!”

  “Armistead,” Emile yelled from deeper in the kitchen. She’d never heard him sound so certain, so furious. “If you hurt her, I’ll kill you myself.”

  Henry smirked, cocky, nasty. He didn’t even look in Emile’s direction. “Your grandfather doesn’t seem to understand he’s tied up and can’t do anything. It’s his life that hangs in the balance. Not mine.”

  “I’ll haunt you from the grave,” Emile said. “You won’t have a second’s peace.”

  “Henry,” Sig croaked, gasping for air, “for God’s sake, you can’t believe this is going to work.”

  “The police already suspect Emile. I just need to help them reach the correct and logical conclusion, provide proof that what they believe he’s done, he did, in fact, do.”

  “What about Abigail?”

  He ignored her and pulled Sig over Abigail’s prone body. Sig was sickened, terrified for herself, for her sister-in-law, for Emile.

  Henry touched her hair. “Sig, you of all people should understand.”

  “What? I don’t understand any of this.”

  “Loving a Granger. Wanting to be one of them. You don’t understand?”

  Bravado, anger, kept her on her feet. “You don’t love Abigail. You don’t know what love is. And I never cared about being a Granger. I cared about my husband.”

  “I never meant…” He broke off, his eyes misting, not with regret, Sig thought, but self-pity. “No one was supposed to die.”

  “Five people did die. And now with Sam’s death, six.”

  Henry’s gaze hardened, his grip on her tightening painfully, to the point she thought her arm would break. “Trust me, no one misses our good Captain Cassain.”

  He shoved her backward, sent her sprawling against the table. She stumbled, held on to the back of a chair. A knife. Where did Abigail keep the knives?

  She saw her grandfather in the corner by the stove, his hands and feet tied to a chair. He was white-faced, old, trembling not with fear or pain, she thought, but unbridled anger. “Emile,” she breathed. “Oh my God.”

  His dark eyes leveled on Henry. “Kill me. Leave Sig.”

  “That won’t work, Emile. I’m not stupid. I’ve examined every option. You’re the one who backed me into a corner. If you’d just left me alone—”

  “You sabotaged my ship. You killed members of my crew. You murdered my captain.”

  “Your captain discredited you. He tried to blackmail me. Why would you risk your life for him?”

  “That’s my duty,” Emile said simply.

  “If no one had died,” Henry sneered, “you would have thanked me for getting rid of the Encounter.”

  Emile’s expression was stony. “Abigail saw you before you hit her.”

  “No, she didn’t.” Henry was confident, arrogant. “She’ll blame you. You hurt her brother, now you’ve hurt her.”

  “She suspects you, Henry. You know she does.”

  “Shut up.”

  Sig felt bile rise up in her throat, and she put her free hand on her abdomen as if to soothe her babies. She needed a weapon. Some way of stopping this from happening. How could it be Henry? How could he have killed Bennett, four other crew members, Sam Cassain?

  And where was Riley? Sig felt sick to her stomach.

  Henry turned to her, as if reading her mind. “Where’s your little sister? She’s a pill, that one.”

  “I left her with John Straker. They’ll have the police here any second. You should stop now while you still can.” She raised her chin, breathed in. “Damn you, Henry.”

  “Oh, yes. I’m damned. But not today. Today, finally, I’m free.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  “You, Sig?” He smiled, an unsettling mixture of sadness and relief. “I want you to prove to the authorities just what a madman your grandfather has become.”

  Riley searched madly for a telephone. She needed to call the police; she needed help. She raced silently through the parlor. “Even the damned Grangers have to have phones!” she muttered under her breath, forcing back panic. Henry had Sig. Something had happened to Abigail. And Emile—he was down there, too, in danger.

  She stopped in the middle of the thick Persian rug, tried to remember the layout of the huge, old house. There would be a phone in the kitchen, but Henry was in the kitchen. Wasn’t there an office upstairs? And bedrooms—surely there would be a phone in the master bedroom.

  If Henry heard her, she was sunk.

  She eased out into the hall and stood at the top of the stairs, listening to the low, intense voices coming from the kitchen. If only she knew how much time she had!

  There.

  A phone. She spotted it on a table at the end of the hall. She’d have to be careful and speak quietly to keep Henry from hearing her. She moved quietly, quickly, down the hall, lifted the receiver and grimaced as she tapped out 911. She didn’t waste any time with explanations, told the dispatcher there was a hostage situation on Beacon Hill and gave the address.

  The dispatcher wanted her to stay on the line, but she heard her sister scream. The police wouldn’t get there in time.

  “Hurry,” she told the dispatcher, and hung up.

  She ran into the parlor, grabbed an expensive, heavy brass poker from the marble fireplace. This was madness, she knew, but she couldn’t hide up here while her sister and grandfather were in imminent danger. Even if she raced outside, it was a quiet weekday afternoon. She couldn’t count on running into anyone who could help.

  Straker…

  He wasn’t here. She was.

  She slipped silently down the stairs, concentrated on maintaining her footing, on the feel of the poker as she refused to let her fears overcome her. She didn’t think back, didn’t think ahead.

  She managed not to gasp and give herself away when she saw Abigail at the bottom of the stairs. Farther into the kitchen, Henry stood with his back to her, Emile’s gun pointed at Sig. She was at Emile’s side. Their grandfather was white-faced, furious, determined.

  And he saw Riley. She knew he did. His expression didn’t change, he didn’t move, but she knew.

  Abigail moaned incoherently, but Henry didn’t turn around.

  “If you kill me,” Sig said coldly, “you kill my babies.”

  Henry scoffed. “I’m not killing you.” His voice was high-pitched and jittery. “Your grandfather is killing you.”

  “My husband will hunt you down.”

  Riley could feel her body moving almost of its own accord, instincts taking over. Her world slowed down, enough for her to see, maneuver, act. Emile kicked forward, distracting Henry, and she swung her poker, hitting him in the arm.

  The .38 flew from his grip, and she whacked him again. He cried out in pain and surprise, spun around and snatched the poker, raging as he backhanded her. She fell against the table, tripped backward over Abigail.

  Sig dove for the gun, kicking it aside. Henry grabbed her from behind, held the poker over her pregnant stomach. She went still, her face drained of color. “No. Henry…my babies.”

  “No more, Henry,” Emile said. “For God’s sake, no more.”

  Armistead pulled Sig backward toward the counter, tightened his grip around her middle. In one swift movement, he dropped the poker and whipped a
knife off a magnetic rack, put it to her throat.

  Riley went still. Her grandfather didn’t even seem to breathe. The police would be here any minute, she thought. They had to be. Neither she nor Emile said a word as Henry pushed Sig toward the stairs. Abigail, still moaning, rolled onto her side, coughed. Henry went around her, started up the stairs with the knife still at Sig’s throat.

  When they were almost to the top of the stairs, Riley staggered over to her grandfather. “The police are on their way. They’ll get him. He won’t hurt Sig. Oh, God, he can’t.” She grabbed a knife, cut the duct tape and rope around her grandfather’s wrists. “He must be out of his mind—the police are on their way.”

  “He’s past thinking.” Emile pushed off the dangling ropes, nodded to her as he tore at his bound feet. “Go. See what you can do.”

  “I’m so scared. I’ve mucked things up as it is—”

  “You bought us time. Sig would be dead if you hadn’t acted. This is Henry’s last chance. He knows it. Riley, you’ll know what to do. Trust your instincts.”

  Abigail collapsed again, vomiting. Riley reclaimed her poker, and Emile waved her upstairs, even as he struggled with the last of his ropes and duct tape.

  “Go,” Abigail echoed, her voice rasping, hoarse. “Stop him.”

  Riley took the stairs quickly, silently, praying the police would arrive before Henry had a chance to harm her sister. She didn’t know what to do in a hostage situation. She just knew she couldn’t let the bastard hurt Sig.

  She slowed her pace as she came to the top of the stairs. She held her poker high and took a breath, but before she could assess what was happening in the hall, a hand shot out and whipped the poker from her grip. It clattered to the hall floor. She opened her mouth to scream, but Straker was there, scooping an arm around her.

  “I didn’t want you to ram me through with that thing,” he said.

  She started sobbing, gripped his shoulders, “Sig—he’s got Sig. Henry. He has a knife.”

  “Not anymore.”