by Jodi Thomas
She’d found other collections in the house. One wall in what could have been called his office was covered with clippings of World War II. He’d framed each clipping and printed dates on the glass. None of them, as far as she’d read, mentioned Jeremiah, but she had a feeling they were battles he’d been in.
She also found a box of what had to be every card he’d ever been sent in his life. Old Beverly might have not wanted to live with him, but she’d sent her brother a birthday card and a Christmas card every year. He’d saved them all. Reagan guessed he’d never sent one in return.
There were probably other collections in the rooms she hadn’t ventured into yet. She had her room, they always used the kitchen, and she’d made a place in the front room where he kept the rolltop desk with his money tucked away. She’d made up her mind the day he handed her his roll of bills that she’d never take a dime without leaving a receipt.
On Sundays, she liked to curl up on the couch in the front room and read. The light was good and she could almost feel the ghosts of all the dead Trumans around her. They weren’t frightening, just sad, and the longer she lived in the house, the more she felt like they were her relatives. She’d learned the names of all the people in the old portraits. Jeremiah didn’t seem to mind telling her about his ancestors. They’d talk about them after dinner sometimes as if they were still alive.
Jeremiah would say things like, “Wilbur wasn’t worth a dime from the day he was born in 1890.” Or “Agnes didn’t know her directions. Half the school days, her pa would have to hitch up the wagon and go find her, knowing she’d taken the wrong way home. Worst wrong turn she ever made was marrying a railroad man. He’d leave every spring about plowing time and not come back until it was too cold to work outside.”
Once, the old man made Reagan laugh so hard she cried when he told her that his father’s brother, Mac, got kicked in the head by a mule one summer and hopped around like a rabbit for a month. “He was just plain dumb,” Jeremiah admitted. “Drowned in water he could have stood up in and walked out.”
Reagan smiled at the story, feeling like she knew all the people who’d lived in this place. She made her way back inside as the last sunlight faded. She wanted time to try out another one of the recipes in Miss Beverly’s handwriting. She loved the way Beverly added little hints at the bottom of each one, the little secrets that turned a pie from ordinary to wonderful. Reagan felt like the old woman was teaching her, one step at a time, to cook.
As she collected the ingredients, she noticed they were low on cocoa. The keys to the old truck were on a nail by the door. Reagan grabbed them, made sure she had enough money, and decided to drive the two miles to the gas station store. She could be back in five minutes. Uncle Jeremiah would never miss her.
The old truck started with a hum. She circled the yard and bumped her way down the dirt road to the pavement. Night had moved in, and the big old trees lining the road hugged in around her.
Reagan kept her eyes fixed on the beams of light in front of her and told herself trees were not something she needed to be afraid of in this world. Not even huge old bushy ones whose tops pointed like aging fingers. On cold nights, when the wind whipped around, the tops seemed to shake their bony fingers at her.
She stepped on the gas and was going at least thirty when she swung onto the pavement and headed toward town.
Four minutes later she pulled into the tiny grocery store and ran in. It took another minute to find the cocoa and pay. Only one person was in the store besides the clerk, who had the bored expression of one who’d left mentally on break and forgot to take his body.
He gave Reagan the wrong change and turned to a woman of about twenty-five buying a crossword puzzle book.
Reagan smiled at the sad-looking woman and said, “Hi.”
The woman’s expression didn’t change. In fact, Reagan wasn’t sure either of them even noticed her passing through the store. She probably could have shoplifted the cocoa and no one would have noticed.
Reagan climbed back in the pickup, deciding that if the invasion of the body snatchers passed by here, they’d skip the two at the gas station. Aliens would have better luck with mind control over geraniums.
Backing out of the drive, she noticed one car half a block away coming toward her, so she gunned the engine and headed home.
Halfway there, the car caught up to her and flashed red and blue lights.
For a second, Reagan thought of making a run for it, but in this old bucket she’d be lucky to make it to the spooky old trees.
She pulled over and waited as the lady sheriff walked to her window.
“You got some kind of trouble, Reagan?” Sheriff McAllen asked.
“No,” Reagan answered. “I was just out of cocoa.”
The sheriff laughed. “So you’re cooking.”
“Every other night.” Reagan tried to sit up straight. The sheriff didn’t have a ticket book in her hand, or handcuffs. That had to be a good sign. “I’m trying out some of my grandmother’s old pie recipes. Uncle Jeremiah seems to think they’re edible.”
Alex McAllen put her elbow on the window rim. “Really. I remember her pies. If you can make them as good as she did, I bet Cass at the Blue Moon would buy them from you.”
“Really?”
Alex backed away. “I don’t want to keep you if you’re baking, but you tell Jeremiah that he needs to get you signed up for driver’s ed. Till then, stay off paved roads.”
Reagan put the car in gear. “I’ll do that.” She couldn’t believe she wasn’t at least getting a ticket. “Tell your brother I finished the math homework.”
Alex smiled. “You two competing?”
“Not much. I beat him almost every time.”
“That’s because he can only count to eight.” The sheriff waved. “You keep making him work, Rea, will you?”
“I’ll try.” Reagan drove away smiling. In her whole life she never thought she’d have an officer of the law call her Rea like they were friends or something.
Chapter 20
TUESDAY
HANK DROPPED HIS NIECE OFF AT PRESCHOOL AND HEADED straight for the sheriff’s office. It had been a few weeks since he’d almost attacked Alexandra on her front porch. He’d seen her from a distance a few times and she hadn’t shot at him, but he had no illusion she was over being mad at him.
He walked in past the dispatchers and clerks. “Morning,” he said to Andy Daily.
Andy looked tired. Hank guessed he was just finishing his night shift as dispatch. Between manning the phones here four nights a week and staying at the fire station three, Hank wondered when the man slept. During the day he owned the town’s two Laundromats, one in a run-down apartment building and the other a block from the mall. He didn’t do much to keep the places up, but he kept enough machines running to make sure people came back.
Hank had noticed that Andy’s pockets always jingled, and he wondered if the man dropped by one of his places every day and cleared a box of coins to use for coffee money.
Andy downed the last of his cup of coffee and hurried after Hank. “You here about what we were talking about last night?”
“I am,” Hank, said trying to get his thoughts off Alex’s porch and on to the problem at hand. “I’m filing a report with the sheriff this morning.”
Andy nodded. “Like you say, it might be nothing, but better safe than sorry.”
“I’ll let you know what, if anything, we decide to do at this time. I like your suggestion that we go on full alert at least until it rains.”
Andy smiled. He liked being included.
Hank reached Alex’s door and turned. “There’s coffee at the station if you want to keep Willie company for a while. I’ll be back as soon as I’m finished here.”
“I’ll do that.” Andy nodded one sharp nod and turned on his heel.
Hank took a long breath and walked into the sheriff’s office.
Alex’s secretary, Irene, was on the phone. She waved him past h
er desk, leaving no doubt that Alex was expecting him.
When he stepped into the sheriff’s office, he was surprised to see the highway patrolman from the night they’d found the body in the Dumpster and one of Alex’s deputies.
The thought crossed his mind that she’d planned it so they wouldn’t be alone, even though this was official business. He nodded at the two men and took his seat at the round table Alex had in the corner of her big office.
“Thank you for seeing me, Sheriff,” he said formally. “Trooper Davis. Deputy Gentry. Glad you could join us.”
Alex stepped around her desk and took the last chair at the table. “Let’s get right to business, Chief.”
Hank fought down a smile. She’d never called him Chief before.
“All right.” He forced himself to look at her without emotion. He could play this game just as well as she could. “The boys at the fire station have been keeping a record of the fires we’ve had since the burn ban went into effect a few months ago. We’ve been lucky; none of the grass fires have happened around any homes, and most were small enough to be contained within a few hours.
“Leaving out cooking fires in town and a few boys playing with matches, I’ve marked all others.” Hank spread a map out on the table, forcing Alex to lean closer. “All this is of little interest to law enforcement, unless you consider when and where the fires happened.” He pointed at the first red X on his map. “This was the first one. Since then, the fires chart counterclockwise in a circle.” He moved his finger. “Six fires in two months. All seemingly accidents. All sparking on relatively calm nights. All moving until they’ve completed three fourths of a circle with Harmony smack-dab in the center.”
The highway patrolman stood and leaned over the map, and so did the deputy. Alex continued to make notes.
Hank moved his finger slowly. “This first one we thought might have been a cigarette tossed. The second one wasn’t near a road, so we guessed dry lightning sparked it. We found no cause evident on the third and fourth. The fifth looked like it might have been a camper who didn’t put out his campfire. The sixth was our Dumpster druggie.”
Alex’s deputy whistled. “Holy shit. If these are really being set, that means our druggie may have been murdered. Someone could have seen him crawl in the Dumpster to smoke and tossed something burning in before closing the lid.”
Trooper Davis frowned. “We’ve no proof it happened that way. The crime report won’t be in for another week or more.”
“We’ve no proof it didn’t,” Gentry added.
“Six accidental fires in two months?” Alex raised an eyebrow at Hank.
“Not likely,” he said. “But not impossible.”
“And all forming a circle at what looks like about five miles from town.”
“Impossible,” Hank whispered knowing she was following his logic.
“And the next one?”
“If it follows the pattern, it’s due to hit toward the end of the week, right about here.” He touched a place on the map just southwest of town. “Only our luck may have run out. The weatherman tells me there’s a strong chance of winds over thirty every night this week and no hope of rain. If someone sets a fire on a windy night, we don’t have the manpower to contain it. Even calling in every county volunteer fire department, around thousands of acres could burn before we could stop it. With all the grass around here in the government’s Conservation Reserve Program, a lot of the grass is long and thick. That kind of fire could jump a road.”
“We have to keep this quiet,” Alex reasoned. “And we have to prepare.”
Hank smiled. Despite hating his guts, she believed him. The four of them began to work on what could be done. The highway patrols could concentrate southwest of town. They might not be able to stop everyone, but they could keep an eye out for trouble. The deputy said he’d station men at high points to watch for smoke, and Hank planned to have a full team sleeping at the fire station. Alex remained silent.
He had his doubts about the location. The circle wasn’t exactly even. Some of the fires were closer to seven miles out, some only four. And if they were set, the guy wasn’t always moving the same distance around his imaginary circle. Two of the fires were within sight of one another. Then there was the slim chance this was just coincidence, nothing more. Fighting grass fires was their most common problem. They were a curse to dry land. Between lightning and careless folks burning off trash, grass fires kept them busy. Spring was on the way and with the wind and storms, their busy season was about to begin.
But this time it didn’t feel like coincidence. Someone was playing a game with them. Hank felt it.
If he was wrong, all he’d wasted was time. If he was right, he just might save lives. He didn’t care whether he was a fool or a hero. He had to follow his gut.
When he stood, Alex finally spoke. “If you have no objection, I think I’ll investigate each one of these fires.”
“I’ve no objection.” He looked at her, but she didn’t meet his eyes. “My files are open, and I’ll even go with you to talk to anyone.”
“That won’t be necessary,” she said. “If I get lucky, I might find a small clue that your firemen overlooked.”
Hank walked out with the other men, wishing he’d had a moment to talk to her alone. But . . . what would he say—that he was sorry about that Saturday night? Not likely.
He spent the day doing all he could to be ready if another grass fire sparked. When he left to pick up Saralynn, he had a headache bigger than Texas and he had to act like nothing was wrong.
Saralynn waited for him in her classroom as always. She could have used her crutches and made it to the front of the building, but he knew school always wore her out. Plus, she had to be very careful around other children and most animals. One bump, one fall could send her back to the hospital with another broken bone.
He always waited until the other children were gone before he picked her up. He knew she wouldn’t have liked them to see her being carried in and out.
She was waiting for him with a pirate hat on and beads made of macaroni.
“You a pirate today?” he asked as he lifted her.
“No. I’m one of the lost boys and we’re only pretending to be pirates.”
Hank nodded at the teacher, who was busy gathering up all the scarves and cardboard swords that helped fuel Saralynn’s imagination. “Mind if I take one of your pretend pirates home?”
“Go ahead and smooth sailing.” The teacher winked.
Driving home, they stopped, as they always did on Tuesdays, at the Dairy Queen for a chocolate-dipped ice cream. His mind was full of worries, but he listened to every word his niece said, figuring that today his mother wouldn’t be home to listen and his sister Claire would be too busy painting and his other sister, Liz, would just be too busy.
Sure enough, when they got home, Claire had locked herself in her studio to work on her new masterpiece called Man on a Hook. Hank didn’t even want to think about the finished product. Last week she’d frightened him with a pencil sketch of a work in progress called Mr. Dismemberment.
He carried Saralynn all the way to the back of the house, where his two great-aunts lived. They had separate bedrooms and shared a bath and a sunny sitting room. They welcomed him but didn’t stop their gin game. They played gin every afternoon, and at last count he noticed Aunt Pat owed Aunt Fat twenty-three hundred dollars.
He sat Saralynn in the sunny window seat and helped her pull out her coloring books. The aunts would take care of her, spoil her with sweets, and keep her occupied until Claire finished her latest mutilation of man on canvas or his mother got home.
Hank stood. “I got to go back to town,” he said. “I will not be back for supper tonight.”
They both nodded absently.
Saralynn said reassuringly, “I’ll remember to tell Grandma.”
He looked at her framed in the afternoon sun. Her blond hair almost looked like it was on fire, and the thought that someone
was out there setting fires made him sick to his stomach.
Hank was at a full run by the time he left the house to get back to the fire station.
Chapter 21
REAGAN CUDDLED INTO NOAH MCALLEN’S JACKET AND shivered as she watched one bull rider after another fall off. This Friday night was nothing like the last few rodeos. No families, no snack truck parked nearby with hot chocolate and hard, barely edible burritos. No friendly atmosphere.
Tonight, the wind howled out of the north and the air seemed thick with dust. She fought to keep her curly hair out of her face and stuffed it back into the hood of the wind jacket she had on underneath his coat. She should have brought something to tie her wild mop back because she’d never get a comb through it when she got home.
She’d taken to thinking of her hair as tumbleweed styled. The new hair products made it shine with health, but nothing seemed to tame it. In foster care, she’d always kept it short, like a fuzzy red football helmet on her head, but she hadn’t cut it since she’d been in Harmony. It almost touched her shoulders now.
Reagan swung her legs, trying to keep warm on the hard, splintery wooden bleachers. She couldn’t even remember the name of the town they’d passed through before they reached the rodeo grounds. A few of the same kids she’d seen last week, at the Guyman rodeo, were in the stands. She’d noticed Brandon Biggs smoking at the end of the rickety bleachers. He didn’t look in her direction, but she was sure he’d seen her. The crowd was so small it would be hard to miss anyone.
Most of the kids from Harmony hadn’t made the three-hour drive tonight. Noah said several of the guys thought the prize wasn’t worth the gas to come so far, but he took every chance to ride he could get.
He had tried to talk her out of coming, warning her that it was the worst school district in the state, and that half the time a fight broke out at the end.
Reagan had set her books on the hood of his pickup and faced him, or rather his chest. “Then you’ll need someone to cover your back, Preacher,” she said, her hands on her hips as if she’d fight him if he didn’t stop arguing.