Playing With Fire

by Alison Bliss

  She stared at me with an unresponsive expression.

  “In fact, I’m betting you started the fire at the chili cook-off, as well. You and I were the only ones standing close enough to have caused it. But you knew I’d look guilty. Because who would believe a firefighter started a fire they had to put out themselves? But there’s still one thing I can’t figure out.” I paused momentarily, letting the words hang in the air. “Why? What did I ever do to you?”

  She didn’t respond verbally, but her gaze flickered over the end of the bed and directly onto one of the men. Instantly, her eyes filled with tears, revealing the unsaid truth.

  “Cowboy?” I asked her. “He’s the reason you did all of this?”

  “We were going to be happy. The night Chief Swanson died, Cowboy held me in his arms and told me so. Said we’d get through it together. But then you came along and ruined it by making him feel sorry for you. Just like Janet did to Ted.”

  “Is that why you killed them?”

  “It was an accident. When Ted called and told me he was leaving me to go back to his wife, I went to his house and found her there. I tied her up and left her upstairs so I could talk to him without her interfering. I only wanted to make myself a drink to calm down while I waited for him to get home. But the only thing I could find was a jug of moonshine. Ted showed up a few minutes later and we argued, so I threw the drink on him and he stumbled. If only he…hadn’t been standing in front of the fireplace…”

  “He caught on fire?” the sheriff asked, gently coaxing the information from her.

  She nodded with tears streaming down her face. “I tried to help him, but he wouldn’t stop screaming. I couldn’t take it anymore. Everything started burning around me, so I…I…”

  “What did you do?” Cowboy demanded, breaking his silence with his accusatory tone.

  Her eyes cut to him and then closed as she lowered her head. “I left. But it wasn’t my fault. He did this to himself.”

  “You threw the drink on him, and you left him to die,” I said, cringing at her words. “You’re the reason he’s dead. You killed him. Every bit of that was your fault.”

  My comment must’ve pushed her over the edge because her eyes took on a glazed look as she turned her cold, steely gaze on me. “No. This is all your fault. If you would have just left after the first warning, none of this would have happened. For Cowboy’s sake, I tried not to hurt you. That’s why I put you in that barn…to get you out of the way. But I should have just lit your house on fire and killed you…because you deserve to die!”

  Without warning, Mandy grabbed something from the incision tray beside her, raised it high into the air, and lunged for me. Cowboy threw himself across me, blocking my body with his, as the sheriff and Ned hurdled over the end of the bed to subdue her. They grabbed her and, although she fought to free herself, managed to hold her arms behind her back as the sheriff handcuffed her.

  Mandy screamed in protest and hatred filled her eyes. Then she stopped and grinned at me with a sinister look on her face that sent chills scattering through me. “If I can’t have him, then neither can you,” she sneered.

  “What’s going on?” Dan asked, confused by the scuffle he heard.

  Cowboy groaned at her, obviously showing his exasperation. Though I couldn’t see his expression, I could imagine him rolling his eyes at her.

  “Hit the nurse’s call button,” the sheriff ordered me, clicking the last cuff on Mandy’s wrist.

  “It’s okay, I’m fine.”

  He shook his head and I saw the fear in his eyes. “Cowboy isn’t. Hit the damn button.”

  Uncertain as to what I missed, I shifted to get a better look and eyed a small pair of surgical scissors sticking out of his neck. “Oh my God!” I fumbled to grab the call button, though the weight of his body on top of mine made it more difficult. When I found it, I pressed the red emergency button over and over as tears squeezed out of my eyes. “No, no, no!”

  Ned didn’t wait for someone to come. He ran to the door and yelled, “We need help in here! Someone’s been stabbed.”

  A doctor and two nurses rushed in almost immediately and began clearing the room. The sheriff dragged Mandy out, kicking and screaming, while a nurse led Dan to the waiting room, quietly explaining what had happened to Cowboy. Ned didn’t make any attempt to leave. He just stood quietly in the corner, watching the scene unfold.

  Once a gurney was wheeled in, a flurry of activity took place. The medical team quickly and carefully moved Cowboy off me and onto the other bed as they took his vitals and wheeled him from the room.

  I tried to get up, but a nurse pushed me back down and ordered me to stay where I was as he was taken away. Upset, I began coughing violently, pulled out my IV, and tried to get up again. “No, I need to make sure he’s okay.”

  She had at least fifty pounds on me, though, and held me there. “They’re going to assess him first. Then he’ll probably be taken up to the OR for surgery. You won’t be able to see him anytime soon. I’ll find out what’s going on and come back and give you an update,” she promised. “Sit tight.”

  The nurse glanced to Ned and he nodded. “I’ll stay with her.”

  When she seemed sure I wouldn’t get up again, she told him, “Hit the call button if you need anything.”

  I looked down at the white sheets on the bed and shivered. There was no blood. Anywhere. In fact, there wasn’t a single drop on my hospital gown, the bed, or even the floor. Almost like it had never happened. I would have thought I was dreaming, but as the nurse closed the heavy door behind her with an echoing clang, I glanced around the sterile-smelling room and spotted the rolling hamper marked “soiled” on the outside.

  Soiled. It was exactly how I felt.

  A wave of dismay swept over my queasy stomach, dragging repulsion in its wake. Everything I thought I had known was now tainted by shock, stained with dread, and marked with violence. I wanted to remove any traces of the horror I’d just witnessed. But nothing could sanitize those memories of Cowboy lying helplessly across me, unable to talk, with scissors protruding from his neck.

  Without a word, I leaned my head back against the pillow and sank into the bed, letting the tears leak down my cheeks.

  God, please let him be okay.

  It was an hour later when I finally stopped crying. Ned stood across the room, staring out the window and watching the sun rise. “Are you okay?”

  I ignored his question and asked one of my own. “Why haven’t we heard anything yet?”

  “I imagine we will soon.”

  After sitting in silence a while longer, the door pushed open and I jumped to my feet. Bobbie Jo stepped into the room, followed by the rest of the gang. She rushed to my side, panic-stricken. “Oh, Anna. We came as soon as we heard.”

  My gaze flitted from Ox to Judd, then over to Emily standing there with Jake’s supportive arm around her. I could see the worry in each of their eyes. Of course they’d come running the moment they found out about Cowboy.

  He was their family.

  “We don’t know anything yet.”

  “Are they running tests or something?” Jake asked, looking puzzled. “You’ve had to have been here a few hours already. Why don’t they know what’s wrong with you?”

  Me? He thought I was talking about…myself?

  “And where the hell is Cowboy?” Emily asked. “He didn’t even call us until after you were admitted. We’re going to kill him for not letting us know about this sooner.”

  They were here for me? Which meant they didn’t know about Cowboy’s condition. And I had to be the one who told them. “I…thought…you knew,” I whispered, my voice cracking under pressure.

  “Knew what?” Bobbie Jo asked, rubbing her hand on my back.

  “Cowboy was…injured,” I said, unsure how to break the disturbing news. “Stabbed, actually…in the neck with a pair of scissors.” They blinked as my words sank in and a few of their mouths dropped open. “We think he might be in
surgery, but we’re not really sure what’s going on. No one has told us anything yet.”

  Emily looked up at her FBI husband with tears in her questioning eyes. “Jake…?”

  “I’m on it,” he said, his grim mouth turning down. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his badge as he headed for the door. “I’ll be back when I find out something.”

  “What happened?” Ox asked, looking as confused as the rest of them. “Why would anyone go after Cowboy?”

  My eyes misted over, but I cleared my sore throat and hoped like hell my words didn’t come out as raspy as I thought they might. “It’s my fault. He was protecting me.” Their eyes widened as I started from the beginning and told them the whole story.

  The moment I finished, Ox and Judd stepped out to call Cowboy’s parents, who were visiting his grandmother in El Paso. Ned made himself useful by getting everyone coffee, while Bobbie Jo and Emily took turns wearing a hole in the floor with all the pacing they were doing. I, on the other hand, couldn’t do anything but sit there on my hospital bed, feeling numb, waiting for news to arrive.

  Another half hour went by before a nurse entered the room, her face weary and bleak. “The FBI agent asked me to give you all an update on your…er, friend,” she said somberly, glancing at me.

  Fear pumped through me. “He’s not…”

  “No, no, he’s alive. Once we left here, we stabilized him and then he was taken up to the OR to remove the instrument from his neck. The blades missed a major artery by only a fraction of an inch and he’s still in recovery, but he’s awake and going to be just fine. He’s a very lucky young man.”

  “Oh, thank God!” I breathed a huge sigh of relief and blinked back the moisture pooling in my eyes. “When can we see him?”

  “It will be a little while. Agent Ward is with him right now and then we have to move him to a room. I’m not sure what your friend did, but if the FBI is questioning him, then he must be in a lot of trouble.”

  As she left the room, we all grinned. Jake wasn’t on any official business, although he’d obviously led the hospital staff to believe something entirely different.

  Everything was going to be okay.

  Chapter Twenty

  My airways had been singed and the doctor apparently felt like it was too early to give me any solid foods. So when the nurse brought me a small tray with some orange gelatin and some smelly broth, I sent everyone else down to the cafeteria for breakfast. Just because the hospital was starving me didn’t mean they had to suffer the same fate.

  But Ned declined.

  I found it strange he wanted to stay, but could tell he had something on his mind. Once the others cleared the room, I gazed over at him. He seemed to be calmly mulling something over in his head. Everything had happened so fast after he’d arrived I hadn’t even mentioned anything to him about Chief Swanson. “I’m sorry about your brother.”

  He nodded a thank you.

  “I met him once…a long time ago. In Houston, where I lived with my mom. He pulled me out of a fire. I was only six at the time.”

  Ned grinned at that. “I know. You’re Anna Weber.”

  My eyes widened. “Y-yes,” I replied, confusion lighting my voice. “How did you—”

  “Ted told me about you years ago. He was a rookie back then, fresh out of training, and you were the first person he’d ever saved. Said it made him feel like a hero.”

  “He was a hero.”

  “Yeah, I suppose so.” He ran a hand over his wry face. “But he was also a jackass.”

  I glanced over at him, not sure how to respond to that.

  He grinned in amusement at my blank expression. “I know that sounds heartless, especially coming from his twin brother who just found out he died. But that’s not the way I remember him.” He shook his head. “Ted may have been a hero to you, and probably many others, I’m sure…but, to me, he was a wife-stealing, no-good sonofabitch.”

  “You mean, Janet?”

  He lowered his head as the pain smeared across his face. “We were married only a few short months when I caught them together. She was the only woman I ever loved. And I guess Ted must’ve loved her, too, since he was willing to forgo our family ties to be with her.” He raised his head and his eyes narrowed. “But I didn’t know that dumbass was going to end up cheating on her with that…monster of a woman.”

  His reference to Mandy made me cringe, but I remembered things Cowboy told me and wanted to be completely honest with him. “I don’t know for sure, but from what I heard, the affair started after Janet left. Technically, Janet and Chief…er, I mean Ted, were still married, I guess, but when she came back into the picture and they got back together, he must’ve told Mandy it was over between them.”

  “And that’s what drove her insane? Crazy enough to kill two people?”

  I shrugged. “It’s the only thing that makes sense.”

  Ned sighed and pulled an envelope from his pocket. “After I got the message from your boyfriend, I had to know what this letter said.”

  He held it out and motioned for me to take it. I did, though I wasn’t sure why he was showing it to me. I slipped the paper out and unfolded it to read the chief’s final words to his brother.

  I may have been a hero once, but I haven’t done a heroic thing since. I’m sorry about Janet. I didn’t deserve her.

  “My brother is…was a damn fool. When it came to women, he was always playing with fire.”

  After Ned left, I laid my head back and allowed my eyes to drift closed. The others hadn’t returned from the cafeteria and the nurse said it would be a while before they moved Cowboy to a room. But as sleep claimed my tired body, I became restless and hyper-aware that my tangible surroundings had changed, morphing into something that resembled a young girl’s bedroom.

  It was dark.

  A door creaked open, and then closed again, followed by the light sounds of slow breathing and the soft padding of bare feet across the wooden floor. I cringed, knowing what was coming next. It was always the same thing.

  When the scratching started, I tried to hide under the covers only to have them ripped away from me. Whimpering, I drew myself into a ball and wrapped my arms around my legs, burying my face into my knees.

  I didn’t want to look up, afraid of what I’d see: the thing that scared me the most. But I did anyway because, deep down, I knew the scratching wouldn’t stop until I saw the explosion with my own eyes. It happened so often, almost nightly…and still, I was afraid.

  This time, the scratching sounded only twice when the light burst in front of me, temporarily blinding me to anything else. The overwhelming sulfuric odor filled my nostrils and made me gag. But this time, something was different. As I jerked away from the fire, my consciousness returned to my body and my limbs stiffened from the vision.

  It felt like a dream. The same one I’d had for years. But this time everything had been much clearer. Maybe it was because my subconscious was paying attention. As if a fog had been lifted.

  That’s when I realized that it wasn’t a dream at all. It was a deeply embedded memory. One where I was five years old and witnessed matches being lit in front of my face while I tried to go to sleep.

  Normally, I couldn’t see the person’s face, only knew they were there. The horrendous monster who would torture a scared little girl in her pink canopy bed. But this time was different. I recalled all the times that this very incident had happened to me, recollections I’d apparently blocked to keep myself from the pain of seeing the face of my tormentor.

  But this time, I opened my eyes. And with that one innocent look, horrific, deep-seated memories rushed back to me at once. Memories a little girl had blocked to save her sanity. But as an adult, she’d never be able to push them back again.

  As I opened my eyes, the haze cleared. A figure moved across the room and sat in the chair beside my hospital bed. “I’ve been waiting for you to wake up.”

  Recognizing the voice immediately, my body stiffened
. I slammed my eyelids closed and clenched my jaw, not knowing what to say.

  “Don’t be afraid, baby girl. I’m not going to hurt you.” My heart squeezed at the term of endearment I remembered from my youth, but I didn’t respond. “Your friends are just outside the door. I asked them if I could speak to you alone.”

  I blinked several times to clear the fogginess in my eyes, but wouldn’t allow my gaze to meet his directly. “And I guess they were okay with it…since you’re here?”

  “Not really. Two of them patted me down to make sure I wasn’t armed, while the other did a federal background check on me. Once they realized I wasn’t here to harm you, they let me in. You’ve got protective friends. I like that.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I concentrated on pushing away the blinding pain and anger in my heart that waged war on the memories of my mother.

  “I’m sorry I scared you the night you caught me standing outside your house. I wanted to talk to you then, but I was afraid if you knew it was me, you would run before I had a chance to explain.”

  I sighed. “Explain what? What do you want, Stuart?”

  He winced a little at the use of his first name. “For you to finally know the truth.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut tight to keep out the images that tried to squirm their way back inside my mind and released a ragged breath. The face I’d seen behind the match replayed over and over in my head like an eternal loop. “I…I already know the truth.”

  “No, that’s the thing, honey. You’ve never known the truth about what happened that day. But that’s my fault. I was only trying to protect you. But you’re twenty-eight years old now. I think it’s time you found out and got the answers you deserve.”

  Something landed in my lap and I opened my eyes. It was a thick, leather-bound journal, filled with tattered pages. “Look through this,” he said, his voice wavering.

  Hesitantly, I put my hand on it. “What’s in it?”