by K. J. Emrick
Her own sister.
The house phone rang. Reluctantly she got up to answer it. What was she going to do about Christina? She had to tell their father, for one. Brandon needed to know what she’d just found out. Maybe he could help her decide what to do next.
The black plastic phone was one of those ones with a long coiled cord. Rysen picked it up and paced with it. “Hello?”
“So from what I hear,” Josh said to her, “you spent the whole morning with Brandon.”
Her pacing brought her to the kitchen wall. She thumped her forehead against the wallpaper. She so didn’t need this right now. “Josh. Um, hi. Yes, Brandon and I were out talking to—”
“Don’t ‘hi’ me. You told me he was back in town to help you with the fire. You didn’t say anything about you spending time with him.”
He was mad. Mad like he’d been when he caught her and Brandon kissing. That was supposed to be all behind them now, something in their past that they didn’t talk about anymore. Of course, Brandon wasn’t supposed to be back in town either, and she wasn’t supposed to be having all kinds of mixed up feelings about him, either.
“Josh, listen to me. Please.” She tried to decide what the best way to explain herself was, and then she felt stupid for thinking she had to explain anything because she hadn’t done anything wrong, and then she figured she was going to have to tell him anyway. Better to get it all out now and let the chips fall where they would because she still had her sister’s problems to figure out. “I was with him this morning. Yes. We went to talk to a suspect in the arson. He’s going to train me to be a detective so I can get my own license.”
“Well, that’s just great,” he said in a mocking way. “You get to spend time with this guy and you’ve got such a great excuse for it, too.”
“It’s not an excuse. It’s the truth. He’s helping me get a private investigator’s license. That’s all.”
“Whatever. I’m sure that’s all that’s going on.”
“It is! Josh, I’m with you. I told him that today.”
“And what were you two doing when you had to explain to him you were my girlfriend?”
He was reaching out to touch my cheek, she remembered. She didn’t tell him that part. “We were in the shop, looking at the fire damage.”
The shop. The damage to the shop. All of that evidence that they had found down in the cellar, and then just left there…
Where exactly had Christina gone?
Oh, damn.
“Josh, I have to go,” she said. “I’m sorry. No, I’m not sorry. You need to trust me. Either you believe me that I’m dedicated to our relationship or you don’t. I’m going to be around other guys while we’re dating. I know you had a hard time of it with Beatrice and her jealousy but do not put your ex-girlfriend’s problems on me.”
There was silence on the other end, and that more than anything kept her from hanging up right away. She had to get back to the shop. She had to make sure…damn.
“Rysen,” Josh said to her now, “I’ve told you this before, and I’m going to tell it to you again. Let me know when you’ve figured out where you want to be. I won’t be the other guy in your life. If you’re going to be with Brandon, you can’t be with me.”
Then it was him hanging up. She stared at the receiver for a few more seconds before slamming it down angrily into its cradle. How dare he accuse her of being unfaithful to him. She was the one putting off her own troubled feelings. She’d made her choice.
But had she, really? If she had, then why did she tremble inside every time Brandon looked at her?
She shook her head. There wasn’t any time for this. Grabbing her car keys from where she had tossed them, Rysen raced out to her car and headed into town.
On the way, she used the cell phone she had just bought to replace the one lost in the fire, and called Brandon. No matter what she was feeling about the two men in her life, she needed his help right now.
Chapter Six
Christina’s car was right outside the Spirit of the Soul. She wasn’t in it.
Brandon had been too far away to meet her here immediately but he promised he was on his way. The thing was, Rysen didn’t think she should wait. If Christina had come here to hide evidence or set another fire or do God alone knew what, Rysen needed to stop her.
The craziness of that thought hit her like a sour ball of lead settling in her stomach. Stop her sister. Her own sister. The person who had taken her in when she’d lost everything and given her a job and been the only one she could always rely on in her whole entire life.
Now Rysen was working to prove her guilty of several felonies.
Life wasn’t funny. It was dark and mocking.
She sighed, and went into the store.
Everything was quiet. Up here, where the fire had done its worst, there was no one to be found. Ash and dust and broken bottles, destroyed dreams and crushed hope. It didn’t get any easier to look at this. It almost made her wish the arsonist had done a better job and burned the whole thing down to the ground.
The arsonist. She hadn’t said Christina, she’d said ‘the arsonist.’ Even her own private thoughts she couldn’t bring herself to directly accuse Christina of this terrible event.
Because if she did this, then she was the one responsible for setting up the delivery thefts from a few months ago. Worse, it would mean she had faked her own poisoning a few weeks back. That’s what it would mean.
Rysen wasn’t ready to face that.
Noises from down in the cellar echoed up the stairs. It didn’t matter if she was ready to face it or not. There was no one else who could.
She had her flashlight from the glove compartment of her car with her. Not for the first time today, she wished that she had a gun to carry like Brandon did. Maybe when she was further along in her training with Brandon. Where was he, anyway? Should she wait for him, maybe? There was only the one way down to the cellar. There weren’t any other exits down there. When Christina left, she’d have to come up here. Rysen could confront her then.
A crash and something that sounded like stone breaking interrupted her perfectly sound line of logic. She couldn’t wait. If Christina destroyed all of the evidence, no one would believe Rysen no matter what she knew.
Flicking the flashlight on she started down the stairs.
Listening closely, taking one stair at a time, Rysen descended into the cellar. From below she could see another flashlight beam haphazardly painting the floor, walls, and ceiling. Even more of the surviving bottles of wine had been wrecked. Holes had been busted into the walls so deep in some places that deep brown sand poured in from behind. The entire structure had been compromised. It was only a matter of time before there wasn’t enough support for the burned out framework over their heads and it all came crashing down.
She could hear a woman’s voice muttering. “Where is it? Where is it?”
Rysen allowed herself to wonder if her sister had gone insane. None of this was rational behavior. Destroying her own shop. Risking her own life, not to mention Rysen’s. For what? If the shop had been doing that bad all Christina would have to do was sell it. This seemed a little, well, extreme.
“Chris?” she called out. The other flashlight beam froze in place. It was coming from the far end of the cellar, past topped racks that formed a chaotic maze and spread shadows like spiderwebs between the two flashlights. “Hey, it’s me. It’s Rysen. I came to get you out of here.”
There was no answer. Her sister didn’t move from where she was.
“Come on, Chris. I know things have been hard. Let me help you.”
She took a few more steps, moving around a pile of broken crates, getting distracted by a hole dug into the wall to her right that was as tall as she was, the chunks of stonework tossed around the floor.
“What were you doing down here, sis? Come on. Say something, won’t you?”
Her flashlight came back around to light her path and fell on something that wasn’t
broken, and wasn’t stone.
A woman lay there on the cold floor. Red stained the back of her neck from a cut at her hairline. Rysen gasped. The woman’s head was turned to the side, and the face was visible in profile.
Christina. It was Rysen’s sister laying there.
Then who…?
“Rysen!”
Beatrice’s voice. It was Bea down there holding the other flashlight while Christina lay bleeding on the floor.
“Thank God you’re here!” she said, stepping out where she could be seen. “Your sister is hurt. I came over to ask if she’d made a decision about selling the store and I found her like this. I think she needs an ambulance.”
Rysen started to rush forward, but then stopped. Bea’s face looked ghastly in the backsplash of her own light. Her raggedly chopped hair was coated with fine white dust just like the sleeves of her blouse were. In her hand was a tool of some kind, sharp on one end.
She didn’t need to be a licensed private investigator to add up what she was seeing.
“It was you,” she said to Beatrice. “You’ve been digging at the walls. You destroyed everything down here. You…set the fire? Why, Beatrice?”
The other woman hung her head with a ragged sigh. “Oh, Rysen. Why did you have to come back to town?”
Then she lunged, with the tool up. Rysen ducked back into the broken mess around her, terrified and confused. Hiding was her only thought. That, and getting help for her sister. She wanted answers, damn it, and she wanted help.
She’d have to stay alive first.
Crouching down behind a tall shelving unit that used to hold dozens of wine bottles before it had been pushed over to lean against the wall, Rysen took slow breaths through her mouth, hoping Beatrice wouldn’t find her.
That tool with its sharp point came crashing through the wood shelf right next to her head. Rysen yelped and bolted, scurrying further away.
“I see you, Rysen!”
Bea’s voice seemed to come from everywhere, and in her panic Rysen had gotten completely turned around. She didn’t know which way to go. The flashlight! She realized she was leading Beatrice right to her with the flashlight on. She switched it off, and held it like a mighty weapon that would save her life.
It was plastic. And orange. It wasn’t going to save her from anything.
“It’s always you,” Bea shouted, her voice shaky. “Every time I try to do anything, you’re there to mess it up. All I wanted was for your sister to leave this shop. That’s all.”
The pick tool crashed down on something wooden and Rysen heard whatever it was splinter and crack.
“I tried having her shipments stolen. I figured if she didn’t have any wine to sell she’d have to close up shop. But, no, you had to come right in and get my thief arrested.”
Rysen found a hiding spot behind another of the wine stacks. Where were the damned stairs?
“So then I tried to poison Cristina. I know, I know. Friends shouldn’t try to kill other friends. But you made me kind of desperate, Ry. Know what? You ruined that plan, too!”
Now the pick scraped along the rock wall, not far from where Rysen was hiding. Every instinct told her to jump and run but she knew if she did that Beatrice would see her and catch her. She forced herself to stay put, and stay quiet.
“Then you stole Josh from me! You stupid whore! How dare you take him away from me!”
There was a crack in Beatrice’s voice, the sound of crazy amped up to eleven. Rysen lifted the flashlight again. Maybe if she was really lucky…
“So,” Beatrice said, still searching for her not ten steps away, “I figured, what the Hell. I want your sister out of the shop. I need you out of the way. Why not burn the place down with you in it?” She laughed hysterically. “Not a bad plan, right? Even used wine to make the fire spread faster. Who knew that Brandon fellow would figure it out? If your sister would have sold me the shop after the fire we’d be done here, Rysen! Ever think of that? All you had to do was keep your ass out of my business but, no! Not you! You’ve ruined everything!”
Suddenly the flashlight in Bea’s hand flicked toward Rysen’s hiding spot, bright in her eyes.
“There you are,” she said to Rysen.
She raised the tool up, casting a long shadow that ended at Rysen’s feet.
“Nothing personal,” she said. “I’m just having a really, really bad day.”
Rysen backed away from Beatrice until she felt the wall behind her. There was a crack broken out of it, but it was only a crack and nothing that Rysen could squeeze her way into. She was trapped. Beatrice was coming at her, and there was nowhere to run.
The tool swung down as Bea screeched in wordless fury.
Rysen ducked, bringing the useless orange plastic flashlight up as she did. She felt the pick end of Bea’s weapon tug at her hair but then it was past her and striking into the damaged wall. The flashlight had caught her by the wrist and managed to deflect her blow just enough.
Both of them stared at what had just happened.
Then Rysen had the presence of mind to punch Beatrice in the gut.
She whoofed out the breath from her lungs and then growled and spit and pulled the tool out of the wall and swung it down again. Rysen dodged to her left, and all Bea hit for a second time was the wall.
Only this time Bea followed up with a knee to Rysen’s midsection and a hard slap across her face.
Stunned, in pain, Rysen fell down to her knees. She looked up at Bea’s horrific smile. Was the weapon stuck in the wall? Why wasn’t Bea killing her?
Her dazed brain knew she had to do something. She just didn’t know what.
“Don’t move! Don’t move!” Rysen was sure she heard Brandon’s voice booming in the cellar space. “Put your hands up where I can see them! Do it now!”
Screaming like a hellcat Beatrice gave the tool one more hard tug and it tore out of the wall. She turned, rushing at Brandon where he stood over by the stairs—there they were—and Rysen heard a single gunshot ring out like a clap of thunder.
The thunder was followed by the rumble of an earthquake that started out softly behind Rysen and then grew intensely all around her. The cellar began shaking, and she couldn’t help but think this was a stupid time for the San Andreas fault to act up.
Brandon was there with her now, a hand under her arm, helping her up. “Rysen. Rysen! Are you hurt? We need to go. The whole place is coming down.”
Not an earthquake, then. She’d been right about how unstable the cellar had become. Beatrice smacking the wall behind her with that tool of hers had been too much and now it was all coming apart. He was right. They had to go.
No. “Christina,” she managed. “Over there. My sister. You have to help her.”
He never hesitated. “The stairs are over there. Go. Quickly. I’ll get Christina.”
She nodded, her mind a little clearer. Impending death had a way of clearing the mind. She groped blindly in the direction he had pointed her, stumbling over something soft that she thought might have been Beatrice’s body. Poor woman, she had just time enough to think.
Maybe so, but there was no time to see if she might still be alive and worth saving.
Up the stairs, into the scorched upper level of the shop that was trembling like it was made of jello and not something sturdier. The exit was that way and Rysen ran for the safety of the outside world and the sidewalk and the street.
Then she stopped, and turned, and waited for Brandon to bring her sister out.
People gathered around her, hearing the rumbling that signaled the final death rattle of the Spirit of the Soul. They peppered her with questions but the only thing she kept saying was that someone needed to call the police, the fire department, and an ambulance. Several phones came out. Most of them were taking pictures.
When the end came bare seconds later, it started at the roof. The center of it caved in and it was like the rest of the building followed behind. It collapsed inward, making a neat pile of itself i
n between the neighboring shops. Clouds of dust plumed everywhere and the roar of it was deafening.
Rysen stood there, unable to even blink. “Brandon,” she whispered. Then the real horror of it set in and she was screaming Christina’s name.
Her sister was still in there.
“Rysen!”
When she heard Brandon’s voice it was like a terrible weight was lifted off of her and she could breathe again. He came around from behind the shops, through the nearest alley, carrying Christina in his arms like she was a child. Rysen ran to him, happy tears making her vision watery.
“No time to get out the front,” he explained, easing Christina down to the sidewalk. “Had to find me a way through a hole out the back. Sorry if I scared you.”
She knelt by her sister’s side, and checked for a pulse like she’d seen people do on television. She had no idea what she was feeling for, though, and instead she looked up at Brandon. He nodded. “She’s fine. Just a bump on the noggin. Unconscious. We’ll have the doctors look at her.”
All she heard was him saying Christina would be fine. She threw herself around his neck and held on tight. “Thank you. Oh, Brandon, thank you.”
“No worries,” he told her, holding her as tightly as she held him. “I figured I should save you for a change, this time. Now. Can you explain what the hell is going on?”
From up the street she heard the wail of emergency sirens, coming fast to help her sister. “I can,” she promised. “But not now. I want to make sure Christina gets to the hospital first.”
***
Rysen sat with Brandon and her father in the hospital cafeteria, drinking bitter coffee from a vending machine. Was it possible for coffee to go stale? If so, that was definitely what she was tasting in this little Styrofoam cup. Stale coffee.