House on Fire

by Bonnie Kistler

  She wished she could rewind life as easily as she did the family videos. She’d go back to that Friday night, only this time she wouldn’t call home on their way back from the Greenbrier. They’d arrive unannounced. Chrissy would be in bed and Kip wouldn’t be, and Peter would pace and worry and yell at him when he finally stumbled home in the morning, and that was the worst thing that would have happened.

  But no, she needed to rewind further than that, back to the day she decided they had to take an anniversary trip. What was she thinking? Leaving two teenagers home alone, one of them a notorious troublemaker and the other only fourteen years old. They’d never done it before, not even when the twins were still home. It wasn’t even a good time for Peter to leave his project, but she’d insisted on it. They needed a getaway, she told him, a little romantic jaunt, but it was only herself she was thinking of.

  These thoughts were the worst torture of all, for she couldn’t escape the mutilating realization that Chrissy’s death may have been Kip’s crime, but it was her fault.

  Peter had always resisted texting before. It was for kids, he said, and besides, he’d rather hear her voice. She wanted to hear his, too, but she still couldn’t pick up when he called. So it wasn’t long before he stopped calling and took to texting instead. Every evening after dinner. OK 2day? he’d ask, and she’d reply, Fine. U? Like idiotic mutes.

  Chapter Fifteen

  When the phone rang Saturday morning, Leigh ran for it as usual, and froze as usual until the caller’s name appeared on the display and she saw that it wasn’t Peter. It was Carrie Dietrich.

  “Leigh, I am so sorry,” Carrie said. “I hate to be bothering you like this, but I don’t know if there’s someone else in your office I should call, and all hell’s breaking out over here—”

  “What is it? Is Jenna all right?”

  “She took off, that’s what. She said she was going to disappear and now she’s gone and done it. But Hunter’s not having it. He called the cops, and they’re here and he’s here with his lawyer, and there’s a TV van out front, and we don’t know what—”

  “I’ll be right there.”

  The Dietrichs’ farm was on Hollow Road, not half a mile from Peter’s job site. They operated it as a nonprofit retirement facility for aging horses that were literally put out to pasture. Chrissy had volunteered there twice a week, mucking out stalls and hauling hay bales, hard labor for a young girl, but she considered it the price of admission for the chance to stroke the graying muzzles of the old horses and whisper fondly in their ears. Golden Oldies was the name of the farm, but Kip always called it The Glue Factory, just to get a rise out of Chrissy, which always worked. He’d volunteered there, too, in the office, only long enough to get the semester’s credit.

  Three TV vans were in the drive when Leigh arrived, and ten or so other cars were parked haphazardly along the shoulder of Hollow Road. She slalomed a course around the vans and looped to the left to park by the barn. An unexpected sight stood in the meadow beyond it: a helicopter in a circle of flattened grass, its pilot leaning against the landing skid with his arms folded and his laconic gaze on the crowd by the house.

  “Stay,” she said, and Shep whined pitifully as he plopped his rear down in the seat and thrust his head out the window to track her path to the house.

  It was an old-fashioned country farmhouse with a wide front porch and white-railed stairs lined with pots of red geraniums. A couple dozen people thronged across the lawn at the foot of the stairs, some with microphones and others with shoulder-mounted cameras aimed like grenade launchers at the porch. Three steps above them stood Hunter Beck.

  When he held his press conference on the courthouse steps last month, reporters from all the major outlets attended, in numbers never before seen in Hampshire County. Today he was at a private house on a rural road that most GPS systems had trouble finding, and still he’d drawn a huge media presence. Not many private citizens could command that kind of attention, maybe not even many billionaires, but this one was a special breed. Not yet forty, Beck was widely regarded as a visionary in the mold of Steve Jobs. His Intellocity internet utility program had made him a hero to everyone for whom web pages could never load fast enough. Her own boys spoke of him with the kind of awe they usually reserved for sports figures and rock stars.

  But it was something else that drew this many reporters. The story was heartbreaking. Five years ago, Hunter’s first wife had just learned the gender of their baby, and she was so excited to share the news with him that she dashed across the street to the sidewalk café where he was waiting for her—right into the path of an oncoming cab. Her body landed ten feet from where he sat, and a hundred cell phones recorded the moment as he fell to his knees beside her howling his shock and anguish. The videos went viral on YouTube until someone finally had the decency to take them down.

  The idea that Hunter might now be losing his second family, too, had to be more than the reporters could resist. They lobbed their questions at him in a frenzy as he stood before the bouquet of microphones. He was an unsmiling man with an intense gaze behind black-rimmed glasses, and he was dressed for a day in the country, in a canvas jacket over a T-shirt and blue jeans.

  Leigh was still dressed in the yoga pants and baggy shirt she’d slept in. She gave a wide berth to the crowd and headed for the back porch as Carrie beckoned to her from the door. “Welcome to the madhouse,” she said.

  Leigh ducked inside. “Where is she?” she whispered. The vestibule was draped with barn coats and rain slickers on hooks, and lined up below them were two dog bowls and a dozen pairs of boots in various sizes—paddock boots and muck boots and knee-high riding boots made of hand-tooled leather polished to a high gleam. The mudroom of a working horse farm.

  “She won’t say.” Carrie raked her fingers through her short blond hair. She looked more frazzled than worried. “She doesn’t trust us not to let it slip to Hunter, and I can’t say I blame her after this.” She pointed Leigh through to the kitchen. “We woke up this morning and she was gone but her car was still here. So we figured either Hunter took her or she went back to him. The way her mood’s been swinging? Nothing would surprise us. So that was our first call.” She held up the coffeepot and poured herself a cup when Leigh shook her head no. “Big mistake,” Carrie said. “Jenna called five minutes later. Turns out she’s been planning this for weeks. Lining up a place to live, leasing a new car. He never cut off the money, you know. She’s been squirreling it away for a while.”

  “Did you tell Hunter that?”

  “Yep. Didn’t make a bit of difference. He called the cops anyway and reported her as a missing person and flew straight down here in his chopper. So now the cops are searching her room and taking our statements like we’re some kind of criminals.”

  Even in the kitchen the reporters’ voices could be heard shouting out their questions at the front porch. “And he alerted the media,” Leigh said.

  Carrie rolled her eyes.

  Leigh followed another set of voices coming from the living room. Fred Dietrich was at the front window, on his feet with his fists clutching the casing as he stared through the glass. Three other men were seated around the coffee table. She recognized two of them. “Sergeant Hooper,” she said as the uniformed officer shot to his feet.

  “Mrs. Conley?” He was clearly confused by her arrival on the scene.

  “It’s Ms. Huyett today, Sergeant. Attorney for the Dietrichs.” She looked down at the two men in suits still seated on the sofa. “Rob,” she said to Hunter Beck’s attorney.

  “Leigh.” Rob Canaday was an excellent lawyer notwithstanding his embarrassing defeat in this case. She didn’t beat him because she was the better lawyer. She beat him because he was young and eager. It made him too malleable in the hands of a demanding client.

  The third man got to his feet and flashed an ID from his inside coat pocket. “Detective Jim Denton. Investigating a missing persons report concerning Jenna Beck.”

  �
��She’s not missing. Her parents spoke to her this morning.”

  “But they don’t know where she is.”

  “She’s twenty-five years old, Detective. Do your parents know where you are?”

  The detective’s expression remained stony. “An investigation is called for whenever there are serious concerns for the safety and welfare of a person whose whereabouts are unknown.”

  “What concerns?” Leigh looked to Carrie where she leaned in the kitchen doorway. “Mrs. Dietrich, do you have any concerns for Jenna’s safety and welfare?”

  Carrie folded her arms. “Nope.”

  “Mr. Dietrich? Do you?”

  Fred turned from the window. “Not so long as that son of a bitch stays away from her.”

  “Her husband has concerns,” the detective said.

  “You mean the husband who hasn’t resided with her for more than two months? Who’s had no communication with her for more than two months. And who therefore knows nothing about the state of her safety and welfare.”

  “He knows that she’s pregnant,” Canaday said.

  “Believe it or not, Rob, that’s not a disability.”

  “She’s shutting him out and now she’s taken off—”

  “Because she’s an adult woman who has a constitutional right to the privacy of her own body as well as the freedom to come and go as she pleases.” She turned back to the other man. “There’s nothing to see here, Detective. And certainly no basis for a criminal investigation. I’m afraid Mr. Beck’s been wasting your time.”

  The young lawyer blustered. “He has legitimate cause to be concerned—”

  “Be honest, Rob. His only concern is that she’ll try to keep the baby from him. But like the judge said, that’s not a cognizable concern until the baby’s born. Until then he has no right to see her, to touch her, or even to know where she is.”

  “We have an appeal pending.”

  “Which you know full well you’re going to lose. Meanwhile there are some actual rights being violated here today.” She turned to Fred. “Mr. Dietrich, there’s a large number of people on your front lawn. Did you invite them here?”

  He clenched his jaw. “I did not.”

  “Did you give that helicopter permission to land on your property?”

  He snorted. “I sure as hell did not.”

  “Then I suggest you go out there and tell them they’re trespassing and they have five minutes to vacate. I’m sure Sergeant Hooper will be happy to back you up on that.”

  Fred didn’t hesitate. He stomped to the front door, and to his credit, Sergeant Hooper followed with not even a glance back for permission from the two men in suits.

  The detective picked up his notepad from the coffee table. “Mrs. Dietrich, you’ll let us know if you hear from her—”

  “She’s under no obligation to do that,” Leigh cut in, and Carrie gave a curt nod.

  “Just to close out our file—”

  “Let’s do this instead. You close it out right now as REPORT UNFOUNDED. Or we’ll make a formal complaint that you’re working as a private investigator for Hunter Beck. At taxpayer expense. Meanwhile, if the Dietrichs ever have any concerns for their daughter’s safety and welfare, they’ll call you then. How’s that?”

  The detective stared hard at her a moment before he turned and wrenched the front door open. Fred’s voice carried in from the porch. He was shouting at the reporters to get off his lawn, while Hooper’s voice underscored it with a mild, “Move along, folks. You heard the man.” Rob Canaday followed the detective outside but not before sending a parting look at Leigh—This isn’t over, he seemed to say.

  After they’d gone Leigh sank down into the sofa they’d vacated. She was trembling, not so much from emotion as from simple exertion. She felt so tired.

  “Let me get you something,” Carrie said. “Coffee, or a cup of tea or what?”

  “No, thanks. I’m fine.”

  “Better than fine, I’d say. I can’t thank you enough. Coming out here on a minute’s notice and only three weeks after—” She stopped with a hand to her throat. “I felt sick about even calling you.”

  “No, you did the right thing.” Leigh looked up at her. “But promise me you’re really not worried about Jenna.”

  Carrie waved a dismissive arm. “She left most of her clothes, which means she’ll be back. And she took her prenatal vitamins, which means she’s taking care of herself. The only thing that ever worried us was this idea in her head that he was stalking her. So if she’s got herself somewhere that feels safe to her, what’s there to worry about?”

  “You can’t help it, though, can you?”

  “Nope.” Carrie sighed. “Not from the second you know you’re carrying them.”

  “Please tell her to call me the next time you hear from her.”

  “I will.”

  When the front door opened behind her, Leigh assumed it was Rob Canaday, returning to get in a delayed last word. But it wasn’t the lawyer, it was the client. Hunter Beck stood framed in the doorway, his face pale and his gaze penetrating behind his glasses. He looked like a man of the people in lug-soled work boots and a canvas field coat, except that the boots were Dolce & Gabbana and the jacket was Burberry and each retailed for more than a thousand dollars.

  “I’m not a bad guy.” His voice, as always, was low and restrained.

  “I never suggested otherwise,” Leigh said.

  “Maybe my marriage is irretrievably broken. I don’t know. I hope not.”

  “Mr. Beck, I can’t talk to you without your lawyer present.”

  “But here’s the thing,” he spoke over her. “No matter what happens between me and Jenna, I don’t want to lose my child. I can’t lose my child. Not after— You of all people”—he looked straight at Leigh—“should understand that.”

  Her face froze. He knew? He knew, and he was using it as a weapon against her. She stared up at him, too stunned to speak.

  If she was speechless, Carrie wasn’t. “How dare you!” She lunged at him with pointed finger. “Barging in here and bringing up her—her tragedy! You get out of my house this minute, you—you—”

  He turned and left before she could muster up an adequate insult.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Leigh left soon after. The porch and the lawn were clear by then and the helicopter had lifted off with a deafening blast of air that made the geriatric horses kick up their heels and scatter like mustangs across the pasture. But the cars and TV vans were still out on the road. She felt too exhausted to run that gauntlet, and she stopped on the back steps with a weary sigh.

  “Take the tractor road,” Carrie said.

  “Good idea,” she said and gave Carrie a quick hug good-bye.

  She drove around the paddock and past the second barn to a dirt track that ran between the fencerows past pastures of horses who seemed to know the best part of their lives was over. They were all good horses once, champions some of them, but no one needed or wanted them anymore. They’d outlived their usefulness, and there was nothing to do but stand and snooze in the sunshine and wait for their time to run out.

  She drove through the meadows and up over the ridge to the woods. She hadn’t realized how close this road came to the site of Peter’s project, but as she reached the top of the hill, she could see the back of Hollow House less than a hundred yards away. Her foot eased off the gas and she stopped and stared at it through the trees.

  Construction was further along than when she last saw the place, but it was still only a shell of a house. The gaping doors and windows looked like open wounds, and the fluttering white sheets of Tyvek were like bandages coming unwrapped. It was obviously uninhabitable. It was absurd for Peter to live here when he could be in his own comfortable home. So what did it say about her that he would choose this instead?

  The crew was on-site. She could hear the sound of hammering ringing out over the hillside. It was the best sound in the world, Peter always said. It was the sound of something
being built.

  A ruddy-faced man came around the corner of the house and stopped to squint into the woods. Leigh froze. It was Kevin, Peter’s foreman, and he recognized her at the same moment. He gave a grin and a wave. “Hey, Pete,” he shouted. “The missus is here!”

  Leigh jerked and fumbled for the shifter, but before she could put the car in gear, Shep scrambled into her lap and thrust his head out her window. She tried to shove him back into his own seat, but his tail was wagging so hard it slapped her in the face.

  Peter came jogging around the corner of the house. His stubble was now a beard, and he had a hitch in his gait that made her wonder if he’d injured himself. Then she saw the black hair streaming out behind him and realized he was carrying Mia piggyback.

  She started at the sight of the little girl. She’d forgotten that this was their visitation weekend. Every other Saturday he picked her up at Karen’s and dropped her off with Leigh before he went to work. That was always their routine. But today he brought her here instead. She shouldn’t have been so shocked. He was the one with the visitation rights, after all. Mia was his daughter, not hers.

  Shepherd spotted them, or sniffed them, and he bunched up his legs and leaped through the window like a circus dog. Mia squealed with delight as he streaked through the woods toward her. She slid off Peter’s back to hug him, and a moment later Kip was there, too, dropping to the ground to wrestle with him. The dog barked and wriggled in delirium as he darted from Mia to Kip to Peter. It was one big joyous family reunion, and the pressure of tears started to build behind Leigh’s face like a steam engine. “Shepherd! Come!” she called.

  The dog ignored her, but Peter spun, searching for her through the dappled sunlight. He couldn’t see her, but she could see him, clearly. He looked like a stranger with his thick black beard.

  Kip stood up beside him and looked for her, too. The tears flooded her eyes and his face blurred out of focus, and the light around him started to bend and shimmer. A flash set his hair ablaze and a smile lit up like a thousand suns, and it was Chrissy again, in the place where Kip stood. In the place where she should have been.