Lifelines: Kate's Story (43 page)

Should
she leave the chain saw, or take it home? Taking it home meant departing from
her plan, but it might reduce her risk. Everything else she planned to
leave—the rags, bowl, and paint thinner—would be destroyed in the fire. A fire
inspector might ask Denny to look at the place afterwards. She didn’t want him
to mention the skeleton of a chain saw he’d never seen before. And the only
reason for the chain saw had been to explain the tin of gasoline.

She
decided to take the small chain saw back to the garage at home. She’d brought
the rags and thinner in a plastic bag, and now she stuffed this into her
pocket. Then she carried the small chain saw to the open door and set it
outside. Using the flashlight, she located the electrical circuit box and used
both hands to open its cover. She hadn’t been able to find any information to
confirm her theory, but surely it made sense that electrical circuit breakers
would trip when the fire took hold and burned wires. What she didn’t know was
whether the main breaker would trip, shutting off power to the whole building.

It
didn’t matter, because Richard had labeled each of the breakers. She turned off
office and Jake’s room. Jake had once slept where Mac made his bed now, and
shame on Richard for not changing the label. It wouldn’t matter now, though.
Jake’s room—or Richard’s—would be in the dark if he woke.

Outside,
she stood in shadows and listened to night sounds as her eyes became
acclimatized. No cars on the access road. No sound of Richard waking. She
walked along the building to the office door, his only exit. His key slid into
the deadbolt lock silently, turning with a mere whisper of sound.

She
returned to the storage area. Her eyes were accustomed enough to night that she
didn’t need the flashlight to guide her. She stood quietly for a moment,
studying the shelves and mentally reviewing the list she’d burned. There would
smoke, lots of it, but little noise. Once the gasoline caught—the books said it
wouldn’t explode in these conditions, but would burn violently—the fire would
quickly heat the shelves and the wall of Richard’s room. Thick, black smoke would
churn up from the gasoline; while the plastic bottles of paint thinner on the
shelf above melted and fueled the flames.

In
fires, most people died from smoke inhalation.

She
wished she could watch.

Carefully,
she pulled the soaked corner of one rag over the edge of the bowl. Then she
flicked the lighter she’d brought and touched it to the paint thinner. Flames
crawled onto the rag, then over the lip.

She
walked away.

Before
she closed the warehouse door, she looked back and saw the flickering flame had
already grown much larger.

Perfect.

She
drove home with the same caution she’d used throughout, keeping her mind firmly
focused on the list. People who got caught weren’t careful enough.

Rachel
knew how to be careful.

If
there were traffic on the road, she would have driven past her house, but the
highway was empty, everyone asleep long ago. She doused the headlights before
she rounded the last turn on the highway and let the car roll quietly towards
the drive.

Her
drive now, not Richard’s.

She
smiled as she crawled over the gravel drive. The sky had filled with clouds
while she was out, leaving the drive a black shadow among looming trees. She
steered by memory and the blacker mass of trees in contrast to the ordinary
black of the drive. Her stomach jumped with urgency now, but she took time to
turn the car slowly so the quiet crunch of gravel wouldn’t be audible at Ed’s
place. Earlier, when she took Ed into the garage, the car had stood face out.
She parked it exactly the same way now. Then, very slowly, she eased the garage
door down.

She
stood outside afterwards, straining for any sign that Ed or his wife had woken.
If they had, she would have changed her story to fit wakeful neighbors. But the
house next door stood in complete silence.

Inside,
Rachel opened the trunk and returned the chain saw to its usual place. Then she
went to the laundry room, where she stripped and put her clothes in the washing
machine, including the sneakers. She sat in the dark until the washer cycle
finished, then she put the shoes to dry on top of the water heater, and the
clothes in the dryer. By five o’clock in the morning, the clothes were
laundered and replaced in her dresser. By the time anyone thought to look, the
shoes would be dry.

She’d
cut one of her sleeping pills in quarters, swallowed one piece and flushed the
other three down the toilet. If anyone did a blood test, there would be traces
of the sleeping pill she’d told Ed she planned to take. No one would check, but
she was smart enough to attend to every detail.

In
bed, she closed her eyes and thought about the money. Richard’s business would
be a pain in the ass, but she’d hire a broker to look after it. As for the
insurance money—the great thing about insurance was how fast insurance
companies paid up. She wouldn’t have to wait for probate or any of that shit.
She would leave Madrona Bay and move to Bellingham. Richard should have set her
up in an apartment in Bellingham in the first place. She shouldn’t have to
commute when she needed every minute to keep her grade point average up and
guarantee herself a place in law school.

If
Richard hadn’t been so selfish, none of this would have happened.

K
ate
woke with the sweep of the lighthouse beam racing across the strange bed. From
the other twin bed, she heard the sound of Jennifer’s slow breathing. She
pushed the covers back, pulled on jeans and a t-shirt and walked barefoot
through the house to the veranda. She found Han leaning against the rail,
staring into a cup of coffee. When he saw her, he stood erect.

“I’ll
get you some coffee, Katie.”

You
haven’t earned the right to call me Katie. All these years ... where were you?

“I
don’t want coffee.” In her counseling office, her coffee mug was her
touchstone, keeping her centered when faced with a difficult client. Here she
laced her fingers together and faced him across the shadowy veranda. “What
happened in Alaska. Why did you send us away?”

They’d
talked over dinner, Han’s nervous smiles and baked salmon, Jennifer’s open
curiosity, Kate’s fear of asking the real question. He’d told them about
lighthouse weather reports, light keepers’ shifts, and his stepson Harry who
was presently away on vacation.

He
hadn’t mentioned Alaska, but he’d offered them beds to sleep in.

“How
about a drink,” he said now. “Whiskey?”

“I’ve
gone a lot of years without knowing. Don’t you think it’s time for the truth?”

“I’ll
get the whiskey.”

She
waited amid the sounds of wind-caressed ocean and trees until he returned with
a bottle and two glasses. She held hers in one hand and watched. She didn’t
remember him as a drinker and he confirmed her memory by sipping, not throwing
it back.

“A
friend of mine is a contractor,” she said. “I spent a lot of time on his
construction job this winter, hammered some nails. It reminded me of how much I
loved helping you build.”

“I
missed you, Katie, every day.”

She
wanted to throw the whiskey back, the way she wanted to drive too fast. She forced
herself to sip. “If you missed me, why didn’t you bring us back?”

“It
wouldn’t have worked.”

“I’ll
be fifty years old next December. Whatever the reason, I’m old enough to know
it now. Mom says if I hadn’t fallen from the roof, everything would be fine.
She says our family fell apart because of my accident. Is that true?”

He
tossed the rest of the whiskey back. “I sent you away for my pride ... because
your mother lied to me.”

Kate
leaned her back against the rail and hugged herself. “She still lies.”

He
spoke to the trees across the garden. “I heard you fall.”

Kate
heard the ocean now, sounds of surf stirred by the freshening wind.

“I’d
just picked a bundle of shingles from the back of the truck. I dropped them
when you screamed. You were on the ground. You’d landed on the rail, I think,
and you tumbled—you looked—I thought you were dead ... Then I knew you were
alive. I couldn’t see any blood. Your face looked so white, and you couldn’t
breathe right. I knew things were broken inside. Couldn’t move you ... had to
wait for the ambulance.”

She
trembled and remembered, “The shingle slid under my foot. I thought it was
nailed, then I realized ... that’s all I remember.”

He
shoved his hands into his pockets. “They said you had broken ribs, broken leg
and ankle, and you’d punctured a lung. The worst was the internal bleeding,
that’s what almost killed you. Your mother gave blood, but they couldn’t use
it—her blood is incompatible with yours. I gave blood.”

The
ocean whispered along the silence. She smelled something sharp and bitter from
the shore.

He
said, “I didn’t believe it about the blood, not at first. From the day of your
birth, you were special to me. Mine. I would have left your mother years
before, if it didn’t mean losing you.”

She
closed her eyes and her body remembered snuggling against him in the living
room, hiding from bedtime in an extended cuddle with Dad.

He
said, “I thought you were mine.”

She
understood then.

She
had not inherited her father’s red hair, his big bones, nor his brown eyes.
Because she would not spend another year in grief, refusing to accept truth,
she said, “I’m not your daughter.”

“That’s
not true.” She heard his glass fall to the ground. “I don’t care about the
blood. I don’t care who your mother—I don’t care. You’re my daughter. I was a
damned fool. Later—afterwards, Evelyn wouldn’t let me near you. I should have
kept my mouth shut, and I wouldn’t have lost you.

“I
remember when you fought me over using power tools. Sixteen years old, and you
insisted you could work safely with the power tools. I worried you’d get hurt.
I wanted to protect you, but you didn’t let me. I never told you, but I was
very proud of you. Just a little girl, but you were one of my best workers. I’m
still proud of you.”

She
took two steps and closed her hand around his arm.

“I
hardened my heart against your mother, against you. If I could do it again ...”

D
arkness
shrouded Peru, and the pack on Mac’s back made it almost impossible to walk the
narrow mountain path. Jagged cliffs crowded on both sides, and ahead, Mac’s
world narrowed until the stars overhead began to fall, landing on his clothes
and burning through.

Socrates,
strapped to Mac’s back, began to whimper just as Jake’s face appeared in the
narrow opening ahead. Jake was young, his hair the deep brown Mac remembered
from his childhood.

“What
are you doing here?” asked Socrates.

“The
dam won’t hold,” said Jake. “Crack in the South wall. Better get out.”

Ahead,
the south wall crumbled and closed the path.

Socrates
said, “Kate ran out of nails, and it’s falling apart.”

“Jake?”
called Mac. “Where are you?” but the path pressed against his mouth and nose
until he couldn’t breathe.

Socrates
whimpered in the dark and Mac fell to his hands on the ground.

“Kate
will die here if the South Reach breaks.”

His
hands stung from the sharp edges of cobblestones, but he couldn’t feel
Socrates. His hands found a human face. A woman’s face, long hair, shoulders,
arms, a suitcase attached to her hand. Richard’s mother said, “Just walk away.
It’s easier.”

Socrates
began to lick Richard’s face with his juicy tongue.

“Mother,
where are you?”

Socrates
whimpered and licked Mac’s ear. Mac lifted his arms and levered the dog’s head
down against his chest. Socrates struggled against him.

Dark.
Silent, except for Mac’s own hard breath. The dam, the mountain ... Peru.

A
dream, but his heart still hammered and he couldn’t breathe. Just a dream,
because Jake was dead, and who knew where little Richard’s mother might be?

Socrates
struggled in Mac’s grip and sniffed at his throat urgently.

“Easy,
buddy. It’s just a dream.” Mac struggled to a sitting position. “Can’t see a
damned thing. What about you?”

Mac
found the dog’s wrinkled head by touch and rubbed ears. Socrates made a deep
whining sound. “Power’s out. Go back to sleep. Bad dreams and no electricity.
Nothing to be done about it until dawn.”

When
he lifted the dog down to the floor, Socrates immediately moved away in the
dark. Mac flopped back down on the bed and threw the blankets aside. He
couldn’t breathe for the heat. Summer in Peru. The dream, setting his
metabolism burning. He still felt the pulse of panic, the bite of rocks in his
hands.