A distant popping, like popcorn in the microwave, made Jaymee freeze. She listened for the sound of Stanley’s footsteps but heard only the quiet popping noise rolling through the house. The windows were open, Jaymee remembered.
These houses are close together. Someone’s popping popcorn.
Christ. Suburbia had less privacy than the trailer court.
Standing on her tiptoes, she felt around the closet shelf. At first, she touched nothing but fine dust, stirring up motes that immediately went up her nose. Then, in the corner, something round and metal, cool to the touch. Excitement pounding in her head and hand shaking, she retrieved the item.
Her stomach plummeted to the floor. It was a Confederate belt buckle, exactly like the one in Nick’s cardboard box that Dani had said was fake.
As she stared, a whisper of smoke drifted through the open window. She hoped it came from a barbeque and not an idiot burning brush or trash in this dry weather. That didn’t go over so well in suburbia. A trash burner could count on a visit from the police.
The belt buckle wasn’t the only thing Stanley had stashed on his closet shelf. Jaymee found several Confederate bills and a grubby swatch of material bearing a chevron from what looked like a Confederate officer’s uniform. Everything looked properly old, but Jaymee had no way of knowing for sure.
Another whiff of smoke breezed through the room, stronger this time, tinged with the stink of gas or maybe kerosene.
So it is an idiot burning something. Hopefully, he’ll get arrested.
Jaymee stared at the items in her hand, mind racing, the dilemma overwhelming her. She needed these items to show to Dani, but if she stole them, Cage couldn’t use them for evidence. But having the items to trace might be a lead to Nick. It couldn’t be coincidence that he’d been researching the fakes, made an appointment with Stanley—who just happened to have similar items to Nick’s—and now Nick was missing. Even if Stanley had an alibi, he probably had a partner.
So Nick finds out about their business, comes down to Roselea to confront, and then gets attacked.
It makes sense,
Jaymee tried to tell herself. She wiped sweat off her forehead.
Doubt pounded at her head. Was any of this really a motive to silence Nick?
People have done worse for less.
She’d seen that first hand.
The smoke suddenly smelled much more acrid and heavy. Startled out of her head, Jaymee realized the smoke was actually visible in the room, drifting in like a gray ghost.
And it wasn’t drifting from the window.
A
s if emerging
from a paralyzing nightmare, Jaymee staggered to the bedroom door, feeling drunk with fear. She’d left it cracked open to give herself a buffer in case Stanley came home early. It felt warm to the touch, the handle hot as an oven rack. Smoke oozed around the door and straight into her lungs.
Jaymee coughed, hard.
The gentle popping she’d heard only a minute earlier escalated, harsh and mocking her stupidity. A hiss as strong as a hundred bull snakes followed, the sound rippling through Jaymee like an electric jolt.
Fire. The house is on fire.
She stuffed the belt buckle and money into her jeans pocket and slammed the bedroom door shut. As if the cheap particle wood would protect her.
Part of her wanted to open the door, see how far the fire had spread downstairs. Maybe she could manage to weave through it and get outside.
Why hadn’t Stanley’s smoke detectors gone off?
Her head whipped toward the door and then to the window. The fire’s heat already pressed against the door, making her skin sweat. Her heart sprinted. Her lungs raced to keep up, chest heaving until her ribs throbbed. Panic turned her brain to a single, deafening command:
Get out
!
Smoke now flooding the room, Jaymee staggered to the open window and breathed the semi-fresh air. Outside the day was still beautiful, the cerulean blue sky a brilliant contrast with the smoke-filled terror surrounding Jaymee.
The house was a two-story, a good forty-foot jump. She’d easily break both her legs, possibly more.
But she wouldn’t die of smoke inhalation, with her body cooked.
In the distance, sirens wailed. Fire Station Two that served the subdivision and outlying area was five minutes away, in normal traffic. “Help!” Her scream echoed over the copycat rooftops, sucked away with the southern breeze. “Help!”
A dull roar came from somewhere deep inside the house, followed by the sound of wood splintering, as if the house were being ripped in two, and something heavy falling.
Tears rolled down her cheeks as she fought with the window screen. Her blood pressure beat in her head, her breathing wild, each gasp a desperate plea for survival. The latch stuck, the flimsy material blocking her one chance at escape. She looked wildly around the room for something sharp enough to tear the screen.
There was nothing.
“Help me!” She screamed again. “I’m upstairs!” Rearing back, she kicked the screen with all her strength, busting a hole wide enough to get her fingers through. Frantic, sweating and choking, she tore at the screen.
The smoke had a life of its own, wrapping around her and sucking away at her senses until her eyes stung and confusion slithered into her head.
She thought of the mother she was trying to forge a relationship with, of the biological father she needed to get to know, of the friends who loved her.
And Nick. He’d already lost Lana.
But maybe he’s dead too. Maybe they were both in heaven, and I’ll join them. A heavenly love triangle.
She dropped to her knees, ripping away the last of the screen. Digging her fingers into the windowsill, she fought to remain conscious. The fire was close now, the heat overtaking the room almost as much as the smoke. Head hanging, hands clinging to the window, she peered beneath her taut arms, trying to see across the room. But it was too smoky. She saw nothing but a haze above the gray cloud, like the shimmering heat on the landscape on a blazing summer day.
Above the blistering roar, a voice drifted. Summoning the last of her strength, Jaymee hauled herself up, half hanging out of the window.
Her eyes watered terribly, robbing her of decent vision. On the lawn below stood a throng of people. The man in the center seemed to be the one screaming.
“Help me!” Jaymee said.
“I’ve got a ladder. Climb down!”
The clang of metal next to her head sent a final wave of adrenaline through Jaymee. She shoved herself straight enough to swing her left leg over the window, and then her right, her butt balancing precariously on the edge. Her body weaved.
Something shined next to her: the ladder.
The sirens sounded close now.
“Grab it!” The man screamed. “The place is going fast.”
She didn’t really remember making the decision to step onto the ladder. She simply found herself in midair, face against the house and body swaying. What was she supposed to do?
“Climb down!”
Yes, that’s right.
One foot and then the other.
Fire screeching, smoke thick and tasting of burnt wood and plastic. People screaming in the background.
And the blessed, ear-piercing sound of the siren and screeching tires.
Her feet suddenly stopped moving. Something prickly at her fingers.
Grass.
Strong hands pulled her away, and just before she lost consciousness, Jaymee saw the flames reaching out from Joseph Stanley’s house to lick the neighbor’s tree.
“It’s been a really dry season,” she said to the person carrying her away.
And then she passed out.
Like something out
of a fever-induced dream, a cacophony of frenetic voices echoed in Jaymee’s head. As she struggled to understand the panicked words, the rest of her senses bled together until all she could smell and taste was burning.
“Why the hell did the fire truck take so long to get here?”
“Wreck…traffic jam.”
“It’s spreading into the back field. Wind’s helping it. Everything’s dry.”
“Evacuate the houses!”
She finally peeled her eyes open and promptly cried out in pain. They were dry and sore, her vision still blurry.
Something covered her mouth. An oxygen mask. Jaymee moved to pull it off, but the cool, clean air felt intoxicating. She pulled in a soothing breath.
“Just relax.” A latex-covered hand caught her arm. “You’ve inhaled a lot of smoke. You need to go to the hospital to get checked out.”
She didn’t recognize the young paramedic, but her voice was as beautiful as anything Jaymee had ever heard.
She tried to speak, but the medic hushed her. “We’re leaving in a minute. The man who held the ladder for you has some minor burns on his hands. My partner’s treating him before we take you.”
“Please,” Jaymee managed to force out, “find out his name. Tell him I said thank you.”
“It was Mr. Stanley, the house’s owner. He arrived in time to see the fire and called the ambulance. Then he heard your screams.”
“Tell him I said thank you.”
“I will. Now please, relax.”
Jaymee faded in and out after that. She felt the motion of the ambulance moving, heard its wails, and sometimes the hushed voices of the paramedics.
Only one thought remained consistent in her foggy brain.
How had the fire started?
J
aymee finally started
thinking straight about the time the ambulance arrived at the hospital. No one seemed to care she didn’t want to go into the emergency room. A harried-looking doctor said something about smoke inhalation causing serious damage. He forced her through two rounds of breathing out of a weird-looking contraption that hissed alarmingly.
A nurse put drops in her eyes and then ointment on her fingers. She hadn’t realized the tips were red until then. She didn’t remember burning them.
Beyond her curtained-off trauma room, she heard the chatter of nervous voices and words like “evacuation” and “major event” being thrown around. The fire was spreading. The fields beyond the subdivision were dry—perfect kindling for nature’s warpath. Behind that lay more open land.
The curtain whipped back. Jaymee barely registered Dani’s face before her friend was at her side, arms around her.
“Cage called me. He heard on the scanner. He was so pissed. Thought you’d snuck into the house.”
“No.” Jaymee’s throat stung. “Stanley called me, asked me to clean.”
“We know that now.”
Dani’s fingers shook as she sat on the edge of Jaymee’s bed. She looked completely wrung out. “How do you feel?”
“Like I’ve just been in a fire.”
Dani glared at her.
“I’m all right. Eyes and throat hurt. They’re making me do this breathing thing and observing me. I’ll probably go home tonight.”
“Thank God.” Dani fiddled with the sheet and then glanced at Jaymee.
“What?” A dark cloud, powered with the current of fear, came down over Jaymee. “Did Cage find something out about Nick?”
“No, nothing like that. It’s just, your car. It was in the garage, so Stanley didn’t think you were there until he heard you screaming.”
“I got lucky.”
“You did, but your car,” Dani emphasized, “was in the garage.”
Realization dawned on Jaymee. Her usual bad luck rearing its thorny head. “Oh my God. That’s Penn’s car.”
“Yeah. And the fire spread fast. Hit the neighbor’s and ignited the gas grill. No one got hurt, but the fire’s getting bigger.”
“My God.”
“They’re fighting to contain it,” Dani said. “It’s wrapping around like a snake, following the wind. Beyond that meadow around the subdivision is about five hundred acres of undeveloped woodland. Natchez Fire and Rescue is helping set up a perimeter in the hopes to keep it from spreading farther than those woods.”
“At least there aren’t any houses there.”
“Animals, though. Cage said they’re running out of the woods and into fields. Poor things. And if the wind changes, Roselea’s right here, and it’s so dry.” Dani shook her head. “Cage is trying to stay on Nick’s case, but the department is small. He might have to leave it to Gina.”
“Where is Cage now?”
“Dealing with traffic. It’s chaos out there. The subdivision’s being evacuated, and people are trying to get out of town. Of course, the historic district is panicking, but they’re refusing to leave.”
“Christ. Do you have anything good to tell me?”
“Actually, I do. Remember I took pictures of that flag Nick bought? I sent them to Lee. He’s on vacation, but you know how he is.” Dani tried to smile, but only one corner of her mouth ventured up, and her eyes looked glazed and tired. “On the back of the frame was a symbol. I didn’t think anything of it, but Lee recognized it. In the past year, before I arrived, he saw several fake items with that symbol. He tried to trace the location but hasn’t had any luck. Maybe the police will. Did you find anything?”
“What?” The cloud and the remnants of smoke in Jaymee’s brain stunted her comprehension.
“Come on. I know you agreed to clean because you wanted to search. And Cage’s already ragging about how nothing you found can be used as evidence. Not that it matters now.”
“Shit.” Jaymee pointed to the hospital bag containing her smoky clothes. “I did find something. I was trying to decide if I should take them when I realized the house was on fire. Hand me my jeans.”
Dani obeyed, and Jaymee dug the trinkets out of her pockets.
Dani snatched the buckle. “Fake and damned close to the other one. No serial number I can see. The chevron might be real. It’s hard to tell without the rest of the uniform, and it’s really easy to make material look old. I’d have to check, but I think this is a design used by officers. As for this…” She looked at the Confederate bills. “They’re fake. You can buy them online for a few bucks. But they’re known to fool a lot of people.”
She examined the $2.50 note closely. “But this one might just be real.”
Jaymee sat up straighter in the hospital bed. “How can you tell?”