House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (24 page)

“It’s her,” Delaney
said as she turned to the back of the picture. 1986. Two years before the fire.
A year after Delaney had been born - the year Evie had been born. It explained
the fuller face that Delaney had never seen before. “A pregnant, younger
version obviously. Pregnant with you.”

“He was going to kill
me that day back at the cabin. I saw the pure hatred for me in his eyes. He
told me that you were my sister, but I didn’t believe him. I couldn’t believe
him. None of it made sense until I learned about the fire. It’s the only way,”
Evie said.

“Do you think
Holston’s your actual father?” Delaney asked. She despised the thought of her
mother cheating on Michael Jones, but it was the only possible explanation she
could come up with. Why else would Holston Parker take her?

“He must be. It’s
hard to admit that I am connected to that monster in any way,” Evie replied.
She gripped the wheel again, her arms flexing with the turn of her knuckles.
Her capped sleeve pulled up, revealing a thick, pink line on her arm. Her skin
was raised, protruding and healing.
The bullet scar.
Evie reached up and
yanked at her sleeve, pulling it down to cover the scar.

“It’s just so,”
Delaney started, feeling her skull pound against the headrest. “Unbelieveable.”

“You don’t have to
tell me. I’ve been living it,” Evie replied. Her words lingered in the air, the
silence falling between them again.

Delaney listened to
the drone of the country road, watching as a large machine with thick, high
tires buzzed through the field. The rows of green passed through the bottom of
the machine as a mist of pesticide spray emitted from the unit. They passed the
field to see a red barn, its familiar rounded shape outlining in Delaney’s
eyes. A sickness dredged in her gut, stirring as they neared the building and
its two-story companion.

The cows, spotted
with their black and white markings, huddled against a galvanized tank and shoved
each other as water spewed from a faucet. A teenage-looking boy, shirtless with
denim shorts, stood on the other side of the fence, a pitchfork in his hand.
The three prongs poked into the air, threatening the animals around it. Delaney
wondered if he had ever used it. Somehow, she doubted he had. She thought of
Seth and Owen, the brothers who would be much older than this boy. They could
have had this memory of their own, their teenage years spent on the farm
helping Michael Jones. They passed the boy, her body shuddering as he vanished
out of her sight.

Delaney’s eyes
scanned to the front of the house where a young, skinny girl flitted out of the
house, a chubby orange cat squeezed in her arms; its body hung near her knees.
The cat undoubtedly had been in this position before. Her ponytail bobbed a
cheerful bounce as the cat flopped onto the ground and sauntered away. Delaney
closed her eyes, unable to watch the little girl vanish just as she had the
teenage boy. Delaney felt a tear stream from the corner of her eye, sliding
down her hot cheek.

“How much longer?”
Delaney whispered, letting her head sway back and forth with the car.

“Only twenty minutes
to Angel’s Pub.”

The inside of the car
fell silent.

***

Delaney felt the car
slow as they reached the outer limits of the town where the “Welcome to Amberg”
sign dotted the right side of the road. It was a faded brown, the words barely
legible. Delaney squinted, the faint outline of spray painted letters coming
into view across the bottom of the sign: “HELL.”
Some dubious, drunken
teenagers
, she thought. Whoever had tried to scrub the sign clean had done
a half-ass job; maybe they believed the words to be true themselves. Delaney’s
arms pricked as they passed the sign and entered the town. Evie stepped lightly
on the brakes, the 25 MPH sign popping up just before a row of run-down storage
sheds appeared. The once-orange, now melon colored units boasted a small,
hand-made sign “best in town.”
Sure, because you are the only one in town.

The strip of town was
only a quarter of a mile long, the cracked and weeded sidewalks running along
the road. Delaney spotted a small church and building on her left.
St.
John’s Parish and School
, the sign read. A wooden playground with two
swings and a yellow slide were adjacent to the building; empty and unmoving in
the Saturday midday sun. They moved on to an old coffee shop and insurance
office. It was Amberg’s downtown, filled with three semi-solid buildings
connected in a row. It ended at a dilapidated, white building, crumbling from
years of neglect and abuse. Spray paint littered the side of the building, the
colors splattered in black and yellow. No one had tried to clean this building,
the spray paint too concentrated and heavy to even warrant a try. By the looks
of it, the whole town had given up.

A woman’s voice
perked in Delaney’s ears, “Your destination is in point one mile on your
right.”

Evie snagged her
phone from the console, silencing the GPS. Delaney watched as the Pub came into
view, a solid brown brick building that had to be more than fifty-years-old.
Lush, green ivy strangled the building, covering almost all of the brown on the
side nearest them. A gold, brassy pair of angel wings were adhered to the front
of the building above two small windows. “Angel’s Pub” in gold, cursive
lettering scrolled across a twenty foot span. Angel had a thing for gold.

“What’s the plan?”
Delaney said, breaking the silence between them. They both had played out the
possibilities in their head; both unwilling to even talk about how he could
have possibly pulled it off - the reality that he had separated them for
twenty-five years was simply too shocking. Delaney couldn’t possibly comprehend
what their relationship would be after today, if they were both still alive.
She was sure Evie had the same thought.

“I don’t have one,”
Evie repeated the same words she had said when they pulled into the motel to
see Florence.

“Then why are we
here?” Delaney asked as Evie silenced the engine.

“We have to start
somewhere. Florence said that, if she had to guess, Holston is trying to right
all his wrongs. They had to be here together, at some point, when it was House
of Steel. Maybe she was his waitress?” Evie offered as she reached for the wig.
Delaney pressed her hand on Evie's, stopping her from picking up the wig.

“There’s no hiding
anymore,” Delaney said. It was obtuse and over-dramatized, but Evie had been
hiding for too long.

Evie rolled her eyes
before she stepped out of the car. Delaney exhaled and mimicked her action,
stepping onto the blacktop. The smell of heated oil from the sun beating on the
newly-poured black surface permeated her nostrils. Angel’s Pub had to be doing
well if she had money to maintain the parking lot. Delaney wasn’t surprised;
she hadn’t seen another bar or tavern as they drove into town. The people of
Amberg needed somewhere to drink themselves into a stupor to forget, even for
one single moment, that they lived in a shitty town, in the middle of nowhere.
She wondered why her parents had lived here in the first place. Delaney spotted
a pink, shining motorcycle in the back. Its chrome glinted in the sun,
highlighting the bright pink tank that swelled near the seat. Two gold angel
wings adorned the seat, intricately stitched into the pink leather. Angel was
doing all right.

They ducked into the
darkness of the pub, the chiming of bells ringing as they walked through the
door. Delaney blinked, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Stale
cigarette smoke and yeasty fermentation wafted through the air as she scanned
the red vinyl booths lining the outside of the walls. The dank wood paneling
decorated the walls halfway up, like a ‘70s family diner in the north woods it
had once been. Neon beer signs flashed on the walls only to be separated by the
occasional mirrored image of a trout or deer. A long sweeping white counter ran
most of the length of the building, red vinyl seats with single chrome bases
were adhered to the ground. Delaney guessed Angel hadn’t renovated or decorated
the interior of the pub herself. The place was empty.

“I’ll be right with
ya,” a woman’s voice yelled from behind a door. Delaney watched as Evie strode
in and slid down on a stool at the bar just like any regular. Delaney followed,
feeling the leather stick to the back of her thighs. She pulled her feet up,
letting them rest along the chrome bar footrest before her right foot began
tapping. Delaney eyed the dusty chalkboard behind the bar that listed out the
specials for the week in skinny, pink lines.
Rails and pints.
Ladies’
night EVERY NIGHT
. The advertisement was underlined with three thick lines.
Next to it, a pink, smiling clam. The door swung open.

“What can I do for ya
hunnies?” Angel popped through the door as she tossed a damp cotton dishcloth
over her pink shoulder. Her blond, frayed hair was styled with a Farrah Fawcett
featheriness, reminiscent of the classic iconic poster of the actress in a red
bathing suit. Angel’s face wasn’t nearly as pretty as Farrah’s, though. She
lacked the bright white smile, the sparkling eyes. She didn’t have the look
that she was your best friend. She had the look that she was both able and
definitely willing to fuck a man senseless. The kind of woman that would hold
her legs high in the air. Not ugly, not pretty. Pink painted lips and matching
circles on the apples of her cheeks attempted to mask her age, which was
pushing sixty, Delaney guessed. Blue eye shadow finished the ensemble with
heavy mascara coating her lids. Angel was doing the best she could with what
she was given.

“Whiskey,” Evie said,
her eyes steady on Angel. Delaney jerked her head toward Evie.
Whiskey? “
Two
shots,” Evie added.

“You got it.” Angel
nodded her head and bent down, her aging breasts in all their wrinkled glory
from years of sun worshipping flopped with her body. She clanked three shot
glasses in front of them, the glasses a cloudy white of questionable
cleanliness.
Shots.
Even Delaney knew that whiskey wasn’t usually served
as a shot; it was an old man’s sipping drink while they nursed their cigars.
Evie
doesn’t drink.

“You girls ain’t from
around here. Where ya headed?” Angel asked.

“Not sure yet.
Thought maybe you could help with that,” Evie said as Angel unscrewed the top
of the Jack Daniels and splashed the deep amber liquid into the glasses.
Delaney watched as she expertly pulled the bottle up just when it appeared that
the liquid would overflow and trickle onto the counter. Angel placed the cap
back on the bottle without spilling a drop. She clanked the bottle behind the
bar before answering.

“Oh yeah, how’s
that?” Angel held up the middle shot glass, waiting for Evie and Delaney to
snatch up their own.

The three glasses
clinked together in an awkward celebratory cheer; the three women had nothing
to rejoice in. Maybe it was in commiseration. Or perhaps it was a salute to
being a woman. Delaney didn’t know, but she brought the jittering liquid to her
lips, throwing it down her throat as she squeezed her eyes shut. The whiskey
burned as it went down, carrying the thick coating of vomit with it. The acidic
vomit taste was replaced with the charcoal, woodsy taste of the liquor. She
appreciated the change of pace, although she despised alcohol as a general
rule. Yet she had drank more in the past year living in Appleton than she had
in her entire life. Appleton and Holston Parker had that kind of effect on
people.

“We’re looking for
some information,” Evie said as she slid the empty glass across the counter.
Angel stopped it with her hand, waiting. Delaney could tell that Angel had the
patience of an angel, fitting of her name. Any bar owner that actually worked
at the establishment had to. Delaney was sure that the drunken rednecks gave
her hell.
And Angel would smile a sweet smile before cutting their balls off
.
Angel was that type of lady.

“Well, ya gotta give
me a little more than that, now, don’t ya?” Angel swiped the glasses from the
counter and slid them behind the bar with another clank. Delaney wondered if
Angel ever dreamt about the clanking, the bar filled with the clattering of
glass and dishes all night long. Angel pulled the rag from her shoulder and
wiped the counter with a sudden sweep so fast that Delaney barely caught it.
The rag was back on her shoulder. Waiting.
We’re losing valuable time.

“We’re looking for
information about a woman that used to work here as a waitress when your bar
was House of Steel,” Delaney started, eyeing Angel’s reaction.

“Are you the hunny
that called last night?” Angel’s hair flipped to Delaney, her eyelashes
batting. Delaney felt Evie’s eyes on her.

“Yes.”

“Well then, why
didn’t you say so?” Angel flashed a smile. “So this waitress that you keep
talking about. What’s her name?”

“Ann Jones,” Delaney
replied, her voice cracking as she said her own last name.
Their
last
name.

“Oh, sure, doll. I
remember her. A pretty little thing. Brown hair, blue eyes. She was a townie.
You know, a girl that grew up here and stayed here. Well, until…” Her voice
softened as she leaned in. “You know what happened, right? That poor woman,
losing her little ones like that. It was a tragedy. Nothing like Amberg had
ever seen. We ain’t seen nothing like it since. God bless their souls.” Angel
flashed her hand in a small sign of the cross before kissing her fingers and
raising it up to the battered and badly stained ceiling tiles.

“How did you know
her?” Evie asked.

“Everyone knows
everyone in Amberg. Can’t get away from that here. I was a waitress here, too,
but not when she was here.” She shook her head as if she was reconciling that
she was once a waitress. Owning a bar seemed much more prestigious to Angel. It
didn’t seem that much different to Delaney.

“When you were a
waitress, do you remember ever seeing a man come in with black hair and gray
eyes?” Delaney asked. She felt another glance from Evie.
God, that was a
dumb question
. She deserved the look.

“Sure, I seen many
guys with black hair and gray eyes, hunny.” Angel let out a little chuckle as
she slapped her hand on the counter. “You damn well know these dirty men leave
with their eyes glassy and dark.”

“Holston Parker,”
Evie said. “A man by the name of Holston Parker.”

“Nope, never heard of
him.” Angel shrugged her shoulders in a little raise and shook her frayed hair.
The dirty blonde hair swiped across her cheeks before it settled back into the
mainstay sweep. Her hair was military-trained, a clear indicator that she’d had
the hairstyle for years, if not decades.

Delaney studied her,
wondering if her mother had stood in that exact spot more than twenty-five
years ago. The diner would have been brighter, vacant of the stale beer and
smoke; the smell of bacon and eggs would have simmered through the air instead.
She imagined her mother’s pregnant belly behind the counter, bumping it
slightly as she carried around the plates, most likely critiquing the cook’s
feeble attempts at meals she most assuredly could have out-cooked. Delaney
wondered if Holston Parker sat in the exact seat she was sitting in, his fedora
resting on the counter next to his plate. He was handsome, murderously
handsome, even in his sixties, Delaney had to admit.
Swept Ann off her feet;
she was smitten by George Boyd.
Delaney’s mind spun.

“What about George
Boyd?” Delaney sputtered, the name not coming out fast enough.

“You know George?”
Angel’s eyes lit up as she flashed another off-white smile, a pink smudge now
on her front tooth. Delaney wanted to reach over and wipe it off with Angel’s
dirty towel wrapped on her shoulder. “George is the reason why this place is
open. He has been a blessing beyond belief. My savior in this fucked up world.”

“I don’t think we’re
talking about the same person,” Evie said, shaking her head.

“George Boyd.
Handsome man if you ask me. Black hair with a glimmer of silver. I always told
him it makes him look distinguished.” She pulled the towel off her shoulder and
rapped it on the counter. She was giddy, school-girl giddy. Her eyes danced as
she talked about him.
He’s got everyone fooled, wrapped around his
distinguished, crooked finger.
Delaney felt her skin crawl as Angel’s voice
bounced.

“Always wears a
fedora. Square jawline, like a man with needs,” she whispered. “Gray, sultry
eyes to die for.” Delaney shuddered at her words.
Plenty of people have died,
that’s for sure
.

“That’s the one.”
Evie stared at Angel, her voice unflinching as she cut her off.

“Well, you girls just
missed him. George was just here. He left about ten minutes ago,” Angel replied
with a smile.

29

June 16 - 12:38 p.m

Delaney and Evie left
a stunned Angel still standing behind the bar. They had interrogated her in
less than four minutes, but Angel’s answers didn’t yield what they needed to
know.
Was he with anyone?
No.
Did he seem like he was in a panic?
No.
What did he want?
He dropped off an envelope, the usual monthly drop off
of cash.
How much was in there?
She had stopped counting after ten
thousand dollars. There was still another wad, the same size as her first
stack.
How much did he usually drop off?
One thousand dollars.
What
did he want?
Nothing, just to drop off the envelope and to say he might not
be back for a while.
Did he say where he was going?
She shook her head.
Angel didn’t know, just like everyone else didn’t know.
Why is he helping
you?
She shrugged her shoulders a final time, her lips parted just the
slightest bit, waiting, just as Angel always waited.

Delaney knew that
Angel would never tell them why Holston was helping her, though, and Delaney
didn’t care. All she cared about was getting Ann back. Besides, if Holston was
settling Angel for a long period of time, it only meant that he planned on
taking Ann away.

Delaney pulled Evie’s
arm and stumbled out into the daylight, leaving Angel with her twenty grand,
gold wings and slacked face. The sun beat on the blacktop, leaving a willowing
haze of air rising to the sky. Delaney clamored into the car in a panic,
slamming the door shut.

“FUCK!” Delaney
screamed as Evie revved the engine and slammed in reverse. The Focus responded
mildly, a half-hearted attempt at living up to the driver’s expectation. Evie
needed a badass V8 engine, not the rented Focus. It felt like a damned
precursor to the journey ahead. Delaney imagined her uncle writing the headline
for his paper:
Two women in rented Focus track down serial killer - save
woman.
Implausible. Laughable. They were naive to think they would ever
find them.

“I’ve got two places
in mind,” Evie replied. “He can’t go that far around here. No airports, no
airplanes. He’s only got his car. And I don’t think he would have enough cash
liquidated to leave the country. Not yet anyway. Unless…”

“Unless what?”
Delaney asked, dreading the response.

“Unless he had
planned this. For a long time,” Evie said as she punched in an address into her
GPS.

They sat stopped at
the only stop sign in the town. It was the intersection of the shit-town mecca,
a Citgo gas station was on the right. A tiny, old, abandoned grocery store on
the left. It was as if everyone in Amberg didn’t want to be in Amberg. They
didn’t need a grocery store, but they needed a gas station to get out, to drive
far away from the town limits. They also needed Angel’s Pub to drink themselves
into thinking that their lives weren’t as bad as they really were.

Evie settled on the
address and accelerated forward, the woman’s voice dictating to follow the path
they were on. A few seconds past the stop sign, Amberg was gone.

“Where are we going?”
Delaney asked again.

“To his foster
parents’ place; a little house in the woods. He might want to stop there,” Evie
paused, contemplating if she should offer more information. “Janice and Ken
Hinske.”

“Did you know them?”

“No, I didn’t have a
clue about them until I was doing a little research back in Norway. Ryan had a
connection with some computer guy, an underground network hacker,” Evie said.

“Our heads were in
the same place,” Delaney smiled as she looked at the flat landscape barren of
commercialization. Back to farm fields. Delaney thought of Kandy sipping some
fruity cocktail on a lounge chair, bathing in the warm summer sun and watching
the salty ocean water wave onto the white sand. Maybe Kandy did have it all
figured out after all.

“You don’t strike me
as the type of person to have hacker friends,” Evie laughed as she took the
next turn dictated by the woman’s voice.

“A friend of a
friend, but I didn’t get very far,” Delaney replied. She felt her phone lying
heavy in her pocket.
I should call James.

“Do you have any
other… family?” Delaney asked as she slid her fingers into her pocket, wedging
out the phone. The question was loaded, but Delaney hadn’t meant it to be. She
just wanted to know more about Evie’s childhood, about the Parker family and
their past. Delaney realized too late that technically
she
was Evie’s
family. Mark, Ann, Michael and Ben. They were all her family. With a tight
face, Evie shook her head no.
Of course she didn’t have any family.

Delaney held the
phone up to her ear, inhaling, not sure what she would say; not sure what she
should
say, but she knew she needed to check in. For all she knew, Sanchez could be
back by now, just in time to alert Holston.
Sanchez with his suspecting and
knowing eyes
. Evie reassured her with a nodding head and a whisper to
stay
calm
. Calm was a joke at this point. She had thrown serenity out the window
six months ago.

“Delaney, where are
you?” James whispered, his voice muffled and close. The sound clenched her
heart, pulling her back to him. Pulling her back to sanity. Delaney envisioned
him huddled, walking away from Mark and her father, his hand cupped over his
mouth.

“We’re getting close.
We just missed them,” Delaney said, carefully forming the words.

“Where are you?” His
whisper was more forceful, almost angry.

“James, we’re close.
We’re fine.” They weren’t fine. They had no plan, no
real
direction on
where he might bring Ann. They were working off a hunch, yet that’s all they
had.

“It’s not safe,
Delaney,” James urged. “You have to tell me where you are. I want to help. Your
Dad and Mark are in a panic. I can’t hold them off much longer.”

“Whatever you do,
don’t call the police.”

Silence.

Delaney closed her
eyes, feeling the warmth of dread soak into her.

“Dad?” Delaney
continued.

“Yeah, Sanchez left a
card and your dad couldn’t take it so he called him back. He’ll be here any
minute.”

Panic rose in
Delaney’s throat.
How far would they go? How far would Holston go?

“James, you’ve got to
make something up. Tell him I left with a friend. June. Something,” she
pleaded. “You don’t know what you are dealing with. Holston’s a murderer. He’s
got the police department under his wraps. It’s corrupt, James. They’re all
working for him. We can’t have Sanchez chasing us down.”

“Jesus, Delaney. What
the hell is going on? You and Evie can’t do this alone. What makes you think
you can go against a murderer? This is what the police department is for. This
is their job,” James said. His voice was exhausted, tired of fighting with her.

“It’s
supposed
to be their job, unless they are getting paid off by Holston. We don’t know who
is and who isn’t, but in the meantime, just fend him off for a little bit
longer,” Delaney paused. “Please. Just a little bit longer. We’re close.”

“You realize how
crazy this is? What you’re asking us to do?”

“Yes, but please,
trust me. Give me another hour.”

“One hour. That’s it.
Then all bets are off.”

“Deal.”

“I love you,” James
whispered.

“I love you, too.”
Delaney clicked the red button.

The woman’s voice
interrupted the silence between Evie and Delaney.
Point two miles to your
destination.
The last of the fields disappeared on the left, a string of
full canopied trees with their thick, strong trunks springing up. Evie sped on,
the trees whipping past the window until she slowed near a clearing on the
right. She turned into the dirt entry of a field, its mouth rutted with heavy
tracks from tractors and equipment. Their bodies jerked back and forth as the
car struggled to move through the dirt, its tires spinning as she rocked the
car up to the line of trees. Delaney looked over at Evie, waiting for the
explanation. All Delaney saw was an empty field ahead of her.

“The house is on the
other side of the woods…” Evie continued, “And if they’re here, our best bet is
an ambush.”

Evie reached behind
the seat and swung her backpack to her lap. She unzipped it and pulled out a
thick, stretchy band with Velcro. She lifted her dress up, exposing her upper
thigh to wrap the black band around it, securing it tight. Evie reached inside
the bag again, the silver sparkling in the sun as she pulled the knife out. She
touched the tip of it with her finger before she slid it into the loop on the
band. It rested against her skin as she made the final adjustments and pulled
her dress back down. Delaney wondered who had started the
touch the tip of
your knife
game. Maybe it was to make sure the tip was sharp. Maybe it was
the feeling of power. Whatever it was, Delaney didn’t care as long as Evie was
willing to use it.

Evie reached behind
the seat again, this time pulling out a pair of black combat boots. She pulled
her knees up, slipping on the boots and lacing them up to her lower calves with
expert precision. Her fingers moved in quick movements, lacing and tying within
seconds before she moved onto her right foot and repeated the same drill.
Delaney wondered how many times she had laced boots with that accuracy. They
were new, unblemished, their rubber still exuding that fresh rubber smell. Evie
finished, putting her legs back down onto the floor mat and held out her hand,
waiting.

“What?” Delaney
asked.

“The gun.”

“How did you know?”
Delaney hesitated, not wanting to give up the safety of the 9mm. Evie held her
small hand steady, still waiting.

“You can see the
bulge underneath your shirt, and your shirt is white, the gun is black. I saw
you adjust it. Do you want me to go on?” Evie asked. “I thought I’d be polite
and wait for you to offer it up. Since you haven’t, and I’m going to need it, I
thought I’d ask.”