Gripping her wrist, he asked “Why did you start the fires?”
“I didn't start the fires, Roger. I found the map in your bedroom. I thought⦔
“Oh, pity, pity.” Nadine's voice grated like sandpaper against Lillian's nerves.
For a second she had forgotten the woman.
“I guess I might as well join in this sweet confession. You both are going to die anyway.”
Lillian focused on Roger's wound as Nadine's voice filled the silence. “I set those fires, just like I taught you, Roger, at Attorney Hunter's. It's simple when you know how to do it.”
Her attention on Roger and with the swirl of information streaming in her head, she almost missed Nadine's words. She jerked her head up. Nadine started the fires? The mire of confusion continued to grow.
Roger struggled to sit. He groaned and slumped back onto the floor. “Why?”
Nadine's face tightened. Even the wobble on her throat seemed to turn to stone. “You moved my daughter to a house full of lead paint. My grandchild died because of it.” Her black eyes radiated pure hate as she stared at Roger. “I drove down here when she refused to answer my calls, and I found her swinging from the light fixture in the living room.”
“You're lying.” Roger coughed. Bloody froth sprayed from his mouth.
“She must have just jumped. When I cut her down, she still had a pulse. I reached for my phone but stopped. If I saved her, she would just try again until she succeeded. I decided to allow her to die in dignity.” She gave a snarling chuckle. “They never figured it out, did they?”
Lillian wanted to put her hands over her ears, to stop the horror of Nadine's confession. What kind of woman would let her own daughter die? No wonder she didn't hesitate to use a gun. Sitting beside Roger, his blood seeping through her fingers, she knew her own death was imminent.
“It wasn't hard to find someone to hack into your system. And that secretary of yours is so faithful about sending lead data to your email.”
Her smile made Lillian want to retch.
“If you did one thing right, you saved others from my pain.”
Lillian had to get herself and Roger out of the house, but that meant disabling Nadine. She scanned the well-known room.
Roger's breathing came in tight gasps. Blood dripped off his shirt onto the floor. His ashen face complemented the blue ring that circled his mouth. Even as she looked at him, her heart remained conflicted. This was the man who had killed her family, and yet he had shielded her from a bullet.
The blast shook the house.
Lillian fell backward, cracking her head on the coffee table. Stunned, she lay in a daze. An inner sense aroused her. She opened her eyes and the pain caused tears to pour from them.
Gray smoke billowed around her. She could barely see. Desperately, she twisted around hunting for Roger. She had to find him and get him to safety! Her heart pounded against her ribs as the smoke thickened. She had to avoid Nadine as she pulled Roger to safety. Straining for any signs of the woman's location, she heard nothing but the snap and pop of fire. She knew she was going to die. Flames shot around her. Heat intensified. She didn't have much time.
Heading toward what she thought was the front door, she fell onto the couch. Pulling her shirt over her nose and mouth, gasping for breath, she turned the opposite direction. She had to find Roger and a way out! As the roar of the fire filled her ears, she heard her name.
Nadine!
Urgency strengthened her resolve as she crawled across the room, hopefully away from Nadine.
A hand grabbed her.
She let go of her shirt, and fought against the vice-like grip.
The roar of the fire consumed all other sounds.
She couldn't breathe. No air. Her last thoughts as her strength left her were of Craig and Susan.
~*~
Green leaves fluttered in an ash-filled sky. The snarling sound of fire, shouting voices, and the metallic slamming of vehicle doors. Feet running. Something covered her face and mouth. A paramedic peered down at her.
How had she gotten out of the house?
Sluggishly, Lillian reached for the oxygen mask and slid it off. She turned her head toward the roar. Orange and blue flames shoved their way out of the windows. Thick streams of water hit the fire and danced before being gobbled by the hungry heat. Terror filled her. Her family was in there! She had to get them out! She shoved the paramedic and staggered to her feet. Halfway to the house, someone grabbed her around the waist. She screamed and thrashed, knowing she had to save her family. Hot tongues of fire mocked her. “My husband! My daughter! They're still in there!”
“Lillian, this isn't Cleveland. You're in Darlington.”
As she struggled, the house cracked and groaned, and finally collapsed. Sparks shot into the air.
Grief threatened to tear her apart, one memory at a time. The vision of her family inside coffins returned just before blackness took control.
~*~
Fresh air blew in her face. The overwhelming roar of the fire had faded to crackling and hissing.
She locked gazes with the same paramedic who had attended her before. Memories returned and with them a new danger. This was Darlington! Wide-eyed, her throat tight, she again struggled to sit up. “Did they get out?”
His face remained blank.
She knew that expression. She had seen it on the doctors at the hospital. “There were two others!”
Oh, please God!
She fell back onto the cart. How could she live through this nightmare again?
Someone touched her arm. “Lillian.”
Paul Studler knelt down beside her, soot covered, and a bandage circled his left lower arm. His expression held hesitation, and warmth.
A million emotions filled her as she reached out her arms to a familiar face and found herself in his embrace. As she cried, he stroked her hair.
“How's she doing?”
Lillian pulled herself from Paul's chest and looked into the concerned face of Bill Iver. He squeezed her shoulder. “Are you ready to come home?”
Home. How good that sounded.
29
She focused on the mud caking the soles of her shoes, only this time she knew how it had gotten there.
Trina held her arm as the dozen or so people stood around the gash in the ground.
Wiping her feet on the grass, she tried to remove the dirt, but it wouldn't come off. Ironic in its own way.
The coroner had released all three bodies: Roger, Nadine, and Joe.
Nadine's ashes had been sent to Ohio to rest beside her husband.
Lillian had purchased the plot beside Carla for Roger. A handful attended his graveside service; Latoya was the only one besides Lillian to shed tears.
Lillian had asked her parents not to come, and had begged her sister to stay away. This was something she needed to do without them. They had never been a part of her Darlington life.
But this trip to the cemetery had been the hardest. She had paid for Joe's interment and purchased the urn to hold his remains. She had personally placed his wedding band inside with his ashes. The ring meant a great deal to him, and it was only right that he kept it through eternity.
The pastor might have had a touching message, but she heard little of it. As people milled back to waiting cars, dry winter grass crackling under their feet, Lillian threw one last rose in the gaping hole. A tear ran down her face. He didn't deserve to die. Not this way.
Everyone was gone.
Trina pulled gently on her arm. “We need to go home,” she murmured.
Ted waited with the car doors open. They had all been there for her. Ted and Trina, Bill, Sandra, and Paul. Margaret Franks had stood beside her. Many of the homeless wandered by, standing on the fringe, but present. As their love finally reached her, the tears flowed.
At home, Sandra laid out the food brought by neighbors and friends.
“Lillian, may I fix you some lunch?” Jimmy stood in front of her, stiff and tall, most likely prompted by his grandma.
Her stomach resembled a churning sea, but the look of expectancy on the boy's face won over. “Just a little, Jimmy. I'm not real hungry.” She watched as he spooned food onto a plate, hesitating at some dishes, while piling on others.
The finished plate had small heaps of many different items. She smiled and an ache tugged at her heart. All the servings
were
small. After pushing the food around with her fork for awhile, she set her plate in the sink and went to the parlor, but the holiday spirit clashed with her aching heart. Retrieving her jacket, she let herself out the front door and sat on the swing.
The familiarity of the squeak of the chain against the bolt soothed her. Bill had said a dozen times he would give the spot a squirt of oil, but he never had. Today the grinding reminded her that life goes onâwith or without those one cared about.
Paul exited the front door. “Want some company?” He sat beside her on the swing. “This must be tough on you.”
What was she supposed to say? She felt empty, numb.
“I should have figured it out sooner. I could have preventedâ”
“Paul, don't take the blame for this. Besides, you saved my life.” She turned to him. “I don't think I've even thanked you.”
“No need.”
“You ran into a burning house, and I fought you like a crazy woman.”
He rubbed his chin. “Yes you did.”
“I thought you were Nadine.”
There were no pedestrians on the sidewalk with the temperature a chilly fifty degrees, but the squirrels didn't seem to mind the cooler air as a pair darted across the brown grass and scampered up the tree. Small piles of sawdust stood testimony to Bill's removal of the fallen limb. A car passed. There were few sounds except the swing. Even the dogs were quiet.
“How did you know I was in danger?” The question had nagged at her since the fire.
“Something about Roger bothered me.” He rested his arm on the back of the swing. “Not like Bill's intuition, but I kept thinking I had seen him somewhere before. I tried several searches, but came up blank.
“Then you showed up, and he started acting weird, almost as if he was two separate guys: some days nice, other times almost vicious. When you seemed to be attracted to him, I worried about your safety.”
Lillian sat quietly beside him, her feet keeping pace with the rocking motion of the swing.
“That news segment about drugs being smuggled into the country, it made me remember. I had seen Roger's face in the news. It took awhile, but I finally found his picture, and connected him by marriage to a drug lord in Cleveland. But he denied ever living in Cleveland. And then I found out you were the prosecuting attorney.
“All this was going on and I had no idea? Why didn't you tell me?”
“It would look as if I wanted to break up your relationship with Roger. I had to wait until I was sure.”
“And when were you sure?”
“The day of the fire at Roger's. I got a fax from the authorities in Cleveland about Roger. They felt he might be connected in some way to several murders there, but they could never find any evidence that would stand up in court. The fax had a picture of Mrs. Narducci and her daughter and Roger right after the conviction of Leo Narducci. Mrs. Narducci looked exactly like Nadine Blackwell.”
“No wonder she wanted to avoid Roger. She was supposed to be in Cleveland.”
“As soon as I realized who Mrs. Blackwell really was, and her connection to Roger, I knew you were in danger. I had to find you and tell you. Unfortunately, I was too late.”
“No, you weren't. You were right on time.”
He slid his arm around her shoulders and she stiffened, and then relaxed. She didn't need to fear him anymore, nor suppress her feelings for him. A smile flittered across her face.
30
“Any of those for me?” Jimmy asked as Lillian carried an armful of gifts to the tree.
“Oh, maybe one or two.” The boy's excitement was infectious, and she grinned at him. “But you won't know until tomorrow.”
Jimmy stared at the packages while she arranged them around the tree. “Can I shake mine?” he asked.
“No.”
His lips formed a pout; then he brightened. “What about if I just hold it?”
“No.” She stifled a giggle.
“Can I at least touch it?”
She extended the remaining box. “You can touch it with
one
finger.”
With his face contorted in concentration, he stroked the blue paper decorated with snowmen. His index finger slid back and forth across the box, as gentle as his touches to baby David.
“Now it goes under the tree,” she said.
Jimmy danced around the room. “I know what's in it!”
“You do not. You're just trying to trick me into telling you, and I'm not going to.”
Sandra called and as Jimmy skittered away to the kitchen, Lillian sank into a chair. Her usual place. Each of them had a spot in the room. No one had assigned them; it had simply become routine. Kind of like at church, where one knew someone was missing by looking to where they always sat.
The tree held center stage in the parlor. Ornaments, heavily loaded toward the bottom thanks to Jimmy's help, reflected the light from the colored bulbs. Her chest tightened as she sought out one, then another of the decorations, remembering the night they had gathered to hang them on the tree.
Trina padded into the parlor. “Hey, there, you want company? I just finished feeding David, and he's fast asleep.”
Dear, sweet David. Just thinking of him brought a smile to her face. “He's a good eater.”
Trina lowered onto the sofa. “For sure. I think he wants to be as tall as his dad by tomorrow!”
“You ought to take this time and rest.”
“I would rather talk to you. How are you doing?”
Her throat tightened. “I'm fine.” She forced a smile.
“Come on, Lillian. I know you better than that. How are you really?”