Death of A High Maintenance Blonde (Jubilant Falls Series Book 5) (21 page)

There was a
whoosh
of fire igniting in the hall; smoke began to curl through the wide cracks between the door and the frame.

Two shots rang out on the other side of the door. Had Julia just shot Andy and then herself? Was the twisted history this family had kept inside these doors now finished? Or was it the police, using a flash-bang grenade to gain access to the house?

I ran back to the window to see law enforcement rush toward the porch and into the house.

Down the stairs again, I began to pound on the door, despite the growing smoke. I needed to get out before the fire found Andy’s oxygen tank.

I groaned in a combination of pain and frustration, running back to search for something to get police attention. Could they come through the flames on the second floor? I didn’t know. In one corner was an old kitchen chair, but it was heavy. I would need two arms to pick it up and shove it through the window.

Smoke grew thicker in the attic, stinging my eyes and burning my lungs. My head spun with the chemical smell of the burning varnished wood. I tried to make my way back to the window, feeling my way as I crawled along the old wooden floor. Flames flashed through the attic door and at my back, knocking me on my face.

The attic window shattered—it was a firefighter at the end of the bucket truck.

Chapter 34 Charisma

“Are you OK? Did she shoot you?” I rushed up to the gurney carrying Addison to the waiting ambulance. I’d heard two gunshots and assumed—like the assembled law enforcement—that one of the victims was my boss.

I’d never been so happy to see someone who’d gotten the raw end of any deal of mine. Her arm was in a splint, but she reached up with her good hand to pull off the oxygen mask from her face and grabbed my sleeve. Her voice was raspy and jagged from the smoke.

“Julia killed Eve—she told me so herself! She also told me Jimmy Lyle didn’t die in the tornado—her father killed him when Eve told him he was pregnant.” Addison started to cough and gasp. The EMT beside her placed the oxygen mask back over her face.

“Betty told me that Eve killed Bob Martz, too,” I said. “I’ve got it all written down.”

Addison pulled the mask off again. “Get back to the newsroom. Get this story written and up on the website. Nobody else has this story. We need to be the first,” She began to cough again.

“Please don’t talk any more, ma’am,” the EMT said, reaching to place the mask on her face again.

She waved him off and swung her legs over the side of the gurney. “Let me finish! Don’t forget the rest of your story, too,” she rasped. The coughing began again; this time, she lay back and allowed the EMT to replace the oxygen mask.

“Of all people, you didn’t think you could shut her up, do you?” Gary McGinnis grinned at the medic. “Let me ride with you guys and get her statement. I have a feeling she won’t stop talking even on the way to the hospital.”

I stopped to watch, as Addison was loaded into the back of the ambulance and Gary jumped in the back of the ambulance with her.

How could one house contain so much destruction for so long?

I turned to watch the firefighters fight the fire in the old house. Would it survive the flames or would it collapse in on itself?

I looked over at Leland, who was talking to Judson Roarke. Maybe he was filling the sheriff in on what he’d found out about Eve’s son, Andy. Maybe he wasn’t. Maybe he was telling Roarke about me. I didn’t care. I needed to tell this story of these three murders.

Then I needed to leave town.

I had half of my story left to tell, but right now I wasn’t sure I could do it.
Maybe Dr. Bigmouth could fill Addison in on the rest of what he’d found out about me,
I thought sourly.

I stood in silence watching the firefighters contain the upper-story flames. The lower story looked like it might survive, but flame were now shooting out of the attic, where Addison was found. As the water hoses bombarded the old brick home, Leland sidled up beside me.

“Hate to see a place like this go up in flames,” he said tentatively.

“Uh-huh.” I stepped away in self-protection.

“Charisma,” he began softly. “We’re both a lot like this old house. We’ve seen some serious injuries; we’ve seen some grievous pain. But we need to go on despite the scars we carry. This house may be burned, but it will be rebuilt. You can, too, Charisma. You performed like the pro the world remembers just now. We just solved three murders, one of them forty years old! You can’t hide forever, and, despite what I did to you, I want you to be whole again. I want you to be happy.”

“Well, that’s your problem isn’t it?” I shot back. “I’ll be happy when I don’t have to look at you anymore.”

“Charisma, I’m so sorry.”

“Sorry won’t fix this.”

I turned to see the coroner’s van pull up the drive and pulled a notebook from my pocket. Leland could apologize forever—I had a story to finish. I stepped away from him and touched the fire chief on the sleeve, pointing to the coroner’s van.

The chief nodded. “We have two victims: A female in her fifties, believed to be the suspect who took Mrs. McIntyre hostage and a male, late thirties, maybe early forties, who was found in a hospital-style bed, so probably unable to fight back. It looks like a murder-suicide. We don’t know if she shot him before she started the fire or after. I suppose Mrs. McIntyre could tell us that. We’ve got the state fire marshal on the way.”

“Addison could have been the third victim,” I said simply.

“Yes she could have.”

I made a few notes and walked back to my car.

Andy must have lived in the house; the male body had to be his. Eve must have brought her son home to care for him, then left town to get her degree and follow her career, leaving her sister here to care for their home, their mother and her son. What kind of life had Julia Dahlgren led?

I needed to head back to the newsroom and get started on this story, before the TV stations from Collitstown showed up. I had the fire chief’s cell phone number. I could call him later for the final details.

Shit. I have to take Leland with me.

I walked back to the fire truck, where he was watching the flames and tapped him on the shoulder.

“If you want a ride, I’m going back now,” I said bluntly, gesturing toward my red sedan.

Without speaking—or perhaps realizing I wouldn’t respond to anything he said— Leland got into the car and buckled into the passenger seat. We drove silently back into Jubilant Falls; I stopped the car in front of the Holiday Inn and he got out without saying goodbye.

In two blocks, I was back in the employee parking lot behind the newspaper. Putting the car in park, I leaned my head on the steering wheel and began to sob.

*****

It was nearly nine o’clock at night by the time I finished the story of Julia’s and Andy Dahlgren’s sad deaths and the fire that nearly destroyed their home. It only took an hour to gather myself together and get the story done and up on the website.

Gary McGinnis wasn’t able to give me much on the deaths of Jimmy Lyle and Eve Dahlgren—the hospital was keeping Addison overnight and they kept him from talking to her. I filled in everything else I’d learned from Betty about Bob Martz’ death.

A more complete version would come tomorrow morning before deadline. Someone, not me, would have to finish it.

I pushed myself back from my desk.

I owed Addison the story of what happened to me in Syria.

The newsroom was empty. Chris Royal, the sportswriter, was taking a vacation day—he’d left a few canned features on tomorrow’s sports page and Dennis was going to fill the remainder with wire copy. I could work all night and not be disturbed.

Get it done,
a voice inside told me.
Get it written and then get out.

I rolled my chair back to my desk, ready to begin again.

*****

I’d covered stories in third-world countries, seen how hard-scrabble life could be, but Aleppo, where every building was marked by bombs or bullets, was the worst.

Syria was a country bent on sending itself over the edge of oblivion: incoming missiles from government jets, the screams of the wounded, the god-awful smell of burnt plastic mixing with burnt flesh, and blood. I’ve never seen so much blood.

The day I’d gone to meet my source had been hot. I hadn’t slept—I’d spent the night curled under the table in my hotel room as bombs, both manufactured and improved, fell into the streets.

The barrel bombs, dumped by pro-government forces, were the worst. A barrel was packed with simple explosives and any shrapnel they could find. Carried aloft by a helicopter, they would be pushed out over populated areas and the craft would hover to watch as those below in the street were killed or maimed.

They wait ten minutes for the rescuers, medics or anyone who might want to bring aid and then drop another one.

No one runs in to help the wounded for at least half an hour, now.

As I stepped into the street that day, the bodies from last night’s bombing were being taken out into the streets. It was mass murder on a governmental scale. I gasped as survivors picked among the dead and their destroyed homes, scavenging blankets, pillows, and shoes. A woman with a dented toaster in her hands met my eyes and shrugged as she stepped over the body of a dead child. His own brown eyes stared back at me, permanently begging from the other side for someone to do something. The people around him, those picking shoes off dead bodies or stealing pots from bombed homes knew no one ever would.

Those sights must have tipped the delicate balance of my sanity. Between Aleppo and Baghdad, I’d simply seen too much.

My source, a Syrian man with a red scarf over his face, claimed the government had plans to bomb a refugee camp in Jordan filled with women and children. He opened his jacket to show me the uniform of the Syrian air force—but not the side with his name. It should have been my first hint.

“I’ve seen the orders,” he claimed. “The raid will happen next week.”

Reeking with arrogance and pushed from above to run the story, I didn’t double-check my source, just to show Charisma Prentiss was back in the saddle.

But I wasn’t, not by a long shot, and this time, I paid the price.

After the wire service fired me, I locked myself into Dad and Kate’s spare bedroom. Memories of Aleppo, Baghdad, Kalil and Jean Paul ricocheted through the frilly white room until sleep or wished-for death wouldn’t bring peace. I began waking up at night, combative and screaming. Dad and Kate brought me to George Washington Hospital’s mental health wing, signing me in under a false name.

I came back slowly. After a couple months, Dad and Kate brought me back to their condo, set me up again in the guest room.

Kate found me watching one of the Sunday-morning news shows with tears pouring down my face. There were three talking heads, discussing my future in journalism. On the screen behind them was a huge picture of me, full of bravado and purpose, yellow hair sticking out from beneath my blue helmet, in my bulletproof vest and jeans. Behind me, a convoy of armored trucks headed into the Afghan mountains. To them, I wasn’t a person, someone who’d been horribly injured. I was a has-been, an ego-driven blonde bimbo who wanted face time more than the truth, someone who ruined her career in particular and seriously damaged journalism in general.

One commentator turned toward the camera, his script clutched self-righteously in his hand. One eyebrow arched and he began to speak.

“I don’t know what news organization would be either brave enough—or conversely, irresponsible enough—to take on a journalist like Charisma Prentiss. What do you, our viewers, think? We’ll be taking your questions, right after these messages.”

Kate pulled the remote from my hand and clicked off the television.

“You don’t need that,” she said, wrapping her arms around me more like an older sister than the stepmother she nearly was. “You’ve got to get out of here, Charisma.”

“But where could I go?” I wiped my nose with the heel of my hand. “Maybe these guys are right. Who would hire me?”

“You’re still a good journalist, Charisma,” Kate said. “You can do this job again. What if you went someplace where you could start again?”

“Like where?”

“I don’t know. What about a smaller newspaper someplace, a small-market TV station?”

“As Charisma Prentiss? You’re kidding me, right?”

“How about under an assumed name?” Kate suggested.

“I’m not sharp enough up here to react to a new name,” I said, tapping my finger on my temple.

“What about your married name? Charisma Lemarnier? You and I know most Americans have an attention span of about thirty seconds. They didn’t know who Jean Paul was and wouldn’t know who you were unless you told them. And face it, since you’ve quit dyeing your hair, with all your surgeries, you don’t look the same. I’ll bet you could pull it off. I
know
you could.”

And so it began. Kate and I came up with my new backstory, the young widow who lost her parents and her husband in a car crash in Connecticut. I got my brown hair styled; the medications I took to keep the demons at bay added a few pounds. A few of my friends said they’d vouch for me without revealing my identity on a new fake résumé. I used my mother’s address in Salisbury, Maryland, came up with a new e-mail address and sent out inquiries to any small newspaper seeking a reporter.

Within six months, I was moving into my studio apartment in Jubilant Falls and praying no one would recognize me as I struggled to get back in the saddle.

*****

There you have it, world. You wondered whatever happened to Charisma Prentiss? Here it is.

I hit the ‘save’ button on the computer and stood up.

I rustled through my desk drawers one more time. There was nothing in particular I wanted to keep with me, nothing I’d become attached to.

I found a small Post-It note on the copy editing station.

“Thanks for everything,” I wrote. “I’m gone.”

I signed my full, real name—Charisma Prentiss Lemarnier— and stuck the note on the computer screen where Dennis would sit tomorrow morning. I pulled my key to the employee entrance off my key ring, laid it on the computer keyboard and walked out.