Smoke (34 page)

“Saying ‘sorry.’ We use it like punctuation.”

He nods but doesn’t move.

“Did you need to use the bathroom?”

“No, I wanted—”

“Beth? Oh, thank God,” Ben says, sweeping me into his arms and filling me with relief.

I pull back. He’s wearing a firefighter’s uniform. One breath of him tells me he’s been fighting the fire. This is how I used to smell: smoke and sweat and chemicals. He smells like Ben and me made one. Ben and me made whole.

“Where have you been?” I ask.

“At our house.”

“Is it gone?”

“No. It’s safe. For now, it’s okay.”

“How did you get up there?”

“Andy brought me. Once we’d gotten everyone safely out of the tent, he told me he was going up there, and I asked to go with him.”

“I wish you’d told me.”

“I couldn’t find you, and there wasn’t any time. I tried to call you.” He steps toward me again. “Is the baby okay?”

“Yes. It’s fine. We’re fine.”

“I didn’t even know you were in trouble. Not till I got your text. I should’ve stayed with you.”

“No, you did the right thing. What’s going on up there?”

He shakes his head. “It’s touch and go, as far as I understand it. Holding for now.”

And us?
I want to say.

“Can you leave?” Ben asks.

“Yes. Where should we go?”

“I want to check in on my folks, if that’s okay?”

“Of course. I—”

There’s the muffled sound of a ringing phone in his pocket.

“Hold on,” he says and takes it out. “Hello?”

He steps away from me. I listen to his side of the conversation. “Yes, she’s with me. Right now? Yes, of course, of course, I understand. We’ll be there in ten.”

He turns off the phone. “Can you stand a slight side trip?”

“Where?”

“To the police station.”

CHAPTER 39

Block Party

Mindy

Mindy approached Willow’s house cautiously.
It wasn’t Willow who made her nervous, but Willow’s mother, Cathy, who’d be a Coffee Booster if she didn’t find that sort of thing beneath her. Part Kate Bourne, part barracuda, Cathy and her husband, Ed, had lived down the block from Mindy since they’d moved to Nelson, but Mindy could count the conversations they’d had on one hand.

Cathy and Ed’s house was much like hers—a wood-sided split-level with a sharply peaked roof so the heavy snowfall that came every winter could slide easily to the ground.

Mindy stood at the end of their walkway trying to quiet her mind. But for the heavy tang of smoke, nothing looked amiss. It was inside that everything was in turmoil.

But Mindy was through with being nervous, she told herself, through with being the kind of woman who checked her friends’ reactions before she’d show her own. That woman wasn’t going to get Angus out of jail or figure out what had happened that night.

Mindy climbed the steps and pressed the doorbell firmly. It was only after she heard the chime sound loudly through the quiet house that she thought to check the time. It was only seven thirty in the morning, though it felt like it could’ve have been anytime. The middle of the night. The end of a long day. The smoke blotted out any difference in the light, and the number of hours she’d been awake made it moot anyway.

Mindy heard no footsteps and was about to ring again when Cathy opened the door, tightening her terry-cloth robe around her middle. She was a forty-five-year-old version of Willow: tall and firm-limbed with an aquiline nose. Like so many in Nelson, her hair was a frosty blonde, once naturally that shade, and her eyes an Icelandic blue. She looked at Mindy like she’d just let her child pull up all the tulips in her garden.

“Please leave.”

“I only need a moment.”

“If I didn’t know for certain that they’re all occupied with more important things, I’d call the police,” Cathy said, her voice a steady metronome beat.

“Please, Cathy. Please let me in.”

“Why, exactly? What do you want to talk to me about so urgently that you’ve come over at this time of the morning? Your reprobate son and how he tried to corrupt my daughter?”

“You’ve know Angus for years. He and Willow are friends. He wouldn’t hurt her.”

He loves her
, Mindy thought but knew better than to say. Mindy didn’t have to ask what had made Cathy so protective. She lived in that same space.

“Which you know how, exactly?” Cathy said. “Because
your son
told you so? Please leave.”

“I’ll leave just as soon as I talk to Willow.”

“Even if Willow wasn’t on an extended grounding, there is no way I would allow her to talk to you.”

“But I think she knows something that will exonerate Angus.”

Cathy’s eyes narrowed. “Exonerate him for what, exactly?”

“For starting the fire. He didn’t do it.”

“Well, if that’s true, and I’m not saying it is, the police will sort it out.”

“I can’t leave it at that. He’s my son.”

“I don’t see how that’s my concern.”

“I think . . . I think Willow was with him that night. That was her in the video, I’m almost certain. And if the police think Angus is guilty, then they’ll come after her too. As an accessory, at the very least.”

Cathy’s right eye twitched. “She had nothing to do with it.”

“So she was out that night?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“What’s the ‘extended grounding’ all about, then?”

“She doesn’t know anything about what happened.”

“I find that hard to believe. And I’m sure the police will too. I bet they’ll be by sometime soon to talk to her. Or maybe they have been already?”

Mindy could tell she’d touched a nerve.

“I most certainly did not let the police talk to my daughter. And our lawyer has made it very clear that she won’t be talking to them in the future.”

“So, what then? Angus just takes the blame?”

“Everyone has to take responsibility for their actions.”

“Why are you so sure he did anything? Maybe Willow’s the one who started it.”

Cathy crossed her arms over her chest in an effort, Mindy was fairly certain, to keep herself from slamming the door in Mindy’s face.

“That’s nonsense. Willow would never do such a thing.”

“Not even by accident?”

“If she had, she would own up to her mistakes. We’ve taught her that much.”

Mindy’s mind raced. “You know what I see on that tape? I see a girl hanging out with a bunch of guys way past curfew. You know how people will talk once it gets out that it’s her. You know what people are probably already saying.”

“You’re disgusting. If you were my child, I’d—”

“Wash my mouth out with soap? Come on. I’m simply trying to get you to see the other side of this. Everyone’s so quick to jump to conclusions without any facts. That’s all I’m trying to do. Get the facts.”

“Oh, just let her in, Mom.”

Cathy spun around. Willow was standing behind her, her eyes red from crying, her hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail.

“What did I tell you about leaving your room?”

“You can’t hide me up there forever. The truth will come out sometime.”

Mindy took a step forward. Cathy resisted her advance for a moment, then backed away. Mindy approached Willow like she might startle at any minute.

“Do you know what happened that night, Willow?”

Willow nodded slowly. Pictures from her childhood hung framed on the walls around her, and in that moment, she didn’t look that different from her eight-year-old self.

“Was it you in the video?”

“Yes.”

“Did Angus start the fire?”

She shook her head. Some of the tension in Mindy’s body fled.

“Do you know why he isn’t talking to the police?”

“He’s . . . protecting me.”

Cathy frowned. “Protecting you? From what?”

Willow looked miserable.

“Can you prove he didn’t start the fire, Willow?”

“I think so.”

CHAPTER 40

I Know What You Did

Elizabeth

Our ride to the precinct
is a silent one. Ben keeps glancing over at me from his side of his jeep without saying anything, and John Phillips seems to have retreated into himself.

He’d followed us to the car like a lost puppy. After everything that’s happened to him, I thought we might as well bring him with us. We can take him back to the shelter afterward. And he has a vested interest in whatever we’re going to do at the police station, which I assume has to do with who started the fire, though Ben didn’t say much. He doesn’t know much, really, only that Mindy called and asked us to be there.

I look down at my bruised and scraped hands. They feel useless, sitting atop my blue hospital scrubs. This was the same outfit John was wearing the first time I met him. He’d lost everything that day. Does that mean I have too?

At this point all I can do is sit back and wait to find out.

Mindy’s car is there when we pull into the parking lot behind the precinct. I’d recognize it anywhere with its funny bumper sticker—
WATCH OUT FOR THE IDIOT BEHIND ME
. Peter stuck it on her car one year and waited till she noticed.

When we get closer, I can see that she’s still sitting in the car, apparently having an argument with someone I vaguely recognize as one of her neighbors. There’s also a girl about Angus’s age sitting in the backseat. The girl climbs out and slams the car door behind her. She pulls the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head like she wants to disappear.

Oh God, I’m such an idiot. It’s a wonder Rich ever hired me.

That’s the girl in the video with Angus. Angus’s girl.

Ben turns off the engine.

“Shall we get to it?”

All six of us walk into the station together. Mindy gives us the once-over—me in my hospital scrubs, Ben dressed up as a firefighter, and John the cleanest of the lot of us, but still looking like he’s spent a night in a cave—and her eyes knit together in confusion.

“What’s he doing here?” Mindy asks, her eyes resting on John.

“He was with me at the hospital. Long story. How’s Angus? Have they let you see him?”

I can feel her resistance to talk to me like we’re opposing magnets.

“Yesterday. I saw him yesterday.”

“That must’ve been hard. Have you learned something? Is that why you called Ben?”

“You were at the hospital? Are you okay?”

“Yes,” I say, my hand hovering above my stomach. “We are okay.”

Recognition floods her face. “Oh, Beth. That’s wonderful.”

“It is. Complicated, but wonderful.”

“You were at the Fall Fling?”

“Yeah.”

“And your house?” she asks. “Is your house okay?”

I put my hand on her arm. “Mindy, if you keep being nice to me, I’m going to break down right here.”

“I’ll stop, then.”

“You’d better.”

We give each other tired smiles.

“That Angus’s girlfriend?” I ask.

“She is. And maybe his savior too.”

“What does she know?”

Mindy shrugs, and we walk into the bullpen. Detective Donaldson is in his office. He looks haggard from being up all night helping to manage the evacuation. His desk is littered with Styrofoam cups, and the smell of stale coffee hangs in the air like a cloud.

We crowd around his doorway. He looks at us, a motley crew of trouble, and shakes his head.

“I’m sorry, folks, but we’re closed for business. We’ve handed over control of the evac to the Staties, and I’m headed home to get some sleep. It’s all-hands-on-deck, otherwise.”

Mindy steps forward. “My son needs to be released.”

“We’ve spoken about this, Mrs. Mitchell. His bail hearing is tomorrow morning. You show up there with your lawyer, and you’ll probably be able to bond him out. No promises, though. He might be considered dangerous.”

“Angus is not dangerous,” I say. “That’s ridiculous.”

“We have information that will prove he’s innocent,” Mindy adds.

“What information is that?”

Mindy looks at Willow. Her mother takes a protective step in front of her.

“Do you have something to say, young lady?”

Willow shrinks under our collective gaze, but then her head turns toward the stairs, where Deputy Clark is leading Angus up from the basement. They haven’t got him in a jumpsuit, thank God, but his clothes are rumpled and look slept in, if it’s even possible to sleep in one of those cells.

“What’s going on here?” he asks. His voice is hoarse, like he hasn’t used it in a while.

“I could ask you the same thing,” Detective Donaldson says.

“He needed to use the bathroom,” Deputy Clark says.

“That’s not what I meant. Young man, are you sure you don’t want to talk to us, or are you going to let this young woman do the talking for you?”

Mindy makes a muted mewling sound and tenses like she wants to run to Angus. I hold on to her arm. “Steady. They aren’t going to let you touch him,” I say quietly.

Angus is staring at Willow, his face red, hollows under his eyes.

“Get out of here,” he says.

“Yes,” Cathy says. “I think that’s an excellent idea.”

She tugs on Willow’s arm, but Willow won’t budge.

“No, Mom. No. We have to tell, Angus. I have to tell.”

Angus keeps shaking his head, but Willow has the sheriff’s full attention now.

“If you know something, I’m going to have to insist you tell me. Your young man has been no help at all.”

“He’s not her young man,” Cathy says.

“Yes, he is, Mom. I know I’ll probably be grounded forever now or something, but Angus . . . He loves me, Mom. And I love him.”

Mindy is shaking like a leaf next to me, and there are tears on her face. One glance at her tells me everything she’s feeling: hope.

“Don’t be ridiculous, you’re only sixteen.”

“What does that have to do with anything? What does that have to do with what happened that night?”

“Willow,” Cathy and Angus say together.

“No, Angus. No. You can’t protect me anymore. Not like this.”

He flops down onto a bench and buries his face in his hands.

Willow walks past her mother and stands in front of Detective Donaldson. “Do you need to write what I say down or something?”