Firefly Mountain (42 page)

“Right.” He wouldn’t stop at getting everyone out of the building. He would want a hand in putting out the fire too. As Gini sifted out a breath, accepting that Patrick was in his gear, protected, while he extinguished the flames, her eyes settled on something by the front door.

Midas.

The dog was on his hind legs, scratching his claws furiously along the door, as if he were digging. Digging for his best friend.

“Patrick!” Gini yelled.

****

Patrick thought everyone had gotten out. He was on his way out as well when the front doors slammed shut.

“Help…” a faint voice called.

Patrick whirled around, his eyes combing over the empty hall. Overturned chairs lay haphazardly on the floor. Raina’s song sheets were strewn over the piano keys and bench. Some of Gini’s animal photos were on the floor, footprints marring their beauty. And at the back of the hall, flames caught curtains and walls on fire.

“Help me.”

The voice was so soft Patrick could hardly tell where it came from.

“Hello?” he called. “Where are you? Tell me where you are and I’ll get you out.”

No answer.

Part of Patrick’s brain told him to leave. Get out while he could. Find Gini and Midas and let the fighters in gear come in to investigate and put out the fire. Another part couldn’t abandon someone who might be still in the hall.

“Hello?” he said again.

“I’m stuck.” The voice sounded like a child’s, but Patrick didn’t remember seeing any children in the crowd tonight. Those calendars weren’t exactly G-rated.

He stepped away from the doors, and with one eye on the smoke filling the back of the hall, Patrick crouched to look under the tables. No one. He opened the doors of the bathrooms, a small kitchen area, an office. Still not a soul around.

Water spraying the back of the building outside was a comforting sound, but the temperature was rising and more smoke sifted in along the ceiling.

“Where are you?” Patrick shouted.

“Right here,” a voice said directly behind him.

Patrick turned around. The thin, violet-eyed woman sat on the piano, a lighter flicking on and off in her right hand, a red, 5-gallon gas can under her left.

“Got a candle?” she asked. When Patrick didn’t answer right away, a disturbing smile slid across her chapped lips. “Not to worry. I have one. No scent on it this time. I put the scent outside to toy with your fighters and cops, but for us inside, well…death has no scent. Unless you count the gasoline.”

She tapped the gas can, then plunged a bony hand into the pocket of the gray hooded sweatshirt that hung unevenly off her shoulders. She pulled out a candle, black this time, and held it out to Patrick.

He made no move to take it, and he watched the woman’s jaw tense as it had when he’d signed her calendar.

“What’s the matter?” she asked. “Don’t fraternize with ‘sick and twisted’ people?” She slid off the piano. “No, you’re probably too busy with your pretty blonde and her brother and that stupid cop. You’re all so
comfortable
in your little worlds.”

Patrick watched her strange eyes dart around the room. Was she high? And why did she harbor such disdain for him? What had he done to her?

“Stopping fires that were meant to burn is so selfish,” she said.

Okay,
Patrick thought,
she’s mad I put out her fires.
What could he do to make her not mad? To distract her long enough to get out? To keep her from dumping that gas can and lighting that candle?

A faint bark sounded from the other side of the front doors. Midas had made it out with Gini. He’d get help.

But would help come in time?

“Why would you want to burn this place down?” he asked. Get her talking was the only plan he had at the moment.

“Because I can,” she said.

Patrick waited for her say more, but she was apparently a woman of few words. Damn.

“People were just having a good time here,” he said.

“Exactly.” She let her heels rest on the keys of the piano so a disjointed melody clanged into the hall. “A frivolous good time while there are people in the world with nothing.”

“It was a fundraiser,” Patrick said. “Raising money to help the animal shelter, which you also tried to burn down.”

“And you also stopped from burning down,” she added. “I’ve only gotten to enjoy three full blazes in this stupid town. The house and the barn burned nicely before you got to it, and the market was a lovely performance, because you weren’t here.”

How did she know that?

“You prematurely ended my bookstore show,” she continued, “and the animal shelter. To think I doused those oversized rodents in gasoline for nothing. Waste of fuel.”

Patrick’s hands clenched into fists. “What kind of a person does that to cats?”

“Me. I’m the kind of person that does that. Sick and twisted. Remember? That’s what you called me.” She slid off the piano, the lighter flicking on and off more rapidly now.

“You were at the shelter?” Patrick asked.

“Yes. And I heard what you called me. You have no business judging me. Putting me into one of your neat little categories. You or the cop. He can go to Hell too. You both need to be taught a lesson. One you’ll never forget, or perhaps the last one you’ll remember. Either way is fine with me.”

She picked up the gas can and unscrewed the spout. Instantly, the smell of gasoline mixed with the scent of burning wood. She poured the contents of the can in sloppy lines all over the piano. Raina would have cried to see the piece treated that way. Patrick recognized it as an antique and had watched Raina’s fingers on the keys tonight. She’d caressed the black and ivory keys, closed her eyes, sang her best.

Patrick glanced behind him at the flames still raging at the back of the hall. They hadn’t progressed any farther into the room, and he had to assume the fighters were winning the battle against it. That would only further infuriate this nutcase bent on teaching him a lesson.

Patrick searched the immediate area for something he could use as a weapon. The only thing he came up with was a broom leaning against the wall in the tiny kitchen area. While the sicko hummed and positioned the black candle on the floor in a puddle of gasoline, Patrick sidestepped his way to the broom. One hand closed around the handle, and he picked it up. He shifted his grip down near the bristles. He wielded the broom like a baseball bat and walked toward the woman.

She was a lightweight, couldn’t weigh more than a hundred ten pounds. One solid swipe to the head and she should go down. Patrick hated the thought of smashing her skull, but he was out of options. He didn’t want to kill her, just knock her out for a while. If she lit that candle, they were both finished. In her pouring, the leg of her pants had gotten saturated. She’d go up in flames within seconds. His own boots were covered in gasoline because he’d stepped all over it, and the smell was starting to make him dizzy. He also didn’t know how close people were standing outside the front of the building. He wouldn’t risk them. Wouldn’t risk Gini.

Gini.
She’d been walking toward him before the fire had broken out. The smile and expression on her face had been full of joy. She’d looked as if she were about to tell him something. Something important. Would he ever get to hear what that something was?

God, he hoped so.

Choking up on the broom handle, Patrick took four steps closer to the arsonist as she screwed the cap back onto the gas can. He ratcheted his arms back, the broom ready to connect with the back of her head. At the last second, she ducked. Patrick’s swing completely missed her and because he’d put all his strength into it, he stumbled forward a few feet.

“I could see your every move in the mirror,” she said, pointing to the one hanging on the wall. “You’re going to have to do better than this.” She shook her head and tossed the lighter from hand to hand.

“Look, why don’t you move on to the next town, huh?” Patrick leaned on the broom, trying to think of his next move. “You’ve put on a nice show here. We’re all impressed. Time to give some other folks a turn.”

“As if your cop buddy will let me leave now.” She shook her head, her odd-colored eyes disappearing behind her lids for a moment. When she opened her eyes, the fire at the back of the hall reflected in the blacks of her pupils. She looked possessed. “If you fellows are going to stop my mission here, I’m going to at least go out in a blaze of glory.” She laughed at her own joke, the sound more maniacal than pleasant.

“You can go out in an inferno for all I care,” Patrick said, his patience all used up, “but I don’t want to watch.”

“But you must. I’ve given you a special invitation. I would have liked to have the whole town in here, but alas, they’ll have to enjoy the festivities from the outside.” She turned in a circle, her hands thrown up in the air. “Do you think anyone will miss you?”

His answer to that question a few weeks ago would have been short. Raina and Julianne would have missed him. That would have been it. Now, however, the list had gotten longer. Jonah had befriended him immediately, and Mason had trusted his input on the arson case. Haddy had welcomed him into the group as well. Gini’s mother had shown him nothing but kindness, and her father was even coming around.

And Gini. Patrick thought she’d miss him if he died tonight. They’d found each other. Shared their secrets, their bodies, their hearts. Dammit, he loved her, and he wasn’t going to let this psychopath keep him from loving her.

“A few people will miss me, yes,” he said.

“Tragic, isn’t it?” The woman’s face twisted into the saddest expression Patrick had ever seen. “No one will miss me. No one.” Her hands trembled, her grip on the lighter precarious. Tears collected in her eyes as she dropped to her knees into a pool of gasoline.

The lighter clicked as Patrick launched himself forward.

“She’s going to light it!” Gini screamed. The front doors wouldn’t open. She’d tried, but they wouldn’t budge. Fighters had started to hack away at them, but it was slow going. The doors were reinforced steel because the hall had had problems with vandals in the past due to its secluded location. The fighters wouldn’t break them down in time.

Gini pressed her face to the window at the front of the hall, and Midas barked like a rabid wolf. Raina called for Midas, but the dog was inconsolable. Mason tried to pull Gini away from the building, but she shrugged out of his grip and did the only thing she could think of to save Patrick.

She got angry. Gini let loose all her control. She targeted the second back door, away from the fighters, away from the people gathered at the front, away from the man she wanted to spend the rest of her life with.

The door exploded outward with a thunderous boom. Inside, the woman Patrick wrestled with screamed at the sound. Her head whipped to the source of the eruption, and Gini watched Patrick yank the lighter out of her hand. He hauled the slight woman over his shoulder and bolted for the front doors.

Gini heard Patrick trying to open the doors, and she ran to them, calling the fighters off and willing Patrick to come out safely. Moments passed by in slow motion as Gini’s mind scrambled for something else she could do to help. If Patrick went to either of the back doors, he’d have to run through the fire. The windows of the hall were custom made with three panes of shatterproof glass in each one to protect against vandalism. The front exit was jammed.

Patrick was trapped. The only person who had ever managed to make her truly happy was going to die if she didn’t get him out of there.

Gini searched the parking lot. Her gaze settled on one of the fire trucks. Mason was still trying to drag her away from the building, his hands ultra-tight on her arms now.

“Gini, please!” he yelled. “It’s not safe here!”

“Mason, let go of me.” She managed to free herself again and dart to the fire truck. Her father was right behind her as she stepped up the side of the truck and opened the door.

“Gini, what are you doing?” Walter asked.

“Keys, Daddy. I need keys.”

“Get down from there. I don’t know what you’re—”

A tree catching fire behind them cut off Walter’s words.

“Calm down, Gini,” Walter said.

A car burst into flames at the far end of the parking lot. “I can’t calm down. Patrick is going to die in there if we don’t give him a way out.” Gini’s heartbeat pounded in her ears, and she felt lightheaded. She couldn’t rein in the anger swirling inside her. Anger that someone would try to take Patrick’s life. Take him away from her.

“Get. Me. The. Keys.” Each word sifted through Gini’s teeth as the sign for Beaver Pond Hall blew up in an orange cloud of fire.

Walter ran off toward the back of the hall and when he returned, he stepped up into the truck where Gini sat behind the wheel.

“Move over,” he said.

“Daddy, I—”

“Gini, do it.” He pushed her over until there was enough room for him to hop into the driver’s seat. “I’m going to aim for that corner.” Walter pointed to the hall. “I’d like to tell you to get out, but I know that’s not going to happen, so brace yourself.”

Gini focused on the bricks making up the corner of the hall they were targeting. The fire truck roared to life and in the parking lot, Gini’s mother, Haddy, and Jonah pushed back the crowd. Her father put the truck in gear, backed up a few more yards, and gave it some gas.

The nose of the truck buried itself into the building with a horrible scraping sound, and Walter threw it into reverse. As the truck backed up, bricks fell like concrete rain. Wood splintered and fell.

An exit was born.

As soon as the truck was clear of the building, Gini jumped down and ran to the opening. Mason caught her before she plowed inside. Jonah blocked her path as well.

“Where is he?” Gini shouted. “Where is he?” She tried to push past Mason and Jonah.

“I’ll go in,” Mason said. “Wait here.” He nudged her toward Jonah, who used his good arm to hold on to her.

Gini struggled, but Jonah didn’t let go. “Gini, you’re hurting me.”