Flirting With Fire (Hometown Heroes) (32 page)

“W-what kind of
claims?”

Glenn leaned in
closer, his cigarette-breath washing over me. “Fire damage.”

One cog in my
brain turned, and then another.

Driving back and
forth.

Fire damage.

My gaze flashed
to Mitch, who looked anything but repentant for lying to me earlier. Lying
about Torrunn. Lying about…how much had he been lying about?

“Yeah, Glenn is
your damned firebug,” Mitch snarled. “He’s been scaring you to distract me.
Only, he got sloppy this week. Thought I had heard about the fire at your
apartment when it happened, and didn’t expect me to come in to work for the
dinner rush. I found him pulling cash from the deposit bag in my office and
fired him on the spot.”

“Which was a bad
move, man. All I needed was a few more grand and then I would have vanished. But
no, you just had to come barging in.”

Fury blazed in
Mitch’s eyes. “So you threatened me.”

“Well,
technically I threatened Liz. But she wasn’t there to hear it.”

So the fires had
been aimed at me after all. I was suddenly struck by a tidal wave of fury. “You
sonofa—!”

“It was nothing
personal, Liz,” Glenn said, pulling me tighter against his body as he spoke low
into my ear. Bile crept up my throat. “In fact, I always kinda liked you. Sweet,
sexy. And always so considerate. Even tonight, coming back here, which spared me
the trouble of tracking you down one last time and setting your whole apartment
building on fire. You’re saving me a ton of gas, you know.”

“You won’t get
away with this, Glenn.” Mitch’s voice had never sounded so deadly.

“Of course I
will,” he said, and gave me a shove. I stumbled forward, caught by Mitch before
my knees hit the ground. “All the evidence points back to you, buddy—I made
sure of that. And since you won’t be leaving tonight, well, that’ll keep my
future free and clear.” He smiled, and used his gun to motion for us to head
down the steps. “Now, get a move on. I have some business to attend to.”

* * * *

Good old Glenn
killed the light at the top of the stairs with one swift blow from the butt of
his gun. A moment later the incandescent glow behind him also disappeared. The
stairwell doors slammed shut, the sound like a muted explosion as it echoed
through the cellar. Then came another noise: a lock snapping shut.

I remained
still, waiting for my eyes to adjust. A thin strip of light shone from beneath
the door at the top of the stairs. Everywhere else I turned was nothing but
darkness.

“Mitch?” I
whispered.

“What?”

His voice, which
sounded more like a growl, came from my right, further away than I’d expected.

“What’s the
plan?”

A sound like old
empty cans clanking against each other came from his direction. He cursed, then
spoke louder. “Go upstairs and beat the shit out of Glenn.”

I rolled my eyes.
“Great plan, MacGyver. Any idea how to carry it out?”

“Looking…for
a…ah, here it is.” A brilliant beam of light flooded his side of the cellar. “I
knew I’d left a flashlight down here in case of emergencies.”

He climbed the
stairs and gave the door a few solid rams with his shoulder.

“Well?”

“No good. He’s
got the padlock on.”

I threw my hands
up. “Who puts a padlock on their basement door?”

“People who live
in old farmhouses with storm cellars for basements.”

“Storm cellar…”
I turned and looked into the darkness behind me. “So, there’s another way out?”

Mitch was
already down the steps and trotting past me. Sure enough, the beam of his
flashlight landed on a second set of steps, these carved from stone and that
lead up to a set of impossibly large, double doors. A sense of hope sparked in
my chest.

He grabbed the
inside handles and pushed. The doors separated an inch…

…and no more.

Mitch tried
again. And again. Kicked the door. Slammed into it at a run.

Still it
wouldn’t budge.

“Dammit!”

“Here, let me
help,” I said, hurrying toward him.

“Don’t, you’ll
just end up with a sore shoulder like me.”

“But we have to
do something!”

I looked around
for anything that looked like it’d make a good battering ram, but all I found
were plastic totes full of miscellaneous stuff. Mostly things of his parents, keepsakes
Mitch was still unable to part with. I gave up my search and walked back over
to the unmoving storm doors.

“I can’t believe
Glenn was behind all of this.”

Mitch sank down
onto one of the low, stone steps and ran both hands through his hair. “Me
either. All this time I trusted that asshole.” He shook his head. “Sounds like
he’ll be long gone with my money by the time anyone even notices we’re missing.”

“No way. Torrunn
should have noticed something was up by now.”

“Yeah…probably
not.”

I shot him a
dirty look. Hoped he got the full effect, even in the dark.

“See, I texted
him with your phone before I left Autumn Lake. To send him on a wild goose
chase.”

“Why the hell would
you do that?” I hissed.

“To give me more
time to get to your place and get you out of there.”

I looked up to
the darkened ceiling and growled. “If you had just told me all of this, we
could have set a trap to catch Glenn together!”

“Which would
have been great, except fireboy thought the hat he stole from your place was
mine, making me the prime suspect in their case. I would have been arrested,
and you would have been kindling.”

“Not if I’d
talked to him first! So, that call from Jessica—it wasn’t really a warning, was
it?”

“Not unless you
consider an invite to lunch next week a warning?” he said, a sheepish grin on
his face.

“Ugh, I can’t
believe you! And I fell for all of it, hook, line, and sinker! Wait—how did you
even know about the hat?”

Mitch’s features
turned apologetic. “You, ah, weren’t that quiet when you took his call at
dinner.”

“Dammit, Mitch!”

“What? I can’t
help it if your quiet voice isn’t all that quiet.”

“So what, you
were going to sneak us out of town and let Glenn roast a complex full of
innocent people?”

Mitch’s
frustrated sigh echoed off the walls. “I didn’t know he was going to burn down
your building, only that he’d threatened to come after you if I didn’t give him
five grand by midnight.”

“Well, he did.
And you led both of us straight to him.”

“Yeah, that was
my plan all along,” he said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Come on, Liz—I did
everything but kidnap you myself to try and keep you away from him tonight!”

Somehow I knew,
even through my anger and frustration, that he was right. I slumped down onto
the step beside him.

“I know you did.”

Mitch leaned forward,
rested his elbows on his knees, and let out a long sigh. “I’m so sorry you got
sucked into this, Liz.”

“All that stuff
about being in love with me? Was it…?”

His face turned
toward mine, the answer clear in his repentant eyes. “I do love you, Liz, just
not like that. You and Sarah are like my little sisters. That’s just the way
it’s always been. ” His shoulders fell. “So, yeah, I might have stretched that
a bit tonight to get your attention. I’m so sorry.”

“Oh, you
definitely got my attention.” Disappointment battled relief inside me for a
moment, with relief the ultimate victor. I’d known from the start something was
off. “It’s okay, though. That kiss in Sarah’s garage just didn’t feel…right.”

His back
straightened. “What was wrong with my kiss?”

“Hey, I
know—maybe instead of arguing over what was or wasn’t wrong with a phony kiss
you sprang on me earlier, we could work together to try and get out of here
before Glenn does something stupid like…” A new smell tickled my senses. One that
had been haunting me an awful lot of late.

Smoke.

Mitch and I
looked at each other and in the same moment cried, “—set the house on fire!”

CHAPTER
27

Mitch sprang up
from the steps and resumed his attempts at shouldering the storm doors open.
But despite his self-preservation-inspired adrenaline rush, it was still no
use.

“It’s
not…work…ing…!”

“I know!” I
said, feeling unbelievably helpless. “We need to try something different.”

The storm doors
were usually held shut by a heavy wooden board, run through two slots on the
doors’ opposite side. If we had something that could slide between the doors,
something solid, maybe we could jimmy the board free.

“I need a…a
pole. Something strong, and long.”

A wicked grin
flashed onto Mitch’s face.

“Don’t even go
there, Mitch!”

I rushed away
from him with the flashlight, toward the mountain of bins and clutter on the
opposite wall. The smell of smoke grew stronger, and the first crackle of fire
licking at Mitch’s beloved farmhouse reached my ears. Selfish or not, the
farmhouse wasn’t my biggest concern right now—we were. Fueled by sheer panic, I
began tearing into every container within reach.

“Come on,” I
growled. “There’s got to be something in here that would work!”

Mitch abandoned
his ramming efforts and joined in the search. The temperature in the cellar
began to rise. Above us, something crashed to the floor.

“Damn it! All
this restoration work, going up in flames!” He shoved a large bin aside. “If we
get out of here, so help me I will hunt that bastard down and…ah, ha!”

He stood, an old,
heavy, iron fireplace poker in hand.

A small
explosion sounded above us.

“What was that?”
I cried.

“Paint supplies.
In the den.” He grabbed my hand. “Come on, we’ve gotta get out of here before the
whole place crashes down on top of us!”

“But what if
this doesn’t work?”

Mitch handed me
the poker, then positioned himself beside the doors. “It has to work. You
deserve that white picket fence, dammit. The loving spouse and gaggle of kids.
And I’ll be damned if I’m going to sit back and watch some asshole rob you of
all that.”

His
determination and sincerity rendered me momentarily speechless. Tears welled in
my eyes.

“You can get all
weepy on me later, Liz,” he said, his voice soft but stern. “Right now? I need
you to muscle that board free. Think you can do it?”

I nodded,
fighting back the tears. “You push, I’ll…poke.”

His right brow
arched. I released a sharp breath and stepped around him.

“If I can’t cry,
you can’t joke. Now put your back into it—I’ve got ovaries to protect.”

Mitch braced
himself against the door, then pushed with all his might. An opening the size
of a bread slice appeared. I thrust the poker forward, but it was too wide to
fit.

“Just a little
bit more,” I cried, over the escalating noise above us: more crashing, the
sound of a roaring fire. Had he doused the whole place with gasoline or what?

Mitch grunted
and strained, giving everything he had. I managed to wedge the fireplace
apparatus through the crack, slide it under the cross bar…and then watched it
snap into two.

Time came to a
crawl as I watched the poker’s detached end, my sole source of salvation, freefall
to the earth. “No!”

Mitch sagged,
unable to hold the door any longer. “What happened?”

“It…it…” The
words wouldn’t come.

He bent over,
hands on knees, and shook his head.

“What? Y-you’re
just going to give up?” I stared at him, eyes wide. “No! No, there has to be a
way!”

Again he shook
his head, still panting from our failed efforts. That sight, of Mitch who’d
never met an obstacle he couldn’t overcome, caused something inside me to snap.
In a blind rage, I began hitting, kicking, and screaming at the storm doors
before us. After a time, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

“Enough, Liz.”

“No! There has
to be a way out! There has to be!”

“Shh,” he said,
lowering himself onto one of the cool, stone steps, and gently pulled me into
his lap. “Come on, now. Where is the level-headed Liz we all know and adore?”

Floor joists
above us creaked and moaned, the home’s foundation strained from the abuse.

“It’s not fair,”
I sobbed, curling into his chest. “Why would he do this to us?”

Mitch’s chin
came to rest on my head and his arms pulled me close. “Some people are just
evil, I guess.”

“W-well, thank
you, R-reverend Greenwood.”

He snorted. “Reverend.
Like they would have let me in to that school of teaching.”

With a sniffle,
I dragged a hand across my damp cheeks. “You’ve always been a good man, Mitch.
The best.”

“Not good enough
to get us out of here, though.” His lips pressed into my hair. “Sorry, Liz.”

“Don’t
apologize. I’m the one that broke the stupid poker.”

“Yeah. Still, it
was a good idea.” He sighed. “Damn, I wish I hadn’t sent the stupid text to
your fireman buddy. If there was anyone who could help us ri—”

From above us
came the sound of another, much louder crash. I clung to Mitch, waiting for the
floor above to finally give way.

“There’s
something I have to tell you. Before we, you know.” Mitch looked down and met
my gaze. “Remember that time in high school, when you found your gym clothes
painted in zebra stripes?”

The memory of
sheer, adolescent mortification rushed back to me as if it were yesterday. It
was track and field week, and I’d been unable to blend in with the crowd. Ran
race after race looking like a striped nightmare.

“Yeah…”

“It was me. I
did it. Lost a bet with Brian Wheaton.”

I pulled back in
shock. “What?”

“I thought I’d
better come clean. You know, so I can go with a clear conscience.”