House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (10 page)

“Don’t jinx me, but
he seems to like me. I don’t think I’m going anywhere anytime soon. Anyway,
that’s only been a few guys. Two of the executives have been there for more
than ten years, which is a long time for the positions. Besides, with Evie
gone, we’re out a security ninja. He doesn’t seem to trust anyone else,” Mark
replied.

“Where did she go?”

“I’m not sure
exactly. Overseas. An extended vacation.”

Delaney raised her
brows.

“That’s what happens
when your dad is a billionaire. You can go to Europe and not come back. Maybe
ever.” Mark gulped down the rest of his orange juice, the empty glass clanking
against the granite.

“Are you sad about
that?” Delaney pried, watching him tuck his shirt into his pants.

“Sad? What are you
talking about?”

“I don’t know. There
was something between the two of you. Did you sleep with her?” Delaney accused.

“No, Delaney. Jesus.
I kinda liked her, though. She was smart. Fast. Cute,” Mark continued as he
folded his collar down. “There’s nothing wrong with that. A little risky with
her father being my boss and everything, though.”

Evie was smart and
fast; Delaney wouldn’t argue that, but she wasn’t getting anywhere closer to
what she wanted to know. Mark was definitely clueless about the Parker family.

“What about President
Givens? Any thoughts on him?” Delaney tried a different angle.

“What’s with the
interrogation?” Mark asked.

“Nothing.”

“President Givens is a
smart businessman, just like Holston, but he does seem a little off. We were
out on a golf outing a few weeks ago when a guy came tearing up the course on a
cart at the eighth hole. You should have seen the look on Givens’s face. The
guy must have been an insurance agent or something. I remember seeing the blue
circles of Strive Family Insurance. You know that commercial, “Save in our
circle,” Mark sang. Delaney’s eyes flashed to the newspaper June had left in
her office.
Kurt Dodd,
an agent for Strive Family Insurance.

“Did you catch his
name?” Delaney asked. “Kurt Dodd, by chance?”

“No, I didn’t hear
his name. Who’s Kurt Dodd?”

“An insurance agent
that’s gone missing, that’s all.” Delaney tapped her sock against the tile.
What
did Kurt Dodd do?

“That would be a
weird coincidence.” Mark buttoned the cuffs of his sleeves as he laughed. “Maybe
you should have gone to school to be on the police force. Detective Delaney
Jones.”

Delaney continued to
tap, her head reeling with the thought of going to the police. She didn’t have
anything solid, and Holston had warned her of his connections. Sanchez would
make sure that she didn’t get fair with her so-called “theories.”

“I’ve got to get to
work. Maybe you should get your paranoid self some relaxation. Don’t you do any
of the stuff that girls do? Massage? Manicure? Something?” Mark asked.

Delaney flashed her
unpainted, oil stained cuticles at him.

“I got the picture.
Just be ready for tonight. They’re all coming at five. I’ll swing back home so
we can all go together.” Mark disappeared into the hallway.

She couldn’t wait.

***

10:14. The numbers on
her Civic’s console were barely crawling forward. The gala was in almost eight
hours. She had no idea how she was going to get through the day with the
minutes taunting her like this. She had tried to go for another run. It hadn’t worked.
She had tried to paint. That hadn’t worked, either. Delaney’s fail safes were
failing, miserably. She was in a pinch. So she called the only person she knew
to call.

The Dodge pickup
rolled up in Delaney’s rearview mirror on a country road somewhere between
Appleton and Ripon. Randy had suggested the meeting place.
Away from law
enforcement,
he had said with a laugh. Delaney had been waiting for more
than ten minutes, the sweat now dripping from her forehead. She had panicked
when she pulled up to the landmark he had described. An abandoned schoolhouse
more than a hundred-years-old was setback thirty feet off the road. This was
the perfect spot for someone -
Holston -
to take her down.

As Randy stepped out
of the truck, she wondered if she had made a huge mistake - if she had trusted
Randy too soon. She gripped the pepper spray harder, tucking it on the outside
of her leg. She rolled the window down as Randy sauntered up in his cowboy
boots, sporting a trout t-shirt. He couldn’t be deadly.
Not Randy.

“This must be some
pinch,” Randy said with a scratch of his beard.

“Yeah, you could call
it that,” Delaney replied, her fingers loosened their grip with Randy’s smile.

“I’m glad you called.
I’ve been around long enough to see some really horrible stuff happen. Worse
than your worst nightmare. Some stuff that I can’t even talk about today, and it
always made me sad to know that I wasn’t able to help those people. The police
can’t protect everyone from all the assholes that are out there, even though I
wish they could. It’s just not possible. You know I’m only doing this because you
remind me of my girls,” Randy said as he tucked his hand inside his pants and
pulled out a small 9mm and holster. “Smith and Wesson Lady Smith. Five rounds.
Loaded,” Randy continued, sliding the chamber out to double check the
ammunition. “Light, easy to conceal. Paula, my oldest, sent this along. It
snaps to your bra or something. I don’t know anything about that.”

Randy held up the
holster with a strap before continuing, “Not registered.”

“Can’t be traced back
to you at all? I want you to be sure,” Delaney replied.

“No tracing back to
me, once I wipe it off,” Randy said as he pulled a cloth from his pocket and
wiped the gun down. He held it in the cloth, holding it out to Delaney. “Take
it, girl.”

Delaney took the
handgun and rested it on her lap.

“You going to be all right,
Dr. Jones? I don’t want to hear about how you got murdered on the news tomorrow.”
Randy pressed his hands against the car.

“I’m going to be fine
now,” Delaney replied, looking down at the gun.

“Good. Are you sure
there isn’t anything else I can do, legally? You sure the police can’t help?”
Randy asked.

“No,” Delaney said as
she slid her hand into her purse to retrieve a stack of bills.

“No, no.” Randy waved
his hand. “Not going to take your money. Consider it a favor.”

“Take it. Please.”

Randy shook his head,
stepping back from her car. “You better go,” Randy said, looking up and down
the empty road.

“Thank you,” Delaney
replied, shoving the bills back in her purse.

“Just be careful, Dr.
Jones,” Randy said with a final scratch as he walked back to his truck.

“I will,” Delaney
replied to the empty car as she held the gun in her hand. “I will.”

12

June 16 - 9:30 a.m.

Evie turned to the
east, shielding her eyes against the glare of the morning sun. She sat in the
driver’s seat of the idling car on the shoulder, just two miles away from the
house according to the disposable phone. The country road was vacant of any houses,
only rows of fields lay ahead of her. A patch of trees separated the fields
every so often, their tall trunks and full canopies had been here long before
her. She delayed, wondering if they would be waiting for her, watching through
the yellow lace of their curtains with their faces peeking out at the sound of
her engine.

She glanced in the
rearview mirror before she pulled the car forward onto the road, the pebbles
crunching beneath her tires before she turned onto the blacktop. Rows of trees
passed her and opened to a field on her left. A single tractor sat near the
mouth of the field, its silent engine unattended.
Keys in the ignition
,
Evie thought. Midwesterners. They were the most trusting and most naive people.
She had grown up as one, but that had changed. Everything had changed.

Her car rolled past
the fields, her GPS indicating that her location was less than half a mile
away. Another clump of trees emerged to her right. She squinted, spotting a
mailbox on the far edge of the trees. The house was on the other side of the
woods. She eased up on the gas and veered right onto a weeded path that served
as the entrance for tractors into the field. Her body jolted back and forth
until she finally stopped along the woods. She grabbed the cheap binoculars she
had picked up at a gas station from the passenger seat.
Good enough.

Branches snapped
beneath her boots as she weaved through the oak trees and short brush, the
moisture beading against the rubber of her foot. The coolness from the damp
ground and shaded canopies sifted through her thin black pants, her skin welcoming
the breeze. Her head swarmed as she thought of the possibilities this would
bring to Holston. What Janice and Ken Hinske had possibly helped to create. She
slowed her pace as she neared the buildings, the ground silent with her
movement. She stepped over an oak log and paused as a silver glint caught her
eye just inches to her right. The spikes were half covered in weeds and brush.
Animal
trap
. She veered to the right, avoiding the trap until she stopped again,
listening to the cluck of chickens and ferocious flaps of their wings.

Evie crept forward,
her heart thrashing against her chest. She wondered if Holston ever brought her
here as a little girl. She had no recollection of grandparents or any extended
family. It had always been her and Holston. No one else.

The side of the house
came into view; she ducked her head beneath a low hanging branch to see the
building behind the house. The worn brick of the building marked its age to be
at least fifty-years-old. A decrepit window faced her with black soot and dirt
smudging the glass and cement stairs led to a single red door set in the face
of the building. Evie moved her eyes upward to the roof. A smoke stack. She
listened, only hearing the clucks of the chickens on the other side of the
building.

She exhaled, knowing
that she needed to see inside. She pulled the binoculars from her hip, wiped
the foggy glass and set them onto her face. The single story house matched the
red brick and age of the building in the back. Janice and Ken had built it
together. She zeroed in on the windows, half covered in dingy curtains. No movement.
She moved back to the opening between the house and building. Chickens roamed
and pecked the ground.

She set the
binoculars down and inched forward, now just twenty feet from the building. She
crept lower, stepping lightly through the brush. BAM. The slam of a door pulsed
through her head. She ducked down behind a truck, peering around the side to
see a petite, elderly woman dressed in a cotton, floral dress with an apron
around her waist.
Janice.
She waddled down the steps, holding the
railing with two hands. She dug into her pockets and threw out handfuls of corn
before pausing and turning her tight rollers to the woods.

Evie moved her head
behind the trunk, waiting until she heard the thud of the door again. It was
now or never. She moved forward near the edge of the woods, hesitating before
she stepped onto the grass. The window was too dirty. She needed to get closer.
When the window was almost an arm’s length away, she reached for the ledge and
shoved her face against the glass. A bricked structure with an opened, black
wrought-iron door. The charred metal of the chamber materialized as her stomach
dropped in sudden realization. A crematory.

13

June 16 - 5:30 p.m

Delaney stood in
front of the floor-length mirror, her toes sinking into the plush newness of
the carpet while she studied her reflection. The black cocktail dress hugged
her body in all the right places and fell just above her knees, showing off her
lean legs, but she hated it anyway. She wouldn’t be able to conceal the handgun
Randy had given her; the dress was too tight to hide the tiny bulge. The tags
dangled from her armpits, her breasts held up high with the thick straps. She
had hated events like these, avoiding them at all costs throughout her
short-lived professional life. The people. The drinks. The fake laughter. The
money. She didn’t belong to their network, and she never wanted to.

Her thoughts were
interrupted with the buzz of her phone against the dresser. She pulled the
phone up to see a text from June:
Have fun tonight. Don’t forget to smile
.
Delaney shook her head, fighting the curl of her lips. She texted back:
Won’t
be the same without you
. Delaney had tried to convince June to come to the
gala to no avail. She and Robert had already made plans to spend the evening at
the Trout Museum of Art. The gala “wasn’t their thing,” they both had said. It
wasn’t Delaney’s, either, but that didn’t matter. Not to Holston anyway.

She set the phone
back on the dresser and reached for the mahogany box that held her mother’s wedding
ring, now threaded on her own silver chain. She ran her fingers along the box,
remembering when James had first brought it to her. It had fit neatly in the
palm of his outstretched hand, neither of them understanding the magnitude of
the gift Ann had given her. She opened the lid to see the sheen of the silver.
As she grabbed the chain, her fingernail caught the edge of the red velvet
lining, revealing a worn edge of photo paper. She took the edge of the lining
in her fingers and pulled back gingerly, discovering more of the aged black and
white photo. The full portrait came into view, the wallet-sized image
displaying a toddler boy she had never seen before. She turned over the image
of the young boy.
1984
. No name was listed, no other identifying information
except 1984. She turned the photo right-side up to look closer at the boy
frozen in time from 1984. She couldn’t see his face; he was peering down over
the edge of a rusted wheelbarrow with a two-story farmhouse in the backdrop.
With a plaid shirt rolled at the sleeves, he looked like a miniature farmer.
She fingered the edges of the wheelbarrow, noticing a large splinter on the
wooden handle. It seemed vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place the
wheelbarrow or the house. She didn’t know the landscape.

“Stunning,” James
said as he walked barefoot to her, his tie loose around his neck and his shirt
untucked from his pants.

“I’m sure,” Delaney replied
as she placed the picture back in the box, covering it quickly with the crimson
lining. She straightened her dress and pulled it down. “It’s a little tight.”

“All the better.” He
held her chin, pressing his lips against hers in a sweet, warm kiss. He
reluctantly pulled away. “I won’t be able to keep my hands off you all night.”

“Sounds good,” she
replied, feeling the warmth of his body consume her. A dose of James was what
she needed. He had taken the edge off her nerves since he had arrived just an
hour ago from Milwaukee with Ann and Michael in tow.