House of Fire (Unraveled Series) (5 page)

“So what was that
about a guy you’re seeing? What’s his name?”

“James.”

“Is he hot? Good in
bed?”

“It’s good, Kandy.
I’ll leave it at that.”

“Never wanted to kiss
and tell, did you, Delaney? I’ll give you a ring once I know something,” Kandy
finally relented.

“Thanks and don’t let
the fee get too high.”

“What’s too high?” She
laughed. “I’m drinking from a bottle of wine worth two grand.”

“Under five hundred,”
Delaney said, pausing before she added, “Dollars.”

“I got you covered,
girl.”

“Thanks.” Delaney
ended the call and looked at the fresh oil splashed across the canvas. One
thing was missing.

She moved to her
brush, lapping up the dark gray oil and layering it onto the barn to create two
menacing, serpent-like eyes barely visible in the barn. She set her brush down
in satisfaction; the eyes diligently looked back at her, following her swayed
body movement. It was the first step to removing Holston Parker from her life.
She needed to accept what had happened and discover who he really was. She
would turn the tables on him.

She sank into the
chair, letting the rhythm of the rain soothe her as she reached for the
newspaper on her desk. June, who had subscribed to the daily Appleton newspaper
for the last fifteen years, had a habit of leaving the latest edition on
Delaney’s desk. June wasn’t like Ann Jones, who never read the paper; June read
each paper front to back every day over the blackest coffee. It was a habit,
she had once told Delaney, not about the coffee, but about reading the paper.

Delaney picked up the
paper, reading the headline on the bottom right corner of the front page: “
Missing
Man, 38, from Green Bay.”
Evie’s words echoed in her mind,
he disappears
them.
Kurt Dodd had vanished with no trace.

“Striking,” his voice
pierced the air amid the thrashing of rain against the building. It spun
Delaney in her chair, her skin tingling beneath the loose cotton. His steady,
low voice different than just eight hours ago. Earlier, he was the
philanthropist.
Holston Parker the Businessman
. This voice was
different; the same as the night she had first met him.
Holston Parker the
Murderer.

“The barn. I see
you’ve continued our tradition,” he said, leaning against the doorframe of her
office as he closed the dripping umbrella. The water pooled on the floor, his
black oxfords beading away the moisture. The gray fedora lay lightly on his
head, free of any disturbance, as if he had walked in from a completely dry
summer night.
Untouchable.

“This barn is
different, the flames consuming it,” she replied evenly, despite the crawling
in her throat. She looked down at her phone, wondering how long he had been
standing there. The conversation with Kandy had only been finished moments
before.

“Ann is doing well, I
see,” he said, taking his hat off to reveal the sheen of his hair. Delaney
studied the wrinkles surrounding his eyes and the shadows which hung beneath
them. She hadn’t remembered those wrinkles or the shadows. He looked different
- fatigued. “Her recovery is remarkable, if you ask me.”

Delaney felt the
darkness swallow her as he stepped into the room.

“Do you mind?” Holston
asked, not waiting for the response.

“And if I did?”

“Delaney, my love,
the hostility will change with time,” he said.

“I don’t want to get
to know you,” she said as he moved into the chair next to the door.

“Is this where Theron
sat?” His eyes scorched her, scratching beneath her chest as though they were
attempting to sear her soul. Theron’s scar pulsated in her mind, his skin split
open as blood poured out. “The case has finally been closed, and he will fully
recover,
with time
. Again, there it is. Time.”

“Why are you here?”
Delaney asked.

“I just had a little
meeting with a friend. President Givens and I have been friends for quite some
time, you know. We had some matters to settle, and they will be finalizing soon.
I was about to step outside when I saw your light was on. I thought I would
check on you,” he said. The last thing she wanted was to see him or to hear his
voice. She wanted nothing more than to erase him from her life.

“I’ve done what you
have asked of me,” she started, the anger seeping into her words.

“You have, and Mark
is doing well, performing to my expectations. The gala is in two days, and I
expect you to be there in order to celebrate in your brother’s accomplishments,
my accomplishments,” he said.

“I will never
celebrate you,” she shot back.

“Anger has no place. James
chapter one, verse twenty:
For man's anger does not bring about the
righteous life that God desires
,” he replied coolly.

“A righteous life? God
sends people like you to Hell,” Delaney said. “If there is a Hell. There better
be. For people like you.”

“The perception is in
the eye of the beholder, love. Something that you have not yet learned, I see.”
He paused as if he was contemplating what else she had not yet learned. “The
gala, let’s get back to that. I’ve sent an invitation to Ann and Michael. I
expect they will be attending as well,” he said. Delaney felt her mother’s ring
heavy on her chest. “Bring James. Why not make this a family affair?”

“Family? The only
family you have ran from you before she tried to kill you,” she said.

“My Evie,” he said,
“She’ll come back, and I will be waiting.”

“To make her
disappear, too?” Delaney yanked the paper up and slammed her index finger
across the missing man headline, using her earlier assumption that he had been
involved in Kurt Dodd’s disappearance to make a point.

“Kurt Dodd deserved
everything that came to him,” he said, unapologetic. His eyes burned through
her.

“And how many
others?” she accused, hiding her mild shock at having been right about
Holston’s involvement. “But now, it’s without the help of your trusted Gunnar.
Tell me, Holston, who have you hired now?” Delaney felt the courage rising, her
fight beginning to kick and scream in her chest.

“You,” he paused
before standing, “don’t need to worry about my situation. I will take care of
everything as I always have.”

Delaney followed his
body up, her eyes moving along his crisp, wrinkle-free suit as he placed his
hat back on his head and moved toward the door. He stepped through the
doorframe into the hall before opening up his umbrella. Delaney exhaled,
feeling the darkness begin to lift from her body.

“And Delaney, stop
all the nonsense with the guns. The range. The instructor. None of it suits
you.” The hairs on her neck crept upward as the heaviness slammed back into her
chest. She had been so careful, diligent in finding the facility more than
thirty minutes away, yet he knew.
Sanchez. It has to be Sanchez.
Delaney
moved back to the eyes on the barn; he was always watching. She held her
breath, anticipating the footsteps along the empty hall, but no sound
registered. In and out. He appeared and vanished from her life like a flutter
of the eyes.

6

June
14 - 7:30 p.m.

Evie slipped into the
bathroom of Svolvar Airport before her first departing flight in a long leg of
flights to Wisconsin. She waited for an elderly woman to pass her, moving
closer to the single sink and mirror. The island’s airport was quaint, only
servicing a select number of airports out of Lofoten. Oslo was her next stop
before the states. She moved her fingers through her cropped hair before she
washed her hands meticulously slow, rubbing the bubbles over and over. The
woman shuffled to the door and finally slipped through, the door clattering
shut. Evie reached into her carry-on and retrieved the blonde wig, situating it
on her head until all the sticks of brown were hidden inside. The straw-colored
bangs hung low, covering her dark eyebrows, the back falling six inches past
her shoulders.

She dumped her
leather jacket in the garbage before double checking the driver’s license one
last time; the eyes of Jane Frieburg from Missouri stared back at her. Evie
mouthed the details, 847 Willow Lane Road. Five feet, three inches, one hundred
ten pounds, blonde hair, blue eyes. Organ donor. She stood up straighter,
feeling her calves tighten in the heels.
Your boots are in the bag
, she
reminded herself.
You’re Jane Frieburg for the next twenty-four hours.

The door creaked open
as Jane Frieburg slid out, walking confidently to the check-in counter. She
hadn’t wanted to put the wig on in front of Ryan; it hadn’t felt right,
although she was sure he would have understood. The transformation had to wait
until this moment. She wanted Ryan to only know her as she was in Norway, who
she was with him. Holston Parker had turned her into someone else; Evie the
Fighter. Ryan hadn’t known the fighter. It was better that way.

The next plane to be
boarded rolled onto the tarmac, awaiting its passengers. Evie pulled out her
iPad, flipping through the pictures of Gunnar’s tattoos. She hadn’t deciphered
all twenty-two names, not even close, but she had unearthed five of them. Henry
and Richard Rowan were the two most obvious. Two down, twenty to go. She had been
hung up on J.T. for days back on the beach, lingering over the familiar
initials. It had finally hit her in a split moment of sudden realization, a
strange stopping of time as she had watched a young boy lick the last of the ice
cream from his cone. A man, his father she presumed, had stood over him,
badgering him to eat it faster before he swatted him over the head. She had
stood up from her chair, ready to pounce and put him in his place, when a
different hand came hurdling back through her memory. It was him. J.T., John
Thomas. The violent foreman that had worked alongside Henry; he often swatted
at guys who weren’t moving fast enough. The workers had always laughed it off,
but Evie had known the look in his eyes. It had been the domineering look of
destruction which she had seen before. He had suddenly quit and moved to the
west coast, Henry had claimed with a shrug of his shoulders. But J.T. hadn’t
relocated to the west coast. Gunnar had relocated him six feet underground.

This realization had led
her to the other two names she had uncovered. G.R., Grey Reynolds and K.B.,
Kevin Brown. Both had been workers she had come across during the planning of the
security for the corporate building of a flexible packaging manufacturer. They
were both tattooed drifters that had been on the job site one week and were out
the next. She had racked her brain for the remaining initials, but she had been
unable to think of anyone else on her own, and she had no access to employee
records. Besides, when it came to the temporary ones, well, it seemed like they
came and went before their paperwork could be filled out. She now understood
that hiring so many temporary employees had not been a mere coincidence. The
hires were planned, calculated. Holston Parker had hired these men to get close
to them before Gunnar knocked them off. Her searches on all five of the now
deceased men had yielded little results. The men had barely made a mark on the
world, except for Richard who had been a convicted felon arrested on drug and
assault charges. They had disappeared without notice.

The initials and the
missing pieces to the puzzle taunted her. Delaney’s laptop hadn’t surfaced any useful
details, just a few family pictures and her recent jaunt on that stripping
website.
Delaney Jones, who are you?
She slipped her hand into her bag
and pulled out the picture of Ann Jones. The restaurant was long gone. Angel’s
Pub now occupied the space, turning the diner into a local hangout for bar
flies. Someone in Amberg had to know something. Evie needed a closer view of Holston’s
inner circle, and Amberg held the key.

“Flight 156 to Oslo
is now boarding.”

7

June 15 - 6:00 p.m.

“Headed to training
tonight?” June popped her head around the cube divider. Her yellow frizz was
pulled back in a low ponytail; small tendrils framed her face. The bluesy jazz
of a saxophone from The Avenue 91.9 played lightly through their shared space.

“Not in the mood,”
Delaney replied with her back to June. The small clacks of fingernails rolling
across the plastic of the divider registered in Delaney’s ears. June was
prodding, waiting for her cube mate to share more. Delaney held her breath as
she watched the second hands on the clock move. Ten seconds. Nothing. Twenty
seconds. Eternity.

“Okay.” The
fingernails stopped.

Delaney finally gave
in, her shoulders collapsing with the exhale. She could feel June’s eyes on her.
“I’m not going anymore.” The fingernails started again. Delaney finally turned,
meeting June’s waiting stare.

“Are you going to
tell me why?”

“I just don’t want to
go anymore,” Delaney replied.

“You told me you
loved it.” June moved into Delaney’s side of the office with her hands on her
hips.
God, June is relentless.
Delaney knew she wasn’t going to get off
that easy.

“I did, but there’s
only a few classes left anyway. I’m going to focus on my work,” Delaney replied
as she turned back to her easel.
That lying thing, I’ve got to work on that.
“Stay here tonight for a bit.”

“The canvas isn’t
going anywhere, and the students are gone,” June said. Delaney felt June move
behind her, standing in the floating skirt that grazed her Birkenstock sandals.
“It’s a good piece. Honest.” She pointed to the barn encased in flames from the
previous night.
Holston Parker’s barn.
Delaney caught the flickers in
the corner of her eyes; she shrugged her shoulders at June’s compliment.