Judgement By Fire (19 page)

Sickened,
feeling as though her heart would break, Lauren turned her back on him. Paul
put his arm around her and said he’d take her to his cottage and get her wrist
bandaged. Blinded by tears and determined not to let him see, Lauren kept her
spine rigid as she walked away in the shelter of Paul’s supporting arm. She
didn’t see when Jon and Paul again exchanged meaningful looks.

“I think you’d
better leave,” Paul told Jon quietly.

            With a last anguished
look at Lauren, Jon climbed into his company Jeep and drove away, He hoped
she’d forgive him for the subterfuge—he didn’t give a damn about the truck, not
when she night have been hurt—but Paul was right. He had to get away, talk to
Police Chief Ohmer and try to finish this before anyone else got hurt. Again,
the thought of anything happening to Lauren seared into him, and he slammed his
foot down on the accelerator.

*
* *

           
Watching through
binoculars from a sheltered spot at the edge of the woods, the tall blond man
felt a vicious enjoyment as he saw the looks that flickered on their faces. She
believed so readily all that he’d set up, her faith so thin in Jon Rush that it
shattered at the first hint of trouble.

More fool
you, Cousin Jon, for falling for the stupid, treacherous bitch!

            Mostly, he enjoyed
the emotions of fear, hurt and betrayal which flashed in quick succession
across Jon’s face.
Feel that pain, Jon! Feel it sink into your bones,
into your heart, into your innards! The pain of loss and betrayal is going to
be your last emotion, the one you’ll take to your grave!

*
* *

            Absorbed as he was in
helping Lauren walk the short distance to the cottage he and Lucy shared so
that he could bandage her wrist, Paul’s attention was caught by the flash of
sunlight on something bright on the edge of the woods. But right then his
greatest concern was to shore up Lauren’s sagging emotional state and to
minister to her injuries. He’d think about that telltale shaft of light later.

Sunlight
streamed in through the green curtain of plants that veiled a large
conservatory window in the glassed in back porch of Paul and Lucy’s cottage,
creating a semi tropical ambience despite the streaks of snow that still patterned
the ground outside.

Lauren shivered
despite the moist heat of the greenhouse as she hunched over the comforting
warmth of a mug of hot, sweet coffee. Lucy, newly home from hospital herself,
had declared her friend in a state of shock, rubbed a soothing muscle-relaxing
ointment on her shoulder, wrapped an elastic bandage around her injured wrist,
and declared she sit, stay, and rest.

With all that
loving motherly treatment, she should have been feeling better. Instead, she
had never felt so wretched in her life. Paul had tried to tell her that she’d
been suffering from shock and tension and not thinking straight, but Lauren
couldn’t excuse her behavior so easily.

Certainly,
she’d been in pain, certainly she’d been shaken by the events of the past
twenty-four hours, yet to accuse the man she loved, on scant evidence, of being
behind such terrible things was unforgivable. A deep sense of shame haunted her
because she hadn’t had the courage to trust Jon, hadn’t been able to trust her
own love for him.

Talking to
Paul, she’d realized what her heart and her head had been telling her all
along; that Jon could not have been driving the truck that pushed her off the
road. He’d arrived too early at her cottage to be responsible.
And she
hadn’t even given him the benefit of the doubt.

            “He was like a clock
spring, all wired with tension, worried sick about you,” Paul had told her, his
words flaying her emotions. “He’s told me all about the things that have been
happening at the company, and how he and the security chief think there may be
a link between everything that’s been happening. He was terrified something
might happen to you, kiddo, terrified and full of guilt. You see, he feels
responsible, because it’s something to do with that company he loves so much that
is threatening you. He loves you, Lauren.”

            Lauren knew that Paul
was trying to help, trying to convince her of what she already knew—that she
had laid the blame in the wrong quarter. However, his words served only to
intensify the pain and shame she was already feeling.

           
I’m an emotional
coward,
she berated herself. Jon had made it plain from the very beginning
of their relationship—from the day they first met—that he was willing to put
himself out on the line to see if the attraction that burned between them would
go any further. He’d been there at every turn, urging her to follow her heart,
begging her not to turn away from him, putting himself out in time, energy, and
emotional currency.

            And what had she
done? She’d put him off at every opportunity.
Aside from when you shared his
bed,
the little voice in her head had turned vicious, adding derisively:
Then
you shared everything with him completely, and glad enough to!

            Lauren sighed deeply,
but it brought no relief from the terrible guilt that burdened her.
Sigh,
heart, and never break…
that’s what her mother had told her, an old English
folk saying. But it wasn’t true. Despite her sighs, Lauren’s heart was breaking
because she knew the treasure she might have lost because of her own lack of
emotional courage.

           
You’re running
scared. One bad deal with Terry and now you think every man wants to rule your
life and take away
—
take away what, exactly? What is this precious
creative freedom you’re always rabbiting about?
 

Do you
honestly believe that loving Jon is going to mean you’ll never pick up a
paintbrush again? Look at all the women who’ve had wonderful relationships
while being at their creative best
—
look no further than your neighbors!
Lucy was already pursuing her artistic career when the concept of women working
outside the home was only in its infancy. Her husband was a top civil lawyer,
but Lucy’s career didn’t go down the drain in a flurry of Susie Homemaker
hostessing.

           
Lauren sprang
to her feet, the coffee now cold in her cup, and began pacing the small space
to try to get away from the jibes of the small voice of her conscience. It was
not so easy to escape the truth.

Her
relationship with Terry had foundered because it wasn’t really based on the
sort of honest love that encouraged each person to be the best they could be.
Not like the beautiful treasure Jon had been offering her and which she had
dashed from his hands.

            Well, she could
change all that. She’d go and find Jon, tell him how she felt, beg, if
necessary, for his forgiveness. Pray he’d take her in his arms and send that
fire tingling down her veins…

            Images of a big,
black Jeep hurtling down on her came unbidden into Lauren’s mind. She imagined
with a shudder the slight body of a woman, left behind like garbage in the
dirty city snow as the same Jeep sped off and left her for dead.

Dread filled
her, the same sensation she experienced when she’d stood alone in her ransacked
studio while the anger and hatred of the intruder still hummed in the empty air
long after he’d done his work and gone. Before Jon arrived and took her in his
arms and made the horror recede.

            The conviction that
the person who’d been behind these incidents also meant Jon terrible harm
returned to her, and Lauren could be still no longer. She had to find Jon, set
things straight between them. She’d protect him with her life, if need be. She
knew he’d do no less for her.

            Waving aside Paul’s
protests with a quick kiss to the older man’s cheek and a promise to be
careful, Lauren ran out to her car. Now that she had direction and purpose she
was able to free her mind from the mental and emotional quagmire she’d been
struggling in. Wherever Jon had gone, she’d find him and they’d sort this out.

Paul had
mentioned that Jon was going to West River hamlet to take a firsthand look at
an information booth they were setting up on behalf of Avalon Hospitality.  The
booth was to be located on an empty lot near the village council offices on the
Main Street, so Lauren decided to make that her first stop. If she couldn’t
find Jon at the information booth, she would be within easy reach of the
council offices and would look for him there.

            Saturday was the
major marketing day for all the families who lived out in the township. People
crowded into the village to pick up animal feeds and groceries, and to meet
with friends over a meal or coffee at one of the diners.

Children ran
around the streets, greeting friends and enjoying the opportunity to browse the
few shops, while the adults stood around on the sidewalks in groups, chatting and
basking in the early spring sunshine. The broad main street was packed with
cars, vans and pickup trucks parked at the curb. Lauren had to drive through
twice, predatorily searching for a space in which to tuck her small car. Her
wrist was aching seriously by the time she managed to squeeze into a space left
as a station wagon laden with children and dogs pulled out into traffic. 

A tiny blonde
girl, strapped in the back of the wagon, gave her a cheery smile and a wave of
a candy-sticky hand, and Lauren was suddenly struck again by that heart-deep
longing which had coursed through her at the idea of holding Jon Rush’s child
in her arms. The feeling was so strong it sparked at sensual ache in the pit of
her stomach.

Tears misted
her vision as she swallowed back on the possibility that such a paradise might
be lost to her. Images of the night she and Jon had spent discovering and
pleasuring each other in the big antique bed swamped her, and for a moment she
was transported back to the sheer delight of that time. Her heart pounded, her
body tingled and ached with remembered bliss so she could barely move.

            Then she was brought
back to the present with an unpleasant thump when the driver of a truck, hoping
she was about to leave the precious parking space, gave an impatient blast of
his horn. Giving the other driver a brief wave to explain that she was not
leaving, Lauren gathered her purse from the front seat and stepped out of her
vehicle. It took just moments to locate the empty lot now occupied by the sleek,
silver lines of the modern trailer. The name “Avalon Hospitality Inc.” was
emblazoned over the entryway with another, smaller sign, stating ‘Information’
underneath the main sign.

A huge family
home had stood in this prime location once, but the house had been gutted by
fire many years ago and the rural economy had not recovered from its
decade-long slump enough for anyone to be willing to invest in redeveloping the
site.

As she paused for
traffic to pass, Lauren thought she heard the sharp sound of breaking glass,
although she could see nothing untoward. Moments later, her heart suddenly took
on a staccato beat and a lump rose in her throat as she saw a familiar tall,
broad-shouldered figure, topped by a mop of smooth blond hair, striding
purposefully some distance away on the other side of the road.

He had come
from behind the mobile unit, his step quick but unhurried, hands buried in the
deep pockets of a thick parka, moving in the opposite direction from where she
stood.  At this distance it was hard to be sure, but the man looked so like Jon
from behind that Lauren felt a tightness of familiarity in her chest as she
watched his progress down the street.

            “Jon! Jon!” she
called over the noise of oncoming traffic, waving frantically. Her display
earned her some interested looks from passers-by, but Lauren had to wait
frustrating minutes for a break in the traffic so that she could dart across
the road. She thought he’d heard her, for the tall figure seemed to pause, and
she called again. But she must have been mistaken, because he quickened his
pace.

            Lauren ran along the
sidewalk, thankful of a gap in the crowds as she jogged towards the front of
the information booth, her mind set on only one thing: to catch up with the man
she thought was Jon and find some way of repairing the damage between them.

As she ran,
she noticed the sharp tang of burning, a smell more like smoldering garbage
liberally laced with plastic than the sweet scent of wood smoke. She was so
preoccupied with her pursuit of the tall figure rapidly moving away from her
that it took several seconds before the evidence of her nose was confirmed by
her eyes.

Where moments
before there had been only blank darkness behind the small windows of the
information unit, now a sinister orange glow lit the small building from
inside. Lauren screamed a warning to others nearby to get help and raced
towards the building, answering an overriding fear that someone might still be
inside the trailer.

Lauren had almost
reached the door when the world exploded around her as the fire’s greedy
fingers found the small propane gas tank that fed the appliances in the unit’s
tiny kitchen. A wall of hot air rolled over her, sucking the breath from her
lungs and choking her as the force of the blast threw her backwards in a
searing, suffocating vacuum. The roar of the explosion and fire hit her
eardrums and she was lost in a silent world as she was knocked her from her
feet and fell backwards from the sidewalk and into the road.

Lauren, locked
in her silent, terrifying world, was detachedly aware of a big truck swerving
around her, the driver’s face frozen in an ugly mask of shock. Then her hearing
began to return, giving her an underwater impression of children crying and
women screaming in fear, of men shouting in alarm and anger. Turning her head
slightly, she looked towards the sidewalk and saw the Avalon Hospitality
information booth engulfed in flames. Then she sank thankfully into the
blackness that welcomed her.