Pretty Girls (52 page)

She studied the back of the house. The plywood board she and Lydia had pried off the kitchen door was leaning up against the side of the house. They had left it on the ground where they’d dropped it. She assumed Paul had neatly leaned up the board beside the door. He had probably straightened up inside the house as well. Or maybe he’d left the silverware strewn across the floor as a sort of alarm so that he would know if someone tried to enter the house.

Claire was more worried about getting Paul out of the house than her going in.

She bent down to the gas can and took the cap off the flexible spout. She started to the left of the small back porch off the kitchen, dripping gasoline down the slats of wooden siding that covered the exterior of the house. Claire worked carefully so that the gas got into the seams between the boards. She raised up the can every time she passed a window, soaking the plywood as much as she could without making too much noise.

Claire’s heart was pounding so loudly when she walked up the front porch steps that she was afraid the noise would give her away. She kept her eyes on the garage. She tried not to think about Paul in there with Lydia. The roll-up metal door was still padlocked from the outside. The hasp was secure. His murder room. Lydia was locked inside his murder room.

Claire turned back around. Quietly, she made a half-loop back around the house, double-checking her work underneath the boarded-up windows. By the time she was finished, she’d poured a crescent of gasoline around the left side of the house, covering the front porch, the bedrooms, and the bathroom. Only the kitchen and garage were left untouched.

Step one: complete.

Claire returned to the foil blanket. She knelt down. She was sweating, but her hands were so cold she could barely feel her fingers. She said a silent apology to her mother the librarian as she ripped apart the Shelley collection. She wadded and rolled together the pages into a long wick. She unscrewed the spout from the gas can. She shoved the wick inside, leaving around six inches of exposed paper.

Step two: ready.

There were two long flares from the backpack. Claire kept both in her hand as she walked to the front of the house. She stood underneath the sewing room. The empty street was behind her. At the gas station, she had read the instructions for lighting the flare. It worked the same way as striking a match. You pulled off the plastic cap and struck the sandpaper side to the top of the flare.

Claire pulled off the plastic cap. She looked up at the house. This was the moment. She could stop now. She could go back to her car. She could call the FBI in Washington, DC. Homeland Security. The Secret Service. The Georgia Bureau of Investigation.

How many hours would it take for them to get to the house?

How many hours would that give Paul alone with her sister?

Claire struck the top of the flare. She jumped back, because she hadn’t anticipated such an immediate, blazing plume of fire. Sparks dripped at her feet. The flare made a spurting sound like a faucet turned on full blast. She felt a quiver of panic at what she was doing. She’d thought there would be more time, but the fire was rapidly eating away the seconds. The gasoline had caught. Reddish orange flames licked up the side of the house. She dropped the flare. Her heart was in her throat. She had to move quickly. This was happening now. There was no going back.

Claire jogged around to the side of the house. She struck the other flare and dropped it underneath the master bedroom. There was a whooshing sound, a puff of hot wind, and the flames roiled along the gas trail up to the plywood boards covering the window.

The heat was intense, but Claire was shivering. She ran back to her staging ground and wrapped the Mylar cape around her shoulders. The crinkly material barely covered her upper body. She looked up at the sky. The clouds were moving fast. The rain had gone from a fine mist to big, fat drops. Claire hadn’t counted on the rain. She watched the side of the house to make sure the fire was taking. White smoke spiraled high into the air. Orange flames licked out from behind the plywood.

Step three: in progress.

Claire grabbed the gas can and walked toward the back porch. She stopped ten feet away, perfectly in line with the steps. She put down the can. She took out the revolver. She held the gun at her side, barrel pointing toward the ground.

She waited.

The wind shifted. Smoke blew into her face. The color had changed from white to black. Claire didn’t know what that meant. She recalled a television show where the color difference was an important plot point, but then she also recalled an article that said the color of smoke varied depending on what was burning.

Was anything burning? Claire couldn’t see any more flames. There was only a steady plume of black smoke as she waited for Paul to run screaming from the house.

A minute passed. Another. She gripped the revolver in her hand. She swallowed down a cough. The wind shifted back toward the road. Another minute. Another. She listened to the rushing sound of blood in her ears as her heart threatened to beat out of her chest.

Nothing.

“Shit,” she whispered. Where was the fire? There wasn’t enough rain to wet the grass, let alone snuff out a burning house. Even the emergency road flare was sputtering out.

Claire kept her eye on the back door as she shuffled a few feet over to check out the side of the house. Smoke rolled out from underneath the plywood like a coal fire plant. Was the fire inside the walls? The wood siding was old and dry. The wooden studs had been inside the walls for over sixty years. Claire had seen thousands of diagrams of residential walls: the siding on the exterior, the thin wood sheeting for strength, the thick layer of insulation tucked between the wooden studs, the Sheetrock. There was at least six inches of material between the inside and outside of the house, most of it wood, much of it soaked in gasoline. Why wasn’t the fire blazing through the house by now?

The insulation.

Paul had replaced all the windows. He would’ve pulled the old Sheetrock off the walls and foamed in a fire-retardant insulation because no matter what Claire thought of, Paul was always six fucking steps ahead of her.

“God dammit,” she muttered.

What now?

The gas can. She picked it up. There was still a swill of gasoline inside. The paper wick had sucked most of it into the fibers. This was her one and only back-up plan: to light the wick and throw the can on the roof.

And then what? Watch that not burn, either? The point of directing the fire into a crescent was to send Paul running out the back door. If he heard something on the roof, he could just as easily go out the front or even through the garage door. Or ignore the sound as a fallen tree limb or maybe not hear it at all because he was too busy doing whatever it was that he was doing with Lydia.

Claire put down the gas can. She opened the flip phone. She dialed information and got the home number for Buckminster Fuller. She pressed the key to connect the call.

Inside the house, the kitchen phone started ringing. The sound still felt like an ice pick in her ear. She let the muzzle of the gun tap at her leg as she listened to the rings. One. Two. Three. This time yesterday, Claire was sitting on the back porch like a docile child as she waited for Paul to call her every twenty minutes to tell her whether or not her sister was still alive.

Paul answered the phone on the fifth ring. “Hello?”

“It’s me.” She kept her voice quiet. She could see him through the broken kitchen door. His back was to her. There was no smoke in the room, no sign of the fire. He had taken off the red sweatshirt. She could see his shoulder blades stretching against the thin material of his T-shirt.

He said, “Why are you calling on this phone?”

“Where is Lydia?”

“I’m really getting sick of you asking about your sister.”

The wind had shifted back. Smoke burned her eyes. “I saw the unedited videos.”

Paul didn’t answer. He looked up at the ceiling. Could he smell the smoke?

“I know, Paul.”

“What do you think you know?” He tried to stretch the phone cord to look in the hallway.

A flash of light caught Claire’s eye. A single flame fingered its way down from the soffit over the bathroom. She looked back at Paul. The phone was keeping him tethered inside the kitchen. “I know you’re the masked man.”

Again, he said nothing.

Claire watched the finger of flame turn into a hand. The soffit blackened. The wood grain on the siding laced with soot. “I know you have photographs of Johnny Jackson on the USB drive. I know you want your client list so you can keep the business going.”

“Where are you?”

Claire’s heart thrilled with excitement as she watched the fire trace up the plywood board covering the bathroom window.

“Claire?”

Paul wasn’t talking on the phone. He was standing on the porch looking up at the house. Smoke rolled off the roof. He didn’t look terrified. He looked stunned. “What did you do?”

Claire dropped the phone. She still held the revolver at her side. Paul looked down at her hand. He knew that she had a gun. Now was the time to raise it up, point the barrel at him, cock the hammer. She should move quickly. She should widen her stance. She should be ready to pull the trigger before his foot hit the ground.

Paul walked down the three steps. She remembered him walking down the stairs at home, the way he would smile at her in the morning and tell her how beautiful she was, the way he would kiss her cheek, the way he would leave her notes to find in the medicine cabinet and send her funny texts during the day.

He asked, “Did you set the house on fire?” He sounded incredulous and secretly pleased, the exact same way he’d sounded when Claire had called him from the police station to tell him she needed bail money.

“Claire?”

She could not move. This was her husband. This was Paul.

“Where did you get that?” He was looking down at the gun. Again, he seemed more surprised than concerned. “Claire?”

The plan. She couldn’t forget the plan. The fire was catching. The revolver was in her hand. She needed to cock the hammer. Point it at Paul’s face. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger.

“Lydia’s fine.” He was standing so close to her. She could smell his musty sweat. His beard was full. He had taken off the thick glasses. She could see the outline of his body underneath his white T-shirt.

She had kissed his body. She had curled her fingers into the hair on his chest.

He glanced back at the house. “Looks like it’s spreading fast.”

“You’re terrified of fire.”

“I am when it’s close enough to hurt me.” He didn’t state the obvious: that he was outside, that it was raining, that he had acres of fields he could run to for safety. “Listen, the fire won’t hold off like that for long. Go ahead and give me the USB drive, and I’ll leave, and you can go inside and untie Lydia.” He smiled his sweet, awkward smile that told her everything was taken care of. “You’ll see I didn’t hurt her, Claire. I kept my promise to you. I always keep my promises to you.”

Claire watched her hand go up to touch his cheek. His skin felt cold. His T-shirt was too thin. He needed a jacket.

She said, “I thought—”

Paul looked into her eyes. “You thought what?”

“I thought I chose you.”

“Of course you did.” His hands gently cradled her face. “We chose each other.”

Claire kissed him. Really kissed him. Paul moaned. His breath caught when their tongues touched. His hands trembled at her face. She could feel his heart beating. It was the same as it had always been, which was how she knew that it had always been a lie.

Claire cocked the hammer. She squeezed the trigger.

The explosion shook the air.

Blood splattered up her neck.

Paul dropped to the ground. He was screaming. The sound was feral, frightening. He clutched at his knee, or what was left of his knee. The hollow-point bullet had disintegrated his kneecap and ripped apart his ankle. White bone and strips of tendon and cartilage dangled down like bloody pieces of frayed string.

She told Paul, “That was for me.”

Claire shoved the gun down the back of her jeans. She grabbed the foil blanket. She started toward the house.

Then she stopped.

Fire had taken over the left side of the house. Flames were clawing at the kitchen wall. Sparks jumped up at the ceiling. Glass shattered in the intense heat. The telephone had melted. The linoleum was black. Smoke hung like white cotton in the air. Orange and red flames had filled the den as they trudged toward the hallway.

Toward the garage.

It was too late. She couldn’t go in. Trying to help Lydia would be madness. She would die. They would both die.

Claire took a deep breath and ran into the house.

TWENTY-THREE

“I’m in the garage!” Lydia pulled uselessly at her restraints as bright red flames licked at the mouth of the hallway. “Help me!”

She had heard gunfire. She had heard a man screaming.

Paul
, she thought.
Please, God, let it be Paul
.

“I’m here!” Lydia cried. She strained against the chair. She had given up hope until the phone rang, until the gunshot.

“Help!” she screamed.

Did they know about the fire? Were the police handcuffing Paul when they should be running into the house? He had left the door to the house open. She had a front-row view to the changing nature of the fire. The gentle flicker had turned into white-hot flames that were chewing through the walls. The carpet peeled up. Chunks of plaster melted off the ceiling. Smoke and heat roiled through the narrow corridor. Her hands felt hot. Her knees felt hot. Her face was hot.

“Please!” Lydia screamed. The fire was moving so fast. Didn’t they know she was in here? Didn’t they see the flames shooting through the roof?

“I’m in here!” she yelled. “I’m in the garage!”

Lydia pulled uselessly at the restraints. She couldn’t die like this. Not after what she had survived. She needed to see Rick one more time. She needed to hold Dee in her arms. She had to tell Claire that she had really forgiven her. She had to tell her mother that she loved her, that Paul had killed Sam, that her father had not taken his life, that he had loved them all so much and—