Threaded for Trouble (22 page)

The fire siren howled, calling volunteers to rush to the station and clamber onto the truck for a wild ride. At two in the morning.

I leaped out of bed. My cell phone signaled that I had a text.
Fire,
it said. I threw on jeans, a sweatshirt, and sneakers, then patted the dogs good-bye and jogged down the street to my car. The fire station was close, but if the trucks had already left, I’d need to drive. Besides, I wouldn’t actually be fighting the fire, only observing, and I could come back whenever I wanted.

The fire hall doors were rolled all the way up, and both trucks were gone. I ran to the chalkboard.

I would have no trouble finding the place.

The Coddlefield farm.

The ominous word
House
was scrawled beneath the address.

A
HOUSE FIRE AT THE CODDLEFIELDS’. Eight children, four of them under the age of twelve. Hardly aware of anything besides my fear for the kids, I sprinted to my car and sped south.

The smell of summer-dry grasses blew in through the open windows. To the east, another siren’s call rose and fell. A fire truck from the next township? The sound dwindled, and the orchestra of insects took over.

I half expected to see other volunteers, their blue lights flashing, rushing with me to the fire, but I was alone with the night, the stars, and the dry, crackling lightning between distant clouds.

Headlights came toward me. As a car whooshed past, I caught only a glimpse of a light-colored vehicle shaped like Susannah’s VW. What could she have been doing out at this time of night near a fire?

Ahead, bright lights spangled trees surrounding the Coddlefields’ farm. No flames, no orange glow, but smoke burned my nostrils.

I passed a dark sedan parked on the right shoulder. A fireman in full gear opened the passenger door and reached
toward the seat. His casual, unhurried pose reassured me. The worst of the crisis had to be over. The children must be fine.

But I needed to be certain. I drove farther and parked on the shoulder beside the Coddlefields’ rural mailbox. Its door gaped open, but I didn’t take time to investigate. I scrambled out of the car and pelted up Plug’s driveway toward his house. Pickup trucks had been left helter-skelter on the lawn. I recognized Clay’s truck, red with
Fraser Construction
printed in white on the doors. Plug’s fire chief SUV and Russ’s truck were parked in their usual spaces, close to the house.

I had to find those children.

All I could see nearer the house were firefighters, fire trucks, and water pouring from hoses into the top of the dark house. The tallest firefighter would be Isaac or Clay. The short, wide one, made even wider by his bulky jacket, had to be Plug.

Smoke, panic, and running made me gasp and wheeze.

No flames.

Also, no children.

I had to dodge a tanker racing down the driveway away from the fire. Would nearby ponds yield enough water, or would the truck have to go all the way to Lake Erie to fill up? Russ was driving, with his fourteen-year-old brother as passenger.

Surely, they wouldn’t have left if any of their brothers and sisters had been hurt.

Then I heard the familiar crying and made out the other six Coddlefield children huddled in blankets on the lawn. I’d have seen them sooner if my eyes hadn’t been dazzled by lights from the tanker still on the scene.

I stumbled to the mass of blankets.

The twelve- and fifteen-year-old sisters sat cross-legged on the ground, each with a quilt-wrapped child on her lap and another in the shelter of one arm. The tiny girl and the two little boys bawled. The eight-year-old sobbed. Their
faces startlingly devoid of emotion, the two older girls stared at me. I could have been a tree.

I squatted and asked the oldest girl, “Can I do anything?”

She shrugged, looked away, and pulled the eight-year-old closer.

The littlest girl shouted at me, “Nasty lady in my house!”

The oldest girl corrected her. “Darla, no one’s in the house. We’re all here.”

“Is, too!” She pointed at her own little chest. “Darla seed her. Sleeping in Tiffie’s room when Daddy carrying me and blankie.
Nasty
lady.”

Smoke drifted out of the front sewing room window. Men shouted. The tall firefighter who could be Clay or Isaac helped two shorter men aim a hose. Near them, Plug stared through his mask toward the water arcing into a hole in his roof. I ran to him and grabbed his arm. He shook me off.

I screamed, “Your little girl says there’s someone in the house.”

He made a backhand gesture at me. If I didn’t leave him alone, he would swat me.

I dashed to the taller firefighter and waved my arms in his face. The man was Isaac, not Clay. I yelled that there might be someone in the house.

Isaac shook his head vehemently, glanced toward Plug, and motioned with his head for me to go away.

Where was Clay?
And why was Plug so insistent on not hearing about someone in his own home?

Darla had said there was a nasty lady in the house, sleeping in Tiffany’s room. Tiffany had told Edna and me that she now lived here. Tiffany took the littlest kids on excursions, like to the beach and the library. She’d used Darlene’s sewing machine to help teach little Darla her letters. She’d promised to make the girl new dwesses. She wouldn’t abandon her charges in the middle of the night after a fire broke out.

The black car that Tiffany drove was in the driveway, more or less in the way of the firefighters and fire trucks. Tiffany had to be here. However, Darla seemed very fond of Tiffany and called her “Tiffie,” not “nasty lady.”

Where was Haylee? Had she come to the fire?
Her pickup wasn’t here, but what if she had hitched a ride with other volunteers on the fire truck, then had helped evacuate the children, and had not made it out of the house? If Plug had indoctrinated his children to believe that all of the storekeepers in Threadville were nasty, would the youngest child refer to Haylee as a nasty lady?

Sleeping in Tiffie’s room…

Sleeping?

It felt like a door in the base of my heart unlatched. I sprinted to the other side of the fire truck where the firefighters’ outfits were stored.

I did not have enough training to fight a fire or to pull someone from a burning house, but I knew how to don the gear. And I had a fierce determination to rescue my best friend. Besides, the house was not actively flaming, and the damage, from what I could see, was mainly to the roof. A lightning strike?

Plug and the others would surely explore the house later, but all I could think of was Haylee, perhaps injured and unable to escape or call for help.

Sleeping
…

I pulled on the pants, boots, and jacket. I loaded an oxygen tank onto my back, adjusted the mask, tightened my helmet’s chinstrap, and made certain that both my respirator and radio were on and functioning.

I didn’t dare go in the front way. Plug might see me and stop me.

Pulling on gloves, I clomped through the woods to the back of the house.

The back door wasn’t locked. Lights were on in the kitchen, and everything looked normal. The basement door was open. Lights were on down there, too, and voices came from a radio or TV. The fire must have been in another part
of the house; probably, judging by what I’d seen from outside, in the attic above the original part of the house, near the sewing room. Using a flashlight, I checked the dining room, playroom, and living room. I found no apparent fire damage, and no ladies, nasty or otherwise.

Where was Haylee?

She would not have stood around wondering if I were trapped inside a smoke-filled house. She would have searched for me. I would never forgive myself if I could have saved her and didn’t.

The child had said the nasty lady was in Tiffany’s room. When Edna and I delivered Tiffany’s sewing machine, I’d seen bedrooms one flight up. The floor beneath my feet seemed sturdy.

Heartbeat accelerating, I grasped the railing with one gloved hand and carefully climbed the stairs. Water dripped through the ceiling. Wet plaster might break off and cascade down on me, but my helmet would protect my head, and I refused to think about the possibility that the house might collapse around me.

On the second floor, I shined my light into bedrooms. The pink frilly quilts and blue race car quilts were now outside, wrapped around kids. Fleecy blankets trailed across the floor from the beds as if trying to crawl out of the bedrooms by themselves. In the master bedroom, the fabulous quilt covered the king-sized bed.

Little Darla had to have been wrong. No one had remained in the house.

A mostly closed door might lead to a bathroom or closet.

Something thumped behind that door. I rammed it open with my shoulder and stumbled into a small bedroom. Tiffany’s?

I aimed my light down.

Felicity Ranquels lay in a heap on the shiny oak floor.

“F
ELICITY?” I SAID.

No answer. She simply lay there dressed in the jacket she’d worn to the presentation in my store, and matching pull-on pants. The day after Darlene’s death, little Darla had referred to Felicity as a nasty lady who had taken her dwess. Darla must have been referring to Felicity this time, also, not to Haylee.

Smoke swirled. A few seconds before, Felicity must have been conscious enough to kick the floor with her sturdy shoes. Now she wasn’t moving.

Either something was still smoldering or leftover smoke was trapped in the house, shadowing and blurring everything. I had to get Felicity outside where she could breathe fresh air.

I didn’t dare take time to radio for help. Even a second’s delay could harm her more and might prevent me from escaping, too. I bent over, grabbed her by the armpits, and pulled.

The bed came, too.

I shined my light. A strip of pink fabric was tied tightly around Felicity’s wrist, with an extra loop that went around
the leg of the bed. The fabric was printed with tiny lavender flowers, matching the dwess that someone had cut out for little Darla.

Determined to get Felicity out of the house as quickly as possible, I didn’t let myself think about how she’d ended up in this predicament. I lifted one corner of the bed, toed the loop of Darla’s dwess fabric out from under the leg of the bed, then grasped Felicity’s upper arms again. This time, the bed stayed put. I hauled the woman out of the room and down the stairs. Her feet bumped on each step. My clumsy firefighter’s gloves and the wet carpeting didn’t make the job easier.

The back door was too far away. I heaved Felicity out the front door and onto the porch.

Uniformed firefighters gazed at the water they were spraying at the roof. I couldn’t move Felicity one more inch. Where had the strength come from to bring her all the way down from the second floor?

We could still be in danger from collapsing roofs. I looked for Clay, wanting his help although knowing he would give me a much-deserved lecture about safety.

My muscles hot enough to ignite a new fire, I stooped and reached for Felicity.

She scrabbled away from me. “Help!” she screamed. “He’s trying to kill me!”

She was conscious again, at least. What made her think I was trying to kill her? Was she remembering something that had happened before she conked out? Someone had tied her to that bed. Had that person been wearing a fireman’s uniform, and now she was mistaking me for him?

Her shouts brought Plug running. He bellowed for help. Isaac dashed to the porch. Between the three of us, we carried Felicity farther from the house.

Plug stared at my mask as if trying to see my face. Felicity had called me “he.” With any luck, Plug also thought I was a man. I didn’t know what he might do if he discovered I had invaded his house, and I didn’t want to find out. Plug had a temper, and for all I knew, he had murdered his wife.
And it appeared that somebody had tried to murder Felicity by tying her to a bed in a burning house. If that person guessed I’d seen the fabric tethering Felicity to the bed, I was in danger. I hunched my shoulders to keep anyone from seeing my face.

Plug dropped to his knees, removed his own mask and put it on Felicity’s face. She tried to squirm away. Isaac helped Plug hold her down. Plug and Isaac never seemed to get along well. Neither of them would dare harm Felicity, would they, with the other one present as a witness?

I couldn’t stay there to protect Felicity, though. I would come back, but first I needed to make certain that Haylee was safe. I should have called her earlier, but as things had turned out, I was glad I’d rushed headlong into the house, instead.

Russ and his brother had apparently filled the second tanker truck and brought it back. I ran to the other side of the nearest truck, checked to make certain no one was watching, then took off my mask, undid my jacket, reached into my pocket for my cell phone, and pressed the button for Haylee.

I was about to put the mask on again and dash into the Coddlefield house when she answered.

Relief reduced my bones to chiffon. “Where are you?” I blurted.

“At home. I was asleep. Why are you calling at this hour?” She yawned.

“I was afraid you had come to the fire. I couldn’t find you.” I didn’t tell her I’d linked her—possibly—to little Darla’s words,
nasty lady
.

“Fire? What are you talking about? Where are you, Willow? And are you all right?”

“I’m fine. There was a fire at the Coddlefields’ house, but it didn’t amount to much.” Except that someone may have tried to kill Felicity. “I’ll tell you about it in the morning.”

“Want me to come?”

“No. Everything’s fine.”

I had to reassure her several times and tell her I was about to go home before she would break the connection.

Next, I needed to tackle that little matter of what looked like attempted murder…

I called 911. Hanging on to the phone, I clumsily shed the rest of the firefighting outfit and stowed it in the truck while telling the dispatcher that Felicity had apparently been overcome by smoke at the Coddlefield fire. I said that, last I knew, the fire chief was giving her oxygen, and she was apparently healthy enough to fight his ministrations.