Autumn Dreams (31 page)

And tears fell, much to Cass’s surprise. She wasn’t a weepy woman. She toughed things out. She didn’t cry. But her cheeks were still wet when she fell asleep.

She awoke to the raucous blast of the smoke alarm and a choking cloud of smoke.

A
T THE SOUND OF
the alarm, Cass sat bolt upright in bed. Immediately she smelled smoke, lots of it. In the darkness of her little cell, she couldn’t see it, but she
felt
it in the heaviness of the air around her. Smoke. Terrible sulfur-smelling smoke! Fire!

Get out! Get out! Grab Flossie and get out. Get the kids out. Get Dan out
.

She reached for the light on the tiny table by the bed. In her haste and fright, she knocked against the lamp, and it went tumbling over the far side of the table to crash in the tiny square of space between the bureau and the wall. Even over the blare of the alarm she heard the pop as the bulb shattered.

In blackness she slid from bed onto the narrow alley of floor, barely registering the chill in the November air. She knew she had to be low to stay under the worst of the fumes, to find air that was safe to breathe. Keeping her head down, she reached up, feeling for Flossie who lay sleeping somewhere in the blankets, oblivious of the bleating alarm. Cass had thought the animal was going deaf, but now she knew for certain. No creature with working ears could miss the cacophony of the alarm.

She felt all over the comforter without finding Flossie. She took a deep breath, rose up on her knees, and threw the comforter over the foot of the bed, no
easy task in her position. She skimmed the blanket with her hands. No Flossie. She threw it back too and felt wildly about. She was running out of air and time. Her hand smacked into a pile of warm fur that grunted at the slug she’d inadvertently given it. Cass grabbed the startled cat, tucked her under one arm, and dropped back to all fours to crawl out of the room.

She’d taken no more than two steps when the door to her room burst open. Dan rushed in, bringing very dim light from the kitchen and setting the thick smoke to swirling wildly in the new air currents.

“Cass! Cass!” he yelled, then tripped over the foot of the bed. With a yelp of pain he sprawled full length where a minute or two before she had slept.

She could hear Jenn and Jared calling her name from the smoke-shrouded kitchen. She yelled, “I’m coming! Go outside! Go!”

“Cass!” Dan was flailing around in the bed, searching for her, and she realized he couldn’t see her down on the floor.

“I’m here,” she shouted over the bleat of the alarm, reaching up and slapping at the bed. She connected with his leg, stinging her hand.

Dan growled something and rolled off the empty bed right on top of her. As his weight hit her, she collapsed facedown in the tiny space between the bed and the dresser, her hip, already sore from the fall by her mother’s car, catching one of the dresser knobs as she fell. Pain. Then all the air whooshed from her lungs as Dan landed on top of her, his feet dangling in her face.

Flossie, caught beneath Cass, let out a fierce howl at the indignity of being squashed and began to claw her way free. The animal had only her rear claws, but her desperation made them more than enough.

“Ouch, ouch, ouch!” Cass yelled as fiery scratches burned down her arm. She managed to lift her upper body enough to free the cat who streaked from the room. She collapsed immediately as Dan squirmed, trying to turn toward the door in a space not meant for anyone his size to move.

“Out!” Dan swatted at her.

“Off,” Cass gasped, elbowing him in the solar plexus.

Dan groaned and shifted to the side as much as he could,
which wasn’t much. “Just get out,” he yelled. “The smoke is gathering in here.” He coughed, a deep, ugly rasp, and scrambled to turn himself around, kicking her a couple of times in the process.

Cass pulled herself forward on her elbows like a soldier under fire. When she was free from the bulk of his weight, she got back to her knees and began crawling. Her head spun, her lungs burned with the effects of the smoke, and her stomach heaved at the noxious rotten egg smell.

“Hurry.” Dan’s hand found her rump and pushed. He coughed some more.

Cass crawled into and across the kitchen and out the door the kids had left open behind them. Once outside she got to her feet and headed for the sycamore. The clean, cold air washed over her. Sinking to her knees, she pressed her hands to her aching chest and breathed it in. Wonderful!

“I called 911,” Jenn said, holding her cell phone in Cass’s face. “I called them as soon as I got outside.”

Cass looked up at Jenn, who had on a fuzzy blue robe and white bunny slippers.

“Good girl. Thanks, Jenn.” She reached out and patted a bunny slipper. But was a cell phone the first thing to grab in case of fire?

Beside her, still on his hands and knees, Dan inhaled and coughed, inhaled and coughed.

“Are you okay?” She laid her hand on his back as, head down, he struggled for breath.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” His voice was raspy, but he was obviously breathing more easily all the time. He turned and sat, leaning his back against the tree. She turned and propped herself against the tree beside him. They stared at the house as they waited for the fire engines.

Poor firemen, Cass thought. All volunteers, pulled out of bed in the middle of the night.

“Where’s the fire?” Jared asked after a few minutes. “There’s no fire.”

“What do you mean?” Cass stared at SeaSong. As far as she could see, Jared was right. “But all the smoke—” It poured out the back door and out the window over the kitchen sink.

Jared, wearing only old sweatpants that looked as if they’d lost
all their elastic or their drawstring and threatened to slip off his narrow hips at any minute, walked to one side of the house and then the other. “Something’s weird here.” He disappeared down the side yard.

“Be careful!” Cass called after him. A gust of chill wind whipped by. She wrapped her arms about herself in a futile attempt to keep warm. She wanted the throw that Paulie had brought for Mom. She looked down at her
She sells seashells down by the Seaside
nightshirt and shivered. If it wouldn’t keep her warm in bed under the covers unless the cat cuddled against her, there wasn’t a ghost of a chance it’d do much good out here. At least she had her heavy socks on. Poor Dan’s bare feet must be freezing. He sat beside her dressed in a t-shirt and jeans.

Cass shuddered, and Dan slid his arm around her shoulders. “Lean in. We’ll keep each other warm.”

Cass leaned, angling so her back rested against part of Dan’s chest. Immediately his body heat eased her shivering. He rested his cheek against Cass’s head, and she closed her eyes to enjoy his nearness.

“I’m just glad there aren’t any other guests,” she said, thinking of the chaos and danger if there had been. “And thank goodness the insurance is paid.”

Dan’s arm tightened about her. “Don’t ever do that to me again,” he said softly. Then his voice turned rough. “You scared me to death.”

She turned and looked at him. “Do what?”

“The kids were both out in the yard when I hit the kitchen, but you weren’t anywhere in sight. All that smoke, so dense in the kitchen, and your closed door. I thought my heart would stop.”

“Yeah?” Sorry as she was that he’d been worried, she definitely felt toasty at that revelation. “And that’s when you crashed into my room?”

“That’s when I came to save you,” he corrected, kissing the top of her head.

Jared reappeared on the far side of the house. “Still no fire. And there’s only smoke in the back. Could be the way the wind’s blowing or something. I went up on the front porch and peered in the door and windows. No smoke.”

Dan hauled himself to his feet, and Cass felt the loss of his
heat immediately. Sighing, she climbed to her feet too. She could hear the sirens drawing closer by the second.

“You’re right, Jared,” Dan said. “Now that I’m thinking more clearly, there was no smoke until I pushed the door open to the kitchen. Then there was plenty, and it smelled like rotten eggs.”

“Reminds me of a chemistry experiment gone bad,” Jared said.

Cass studied SeaSong. Jared and Dan were right. Something was weird here.

Jared pointed. “How’d the kitchen window get broken? Did any of you break it?”

Cass, Jenn, and Dan shook their heads as they followed Jared and stood staring at the kitchen window, or rather the place where the window had been. All that remained in the lower sash were a few shards sticking out at varying angles like transparent knives.

“Maybe the heat from the fire blew it out?” Cass suggested.

“What heat?” Dan shuddered with the cold. “There’s no heat, just like there’s no flames.” He started toward the kitchen door.

Cass grabbed his arm. “Where are you going?”

“If there’s no heat and no flames, there’s no fire. I want to see what’s going on.”

“Yeah, me too.” Jared was excited, ready to race into the house with Dan.

Cass grabbed Jared with her other hand. She glared at them both. “Let the firemen go in first! They’re almost here.”

Even as she spoke, Greg Barnes pulled up to SeaSong for the second time that night. The fire department was right on his bumper. Men in their heavy coats, boots, and hats filled the yard. One shooed Cass, Dan, and the kids back out of their way. Others grabbed the hoses and attached them to the nearby hydrant. Neighbors who had begun appearing at the sound of the blaring alarm gathered in little groups, whispering among themselves. All the commotion almost drowned out the still bleating alarm.

Reminder: Thank the company that had hardwired the system through the whole house for her. It worked very well
.

Cass looked at the heavy hoses and imagined the destruction to SeaSong under the pressure of the water that would explode as soon as the nozzles were opened.

“Wait!” she cried, rushing up to the first man on the hose. “We don’t think there’s a fire. See?” She waved her hand at the house.
“No flames. Please don’t make water damage! I’ve got irreplaceable antiques in there.”

“Lady,” the fireman said politely, “if we don’t find fire, we won’t shoot water. I promise.”

Feeling like an idiot but still glad she’d spoken, Cass stood with Dan and the kids and watched as the firemen swarmed in and out of SeaSong.

“You were right,” Greg told them after conferring with the fire chief. “There’s no sign of fire. Just the remains of a smoke bomb in the sink.”

“A smoke bomb in the sink?” Cass could hardly believe her ears. A smoke bomb? “Are you sure?”

“The paper lying in the sink is clearly the remains of the wrappings of a spent smoke bomb. We all recognized it right away because we use bombs like that in training drills. Someone broke the window and dropped the lit bomb in the sink.”

“But why?” Cass stared at the broken window where wisps of white smoke still appeared.

“Random malicious mischief,” Greg offered. “That’s our best guess. That is, unless you’ve got a secret enemy out there trying to harm you.” He smiled at the absurdity of that idea.

Enemies? Her? Cass shook her head. “It makes no sense.”

Greg shrugged. “This kind of vandalism rarely does.”

“You mentioned an enemy harming her. How would the smoke bomb harm her?” Dan asked. “Aside from scaring us all and forcing us out into the night.”

“The smell,” Greg said. “It could drive away the guests at a B&B easily.”

“But I don’t have any guests but Dan.” Cass shivered and not just from the cold. An enemy?

“We’ll do our best to find those responsible,” Greg said, “but hit-and-run nastiness like this is hard to trace.” He patted Cass awkwardly on the shoulder.

And that’s supposed to make me feel better?
Cass wanted to ask but didn’t. She was afraid she was feeling more than a bit whiny, but then she’d never had her personal space invaded in such an act of vandalism before. She rubbed her arms, trying to get the goose bumps to go away. SeaSong, the castle she’d built by the sea, had been breached.

Dan moved to stand behind her, his hands on her shoulders just like in the emergency room earlier that same night. Immediately she felt safer, which was foolish because the invader was still out there.

“Where does someone get a smoke bomb?” Dan asked Greg. “It’s not something you pick up at your local Wal-Mart.”

“A fire supply store that sells to fire companies,” he said promptly. “Anyone could buy one. Businesses use the bombs sometimes to trace the effectiveness of heating and cooling systems. Light the bomb and see where the smoke goes. Oh, by the way, Cass, whoever slept in the little room under the stairs shouldn’t go back there tonight. It’ll be the last place free of the smoke.”

Finally the weary firemen left to return to their warm beds, and Greg drove off on his appointed rounds. The neighbors went back home, and the street fell quiet again. After a quick bowl of ice cream, the kids went off to bed, Jared taking the remains of his bag of chocolate chip cookies with him for sustenance through what remained of the night.

After she grabbed her smelly robe from the floor where it had fallen when she almost stripped the bed looking for Flossie, Cass walked through the whole house, checking each room thoroughly for possible damage.

“Do you smell that rotten egg smell up here?” she asked Dan who trailed her to the third floor.

“I don’t think I do, but then we both smell so bad, I really can’t tell.” He took her by the shoulders and turned her toward the stairs to the second floor. “Tomorrow we’ll be able to tell much better. For now, grab one of the guest rooms, take a nice hot shower, and climb into a decent-sized bed for a change.”

“Flossie!” Cass yelled so loudly that Dan jumped. Guilt washed over her when she realized she hadn’t given the cat a thought over the last couple of hours. It was the mention of bed that finally made thoughts of Flossie’s warm presence spring to her mind. “We’ve got to find her and make sure she’s all right.”

“It’s a cinch she wouldn’t go outside. She’s probably hiding under one of the love seats in the sitting area,” Dan said.