Flipped Out (34 page)

When I first came to Waterfield, I’d found someone’s bicycle in the garden shed, a discovery which had eventually helped Wayne solve a missing person’s case. Of course, it had helped when I’d found the body of the missing person, as well, a few weeks later. But that’s beside the point. The shed is full of cast-offs and odds and ends: Aunt Inga’s tools, some wood and nails, a snow shovel, a spade and a pitch fork, some empty flowerpots, the old bike Derek brought me from Cora when I’d just moved in and didn’t have a car . . .

The shed door wasn’t just closed, but bolted. I didn’t see any reason to open it, since there was no way Mischa could have moved it to get into the shed, let alone closed it from the inside once he was there. And last year, when Derek and I had renovated the main house, we’d used the excess lumber to replace any rotted boards on the shed, as well, before we painted it. There were no big gaps or holes Mischa could have squeezed through. And besides, if he had crawled through a hole into the shed, he could have just done the same thing to get out again. So there was no way he was inside.

I had turned and was heading back to the main house when I heard a crash from inside the shed, followed by a terrified squeal.

The crash sounded as if one of the flowerpots had fallen—or been pushed—off a shelf onto the concrete floor. The squeal sounded like Mischa. Or one of the other cats—the Maine coons have surprisingly soft, kittenish voices for their size—but most likely Mischa. I ran the couple of steps back to the shed, pushed the bolt out of the way, and yanked the shed door open, peering into the dark.

Everything happened really fast after that. It took my eyes a second to adjust to the darkness inside the shed, and that was all the time it took for Mischa to spy the open door. He shot through the doorway and between my legs, running flat out toward freedom. I staggered, and in that one or two seconds, I heard a rush of feet behind me. The next moment, a strong push between the shoulder blades sent me stumbling forward into the shed, landing with a crash and an “Ooof!” against the shelves on the opposite wall. They weren’t built to withstand a hundred twenty-plus pounds of female at sixty miles an hour, and collapsed, and I fell to the floor in a heap of broken planks, terra-cotta flowerpots, garden tools, and bags of fertilizer.

In the minute or two it took me to catch my breath and push all the broken pieces of this, that, and the other off my body, the door had been slammed, the bolt pushed across, and I could hear a sort of splashy noise outside.

I tried to push against the door, of course, even though I knew that it was bolted. I also hammered on it and screamed obscenities and demands that whoever was out there open the door and let me go. I didn’t expect to get an answer, and I didn’t get one. The splashy noise continued for another minute, all around the shed, and then I heard a soft
thunk
, as of something hollow hitting the grassy ground. A different noise followed, a sort of small, repeated scratch.

Uh-oh.

As I stood there, I could smell the gasoline. The scratching had to be the sound of a match struck against the side of a matchbox. Repeatedly, as if whoever was outside had a hard time getting the match to work.

Unfortunately, it didn’t take long enough; I’d barely started feeling around for something I might be able to use to break out when the match lit, and then there was the crackle of flames, starting at the front of the shed but moving quickly around in both directions. Whoever poured the gasoline had obviously done a thorough job and covered every side of the shed, maybe even the sides and roof.

Yep, there it was; the beginning of another fire up above. At this rate, it wouldn’t take long for the whole shed to burn to the ground with me inside it. And just wait until the fire reached the sacks of fertilizer; they were flammable, weren’t they?

Outside, footsteps were hurrying away. At this point, I didn’t honestly care too much who was out there. Obviously I’d seriously upset someone’s equilibrium today for them to go to such lengths to get rid of me, but damned if I could imagine who it might be, and right at the moment, I had more important things on my mind. If I didn’t think of a way out of here, and in the next few seconds, I’d burn to a crisp.

Things were heating up, and I mean that literally. The damp heat from hustling up the hill earlier, when the sweaty T-shirt had stuck to my skin, was nothing compared to the heat I was feeling now. My skin felt parched, tight, like it was cracking from dryness, and I had the sensation the moisture was being sucked right out of my hair. Flames were crackling all around the shed, licking at the walls and the roof. I had maybe a couple of minutes before the whole thing went down in a smoking heap.

So I did the only thing I could think of and felt around for a spade. When I found it, the handle was almost too hot for me to grip, so I wrenched my T-shirt off—what’s a little modesty compared to certain death, and it wasn’t like anyone could see me anyway—and then I wrapped it around the handle and started hacking at the door. After a few stabs, though, I realized that the door might not be the best place to attack: That was where everything was reinforced, with a door frame and everything. So I switched my attention to the nearest corner instead, and started slamming the spade against what I assumed were the weakened planks at the bottom of the shed, where the flames had been licking the wood.

Yes, I did realize, somewhere in the back of my mind, that if I knocked a hole in the bottom of the wall, the roof was likely to cave in on top of me. But it didn’t make any sense to attack the top of the wall, where the wood was stronger. And besides, I’m short. I figured my chances were better close to the ground.

The shed had started to fill up with smoke, so I crouched in what was supposed to be the slightly cleaner air near the ground and continued to slam the edge of the spade against the wood of the shed wall. Flames were licking around the spade, too, now, and there was a roaring sound from the fire. My ears were roaring, as well, and I was coughing and gasping for air. If I didn’t make it out soon, I’d pass out from the smoke inhalation, and then it’d be over. So I’d hold my breath for as long as I could before gulping another mouthful of smoky air.

If the shed had been in better shape than it was, I never would have made it out. As it was, I focused on the oldest boards in the wall, not the new ones Derek had nailed up last summer, and threw all my strength into breaking one, and then breaking another. By the time I’d made enough of a hole to crawl through, I had very little strength left to actually crawl. I let the spade fall from hands that were blistered from the heat and the labor, and dropped to my hands and knees, ready to try to squeeze through the small hole and the flames outlining it. And that was when the door was wrenched open.

22

I fumbled for the spade as I squinted through the smoke with stinging eyes. If whoever had put me in this situation had come back to make sure I was dead, he—or she—was in for a surprise.

But then I relaxed when I heard a familiar voice breathe a couple of words I’m not going to repeat. The next second, Derek had stooped through the smoke to grab me and drag me out of the shed to a safe distance, where he put me down on the cool grass. His voice sounded rather frantic. That could have been my imagination, I suppose, but I don’t think so. “Avery? Are you still with me?”

I coughed and that must have convinced him I was still alive.

“Lay still.” I could feel his hands, wonderfully cool, move all over me, checking for fire damage. “Are you burned anywhere?”

“Don’t think so,” I croaked. Trying to talk made me cough again, and this time I couldn’t stop, at least not until I’d coughed up some icky black slime.

Derek sat back on his heels. “What the hell happened? No, don’t answer that. Just let me get you inside. You’re starting to shiver.”

The air and grass had felt wonderfully cool just a minute ago after the searing heat of the shed, but now it had turned chilly.

“My shed . . .” I managed as he scooped me up in his arms.

“I’ll build you a new one. The fire department will put out the fire.” I could hear sirens coming up the street as he started for the house, cradling me in his arms like a child, or like a most treasured possession. His voice was hoarse, too, although nowhere near as bad as mine. “God, Tink, I thought I’d lost you. When you weren’t in the house, and then I saw the shed about to go down in flames . . .”

“I thought you’d lost me, too,” I managed. “I was so scared, Derek.” I started to cry; amazingly, there was still enough moisture left in my body to produce a few tears. Just a few; after that, the pipes were dry.

“Who did it?”

He strode in through the back door, which he must have left open in his rush to get to the shed earlier, and kicked it shut behind him. On the floor, I heard mewing, and when I looked down, I saw that Mischa had joined us. Amazingly, he wasn’t trying to attack Derek. When we headed through the kitchen and down the hallway, he fell in behind and trotted up the stairs after us.

Derek opened the door to the bathroom and set me down. “Get undressed. You have to go into a tepid bath to get your body temperature down, and then I’ll bandage your hands and any other parts of you that got burned.” He turned away to start the water running into the claw-footed tub. Outside, I could hear the sirens come to a stop, and then the sounds of running feet and loud voices as the firemen aimed their hoses at the burning shed.

I didn’t think any other parts of me had gotten burned—I hadn’t actually touched any flames; it was just that the spade handle had been so hot—but I didn’t bother to tell him so. Instead I concentrated on stripping down to my skin and sliding into the tub.

The cool water felt ice cold against my overheated skin, and I gasped. Derek’s lips twitched. “You’ll feel better in a minute. It isn’t actually that cold. And if you have any burns, the cold water will stop them from developing.”

“Like pasta,” I managed, through chattering teeth.

“Excuse me?”

“Stops cooking when you rinse it in cold water.”

“Right,” Derek said. “Pasta.” He turned back to the medicine cabinet, rooting around for burn salve and bandages.

Pretty shortly he turned back around and got a wash rag that he used to apply cool water to my face and to rinse my hair. The latter came clean in black streaks from the soot and smoke, which was disgusting, but which made the water dirty enough to obscure the view. Not that he hadn’t seen me before, but it was different sitting here in cool water up to my shoulders, with nothing to hide any part of me.

Pretty soon he decided I’d been cooled down enough, and I got out of the tub and was wrapped up in a warm terrycloth robe with a soft, fluffy towel around my head to contain my dripping hair. Thus I padded over to the bed and sat down on the edge.

“OK,” Derek said, surveying me with his hands on his hips, “where do you need bandaging?”

“Not a lot of places.” My throat was still scratchy, and every once in a while I’d cough up some soot-streaked phlegm, but otherwise I seemed to be doing pretty well. “Mostly my hands, I think. From the spade.” I showed them to him.

“Damn,” Derek said and got to work, his hands gentle as he slathered my palms with salve and wrapped them with gauze. “Your face is a little pink, and I think you’ll have some blisters coming up by tomorrow. But you look pretty good, everything considered.”

I cleared my throat. “I feel pretty good, too. Everything considered.”

“Let’s get you downstairs and get some liquids into you, and then we’ll talk.” He picked me up from the bed and carried me down the stairs, although there was nothing whatsoever wrong with my feet. Nothing new, anyway, although I still had the scratches from the other night. It seemed to be my week for getting hurt.

Mischa trotted behind, as if determined not to let me out of his sight. Again, I was amazed that he didn’t try to attack Derek, not even when Derek picked me up, something that would have given Mischa all sorts of fits yesterday.

Downstairs in the kitchen, he deposited me on the same chair I’d sat on an hour earlier to eat my sandwich, and then he went to the fridge to get me a glass of lemonade. With a straw, so I wouldn’t have to hold the glass in my bandaged hands to drink. After opening a fortifying beer for himself, he sat down across from me. “Who did it?”

He’d asked that earlier, when he first carried me into the house. I hadn’t known the answer then, and I didn’t now. “Whoever it was, was hiding. When I opened the door to the shed and Mischa ran out, he—or she—ran forward and gave me a great, big push. And bolted the door behind me. I never saw who it was.”

“Ideas?” Derek asked, his lips tight.

I shook my head. “Although I guess I can try to figure out who it wasn’t.”

“Go ahead.”

I took a sip of lemonade to soothe my throat and make it easier to talk. “I don’t think it was Melissa. Whoever did this set it up before I got here, and she wouldn’t have had time. What happened, anyway?”