Ann Aguirre - Hell Fire

Jesse was pale, but he didn’t mention the shot he’d taken to the upper arm. Calling it a flesh wound, Jesse refused to leave Shannon and me. He sat there, pinch faced, between us and tried to look reassuring.

“It’s going to all right,” he whispered. “If Miss Minnie doesn’t press charges, they can’t even do anything about that broken window. And I don’t think she will. We saved her life.”

I nodded as the sheriff came for me a fourth time and left Chance in my place. No matter how many times Robinson came at me or from what angle, I told the same story. We’d been invited to Miss Minnie’s house for supper; I had been her foster child once upon a time. And yes, that could be verified.

Local felons must have targeted her for a robbery—an elderly woman living alone, right? When they found us at the house, they panicked, and one of them tried to scare us off while the other attempted to complete the job. As off-the-cuff theories went, I felt rather proud of that one. The truth would make him lock me up quicker than I could spit.

He pursed his mouth and stared at me, hard. “Do you know that for a fact, Ms. Solomon?”

I think he was hoping to make me admit to being an accomplice, but I opened my eyes wide. “No, I don’t know that for a fact. I was just guessing. But why else would anybody shoot at innocent tourists? Why else would a masked man be in an old lady’s home?”

Sheriff Robinson had no answer for that, so he asked more questions. “Why do you think they didn’t just rob Miss Minnie another night?”

I shrugged. “Maybe they aren’t very bright. In fact, I’d say they definitely aren’t if they’re robbing old ladies in a town the size of Kilmer.”

The portly lawman growled his impatience. “Tell me what happened next, please, Ms. Solomon.” He put exaggerated stress on the please .

“We had our meal and visited for a while,” I answered. “Then she dozed off, so we saw ourselves out.” Best to stick close to the truth, whenever possible. “Someone started shooting at us, and I dove into the bushes. But my dog heard something inside that alarmed him, and I didn’t think; I just reacted.”

“By breaking her window,” the sheriff said in a tone of such dry sarcasm that I knew he didn’t believe a word I said. “Most people would’ve been too scared to move. Most people don’t listen to their dogs, either.”

I peered up at him through my lashes. “So you’re chastising me for being too bold, Sheriff?” Lifting Butch, I added, “It’s a good thing I do listen to him. And why wouldn’t I? He has good ears. We saved Miss Minnie’s life tonight.”

“Or you want her to think you did,” he muttered.

A lance of genuine surprise ran me through. “Are you accusing me of staging the break-in so she’ll feel grateful and put me in her will?”

“Right now I’m not accusing you of anything.” His jowls quivered. “I’m just fact-finding.”

I wanted to challenge him to find proof I’d had anything to do with the aborted “robbery,” which I suspected was something else entirely.

“Who was the guy who tried to kill Miss Minnie?” I asked.

The sheriff sighed. “Curtis Farrell. I just can’t believe he’d do something like this. He wasn’t a bad kid.”

Funny. Nobody ever thinks someone is bad until he up and does some terrible thing. I knew from firsthand experience that everyone was capable of that. It only required the right impetus.

“Well, I’m not sorry we were there to help her.”

Robinson frowned at me and kept asking the same questions.

In response, I kept giving the same answers until he returned me to the cell, his face reflecting high choler. Butch whined until one of his deputies took him outside. I further annoyed the man by demanding water for my dog.

“You should be giving him a medal,” I said as the man brought a plastic bowl. “I can’t believe this is how you treat people who help out. What do you do to the criminals? Take them to the woods to die?”

The deputy’s hand shook, slopping water on the cement floor. “That’s enough out of you, miss.” But his voice was none too steady, either, and he didn’t meet my eyes as he hurried away.

Butch yapped, and I picked him up. “You got that right, buddy. There’s something rotten in the state of Georgia, and it stinks like hell fire.”

One by one, Robinson questioned us, and nobody contradicted my version of events. I found it odd that Shannon’s parents never showed up to see if she was all right. Maybe her mother had washed her hands of Shannon . . . but that didn’t track. Women like Sandra Cheney didn’t quietly concede.

The sheriff spent longer interrogating Chance. I was deathly afraid they’d charge him with manslaughter, even though he’d clearly been defending my former foster mother’s life and property. In the end, Miss Minnie came down to the station and insisted he let us go.

She chastised Robinson roundly. “I wouldn’t be standing here, if not for these children and that sweet little dog. Curtis Farrell must’ve been on drugs. I know he wouldn’t have tried to steal from me if he’d been in his right mind.”

The sheriff complied grudgingly, but he let us know as he walked us to the Forester that he’d be watching us. As he put it, “People didn’t die nearly so often before you lot came around.”

I paused outside the SUV, unable to resist the reply. “That’s not true,” I said softly. “You just don’t go looking for the bodies anymore.”

We left Robinson looking sick in the reflected red glow of our taillights.

By the time we got back to the house, it was well after midnight, and most of us needed medical attention to varying degrees. I set to cleaning wounds, and Shannon saw to mine.

It wasn’t until morning we realized we’d missed our appointment with Dale Graham—and by then, it was too late.

“Any chance this could be a coincidence?” Shannon wanted to know.

“None,” I said flatly.

We’d managed to save one person last night, but we hadn’t been there for Dale Graham. If the wicked twelve wanted to make me feel guilty, they’d succeeded. But I knew this wasn’t our fault. Bad things had been happening in Kilmer since before I was born. I was just determined to get to the bottom of it.

I stood looking at the smoking ruin of his house on Rabbit Road and wanted to throw up. Nobody suggested I try to read it to find out what happened here. Too much heat remained trapped in the burnt timbers to make it feasible, even if I felt like trying that particular trick again so soon. I didn’t.

Volunteer firemen poked through the wreckage, looking for human remains. They seemed inappropriately cheerful, as if they did this all the time. Then again, in Kilmer, they probably did.

“Look at the grass and trees around the house,” Jesse murmured.

I shifted focus, along with the other two. It hit us all at the same time, but Chance articulated it. “A third of the trees on his property caught fire, and all the green grass burnt up.” “So Miss Minnie was right?” Shannon asked.

I felt a headache coming on. “Sort of. Just not on a global scale.”

“That means we need to take her seriously,” Jesse said. “However crazy that sounds.”

“An earthquake might not be literal.” Chance seemed distant but thoughtful.

Most of me felt glad he had eased off—that he was focused more on solving our problems. I wasn’t ready for reconciliation, not when his power was on temporary hiatus and our long-term problems hadn’t been resolved. When we left Kilmer for good, his luck would return—and I would become a victim of the need for cosmic balance again. I didn’t look forward to it.