Todd Ritter - Death Night

Emma sighed with impatience. “Connie Bishop.”

“Constance?”

“Yes,” Emma huffed. “I’ve been looking for her everywhere.”

Constance Bishop, a prim but eminently friendly woman, knew everything there was to know about Perry Hollow. Accordingly, she served as president of the historical society. Kat wasn’t sure what that entailed, but she assumed the museum fire was something that would concern her.

“I haven’t seen her,” she said. “Have you tried calling her?”

Emma held up her cell phone. “Four times. No answer.”

She looked up and down the block, head bobbing wildly. With her puffy hair and unfortunately pointy nose, she brought to mind an exotic bird, like something from South America you’d see on the Discovery Channel. The resemblance was only heightened by the way she flapped her arms helplessly.

“I don’t know what to do. I thought Connie would be here and have a game plan.”

“For what?”

“Saving the artifacts, of course,” Emma said. “There are priceless items in that building. We can’t just watch them burn.”

Kat told her they didn’t have much choice in the matter. As long as there were still flames inside the museum, no one but members of the fire department would be going inside. That didn’t sit well with Vice President Pulsifer.

“But the deed for the land Perry Mill was built on is in there,” she said. “Signed in 1760 by Irwin Perry himself. And rare photographs of the town. And maps. We have items dating back to before the mill. Before the town was even called Perry Hollow. If we don’t do something right now, all of it could be destroyed.”

Kat looked to the museum again. Two firefighters had used the ladder truck to climb onto the roof, which they sprayed down with foam. Two others were in the process of knocking down the front door. When it gave way, they had to jump back to escape the flames rolling out of it. But they recovered quickly and ventured inside, hose blasting. Next to her, Emma Pulsifer cringed, no doubt imagining all that water damage.

“There’s a back door,” Emma said with noticeable desperation. “I know the fire’s not out, but the town’s entire history is in there. If we go through the back, we can try to salvage something.”

“This is a tragedy,” Kat told her. “It truly is. But I can’t let you in there until the fire is completely out. I’m sorry. It’s too dangerous.”

Emma replied with a short, sad nod, the distant firelight reflecting in the tears that formed at the corners of her eyes. Quietly, she dialed her cell phone, pressed it to her ear, and turned away from Kat.

“Connie? It’s Emma. Where are you? Call me back immediately.”

Kat looked over Emma’s shoulder, checking to see if the crowd was still behaving. They were, although one man near the back was on the move. He towered over the rest of the crowd, showing less interest in the fire than in getting past those who were watching it. Kat only caught a brief glimpse of his face—as pale as a full moon—but it was all she needed. She’d recognize those scars anywhere.

“Henry?”

The man didn’t hear her. He continued working his way through the crowd, carrying what looked to be a small suitcase. Kat tried to follow him, practically shouting his name.

“Henry Goll? Is that you?”

She was in the thick of the crowd now, surrounded by people far taller than her five-foot frame. Kat cursed her shortness while squeezing between the two boys she had forced back onto the curb earlier that night.

Exiting on the other side of the crowd, she looked in all directions, seeing no sign of Henry. If it was even him. Kat had her doubts. The last time she had heard from him, he was living in Italy, making it unlikely he’d be walking the streets of Perry Hollow at one-thirty in the morning. Perhaps she had spotted someone who merely looked like him. Maybe it was a trick of the fire-lit night. Or maybe she was simply seeing things. It was late, after all, and her dream had put Henry back into her thoughts.

Concluding that the dream was to blame, Kat whirled around, ready to return to Emma Pulsifer. She instead collided with a man standing on the edge of the crowd.

For a brief moment, she again thought it was Henry. The man was as solid as she remembered Henry being. Bumping into him felt like smacking into a brick wall. Kat almost said his name again, so certain was she that the man she had collided with was the long-lost Henry Goll.

Yet when the man spoke, she immediately realized her error. Henry’s voice was deeper and more halting. The voice of the man she had bumped sounded high-pitched and startled.

“Whoa,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

“It was my fault.” Kat wiped a strand of hair away from her face. “I should have been watching where I was going.”

“Look before you leap, right?” the man said.

“Exactly.”

Kat studied the man a moment, certain she had never seen him before. Since she knew practically everyone in Perry Hollow—if not by name, then by sight—she assumed he was a recent arrival. Or else a visitor. He had the appearance of someone who didn’t belong. Although his voice contained no hint of an accent, he looked vaguely foreign, with deep-set eyes the color of coal, sharp cheekbones, and blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

His clothes, too, were out of place in a jeans-and-T?shirt town like Perry Hollow. His collared shirt was buttoned all the way to the neck. His black pants were too tight and too short. An extra inch or two of white socks poked out from the cuffs before vanishing again into pointy shoes fastened by silver buckles. Over it all hung a black trench coat that was slightly frayed at the sleeves.

Kat introduced herself, hoping the stranger would do the same.

He merely nodded politely. “Nice to meet you, Chief. Have a good night. Don’t stay up too late.”

He departed, his trench coat fluttering behind him. Kat watched him walk toward Main Street, still unable to shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about the guy. And it wasn’t just because he refused to give a name. It was the whole package—his face, his clothes, his whole manner—that unsettled her. Had the circumstances been different, she would have tried to follow him, just to find out where he was going.

Behind her, the crowd on the Freemans’ front lawn erupted into cheers and applause. They were clapping for the firefighters, who had started to emerge from the cloud of smoke still pouring out of the museum.

The fire had been conquered.

Kat waited to approach the ladder truck until the firefighters had peeled away their turnout gear, their cast-off boots, coats, and helmets littering the grass. She then thanked each of them, doling out a few high fives in the process. She was in the midst of being taught an elaborate handshake by Danny Batallas, the youngest member of the squad, when the fire chief beckoned her over.

Even in his younger days, Boyd Jansen had looked so much like a fire chief that it was inevitable he’d become one. Strong upper body. Thick around the middle. He kept his mustache neatly trimmed, although, like his sandy hair, it gathered more gray with each passing year. Joining him at the front of the ladder truck, Kat greeted him by his nickname.

“Great job, Dutch. You and your boys knocked that fire out in a hurry.”

The chief waved away the compliment. “It was a birthday candle—quick to flare up, easy to snuff out.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“You’d think,” Dutch said. “But my gut tells me that fire might have had some help.”

And Kat’s gut told her she was about to be served some bad news. She was proven right when Dutch pulled her to the far side of the ladder truck, where they were out of earshot of the others.