Meg Cabot - Safe House

Just like that.

Well, not just like that, actually. Because as my dad and I got out of the car and picked our way toward the place, carefully stepping over the hoses that, pulsing like live snakes, crisscrossed the road, we could see that a lot of people were working very hard to save what appeared to me, anyway, to be a lost cause. Firefighters shouted above the hiss of water and the roar of the flame, coughing in the thick, black smoke that instantly clogged the throat and lungs.

One of them noticed us and said to stand back. My dad yelled, "I own the place," and the firefighter directed us to a group of people who were standing across the street, their faces bathed in orange light.

"Joe," one of them yelled, and I recognized him as the mayor of our town, which is small. If there were going to be a catastrophic fire threatening not only one prominent downtown business, but the businesses around it as well, you would expect the mayor to be there.

"Jesus, Joe," the mayor said. "I'm sorry."

"Was anybody hurt?" my dad asked, coming to stand between the mayor and a man I knew from his periodic inspections to be the fire chief. "Nobody's been hurt, have they?"

"Naw," the mayor said. "Coupla Richie's guys, trying to be heroes, went in to make sure nobody was still inside, and got a chestful of smoke for their efforts."

"They'll be okay," Richard Parks, the fire chief, said. "Nobody was in there, Joe. Don't worry about that."

My dad looked relieved, but only moderately so. "What are the chances of it spreading?" Mastriani's was a freestanding structure, a Victorian-type house flanked on either side by a New Age bookstore and a bank branch, with a shared parking lot behind it. "The bank? Harmony Books?"

"We're watering them down," the fire chief said. "So far, so good. Coupla sparks landed on the roof of the bookstore and went out right away. We got here in time, Joe, don't worry. Well, in time to save the neighboring structures, anyway."

His voice was sorrowful. And why not? He'd eaten at Mastriani's a lot. Just like every single man there, pointing a hose at it.

"What happened?" my dad asked in a stunned voice. "I mean, how did it start? Does anybody know?"

"Couldn't say," Captain Parks told us. "Folks over at the jailhouse heard an explosion, looked out, saw the place was on fire. Couldn'ta been more than eight, nine minutes ago. Place went up like a cinder."

"Which suggests," a woman's voice said, "an accelerant to me."

We all looked around. And there stood Special Agents Smith and Johnson, looking concerned and maybe a little worse for wear. To be roused from a dead sleep two nights in a row was a little rough, even for them.

"My thinking exactly," the fire chief said.

"Wait a minute." My dad, his face scratchy-looking with a half-night's growth of beard bristle, stared at the FBI agents. "What are you saying? You're saying somebody purposefully started this fire?"

"No way it coulda spread that fast, Joe," the fire chief said, "or burned so hot. Not without some kind of accelerant. From the smell, I'm guessing gasoline, but we won't know until the fire's out and the place has cooled down enough for us to—"

"Gasoline?" My dad looked as if he was about to have a heart attack. Seriously. All these veins I had never noticed before were standing out in his forehead, and his neck looked kind of skinny, like it could barely support the weight of his head.

Or maybe it was just that, in the bright light from the fire, I was getting my first really good look at him in a while.

"Why in God's name would anybody do this?" my dad demanded. "Why would anybody deliberately burn the place down?"

The sheriff, whom I hadn't noticed before, cleared his throat and went, "Disgruntled employee, maybe."

"I haven't fired anybody," my dad said. "Not in months."

That was true. My dad didn't like firing people, so he only hired people he was pretty sure were going to work out. And mostly, his instincts were right on.

"Well," the sheriff said, gazing almost admiringly at the blaze across the street. "There'll be an investigation. That's for sure. Case of arson? You can bet your insurance company'll be all over it. We'll get to the bottom of it. Eventually."

Eventually. Sure. Or they could, I supposed, just have asked me. I'd have been able to tell them who started it. I knew good and well.

Well, actually, what I knew was the why. Not the who. But the why was clear enough.

It was a warning. A warning about what would happen to me if I didn't quit asking questions about the house on the pit road.

Which was so unfair. My dad. My poor dad. He'd done nothing to deserve this, nothing at all.

Looking at him, at his face as he tried to joke with the mayor and the sheriff and the fire chief, my heart swelled with pity. He was joking, but inside, I knew, his heart was breaking. My dad had loved Mastriani's, which he'd opened shortly after he and my mom had married. It had been his first restaurant, his first baby … just like Douglas was Mom's first baby. And now that baby was going up in a puff of smoke.

Well, not really a puff, actually. More like a wall. A great big wall of smoke that would soon be floating across the county like a storm cloud.

"Don't even think about it, Jess," Special Agent Johnson said, not without some affability.

I turned to blink at him. "Think about what?"

"Finding out who did this," Allan said, "and going after them yourself. We're talking about sorne dangerous—and fairly sick—criminals here. You leave the investigating to us, understand?"

For once, I was perfectly willing to do so. I mean, I was mad and everything. Don't get me wrong. But a part of me was also scared. More scared even than I'd been when I'd seen Heather all tied up in that bathtub. More scared than I'd been on that motorcycle, careening through the darkness of those woods.

Because this—the fire—was more terrible, in a way, than either of those things. This was awful, more awful than Heather's broken arm, and way more awful than me tipping over beneath an eight-hundred-pound bike.

Because this . . . this was out of control. This was dangerous. This was deadly.

Like what had happened to Amber.

"Don't worry," I said, gulping. "I will."

"Yeah," Special Agent Johnson said, clearly not believing me. "Right."

And then I heard it. My mom's voice, calling out my dad's name.

She came toward us, picking her way through the fire hoses, with a trench coat thrown over her nightgown and Douglas holding onto her elbow to keep her from tripping in her high-heeled sandals. My dad, seeing her, started forward, meeting her just beside one of the biggest fire engines.

"Oh, Joe," my mom said, sighing as she watched the flames that still seemed to rise so high into the sky, they were practically licking it. "Oh, Joe."

"It's all right, Toni," my dad said, taking her hand. "I mean, don't worry. The insurance is all paid up. We're totally covered. We can rebuild."

"But all that work, Joe," my mom said. Her gaze never left the fire, as if it had transfixed her. And you know, even though it was this horrible thing, it was still beautiful, in a way. The firefighters had given up trying to put the flames out, and were instead concentrating on keeping them from spreading to the buildings next door. And so far, they were doing a good job.

"All your hard work. Twenty years of it." I saw my mom tilt her head until it was resting on my dad's shoulder. "I'm so sorry, Joe."

"It's okay," my dad said. He let go of her hand, and put his arm around her instead. "It's just a restaurant. That's all. Just a restaurant."

Just a restaurant. Just my dad's dream restaurant, that's all, the one he'd worked hardest and longest on. Joe's, my dad's less-expensive restaurant, brought in barely half the income of Mastriani's, and Joe Junior's, the take-out pizza place, even less than that. We were, I knew, going to be hurting financially for a while, insurance or no insurance.