Annette Dashofy - Zoe Chambers 03 - Bridges Burned (15 page)

Fifteen

Pete’s plans started to unravel when he bounced up the rutted farm lane and spotted a white Ford Escort instead of Farabee’s red pickup parked on the slope behind the house. What was Sylvia doing there? And where was Farabee?

As expected, his former secretary opened the door when he knocked. “Pete? What are you doing here?”

“I was wondering the same thing about you.”

She stepped aside letting him in. Maddie sat in the dining room with a sketch pad and some pencils. She had a too-big black ball cap perched on her head, and after looking at him with a pair of dark brown eyes overflowing with loathing, she lowered her head so the bill of the cap hid her face from him.

“What have you got there?” Pete asked, keeping his voice light. He had miles of ground to make up for with this child after their last encounter.

She mumbled something.

“Maddie,” Sylvia said in a soothing, but no-nonsense tone. “Don’t be rude to Chief Adams.”

The little girl gave a dramatic sigh and lifted her face again. Her eyes were no less accusatory—
you want to arrest my daddy
—but she spoke with polite composure suitable for one much older. “Mrs. Bassi brought me a sketch pad and some…” Maddie looked to Sylvia for help.

Sylvia lowered into a chair across from the girl. “Charcoal pencils.”

Maddie gave her quick nod. “Charcoal pencils,” she said to Pete. “I lost all my coloring books and markers when my house burnt down, so I’m using these to draw pictures of George.”

“George?” Pete couldn’t recall anyone named George having been mentioned before.

Maddie turned the pad around and held up a pretty damned good rendering of a fat pony.

“Oh.
That
George.” Pete slid into the chair next to Sylvia.

Maddie gazed at him from under the brim of the cap with a look that clearly stated he was too stupid to live.

He certainly had a way with women lately. Not giving up yet, he reached over and tapped the ball cap. “Your hat’s a little big. I could adjust it for you.”

“No, thank you. It’s my dad’s.” She touched the stitched UK on the front of it. “University of Kentucky. His alma mater.”

Pete almost asked her if she knew what an alma mater was, but decided he didn’t want to be on the receiving end of the “duh” look again.

Sylvia patted the table with her palm to turn the girl’s attention to her. “Why don’t you take the pad and pencils up to your room and finish your drawing there?”

“Okay.” Maddie gathered the pencils and gingerly placed them into their box. “I’ll be careful with them.”

“I’m sure you will be, dear. But they’re yours to keep.”

Maddie’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Thanks!” She gave Sylvia a smile that could melt Siberia. No wonder Zoe had fallen in love with this kid. Tossing her dad’s ball cap onto the table and scooping up her new art supplies, Maddie scampered out of the room.

Sylvia sighed. “That stuff belonged to Allison.” Her teenaged granddaughter.

“Have you had any word on when Rose and the kids are coming home?”

“In time for the start of school. Rose has them out in New Mexico somewhere. No TV. No cell phones. No computers.” Sylvia rolled her eyes. “Computers are what got them into trouble in the first place.”

How well he knew. “So what are you doing here?”

“What’s it look like? I’m babysitting.” She glanced to the doorway. “Although heaven help me if Maddie heard me calling her a baby.”

“I didn’t realize you were acquainted with the Farabees.”

“I wasn’t. Zoe called me and asked if I could come over and keep an eye on the child.”

“Zoe? When?”

“This morning. Holt had something he needed to do, and Mrs. Kroll had a meeting early this morning with the staff at the rehab center. Holt didn’t know anyone, so he asked Zoe.” Sylvia spread her arms. “And here I am.”

“Any idea when Farabee’ll be back?”

“A couple hours, I believe.”

A small voice rang from the hallway. “He said he’s bringing back pizza for lunch.”

Both Pete and Sylvia leaned to look through the doorway at Maddie, who peered at them through the spindles of the banister on the staircase.

“Upstairs, Missy.” Sylvia hoisted one finger skyward.

The retreating
thump thump
proved she’d obeyed this time.

Nevertheless, Pete kept his voice low. Just in case. “I’m glad I didn’t say anything.”

Sylvia lowered hers as well. “What’s going on? Maddie obviously isn’t your biggest fan.”

Pete snorted.

Sylvia glanced toward the staircase again before continuing. “Last we talked, you were looking into the question of him and his wife being guilty of illegal trespass.”

“That’s been overshadowed by the revelation about the explosion being no accident.” Pete tipped his head in the direction Maddie had disappeared. “The kid happened to be present when I broke the news to her father. And there was some mention about me possibly arresting him.”

“Which didn’t go over real well, I imagine.”

“You imagine correctly.”

“But you don’t really believe he had anything to do with his wife’s death, do you?”

Pete weighed his answer. “Possibly.”

“Holt? That nice young man?”

“Nice young men can sometimes be cold-blooded killers.”

Narrowing her eyes, Sylvia stared at Pete with an intensity that made him believe she had psychic skills. Her mental probe produced one word. “Zoe.”

Pete rubbed a seed of a headache sprouting behind one eyebrow. “Don’t go there, Sylvia.”

She ignored him. “Zoe brought him into her home. Clearly she doesn’t believe he’s capable of harming his wife.”

“Zoe took one look at that little girl and completely lost her mind.”

Sylvia’s eyes remained in mind-reading mode. “You see Zoe in the company of a nice-looking man and you lose yours.”

Pete slammed a hand down on the table hard enough to make the UK ball cap jump. “Apparently I’m the only one around here who’s capable of keeping an open mind right now.”

Sylvia shushed him, and he realized he was on the verge of shouting. “You keep thinking and talking like that and forget about losing your mind. You’re going to lose that girl.”

He stood, shoving the heavy chair back so hard it nearly tipped. “Too late. When Farabee gets home—” Pete choked. He still couldn’t stomach thinking of Zoe’s home as Farabee’s, too. “Back. When he gets
back
, tell him I need to talk to him.”

Pete stomped through the kitchen and was almost to the back porch door when Sylvia’s stern voice stopped him. “Pete Adams, you listen to me. If Holt Farabee killed his wife, fine. You go after him with everything you’ve got. But don’t let your feelings about Zoe keep you from seeing that someone
else
might be responsible, and you might be letting
that
person get away with murder.”

In spite of the unusually crystal clear skies for a Saturday afternoon in late July, there had only been two emergency calls, one for chest pains and another for an elderly woman who had fallen and possibly fractured a hip.

Zoe had declined an invitation to take part in the latest euchre tournament, and instead sprawled on the lumpy sofa in the crew lounge with dreams of catching a power nap to make up for last night’s sleep deprivation. Tony and Vickie were up for the next call, so Zoe kept her eyes closed when the tones from EOC went off. After some initial scuffling noises from the front office, the station fell quiet for a moment. Then the door between the crew quarters and the office slammed open.

“Zoe.” Earl’s voice sounded oddly tense.

She rolled to one side, hoisting herself up on an elbow. Earl’s tight jaw matched his voice. “What?” she asked warily.

“Come on. We’re gonna take this one.”

“Why?” But she was already climbing to her feet, knowing Earl wouldn’t shift the rotation unless it was important.

“Fire standby,” he said. Shorthand for being at the scene of a fire in case they were needed.

“Where?”

But he’d already disappeared back through the office. Zoe jogged to catch up. Tony and Vickie wore the same anxious expressions as Earl as she darted past them on the way to the ambulance bay.

Her partner had the motor fired up, and she climbed into the passenger seat. “Earl, what’s going on?”

He tossed an aluminum clipboard onto her lap, shifted into drive, and flipped on the siren.

Zoe picked up the clipboard. The call sheet was still blank, but a sticky note was attached to it containing all the information Vickie had taken down from the Emergency Operations Center. Zoe’s eyes blurred when she read the details and the location.

Barn fire. At the Kroll farm.

The drive from the ambulance garage took less than ten minutes, but felt like an hour to Zoe.

The barn. With all the horses. Her own gelding, Windstar. The schooling pony, George. Jazzel. She knew them all by name. In her mind she pictured the barn engulfed, the horses trapped, terrified.

She forced her clenched muscles to relax. It was a beautiful day. No reason for the horses to be inside. Someone would have turned them out into the pasture.

Please, God, let someone have turned them out.

Which left hay—highly flammable hay—stacked to the rafters. Hay baled while it was still damp had the potential to spontaneously combust. Zoe had always been extremely cautious about only buying properly cured hay. But sometimes one or two bad bales slipped into a load.

Route 15 split the Kroll farm in half, overgrown fields and timber on the western side, the house, barn, outbuildings, and horse pastures on the eastern side. Zoe craned her neck as the barn, at least five hundred yards up the hill from the road, came into view. She counted four fire trucks with lights flashing parked next to it. Smoke billowed over the roof from the far side. The structure remained standing. But she could see flames reaching over the roof and the arc of water from the fire hoses trying to knock them down.

Her stomach knotted, only slightly eased by the sight of horses gathered in the shade of willows next to the creek. She tried to count. Were they all out? She couldn’t tell.

Earl gunned the medic unit as he steered off the road and up the graveled farm lane. The parking area behind the house was empty. Was Mrs. Kroll home yet? This latest disaster would be enough to give the poor woman a heart attack.

And Maddie. The little girl had to be scared to death. Another fire…

Earl gunned the medic unit over the rise. The ambulance bounced and pitched over the ruts in the gravel lane. The fire engines and two first responders’ vehicles blocked access to the barn. Zoe recognized a pair of SUVs, which belonged to boarders, and both Vance Township police vehicles parked in the grass on either side of the lane. A momentary memory from a little more than a month ago flashed across her mind. A call to this same location for a shooting. The victim had been Mr. Kroll.

She closed her eyes against the image of her stepfather, bloodied up to his elbows, holding pressure on the wound. She opened them again as Earl jammed the brakes. The ambulance hadn’t reached a complete stop before she flung the passenger door open.

“Zoe!” Earl called after her.

But she ignored him and sprinted toward the barn, maneuvering the maze of emergency vehicles to get her first good view of the barn.

Holt’s red Ford crew cab was backed up to one of the two big doors. Hoses snaked from a tanker around the upper side of the barn, the side not visible on their approach from the road. The snap and hiss of flames and the thrum of water striking the outside of the building came from the same direction. Choking smoke continued to billow over and around, as if trying to embrace the structure. Disregarding the assorted shouts from firefighters, she sprinted into the barn.

The stalls at the far end glowed from crackling flames flickering through their windows. Smoke drifted in, but every stall door stood open, every stall empty.

Zoe released a breath she’d been holding longer than she realized and doubled over in relief, bracing her hands against her knees.

With an explosive pop, one of the windows lit by flame burst.

Zoe’s heart jumped. She leapt backwards and spun smack into a brick wall named Pete.

He grabbed her by the arm and dragged her outside, shouting, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

A wave of smoke rolled over them from around the side of the barn, sending her into a coughing fit. “I—had to—make sure—there weren’t any—horses inside.”

“I already checked. So did Yancy.”

She met his steely blue eyes. Concern and anger stared back at her. Nothing unusual there. For a moment, she forgot she was mad at him. “How did it start?”

He aimed a thumb toward the barn wall farthest from the road. “The round bales stacked back there.”

Before Mr. Kroll had been injured, he’d positioned a half a dozen large round bales of hay against the outside of the barn. Next winter, he would use his tractor’s fork lift to move them into the pasture as needed.

Provided he was well enough.

“We must have gotten a bad bale.”

For a moment, Pete didn’t respond. When he did, his voice was low. “It wasn’t a bad bale.”

She wasn’t sure she’d heard him, and his expression offered nothing. “What?”

“It’s arson.” He crooked a finger at her and, keeping hold of her arm, drew her around the corner.

Arson? Her throat closed and not because of the smoke.

Four firefighters manned the hose, pouring water on the smoky flames lapping at the side of the barn. Three others used long poles with hooks on the ends to break apart the bale, dragging as much of it away from the structure as possible. Bruce Yancy and several other firefighters in turnout gear, VTVFD emblazoned across their coats, stood with their backs to her like a barricade. Farther up the hillside, a trio of teens watched the proceedings with wide eyes.

Pete led her toward the human barricade and called out to Yancy. He turned and the firefighters with him shifted, giving her a view of Nate Williams—and a handcuffed Holt Farabee.