Chapter 30
Anson scraped his fingers over his unshaven jaw.
He hadn’t slept in over twenty-four hours and ought to sleep while he could, but restlessness had sent him back into the world.
He’d ended up at Blaze’s house. He hadn’t considered that she might not be the one to answer the door, but Mercy stood in the narrow opening.
“Yes?” She scrunched her nose and pushed her glasses up with a finger, guarding her entry like a happy little troll.
Could trolls be happy? If not, did that make her something else? A fairy, maybe.
Debating such a question proved that he should’ve gone home to sleep. He barely had the strength to stand upright, but he craved the comfort of Blaze’s soothing voice, understanding demeanor, and unwavering belief in him.
“Is your sister home?”
Mercy poked her head farther through the opening. “She likes you.” Her stage whisper was not discreet, and the fact that Blaze wasn’t rushing to interrupt suggested she wasn’t nearby. Mercy’s closed-mouth smile might be mistaken for smug if not for her comically wide eyes and raised brows.
Were her glasses amplifying her expression? Or his fatigue?
Wait. Mercy wasn’t supposed to know about him and Blaze.
Maybe she was bluffing to get information. “I’m not sure she’d appreciate you saying that.”
“She said I could.” Mercy stepped back into the living room.
She wore her Rooted hoodie. Ten to fifteen remained in the box in his office, so hers was just one of about forty in circulation.
Some who’d bought them when he’d first ordered didn’t even attend Many Oaks Bible Church anymore, and who knew how many kids had given theirs away.
Tracking them all down was out of the question.
Mercy cocked her head, staring at him.
At a loss, he rubbed his hands and prayed for Blaze to appear. “Blaze is awake?”
Mercy crossed her arms, staring at him. “Mm-hm.”
Footfalls on the stairs saved him. Blaze stepped into the living room, beaming. A gust of emotion tempted him to close the gap between them and wrap her in his arms.
Mercy turned toward her sister. “We can still make pancakes, right?”
Blaze’s smile faltered. She laid a hand on Mercy’s shoulder but stayed focused on him. “Is everything okay?”
“Ah, no.” He hadn’t considered that he might be the one to break the news. The fire had been so big, people from the surrounding neighborhood had crowded along the barricades, watching and posting on social media. “There was a fire last night. At the church. I haven’t slept.”
Was that last one an important fact? He cleared his throat and pulled his phone from his pocket. A few taps later, he passed the device to Blaze, a video of the church playing.
Mercy pressed against her arm, gaping at the screen.
Blaze inhaled sharply. “Oh, no. This is …” She watched a couple more seconds. “This is a huge fire. I can’t believe it. What happened? Some kind of electrical short?”
“It’s a long story.” He rubbed his temple.
“And you’ve been up all night.”
He nodded.
Blaze looked at her sister, then focused soft eyes on him. “Have you eaten?”
He shook his head.
“We make delicious pancakes.” Mercy bounced ahead of them to the kitchen.
Blaze passed the phone back. The joy she’d shown on seeing him had disappeared, replaced by concern. “I agreed to pancakes before you got here, but I can ask her to take a raincheck. We can talk instead.”
“It’s okay with me if she hears the story of the fire if it’s okay with you. The little we know will be all over town before lunch anyway.” He caught her hand, no longer able to tolerate distance. “She knows about us?”
“She guessed. We can swear her to secrecy. Or try, anyway.”
He couldn’t muster concern about whether that would work. People at church would have enough to talk about with the fire. They wouldn’t care about their youth pastor’s dating life. For now.
“Hey.” Blaze touched his cheek, and he refocused. She frowned, then wrapped her arms around his waist. With her head resting on his chest, he managed to take a few peaceful breaths.
When she pulled back, she went up on her toes to kiss his cheek. He’d come to the right place. She tugged his hand, and he followed her to the kitchen.
A large measuring bowl sat on the counter peninsula. Mercy had piled bags of flour and sugar and a carton of milk beside it. She consulted a recipe card, then whirled around like a tornado, sucking up the additional ingredients and spilling them onto the work surface.
“Do this a lot?” he asked.
“Yup.” Mercy skidded in her stocking feet. “Just sit down while we make the magic happen.”
Blaze spared him an amused smile, then joined her sister.
Anson took a seat on one of the stools across the counter from where they worked. “If you put the ingredients in, I’ll stir. How about that?”
“Sure.” Mercy brandished a measuring cup Blaze had supplied and scooped it into the flour. “Dry stuff first, then you make a well for the wet ones and mix again.”
“Got it.”
Mercy doled out the dry ingredients. Blaze pointed her back to the recipe and issued occasional quiet directions.
He hadn’t felt a sense of home and family like this since the last time he’d been at his parents’ house.
Contentedness replaced some of the fatigue.
The family he’d dreamed of having for himself had never had faces before. Now, it did.
Blaze took a break from supervising long enough to eye him curiously.
Right. She wanted details on the fire. “Eric Newsome texted me early this morning that there was a fire at the church. He lives a mile or two down the road, so I’m sure he heard the sirens. It was big enough that they had to call in backup from surrounding areas.”
“That’s awful. Just seeing a video of such a big fire ….” Blaze shook her head. “How much damage is there?”
“The sanctuary is a total loss. That’s where they think it started.
It spread to Greg’s office and the kitchen, and ate through the wall between the sanctuary and the gym.
I’ll be surprised if anything on that side of the church is salvageable.
Smoke and water probably did in whatever the flames didn’t. ”
Her face paled. “Nothing was saved?”
“The classroom wing, but that won’t give us enough space for services.” He checked his watch. “I’m surprised the leadership board hasn’t called a meeting yet, but I’m sure they will soon. I’ll have to go when they do.”
He accepted the mixing bowl from Mercy and whisked together the dry ingredients before passing it back. She made the well and poured in the milk.
Blaze took a bottle of vanilla extract from a cabinet. The scent wafted over as she measured out a spoonful. “And the cause?”
“I have a theory, but the clues aren’t definitive.”
“Clues?”
He reconsidered getting into it in front of Mercy, but she’d hear all of this eventually.
Better for it to come from him with Blaze here.
“The motion camera in the youth room went off last night. Someone walked by the window in the door. We don’t have a shot of the person’s face, but they were wearing a Rooted hoodie.
” He pointed toward Mercy’s sleeve. “The word Rooted is partially visible.”
Mercy’s lips froze in an O, then her head quivered back and forth. “It wasn’t me. I didn’t start the fire.”
“Don’t worry. I know. There are a bunch of those sweatshirts around.
Which is a problem because we don’t know much else about the person.
Because they didn’t come into the room, we don’t have enough detail to know if it was a boy or a girl or their exact height.
Best guess is they were short—five feet, give or take maybe four inches. ”
Blaze studied her sister for a few beats. Anson waited for her to tell Mercy to leave, but instead she asked him, “Between the hoodie and that height, it was probably a student?”
“Seems likely to me,” he said. “Anyway, this was before the fire. When the camera went off, I went and searched the building and didn’t find anyone.
I locked up and went home. About half an hour later, a 911 call originated from one of the landlines inside the church.
No one responded when the operator answered, so they dispatched police.
Officers found the main entrance unlocked and the sanctuary so full of smoke they couldn’t see the flames.
An extinguisher was lying in the lobby. The theory is whoever started the fire tried to put it out.
When that didn’t work, they called 911 and bailed. ”
Blaze braced a hand on the counter. “They’re sure no one was trapped?”
“As sure as they can be.”
She brushed stray flour off her fingers. “Thank God for that, at least.”
Mercy held an egg suspended by the bowl but didn’t crack it.
He gave her a reassuring smile. “Sometimes, kids hear things before adults do, so if you hear anything from any of the students, let me know.”
“I don’t know anything.” She shook her head so hard, the arm holding the egg trembled too. “I’ve never gone there when I wasn’t supposed to.”
He looked to Blaze to reassure her, but Blaze turned away and opened the refrigerator.
It was up to him then. He tried another smile. “I know it wasn’t you. I’m just saying if it was a student, whoever it was might talk about it with their friends.”
Blaze put a small bowl of butter in the microwave for a few seconds.
“Then what’ll happen?” If Mercy paid that egg any less attention, she’d drop it. “When you find whoever it is, they’re going to be in big trouble.”
“Mostly, I want to make sure they’re okay.”
The microwave beeped, and Blaze returned with the melted butter. She surveyed the ingredients strewn across the countertop as if she no longer knew what to do with them.
Realization flashed over him. Mercy wasn’t the only one he should’ve been worried about. Blaze had a traumatic history with fires. He should’ve been as concerned about her as he was about Mercy.
He stood and took the egg from Mercy. “We can let you know when they’re done.”
“Okay.” Mercy slipped from the room.