Chapter 25
“Murphy’s Law of fire alarms: they only happen in the middle of the night and when you are wearing your ugliest pajamas.”
—It’s science
Iris
“Hey, Ann. How are—” I started to say, but she shoved her way in and interrupted me.
“Are you alone? Where’s Hector?” she asked, very jittery and clearly on edge.
Before I could answer, a second person slid in through the front door and closed it quickly.
Sarge barked at the newcomer and then began to sniff him up and down as though he held a thousand snacks in his pants.
“Iris, this is Steve Stanton, the podcaster who wrote you the letter.” Ann waved her hand to point at him quickly.
I felt my eyes bug out of my sockets as she introduced him. “Who…What…” I started to speak, but Ann cut me off again.
“Where is Hector? Did he already leave?”
Now was about when my Spidey-senses started to go off. How did she know Hector was leaving? And why did she come here if she knew he might not be here? And why was the weirdo podcaster here?
“Ann, what’s going on?” I asked her.
“Please, I promise I will tell you everything, but I need to know how long ago Hector left,” she begged.
“About ten, maybe fifteen minutes ago for the fire,” I told her, although I was a bit confused because she would have known that if she had answered her phone.
She had brushed past me in her quest to search the house for Hector, and Steve was standing just inside the door. I was going to ask him what was going on, but Ann had quickly returned and was now facing me.
“Where?” she asked, both unsettled and a bit distracted.
“Ranger Jennings called to tell him there was a fire somewhere on the north side, up near the campgrounds,” I told her. “It must be new because they hadn’t called it in yet.”
“How do you know they hadn’t called it in yet?” she asked anxiously.
“I was just on the phone with my colleague Christine at the weather service, and she said no one had reported it yet. She was going to call Hector as soon as she got off the phone with me.”
She stood there staring off into the living room instead of responding.
Her breathing was very fast, and she seemed flushed.
I started to get a little worried. Even Sarge was a bit apprehensive.
He normally went up to anyone who came in the house to see if he could get some free belly rubs out of them, but he had chosen to return to my side instead, watching warily as the scene in front of me unfolded.
“Okay, this is good,” she said, nodding, and then she turned to Steve. “We all need to go. Now. And bring your phone because mine died.”
“What’s going on?” I asked, starting to get a little scared.
“It’s Jennings,” she said, looking around the kitchen like she was searching for something. “Where is Sarge’s leash? We need to go and get you somewhere safe.”
“I don’t understand. What’s wrong with Jennings?”
“Let’s get in my car, and I’ll tell you everything, but I’m guessing the reason the fire wasn’t reported is because the fire isn’t actually real. It was a diversion to get Hector away from you.”
“Ann, I’m not trying to be difficult, but I’m not leaving until you give me more information. What is going on?”
“Steve and I were on our way to the ISB office to meet with Agent Andrews with some new information we had, when my phone died,” she said quickly.
“I turned on our radios in our vehicles to see if I could reach out to Hector that way, but that’s when I heard Jennings get on and report the fire over our Park Service radios.
He alerted everyone to get up there quickly and mentioned that he called me and couldn’t get ahold of me. ”
“Just like we talked about,” Steve broke in to speak for the first time, looking at Ann.
Ann nodded at him and then turned to me. “Steve and I were going over some things at his place last night, and it occurred to me while we were in bed that Jennings had suspected I was the one who was leaking the info to Steve and he might try to come after me.”
What did she just say? She leaked information? She was also lying in bed with Steve? What in the world was happening right now?
“But then I heard Jennings say on the scanner that Hector would be heading up that way too, and I knew something was wrong.”
“A trap,” Steve interrupted. “There is no fire.”
“That’s when it hit me that you, Iris, were his real target. Not me,” Ann said. “So Steve and I diverted and drove here to check on you instead of driving to the ISB. But we still need to go there. So please grab your things and Sarge, and we will all head there together. Please.”
She pleaded that last part, and I believed her. I nodded and was about to grab Sarge’s leash, when he began barking again.
Ann and I both turned around at the same moment to see Ranger Jennings standing in the doorway.
“Ann, what are you doing here?” Jennings said, as calm as could be.
“It’s you,” Ann growled at him. “You’re the one who murdered those girls!”
“Now, Ann, you’ve been listening to this crackhead podcaster too much,” Jennings said as he nodded in Steve’s direction.
Steve had moved just to the side of the door, barely even in the house, and now stared wide-eyes at Jennings.
As Jennings stepped farther into the room, Steve bolted out the front door and took off. Jennings, realizing his mistake, reached around and pulled a gun from his back, pointing it straight at Ann.
“Now, we’re all going to take a seat and talk about this calmly,” he said, very composed but also detached and unfazed.
Sarge, however, had read the room and was now growling low at Jennings from where he had returned to my side. I saw the moment his eyes met the dog’s and realized Sarge may be a threat. His eyes changed from stoic to icy in one blink.
I stepped around Sarge, putting myself in front of him. “Do not harm him,” I told Jennings.
“Why are you doing this?” Ann asked him, bringing the attention back to her.
“Well, because this one couldn’t keep her mouth shut,” Jennings said, pointing at me. “I assumed she lied and had gone and told the podcaster all kinds of confidential information and he started to connect too many dots.”
What the hell was he talking about?
“I never talked to the podcaster!” I announced.
Jennings now turned to Ann, his voice rising. “But now…now I realize it was you. Because he knew about things that the public was not privy to.”
“It was me. I told him,” Ann said from beside me, shocking the hell out of me. “I also told the ISB, so you won’t get away with this.”
“You bitch,” he snarled, lifting his gun and firing at her.
The shot was deafening as it echoed through the house.
I looked over to see Ann drop to the ground, moaning and grabbing her side.
I jerked around to look at Jennings, who took the side of the gun and swung it my way.
I wasn’t fast enough to react, though, and I felt a sharp blow to the side of my head.
The next thing I knew, everything went black.
My head hurt so bad—it felt as though it was about to explode if I moved even the slightest bit.
I tried to close my eyes again to dull the pain, but something cool and wet hit my face. I opened my eyes to see Sarge staring back at me, looking very worried.
His feet were tap dancing around the floor, but he was staying in place. He whined and licked my face again. I tried opening my eyes wider and looked around.
I was in Hector’s house. Where was Hector?
I was lying on the floor on my side. I tried to sit upright, but that caused a wave of nausea to roll through me.
I tried to hold myself steady in the sitting position as I looked around.
From where I sat on the floor, I saw the front door was ajar, and it was getting darker outside, as if the sun were about to set.
I moved my head slowly to the right and saw red on the hardwood floors. It took a moment to register that it was blood. A lot of blood.
Ann!
Memories of what happened flooded back to me.
Hector! I needed to warn Hector.
I tried to get up, but the feeling of both passing out and throwing up overtook me. I paused in my effort to get up, trying to scan the room for my phone. At the same time, Sarge, who had been at my side, was now by the door, barking in my direction and pacing.
Was he trying to warn me of something? His mix of whining and high-pitched barks along with his frantic movements had me worried that Jennings might still be nearby.
I needed to get to my phone and call Hector. Or 911. Or both.
Just as I tried again, slowly, to lift myself up, Sarge barked again, but this time, he took off out the front door.
Mild panic set in—I had no idea where he was going—but I forced myself to focus and find my phone. Standing was too much, so I crawled over to the kitchen—the spot I remembered setting my phone down when Ann had arrived.
I made it about halfway when Sarge came sprinting back inside and raced toward me, barking incessantly once he made it to me.
His barks made my head hurt even more. I turned to tell him to be quiet so I could concentrate, when I saw Hector’s frame in the doorway.
“Jesus Christ,” he muttered and then bolted to my side.