Chapter 4
Carol rolled over and adjusted her legs so her knees wouldn’t grind together. Lying on her back had been miserable, and sleeping on her stomach was out of the question. She wrapped her arms around the pillow and pulled it closer, thinking maybe she just needed to get her neck in the right position.
She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, waiting for sleep to swoop in and take over.
It was getting late, and she wouldn’t get a damn thing done tomorrow if she didn’t get some sleep tonight.
But thoughts of Rick constantly swirled in her head.
He had a wonderful smile, a genuine one that reached his eyes.
There were so many fake people in the world these days, but he seemed to be an outlier.
Sighing, Carol reached for her nightstand, her fingers crawling instinctively across the top of her sound machine to hit the right buttons.
A while back, Stacey had tried to talk her into using her phone and a popular website for sleep sounds when she wanted them.
Carol certainly embraced technology when it made sense, but some things were simpler to do the old-fashioned way.
She took another deep breath as the sound of a thunderstorm rumbled through her room.
That always helped when she had trouble at night.
The noise was soothing, but it did nothing to slow down her thoughts.
It’d been fifteen years since Michael had passed away.
He’d been a good man, and she’d certainly missed him, but she’d also had plenty of time to grieve.
Carol couldn’t feel guilty about seeing someone else or even enjoying it.
No one would blame her for wanting to find a new man to spend time with.
Obviously, Stacey didn’t have a problem with it, or she wouldn’t have been so insistent about pushing Carol and Rick together.
Still, hesitation was building up inside her the more Rick swirled around in her mind.
Though her heart no longer hurt, Carol still remembered the acute pain she’d felt when Michael had crossed over.
She’d ached both physically and emotionally once he was no longer at her side, and the torment had been hard to deal with for quite some time.
The person she thought she was going to spend the rest of her life with had been taken away from her with the swiftness of his heart attack, a cruel blow from fate.
As she’d slowly healed from that agony, Carol had decided she never wanted to feel that again.
The moon peeked in around the edge of the curtains, sending a long bar of silvery light across the floor.
How many nights had she lain awake after Michael’s death?
How many times had she reached across the bed in the middle of the night, expecting to lay her hand on his shoulder only to find an empty pillow?
That hadn’t happened for quite some time now, especially not since she’d moved there to the Cape.
A new home, and a whole new life. It just hadn’t turned out to be the life she’d expected.
Carol rolled over again. Regardless of her grief, she now spent plenty of nights awake due to her dwindling estrogen and progesterone.
Growing older came with perks. The lack of her monthly visitor was certainly one.
So was the fact that she didn’t give much of a shit about what people thought.
But she knew this long night wasn’t the result of her fluctuating hormones.
It was Rick. There was no reason to think about him this much.
Just because they’d had a wonderful time didn’t mean they’d run down the aisle together.
Her conscious mind was happy to be practical about the whole thing, but the unconscious half was far more insistent on replaying their date over and over, wondering what might happen in the future.
“All right. That’s enough of that.” Carol flicked off the sound machine and swung her legs out of bed.
She wasn’t going to just lie there all night.
There was no point if she wouldn’t get any real rest. The best way—in her opinion—to battle insomnia was to fight it by giving in.
If she couldn’t sleep, she was going to get things done.
She’d already planned to bake a couple of new batches of dog treats for the bakery the next morning, so she’d just get herself a head start.
Carol padded downstairs and into the kitchen.
The light was bright, and she squinted against it for a moment.
She glanced out the window, hoping Stacey wouldn’t happen to be up and wondering why the light was on.
It was too much to explain just now. She began pulling out ingredients, but she realized quickly that this plan wasn’t going to work.
Most of what she needed, including her recipes and the fun-shaped cookie cutters, were all at the bakery.
“Well, it’s not much of a drive.” She turned off the kitchen light and paused at the bottom of the stairs.
Was there really any point in going back upstairs to change?
No one was going to see her. She’d be in the car for a few minutes and then in the back of the bakery.
Hell with it. She pushed her feet into her sneakers and got in the car.
The streets were dark and quiet. The phrase she would’ve used when she was younger was that the sidewalks had all been rolled up for the night.
Her dad always used to say that, and as a kid, she’d thought it was funny.
Though the sidewalks were, of course, just where they’d been left, the saying was still on point.
She didn’t see a soul as she made the short drive to the little plaza where she’d rented a place to carry out her latest dream.
The cluster of businesses curled in on itself in a U-shape.
Bricks had been laid down in swirling patterns amidst some rustic planters full of flowers, creating a pleasant area for shoppers to stroll or sit down to eat and rest while they explored the small businesses.
It was only slightly less inviting at night when all the store windows were dark.
Carol drove past the parking lot and storefronts and pulled around the back. The rear entrances to the stores on this side all faced a rocky part of the beach. She parked in the shadow of the building and put her key in the back door.
A sound off to her left caught her attention, down toward the beach.
Carol paused, listening, waiting. The surf slapped against the shore, a sound that she’d grown used to over the past several months since she’d moved there.
The breeze rustled softly in the trees that grew around the plaza, but she didn’t hear anything else.
Shrugging, Carol headed inside and closed the door behind her.
“Well, at least my customers don’t have to know that I’m back here baking in my pajamas,” she said to herself as she turned on the lights and preheated the oven.
It was too bad she’d sent Barney to spend the evening with Stacey and the kids.
It only seemed right that the scruffy little dog didn’t have to spend an evening alone when there were so many in the clan who loved him, but Carol realized how much she’d been enjoying his company when she came to work. He was a great little listener.
She pulled out her recipe binder. The tried-and-true formulas Barney and her other customers enjoyed earned a spot within a page protector clipped in the binder.
Those that she was still working on remained in the front pocket, where she could easily write notes as she perfected the recipes. Carol went to work.
Though her first several batches of treats had been made at home, there was something incredibly efficient about an industrial kitchen.
Even if it was a small one, Carol had plenty of room to roll and cut the dough.
The counters and cabinets weren’t cluttered with any of the various appliances or decorations that lived in a home.
Everything was clean and open, and it was an enjoyable place to work in.
After checking her recipe, Carol set out fresh mint and parsley.
Though she had quite an array of peanut butter, ginger, and oatmeal-flavored treats, this particular round would be specifically to freshen doggy breath.
She wanted to make something that her dog customers and their parents would be equally happy about.
As she chopped and measured, her thoughts occasionally still strayed to Rick.
What would a future with him be like? Not only because she hadn’t allowed herself to be in a committed relationship for a long time but also because he was a wolf.
Every time she had to double-check her measurements or re-read the directions, her mind refocused on her task. This was exactly what she needed.
Carol paused as an unusual smell met her nostrils.
The herbs had a fresh aroma, but this smelled like smoke.
She hurried to the oven and whipped the door open, wondering if she’d accidentally left something inside.
Her mother used to store dishes in the oven when she needed to hide them from company, and more than once, those dishes had been baked whether they were oven-safe or not.
Carol hadn’t allowed herself to have this habit, but she checked regardless.
No cookie sheets or muffin tins. Not even a splatter of spilled-over food that was smoldering on the bottom.
Shutting the oven, she put out her nose and sniffed, slowly stepping around the room to try to locate the source.
The smell got weaker as she moved toward the front of the bakery, where her display cases and the cash register were.
She opened the door and took a swift glance anyway, just to be safe.
Nothing. Returning to the kitchen, she tried again.
Her nose led her to the back door. What the hell?
Carol pulled it open. The darkness behind the building was just as deep as before, with the lights from the main part of the plaza not quite reaching there.
That made it impossible to see anything, especially after the bright lights from the kitchen, but those shadows highlighted the fire out on the beach.
Carol leaned against the doorway as she continued to look.
Who would start a campfire out on the beach this late?
And it was rather big for such a thing. The flames were far enough out on the rocks that they weren’t any danger to the shops, at least. Still, what would happen if they got out of control?
Closing the door behind her, Carol stepped outside.
Sure, she was still in her cotton pajamas and sneakers that she’d left the house in.
She hadn’t planned for anyone to lay eyes on her, but she supposed that would be their punishment for starting a fire out there so late at night.
She’d go out there and tell whoever did this that they needed to put it out, and then she could get back to baking.
But as Carol neared the beach, she realized with a shock of horror that this wasn’t a simple campfire for roasting marshmallows. She blinked, sure that what she saw had to be some sort of waking nightmare, a figment of her tired brain.
The fire was oblong instead of round. The flaming logs stretched out in an oval, a ring of fire that blazed bright and hot, sending sparks up into the sky.
The center had been kept free of logs, but it wasn’t empty.
A figure lay there amidst the flaming logs: a woman!
Ropes bound her hands and feet, though she struggled against them.
A strip of thick cloth had been tied tightly around her head to gag her, and her muffled screams were barely audible above the roar of the fire.
Her eyes were wide with fear as she turned toward Carol.
“Oh, my god! Hang on!” Carol patted her pockets, glad that these pajamas had pockets and she’d happened to put her phone there. She quickly dialed 911 as she raced back to the bakery.
“What’s your emergency?” the dispatcher asked calmly.
“There’s a woman on the beach,” Carol spat out, nearly tripping over a rock once the light from the fire no longer lit her way. “She’s tied up and surrounded by fire!”
“Can you give me the address?” Some of that calmness had lifted.
Carol couldn’t blame her. She’d probably heard all sorts of crazy or scary things over the phone, but probably not that one. She rattled off the address. “She’s out on the beach behind the buildings, so tell them not to waste time with the main parking lot of the plaza. Please hurry.”
“Responders are on their way right now,” the dispatcher assured her. “Are you in any danger?”
“No. I’m fine.” Or at least as fine as she could be considering what was happening. “I’m going to see what I can do.”
“Ma’am, please stay away from the fire and let the authorities handle this,” the dispatcher began.
“To hell with that.” Carol hung up, barely getting the phone back in her pocket and the door to the bakery reopened.
She snagged the fire extinguisher off the wall.
Dust had accumulated on the top of it, and it grimed her hands as she juggled the unwieldy thing.
She put her finger through the loop on the pin and pulled.
The hard plastic bit into her skin as it resisted, but after another tug, it popped loose. Carol raced back outside.
This couldn’t be happening. Who would have done such a thing?
Her feet moved quickly, but nothing could be fast enough.
As she ran through the dark toward the firelight, Carol began to wonder if she was wrong.
Was she in some sort of danger? Someone must have done this to this poor woman. Where were they now?
But she wasn’t about to turn tail and hide inside until the lights and sirens showed up.
Something had to be done, and she was the only one there to do it.
Carol hurdled over the rock that’d almost tripped her before, landing hard and racing forward with the nozzle of the fire extinguisher at the ready.
She only needed to put enough of the fire out to get to the woman. That was all. She could do this.
The woman’s screams bit into her ears as she hurried forward. Her heart lurched. Carol forced herself to focus on the fire instead of the woman’s pitiful face. She had to aim for the base of the flames. She braced herself and squeezed the handle.
Only a few white drops of foam dripped out of the nozzle.
“No!” Carol gasped. She shook the extinguisher and tried again.
Again, it was only a spatter of the agent, not even enough to put out a fraction of the flames.
She peered at the gauge, but it didn’t really matter what it said.
This wasn’t working, and the fires were getting closer to the woman.
The pungent smell of burning hair assaulted her nostrils. What was she going to do now?