Chapter Twenty-One
Rachel held both girls’ hands as they crossed the one-way drive to the parking area, though there were no cars approaching them.
She hoped that they couldn’t feel the vibration since she still couldn’t stop shaking.
Though she sensed that the women in the front office were still watching her and the girls through the window, she forced herself not to look back.
Whether or not they believed her story, they would be extra vigilant now in protecting the twins’ safety.
Something she’d failed to do.
Had she really thought she could shield her daughters when she still had no idea who was targeting her family?
To make a bad situation worse, she realized now that whoever had pretended to be Riley on the phone was just toying with her.
Letting her know he held the whole deck of cards, while she carried an empty box.
“Why did you tell the school you would be late, Mom?” Carissa asked as Rachel slid open the van’s side door. “Mrs. Z. and Mrs. Sumpter get mad when parents come late. I heard them say so.”
“But you weren’t late, were you, Mom?” Carly asked.
She helped the girls into their seats and secured their seat belts, at least protecting them in that one obvious way. “There was just a mix-up.”
Her daughters had probably overheard more than a few choice words from the women who got stuck caring for the children of irresponsible parents.
But it was easier to let the girls believe she was one of those than to admit she’d allowed players in a game she didn’t fully understand to use them as pawns.
She hadn’t given the principal a complete picture of what had just taken place, either.
How could she when she still wasn’t sure?
She’d provided Tyler Lawton’s name when Mrs. Sumpter asked about him again, but Rachel had clarified that the man wasn’t on the twins’ birth certificates.
Some theories were hard to abandon, and she would give the woman hers.
As Rachel pulled into traffic, Carissa waved to her in the rearview mirror. “Can Mr. Mick come to dinner again tonight?”
Carissa’s eyes widened, and she clamped her hands over her mouth. “Oops, I’m not supposed to tell the secret.”
“It’s not a secret with just us, but neither of you shared it at school, did you?”
“No, Mom,” Carly assured her.
She twisted her mirror so she could catch both of them shaking their heads.
“It was hard, too, since Mallory was talking about all the fires.” Carissa deposited the proper amount of distaste on the name of their fellow first-grader who’d worked hard to be a nemesis to both of them since the first day of school.
“She said someone started all them on purpose. And Mr. Mick would have told her she was dumb.”
Rachel cleared her throat to cover her chuckle. “I don’t think he would have said that, but how about we let the police deal with those things.”
She could have followed that advice herself.
“Do you think someone will put our house on fire, too?” Carly wanted to know.
“Of course not,” she said, surprised to be able to get any words out at all. “Why would you think that?”
Rachel hated that her children’s monster in the closet was less a product of their imaginations now and more a true possibility.
If anyone in town was more in the line of matches than her family was, she couldn’t produce a name.
Even Mick couldn’t guarantee that the trucks of Station 1 wouldn’t be paying their tinderbox of a house a visit sometime soon.
She shivered at the thought of it and then straightened her shoulders as the answer to an earlier question cemented in her thoughts. “Maybe we can have dinner with Mr. Mick, after all. He even asked us if we want to spend a few days in a hotel. Like camping.”
“Camping?” Carissa bounced, her legs kicking the back of Rachel’s seat.
“I love camping,” Carly agreed.
Rachel grinned at the road ahead of them, glad to at least give the girls something they could look forward to, while finding a way to keep them safe.
“Can we go swimming at the hotel?” Carly asked.
“Yay! Swimming!”
As she pictured the hotel pool with steamy windows where just about anyone could have been watching them from outside, Rachel shivered. “Sorry, girls. I don’t think that one will work out this time. You’ve both outgrown your swimsuits, and there’s just nowhere to buy them right now.”
Unless they visited any store where spring break clothes were on the center aisle. Sometimes a little mom lie was an absolute necessity.
She challenged her daughters’ chorus of aws with some other suggestions. “We can watch TV in bed after homework and even eat pizza on top of the covers if you girls agree to be careful.”
Swimming pools forgotten, the twins bounced in their seats, excited to get home to pack the matching lime-green overnight bags with their names on the sides.
“Will there be two beds in the hotel room?” Carly asked.
“Probably. And you two get to share one.”
“Will Mr. Mick sleep in yours?”
Rachel brushed a hand through her hair as memories from the day before flooded her thoughts, warm and heart-endangering. How could it have been just yesterday when she’d still been no more than curious about the Bilton Foundation, and Stan hadn’t been a suspected criminal?
“No, he’ll have his own bed.” Maybe his own room, if they could find adjoining ones.
Rachel had never exposed her daughters to strange men at the house, always careful to keep her dating rare and private. And though Mick wasn’t a stranger to them, she had to figure out a way to deal with that rule now, when the stakes were so high.
She had yet to let him know that she’d changed her mind about relocating the girls with him. Later, she would tell him about the incident in the pickup line, but for now, she would just admit that he was right.
As though that huge admission had somehow inspired him to answer her text from earlier, her phone buzzed then in her coat pocket.
He had great timing. And so many other qualities and talents she didn’t dare think about if she had to spend a few nights in the same hotel room with him, even if she chose to sleep in the bathtub for her own good.
Coming to a stop at the only remaining traffic light between the school and their house, she unzipped her pocket.
She sneaked a peek at the back seat. Good thing the girls were staring out the side windows at the people walking up and down Main Street instead of paying attention to her.
She didn’t want to give them any ammunition for when they were sixteen, and she insisted that they should lock their cell phones in the trunk to avoid the temptation to text.
“What took you so long?” she said under her breath as she fumbled beneath the heavy cloth to pull out her phone. With so much to tell him, she would need to pace herself.
She held the phone in her right hand and peeked down at it. The text, though, wasn’t from Mick. An unfamiliar number appeared on the screen, and the words inside the bubble made her breath hitch. Gooseflesh covered her arms. Her whole body shook.
“There is no refuge from confession but suicide; and suicide is confession.”—Daniel Webster (1782-1852)
Mick didn’t bother putting down his coat before rushing into the hall and locking the door of his office.
Already, he’d been forced to wait forty-five minutes after receiving Rachel’s series of texts before having the opportunity to go to her.
If he had to wait any longer, his tight chest would burst.
Captain Al Park, the oldest among the three captains at fifty-four and the leader on Rotation 2, entered from the apparatus bay before he could make his escape.
“What’s the rush, Chief? Trying to make sure you don’t give more than a minute of overtime on your cushy nine-to-five job?”
“Something like that.” He shifted his feet when the other man seemed to linger for more details. “I’ve got a meeting.”
“Ooh, a meeting.”
He said it as though Mick had just told him he was off to a clandestine hotel date. Which, in a matter of speaking, he was. At least as soon as he could get Rachel and the girls packed up and out of that house. He slid into his coat since he seemed to be stuck there.
“You do fast work, Prentiss, moving in on all those local gals. Maybe you’d even have luck with the new festival director, Delaney Malone. She’s become a celebrity since she seems to turn down every guy who asks her out.”
“Sorry. Haven’t met her,” Mick said in a clipped tone that he hoped would end the conversation.
He only had interest in one woman in Mount Isabel, anyway, the one who’d sent him that undecipherable text earlier.
They know I know. Incident at school. Girls OK, but need to relocate. Tonight.
Another message had given him an address and a time to meet her, but even in it, she couldn’t have been stingier with details.
“Maybe you should stop trying to live vicariously through the rest of the crew’s social lives,” Mick said, likely too late, given the captain’s curious expression.
“Gotta do something to battle the old-divorced-guy boredom,” Al said after a long pause. “Even my pup, Brute, has got a better social life than I do, getting to hang out with his sitter every few days. Want to see a picture?”
“Next time,” Mick said, though he hoped the man would drop his cell into the toilet between now and his next shift when he would show off more photos of the teacup poodle with its hypermasculine name. “I’ve got that appointment. See you, Park.”
“Sure thing, Chief.” He gave an exaggerated wink but let him pass by.
Mick knew he should tell the captain to knock off the personal questions, but even after a week at the station, only a few of the crew were fully relaxed around him. He appreciated them, but Park was almost too nice sometimes.
“Glad to have a slow shift after some of the others lately,” Al said from behind him.
Mick glanced back as he opened the door for the apparatus bay. “It’s been light.”
“Last call was a ‘smells and bells,’” he said, using firefighter slang for a situation involving the possible odor of gas. “Little anxious about tonight. We old-timers just get feelings about these things.”
“I hope your intuition is off, and you and the rest of the crew have a long, boring shift.”
Still, Mick could relate to the captain’s discomfort.
He’d been walking around for days expecting the other shoe to drop, and now it felt like every piece of footwear in town was falling from the sky.
He continued past the bays and out the door without being interrupted since it was nearly dinnertime.
Once outside, he had to force himself not to run to his truck. His heart pounded as though he had.
As he drove, a dozen scenarios played out in his head.
What could have happened at the school? How could they know what she’d learned about her father?
And even if someone had discovered that, what did it matter?
Her dad was the only one implicated in any of the documents they’d found.
Were they worried that she’d found the undoctored originals?
Back at the apartment, he threw some clothes in a bag and then poured them out again and folded them so he could fit in a few days’ worth of street clothes.
After putting his shaving kit on top, he glanced out the open blinds of the apartment’s back window.
It was still daylight. The time she’d given him probably included a healthy cushion after sunset.
He’d never hated daylight savings time more.
He spent the next ninety minutes pacing, grumbling and waiting until he could finally go to her.
She’d admitted she needed his help, or at least he’d inferred from that dearth of texted characters.
But would she finally trust him enough to let him do whatever was necessary to keep her and the girls safe?
And, still not knowing who or how many people they were up against, could he really protect them if he tried?