Chapter 6 June #2
“It started small,” Margo said. “That’s the thing that makes it feel unreal. I smelled something odd, but it wasn’t smoke at first. It was… hot. Like something was overheating.”
June’s brow furrowed. “Was it a burner?”
Margo nodded. “Yes. One of the knobs on the commercial range has been acting up for a while, and I’ve logged it with the company, which could only get a technician out next week.
” She shifted in the bed. “It’s not that it doesn’t work.
It’s that it doesn’t catch properly when you turn it off.
Sometimes you think it’s off, and it’s still feeding gas. ”
June felt her stomach drop. “Why keep using it?”
“I can’t be without the full use of my cooker, and we’ve been careful,” Margo explained. “We check twice. We always check. But this morning, when I went back there, the knob was loose. It felt… wrong. Like it had been pulled and shoved back on.”
June’s pulse picked up. “That sounds like tampering.”
Margo’s mouth tightened. “I can’t say for sure. But it wouldn’t turn off, and there was a flame. I asked my baker to grab the fire extinguisher and then ran to hit the alarm as it just ignited like someone threw gasoline on it.”
June kept her face neutral even as her chest tightened, because she didn’t want to push Margo into panic. “What happened then?”
“I didn’t want anyone to be in danger,” Margo told her.
“So I yelled for people to get out and then hit the alarm. The baker came back with the extinguisher, and I told her to ensure everyone, including herself, got out of the shop immediately.” She swallowed and glanced at her hands.
“I tried using the fire extinguisher but…” Her brow furrowed. “It wouldn’t work.”
“What?” June spluttered. “Don’t they have to be checked all the time?”
“I had it checked two days ago,” Margo told her. “I have all the paperwork back at my office at Sandpiper Inn.”
“You need to tell Holt all this and get him the paperwork,” June told her.
Margo nodded. “When I realized the fire had spread at one heck of a speed, I knew there was no way I could contain it. I called emergency services as I rushed out of the shop, then a lady was yelling that her daughter was still inside in the bathroom.”
“Oh, no, Margo,” June’s eyes widened, and she felt waves of terror zing through her. As a parent, that must be the most frightening thing to realize.
Margo’s eyes flicked to June’s face, and her mouth twisted. “I ran back into the building and toward the bathrooms. The hallway was already filling with smoke. The heat was building fast. I could hear the child coughing and crying as I barged in. She was huddled near the basin.”
June’s stomach clenched. “What did you do?”
“I grabbed her, wrapped her in one of the clean hand towels from the basket on the sink, and then I realized the hallway was becoming a tunnel of smoke. The heat was unbearable.”
June’s eyes burned. “You couldn’t go back the way you came.”
Margo shook her head. “The smoke was thick, and the heat was rolling. I could see flames at the kitchen end of the corridor. It was like the fire had cut off the main route.”
June pictured it, the narrow hallway, the bathrooms at the end, the way heat would funnel and make the air unbreathable within minutes.
“So you went to the window,” June said. “Chief Evans said you pushed the little girl through the bathroom window.”
“Yes,” Margo whispered. “The bathroom window is small. It’s meant for ventilation, not humans. I shoved it up and got the screen off. I lifted the girl onto the sill. She was small enough. She fit.”
Margo swallowed hard. “She wouldn’t let go of my arm. She was terrified. I had to pry her fingers off and push her through. I told her to run. I told her to scream until someone listened. I heard her shoes hit the ground outside.”
June released a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding. “And then you tried to follow.”
Margo gave a humorless laugh. “No, I knew there was no way I was going to get through that window. I couldn’t move forward, and I couldn’t move back. The smoke was thick, and I started coughing so hard I thought I would vomit.”
June’s heart clenched. “How did you get out?”
Margo’s gaze flicked upward, as if she could still see the ceiling of the bathroom. “Rad suddenly appeared like an apparition,” she said, voice softening slightly.
June stilled. “He came in.”
“I heard someone shouting my name,” Margo said. “I thought I was hallucinating. Then the bathroom door slammed open, and Rad was there, eyes wide, his shirt pulled up over his mouth like that would stop smoke.
“But we still couldn’t get out. The smoke was worse then and we were trapped.”
June’s voice came out low. “What did you do?”
“Rad shoved me into the shower stall and turned the water on. He soaked some towels, then pressed them along the crack under the bathroom door and around the frame, trying to slow the smoke,” Margo explained.
June’s mind supplied the rest: the water cooling the air, the steam mixing with smoke, the desperate attempt to create a pocket of breathable space.
“That was quick thinking of Rad,” June said quietly.
“Rad told me to keep my breathing slow. He kept checking the door and listening for signs someone was coming for us.” Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment. “It wasn’t long after he got there that I started to feel giddy.”
June frowned. “From the smoke.”
“Yes,” Margo said. “My hands were tingling. Everything felt far away. I remember thinking, This is it. This is how people die. Not screaming. Just… drifting.”
June’s throat tightened painfully. “Then Ace came.”
Margo’s eyes opened again, and for the first time since June walked in, something like wonder softened her expression. “Ace appeared like another apparition,” she said. “I heard banging, then the door burst open, and there he was.”
June shook her head slightly, unable to imagine Ace as anything but steady and stubborn.
“He pulled his mask off and put it on me,” Margo continued. “I remember trying to tell him to take it, as I knew he was breaking protocol. But he wouldn’t. He told me to stop arguing. Then he pulled me up and started hauling me out.”
She swallowed. “What about Rad?”
“He grabbed hold of the back of Ace to follow him through the fire,” Margo told her. “We had just started down the corridor when Willa arrived.”
“I saw her rush in,” June said with a tight smile.
“Willa took me and told Ace to help Rad because he’d begun dragging behind,” Margo went on. “By that time, my head was spinning, and the world was fading in and out of consciousness.”
June sat back slowly, her heart thudding. “Margo, you were very brave and very silly,” she said quietly. “You saved that child but nearly died.”
Margo’s eyes filled, and she looked away quickly, annoyed with her own emotion. “I did what I had to.”
June reached out and squeezed her hand gently. “Thank you for telling me.”
Margo sniffed, pursed her lips, and gave June a tight smile before shifting the subject. “Now have I earned your help getting me out of here?” She gave June a puppy dog look.
June sighed and shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey, but no. Now knowing what you went through, I think you need to stay right where you are.”
A few minutes later, a nurse popped in to check Margo’s vitals and politely let June know that Margo needed rest, which June took as her cue to leave. She gave Margos’ cheek a light peck.
“I’ll pop in tomorrow and see how you’re doing.” Then she left, pulling the door closed behind her.
June found Holt waiting near the front reception.
He looked up immediately. “How is Margo?”
June nodded. “She’s going to be okay. She has bad smoke inhalation, but Lucy’s keeping her for observation.”
Holt exhaled slowly. “That’s good news.”
June hesitated. “How is Rad?”
Holt’s mouth tightened with something that looked like reluctant amusement. “He’s annoyed,” he said. “He hates hospitals and insists he’s okay.”
“Funny, I just had a similar conversation with Margo.” June’s lips twitched before she asked softly, “Did he say anything about… what Chief Evans said?”
Holt’s eyes held hers for a moment.
“No.” He shook his head. “He asked about Margo, and he asked what happened to Teacups, and he asked if he could leave. He didn’t mention us.”
June didn’t know whether to feel relieved or more nervous.
Holt glanced toward the exit. “We should go back to Teacups before the scene is fully locked down for fire investigation. I need to pick up Rad’s car anyway. It’s still in the parking lot there.”
June nodded, and they walked out together, both quiet as if they were saving their energy for the next impact.
On the drive back, June told Holt what Margo had said, describing the loose burner knob and the speed at which the fire spread.
Holt’s jaw tightened as he listened. “That’s not a normal kitchen flare-up,” he said. “Even a grease fire needs the right conditions to move like that.”
“So you think there was an accelerant or something to make it spread like that?” June watched him intently.
“I think it’s possible,” Holt replied. “Some accelerants have a noticeable smell, but smell is unreliable in a bakery. Coffee and sugar cover a lot. Also, an accelerant can be applied in thin amounts along surfaces. You don’t need puddles. You need paths.”
June’s throat tightened. “We need to tell Willa and Zane what Margo said.”
“We will,” Holt said. “Willa especially. She’ll want it documented.”
They pulled up at Teacups, and June’s chest tightened as she saw what was left of the vibrant coffee shop and bakery.
The front windows were darkened with soot.
The sign was still intact, but the cheerful lettering looked wrong against the blackened frame.
Firefighters were wrapping up, rolling hoses, and loading gear.
The air smelled like wet ash and cooked wood, and it clung to June’s skin the moment she stepped out of the car.
Neither Carmen nor Willa nor Chief Evans was there, and June’s stomach dropped at the absence, as if the scene was missing its anchors.
A lieutenant confirmed it when Holt asked. “Captain Parker took one of the firefighters to get checked out,” he said. “Chief Evans left with her. They’ll be back when the fire investigator arrives.”
Holt nodded, his gaze scanning the scene. “Is it safe to walk through?”
“As safe as it gets,” the lieutenant said, “just watch your step. There’s water everywhere and a couple of spots where the floor’s soft.”
Holt pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and handed June another pair. She took them without comment.
Inside, Teacups looked like a memory someone had tried to erase.
Water pooled on the floor. Tables were pushed at odd angles, some overturned. The pastry case was cloudy with soot, and the smell of burned sugar was sharp enough to make June’s eyes sting.
Holt moved slowly and carefully, his eyes tracking along the baseboards and up the walls, the way someone looked at a body for bruises. June followed carefully behind him.
He took out a small evidence kit from his jacket pocket, the kind that looked too clinical to belong in a coffee shop. He pulled out a sterile swab, cracked open a small vial, and dampened the tip with a solvent used to lift residues without destroying them.
June watched, heart thudding, as Holt ran the swab along the lower section of the wall near the corridor, then sealed it back into a labeled tube.
“You brought that with you,” June said quietly.
“I keep the basics,” Holt replied. “This isn’t official fire forensics.
It’s just me making sure we preserve anything that might vanish once everything gets cleaned or torn out.
A broken knob could create a gas issue,” Holt said as if he was going over things.
“But that would usually create a different pattern. You’d get a flare, a concentrated ignition source.
Not a clean line of spread along baseboards. ”
June’s voice came out low. “So someone laid a path.”
Holt paused, then said carefully, “I can’t say that yet. We need more information.”
June stared at the blackened wall and felt the truth in her bones anyway.
“This was done intentionally,” she whispered.
Holt’s eyes flicked to her, and in them she saw the same thing she felt. Fear, controlled but present.
“My gut says the same,” Holt admitted. “But gut isn’t evidence.”
June swallowed hard, mind flashing to the letter with her name on it, to Lucy’s truck being targeted, to Teacups going up like a match.
“They’re coming after Lucy’s family now,” June said, and she hated how small her voice sounded in the burned-out room.
Holt stared at her for a moment, then his expression tightened, something darker settling behind his eyes.
“June,” he said quietly, “you have to be careful.”
She nodded. “So far, except for my name on the envelope, nothing has happened to me.”
Holt inhaled slowly, and June felt a shift, as if he was about to say something he’d been holding back.
“June,” he began again, then hesitated.
“But you are alarming me with that look,” June said, because she could hear it in the pause. “Whatever it is, just say it.”
Holt’s jaw flexed. “I looked into your accident,” he admitted. “When we first met here again.”
June blinked, shock prickling up her arms. “It was an accident,” she said immediately. “At first it was thought the man was a drunk driver but it wasn’t that. The man fell asleep at the wheel. He was exhausted. He’d worked too many shifts and—”
Her voice trailed off because Holt’s eyes didn’t change.
They didn’t soften. They didn’t reassure.
They held the weight of something ugly.
“June,” Holt said quietly, “there’s something you need to know about the man who hit your car.”
June’s breath caught. “What?”
“He disappeared,” Holt said. “He never worked at the place he said he did.”
The words landed hard.
June stared at him, the burned smell of Teacups suddenly too strong, the world narrowing again, not to ink on an envelope this time, but to Holt’s face and the terrible certainty in his eyes.
Because if the man had lied, and if he’d vanished, then June’s accident wasn’t an accident at all.
And that meant the list of things she thought she understood about the past was about to be rewritten, whether she liked it or not.