Chapter 21 #2
“She has a lot of crap going on right now, and some of it is pretty heavy. Plus, there’s the break-ins and what I thought I saw the day of her mother’s funeral.”
“Why are you so worried? Talk it through with me.”
So he did. He told Lynx everything that was going on with Nina—the money, her father, all of it—because his brother was really smart, and Finch needed to talk to someone.
“Wow. That has to mess with you,” Lynx said when he was finished.
He grunted his agreement.
“You’re into her, Finch.”
He didn’t deny it. “Not that it matters because neither of us is in the right headspace for a relationship now.”
“Maybe that’s exactly what you both need,” Lynx argued.
Finch didn’t answer that either.
He drove slowly up the road that led to the little white house with the cherry shutters, and his eyes moved the way they’d been trained to a long time ago—systematically, taking in what was there and what wasn’t.
Dark windows. No movement. A car parked at the curb that he recognized, and a few tire tracks left in the dusting of snow covering the road.
The cherry tree in the front yard, branches stripped bare.
Normal. All of it normal, so why did he feel like something was off?
He saw it then, the weak moonlight showed the potted plant under which Nina kept her front door key, was lying on its side.
Finch remembered when he’d been in her kitchen, and thinking she was neat like him. To his mind that meant Nina would never have left the potted plant like that if she was the one who’d knocked it over.
Instinct was something he’d often relied on in the army, and it had kept him alive more times than he could count.
Right now, every instinct he had was lit up and screaming that something was very wrong.
Finch cut the headlights and cruised past the white house without slowing, to park two houses down the street.
“Why are we stopping?” Lynx asked.
“Don’t slam the car door,” was all Finch said getting out.
The cold hit him like a wall. That kind that got into your lungs and made you aware of every breath. He moved fast and low along the footpath, his eyes fixed on the house, and Lynx was behind him, doing surprisingly well for a man in Ugg boots.
“Do you smell smoke?” Lynx asked.
Finch stopped and sniffed the air. It was faint, but unmistakable. Smoke.
“Call the fire department, Lynx!” He broke into a run.
He reached the front door in seconds and turned the handle, but it was locked.
He bent to find the key, but it wasn’t there.
Finch took a step back and drove his shoulder into it with everything he had.
The door shuddered in the frame but didn’t give.
It was an old house, the kind built before anyone cut corners.
“Round the back!”
He ran, overtaking Lynx before the first corner, the soles of his shoes slipping on the frosty grass. Finch’s mind was racing. Was the smoke coming from inside Nina’s house?
Nina.
The rear door was open.
“Wait!” Lynx roared, but Finch ignored him and ran inside.
A wave of smoke hit him the moment he entered. Finch yanked his shirt up over his mouth and nose and moved into the hallway, staying close to the wall. His eyes were watering, and the smoke tasted of something chemical, but he’d think about that when he knew Nina was safe. Where was the fire?
“Nina!” Finch roared her name as he entered her room. “Wake up!”
He reached her bed in three strides and threw the covers back. She was curled on her side, hair across her face, her nightdress twisted. Not moving. For one terrible second, his heart nearly stopped, and then she stirred.
He slid his hands under her, and straightened with Nina in his arms. He leaned forward and managed to snatch a blanket off the bed and dragged it over her as he turned for the door.
“Wh-what—” Her voice was thick with sleep and confusion as she fought the blanket and him.
“Fire. Don’t take it off.” He pulled the blanket tighter around her head and kept moving.
Finch held his breath and went fast. The smoke in the hallway had thickened in the minute he’d been in the room, so he kept low. His eyes started to burn, and his lungs needed air as panic made his breathing increase. Reaching the back door, he rushed through and sucked a deep lungful of cold air.
“Is she okay?” Lynx ran to his side.
“I think so.”
“Finch?” Nina wrestled the blanket off her head.
“You’re okay. We’re outside.”
He set her feet down on the ground but kept his hands on her until he was sure her legs were steady. She looked up at him, and then at the house that smoke was now billowing out of.
“Mabel,” she said. “I need to find my cat.”
“You’re not going back in there,” Finch said.
He wrapped the blanket more firmly around her shoulders and then held her so she didn’t run back into the house to find the cat.
“I will if she’s in there,” Nina said, struggling to get free of his grip.
A streak of white came flying out the door then, launched itself off the step, and landed directly in Lynx’s arms. He caught the cat on instinct, staggering back a step with an armful of indignant feline.
“She’s safe,” he said, looking surprised to be holding her.
Nina’s whole body sagged with relief.
“Hose,” she said then, pulling herself upright again. “We have to stop the fire.”
“Did you see where it’s coming from?” Lynx asked, now cuddling the cat and nuzzling her head with his chin. Mabel was purring.
“Excuse me if I didn’t stop to check,” Finch snarled, running for the hose.
Now that Nina was safe and they were both out of the burning house, his mind was throwing out all kinds of possibilities, like—had this fire been lit deliberately?