On Fire(34)

Her right forearm was scraped and bloody. She hadn't noticed. He had a nurse clean and bandage it.

"My sister," Riley said.

"How is she?"

"The doctors are with her." "What does that mean?"

It meant she'd have to wait. She staggered back to the waiting room, and  after a few minutes, Straker joined her. He shoved a bottle of water at  her.

"Drink up. They won't let anyone see Sig yet. I called your mother.

Your father's there, too. They're on their way."

"They must be out of their minds with worry."

"The hospital's calling Caroline Granger on Mount Desert."

Riley nodded dully.

"She's up for the weekend. Abigail and Henry are there, too."

"Then that saves you from having to tell Matt."

She bristled.

"I'm not telling that son of a bitch anything. The hospital shouldn't, either."

Straker's eyes went dark.

"Sig's his wife. If they're not divorced, the medical staff won't really have any choice."

"For all I know he's the one who set Emile's place on fire!"

Straker took her by the shoulders and pushed her, not that gently, onto a chair.

"You don't believe that."

"Do not tell me what I believe and don't believe."

"Okay. / don't believe it."

She started to shake. She was exhausted, irritable, smelled like a  chimney. Here she was, so glad to have Straker with her, and she was  barking at him. But her sister was hurting, and the only real home Riley  had known as a child had just been torched. When she'd smelled the  smoke, she'd assumed she'd messed up the dampers on the woodstove.

She'd pulled on hiking pants and slipped on her sneakers before realizing it wasn't that simple.

"I felt the fire," she said.

"I was bending down to tie my shoes, and I knew. I can't explain it."

"You don't have to. It happens all the time. Somehow you put together  the danger signs on an instinctive level, before they register in your  conscious mind."

"I was afraid Sig wouldn't make it through the window. She's tall, and her stomach" -- "She did make it."

"I had to yell at her. She was still so done in from throwing up."

Riley couldn't hold it in anymore. She couldn't keep up the fight.

She sank her head into her hands and cried, sobbed, coughed, choked.

She smeared black gunk over her face.

When she'd finished crying, Straker took her water bottle and dampened a  couple of tissues for her. She wiped her face and hands, blew her nose.

"I'm a mess."

"That's the least of your problems."

He wasn't going to pull any punches. And he was right. She flopped back against her chair. "I want to see Sig."

Lou Dorrman arrived, and Straker stood back while the sheriff had Riley  tell him about her night, start to finish. She didn't volunteer anything  about her brother-in-law showing up after dinner, and Dorrman didn't  ask. When she finished, he turned to Straker, who calmly explained how  he'd come upon the fire just as the St. Joe sisters were leaping off the  woodshed roof.

"Looks like we have a firebug on our hands," the sheriff said.

"Sam Cassain's place burned down the other night. Now Emile's."

"Any evidence they're related?" Straker asked.

"We got the fire out before Emile's woodshed burned completely, found  suspicious materials tucked off in the far corner. He has a nice  selection of firebug favorites. Linseed oil, rags, beakers, candles,  matches, string, an old-fashioned alarm clock." Don-man shook his head.

"It doesn't look good."

Riley shot to her feet.                       
       
           



       

"That's insane. Someone's setting him up."

The sheriff was unmoved. "Your grandpa needs to come in and explain himself."

"You can't possibly believe Emile would set his own place on fire!"

She paused, tried to calm herself. Shouting wasn't going to help the situation.

"Sheriff, you've known my grandfather for years. He wouldn't do something like that."

"The state police are involved. It's not like what I think or don't  think's going to make a difference. They have to go by the evidence."

His cop gaze settled on Riley.

"We all do."

"But you have to look at the evidence with some degree of common sense."

"You talk to your FBI friend here," Don-man said.

"He'll tell you all about evidence. Now, I know you're looking for  Emile. I'm going to tell you this once and only once. You listening?"

She sighed, nodded. Even her skin tingled with the frustration boiling through her.

"If you find him and don't tell us, you're going to be in a whole heap of trouble." He paused, let his words sink in.

"That's clear enough, isn't it?"

"You know Emile's not your man." She crossed her arms over her chest as if to keep herself from flying apart.

"He didn't kill Sam, and he didn't set those fires. It's just not possible."

"Then let him talk to the investigators, straighten everything out."

Don-man's tone said he was finished arguing with her and she'd better  figure that out be fore he lost patience. The trauma of jumping out of a  burning building with her pregnant sister would only excuse so much.

He yielded slightly.

"How's your sister?"

"I'm still trying to find out."

He nodded.

"I'll talk to her later. Hope she's okay."

He left, and Riley dropped back onto a chair next to Straker.

"You trying to make yourself disappear?"

"Emergency rooms aren't my favorite place. How're you doing?"

"Okay, I guess." She gulped in air, trying not to shake.

"I need to see about Sig."

"Go ahead."

But as she got to her feet, Caroline arrived, with Abigail and Henry  right behind her. "Oh, Riley my God! Are you all right? We couldn't just  sit out there and wait." Caroline took in Riley's soot and scrapes, her  tear-streaked face. "We had to come. Is there anything we can do?"

Riley shook her head.

"Thanks for being here."

"No thanks are necessary." She dipped into her expensive handbag and  pulled out a handful of individually wrapped, lemon-scented wipes, which  she tucked into Riley's palm. She gave a comforting smile.

"You look as if you've stepped out of the pages of a Dickens novel."

Abigail was fighting off tears. She asked about Sig, and Henry promised  to find out what was going on. Straker, on his feet, started to pace.  Riley knew the inaction was getting to him, just being in a hospital  again after his ordeal six months ago.

"I'm sorry. Henry," she said.

"I know you wanted me to get far away from trouble, and here I've just jumped from a burning building."

"We'll worry about that later," he said.

"The important thing is that you and your sister are all right."

Facing Henry Armistead, however, was nothing compared to facing Mara  Labreque St. Joe. She burst into the waiting room with the air of a  woman who'd flown up the coast on a broomstick. She was disheveled,  frantic, refused to wait for anyone to tell her where to find her  daughter. She grabbed Riley and took off into the treatment rooms,  muttering, "Damn Emile, damn him."

"Mom, I should warn you. Sig's pregnant."

"Damn it, I know she's pregnant! I have eyes in my head!"

"She's having twins," Riley added.

Her mother faltered. Her dark eyes shone. Her lower lip trembled, but  she rallied. She turned on Riley as if she were Emile's clone.

"And you let her come up here with you? The least you could have done  was stay in a motel. You didn't have to stay at the cottage. Damn it,  Riley, what were you thinking?"

"Mara." Richard St. Joe eased in behind them.

"Riley's been through a rough time tonight, too."

"I know, I know, I'm sorry...." She put a hand on Riley's cheek, tried to smile through her tears.                       
       
           



       

"You're okay?"

"I'm fine. Mom."

"I spoke to a doctor," her father said.

"She said Sig's doing well.

She sprained an ankle and had some smoke inhalation, and she's dehydrated. "" Can we see her? " Mara asked.

"Yes, but she's asleep right now. They want to get her into a regular room and keep her at least until morning."

"I want to see her," Mara insisted.

Richard nodded.

"I know. Me, too."

A nurse escorted the three of them to Sig's treatment room. She was  asleep on her side under a thin blanket, her pregnancy obvious even to  someone who wasn't looking for it. She was still hooked up to an IV but  had been taken off oxygen. Riley stood back while her parents came to  terms with the reality of how close they'd come to losing not one  daughter this time, but two.

"Come on," Richard said, putting an arm around his wife, "I'll buy you a  cup of coffee. I'm not going anywhere until she wakes up and I hear her  voice. Riley?" He attempted a smile.