The Bride of Willow Creek(105)

A sinking feeling stole through him as the truth sank in. Govenor had nothing to do with the fires. But Sam recalled the fire at the Dryfus place that no one knew about but him. It was something to ponder later. “If you’re sure that Wales is the arsonist, and he couldn’t have started this fire because he was in jail,” he waved a hand at the smoke drifting off the rubble in front of him, “then who did start this?” Part of him refused to give up the belief that it was Herb Govenor.

“I think Dale can answer that,” Connelly said as the fire chief walked up to them. “Tell Sam what you told me.”

Dale Mercer waved Sam forward to the edge of the rubble. “From what you’ve said and from what we can see, the fire started here, on the kitchen side of the outer wall.” Squatting down, he poked a stick in the debris. “You see this?” He found the sink, then stirred some glass shards and a melted lump of metal. “That was a lamp. Based on my experience, I’d say it’s about a ninety-nine percent certainty that the fire started here.” He gazed up at Sam. “I can’t figure why you’d have a lit lamp sitting in the sink next to the window, but I’m guessing you did.”

Sam stared down at the bits of glass and melted metal. And he remembered the curtains fluttering at the kitchen window. Angie saying that she’d placed a few small stones in her mother’s cup so it wouldn’t blow off the sill. He could hear the wind buffeting the walls of his tent.

The fire had been an accident. A result of wind, Daisy’s lamp, and curtains blowing too close to the flame. Christ.

His shoulders dropped, and now he felt the pain in his hands and on his back. He had been so certain that Herb Govenor was to blame. Hatred had kept him going during all the hours on the fire line. He’d wanted to kill Govenor so badly that the feeling was slow to dissipate even now that he recognized the truth.

“There’s no doubt?” he asked finally. But he stared at the melted base of the lamp and knew the answer. The fire and police chiefs talked for another fifteen minutes, but he was convinced before he heard what they had to say.

Raising his head, he looked through the space where his house had stood and watched Angie crossing the street, picking her way through mud and puddles of standing water. She looked disheveled and exhausted, and he guessed that she hadn’t gotten any rest since he’d last seen her shortly before dawn. Seeing her bandaged hands made his chest tighten. Thank God she and his daughters were alive. Nothing else mattered.

“The girls are still sleeping,” she said after nodding to Connelly and Mercer. “There’s a meeting going on at Tilly’s house. They’re figuring out where to put up the Koblers and Greenes. Molly and Can have offered us their house, and I accepted.”

Her chin lifted a fraction as if challenging him to disagree. But hell, why would he? They had nowhere else to go, and Molly and Can had planned to leave for Denver this morning.

“I want you to come with me, and I don’t want to hear any argument.” She gave him a fizzy look that said she meant it. “The doctor’s been waiting all night for you.” She took the coffee cup out of his hands and tears filled her eyes. “Oh Sam.” The skin on his hands was puffed and cracking. “Molly has breakfast waiting at her house. I expect she’ll have to spoon-feed us, too.”

As it turned out, her prediction wasn’t far wrong. By the time Doc Poppell finished with him, bandages covered his back and parts of his chest. His hands were like Angie’s, thickly wrapped except for the tips of his fingers. After a few bites of Molly’s flapjacks, he gave up trying to manage a fork.

“I’m not hungry anyway,” he said, leaning back from his plate.

Molly gazed at him across the table. “Looks like you need a haircut, Sam Holland. That curl at the back of your neck is about gone. You were right lucky that the rest of your head didn’t catch fire.” She put down her napkin and stood. “I’ll get my scissors. If I can find them.”

Refusing any help, he picked up his coffee cup with his fingertips, had a sip, then told them about Albert Wales, the arsonist, and how the fire had actually started.

“Daisy’s lamp,” Angie repeated softly, falling back in her chair. She closed her eyes. “I should have thought of it. I put the pebbles in Mama’s cup because the wind was blowing. Why didn’t I think about the curtains fluttering over the lamp chimney? None of this would have happened if—”

“It’s not your fault.” Sam’s voice was almost gone. His throat hurt like the devil despite the concoction the doctor had made him drink. The poultice beneath the cotton wound around his neck didn’t seem to help much either.