Irresistible Stranger

Chapter 8

Lily raced over to the window. The siren sounded close-within blocks-but there was no sign of smoke or fire. Still, even through the trees and darkness she could see second-story lights popping on. Others had been awakened by the sound of the fire truck.

Her heart was thudding with dread, but she told herself not to panic.

She told herself that there was no reason to worry this had anything to do with her. That was pretty darned self-centered thinking. Everything wasn’t about her.

Yet she whipped around, started searching for clothes. She’d just yanked a long-sleeved tee over her head when she sensed a sharp white flash of light, followed by a growl that made the whole house shake. Thunder. Lightning close enough to smell the ozone. Seconds later, rain slashed in the west windows, making the curtains dance and shake.

She pushed down the windows, turned and promptly hit her knee on the four-poster in the dark. She found underpants, shorts-though she couldn’t see what color-bent down, groped for her sandals. She could still hear the sirens. Her heart pounded as uncontrollably as a child’s nightmare. She rushed downstairs, almost tripping on the bottom step, and found Louella standing with her cane at the back screen door, wearing a housecoat and pink Crocs.

She’d lit a utility candle, put it in the sink, which illuminated just enough for Lily to find her way across the room.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Louella said. “You’re my only tenant right now. I never mind that. But the house always feels bigger and creakier in a storm. I was worried how close that lightning was. Thought it might have hit the catalpa tree three doors down.”

“Are you worried? Do you have a storm shelter?”

“Heavens no, honey. This is just a storm. It’ll pass. Once that lightning’s moved off to the east, I’ll relax good and well.” But there was worry in her eyes when she looked at Lily. “You heard the sirens?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know what’s going on in our town with these fires, but I have to say, it’s starting to make me uneasy. I was told twice yesterday that I was making a mistake, letting a fire setter rent a room here. Of course, anyone listens to June Ellis should get their head examined. Damn fool woman married the biggest drinker in town, then whines about the mess she’s in. So that’s the kind of judgment she’s got.”

Lily’s heart sank. Louella was staring out at the rain again, not at her. “Louella, do you want me to move?” she asked quietly.

“Lands sake, no. Lordamighty. You didn’t think I’d believe silly talk like that, did you? Give me credit for some brains, honey. I took one look at your face and knew you had a good heart through and through.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me for being smart. I was born smart. Can’t take credit for it.”

Lily had to smile, but it faded fast. “I don’t want to cause you any trouble-”

“You couldn’t cause me trouble if you tried. I’m a Southern magnolia, sugar. Southern women know how to be strong.” Louella’s gnarled hand circled Lily’s wrist. “But I am worried about you.”

“It’s all right,” Lily reassured her. “There’s no reason to…”

Her voice trailed off when she saw the sheriff’s car pull up to the curb.

Even in the gloomy storm, the flashing lights of the car were unmistakable.

Louella had the door open before Herman Conner was halfway up the veranda steps. “Why, Sheriff Conner,” she started to say, but apparently the sheriff wasn’t in a Southern, courteous mood.

He looked past Louella, saw Lily, motioned a come-on with his forefinger.

“You and I need to have a talk,” he said curtly.

“Sure,” she said. “How can I help?”

“You can help by getting in the car. I won’t put cuffs on you if you just don’t make a fuss. We’ll talk at the station.”

Lily’s stomach clenched into a tight fist. “What? Are you telling me I’m under arrest?” She wanted to laugh. She really wanted to believe this was funny.

“Lily. Get your fanny in the car. I mean it. Now.”

“Now, sheriff, there’s no call to speak to Lily that way-”

“Louella, you stay out of this. I’m hot and I’m tired and I’ve had enough right now.”

The station was as dark as everywhere else. Electricity was still down. Daylight was coming on, but the only thing easy to see was the stale coffee in yesterday’s pot. Conner still poured himself a cold cup and offered her one. He motioned her into a back office with windows-not a jail-but the only place that had enough light to talk. The chairs were hard-core metal, the table a battered gray institutional type.

“Am I under arrest?” she finally had a chance to ask again.

Even in the poor light, she could see the hound-dog bags under Conner’s eyes and the pallor of exhaustion behind his ruddy skin. The patience and kindness he’d shown her before was missing in a raw way. He was having trouble even meeting her eyes, was antsier than even she was.

“Darned if I know,” he said. “I’m thinking on it. Don’t tell me you didn’t hear the sirens an hour ago.”

“I did.”

“The fire was in the library. Where you were yesterday.”

“Oh, no-”

“Yeah. ‘Oh no.’ I’m getting tired of these oh-nos. You come in town, suddenly there’s arson. Specifically, everywhere you’ve been. Sarah-Leigh, she’s the head librarian-”

“I know.” At his glare, Lily decided not to interrupt again.

“Sarah-Leigh saw you talking to Mr. Renbarcker at some length yesterday morning. She saw you in the childrens’ section and in the adult section. She didn’t specifically see you in the back reference room, but she didn’t know of a soul who was back there yesterday, either. That’s where the fire started. The old microfiche machines. The old newspaper records and archives.”

“Oh, no,” she said again.

“Just in case you didn’t realize, this town thinks of the library as a treasure. And in case you didn’t know, Griff’s Secret is one of the favorite haunts in town. Everybody loves that ice cream. Then there was the first fire in the old mill, just days after you got here. At least there was no harm done in that one, but that’s now three cases of arson. Three where a gasoline accelerant was used. And that’s a for sure, because there were the same burn patterns in the debris, which is how we all know there was an ignitable liquid in a fire, but not diesel, because diesel burns a whole lot different than gasoline. I suspect you know all that. Because every one of those places has a connection to you. And the fire your daddy and mama were killed in, back when, was a gasoline-started fire, too. Now. What do you expect me to make of all this, Lily Campbell?”

“That this is awful. That this can’t be coincidence.”

“Well, now, we’re sure on the same page there. So far, nobody’s been hurt. It’s just financial losses. Time, trouble, money. I put on an extra man these last few days, thankfully got to the library within two minutes of the alarm going off. Some records destroyed for sure, but nothing worse than that.”

“Thank heavens,” Lily breathed.

“No. There’s no more ‘thank heavens’ in this story. I don’t have, at this time, any concrete evidence to arrest you. But you’re the one and only suspect. The only one with a connection to these arsons. The only one. You have anything you’d like to say about that?”

“I didn’t do it, Sheriff. I’ve never set a fire in my life, anywhere, anytime. I teach school. You can check anything about my past you want, my school records, my work record. I had one speeding ticket when I was nineteen-that’s all. You’ve talked to me. You’ve surely gotten a feel for my character-”

“Yes, I have, honey. I don’t get any of this. None of us do. And I don’t want to believe you’re our arsonist, but I can’t separate you from these crimes either. I’m not arresting you. Not this minute. But this would usually be the moment when I say you can’t leave town-only, I’m real, real tempted to say the opposite. Get out of here. Go back to wherever you’re from. Stay away from Pecan Valley. Don’t show your head here again.”

The lights suddenly popped on. An air conditioner wheezed to life, and phones immediately started ringing. Lily hadn’t answered the sheriff, didn’t know what to say, when she suddenly saw Griff pushing through the heavy metal doors. He looked out of breath, wrinkled, unshaven and downright ticked off.

Griff gave her credit-more than credit. She held it together until he got her out in the fresh air, and then she leaned into him as if her spine suddenly turned liquid.

Getting his hands on her felt better than anything he could remember-better than air or water. Even better than sex. She clutched him tight enough to bruise. He let her. The rain had stopped, leaving a fresh-washed morning and Georgia sunshine so bright it stung the eyes.

Lily finally took a long breath and looked up at him. “I have to admit, being taken to a police station isn’t the most fun way I’ve ever started a morning.”

She clearly wanted him to smile. Unfortunately, he had to let her go when they reached his EOS, but he hustled her inside before anyone could conceivably get near her. Once he climbed in, he reached over to kiss her, just one hard, fast kiss, and then started the engine. His heart was pumping in thick, noisy thuds. His right hand made a white-knuckle fist on the steering wheel.

He wasn’t angry, of course. He was just…a little tense. For a long time-maybe forever-he was going to have the picture in his head from when he’d walked into the police station and saw her. She was just sitting there, her face whiter than paper, Conner looming over her. Her dark eyes had looked rattled and lost and…

No, he wasn’t mad.

But he was definitely tense.

Lily leaned back against the seat and closed her eyes, curling up as much as she could curl with the seat belt trapping her. Her palm pressed tight against her abdomen. “I can’t swear, but I’m pretty sure I’m not cut out for a life of crime. There’s still a chance, of course. But I don’t think effective criminals would likely get this sick to their stomachs in a police station.”

“You’re not hurling in this car, sugar.”

She chuckled. A watery chuckle, but still a chuckle. “You can always throw me out. I won’t mind. All I want to do is curl up in a ball on the wet grass and talk myself into a nice, calm coma for a while.”

He said casually, “How come Louella had to call me? Why didn’t you call yourself?”

She opened one eye, studied his face. “It wasn’t even five in the morning, Griff.”

“So?” His voice was so smooth and calm, you could have spread it on toast. He was sure.

“So the sheriff just suddenly showed up in the middle of the storm. I had no idea why, or what was going to happen. And when he said something about putting cuffs on me…to be honest, I just completely froze up. I don’t think there was a clear thought in my head.”

There was in Griff’s. The penalty for murdering the sheriff just might have been worth it if Conner had dared put cuffs on those fragile wrists.

“Griff-the sirens this morning-there was a fire in the library.”

“I heard.”

“The fire was in the back room. You know, the research and records room? Like where they keep old newspaper records.”

“I heard.”

“It keeps zinging in my mind. That those would have included newspaper records from the time my dad and mom died. Those records.”

He shot her a quick look. “You’re saying that’s the reason for the fire?”

“Oh, no. I’m not saying anything. I don’t understand a single thing that’s happened since I got here. It just seems there’s a growing association to me and these fires.” She sighed. “The sheriff wants me to leave town.”

And that was another thing that made no sense to Griff. If Conner thought Lily was guilty of these arson events, he should be insisting she stay and be investigated. If he thought she was innocent, there wasn’t a reason on the planet why Conner should be pushing her out.

“Griff.” Her voice changed tone. The damsel in distress had recovered. She was studying him, staring at him as if she had some kind of laser access into his brain. “You’re gripping that steering wheel hard enough to break it off.”

“Not really. I was just thinking.”

She didn’t buy that. “You know,” she said gently, “there’s nothing wrong with letting out a little anger. Some people have a bigger temper than others. It’s not a bad thing. It’s only bad if the person does something inappropriate with their temper.”

He shot her a serious glower. “I do not have a temper.”

“You’ve got a huge one,” she informed him. “But you don’t use it against people. Or to hurt people. So I think you should just consider accepting it. Some things are always going to push your buttons-like when you don’t have the power to control a problem. There’s no easy answer for stuff like that, I realize, but you don’t have to pretend you don’t feel ticked off.”

He didn’t respond, but he was thinking plenty. Sleep with a woman and what did you get? Mouth. Nonstop. And fear. Damn it, he’d nearly had a heart attack when he heard the fire truck siren in the wee hours of the morning. If she’d stayed in bed with him where she belonged, none of it would have mattered. But she hadn’t. She hadn’t been where he could see her, touch her. Make sure she was safe.

If that wasn’t rational thinking, he didn’t remotely care.

“Griff? Um…where are you driving?”

“Debbie’s Diner. First off, you need breakfast.”

“I couldn’t eat a single thing-”

“And second, you need to be into a nice, public place, where people can see you. Instead of people talking about you, you can get in there and talk about them. To them. Out in the open.”

“I couldn’t eat anything. And I couldn’t do that.”

“Why?”

“Because…come on, Griff. Instead of making friends, I seem to have done nothing but make enemies here. It’s not as if I’m still in middle school, worried about being popular. But sheesh, it’s gotten unnerving, feeling so unwanted in town, so judged, when no one even knows me.”

“Exactly. I don’t know who started all this fire-setter talk, but it’s obvious how to stop it. Spend a few seconds with anybody, and they’ll realize you’re beautiful and warm and smart and good to the bone.”

“Huh?”

“Just work with me on this, sugar.”

The diner’s parking lot was crowded-no surprise, when town news and gossip was running this juicy. But that was the point, Griff thought grimly. It was time to get active. Sitting on the sidelines and watching problems from a distance was the complete worst.

“I can’t,” she repeated for the fourth time, as he herded her toward the door.

He knew it was hard for her to walk in. And the moment she was spotted in the doorway, talk stopped faster than a switch turned off. The sick look of hurt on her face made him feel a little tense all over again. But sometimes there was only one way to get out a splinter, and that was to just go in there and get the needle part over with.

For a woman who wasn’t hungry, she ate two bowls of Griff’s Secret-and that was before she even looked at the menu for breakfast food. Debbie was no fool. She greeted them in her typical loud, brassy voice, seated them in plain view, and took care of them herself.

As he’d expected, that was the last time they had two seconds alone. The tall, gray-haired Margo ambled over with a mug in her hand. Being his insurance agent, it would have been odd if she hadn’t stopped to say hello, so it was easy to get a conversation going about the fires with her. And so it went. Manuel Brock often had breakfast at the diner; he paused at their table en route to paying his bill. Jason’s father-who Griff never had any use for-thought he was a big shot, and put in that he knew who the arsonist was “but he wasn’t telling”. Louella’s second cousin was having breakfast with a lady friend, both wearing rhinestones and sequins on their Vegas-trip sweatshirts. It went on and on…

All of them looked at Lily, even if they aimed conversation at Griff. Some of the older ones mentioned that they’d known her mom or her dad. Some brought up the “old days”, when the mill was the major source of employment in town. Someone’s sister’s mother’s cousin’s current girlfriend saw her at the library yesterday, saw old man Renbarcker, too. In the way of Southern conversations, cousins four or five times removed were still considered kin, even if they’d been divorced nine thousand times and there was no blood relationship whatsoever. Griff never could keep track of all that, but this morning that wasn’t the point.

The point was getting Lily in public. It wasn’t so easy to talk about someone, once you’d met them. And if they couldn’t see Lily was the most innocent, decent human being they’d ever met, Griff figured they had to be too dumb to waste time on, anyway.

Over the next two hours, his lover-the one who was too nauseous to eat-finished off two dishes of ice cream, a farmer’s omelet with all the extras, three cups of coffee and a brownie. Debbie was trying to hand her a lunch menu when Griff stood up.

“All right, all right,” she said, once they were outside and aiming for his car. “I admit it. You were right. That was a good thing to do.”

“Of course I was right.” He glanced down the street toward his store, and felt a new stab in the gut, looking at the burned-out mess. It was fixable. Material things didn’t matter. Still, it hurt. Normally, there’d be a swarm of kids hanging out there by now-kids who often had no place to go.

As they walked to the car, he hooked an arm around Lily’s neck, inhaled the scent and touch of her. In the diner, he hadn’t wanted to overdo contact. He wanted to show the town that they had a connection, that he was on her side. But to overly let the gossips believe they were lovers wasn’t necessarily the best thing for Lily. He liked having a bad-boy reputation, but didn’t want her tainted by it. Now, though, that long stretch of not touching caught up with him.

“After all that food, you want to come home to my place and catch a nap?”

She looked up at him. “It’s not napping on your mind.”

“It is too.”

“You lie.”

“That’s relevant how?”

“It’s not. You can lie to me all you want, Griff. I like it. I especially like it when you’re trying to get away with something. But for a few hours…I’m guessing you have stuff you need to do in the middle of the day. And I want to hit the newspaper office, to see if I can track down records of what was going on the year of the fire.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“Does that sound like a thrilling way to spend an afternoon? Pouring over old newsprint? No. You have serious things to do. You’ve got a clean-up plan to put together, you’ve got your other work, you’ve still got ice cream equipment that needs some kind of resolution, you-”

“I don’t care about any of that.”

She sighed, put her slim hand on his chest. Just like that, he felt the electric connection, the pulse between them, the beat he’d never imagined before. “Griff-go do your life. We can meet up at dinner if you want.”

“I’m not-”

“You’re worried something’s going to happen to me. It’s not. Think about it. No one’s targeted me. These fires may be somehow about me, but no one has actually tried to harm me in any way. I’ll be perfectly safe.”

He didn’t like her ability to read his mind, to draw conclusions without his permission. He also couldn’t deny her logic-and it was true he had five million things that needed to get done. At the newspaper office, she’d be around other people.

So he agreed, said he’d pick her up for dinner around seven at the B and B. That was where he dropped her now, so she could get her car. But when he drove off, he felt an uneasy itch, like the nag of a mosquito bite. No one had tried to harm her. But he was afraid someone would-because all these fires had to be leading up to something. Unless someone figured out what it was, Lily wasn’t safe. He knew it in his head and his heart both.

The Pecan Valley Herald was located just outside of town, sandwiched between peach orchards flanking the east side, and a pre-loved car dealership stretching out to the west. When Lily pulled open the door, she was greeted by a blast of fabulously cold air and a gum-chewing receptionist.

The redhead took one look at her, said, “Bridal or Engagement announcements, down the hall to the left.”

“No, I-”

“Classified straight through that door.”

It took a while for the redhead to run down her list, they simply asked for “past newspaper history.” No one had apparently asked that before, because the young woman looked confounded, but eventually she pushed some buttons and a middle-aged man showed up.

“You’re Lily Campbell?” he asked.

Timothy was a sweetheart, disguised in too-short pants and white socks and a zealous comb-over. The reference room was his, his source of power, his love. “I’m afraid a lot of the old stuff is still on microfiche. I’ve been computerizing since I got here, but that’s only been three years, and you should have seen the place then. So. You think you want to go through two years of papers?”

“Yes.” She told him her goal, which was to track the phrase in the investigative report referring to her parents’ fire being “nothing like the other arson events”. She just wanted to see what those other fires were about. She realized it was grasping for some mighty slim straws, but it was one of the few things she hadn’t tried pursuing before.

“You know how long it’s going to take you to read two years’ worth of copy?” Timothy asked her.

“I figure…a while.”

He sighed. “You can’t smoke or eat in here. But that far door, that leads to a restroom, a minikitchen-the coffee pot’s usually on-and a back door, if you want to get out in the fresh air.”

“There’s fresh air in Georgia in the summer?” she asked incredulously.

He looked blank, then chuckled. “I can come back and help you if I get more projects done, but I’m behind. Still, just yell out my name if you want me.”

“Thanks, Timothy.”

She’d never seen microfiche before. The method was prehistoric as far as she could tell, but it was a way to scroll through page after page of every newspaper edition. The Pecan Valley Herald was hardly a big paper, but like in all small towns, it covered every wedding, every funeral, every achievement of every child, every reunion, every recipe…on and on. And on.

The minutes started to add up. Then the hours. Lily felt her neck creaking, her wrist whining from the constant scrolling motion. The monitor was ancient, with no resolution and blurry print. The chair would have fit any fanny that was square. Hers wasn’t.

She took a potty break, took another break to stand at the sink in the employees’ room, gulping down two tall glasses of water. She thought blissfully of last night’s lovemaking with Griff. Who knew? Who knew she could be wicked? That she could actually throw off her good-girl chains and just, well, go for it?

Who knew she could fall crazy in love? Inappropriately in love? Maybe irrevocably in love, so fast, and with such a wrong guy in the wrong place?

She hiked back to the godawful chair and parked there again. Thinking of Griff wasn’t going to solve anything. She had to concentrate on other kinds of fires.

And over the next hour she found several. An old farmhouse: electrical fire. A lightning strike at a trailer park. A divorcing couple who set fire to each other’s stuff.

But then she found pay dirt. At least sort of.

Thirteen months before her parents’ fire, there’d been an arson event in the high school. The school locker of a junior, a boy named Billy Webb, had been doused with gasoline. No one could pin down a culprit, but Billy claimed his ex-girlfriend was “real, real mad” at him. The girl friend wasn’t named in the article, but Sheriff Conner and the school principal were both reported to be doing an extensive investigation.

Then, seven months before her parents’ fire, another arson-type fire was reported-this one also targeted a teenage boy. John Thornton had been a high school senior that fall. The day after the Homecoming Dance, someone heaped a pile of rags in the trunk of his fourteen-year-old Grand Am, sprayed it with gasoline and struck a match. Sheriff Conner and the school principal were again quoted. Both said they were looking into the “coincidence” of two fires targeting young men in the high school. No motive was found. No evidence was found.

A letter to the editor was picked up that “someone” should look into what girls these boys had been seeing, since the boys weren’t culprits-the boys were the ones who were being targeted. A flurry of letters followed, all from parents of boys worried about their sons. Worried about the school. Worried about the state of education in general.

One parent felt it was all linked to an alien invasion.

Timothy’s head showed up in the doorway. “I have to close up fairly soon, Miss Campbell.”

“You can kick me out whenever you need. I appreciate your letting me stay here as long as you have.”

“It’s not a bother. Hardly anyone goes to the trouble of digging into the microfiche records anymore. But I can’t leave an outsider alone here. When I have to lock up, I’m afraid you’ll have to go.”

“Okay.”

“In about twenty minutes.”

“Okay.” She didn’t look up. She was getting closer to the time of her parents’ fire. Her eyes were burning from staring at the old screen. She tried kicking off a shoe, sitting on one leg. Then kicking off the other shoe, sitting on the other leg.

Then she forgot how tired she was, because she found another arson fire. This one took place three months after the Homecoming Dance, just after New Year’s. But it wasn’t at the school. It was in someone’s home…

“Miss Campbell?”

She squinted closer, squirmed closer. It was in an adult’s home, but the fire took place in a teenage boy’s bedroom. Same setup. A heap of debris and clothing were piled together, this time on the boy’s bed, and then soaked with gasoline. The fire took place while the family was out to dinner. The Frasiers-the family involved-were bewildered and upset and terrified. They had insurance, but as Mrs. Frasier was quoted in the article, they’d “never feel safe again.” Mr. Frasier said, “There has to be a serial arsonist in town, and nobody is doing a thing about it.” The head of the fire department at the time, Rubal Whitney, was fired. A town meeting was called. Herman Conner urged everyone to stay calm, that he was as concerned as everyone else, but the bottom line was a lack of evidence. So far, they had failed to find a link between the fires, if there was one. They needed concrete information. They needed…

“Lily.”

Lily whirled around at the sound of Griff’s voice. Griff was standing in the doorway with the round-faced Timothy. “Sugar, it’s past eight at night. This nice man has kept the place open for you. He could see you were engrossed. But you can come back tomorrow.”

“Oh, my heavens. Timothy, I’m so so sorry. I never meant to be a pain. I had no idea how much time had passed.”

“It’s all right, Miss Campbell. I just started reading a book. But when Griff came in, I thought it was all right to interrupt you then.”

“Of course it was. Oh, I feel terrible to have made you stay so late. It was so inconsiderate, I…” She scrambled to her feet, found one shoe, couldn’t find the other. Grabbed her purse, put it down, leaned forward to turn off the machine. Her heap of notes and papers skidded to the floor. “Timothy, I owe you dinner. Or lunch or something. Whatever or whenever you have time. And I promise, if I come back, I’ll keep track of the-”

Griff moved in, switched off the machine, scooped up her notes and legal pad, then claimed her hand-tight and snug. “Got room for a few gallons of Griff’s Bliss?” he asked Timothy.

Timothy’s mouth dropped. “I’d be so grateful. And so would my mother. She loves your ice cream.”

“Okay. Maybe I’ll send over a sample of a new flavor, too, so your mom can say she was the first one to taste-test it.”

Lily wasn’t sure how it all turned into a little fiasco, but Timothy, trying to be hospitable, seemed to be tripping all over Griff. And she was carrying all this stuff, bleary-eyed and kind of trip-tired herself. And Griff…well, by the time he bundled her into the car, he started laughing.

“After one of the worst days in the universe,” he said, “somehow we found a way to laugh, didn’t we?”

She leaned back in the seat. “It’s a miracle.”

“Nah,” he said. “It’s just being together. Now let’s hear it for everything you’ve been doing.”

She sobered immediately. “You won’t believe what I discovered,” she said.

“Good stuff?”

“No. Scary stuff. And I’m getting darned tired of finding out scary stuff. You know a place called Silver Ridge?”

He shot her an odd look. “Sure.”

“Could we go there?”