Snuffed Out - Tim Myers [38]
I left him to his own dilemma and headed upstairs to my apartment. It had been a long day, and though the kayaking had been an even bigger treat than before, I was feeling the strain of that last sprint in my shoulders and arms. A quiet night was what I needed and hoped beyond reasonable expectation that I would have one.
I was jarred awake in the middle of the night by a horrific shrieking. It took me a few precious seconds to realize it was coming from a smoke alarm outside my apartment.
Stumbling into a pair of sweats and a T-shirt, I put on my bear slippers, a present I’d received from an ex-girlfriend, and rushed out into the hall. I’d expected the place to be full of smoke, but there were just a few wisps of it coming up the stairs. The candleshop! A fire would burn for weeks with all the wick and wax there. The place was an absolute haven for combustibles.
At least I was the only full-time tenant in the building.
Then I remembered that Markum’s late hours nearly made him one, and before I headed downstairs, I rushed to his office. It was dark inside and the door was locked. Short of breaking the door down, I had no choice. Chances are he was off on one of his salvage missions. At least I hoped so.
I found the reason for the screaming alarm at the bottom of the stairs. Someone had taken one of the outside trash-cans and put it at the foot of the door. The fire had almost burned itself out in the can, but the smell was absolutely awful. I started to drag the can outside so I could hose it off, but the heat from it was too much.
First things first. I reached up and reset the smoke alarm, and was rewarded by sudden, blissful silence. I was suddenly glad Belle had invested in loud ones, though my ears would probably be ringing for weeks. I debated climbing back upstairs for a hot-pad to drag the trashcan away, but it was late, I was tired and in a foul mood. Someone was messing with me, and I didn’t like it one bit. There hadn’t been enough trash in the can to catch the walls on fire. It was a nuisance prank, no more and no less. I pulled off my shirt, wrapped it around my hand three or four times, then grabbed the handle and pulled the can outside. There was a hose nearby, tucked away in a stylish, little planter Pearly had built, so I turned the water on and heard a satisfying sizzle as the stream hit the remaining embers.
At least the security lights worked. The second I moved for the hose, the place lit up like a used car lot. So why hadn’t I noticed it before, when the culprit had been there lighting the fire? So much for my early-warning system. I’d no doubt slept right through the earlier lighting. It had taken a full-scale alarm to rouse me from my sleep.
As I started to put the hose back up, I glanced at Heather’s front door. The sign announcing her moving sale was gone. In its place was one that said, back in two weeks. When had she changed it? Was it related to the fire in the stairwell? I knew Heather was upset when I’d leased Sanora the pottery space, but I couldn’t see her doing such a childish thing as dragging a trashcan into my building and setting it on fire. Still, she’d been acting strangely lately. I wished she’d talk to me and stop running away.
But there was nothing I could do about it until the next time I saw her.
I pulled the trashcan, now cool to the touch, to the back of River’s Edge, but kept it away from the building, just in case, though there was more water than ash in the can at the moment.
I walked back into the building headed for my apartment when the smell hit me. Though the fire had been a minor inconvenience, the odor of burned rubbish was a genuine problem. I propped open the front door downstairs, then opened the two windows at the top of the landing upstairs, hoping for a cross breeze that would get rid of the smell. I sniffed at my clothes, and sure enough, they reeked of smoke. I jerked off my clothes and buried them in my hamper, then got into the shower and scrubbed until I was sure the smell was gone.
Unfortunately, I was as awake as could