Still Lake - Anne Stuart [108]
The hell they were. She slammed against it, and she felt it begin to give.
“Hurry up!” Marty shrieked.
The door gave way, opening into the cool night air, and someone was standing there, silhouetted against the smoky sky. A hand reached down for her, Griffin’s strong hand, and Sophie scrambled out, collapsing on the ground as he reached to drag the two other women to safety. Above her the deserted hospital wing was a sheet of flames, and it was spreading toward the main body of the house.
For a moment Sophie lay in the grass, coughing, unable to move, as she watched the hungry flames lick over the beautiful old house.
“Would you get a move on?” Griffin snapped, catching her arm and dragging her away from the searing heat. And then the four of them were running down the sloping lawn toward the lake, just as the fire sirens sounded from the village.
“This is far enough away,” Griffin said, finally releasing her.
She collapsed in the grass, still coughing. “Where’s Doc?” he asked grimly.
She couldn’t answer at first. It was Marty who was able to speak. “He’s toast,” she said. “Literally. Down in the cellar. And don’t even think of going back for him. He’s a murderer.”
“I wasn’t planning to,” Griffin said, stretching out on the grass, trying to catch his breath.
“He killed them,” Sophie said after a moment. “He killed them all.”
There was a long silence. “I know,” he said.
Sophie lifted her head to peer at him through the orange glow of the fire. He was lying next to her, trying to catch his breath. “And when were you going to share that information?” she demanded.
“I only just figured it out,” he said.
Grace’s cackle of laughter wasn’t the usual vague sound. It was more like the old Grace. “Took you long enough,” she said. “I’ve known for months. Anyone who’s ever read a true-crime thriller would have figured it out.”
Sophie raised her head to look at her mother in the bright light from the burning inn. “You knew? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I tried. You thought I was out of my mind. So I figured as long as I was senile I could keep Doc occupied and away from you and Marty. Not that it worked for long, but there was no way I could get you away from here without telling you everything, and then you would have gone to your good friend Doc and told him everything I told you.”
Which was exactly what she had done, on a number of occasions. She opened her mouth to say something, to apologize, to yell at her mother, when the first of the Colby fire trucks careered down the narrow drive, their small complement of volunteer firemen jumping into well-orchestrated action. A moment later the rescue squad pulled in, the lights spearing out toward the lake, illuminating their bedraggled group, and then time passed in a blur as too damned many helpful hands insisted on checking her out.
They ended up taking the remarkably lucid Grace to the hospital for observation, but her mother had suddenly recovered from her so-called Alzheimer’s. She’d been faking it all along, doing a hell of a good job in her misguided effort to protect her family, Sophie thought grimly.
Patrick Laflamme had arrived a moment after the fire department and Sophie couldn’t even bring herself to argue when Marty left with him. He was solid, sensible, and if he tried anything, his mother would set him straight. Madelene Laflamme was a notoriously intimidating figure—if anyone could put the fear of God into Marty, she could.
She could see Griffin’s body silhouetted against the flames of her burning home. It was too late—there was nothing the volunteer fire company could do to save the old tinderbox. The best they could hope was to keep it from spreading, but the summer had been a wet one, and there was no immediate danger of the tall stand of pines turning into a torch.
Sophie sat in one of the Adirondack chairs as she watched her future go up in smoke. She should have been devastated, weeping, up there manning the fire hose and begging them