Still Lake - Anne Stuart [109]
She’d killed a man tonight. A deluded old man, guilty of great evil, but a human being, nonetheless, and she’d bashed him on the head and left him to burn to death in the funeral pyre he’d created.
She’d fallen in love tonight, with the wrong man, at the wrong time, in very much the wrong place. She could only hope that she could talk herself out of it.
She’d watched her dreams go up in smoke. She had no home, no job, no future. She should have been devastated. Instead she felt almost lighthearted. Free.
Was she free enough to run from Thomas Griffin? Or had she traded one kind of bondage for another?
She leaned back against the wooden slats, closing her eyes. The heat from the fire spread down over her body like the midday sun. She had the absurd notion that as she sat there she took some of the house into her soul, even as the rest of it disappeared into smoke and rubble. It had been part of her life for such a short time. But now everything had changed.
She heard a crash, and she opened her eyes to see the hospital wing collapse in on itself. Burying Doc’s body inside. The firemen had moved back, out of harm’s way, clearly deciding there was nothing they could do but keep it from spreading. It was just as well. She didn’t have the heart to rebuild.
Hell, she wasn’t sure she had a heart at all. If she had, she’d handed it to the man next door on a silver platter. She could pick Griffin out easily among the silhouetted figures of the men of Colby. Someone had given him protective gear, but there was no missing that rangy stride of his, the way he held himself as he stood talking to another of the firemen.
She could almost hear their voices. She sat wrapped in heat, mentally identifying each of the firemen. Will Audley and his son Perry, John Corbett off to the left, and Zebulon King in furious discussion with Griffin. She couldn’t tell who anyone else was, and it didn’t really matter. She was bone weary. She needed a bath, she needed a bed. Both had gone up in flames.
Everyone seemed to have forgotten she was there. Maybe they thought she’d gone to the hospital with Grace, but the EMTs had told her to stay put. Maybe they thought she’d gone back with Patrick and Marty. Maybe they didn’t give a shit where she was.
She pushed back from the chair, no longer able to watch the fire. Turning her back on it, she walked down to the little spit of land that jutted out into the lake. The huge white pines were between her and the burning building, though the sky was as bright as day. She stepped out onto the dock, glad that no one could see her. She needed to be alone, at least for a short while.
She should have known that the moment she decided she needed privacy, Griffin would show up. He came up behind her on the dock, and she glanced back at him for a moment, then stared straight ahead, watching the reflection of the orange flames on the stillness of the water.
“Are you okay?” he said, his voice stilted.
“Just peachy. Go away.”
“You’re a mess.”
She turned at that, looking up at him. “If you don’t have anything constructive to say, go away.” She turned again, keeping her back rigid.
He came up close to her, warm, smelling of woodsmoke. “I think you should come home with me,” he murmured. “You don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure I can find someplace to stay. I should go see Rima.”
“Rima’s dead. Zeb King told me she died earlier this evening. Looks like she was suffocated. Doc probably would have called it a heart attack.”
Sophie didn’t say anything. Everything had taken on a strange, macabre twist, and nothing made sense anymore. “I’ll stay with Marge Averill.”
“I’ll give you a ride there.”
“Don’t bother. I’m sure she’ll show up anytime now—she wouldn’t let a melodrama like this pass her by.”
“All right.” He wasn’t going to argue with her. He was probably glad he was going to get rid of her without a scene.
“I assume you’re leaving,” she said stiffly.
Silence. Then, “Do I have any reason to stay?”
She had no idea whether that was a rhetorical