Until Dark - Mariah Stewart [127]
Adam put an arm around her shoulder and let her cry.
“As terrible as it’s been—and yes, Kendra had a really bad time and I suspect she’ll tell you all about that—there’s been good come of it.”
“What good could come from this?” Selena scoffed, gesturing toward the old house, with its roof caved in over the kitchen and God knew what damage inside.
“As despicable as Zach Smith is—and I suspect we have a long way to go before we discover just how despicable he is—he gave Kendra something that no one else could have given her.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Zach told Kendra that he killed her mother.”
Selena’s jaw dropped.
“He . . . killed . . .”
“Yes.”
“That means, she didn’t commit . . .”
Adam nodded.
“Kendra was always so certain, and I’d always felt she was right.” Weak in the knees, Selena leaned back against her car. “Oh, God, this must have lifted such a weight from her soul. . . .”
“Exactly.”
“Oh, my.” Selena shook her head, pondering this news, and what it might mean for her friend, as the insurance agent came around one side of the house, a clipboard in his hand.
Selena waved to him, then introduced him to Adam.
“Is it safe to go inside?” Adam asked.
“Yeah, the floors are soaked, but they’ll hold you. I wouldn’t recommend going in before the adjuster gets here, though.”
“How bad is the damage?”
“It’s mostly contained to the kitchen area,” he shook his head, “though how the rest of the house remained untouched, I’ll never understand. That was some nasty fire.”
“Well, if the kitchen’s the worst of it, I guess it’s not so bad,” Selena said. “Kendra’s been saying for months that she wanted a new kitchen. Guess now she’ll be getting one.”
“What about the contents? The furniture, books, carpets, that sort of thing?” Adam asked.
“Water and smoke to the upholstered pieces in the front room, seems to be the worst. Then there’s smoke damage upstairs, some water there, too. But as I said, the kitchen took the worst of it,” the agent explained. “I called this in first thing this morning to the company and asked for an adjuster to be sent out right away. I expect someone along any time now, I just came out a little early to see for myself what we needed to concentrate on.”
He turned to Selena. “You let Kendra know that it’s being taken care of.”
“I’ll do that.” She smiled at him, and the young man blushed. “And maybe I’ll call Karen Hill over at Antiquities to see what needs to be done to restore any of the antique pieces that may be damaged. I know just about everything Kendra owned was passed down through her family.”
“I already called Karen to give her a heads up,” Webb told her. “She’ll be here at two to meet with the adjuster.”
“Well, then, I’d say you thought of pretty much everything,” Adam said. “Kendra’s lucky to have someone looking out for her interests right now.”
Jess Webb blushed again and muttered something about the responsibilities of a good agent.
Minutes later, the adjuster arrived, and Selena and Adam prepared to leave.
“I feel so responsible for all this.” Selena stood next to her car, the driver’s door open, one foot already inside the vehicle. “If I had paid more attention, if I hadn’t been so willing to slough it all off.”
“Selena, that’s ridiculous. No one could have known.”
“I did.” She looked up at him, eyes blazing now. “For weeks I’ve been sensing that something was not right. For days I’ve seen the clouds gathering around her, and I didn’t stop it.”
“You couldn’t have stopped it.”
“I could have warned her.” Selena’s eyes filled with tears again. “I saw the clouds, and I saw the flames and I saw her in the water.”
“While it was happening?”
Selena nodded.
“Then how could you have stopped it?”
“If I hadn’t tried so hard to block it out, if I’d let myself be more receptive instead of ignoring what I felt.” She sighed deeply. “When I was a little girl, I used to get these . . . feelings, I guess, is the best way to describe it. I could sense what people would say, or what they would