Crash & Burn (Tessa Leoni, #3)(105)

I used to picture a boy and girl, bouncing blond curls, a stiff blue playsuit for him, a flouncy pink dress for her, as they chased an old-fashioned leather ball across the lawn. There was a pond in the back as well, a swimming hole for those hot summer days.

I never walked to it. Never stuck a toe in the stagnant water. I simply watched the rippling green surface from the third-story window, trying to imagine the family who had once built this summer home. Wondering what they’d think if they’d lived to see what it had become.

Thomas has a flashlight. He lets go of my arm to illuminate the circular drive, but it’s gone, nothing but more weeds and brambles. He searches for the center fountain next, but it’s either collapsed or lost under more vegetative growth.

The wilderness likes to take back its own. In this case, it really should.

“What do you remember?” Thomas asks me quietly. We push forward, following the narrow path that’s all that’s left of the drive.

“When I first got out of the car . . .”

It’s April, the sun is setting, I’m already feeling the chill. I’m hungry, I’m tired, I’m scared. But I don’t let these things show. Game face, fighting to be brave. Until I step out of the vehicle. Look up and see . . .

“It was beautiful,” I whisper. “Like something out of a fairy tale. Especially for a city girl like me. I only knew cramped apartments, tenement housing. Then to come here, see this.”

“It was already falling into disrepair,” Thomas says. His voice is apologetic. He hefts the shovel in his left hand. “After my father’s death, there wasn’t enough money for upkeep. Even after my mother’s . . . business idea . . . the house was never the same. I used to wonder. Maybe homes have souls. It’s not enough to paint and repair. You have to refresh them. Love, laughter, life. I don’t know. But after my father died, what my mom did to this house, in this house . . . I don’t think it was ever the same.”

We move deeper through the vegetation.

Once, there was a beautiful wraparound front porch. White-painted rails, gingerbread trim. If I close my eyes, I can still see it in my mind. But when I open them again, follow the beam of Thomas’s flashlight, I’m startled to see nothing is as large as I remember. The porch is gone, of course. The house as well. All that remains is the foundation, a pile of enormous granite blocks such as the type favored back in the day . . .

Thomas was skilled only with fire. To destroy this foundation would’ve taken dynamite.

“When my mother first brought you home,” he says now, “she claimed you were a new foster child. That was her big scheme after my father’s death. We had a large house, so many empty rooms. She’d decided to take in foster kids. For the money, of course. She was never one to pretend to care.”

“A car came to our building,” I tell him now. “My mom told me to get in. Do whatever the woman said. It wasn’t the first time.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t expect to be taken away. Yet, when I first saw this place . . . It was so much nicer than anyplace I’d ever been. Better food, too.”

“In the beginning, I believed her,” Thomas said. “It made sense. State pays for foster kids and I knew we needed cash. It was all my mother talked about. My good-for-nothing father who’d promised her this and promised her that but had proved to be nothing but a loser who’d then gone and dropped dead . . .”

Thomas looks at me; his face is hard to read in the dark, but when he speaks next, his tone is flat, frank. “I hated her. Surely you must know that. She did this, all of this, purely out of greed. Because she was owed a life of luxury. When my father failed her, well, this was the next logical step. She took in ‘foster kids,’ all of whom were young, pretty girls. Then she started throwing lavish parties. Getting to know the neighbors, she told me. I was so young myself, it took me years to realize the party guests were only older, wealthy men. And none of them went home after dinner.”

We are close enough now to climb onto the first enormous granite block. I don’t want to peer down into the pit of what used to be the home’s cellar, but I can’t help myself. I swear I can smell smoke again, but any charred remains of wood are long gone. I see only thick green vegetation, vines and weeds that have overgrown the bones of this once grand house.

Heat, I think. If I close my eyes, I will feel it again on my cheeks.

I will hear her screams.

I backpedal sharply, slipping off the granite slab. Thomas reaches for me, but is too late. I go down hard, banging my shin against the hard rectangular slab. Blood. Pain.

Smoke. Fire.

Screams.

I can’t help myself. I reach up my hand. I beg, I implore.

“Save her. For the love of God. Please!”

Thomas doesn’t move. His face is set in a grim line as he stands there, flashlight in one hand, shovel in the other. He knows. What I’m asking. What I’m finally remembering.

But whereas I am crying, his eyes remain dry.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but I’m not sure what he means. For what happened then, or for what must happen now.

“The first two girls who arrived,” he tells me, stepping off the granite slab, “were older. Fifteen, sixteen. I was maybe five? I didn’t think much of it. Mother said they had no families. We would host them. So we did.