Beneath Devil's Bridge(86)

A paramedic comes over. He wants to put me in the ambulance, but I refuse to go. I have to stay here. I want to know what’s happening to the house. To my family. My whole life—my entire world—is burning. Everything that was most precious, that I should have worked harder to save. And now it’s too late. I hear another explosion. There is a dark-orange glow in the mist. The smell of smoke is thick. Acrid.

I turn my head slowly. I can’t see Chief Mountain in the darkness and clouds, but I sense it there. Looming, watching. Over yet another fire. Like the bonfire all those years ago. Like the Chief watched Leena being beaten up and drowned in the river. Like it watched her body floating in the eelgrass, then sinking. Like it watched me watching the divers searching for her in the murky, dark water beneath Devil’s Bridge as eagles soared up high and fish carcasses rotted along the banks.

I think of Pratima. Dead now. Her words echo softly in my skull.

We think we can keep them safe if we order them what to do, if we control them. We think that if we keep them busy with sports, they can’t get into trouble. But we’re wrong.

And even if we do manage to protect them enough to keep them alive, we still can’t make them love us. The very act of protecting can drive them away. Even make them hate us.

Another woman comes over, crouches down beside me.

“Can I get you anything, hon?”

I barely register her. Because as I turn in the direction of her voice, I see behind her, silhouetted by the strobing lights from a police vehicle, Johnny Forbes. He, too, has a silver blanket around his shoulders. Light dances in reflections all over it—red, white, blue, red. Johnny is talking to two officers. I suddenly focus, and I recall Johnny running out of the pub. I remember Granger powering down the window.

What’s going on? Where are you going?

Got a call from Darren. I—I’ll talk to you later.

Woodenly I get to my feet. I walk toward the vignette.

As I near, I notice Johnny has fresh bandages wrapped around both hands. He has a bandage on his head. I hear him saying to the officers, “The door to the living room was locked. From the inside, I think. I couldn’t open it, and then fire burst through the study door, which had also been closed. I . . . I couldn’t get to them. Any of them.”

I realize in shock that the figure that came running out of the house with the burning blanket must have been Johnny.

Johnny, who rushed to see Darren before the fire started.

Johnny, who was caught by his dad washing blood from the jacket that Leena was wearing when she was killed.

“He’s lying!” I yell, going right up to Johnny and punching him in the chest with both fists. He staggers backward and falls against the hood of the police cruiser. I shove him again. “Did you do it? Did you fucking do it . . . Did you start the fire? Is that what happened? Because you were here, you rushed straight here from the pub. Then this is what we find. You came running out of the house . . . It was you, wasn’t it? You did it! You started the fire. That’s why you were inside. You did this!” I beat him with my fists.

“Jesus, Rachel, get off me. Get her away from me.”

The cops drag me away from Johnny. I struggle to shake free of their hold. I’m shivering. I can’t think right. I can’t seem to process what the cops are saying to me.

Granger arrives, out of breath. He must have had to park my truck some distance away.

“Rachel? Johnny? What in the hell is going on here?” He turns to the cops, then to me.

“He did it—Johnny burned the house down. He set fire to it with everyone inside. I—”

“Rachel?” Granger grabs hold of my shoulders, turns me to face him. “Look at me. Focus.”

I try.

He says, “Johnny went in to try and save them.”

I blink.

“Darren phoned me,” Johnny says. “He phoned to say it’s all over.”

“What . . . what is all over?” My head feels thick. I’m confused.

“I don’t know. But he sounded wrong. He’s been my mate forever, and something was wrong. I . . . He sounded like he was going to end it, his life or something. He was drunk. He . . . I drove right over, and when I got here, I saw there was a fire in the house, and I ran inside. I tried to get to them, but the doors seemed to have been locked. I heard screaming inside the rooms, and banging, but I couldn’t get to them.”

I stare. I can’t believe him. It’s just another lie.

“You had that jacket,” I say darkly. “Leena’s jacket. You told your father a friend had fallen in the mud and cut himself. Who was the friend? Who asked you to wash the jacket, Johnny?”

Johnny stares at me. Red and blue light pulses across his face, giving him an eerie, wild look.

“Who, Johnny, who?”

He looks away, inhales, then meets my gaze. “It was my wife. It was Beth. She asked me.”

“What?”

“Beth brought it to school in a plastic bag. It was Monday morning. She came to me when I had my locker door open. She asked me to hide it, wash it, and then put it back in Mr. Pelley’s office . . . She rewarded me, with her body. It’s . . . how we started dating, romantically. I . . . I was a horny teenager. It was too much to pass up—Beth Galloway? Pretty blonde, the queen of the school? It was just a jacket I washed.” He pauses. “Until it wasn’t.”