Greg pulled the truck out into traffic. Or out into the no traffic. I liked slow days in South Cove. It made the rest of the time bearable. As he drove out of town, Greg turned up the music and smiled at me. I liked that about us. We didn’t have to talk all the time. We liked spending time together. A lot of evenings we sat on the couch and, while he watched whatever game was on, I would read. Emma would lay at the end of the couch sleeping. It felt right.
I leaned forward as we got closer. The flames were gone, but the building wasn’t totally demolished. It was like they’d turned on the hoses to put out the fire a few minutes too early. “Whose property is this?”
“Barry’s. He got it from his parents when they passed. I’ve heard rumors that he was planning on selling off to a condo developer. I guess that was one reason our mayor loved the guy so much.” Greg pulled the truck up next to an ambulance. His brow furrowed and he glanced over. “Maybe they found Barry.”
South Cove had three emergency vehicles—two fire trucks and an ambulance—beside the two patrol cars Greg’s deputies used. And they were all parked on the edge of the road. We climbed out of the truck.
Greg shot a glance back at me. “You may want to stay here, just in case.”
“Whatever.” I shook my head and followed him into the crowd. I may not be able to cross the police barrier, but I wasn’t waiting in the truck like a good girl. I paused next to Bill, who was covered with ash and water. His face was black from the soot.
He glanced at me and then scanned the area until he saw Greg. “Finally,” he muttered.
“What happened?” I asked Bill as Greg walked up to Toby, who was flanked by the EMTs.
“We had a practice burn this morning. I figured Barry just wanted to get this property cleared and if he called it a training exercise, the city would pay for the removal and cleanup.” He cleared his throat. “This is his place.”
“Yeah, Greg told me that.” I was watching the men gathered around the front of the partially burned building. “But what happened? Why is the ambulance here?”
“Barry set up the fire, and then he just disappeared. We thought it was because he wanted us to problem solve as a team. By the time we realized he was trapped in the building, it was too late.” Bill ran his fingers through his graying hair. “I can’t believe I’m still volunteering after all these years. Maybe Mary is right and I need to hang up my fireman’s hat.”
“I’m sure you do a great job,” I started to say. Then Bill’s words hit me. I glanced over at the group standing outside the charcoaled building and my stomach flipped as I realized why they weren’t going inside. I knew the answer before I even asked the question. “Barry was in the house?”
“Barn, but yeah. He got caught in the fire.” Bill must have seen my arm shaking because he grabbed hold and steadied me. “I’m sorry, Jill. Barry’s dead.”
Chapter 3
Greg tucked me into Toby’s car and sent me back to town with my barista. Toby needed to be available for emergencies and I just needed to get out of there. I hadn’t liked Barry one bit, but to die like that? It made me queasy. Once I got home, I curled up on the couch and turned on the television for the next several hours. I wasn’t surprised to see my aunt walk through the door at about eight with a couple of takeout bags from Diamond Lille’s.
Emma sat at attention to greet Aunt Jackie. It was almost like the dog knew she was fragile. Aunt Jackie ignored her and narrowed her eyes at me instead. “I figured you’d be here wallowing. No use crying over Barry. The man was worthless.”
“I wasn’t crying over him.” I pulled the afghan closer, shuddering at the memory. “It’s just a horrible way to die. You should have seen that building.”
“Mary sent me pictures. I guess Bill took some shots before he left. He’s pretty torn up too. Mary said he hated Barry, but I guess Bill feels guilty or something.” My aunt nodded toward the kitchen. “Come help me set up dinner. I’m starving.”
“I’m not sure I can eat.” My aunt was right. Barry wasn’t anything to me, but still, I felt affected by his death. Not sad, but shocked. I followed her into the kitchen and slumped into a chair at the table.
My aunt continued to unpack the bags like she hadn’t heard me. “Lille says she’s going to be watching our booth at the festival to make sure we don’t overstep our boundaries. No chips, no food—just desserts, coffee drinks, and the normal things we sell out of the store.”
“What does she think, we’re going to start flipping burgers and selling hotdogs in a booth?” I pulled one of the containers toward me and opened it. A grilled ham and cheese sandwich, heavy on the ham, with melted provolone on the sourdough bread. And I knew there would be Dijon mustard smeared on the bread. I picked up the offering and took a bite. Heavenly. I wiped my mouth. “That woman needs to get a life. She’s so busy making sure no one is getting one over on her she can’t have any time or brainpower to have any fun.”
My aunt let me rant until the sandwich was finished. Then she smiled and got up to pour herself another cup of coffee. “There, you look better with some color in your cheeks.”
I glanced at the empty container. I’d even eaten the dill pickle spear. But to be fair, Lille’s did have quality pickles. “You got me off track so I’d eat.”
“I rarely had to do that when you were a child, but the technique still works.” She pushed around her tuna salad on tomato with a fork. She ate like a bird. I, on the other hand, ate like a grown woman. Or a rhino. It didn’t matter. Tomorrow Emma and I would go for a run on the beach and burn off the calories.
“Thanks for coming over.” I got up and made myself a cup of herbal tea. I had to be awake at the crack of dawn tomorrow for my shift. No way was I ingesting more caffeine. I’d never sleep. “So how was your day with Mary?”
My aunt smiled and told me all about their trip to the city. Where they went, what they ate, who they saw. Then she paused, her eyes wide open. “Oh my, I almost forgot.”
I dunked my tea bag into my cup a few times, stifling a yawn. “Forgot what?”
“I saw that man at the doctor’s office. Well, not my doctor’s office, but in the lobby. He was coming out of the elevator as Mary and I were getting in. He walked right past us and didn’t say a word. Mary thinks he’s a little deaf. I just blame it on a total lack of manners. Some people were just raised by wolves.”
I stretched, knowing I was going to crash soon, but it didn’t do any good to try to hurry along my aunt’s stories. They had their own pacing. “So who did you see?”
“That man, you know, the one who died?” Her eyes narrowed. “I wonder why Barry Gleason was visiting a doctor on the day before he died.”
We chatted a little longer, mostly about Mary and Bill and how he had no business doing something that strenuous. As I thought about the volunteer team we had, I realized a lot of the members were in their late forties. There weren’t a lot of people who wanted to, or could, give up that much time to train and be on call. Toby and Tim both wanted to serve, but with their duties as police deputies, they didn’t have time. As it was, I was constantly switching up Toby’s schedule to accommodate his other jobs’ hours.
Finally,
