Peering through the window toward Lindsey’s house, I noticed no lights on in there, either.Maybe she went to bed early.Though it was just after eight in the evening, I doubted she was in bed. The sun had barely set over the mountains, the last of the sun’s rays still gleaming in the western sky.
Maybe she caught the flu.
Dismissing her from my mind, I poured myself a drink, then took it with me to the window. Leaning against the wall, drinking, smelling my own sweat, I watched the street outside. No long, black sedans sat within sight. Lights gleamed in house windows up and down the block. A few dogs barked, and a feral cat trotted across the street under the light of the streetlamp.
“This is stupid,” I muttered, shifting my aching feet. “He’s bluffing. He knows you didn’t steal his kilos. He’s laughing his head off right now.”
Trying to make myself believe that, I left the window and headed for my bedroom. In there, still without lights, I kicked off my boots, shed my clothes, and took a long hot shower. I emerged twenty minutes later feeling refreshed, hungry, and reassured I was an idiot.
I hit the light switch in the kitchen and laughed to myself at how normal my kitchen appeared. “Dumbass,” I muttered. “He believed you but had to save face. He’s not after you.”
Too hungry to cook, I microwaved a can of chili and ate it while reading a novel on my phone. After tidying my kitchen, I took a fresh drink and my book into my front sitting room and continued reading. The novel held my attention, and while I occasionally looked out the window, I continually returned to it.
Around eleven I began to yawn. Still no activity on the street. House lights had gone out. Lindsey’s house remained dark, as silent as my own. I put my empty glass in the dishwasher, then ambled into my room, yawning. I scratched my crotch, then undressed.
I fell asleep not long after crawling into my bed.
***
And woke to the sound of crashing, of glass shattering.
I sat bolt upright, staring, seeing dancing reddish-orange light where there shouldn’t be any.Christ, that’s a fire.
In my shorts, I bolted from my bed and charged down the hallway. In my living room, a fire blossomed on the carpet, creeping for the curtains,lighting the late darkness. I grabbed a blanket from my couch, beating the flames, driving them back, cursing, swearing, subduing one fire only to see another lick at my feet.
I’d no time to grab my phone and call the fire brigade. Still, I heard sirens through the busted front window, listened to their wailing screams as they approached, growing closer and closer. Outside the window, red and blue strobes flashed, shouts barked orders.
I didn’t listen. I beat at the flames, fighting to the last, hearing the fire fighters break my door in and yank me out.
Panting, coughing, I sat at the rear of an ambulance while shivering under a blanket, watching the firemen douse the last of the fire. A Molotov cocktail, the cops said to one another. The arson investigators will take over. Not our problem. They took my statement without much sympathy, then departed.
The neighbors stared, I knew. They gossiped from their porches, speculated from their lawns, and none came forward to ask how I was.
I take that back. One did.
Lindsey.
Chapter Three
Lindsey
Scared, I watched from my window as the drama unfolded. Brody’s house on fire, the firemen forcing him outside, even as he yelled and swore at them. My fear failed to diminish even as the fire fighters contained the fire, brought it under control, doused it. The cops talked to Brody even as the other neighbors watched and talked amongst themselves without offering to help him.
That’s not right. He’d step forward to help you, if your house caught fire.
Most of the police left. A fire truck departed. The paramedics cared for Brody as he sat with a blanket around his bare shoulders and an oxygen mask over his face. The remaining fire fighters inspected his house, then obviously deemed the fire out. They spoke to him. Brody looked at his broken window, the blackened glass clear in the strobe light, and shook his head.
The paramedics made him sign a form.
“I can’t let him be alone,” I muttered. “He’s so –alone.”
Not a hero by any stretch of the imagination, I donned shoes, pulled a robe over my jammies, then left my house. Not comfortable being in the spotlight, so to speak, I paced down my driveway to the street, then over to where Brody sat at the ambulance’s rear. I garnered curious looks from the professionals.
And a look from Brody that all but melted my heart.
I dared to sit beside him. “Are you okay?”
“Some smoke inhalation,” he replied, his voice hoarse. “My feet got burned.”
