“She took up vaping,” Marcel explained, sliding the first salmon fillet onto a plate. “Demelza still gave her a lecture on her health, but at least it doesn’t smell so bad.”
“Demelza’s worried about lung cancer,” I said. “Her dad died from it.”
“Did you hack into more hospital records?”
“I was bored, okay? And I can kind of see Demelza’s point—all that brown gunk in your lungs can’t be good for you.”
“Demelza’s more worried about the amount of money Uncle Sam invests in us,” Jez told him, “which is laughable when she sends us into danger every other day.”
“Last time she came for dinner, she told me I should cut out salt and cook with olive oil instead of butter. I’d rather eat food with flavour than live to be a hundred and ten.”
“Did you hear about that cryogenics program?” Jez asked me. “I got an email last week.”
“I sent it to spam. Have my body frozen so some military scientist can use me for show-and-tell for the next fifty years? No, thanks.”
“I don’t think they want the whole body. Only the stem cells.”
“Still no. You’re not thinking of doing it, are you?”
Marcel passed a hand over his forehead dramatically. “Just what we need. Jezebel clones running around, trained from birth to?—”
The back door slammed against the wall. Storm stood silhouetted against the pool, and she looked…panicked?
Storm flew fighter jets through war zones with people firing missiles left, right, and centre. She never looked panicked. My stomach flipped.
“Uh, guys? There’s a fire.”
CHAPTER 35
ALEXA
When we exited, Storm was already disappearing around the corner of the house, and Jez sprinted ahead of me as we followed. Was it the winery? Say it wasn’t the winery… No, I’d have gotten an alert on my phone. Which meant… Fuck. Ari.
The cottages lay two hundred yards from the main house, beyond a grove of twisted cherry trees that provided privacy to both properties. The sky glowed orange above the foliage.
“Ari’s in there!” I screamed.
And what about the couple from Utah? They weren’t due to check out until tomorrow. The fire had clearly started in Cottage Two, but Cottage One was only five yards away, separated by a narrow strip of dry grass and a low picket fence. The guests had told Nolan they were going out for dinner, but they didn’t say where, and… Fingers trembling, I fished out my phone and checked the tracking app, my heart thumping against my ribcage as I waited for the locations to update, beyond thankful when one green dot and then another appeared right over Sanguine.
The whole front of the building was ablaze, flames licking up the wooden siding and dancing at the windows. Jez paused for a second, assessing, and then sprinted around the back after Storm.
The nearest faucet was by the chickens, and would the hose even reach? I ran that way and began unravelling it, then realised I needed to turn the water on, opened the faucet, and carried on toward the cottage. Marcel had been calling the emergency services when we ran out of the house, and I felt so…so helpless. The way I did when Uncle Porter used to put his hand over my mouth and whisper that it was our little secret.
I ran closer, gasping for breath, and sagged in relief when I saw Ari stagger out from behind the cottage with Storm’s arm wrapped around her waist, holding her up. She bent over, coughing.
“There’s nobody else in there,” I choked out. “The other couple, they’re in town.”
Ari fell to her knees, and Storm grabbed the hose from me. “We know—Jez already went in to check.”
“Where…where is she? Where’s Jez?”
Storm didn’t answer, too busy spraying water at the fire, although it barely made a difference.
“Jez…she’s okay,” Ari sputtered. “Not…inside.”
“What happened? What the hell happened?”
“Don’t know. Explosion.”
