“A Molotov cocktail,” Storm yelled over the crackling flames. “Can’t you smell the gasoline?”
Gasoline? This wasn’t a terrible accident? But…but…the sabotage had stopped. Marielle was dead. If she hadn’t done this, then that meant…that meant either there were two saboteurs, or…or…we’d blamed the wrong person. Despite the heat, a chill rippled through me.
Jez ran up with a fire extinguisher in each hand. She threw one to me, and I ducked because what else was I supposed to do? Those things had to weigh twenty pounds each. Storm grabbed it instead, and I made a dive for the snaking hose.
Missed.
Ari stumbled past me and caught it.
Two streams of powder blasted toward the flames, knocking them back, and Ari followed up with the water. The blaze got smaller, smaller, the smoke intensifying, swirling around and making me gag. But then the extinguishers sputtered and died, and the flames were still there, smouldering away, just waiting for an opportunity to rise again. The only sounds were the water and my sobs.
And then…sirens.
And Nolan running in my direction, barefoot, his face a mask of fear and horror. His gaze flicked from me to Jez to Storm to Ari, and then he scooped me up and held me tight against his chest.
“You’re okay?”
I nodded, unable to speak.
“Everyone’s okay?”
I nodded again.
“Thank fuck for that.”
“The…the cottage?—”
“Doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter.”
Marcel jogged up, huffing, the world’s smallest fire extinguisher cradled in his arms. “I found this and a fire blanket. I also texted my friend Roberto, who’s an excellent fire safety consultant, and asked for his first available appointment.”
Storm rolled her eyes, sooty where she’d been rubbing them. “Stable door, horse, bolted.”
“You’re right. I should call André too, tell him this is going to be more than a quick finishing job.”
A fire truck screamed up the driveway, and half a dozen firefighters leapt out. Hoses unrolled. Water gushed. Five minutes later, the fire was out properly, and the front of the cottage was a gaping black hole beneath two blackened windows, a giant face screaming into the moonlit night.
“So much for a relaxing break,” Storm muttered. “You think I can get my vacation days back?”
For the second night in a row, we got little sleep. The fire department packed up and left, promising the arson investigator would be along in the morning, but the fire chief agreed with Storm’s assessment that the damage had been caused by a Molotov cocktail.
“You can tell that from the burn pattern,” he said to Nolan, pointing. “See where the gasoline dripped down? You upset anyone lately?”
Yes, but ghosts couldn’t light matches. Could they?
Nolan turned pale and stuttered out an answer. “I…I don’t think so?”
Great. He absolutely sounded guilty of something, and we didn’t want anyone looking too closely at the Marielle situation.
“He ran the Hayes boys off the hill on Sunday,” I said, throwing in a red herring. Or was it? Whoever did this, it wasn’t Marielle, so I’d put the Hayes family at the top of the list. “They didn’t seem too happy.”
“Saw Bo Hayes in the Doodlebug earlier today. Two o’clock in the afternoon, and he was already slurring his words. Not sure he’d have had the wherewithal to put together a Molotov cocktail without burning off his own face.”
“Pipe bombs, is what I heard,” another firefighter said. “Bo Hayes likes a good pipe bomb.”
The fire chief looked up at the cottage. “That weren’t no pipe bomb, Bobby.”
“So maybe he’s branchin’ out?”
