Chapter one
Chapter 1
Rachel
“Have a good evening,” I hold the door open as Dorothy Williams makes her way down the café steps, cane tapping against each one.
“You too, dear.” She pauses at the bottom, glancing back with a warm smile. “That apple pie was delicious today. You tell Linda she’s outdone herself.”
“I will.” I watch to make sure she reaches the sidewalk safely. Dorothy’s been coming in every Tuesday for the past month, always ordering the same thing—black coffee and whatever pie we have that day.
“See you next week,” she calls, waving.
“See you then.”
The café sits quietly behind me. The building used to be a Victorian house before the owners converted it. They kept the upstairs as storage and office space and turned the ground floor into the dining area. Tuesday evenings are always slow after six. Most of Millbrook Falls is home, making dinner or sitting in front of their televisions. I’ve got end-of-month inventory waiting upstairs, but the café’s part-time cleaner just quit yesterday—something about a better-paying gig at the resort two towns over.
The owners haven’t hired a replacement yet, probably won’t for a while, given how tight money has been. So here I am, manager by day, janitor by night, a five-year-old who thinks bedtime is a suggestion, and about fifteen minutes before Tommy realizes I’m not paying attention to him.
I don’t mind the extra two hours if it means more money in my pocket. Tommy’s growing like a weed, and his shoes don’t buy themselves.
I flip the sign to “Closed” and head back inside.
The dining room looks like a hurricane hit it. Chairs askew, coffee mugs abandoned on tables, newspapers scattered across booth seats. I start stacking dishes, mentally calculating how long cleanup will take.
Tommy’s voice drifts down from upstairs. “Mama! Can I have a cookie?”
“You already had two.”
“But I’m still hungry.”
“Then you should’ve eaten your dinner instead of building a fort with your chicken nuggets.”
Silence. Then, “Can I have a cookie anyway?”
I love this kid to death, but he’s got the negotiation skills of a used car salesman.
“Fine! One cookie! The small ones.”
I’m a pushover, and we both know it.
I haul the dish tub toward the kitchen, shouldering through the swinging door. The industrial dishwasher hums in the corner. I set the tub down and turn back toward the dining room.
That’s when I smell it.
Smoke. Acrid and wrong.
My stomach drops. I spin around and see an orange light flickering through the gap under the storage room door. Thedoor that should never, ever have orange light under it unless the actual flames of hell are visiting us.
“No. No.” I yank the door open.
Fire roars up the back wall, feeding on cardboard boxes and dry goods with flames crawling across the ceiling like living things, hot and hungry and spreading fast.
I slam the door shut. My hands shake as I grab my phone.
“Tommy!” I run for the stairs at the back of the kitchen—the old servants' stairs from when this building was a Victorian house before the Martinezes converted it into a café. I take the steps two at a time, dialing 911. “Baby, we need to leave right now!”
The operator answers.
