“Would it surprise you to know that he filed for bankruptcy in 2018?”
“Are you sure you have the right Charlie Burroughs?”
“Very sure. He apparently got himself overextended trying to flip houses on the mainland for the rental market. The bank foreclosed on three of them. He managed to hang on to a house in Bonaventure. It’s worth about six hundred grand.”
“I had no idea he was having money problems,” Traci said. “He’s a pretty private guy. Quiet, steady. I honestly don’t know what I would have done without him after Hoke died.”
“Sometimes it’s the quiet ones who surprise you,” Whelan said.
Lola was doing what Traci thought of as the dance of the doggy doody, slowly rotating her compact body in tight circles, preparatory to her late-night potty stop.
“Come on, baby, drop it and let’s go home,” she urged.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Whoops. I was talking to Lola, not you,” she said, laughing. “We’ve been walking for thirty minutes now, and I’m officially exhausted.”
“When can I see you again?” Whelan asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Not sure you want to, or not sure you can?”
“It’s not that I don’t want to,” she said reluctantly. “More like, should I?”
“No pressure, but you definitely should,” he said.
“Let me sleep on it,” she said. “Please?”
They’d arrived back at her house. Traci opened the kitchen door and Lola scampered inside. She walked around the house, locking doors and switching off lights as she went. She paused in the living room, seeing it with a new perspective.
Shannon had been right. The ornate Victorian furniture, overly elaborate window treatments, none of it held any real meaning for Traci. She wouldn’t have chosen any of these Eddings family heirlooms for herself.
As a young newlywed, she’d been so eager to prove her worthiness of belonging to her husband’s family that she hadn’t stopped to consider the price of that acceptance. And Hoke, the younger son, had perhaps been an unwitting accomplice to his family’s coolness toward her. Maybe because, deep down, he knew he’d always play second fiddle to Ric, his father’s favorite.
Soon, she promised herself, she would jettison all this emotional and physical baggage. She would live the way she wanted. It was time. Past time.
CHAPTER 63
BOOM!
The explosion was so loud it rattled the windows in her room and woke Felice up from what felt like the deepest sleep she’d ever experienced. At first, she thought she’d dreamed it. She grabbed her glasses and struggled to sit up in bed, finally using both hands to push herself upright. She groped in the dark for the lamp on her nightstand, finally finding the switch, but nothing happened.
She smelled gas, and then, smoke. She walked unsteadily to the bedroom door, tried the wall switch, but nothing happened. The power was out. In her groggy state, she wondered if the sound had been a lightning strike, but would that shake the dorm?
Felice tried to open the door, but it wouldn’t move. She turned the handle to unlock it, leaned against the door, and pushed hard. Nothing. The smoke smell was strong. Looking down, she saw wisps of it pluming from beneath the door.
Something deep in her lizard brain finally connected. Fire. The explosion was real. The power was out and something was blocking her door. She grabbed the bedspread from her bed and dropped to the floor, gagging and coughing, stuffing the spread under the door to block the smoke.
Her legs felt floppy, like uncooked spaghetti, but she went back to her bed, groped in the dark until she found the bottle of water shekept there, ripped the case off her pillow, soaked it in some of the water, and wrapped it around her nose and mouth.
Get out,her lizard brain said. You’ve got to get out.
She turned to the window and, after yanking the blind up, she pushed on the lower window sash. It didn’t move.
Get out. Get out.
The lamp was the heaviest thing in the room. She picked it up, took a step backward, and swung as hard as she could. The glass shattered. Using the base of the lamp, she knocked the rest of the glass fragments out of the window frame. There was a screen too, but she battered it until it broke free.
