The Arsonist

Once Harvey was paid, Darcy, George and her mother focused on prepping for the dinner crowd. The Varsity didn’t have any other staff so the pace was quick and the work more physically challenging than she remembered. Still, despite a few dropped plates, she, George and her mother were ready by the time five o’clock rolled around. There was still no sign of Trevor.

Oddly enough, before her mother flipped the Closed sign to Open she felt as jittery as when she’d turned in her first article. So much was riding on her getting information from Gannon on Nero.

Thoughts of Nero vanished when the customers started arriving right at five. Within an hour, the diner was buzzing. All fifteen booths were filled and she and her mother ran from table to table taking orders, refilling drinks and serving entrées. To her surprise, she remembered more and more as the evening progressed. She’d forgotten how good she was at working this place.

She thought about Motorcycle Man. If he saw her in action now, he’d be eating his words.

By eight o’clock, most of the regulars were sitting at the bar. There was Chief Wheeler, the town’s fire chief who was in his late forties. Chief’s hair was thinning and he’d grown paunchy in the last six years. Next to him sat a friend of hers from high school, Larry White, a tall, lean truck driver who worked for a wholesale electronics distributor.

“So your mom says you got canned,” Larry said to Darcy.

For the sake of the Nero investigation she wanted to downplay her reporting background. Folks had a way of clamming up when they knew a reporter, even a supposedly ex-reporter, was around. “Hey, do me a favor guys and drop the subject. Kinda touchy.”

Larry and the chief nodded thoughtfully.

“Will do. Been fired myself a couple of times,” Larry said. He sipped his cola. “It bites.”

“We can keep a secret,” the chief said.

“Thanks.”

Minutes later, a tall, lean man walked into the tavern. In his forties, he was very athletic and had thick blonde hair. He wore thin wire-rimmed glasses. He took a seat beside Larry and held out a smooth hand to the trucker who took it immediately. “How’s it going?”

“Can’t complain, Nathan,” Larry said. “Nathan, I’d like you to meet Darcy Sampson. Her family’s owned the Varsity for years and she’s back working at her old job.”

Nathan smiled at Darcy. “Pleasure.”

His gaze possessed an intensity that made her believe for an instant that she was the only person in the room. There was no denying he was a very attractive man. She sucked in her stomach. “Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Coffee.”

“Sure thing,” she said. She sounded cool, but for some reason he jumbled her nerves. Cup. Coffeepot. Pour. She poured him a cup and set it in front of him. “Cream? Sugar?”

The faint lines at his temples deepened when he smiled. “No thanks.” He sipped his coffee. “Good. So, you just start?”

“Tonight’s my first night.” Darcy felt herself blushing. “So, Chief, how did your day go?”

The chief grimaced. “We had one hell of a fire.”

Nathan’s face was blank. “I’ve been at the construction site all day. What’s the scoop?”

The chief leaned forward. “The Super 8 burned to the ground. Worst fire I’ve seen in years. Started in a storage closet and then quickly spread to the building’s roof. We evacuated the motel and put our hoses on the fire. But the damn thing wouldn’t go out. Within thirty minutes, the motel was burned to the ground.”

Darcy’s heart started to pound in her chest. The fire likely had nothing to do with Nero, but it was strange that the chief had battled an intense fire the day she arrived to investigate a serial arsonist.

Nathan sipped his coffee. “Do you know what started it?”

The chief shook his head. “Don’t know. We got the arson boys from Roanoke coming in tomorrow.”

Darcy lingered.

“You think someone set the fire on purpose?” Larry asked.

“No, I doubt it. Likely someone did something stupid,” the chief said. “They’ll have a report for us in a couple of days.”

Larry pulled a toothpick from his pocket and popped it into his mouth. “Bet it was teen gangs.”

Chief Wheeler laughed. “Larry you got teen gangs on the brain since you saw that 20/20 show last month.”

George rang a bell, which told Darcy another order was up. Swallowing an oath, she picked up the order and took the plates to table number six. By the time she’d gotten them ketchup and refilled their colas, the men at the bar were talking about another fire.

Darcy topped up the chief’s drink. “You get a lot of fires in the area?”

The chief shrugged. “Not many as a rule.”

Darcy held up the pitcher of cola. “Like a refill, Larry?”

“Not yet,” he said smiling.

“So how do you like Preston Springs so far, Nathan?” She wanted to stay in on this conversation without being too obvious.

Nathan sipped his coffee. “Love it.”

She held up the coffeepot. “So you’re working on the condo project off I-81?”

He held up his cup. “That’s right.”

She refilled it. Given time, she’d crack this Nero case. There was a story here and she could feel it in her bones. “Long hours?”

He nodded his thanks. “Always.”

George rang his bell and Darcy had to abandon her conversation and serve another customer.

Given time. Who was she kidding? She barely had time to pee.

It was nine o’clock before Darcy could pull her head above water again to think. Nathan, the chief and Larry had left and there was still no sign of Trevor.

Her feet ached from running from table to table. If her brother had been here, she’d have had more time to talk to the chief, maybe find out something about Michael Gannon. But Trevor was nowhere in sight.

At nine forty-five, she’d not had a break and was starving. She’d eaten three large handfuls of the cocktail nuts—a good four hundred calories by her way of thinking. At the rate she was going, she’d weigh two hundred pounds before she got back to D.C. When the guy at table seven sent his order back for the third time, she vowed to skin Trevor alive when he did arrive.

At ten, the crowd had turned over several times. Folks looking for a meal had long cleared out. Most were now there for drinks.

At ten-fifteen, the front door opened and to her great relief, Trevor strolled in. Everyone at the bar and the booths waved him a greeting as he flashed his million-dollar smile. Trevor, tall and muscular with thick brown hair, kissed his mother, who beamed up at him from her current post at the cash register, and then strolled over to the bar as if he had all the time in the world.

When he spotted Darcy, his grin widened. “Mom said you were back.”

“Man, it’s about time you got here,” she said as she stuck a lime in a Gin Fizz and handed it to a customer at the bar.