Death Night

Concluding that the dream was to blame, Kat whirled around, ready to return to Emma Pulsifer. She instead collided with a man standing on the edge of the crowd.

For a brief moment, she again thought it was Henry. The man was as solid as she remembered Henry being. Bumping into him felt like smacking into a brick wall. Kat almost said his name again, so certain was she that the man she had collided with was the long-lost Henry Goll.

Yet when the man spoke, she immediately realized her error. Henry’s voice was deeper and more halting. The voice of the man she had bumped sounded high-pitched and startled.

“Whoa,” he said. “Sorry about that.”

“It was my fault.” Kat wiped a strand of hair away from her face. “I should have been watching where I was going.”

“Look before you leap, right?” the man said.

“Exactly.”

Kat studied the man a moment, certain she had never seen him before. Since she knew practically everyone in Perry Hollow—if not by name, then by sight—she assumed he was a recent arrival. Or else a visitor. He had the appearance of someone who didn’t belong. Although his voice contained no hint of an accent, he looked vaguely foreign, with deep-set eyes the color of coal, sharp cheekbones, and blond hair pulled back in a ponytail.

His clothes, too, were out of place in a jeans-and-T?shirt town like Perry Hollow. His collared shirt was buttoned all the way to the neck. His black pants were too tight and too short. An extra inch or two of white socks poked out from the cuffs before vanishing again into pointy shoes fastened by silver buckles. Over it all hung a black trench coat that was slightly frayed at the sleeves.

Kat introduced herself, hoping the stranger would do the same.

He merely nodded politely. “Nice to meet you, Chief. Have a good night. Don’t stay up too late.”

He departed, his trench coat fluttering behind him. Kat watched him walk toward Main Street, still unable to shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right about the guy. And it wasn’t just because he refused to give a name. It was the whole package—his face, his clothes, his whole manner—that unsettled her. Had the circumstances been different, she would have tried to follow him, just to find out where he was going.

Behind her, the crowd on the Freemans’ front lawn erupted into cheers and applause. They were clapping for the firefighters, who had started to emerge from the cloud of smoke still pouring out of the museum.

The fire had been conquered.

Kat waited to approach the ladder truck until the firefighters had peeled away their turnout gear, their cast-off boots, coats, and helmets littering the grass. She then thanked each of them, doling out a few high fives in the process. She was in the midst of being taught an elaborate handshake by Danny Batallas, the youngest member of the squad, when the fire chief beckoned her over.

Even in his younger days, Boyd Jansen had looked so much like a fire chief that it was inevitable he’d become one. Strong upper body. Thick around the middle. He kept his mustache neatly trimmed, although, like his sandy hair, it gathered more gray with each passing year. Joining him at the front of the ladder truck, Kat greeted him by his nickname.

“Great job, Dutch. You and your boys knocked that fire out in a hurry.”

The chief waved away the compliment. “It was a birthday candle—quick to flare up, easy to snuff out.”

“That’s a good thing, right?”

“You’d think,” Dutch said. “But my gut tells me that fire might have had some help.”

And Kat’s gut told her she was about to be served some bad news. She was proven right when Dutch pulled her to the far side of the ladder truck, where they were out of earshot of the others.

“That fire went up quick,” he said. “Never seen one sprout so fast.”

“It’s an old building,” Kat countered. “Not exactly fireproof.”

“You’re right. But I’ve seen enough fires to know that this one makes me suspicious.”

Suddenly, Kat longed to be back at home, in bed, fast asleep. Because if she understood Dutch correctly, she wouldn’t be getting any sleep for a very long time.

“You think someone set the museum on fire?”

“Maybe.”

“On purpose or by accident?” Kat asked. “It’s the night before Halloween. A few kids could have been bored and decided to get creative on mischief night.”

She was grasping at straws. In Perry Hollow, mischief night never got more dangerous than a few egged windows and a generous toilet-papering of front yards. Very rarely did it escalate into setting something on fire. If it did, that something was usually a paper bag full of dog poop.

“You don’t know too much about fires, do you?” Dutch asked.

“Not really,” Kat said. “How’d you guess?”

“Because if you did, you’d know that a flaming bag of shit couldn’t do this kind of damage.”

“Do you think we should get an arson investigator out here? Maybe find out just what we’re dealing with.”

“That,” Dutch said, “would be a fine idea.”

“Chief?”

Both Kat and Dutch looked to the front of the ladder truck, where Danny Batallas now stood.

“Sorry,” he said, blushing. “My chief.”

Dutch straightened. “What is it, Danny?”

“Did you give the all clear to enter the museum?”

“Hell, no. Why?”

Danny jerked his head in the direction of the still-smoldering museum. “Because I think someone’s about to.”

Kat was on the other side of the truck in an instant, although it wasn’t fast enough to catch the face of the person rounding a burned-out corner of the building. Not that she needed to. A flash of pink fabric flaring in the person’s wake was enough.

“It’s Emma Pulsifer,” she said. “Help me drag her out of there.”

Dutch and Danny both grabbed helmets before joining her in a sprint across the museum’s lawn. Kat felt them behind her as she hopped over the fire hoses still sprawled in the grass. Then it was through a wall of smoke that drifted languidly from the building. Small bits of ash swirled in the air, clinging to her face. She swiped them away as she moved along the side of the museum.

Reaching the back of the building, Kat saw the door Emma had mentioned earlier. It was open and creaking slightly back and forth on its hinges. Smoke escaped from the doorway, but not as much as from the front of the building. Back there, it was merely a trickle. Still, it was enough to make Kat want to cover her nose. It smelled like the world’s biggest ashtray.

“She’s already inside,” Kat told the two firemen behind her.

“She shouldn’t be anywhere near this place,” Dutch hissed with annoyance. “God knows how unstable it is. The whole thing could crumble with one wrong step.”

Hearing that did nothing to put Kat’s mind at ease as she leaned in the doorway. It was dark, of course, the gloom made even worse by the smoke that hovered like a stubborn fog. Kat tugged the flashlight from her duty belt and flicked it on. Then she stepped inside.

Emma Pulsifer was just beyond the doorway, standing in what appeared to be a cramped hallway. She bumped against the walls, fumbling blindly in the darkness. Kat placed a hand on her shoulder—a small attempt to calm her.

“We shouldn’t be in here,” she said. “It’s not safe.”