Last Resort Page 21

  “Noelle?” came Nathan’s voice behind her. “You okay?”

  She turned her head toward him, dazed by her racing thoughts.

  “Noelle?” Pearl said.

  “I’m sorry, I think the past two days have finally taken their toll on me.” She returned her full attention to the conversation. “Aunt Pearl, what do you think about Harvey Sand’s death?”

  Pearl looked surprised, then confused. “What in the world does that have to do with Carissa?”

  “I’m not sure. Maybe a lot. Something was mentioned recently that put his motives into question. Could he have known something about our business that someone didn’t want him to know?”

  Pearl’s iron-gray brows lifted, her mouth dropped open. She leaned forward. “I guess I’ve been so busy lookin’ at superstitions and curses, I never thought to look from any other angle.”

  “I know you and Harvey didn’t always get along well. Do you think he was capable of blackmail?”

  Pearl nodded. “I never did like that man, especially after I heard those rumors a few years ago about him doctoring records to hide income from the IRS. I never listen much to rumors, but Harvey sure did spend money like there wasn’t any end to his supply. Maybe there wasn’t. He could’ve been milking half the county, as many secrets as he was privy to. Want to tell me who you think he was blackmailing?”

  For some reason, Noelle wasn’t ready to reveal this to Pearl.

  Pearl leaned back in her chair and sipped her tea. “There’s nothing Harvey could have had on the Coopers, though he might’ve known something about a certain hot argument that took place ten years ago over shutting down the sawmill.”

  “Shutting it down?” Noelle exclaimed.

  “Your grandpa and your father were thinking about it. Face it, with two thousand acres of Cooper land and plenty of beef cattle, they had their hands full. When Cecil’s folks took off for Texas, they were more than a little overworked. Cecil was all for shuttin’ down the mill, but Jill pitched a fit, and so did I. Melva—mind you, she and Cecil weren’t even married at the time, she was just working for the company—made a big stink about it, and urged Cecil to stop them if he could. But Cecil didn’t want to stay around. ’Course, in the end, he did, but it was a hot topic for a while.”

  “And now Cecil is responsible for the whole shebang,” Noelle said. She sipped her tea as the room fell silent. She pushed her chair back and stood up. “I want to look through some more old records. Nathan, do you want to come with me?”

  In the attic of the old house, Nathan picked up the file box from Harvey Sand’s office and placed it on the table by the dormer window for better light. “Something happened earlier, didn’t it?” he asked Noelle. “You remembered something, or felt something.”

  She pulled the first file from the box, avoiding his gaze. “I have no idea what kind of records Harvey has here. I guess we should just search until we find something off-key, although I doubt we’ll find anything. Cecil or Melva must have searched for anything that would incriminate them.”

  “Don’t want to talk about it, huh?”

  She definitely didn’t. “Let’s just get to work on this stuff.”

  “Your intuitions and memories may be more important right now.”

  Noelle frowned down at her hands. “I don’t think my memories of my sister have anything to do with the danger Carissa is in.”

  “So, you did remember something back at Pearl’s, and it was about Jill.”

  A sound penetrated the closed window, and Noelle frowned. Then she recognized the rattle of Pearl’s old truck. The honking of the geese did not drown out the clamor of the ancient vehicle. Pearl was probably going out to deliver her herbs somewhere.

  “Noelle?”

  “Okay,” she said, continuing to stare out the attic window at the cliffs. Beyond them, she saw the shapes of the gravestones in the cemetery. “Jill has OCD.” She felt Nathan tense behind her. “When she left Pearl’s a little while ago, she turned back to check the door, and I remembered how she always checks everything over and over again. When I was a little girl, I would watch her, and I made the mistake once of saying something to Dad about her habits. Later, Jill blew up at me. She slapped me. Hard. I bit her.”

  “You bit her?”

  Sheepish, Noelle shrugged. “I was only seven or eight. She hit me again, harder, and told me never, ever to tell anyone else about her rituals.”

  “Did you?”

  “No. But when I saw her struggling with the problem, I couldn’t help being upset. I finally said something to her. Then she hit me, to make me leave her alone. That’s the incident she wrote about in her journal. I never told Daddy, because, I guess, I couldn’t help feeling loyalty to Jill. And she was so sorry after she’d hit me.”

  “What happened after you got older?”

  Noelle shook her head. “By then I learned to keep my mouth shut and close my eyes to it. I think she believed that I used my gift to pick up on her compulsions, but I didn’t. They were so obvious to me, yet she didn’t seem to realize how noticeable they were, and we both denied the reality.”

  “So she must have known about the codicil even then?”

  “Or she’d heard the stupid stories about OCD being a curse.”

  “I’m glad you told me,” he said. “It’s good to know these kinds of things about someone for whom you care deeply.”

  Noelle felt her face grow warm. “Maybe I needed to talk about it, too.”

  “I’m glad that you trust me enough to share it with me. Your memories are important.”

  “Yes, I know that,” she said. “That’s why I carried that old backpack out of the cave yesterday. Even after all these years, I miss my mother.”

  He stepped up behind her and put his hands on her shoulders. She could feel his warm breath on her hair. “I’m sorry you lost your mother so young, Noelle. I’m sorry you’re going through so much trouble now.”

  She glanced over her shoulder at him. She was coming to know every inflection in his voice, every changing expression in his face. Though she’d loved him for years, she was now suddenly falling in love with Nathan Trask for the first time. Now, of all times, with so much at stake.

  “I’ll live through it, Nathan,” she said lightly, not yet ready to reveal her heart. “Now let’s get to work on these files.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Noelle has to die. I can’t believe I’m even thinking this. Not Noelle.

  I’ve been so blind. She can read me—probably always could. Maybe I’ve always known it, too, but just tried to hide from the truth. She’s a threat to all of us. Not that the others would see it that way.

  Why does it have to be this way? Why am I the only one who sees what has to be done? Everything could be destroyed.

  This is all getting so…so hard. Why me? Why do I have to fight this alone?

  After three hours of searching, nearly blinded by all the columns of tiny numbers and lines of small print, Nathan pushed aside the box from Harvey’s office. He glanced at Noelle, who had waves of damp hair sticking to her forehead. In the last ten minutes, she’d become jumpy, starting at every birdcall outside, looking up every time a floorboard squeaked.

  “What’s bothering you?” he asked at last.

  “I’m hot and very sweaty. We should’ve carried this box downstairs before we searched it. Too late now. There’s nothing more here.”

  Except for one small notation on the back of one of Harvey’s files that didn’t match with the duplicate in the family files, neither Noelle or Nathan had found anything of significance. And that notation was definitely small. It said, Lower level, upper file. Home. That was it.

  “Think that note could mean anything?” Nathan asked Noelle as she sank down onto a wooden box on the floor.

  She glanced at the words again. “It might. But wouldn’t all the Cooper accounts be at his office?”

  “It says home.”

  “Fat lot of good that’ll do us here
.” She brushed back her hair from her forehead. “Maybe we could contact the executor of Harvey’s will. Do you think we might get into Harvey’s house if we explained what we needed?”

  “The executor is about as likely to allow that as he is to jump down the Bobcat Cave sinkhole. How would we explain—” He noticed Noelle’s sudden inattention. “What is it?”

  She focused on him, her troubled eyes darkening. “Smell that?” She stepped to the window. “Gasoline.”

  Before he could join her, she whirled around and rushed to the steps. “Someone’s here.” She crouched and peered into the lower lever of the house. She sniffed. Jerking back up, she turned to Nathan, white-faced. “It is gasoline!”

  Even as she said it, a loud whomp! shook the house. Noelle screamed. Nathan ran forward and grabbed her arm.

  “Get down the steps. Quick! We’ve got to get out!”

  He followed Noelle down the stairs and nearly collided with her at the bottom. Gray-black smoke and bright flames were outside all the kitchen windows.

  “We’re surrounded!” Noelle cried as she pivoted and grabbed his arms. “Nathan, there are flames all around us! We’re trapped.”

  Smoke seeped beneath the inner wall, blackening the wood around it—flames would burn with dangerous speed through the age-dried material.

  A glance into Noelle’s old bedroom off the kitchen showed the walls already blackening as tiny orange flames rippled along the crackling wallpaper. The sound of shattering glass echoed through the house.

  “We’ve got to jump through the kitchen window.” Noelle’s voice was hoarse with urgency and terror. She grabbed Nathan’s arm. “Hurry! We’ve got to do it before the flames get any higher.” She spun toward the sink.

  He stopped her. “No. Back to the attic.”

  “Are you crazy? The porch is below that window, too. The whole porch is burning.”

  “The cliff won’t burn. We can reach it.”

  “We can’t! We’ll fall.”

  “I won’t let you fall. No time to fight about this, just go!” He hustled her back up the attic steps as smoke clouded around them, thick and smothering.

  Smoke was already wisping past the attic windows. A few more seconds and their last escape would be cut off.

  Nathan unlatched the window and tried to slide it up, but it was swollen shut. He reached for a heavy wooden box, while Noelle pulled a bag of clothing from a corner and began digging through it.

  “What are you doing?” he demanded.

  “Protection. Here.” She pulled out a pair of old wool slacks. “We can tear these in half and wrap the material around our faces.

  Nathan heaved the box through the window, shattering the glass. Smoke rushed through the opening. He took the slacks and ripped the legs apart. Noelle took one leg and tied it around her face.

  “Okay.” Nathan urged her to the window. “Out. Now.”

  Noelle poked her head out. She gasped. “It’s too far. We’ll never get—”

  “Climb onto the roof. I know we can do that.” He grasped her around the waist, to boost her over the ledge.

  “But I can’t—”

  “Climb! Swing your legs out. I’ll hold you.”

  She stepped to the window ledge, allowing Nathan to guide her.

  “Grab the edge of the eave,” he instructed, pushing her farther out the window.

  “I’m getting dizzy. The smoke’s blinding me!”

  “Close your eyes and grab the roof, Noelle. Just do it!”

  He heard her breath catch with fear. The smoke was burning his eyes and searing his throat. Noelle grabbed the eave, kicked away from the window frame and rolled out of his grasp.

  “Okay,” she called down. “I made it. The fire’s spreading. Hurry, Nathan!”

  Flames were eating the porch roof below, pushing thick, black billows of smoke into his face. Nathan tied the woolen material that Noelle had given him around his nose and mouth and reached for the window.

  “Nathan, come on!” Noelle cried.

  Choking, he pulled himself out of the window, swung around, reached for the roof and kicked off, in one smooth motion. Heat burned his legs through his jeans.

  “Nathan, your leg’s smoking. Hurry, swing yourself up!” Noelle grabbed his arm and pulled with surprising strength.

  Closing his eyes against the smoke, he struggled onto the ledge of the eave, allowing Noelle’s strength to help draw him up to safety. She beat at his leg with the wool in her hands until the flames were out. He took deep gulps of the clearer air, fighting against the stinging smoke in his lungs.

  Noelle untied the fabric from around his face, her eyes huge with barely controlled panic.

  “Nathan, we’ve got to get off this roof.” She turned a desperate gaze toward the jagged side of the cliff in front of them. It was their last, precarious chance for escape.

  With Noelle’s urgent grasp on his arm, Nathan pulled himself to his feet and walked to the center of the peaked roof. He studied the cliffside.

  “Look.” He pointed to a ledge with room for both of them only about a foot above the roof. “We can jump to that ledge, then climb from there.”

  “Okay, let’s do it.” Noelle stepped to the peak of the roof. “Let’s pray this fire doesn’t follow us up.”

  “It shouldn’t. The trees are far enough above us, and the breeze is strong and in the right direction to blow the smoke away from us. We’ve had plenty of rain. Everything’s soaked.” Eyes on the ledge, Nathan grasped a sturdy handhold of granite and pulled himself up. Then he reached back to guide Noelle.

  Coughing and gasping for breath, Noelle, with scraped and bruised hands, pulled herself over the final ledge of cliff onto solid, horizontal earth. Nathan had been right—the breeze kept the smoke away from them; they’d made it to safety.

  Nathan came over the final ledge behind her, and with the last of their energy they stumbled into the dense protection of the forest and collapsed side by side onto soft grass. The roaring, snapping torrent of fire was muted up here, less nightmarish. What caught Noelle’s attention was a voice below, shouting, and the sound of a loud, insistent horn.

  “Someone’s found the fire,” she mumbled into the grass.

  Nathan rolled to his side and faced her. “The question is, who already knew it was burning? Who started it?”

  Noelle closed her eyes.

  “Anyone could have started it.” Nathan’s voice held compassion.

  “We’ve got to go down there and let them know we’re safe. Jill’ll be worried.”

  “She’ll just have to worry a while longer.”

  “What?” Noelle raised her head.

  “We can’t show ourselves yet.”

  “But we can’t leave them to think we were in the house. It’s cruel, and it’s dangerous. What if someone tries to rescue us?”

  “We’ll watch them.”

  “Watch? Oh, Nathan…”

  “It makes sense, and I also want to see how they react.”

  “How long do we hide?”

  “Long enough to check Harvey Sand’s house. Let’s go down through the trees and see what’s going on.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Panicked voices grew louder as Noelle followed Nathan down through the thicket that covered the sloped hillside. Melva’s voice carried clearly, shouting to someone to call the rural fire department.

  When they reached level ground, Nathan signaled for Noelle to keep quiet. He peered through the foliage at all the activity around the house. Noelle felt the pressing weight of guilt—she was spying on her family.

  Looking between two cedar branches, she spotted Cecil and Melva several yards away, staring helplessly at the firestorm that now enveloped the entire house. Another cry echoed across the clearing, and Pearl came racing out of the woods from the direction of her house, her face a grimace of horror.

  “Where are Noelle and Nathan?” she demanded, running toward Cecil and Melva. She grabbed Cecil’s arm. “Where are t
hey? Have you seen them?” She shook him. “They were in that house!”

  Shock filled Cecil’s face. “What?” He grabbed Pearl by the shoulders. “Are you sure?”

  Pearl could only nod. Her expression went beyond horror, beyond shock. She grabbed at her heart, and her body sagged. Cecil caught her. With Melva’s help, he guided Pearl to a soft patch of grass.

  Melva glanced back toward the fire. “Cecil, she’s wrong. She’s got to be wrong!” She reached down, as if to grab Pearl’s arm, when a shout from behind them halted her. Together, she and Cecil turned to find Jill running toward them from the track beyond the cemetery.

  Still watching the scene from beside Nathan, behind their camouflage, Noelle felt tears trickle down her cheeks. “I can’t do it,” she whispered. “None of them started that fire, I just can’t believe it. And look what we’re doing to them, look at Pearl.”

  “It’s only for a little while.” Nathan’s voice was unemotional, but Noelle could tell that his calmness required strong self-control. “It could have been forever.”

  “Why are you just standing here!” Jill shouted as she reached them. “The whole forest could go!”

  Cecil answered in a voice too low for Noelle to hear. But she caught Jill’s gasp. “No!” Jill pivoted toward the burning house. “They can’t be in there! Noelle!” She started toward the house, but Cecil grabbed her, holding her back.

  “We don’t know for sure,” he said, his voice cracking. “It’s just what Pearl told us.”

  Noelle reached to push back a branch to step through. “I can’t do this,” she choked. “I’m sorry. It’s too—”

  Nathan grasped her arm. He pointed at Pearl, who was turned toward Jill, her face regaining a little color. “Let’s get out of here.” Nathan pulled Noelle back through the thicket to the old livestock trail that led to the road to the west of them.

  “This is wrong, Nathan! None of them did it, none of them could have done it. They were all shocked and horror-stricken. Didn’t you see them?”