Page 83 of Never Fall Again

Cal would be surprised to know how often she prayed. She wasn’t big on praying out loud, but sometimes as she sat at her wheel, she prayed for the people around her. She prayed for whoever would someday own the piece she was creating. It delighted her to imagine the vases and bowls she’d prayed over being carried as light into the homes of people who lived and worked in a dark world.

That darkness had crept into her world in Gossamer Falls. But it wouldn’t succeed. She closed her eyes and asked for peace and protection. Then she joined Cal and Gray at the door.

Twenty-Three

Cal, wearing booties, gloves, and an oh-so-fashionable hair net, stood just inside Landry’s studio door.

It had been a long night. Gray had refused to let anyone into the studio until they determined no explosives were present. That had meant waiting for an explosives team from Asheville to arrive.

Fortunately, the guy who ran the team was a former Marine buddy, and he’d hurried his people up. They arrived around 4:00 a.m. They found a small explosive at 5:00 a.m. It was almost 7:00 a.m. before they declared the studio safe to enter.

The devastation was overwhelming. He understood why Landry had backed away. And why she currently sat in her house with Bronwyn, answering questions and giving a statement to Donovan, the officer who’d had a date with Cassie after the harvest festival.

“Thanks for the extra set of eyes.” Gray, similarly attired, stood to his right. “I just want you to give me your impressions about the crime.”

Cal studied the space. Landry’s studio was a roughly forty-foot square building. One corner held her office area. The other corner held three kilns.

When he’d first seen them weeks earlier, he’d expected the kilns to be bigger. One was about three feet high and four feet around.The other was smaller and slightly more oval than round. Then there was the one Landry called her baby. It was the first kiln she’d ever owned, and she brought it with her from Arizona.

It didn’t take a genius to see that the kilns were destroyed. It looked like someone had detonated small charges. The lids were blown off. The electronic control panels fried. One of the kilns lay on its side, and from where Cal was standing, it looked like someone had poured acid inside it.

“What is that?” Cal pointed to the kiln and threw the question out.

“A very strong acid is all I can tell you right now,” a young tech said. In all the gear, Cal couldn’t tell who it was. “It’s eaten through the sides of these things. I don’t know anything about pottery, but I’d say these are a total loss.”

“Bronwyn said they’re insured.” Gray said it almost like he was trying to convince himself everything would be okay.

“Some things can’t be fixed.” Cal could hear Landry saying those words and knew this would only help cement the concept in her mind. Cal pointed to the shelves of pottery now lying cracked and broken on the floor. “She’s worked so hard to replace her inventory. Bronwyn can buy new kilns. No one can replace the time, the energy, the creative output.”

Gray put a hand on Cal’s shoulder. “I need you to level with me. If you can’t handle this, that’s okay. No shame in it. You can go sit with Landry and be her emotional support person.”

Cal wanted to brush off Gray’s words, but he understood the truth, and the friendship, behind them.

“No. Give me a minute. Let me take it all in.”

What he took in made his stomach churn. Her pumpkins. The angels she’d started working on. The platters. The vases.

The destruction of Favors had been devastating. The destruction of her studio could be debilitating to her creative spirit, her future at The Haven, and her income.

It was dangerous to assume, but if the person behind this was the same person behind the fire at Favors, Cal had to think they were escalating at an alarming rate. And that for whatever reason, they were trying to drive Landry away from The Haven.

The words—Time’s Up—made him wonder if the escalation had an external trigger. Had something happened in the perpetrator’s life to make him ramp things up this way? Or had Landry done something that he was using to justify this behavior? Or was he a twisted psychopath and none of it made sense?

He shared his thoughts with Gray.

Gray studied the wall. “Has she told you yet? About her husband?”

“She has. Today, or, well, I guess yesterday.”

Gray nodded. “I don’t have details. She told me, back when Favors burned, that her husband’s family might want Eliza. But she also said she didn’t think they would go to these kinds of levels.” He pointed to the studio. “After seeing this, and knowing what you know, do you agree with her?”

“I don’t know. There’s a lot of rage here. But I can’t see how this makes it more likely for them to get their hands on Eliza. From what Landry told me, they despise her. They wouldn’t want to do anything that would drum up sympathy for Landry. No one could see this and not feel bad for her.”

“True. But she told one of my officers last night, that while the equipment is insured and Bronwyn has promised to replace everything, the kilns are currently backordered by as much as four months because of some critical part shortage. If she can’t get new kilns, she can’t replenish her stock, which means her income takes a serious hit. She still has her salary from Bronwyn and tips from the guests, which she said would put food on the table. But it won’t pay for a new house.”

“So what’s the motive here?”

“I have no idea. Landry claims to have no known enemies other than her husband’s family.”

---