Page 114 of Summer People
Both. I’ve got them both. Shaking with a mixture of fear and adrenaline and abject relief, I hold them tight to my chest. Thank God.
“Are you okay?” I pull back, frantically assessing Sutton the way I did Libby. Their clothes are covered in soot, and so is their skin, but neither looks hurt.
“I’m okay.” Sutton tilts away from me, eyeing Libby, but I’m making it hard, since I can’t release either of them. I can’t even loosen my hold.
“Me too, pretty girl. I think.” Libby swallows. At the sound of a loud crash, we turn. The roof of the school caves and lands with a devastating clatter. The crackling of the fire intensifies, and the flames lick up over the walls.
In unison, the girls gasp. My heart damn near splats on the ground in front of us, but I remind myself that both girls are right here with me. It might have been close, but they’re safe.
“I don’t know what happened.” Libby’s voice shakes. “We were painting and singing along to music. Then all of a sudden, smoke was everywhere.”
I know exactly what happened.
Teeth gritted, I set my sights on the woman up the road who’s glaring back at us. The girls might be fine, but Flora Henries will pay for this.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
fisher
It tookan hour and a half for the one small truck we have to put the fire out. Thank goodness for Ryder, Star, and their two volunteers. They kept the blaze from spreading while the building burned to the ground.
The south pump on the beach had just enough pressure to get the water up the hill and save the church and surrounding houses. The schoolhouse will have to be completely rebuilt.
After Eddy looked over both of my girls, I insisted they go home, but neither would budge, both watching with tears in their eyes as the school crumbled under the intense heat.
Now, from my position on the dock, I can just make out Ryder’s and Star’s forms as they track through the rubble, making sure the embers are doused and there’s no risk of the fire reigniting.
“Sutton shouldn’t have been there.”
It takes everything in me not to whirl on the woman who’s cuffed to the chair behind me. These aren’t the play cuffs I used on Libby. No, these are the ones that are kept locked in the safe at the harbor master office. The ones used to secure criminals until the coast guard arrives to take them into custody.
I’ve never arrested an islander before. Here and there, I have to pick up a tourist for drug possession or shoplifting. Rarely anything more serious. I don’t feel even an ounce of sympathy for what this woman will be facing. Not after she almost killed my girls.
“Stop talking, Flora,” Cank warns.
“But it isn’t fair.” She pounds her feet against the wharf, the sound mixing with the lapping of the waves beneath us.
Apart from Flora’s ranting and the rhythmic sounds of the ocean, it’s quiet. Cank shut down the harbor to all incoming traffic until Flora is picked up. My truck is parked across the dirt road leading to the wharf to stop curious tourists from getting too close. That doesn’t mean they’re not watching from decks and windows all over the island.
“If Libby had just left, then everything would have been perfect.” Her manic green eyes are locked on mine, pleading. “We would have been happy. You and Sutton and me. We could have been a family.”
Nausea roils in my gut at the idea. There is no happiness for me without Libby.
I keep my mouth shut. I can’t even speak to this woman. It’s hard enough reining in the urge to toss her into the sea while she’s still handcuffed to that chair.
“This is all her fault,” she sneers. “If the little Hollywood princess had given up when she had no cable or hot water, then none of this would have happened.”
None of it would have happened? She acts as if this was an act of God. Something impossible to stop. When in reality, she’s at fault. She tried to kill Libby. And she almost succeeded. She almost killed my little girl along with her.
None of what she’s spewing is new. She ranted about all of it as I dragged her down the hill in cuffs, screaming about how Libby doesn’t belong here. As furious as I am at the woman, asheartbroken as I am about the schoolhouse, I’m relieved to know this is the end of it. To know that Flora was behind the cut brake lines and the pilot light. Because once the state police show up with the coast guard, I can rest assured that Libby is finally safe.
“But she kept running to you. Even the night I threw the rock through her window to scare her, you showed up before I was even out of the bushes.”
With a huff, I shake my head. I should have searched Libby’s house more carefully that night. But I was focused on getting her safely out of there, not on the idea of someone hanging around.
“It should be me beside you. I spent years waiting for you.Years.” The chair creaks as she pulls on the cuffs. “Even when the other kids were mean, you never teased me about my frizzy hair or my glasses.”
Had she not tried to kill my girlfriend and my daughter, I might pity her. I do understand the feeling. I get how lonely life gets for a kid who doesn’t fit in. How isolating. It’s apparently enough to drive a certain kind of person mad. Luckily for me, a princess came to my rescue before I lost my mind.
