Out of the Ashes Page 8

  “Whaaa?” I couldn’t quite get the whole word out.

  “You’re wanted on the phone.” She smiled and ran her hand over my forehead. “Do you want me to tell him to call later?”

  I squinted at my alarm clock and saw that it was after eleven o’clock in the morning. Mumbling that I was awake, I slid out of bed and headed groggily for the kitchen.

  “Hello?” Did you ever notice that when you answer the phone, it always sounds more like a question than a greeting? It’s almost as if you’re not necessarily going to be happy to find out who’s on the other end of the line.

  “Good morning.” It was Greg. “Am I waking you?”

  “Yeah, but it’s okay. I didn’t mean to sleep so late.”

  “Well, sorry about that. Anyway, what are you doing later?”

  I hesitated, wondering if Nick might reschedule our date at the theatre for that evening. He hadn’t said how long his aunt was going to be staying, but it was probably more than just one night. There was no sense losing a chance to dig up more clues.

  “Nothing much. Why?”

  “I’m at work right now, but I get off at two o’clock this afternoon. I thought you might like to hang out later on.”

  The thought of the scrapbooks on the shelf at his place flashed into my head. I sure wanted to get a look at them.

  “Well, you’ll have to go home to change after work, right?”

  “Yeah, that won’t take long though.”

  “Why don’t I meet you there around three? We can decide if we want to go anywhere else then.”

  “Sounds great.” His voice was really happy. “I’ll see you then.”

  After I hung up the phone I showered, dressed, and had a bagel with strawberry cream cheese. While I ate I tried to think of some way I could get a look at the scrapbooks.

  A knock at the door interrupted my thoughts, and when I looked up I saw Betts standing there. The expression on her face told me something was wrong.

  I’d no sooner let her in than she burst into tears.

  “Graham and I are through!” she wailed, throwing her arms around me. “He’s nothing but a big jerk and I hate him.”

  Her remark seemed kind of at odds with the tears. After all, if she really hated him, there’d be no reason to be crying over their breakup.

  “What happened?” I asked, patting her shoulder with my free hand. The other hand still held a piece of bagel, and the way her shoulders were heaving I was sure she was going to get cream cheese on herself. I held it as far from her as I could as I led her to the table and got her into a chair.

  “He said I’m suffocating him,” she sniffed loudly, “and he needs his space.”

  “Well, in that case, you’re right. He’s definitely a jerk. You’re better off without him.”

  “But I like him so much!” she howled, contradicting what she’d said less than a minute ago. “How could he do this to me?”

  “Guys are weird, Betts, you know that. Sometimes they break up with girls because they like them too much and they can’t handle it.”

  “You think he broke up with me because he likes me a lot?” The idea seemed to interest her, and it looked for a few seconds as if she might stop crying.

  I nodded emphatically. “I bet that’s it all right. He probably got scared by his own emotions. Mom told me how that can happen. Something about commitment phobia.”

  “Commitment phobia,” Betts repeated slowly. She sniffed again. “But what do I do about it? If he’s scared to like me, he’s never going to go out with me again.”

  “Not necessarily.” I tried to remember the details of some of the talks Mom and I had had about relationships. “I think that if you handle it right, he’ll end up being more interested in you in the long run.”

  “How?”

  “Uh, let me see. Don’t call him, don’t go out of your way to talk to him, pretend you couldn’t care less. And never let him see that you’re sad or upset.”

  She looked doubtful, but at least she wasn’t crying anymore. “I’ll try it,” she said, lifting her chin. Then she added, “You’re lucky, you know.”

  “How come?”

  “‘Cause your mom talks to you about stuff like this. My mother hardly ever has time to talk about anything. She’s always too busy.”

  I felt good about that. After Betts left I went to look for Mom to tell her I was going to Greg’s for a while. I thought I might like to give her a hug too.

  I checked through the house and found her just coming out of her darkroom. I told her about my plans for the day, and then noticed that she had just hung some new pictures up. They looked pretty good.

  “Can I see these?” I asked, pointing to the wall where clips held them in place.

  “Sure. I was getting some nature shots the other day, but I don’t think I quite captured what I wanted to.”

  I stepped into the room and peered at the glossy black and white pictures. There was one of a squirrel sitting on a branch, its eyes bright and alert.

  “This one’s really good,” I commented as my eyes travelled along the others. My gaze stopped suddenly as I spied a picture of myself walking away from the school.

  “Hey! That’s me.” “

  Goodness, how did that happen? I must have mistaken you for a raccoon or something.”

  “Mom!” Her jokes were pretty dumb sometimes, but I’d usually laugh anyway because of the way she’d giggle when she told one.

  “I have quite a few pictures of you that you didn’t know were being taken. I like them a lot because they’re so natural.”

  “Can I see the rest of them?” I was surprised and naturally curious.

  “They’re here, in this folder.” She hauled open a filing cabinet drawer and pulled out one of the pale yellow folders nestled inside, passing it to me. “Be sure to put them all back when you’re through.”

  Then she headed toward the stairs, calling over her shoulder, “I’m off to Ethel’s place now. I told her I’d be there by two o’clock, but it never hurts to be early.”

  Ethel is a neighbor of ours who has multiple sclerosis. Mom helps her with her housework once a week, just out of kindness. That’s what my mom is like.

  I opened the folder and was about to start looking through it when something in what she’d just said jogged in my brain.

  It never hurts to be early.

  What if I showed up at Greg’s place at two instead of three? I could pretend I’d gotten the times mixed up and then just ask his dad if I could look at more of the books while I waited for him. It was perfect.

  I stuck the file back into place and hurried to my room to get ready. If I walked quickly, I could be there well before Greg got home.

  It was five minutes after two when I reached their house. I figured that still gave me enough time to at least get a quick look at the scrapbooks, since it would take Greg twenty minutes to walk home from Broderick’s. But when I knocked on the door, there was no answer. I went around the back of the house, just in case Mr. Taylor was outside, but there was no sign of him.

  That was when I noticed a thin curl of smoke coming from the far side of their storage shed.

  I ran around the shed to get a better look and saw that flames were just starting to lick the outside of the building. I scooped snow on it frantically to smother the flames before they got out of hand. They sizzled and sputtered for a few moments and then went out.

  Looking around, I noticed that the snow had been stirred up and there were pine needles laying in it here and there. I followed the trail it created out to the street where a broken bough lay discarded. Whoever had been there had taken care to cover their tracks.

  I was still standing there when I saw Greg coming along the street. He raised his arm in a wave and called my name cheerily.

  As he got closer, I blurted out what I’d just discovered and we went together to examine the damage to the building. It was minimal, a few scorched areas where the flames had begun to burn before I’d p
ut the fire out.

  “Thank goodness you were here,” Greg said solemnly. “That building is pretty close to the house, and there’s a breeze blowing this way. It wouldn’t have taken much for the house to catch too.”

  “It would be awful to lose your house for the second time,” I commented.

  He looked hard at me then, and I blushed when I realized what I’d just said. He’d never mentioned anything about the fire that had claimed his mother’s life, so it had to be obvious to him that I’d been listening to the town gossip.

  “Yes, for the second time.” His eyes bored into me and for a second I felt afraid, although I wasn’t really sure why. It felt as though he was looking for something that I didn’t want him to find.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  We went into the house then, and Greg called the police to report the fire. While we waited for them to arrive I mulled over some perplexing questions. The big one, of course, was who had set the Taylor’s shed on fire? It couldn’t have been Greg, since he was nowhere near when it happened. And where was Mr. Taylor? Was it possible that he knew Greg was responsible for the other fires? He might have heard the rumours that centred on him and figured that if the police were watching him, they’d soon realize that the culprit was actually Greg. Could have set his own building on fire in order to draw suspicion away from his son?

  The police cruiser pulled into the driveway before I’d had a chance to work my way through this new tangle of clues. Greg got up to meet them at the door. He explained that I’d been the one who’d discovered smoke coming from the shed, and they asked me a bunch of questions and then got me to sign a written statement.

  I felt a little guilty when they asked me if there was anything else I could tell them. I knew they meant about the fire at the Taylors’, but it didn’t make me feel any better when I said there was nothing else, since I had a key piece of evidence under the step at my house. That reminded me that I’d meant to move the mitten to another hiding place, but I couldn’t worry about that right then.

  They were there for almost an hour, and Mr. Taylor still hadn’t come home. Greg was surprised that his dad wasn’t there and hadn’t left a note or anything.

  “He always leaves a message telling me where he’ll be if he’s going out,” Greg commented to me after the police left. “It’s strange that he didn’t this time.”

  Strange unless he expected the house to be on fire by the time Greg got home, I thought. In that case, leaving a note would be a waste of time. Naturally, I kept that thought to myself.

  “Well, I’ve got to get cleaned up and changed,” Greg said then. “I won’t be long.”

  “No rush,” I assured him, meaning it. “Do you mind if I have another look at your library while you’re in the shower?”

  “Of course not. Make yourself at home.”

  I listened carefully as he headed upstairs and was pleased to hear several squeaks when his feet touched some of the old wooden steps. Reminding myself to stay alert so that I’d hear the same sounds when he was returning, I grabbed a book from one of the shelves and sat on the floor beside the spot that held the scrapbooks. All I’d have to do was put them back when I heard him coming and pretend to be looking through the book.

  Still, my heart was pounding as I reached for the first volume of family mementos. It held a collection of cards, many of them handmade by Greg, the kind you do in school for special occasions for your parents. I flipped through it quickly and stuck it back in place, taking out another.

  In the pages of the second book were pressed flowers and leaves, tiny bags of sand, and similar tokens from nature. Among these were snapshots of Greg’s parents, sometimes both of them, sometimes just one or the other. Greg appeared in a few too, and each page was neatly labelled in fine script with details of the date, place, and occasion. It was like a trip through day-to-day events that had been part of the family’s life: a day at the beach, a walk through the woods, and vacations they had taken.

  I fared no better in the third book, finding more pictures, ticket stubs from movies or social events, napkins from restaurants, and other such souvenirs. There were now only two scrapbooks left to look through. I glanced nervously toward the stairs, listening. To my relief I heard water running, which meant Greg must still be in the shower.

  A surge of excitement ran through me when I opened the next book and found that it contained newspaper clippings. The first few were their engagement and wedding announcements, then there were some that must have been about friends or relatives of the Taylors. There was a clipping about Mr. Taylor’s appointment at the university, and a few about organizations in which they were involved. I turned the pages impatiently.

  “Blaze Claims Life of Local Woman.” At last! Something about the fire! I scanned through the columns, reading the story as quickly as I could. It was a pretty factual account, telling only that the fire had broken out during the night, that father and son had escaped but that Mrs. Taylor had not. It ended with a statement that the cause of the fire was under investigation.

  I turned the page and the next heading leapt out at me: “Arson Suspected in Fire at Professor’s Home.” The beginning of that story basically recounted some of the details in the first story, but then it went on to say that investigators believed the origin of the fire to be suspicious.

  “We’re not ruling anything out at this point,” the fire marshal was quoted as saying, “but evidence points toward the fire having been deliberately set.”

  I drew in a deep breath, finished the rest of the story, and then looked across to the next page. The heading there read simply “Culprit Found!” As my eyes shifted to the first line in the body of the story I was stunned to see that it began with the words “Greg Taylor”.

  “May I ask what you’re doing, Shelby?”

  The scrapbook went flying out of my hands, and I jumped to my feet and whirled around to find Mr. Taylor standing in the doorway. I’d been so intent on listening for Greg’s approach that I hadn’t even thought of his father. Now he stood there, his face a cold mask of politeness. In spite of that, I could see anger in his eyes.

  “I was just waiting for Greg,” I stammered, feeling heat rush to my face.

  He didn’t answer. Instead, his eyes moved to the scrapbook, now lying open on the floor. I started to bend down to get it, but he lifted a hand up, like a little stop sign, and moved towards it himself.

  Culprit Found. Greg Taylor...; The words pounded in my head even as I tried to think of some reasonable explanation for what I’d just been discovered doing. I watched as Mr. Taylor reached for the scrapbook and looked to see what I’d been reading. He folded it closed and sat it carefully back on the shelf with the others. As he straightened up to face me again, Greg bounded down the stairs and into the room.

  “Hey, you’re home.” Speaking to his father, Greg’s smile faded. He could see that something was wrong and naturally assumed it was about the fire on their property. “I guess Shelby filled you in on what happened.”

  “Shelby,” his father told him with the calm tone of a person holding anger in check, “was otherwise occupied when I arrived.”

  “Then you don’t know about the fire. When Shelby got here the shed out back was just starting to burn. She put it out with snow.” Greg smiled proudly in my direction as he finished speaking.

  “Our shed? Our shed was on fire?” Mr. Taylor sounded dismayed but there was no real shock in his voice.

  Greg gave his father the detailed account of the fire. I glanced at Mr. Taylor’s face a few times but was still too mortified to look at him for long. It was hard to tell, from quick peeks, whether he was truly startled by the news or just acting a part.

  “Where were you anyway?” Greg thought to ask his dad. “There was no note or anything when I got home.”

  “As a matter of fact, I was called into town suddenly. Actually, I was sent on a wild goose chase.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I received a phon
e call from a young lady who told me you’d been hurt at work and were being taken to the hospital.” He paused, considering. “Obviously it was a ploy to get me out of the house. Now that I think about it more, she may have been trying to disguise her voice.”

  Mr. Taylor turned then and stared at me. Surely he didn’t think I had made the call! It looked very much as if he did.

  “Why would anyone do that?” Greg asked, missing the look his father had given me.

  “Perhaps the caller wanted to make sure I was gone so she could set the fire. Or perhaps she had something else in mind, and the fire was a coincidence. Why don’t you ask your friend here what she was doing when I came into the room?”

  “What were you doing, Shelby?”

  I couldn’t find my voice to answer him, so his father did.

  “The truth is, son, this friend of yours was snooping through our family scrapbooks.”

  Greg looked shocked, and I couldn’t help but wonder, even in my embarrassment, if it was because he was afraid of what I’d seen.

  Culprit Found. Greg Taylor...;

  “Now, Miss Belgarden, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to come with me.”

  “What are you going to do to me?” My voice was barely a whisper.

  “I think you already know that, Shelby. You’ve really left me with no choice.”

  As soon as he said that, I knew Mr. Taylor had figured out that I knew Greg was the one setting fires. He was going to have to silence me to protect his son.

  The scene I’d imagined only days before came rushing back at me, only it didn’t seem so exciting any more. My stomach twisted in knots and a cold shudder ran through me.

  There was only one thing I could do. I lifted my chin and tried to keep my voice from shaking.

  “Wait! I know that you want to protect Greg, but I have it all written down. And I have evidence that proves it. If anything happens to me, you’ll both be arrested.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN