Judgement By Fire (20 page)

*
* *

            Grayness filtered
through her eyelids as she fought to remain in the safe, black cocoon. Voices
calling her, urging her to return to a horror she didn’t want to revisit.
Firmly she shut them out. Her stomach contracted in great heaving waves of
nausea and she knew she couldn’t ignore her body’s warning. Her eyes flew open
and she surged forwards, grateful for the gentle hands which held her, stroking
her hair as she threw up into the basin held at her side.

When the
heaving convulsions passed, the gentle hands kept stroking as other, tactful
hands removed the bowl and its contents. Racked with shivering, she reached
out, her hands searching for something reassuringly solid in the suddenly
unreal abyss of her world. She touched a warm, familiar smelling body and clung
as reality came racing back to her. She closed her eyes, her head and body
resting against Jon’s broad, hard chest as his hands gently stroked her hair.

“You’re safe,
now, Lauren. I’ve got you. It’s all right. I won’t let anything hurt you.
Please be all right, my love, Lauren, Lauren.” She heard his voice, pleading
and repeating the words like a mantra until she looked directly into his eyes,
focused, and nodded that she recognized him and was back in the world again.

Seeing that
look, Jon gathered her into his arms, hugging her close with a gasp of relief
so honest, so caring that it knocked the breath out of her again. After a few
moments, he pushed back from her, holding her slightly away so he could look
into her face, into her beautiful green eyes.

“Oh, God, I
was so afraid….”.

            It seemed an eternity
that they clung to each other as Lauren gradually became more aware of her
surroundings. She recognized the newly built medical clinic, West River’s civic
pride and joy, and realized she was perched on a tall examining bed in a curtained
alcove. 

Beyond the
curtain, she could hear muffled footsteps and the murmur of anxious voices, a
child crying, as medical staff worked on the minor injuries and shock left in
the wake of the incident that had shaken the quiet village to the core. Reality
intruded too soon, and Lauren wasn’t surprised as she heard a deep, discreet
cough and managed to lift her head away from Jon’s shoulder to see Police Chief
Ohmer standing beside them, looking faintly embarrassed but very grim.

            Jon stood, releasing her
from his arms but keeping a hand on her shoulder, and Lauren almost sobbed at
the bereft feeling that surged through her at losing that close contact with
him.

            “Sorry to intrude,
folks, but I really have to talk to Miss Stephens,” Ohmer said, his tone formal
and very firm.

            “Can’t it wait,
Chief? You can see she’s still in shock.” Protective anger blazed across Jon’s
face as he regarded the other man.

            “She’s also a
material witness, the one closest to the blast which has left a dozen or so
people, many of them children, mildly injured and considerably traumatized.
That’s to say nothing of having blown the windows out of half of the main
street of my town and caused several mercifully minor traffic accidents,” Ohmer
replied, his voice hard. “Now I want an end to this before it goes any further.
Miss Stephens here is likely to have information that can help do just that.”

            Jon began to protest,
insisting Lauren be checked again by a doctor before being subjected to the
trauma of a questioning session. Lauren silenced him with a gentle hand on his
solid forearm.

            “Offer me a coffee,
Chief, and you can ask me anything you like,” she told the police Chief with an
attempt at her old humor.

The Chief nodded
at one of the other officers nearby and the man went off in search of coffee.
At least, Lauren hoped that was what he was doing. Her head ached and her
stomach was still giving ominous little cramps. Every part of her body hurt,
and as she ran a hand over her throbbing head, she gasped a little with dismay as
she felt the tender flesh and rough, ridged area of stitches there.

            “You received a
number of cuts from flying glass and debris, but that was the worst, the one
that probably knocked you out. It’s just a few stitches, and the doc says it
won’t mar your beauty,” Jon said, his effort at lightness betrayed by the angry
tightness of his mouth as his eyes swept over her face.

            Trying to keep that
lightness going, perhaps in that way she could cope right then, Lauren managed
a lopsided grin at him, reached up so that her fingers could skim the rapidly
healing cut over Jon’s own temple, and quipped, “Well, now we’re a matching
set…”

            He smiled back, the
Chief harrumphed again, a uniformed officer pushed a mug of hot, reviving
coffee into her one unbandaged hand. Ohmer began his questions.

            “What were you doing
near the information booth?”

            “I was, well, the
truth is, I was looking for Jon…Mr. Rush.”

            “Why?”

            Taken aback by the
unfriendly tone, she told herself it was just that Ohmer hated anything
untoward happening on his patch and got really stroppy when something did. She
tried to answer honestly, her eyes holding Jon’s midnight blue ones as she did
so. She wanted him to be the first to understand the message she was offering.

Even so, her
cheeks flamed a little as she told the men, “I wanted to apologize. We’d had a
fight, and I’d said some things I didn’t mean.”

            Looking at the three
men arranged around her, Jon impassive, the young uniformed cop looking
embarrassed, Chief Ohmer hard-edged and skeptical, Lauren’s face grew hot and
she buried her face in the coffee mug. Her ears were still ringing from the
effects of the blast, but she was running on adrenaline now and everything had
a sharp-edged clarity including her own discomfort at having to openly relate
something so personal. Swallowing the bitter-tasting coffee, she grimaced but
held on to the mug and smiled at the young officer, giving herself time to
gather her thoughts.

            “Chief, what happened
at the information center?” she asked.

            “That’s what we’re
hoping you can help us with.”

            “There were so many
people around, and then…I could smell smoke, saw flames through the window.
Everything just seemed to explode.”

            Chief Ohmer looked at
Lauren hard. His next words stunned her. “At this juncture, we have reason to
believe that the Avalon Hospitality mobile information unit was deliberately
sabotaged. The Fire Marshall’s verbal report suggests that some sort of small
incendiary device—probably that favorite of amateur terrorists, the Molotov
Cocktail - gasoline in a bottle with a blazing rag attached—was thrown through
a back window of the unit. Before that happened, someone must have gained entry
to the trailer because the gas taps attached to a portable tank serving the
kitchen area were left turned on. There was a lot of vinyl in the interior and
the flames took hold rapidly. As soon as the fire reached the propane tank, the
whole thing went up.”

            With shattering
force, the memory came back to her, overriding everything else. The sound of
breaking glass, the tall figure striding from behind the information booth,
herself calling and waving to the tall blond man who she had thought was Jon.
Her eyes flew to Jon’s face widening in horror. Her heart warned her not to
make the same mistake again by jumping to conclusions. Whoever she had seen
leaving the information trailer minutes before the blast, it hadn’t been Jon.
She knew that now, knew as surely as she knew her own face that while the two
figures had looked similar, there had been a difference in form and carriage.

If not Jon,
then who? Who could be so like him and so familiar to her?

Something
tugged at the edge of her memory and her mind reached out to grab it just as
Chief Ohmer interrupted with an impatient, “Well?” and the thought escaped back
into the dark recesses.

            “Perhaps I could
explain this part of it…” Jon’s voice was low and Lauren shot him a thankful
glance, knowing he was trying to spare her.

However, Chief
Ohmer interrupted his voice harsh. “I want to hear Miss Stephens’ version of
these events.”

Jon’s mouth
clamped shut on whatever retort he’d thought of making.

            “After the trouble at
my studio,” Lauren began, her voice so low that all three men had to lean
forward to hear her, the uniformed officer scribbling notes on a pad, “Jon…Mr.
Rush…kindly offered to let me stay at his home for the night. Everyone seemed
to think it was better that I should be away from West River…” Lauren looked at
Chief Ohmer and was relieved to see him nod slightly in agreement.

            “The next morning I
was supposed to travel out to West River with Mr. Dillon, the security chief at
Rush Co., who was coming out here anyway and would give me a ride. I didn’t
have a vehicle…my car was still at Haverford Castle,” Lauren felt herself
stammering, and her cheeks flamed again.

She was
stalling for time, trying to order her thoughts and conscious of a reluctance
to expose some things to open scrutiny. But one glance at Chief Ohmer’s face
and she knew she was fooling nobody; she’d have to tell everything.

            “Anyway, as we were about
to leave, Mr. Dillon got a call saying there was an emergency and he was needed
back in Toronto.”

            “Which was?”

            “That was company
business,” Lauren spluttered, glancing swiftly at Jon.

            “That was the problem
we have already discussed, Chief,” Jon interrupted.

            “I want to know if
Miss Stephens knew what the problem was,” Ohmer insisted.

            Lauren sighed. “Well,
I understood that an employee of the company had been involved in a hit and run
accident.” She looked around at the three pairs of eyes fixed on her, sighed
again. “It seems there has been an ongoing problem at Rush Co. and Mr. Dillon
seemed to believe that this lady had some information that might be helpful in
identifying the cause of those problems.”

Lauren glanced
at Jon, wondering how he felt at this company business being aired. His face
was inscrutable, his eyes a deep midnight blue in dark-ringed sockets.

            “I borrowed one of
Mr. Rush’s personal vehicles and drove myself out here. About ten miles from
home, a big Jeep with the Rush Co. insignia pushed me off the road. When I got
back to my studio, still very shaken and in pain from injuries to my wrist and
shoulder, I found Mr. Rush there with a vehicle with a damaged wing. I—I jumped
to the conclusion, which I now realize is wrong, that he’d been driving the
Jeep that had hit me.” Lauren offered an apologetic glance at Jon before taking
a deep breath and going on.

 “So, Mr. Rush
and myself, we had a difference of opinion. I’m afraid I didn’t really give him
time to explain. Later, when I’d had my wrist bandaged and some time to think,
I realized I was in the wrong and came after him. Paul Howard had told me Jon...Mr.
Rush was going to visit the mobile information unit that was being set up, so I
headed into the village to see if I could catch him either there or at the
council offices.”

            “I parked near the
mobile unit, and as I got out of my car I saw someone I thought was Jon.”

            “And where was this
person?” Ohmer interjected.

            “He…he came out from
behind the mobile unit and started to walk away from me down Balaclava Street.
I thought it was Jon and started shouting and waving, hoping to catch his
attention. I couldn’t get across the road—you know how busy it is on Saturdays.
Then I managed to cross the street, and I called his name again. I thought he’d
heard me, because he slowed down for a moment, but then seemed to walk more
quickly away. At that point, I realized it wasn’t Jon at all.” Lauren finished
in a rush, so happy to have made the point that she didn’t realize she’d
betrayed her feelings with the familiar use of Jon’s first name.

             “Then what?” Ohmer’s
tone was harsh and impatient, and Lauren was beginning to feel a nibbling of
fear.

Mike Ohmer had
usually been charming and affable with her. Now his attitude towards her seemed
definitely hostile, far more so than she would have expected in the
circumstances.

            She saw Jon dart a
brief, angry glance at the other man, then she straightened her spine and
looked the Chief directly in the eye.

“Chief Ohmer,
I’ve been through a really trying time. I’ve had my studio ransacked, I’ve been
run off the road, I’ve been blown off my feet, and I’d really appreciate it if
you could turn down the impatience just a bit. Tell me what you want to know,
I’ll answer any questions you have, and then I want to go home.”

            The Chief’s eyebrows
went up, and she noticed the young officer hid a smirk. Sometimes the best
defense is attack.

           
“Okay,
Lauren, okay.
I’ll tell you what the problem is,” Chief Ohmer had
recovered himself quickly, and despite the use of her first name, he didn’t
sound a whole lot more friendly. She shivered and Jon laid a soothing hand on
her arm.

            “It seems that
everything goes back to this campaign to stop the plans to turn Haverford
Castle into a rich folks’ spa. Now you’re a member of that ABC committee, an
active member. No surprise in that—you’ve a lot to lose if this scheme goes
ahead—a nice, comfortable, affordable studio must be important to an artist and
it would be a blow to lose that just as your career is starting to take off.
You were also a leading light in the incident that caused a near riot at the
protest near the Castle. You know the one—it was all over the papers!”