She smiled, shutting the door gently behind her.
The papers were crinkling along nicely now, the fire licking at the leg of the desk near my head.I could feel my scalp starting to redden, the smell of singing hair mingling with the paper and butane.“Damn it, why couldn’t Charlemagne bring me a knife or something?”I muttered, struggling to untie the unholy complicated knot she’d made.With one arm out of commission, it took far longer than I wanted to get my good arm untied.By then, the desk leg was blackening, the varnish starting to crackle and bubble.The acrid smell of smoke was starting to fill the room and outside, Muffin was going absolutely bananas.I struggled to my feet, dizziness swamping me for just a few moments, and staggered to the settee draped with one of Ben’s mother’s quilts.“Sorry, Mrs.Witte,” I muttered.“But I’m sure you’d understand.”
The fire was still small enough to smother and stamp out, but my head ached and felt blistered in patch.My arm was screaming in pain—I was fairly certain she’d rebroken it—and in the hallway, the smoke alarm started to shrill and, through the cacophony, the sound of a cat’s yowl erupted.
Chapter 17
Smoke was hazy in theair as I lurched into the hallway.Muffin’s frantic barks and howls were now accompanied by the thump of his body hitting the kitchen door over and over as he tried to escape.Charlemagne’s yowls were constant but, I realized, not solitary.Gwendolyn was crying, shrilly and wordlessly trying to make Charlemagne leave her alone.He had attached himself to her arm, blood dripping from the punctures of his claws and teeth.“You are disgusting goblin,” she shrieked at him.“I should have killed you first!”
“Leave him alone!”I grabbed the nearest object—a beautiful Tiffany style table lamp with a heavy base—and lifted it with my one good hand.Charlemagne seemed to take this as encouragement, giving his head a shake that made Gwendolyn’s screams even more piercing.“That fire was never going to be enough to kill me,” I shouted over the din.“What are you doing?”
“You think that was all the fuel I brought?I’m not an idiot,” she snapped wetly.
The screaming alarm, the cat, her sobs, Muffin’s frantic escape attempts, were all momentarily silenced by the keening cry of an emergency services siren.
Someone had called the cops.
I’d never been so happy to have neighbors as in that moment.“Talk to me,” I urged.“Before they come in here.Maybe I can help you.”
“Oh my god,” Gwendolyn groaned.“Do you really believe you’re one of your characters, Damien?Some heart of gold boy next door with bland good looks who can turn the world around with the power of caring?”
I blinked, rocking back on my heels as the sirens pulled into the drive and up onto the yard.Ben was going to lose his mind about that—he’d just had those bulbs planted.“No,” I said simply.“I’m just not a murdering asshole.”
Charlemagne held fast until I unlocked the door to let the police in.Heath, Cherry, a deputy I didn’t recognize and some people in office wear poured into the foyer.“She’s over here,” I sighed, everything hurting.“Be careful, she’s bleeding.”
Heath peeled away to stand in front me.“Damien, Christ...”
“No, it’s Damien Murphy,” I said, the swimmy woozy feeling in my head starting to spread down my neck and into my stomach.
Heath let out a shaky laugh.“What the hell is happening here?I was at the inn when Cherry took a call from one of your neighbors about a woman screaming.The MCU folks were down to pick up evidence and...”he trailed off.“You don’t look good.”
“Just what a boy wants to hear,” I slurred, leaning forward as my eyes closed and everything felt too heavy, too fast, and too loud all at once.
#
THE COUNTY HOSPITALperched at the top of Malm's Corner like a Brutalist guardian, the bulky gray shape a blot on the gentle rise of pine and oak.It also had really good drugs.
