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“Hey, man,” Miles says, clapping me on the back. He’s my go-to tattoo artist and a good friend of mine. His wife Jacqui is talking to Penny.
“Hey,” I say, chuckling.
“Torran filled me in on what’s been going on. Fucking crazy, man.”
“I know. Not knowing is the worst part.”
“I can imagine.”
“Hopefully, it’ll be over soon.”
“Hopefully. Jacqui says the girls are scared.”
“We’ve got them under close watch, but nothing feels like it’s enough.”
“Did you see the game yesterday?” Sterling asks, coming over to us.
“Beat New York by two runs,” I say, smiling. Baseball isn’t my usual sport of choice, but I’ll watch it if it’s on.
“Yeah. Texas tonight. It should be a good one too.”
All talk of what’s going on is forgotten as we sit down to eat. It’s nice to just be in the moment and not think about what will go wrong next.
Later in the evening, most people are gone. Torran and Migan, El and Kitty, Penny, and I sit around the big table on the deck. The girls are downing ice water while the guys have a beer. It must have been ninety-five degrees out today, so instead of a bonfire, I have the big fan on. Torran and Migan’s kids, Tova and Tove, are inside, lying down with El and Kitty’s daughter, Kiersten, and our son Zeb.
“What the hell is with this weather?” Penny says, fanning herself.
“It's summer in Minnesota. It’ll be blizzard weather before you know it,” Kitty replies.
“Ugh, don’t remind me,” El says.
“You don’t like winter?” I ask.
“Hell no,” he says.
“You picked the wrong fucking state to live in,” Torran says, chuckling.
“What’s on fire?” Migan asks, sitting up in her chair. As soon as she says it, I pick up the scent. Getting up, I run around to the front of the house and see Torran’s truck on fire.
“Call 911,” I shout and get the hose from the holder on the side of the house." El and Torran skid around the corner, the latter on the phone. As I start hosing the fire down, it spreads to Kitty and El’s van.
“Fuck,” El says.
“Kick that gas can out of the way,” I shout, knowing that sounds insane, but I know it’s going to be the only shred of evidence. El does it, grumbling the whole time. I can’t believe that someone was this close to the house. This close to Zeb and Penny. I can hear sirens, thankful the fire department is nearby. Fuck it; everything is nearby in Moosehead.
The girls come around the corner.
“Stay back,” Torran says. Two of them are pregnant, and none of them need to be breathing in this smoke.
The sheriff pulls up but far enough back that his car won’t be in danger. The fire truck screeches to a halt and does whatever the hell it is firefighters do, and I move over to Lief.
“What the hell happened here?” he asks.
“Sheriff, I have no idea. One minute we were in the back, and then we smelled the smoke.”
“You sure you don’t have any idea who’s behind this mess?”
Penny and Migan exchange guilty glances, causing me to frown.
“We think it might be a girl from school. Jasmine Bradbury,” Migan says.
“Jasmine Bradbury?” Leif says, writing down the name in his little notebook.
“Yeah. She didn’t like the fact that I earned a grant, and she didn’t. I never thought she’d be capable of something like this, though.”
“Neither of us did.”
“Do you know where she is now?”
“No. I found her on social media, but it’s all private.”
“I’d be private too if I were going around trying to run people over,” Leif says, chuckling at his own joke. When no one else laughs, he clears his throat before speaking again. “I know how troubling all this has been, but this is good information to start with. We’ll get the investigation started,” he says, gesturing to his deputies Montgomery and Horace. They are both new to Moosehead PD, so I don't know much about them yet, but they seem like nice guys.
“Very good. I’ll just run these guys and the kids home.”
“Sounds good.”
“I had El kick the gas can out of the way, so we haven't touched it. It was just on the ground by the driver side tire on Torran’s truck.”
He nods and moves off in the direction of the deputies. We grab the kids and load them up into the van. While we just have Zeb, we carpool to pick kids up and drop them off at daycare, so we are flush with car seats.
After I drop everybody off, I head back home. The fire trucks are gone, but the cars are just now being loaded on the wrecker. My buddy, Jedrek Adamski, owns the towing company and body shop in Bleak. He'll take care of the cars and get rentals out here from Minneapolis.
“We’re heading out, Jace.,” Leif says.
