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“It’s what you’ve been working towards!”
“You’re a hero—”
“Hey, Turners! Calm down!” Ryan yelled, walking back into the room. “What’s going on?”
“Stace wants to quit the brigade,” Amanda said.
Ryan frowned.
“I made everyone worry.” I glanced at each of them. “I can’t have you thinking I might die every time I do my job.”
Ryan opened his mouth but I held up a hand. “I’m not a hero. I was just lucky. Look, I could have died in the ute because I blacked out for a bit after I crashed. Someone ran me off the road.”
Mum stifled a cry and clutched my hand again.
“Police want to talk to you about the car accident,” Ryan said quietly. “Police told me the crash investigators know you collided first with the telephone pole before the fire came, but they need your statement.”
“Yeah, well, I swerved, or I would have had a head-on collision with him. He was on the wrong side of the road.”
“Him? It was a guy?” Ryan asked.
I blinked several times. “It was a white ute, like any farm ute in the area. I, umm, don’t actually know if it was a him or a her. Hasn’t anyone come forward about the near collision?”
Silence fell briefly on our little group. Ryan shook his head.
“You should also know the fire is being investigated as suspicious. They are treating it as an arson case. They want to rule you out, of course.”
“Arson.” I shifted in the bed. “That could mean one of us, someone in Ballydoon, is lighting fires.”
“We’ll get them, Stace,” Tom whispered. “We’ll figure out who did this.”
I nodded absently, and then noticed the wall of flowers to my right for the first time.
“Bloody hell,” I whispered.
“They’re from friends and family,” Mum said. “The purple roses in the middle are from Wendy and Dave for saving Liam. They came to see you briefly, but you were asleep.”
My eyes drifted to a tall vase with an arrangement of half a dozen peacock feathers.
“Who gave me those?”
Mum frowned in thought as Amanda moved to check. “No note on them. So many flowers arrived the first day when news got out about the fire and rescue. I’m sorry, we have no idea.”
“Sorry, love,” Mum shrugged. “I can’t remember when they even arrived either.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I smiled, delighted to have a reminder of Granny Lynn here in my room. “I love them.”
31
HARRY
Ballydoon Community Group:
Cheryl posted yesterday 5.58 p.m.:
Saw a sold sign on the old Barkleys building. What businesses would you like to see in Ballydoon?
Elsie commented: That would be great. The district needs a Kmart.
