Final Scream

  “Brig had gone to the gristmill to have it out with Jed Baker. They’d already fought at our place, but Brig was convinced that Jed was up to no good. And Brig knew that Jed had set up a meeting with Angie. She’d told him so earlier. So he rode his motorcycle to the mill. But it was too late. By the time he got to the mill, it was in flames. He saw Willie there and ran inside, pulling Willie to safety before he went back in and tried to get Jed, to save him.” His eyes seemed suddenly dead, his voice barely a whisper. “He couldn’t, though—a wall of fire was between them.”

  “And Angie—?”

  Chase’s gaze drifted to a distance she couldn’t see. “He was too late for her, too.”

  “Oh, God.” Cassidy felt suddenly cold, as if she’d stepped into a dark, frigid lake. She remembered the fire, the bank of flames that had reached for the sky, the stench of smoke, the ugly, blinding fear…

  Chase’s gaze returned to hers. “He said you helped him escape. Insisted he take your horse.”

  She nodded mutely.

  “And you gave him your St. Christopher’s medal.” He was staring at her with such intensity that she couldn’t look away. “I think he kept it with him all the time. He was wearing it the night he came back.”

  Tears filled her eyes, and she clamped her teeth together to keep from crying. Her cup dropped to the porch and rolled off the edge into the sword ferns and azaleas. “He never forgot you, Cass.”

  “Why did he come back now?”

  He glanced away.

  “Chase—? What did he say?”

  Chase rolled off the lounge and sat on the coffee table, where she’d braced her bare feet. He straddled her legs and held her ankles, his hands warm and comforting against her skin. “That it was time. He was back because he wanted to find out who set the fire; he felt that he’d been framed, and now that he had the money and what he thought was the perfect disguise, he wanted to start looking for answers. He asked me to help him. Buying lumber and all, that was just a cover-up.”

  “But wouldn’t people have recognized him? He didn’t have the beard anymore—”

  “No one else would see him for a while and he looked different. His nose had been broken again and he’d been in some kind of accident while he was working in one of the mills. His face had changed quite a bit.”

  “Did you recognize him?”

  He swallowed, the tips of his fingers grazing her calves before he stood and drew her to her feet. “Of course.”

  “Would I?”

  He stared down at her for endless seconds. When he spoke, his voice was low, filled with emotions she didn’t begin to understand. “I don’t think so, Cass.”

  Clouds shifted, blotting out the sun.

  “I would have liked to say good-bye.”

  His arms tightened around her, pulling her close. “Me, too.”

  She slid her hands around his waist and held on tight. “I—I’m sorry for all the pain I caused you. Because of Brig—”

  “Shh. It’s over.” His breath stirred her hair.

  Tears slid down her cheeks. “Is it?” She wondered if it ever would be, or if the ghost of Brig McKenzie would haunt them forever.

  “If we let it die.”

  “How can we? Until we find out who burned the mill, who killed Angie, who—” She shuddered and her hands splayed over the back of his shirt, feeling the sinewy strength of his muscles beneath the cotton fabric. “Who was the father of her baby?”

  “You think it was his?” Chase asked, not moving, his body suddenly rigid.

  “I don’t know, oh, God, I don’t know.” She clung to him desperately, her hands creeping up against the smooth skin of his shoulders. He kissed her then, his lips full, his eyes bright from his own emotions.

  “Cass, I love you,” he said, blinking hard, as if the admission were deplorable, as if uttering those three little words would alter the course of their lives.

  And then it hit her. Like a lightning bolt thrust from the sky by angry gods. Oh, God, no. Not now! “What?” she whispered in a voice so low it was barely audible. “What did you call me?”

  “Cassidy—”

  “No—no—” The porch seemed to shift and buckle beneath her bare feet. “You’ve been calling me Cass ever since the fire and you never used to…oh, God…” Pictures spun in her mind. Chase stepping out of the shower, with only a towel slung around his waist, dressed in his sweatpants, his shirt off, naked in bed last night, in the water swimming this morning. She began to shake.

  “What—?”

  Her hands moved over his shoulders, fingertips searching, finding nothing. Nothing!

  “Cassidy?”

  “Let me go!” She wrenched away, staring at him in horror. Her palms were sweaty with dread, her heart pumping out of control. “Take it off,” she ordered.

  “What?”

  “Your shirt, take it off!” she nearly screamed, afraid she was going out of her mind.

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  His blue eyes fixed to hers, he slid his arms through the sleeves and held the crumpled shirt in one big fist.

  “Turn around.”

  “Are you out of your mind?”

  “Turn around, damn it!” she said, and he did, lifting his hands over his head as if he had nothing to hide, and there was his back, smooth and perfect, a few scars from his recent accident visible, but the old injury, the bullet hole in his shoulder, the one Brig had inflicted on Chase by accident when they were children, the one she’d traced dozens of times before, was missing.

  “How could you?” she said as he spun slowly and faced her. His eyes held hers for a second that seemed to last forever. She could barely stand, and a noise as loud as the sea roared in her ears. Disbelieving, she watched his chin harden and his shoulders straighten, and all of a sudden the truth was so clear to her—so damned evident she couldn’t believe she hadn’t seen it before—that everyone who’d met him hadn’t seen it. “You’re not my husband…not Chase…” Her knees gave way, and she sagged against the wall for support. Her bones felt heavy, and darkness teased the corners of her eyes.

  “Cass—”

  “Don’t. Don’t call me that!” Hysteria welled up in her throat, blinding her to anything but the damning truth. How could she have been so blind? The intensity of his gaze, the line of his jaw, the arrogance of his lips, the way his shirts stretched across his shoulders. “Chase is dead, isn’t he?” she said, tears filling her eyes. “My husband. He’s dead!”

  He reached for her and she shrank away, afraid of his touch, of his gaze, of him. “Don’t!”

  “Cass, listen—please, just try and understand—”

  “Understand? Understand? Listen to what you’re asking, for God’s sake!”

  His fingers closed into a fist. “I didn’t mean to—”

  “Like hell! This was all part of your plan! Oh, God, I’ve been such a fool, such a damned fool!” Her voice rose an octave, and her breath was tight in her lungs. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t think. “Of course you meant to. You’ve known the truth all along and you kept it from me—from your mother. From everyone.” Her voice broke and she felt her lips tremble. “I can’t believe I was so stupid, so damned blind.”

  Again he stepped forward, and she nearly tripped as she scrambled away from him. “Don’t you ever touch me again,” she warned, her voice threatening, her hands feeling along the wall as she inched toward the door, the skin of her palms scraping against the rough siding.

  “If you’ll just stop for a minute and listen—”

  “I don’t want to hear it.”

  “You have to!”

  She halted then, stopped dead in her tracks. He was right, though she was loath to admit it. She couldn’t run away, and so there, in the shadows of the porch, she paused, lifting her chin, damning him with her gaze. “For the love of God, Brig McKenzie, what have you done?”

  Forty-two

  He should have told her in the b
eginning. Hell, he’d meant to. Planned to. He’d never intended to deceive her, not this way, but he’d had no choice. His back was to the wall. And now she detested him. Standing defiantly in front of him, trembling, afraid to take a step nearer, she didn’t move.

  “Why did you lie?” she demanded.

  “I didn’t. You all assumed that I was Chase.”

  “Your identification—the medal…” Her voice was stronger now, filled with new, conflicting emotions.

  “Switched. Chase was pinned, I tried to get him free but couldn’t, and it was his idea,” Brig admitted, the horror of that night haunting him as it had since the fire…

  Bang!

  Brig was thrown across the large room as an explosion boomed through the mill. He landed on the floor, a dozen feet from where he and Chase had stood.

  Beams broke and fell, bringing the ceiling with them.

  Supports buckled.

  Flames crackled skyward.

  Brig scrambled to his feet. He had to get out. Now.

  Smoke billowed through the hole in the roof. “Chase!” he yelled, his voice already raw. “Where the hell are you?” He squinted, eyes searching the rubble, burning from the acrid smoke. “Chase!”

  “Here! Get out. Now!” Chase was heading toward him, dragging a leg.

  Bam! The second explosion ripped through the mill and the roof above Chase tumbled downward, old wooden beams, steel roof, metal girders, collapsing.

  “Chase, run!”

  But it was too late.

  One of the beams slammed across Chase’s body. With a wail of pain, he went down, the beam pinning him to the floor.

  “No!” Brig dashed through the smoke and dust, finding his brother bleeding, half-conscious, the lower part of his body crushed. “Come on, come on,” he said to his brother as Chase moaned. “I’ll get you out of here.”

  And he meant it. Despite the wall of flames, the blistering heat and the smoke that burned his lungs, making him cough and retch, he was going to pull his brother from this inferno.

  He tried to lift the beam. On his knees, wedging his body beneath the heavy timber. “I’ll push up, you crawl out!” he ordered.

  “I can’t, man. I can’t move.” Chase’s voice was panicked.

  “Sure you can, it’s the beam.”

  “No, Brig, I can’t feel anything down there. Oh, God.”

  Brig pushed the beam with all his strength, his muscles quivering, sweat running in his eyes. “Damn it, Chase, move!” he yelled, willing his brother out of this funeral pyre.

  “I’m telling you, I can’t!”

  “Get out now!” Brig’s muscles were straining, bulging, his teeth bared with the effort, searing, smoky air burning through his lungs. “Chase, now, dammit!”

  “Brig, stop. Just take my wallet,” Chase said. “I can’t move.”

  “I’ll get help.”

  The fire roared around them in hot, wild waves.

  “It’ll be too late. Hell, Brig, take the damned wallet!” Chase yelled, his voice a rasp as he lay pinned to the floor, his face bloody, his back crushed. “Leave yours with me!” he insisted as the smoke billowed to the sky and fire roared all around them.

  “No way, I’m getting you out of here!” The heat blistered, the fire raged, and when Brig threw all of his strength into moving the beam again, Chase screamed in pain.

  “Get out! Now.” Blue eyes looked up desperately through the smoke. Somehow, he’d been able to pull his wallet from his pants. “Take my ID, leave yours with me,” he pleaded, coughing…“say you’re me. For God’s sake, save yourself!”

  “No. You’ll be fine.” You’ve got to be!

  “For Christ’s sake, Brig, it’s over!”

  “I’ll get help!”

  “Switch the damn wallets! And take my ring. Do it for Cassidy!”

  “No, Chase, I’ll get—”

  “Shut up and do this. For Cassidy and me!” Chase was breathing hard, blood running from his nose and mouth, his teeth bared against the pain. “For once in your life don’t be so damned selfish!”

  He’d done it. Quickly, taking the wallet from Chase’s outstretched hand and yanking off Chase’s wedding ring before placing his billfold into Chase’s palm and curling his fingers over the worn leather.

  “Good.” Chase’s voice was frail. His eyes rolled back in his head as Brig jerked the chain from his neck and threaded it through Chase’s fingers.

  “Hang in there! I’ll be right back.” Scared witless, Brig ran back to the office. Flames crackled and hissed, devouring sawdust, chips, lumber, anything in their path and licking to the night-black sky. Heart drumming, Brig coughed as black, cloying smoke billowed toward the heavens and filled his lungs. “Please God—”

  This couldn’t be happening! Not again! He yanked the door to the office open. Heat seared his lungs. The door was wrenched from his hand as another explosion rocked the mill. Sparks spewed upward in a geyser of fiery embers. His feet were blasted off the ground. He flew backward. The sky was a blur—black and orange, alive with flames and so damned hot! He tried to break his fall. His wrist snapped as he smacked against the ground and his leg twisted back on itself. Pain ripped up his arm and knee and he screamed. A flying piece of metal slammed against the back of his head. “Chase!” he yelled as the lights behind his eyes nearly blinded him. Pain exploded in his temple near his right eye. Screaming, he felt the blackness surround him. Just before he lost consciousness he was thankful that he wouldn’t feel the agony of the flames that were sure to devour him body and soul.

  Days later he awoke in the hospital and everyone was calling him by his brother’s name.

  Now, it was time to come clean. Just as he’d told himself he would, once he was out of the hospital and on his feet again.

  “Who did this?” Cassidy demanded. “Who set the fires? Derrick?” She blinked rapidly and he saw that she was holding on to her composure by a thin, unraveling thread.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I’m going to find out. I promised Chase.”

  “Lies, Brig,” she accused, white and shaking and staring at him as if he were Satan incarnate. “You were there! Both times!”

  “I didn’t start either of the fires. Swear to God.”

  She stared at him as if she wanted desperately to believe him. “Who would want to kill Chase?”

  Guilt settled over him like lead, weighing his shoulders, squeezing his insides. “Lots of people, I think. He knew that Derrick was skimming money, knew about Rex and Sunny, knew way too much. He’d made his share of enemies over the years, but in the beginning, when the first fire was set, no one would want him dead.” He shoved his hands deep into his pockets. “I think they were trying to kill me in the fire in the gristmill that killed Angie. I think whoever was behind the first fire mistook Jed Baker for me. They expected me to be with Angie that night. I’d been her date at the Caldwells’ party.”

  “You think they were trying to kill you,” she repeated, as if a light were dawning in her mind.

  “Maybe this time, too.”

  “Then—and now? But who? No one knew you were back—”

  “Someone did.”

  “Who?” she repeated as she thought of all the enemies Brig had made in the years he’d been in Prosperity.

  “Willie knew. He was at both fires. He saw me.”

  Her eyes turned dull. “You’re not going to blame this on a poor man who can’t—”

  “My mother knew, too. She sensed it, I think. That day in the hospital, she knew who I was. Touched my hand and didn’t even blink, just said she’d been waiting to see me again for a long time. Called me by name.” Brig was moving slowly toward Cassidy, closing the distance, dying a little as she shrank away from him and surveyed him with wild, frightened eyes.

  “Sunny didn’t set fire to the mill. For God’s sake, Brig, listen to you!”

  “Of course she didn’t. But if Sunny and Willie knew, others did, too.”

  “Or else som
eone was trying to kill Chase,” she whispered, “and when they find out they missed, they’ll try again.” She looked up at him, fear shining in her eyes. “They’ll murder you, too.”

  “Unless we stop them.” He touched the side of her face with a finger and she closed her eyes for a second. He felt her quiver, then she yanked backward, repulsed.

  “I…I can’t…Brig…I…for God’s sake, please don’t touch me. I can’t even believe that we’re having this conversation.” But she’d known. Part of her had sensed that he wasn’t the same, wasn’t her husband. Though she’d denied it consciously, she’d felt a difference, not only in him, but in her response as well. Why else had she decided against the divorce that she was so adamant about before the fire, why else had she pleaded for a second chance, why else had she clung desperately to him when he’d so callously tried to keep her at arm’s length? Because of some skewed sense of loyalty? Because the fire had made her see how much she loved her husband? Because her faith prevented her from divorcing him? Or because some sixth sense had told her that he was Brig?

  Sick with herself, with him, guilt riding heavy on her shoulders, she walked past him and into the den to Chase’s private stock of Scotch, but as she retrieved the bottle, she saw herself in the mirror over the bar and Brig’s reflection as he stood in the doorway.

  “You want a drink?” she asked.

  “Yeah, but I don’t think it’s the time.”

  “Wh—what are you going to do?” Her hands were unsteady and she forced them deep into the pockets of her robe. Dear God, what now? She was married to Chase and he was dead; she’d slept with Brig, given herself to him, closed her eyes to the blatant lies, just as she had in the past.

  She was angry with him for deceiving her, angry with herself for falling for him again and scared out of her mind. There was a lunatic on the loose. Someone who wanted Chase or Brig dead.

  “What am I going to do?” he repeated. “I’m going to figure out who did this. Wait here.” He hurried down the hall with his uneven gait, and Cassidy collapsed in a corner of a couch. She held her head in her hands, hoping that the throbbing in her head and the ache deep in her soul would disappear. She’d always been in love with Brig, but now it seemed vile, a schoolgirl fantasy turned the work of the devil.