Deputy Simms had managed to climb into the SUV before Ben floored the accelerator. He sat in the passenger’s seat, with his face pressed against the glass of the window to keep an eye on the smoke. Ben was thirty miles over the speed limit, but Simms either didn’t notice or didn’t care.
“Call Cee,” Ben said, punching the voice control on the car’s steering wheel.
“Calling Cee,” the car said.
“Fancy car,” the deputy muttered to himself.
Ben listened to the series of rings until Caroline’s voice mail kicked in. He disconnected and tried not to think about the questions posed by an unanswered phone.
“Did you get a call about it?” Ben asked Simms.
“A what?” the deputy turned to him.
“A call, a 911 call about the fire.”
“Didn’t need to. That smoke can be seen for twenty miles. Chief took off like a shot, soon as he saw it.”
Ben clenched his teeth. If Caroline had called in the fire, that would have meant that she and the boys were okay.
“Were those men in the pickups the volunteers?” Ben asked. He’d passed the trucks filled with villagers the first chance he’d gotten, but he had no doubt that they were headed to the Crofts.
“Volunteers?”
“The volunteer fire department.”
“No fire department in Swannhaven,” the deputy said. “We’d have to call North Hampstead to get an engine over here.”
“If they’re not volunteers, then what are they doing?” Ben asked.
“What?”
Ben restrained himself from reaching across the gearshift and strangling the deputy.
“If they’re not members of the fire department, then why are those men in the pickups heading to my home?” Ben turned off the county road and onto the drive that led to the Crofts.
“Well, damn, everyone loves a fire, don’t they?” The deputy rolled down the window, and the air that rushed through smelled of burned wood and left a chemical taste in Ben’s mouth.
Hudson began to bark in the backseat.
“Close it, will you?” Ben said. His eyes watered. He craned his head to get a better look out the windshield. He saw part of the house and thick black smoke but couldn’t see any flames. It was hard to see much through the billowing darkness of the smoke.
“Pull ’er over here,” the deputy said, his hand already on the door handle.
“I can get closer,” Ben said. They were still a few hundred yards from the house.
“Too much smoke. This black and thick and you know something bad is burning. Don’t wanna breathe that shit in.”
Ben didn’t want to follow any of Simms’s suggestions, but he couldn’t ignore the ringing in his head, and his visibility was virtually zero.
The outline of a police cruiser was just ahead, and he pulled in behind it. The deputy sprang from the car and jogged south, perpendicular to the flow of the smoke. Hudson didn’t want to leave the car, but Ben hoisted him off the backseat and followed Deputy Simms as well as he could.
The air was relatively clean just a few yards from the road, and Ben dropped Hudson to the ground and coughed the noxious smoke from his lungs. He saw that the plume came from the shed just across from the kitchen. The shed was close enough to put the main house in danger, but Ben still couldn’t see any flames. Upslope, out of the flow of smoke, he saw Caroline and Charlie standing with Chief Stanton. She held Bub tight to her chest. He ran toward them as she ran to meet him.
“Are you all right?” he asked before starting to cough again. He took Bub from her to make sure the baby felt the way he was supposed to.
“I’m sorry,” Caroline said.
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. I don’t know,” she said. Her face was pale, her skin like marble. But it crumpled as she began to cry.
Ben pulled her close. Her sobs set her body shaking, and she seemed thin and brittle in his arms.
“Hi, Dad,” Charlie said. He pulled on the pocket of Ben’s jeans.
“Are you okay, buddy?”
“Yeah,” Charlie said. He wore his faraway look. He walked back a few feet and sat in the tall grass so that only his blue eyes and shag of black hair were visible.
“What happened?” Ben asked Caroline again. Bub smiled tightly, his little face intent upon the task of placing his lips on Ben’s cheek.
“I don’t know,” Caroline repeated. She didn’t look up from Ben’s shoulder, where her head was still buried.
“That smoke’s no good,” the chief said. The chief had a dusting of black soot all over him. Ben saw that they all did. “What’d you have in that shed?” he asked.
“Tools, lawn equipment—we store all of kinds of things in there.”
“Could be some varnishes caught on fire on account of the heat.”
“You think so?” Ben asked.
“It’s been known to happen. Especially anything with linseed oil if it’s not stored just right.”
“So damn hot today, too,” Simms said. “Would’na taken much to set her off.”
“The cussing, Simms,” the chief said. He gave Ben an apologetic look.
“Sorry, Chief,” Simms said, and spat into the grass. “You think we need an engine out here?”
“I called ’em, but that shed’s a goner no matter what.”
“Could be worse,” Ben said, more to Caroline than to anyone else. “Could be a lot worse.”
The pickups from the village began to arrive. They parked downslope from where Ben had pulled over.
“Get rid of them, Simms,” the chief said.
“They’re just tryin’a get a better look, Chief,” Simms said.
“This isn’t the circus,” the chief said. “They’re not going to be any help with a fire like this, and this smoke’s probably toxic. Tell ’em that, and see where it gets us.”
Simms headed down to the trucks.
“Much smoke inside?” the chief asked Caroline.
“The air-conditioning was on in the south part of the house, so the windows were closed. And I turned off the air before we came out here.”
“Smart thinking,” the chief said. “If the air’s still good in there, why don’t you head back in with the boys? Thank the Lord, they’re safe.”
Caroline nodded. She took Bub from Ben and threw him over her shoulder. “I’ll make something to drink for everyone.”
Ben squeezed her arm as she moved away from him.