Chapter 18

When Will pulled into the parking lot of the strip mall behind the two police cruisers, the flames were already high enough to light up the night sky. Claire let out a little groan when she saw the thick smoke billowing from the front of her store. When they got out of the car, they could hear the fire alarm in the front of the store screaming furiously.

"Stay back, please, ma'am," one of the deputies warned her as they approached the store front. "There's nothing in there that's worth your life."

"I know," Claire said. "I'm insured, anyway. But you may want to call the fire department, and tell them to bring a few extra trucks. There are a few tons of dry paper in there."

"They're already on the way."

"Busy guy, your ex," Will said. "Now he's added arson to his list of felonies."

"Yeah, he thinks that any job worth doing is worth doing well," she said as she watched the flames lapping at the sign above the entrance.

By the time the fire trucks came warbling into the parking lot, the flames shooting out of the roof were twenty feet tall. The shops in this strip mall stood wall to wall, and the fire alarms of the adjoining stores had added their protests to the general racket. People passing by on Merchants were slowing their cars and stopping in the middle of the road to watch the conflagration.

"There goes half a decade of work," Claire said as they watched the firemen unreel their hoses. "And just when the place was starting to return a nice little profit."

"I'm sorry," Will said. "We can rebuild it with the insurance money, you know."

"It'll take me a year to restock all those books," she said. "When I built the place, I worked twelve, fourteen, sixteen hours a day for the first three years. I don't know that I can put that kind of time into a new store and start from nothing again, Will."

"So we'll hire some folks to do it for us."

"Yeah, I suppose we could. But then it wouldn't be quite the same, you know? I won't be able to look back on it and say, 'I built this from scratch.'"

The parking lot of the strip mall was largely empty at night, and most of the cars on the lot were at the far end, where the Peking Garden was still doing business. As they watched, a police car pulled up in front of the restaurant, and a deputy got out and walked into the place, undoubtedly informing the staff and patrons that the place was in danger of becoming a giant Mongolian barbecue. There was a group of people already assembled on the sidewalk in front of the Peking Garden, watching the show that was unfolding at the other end of the strip mall.

Something in the far corner of the parking lot caught Will's gaze, and he raised an eyebrow.

"That's odd," he said, and Claire gave him a questioning look.

"What's that?"

"There's a car over in the corner of the lot, and he's got his lights off and his engine running. You can see the exhaust. He's parked facing our way, too."

Claire glanced into the direction indicated by Will, and narrowed her eyes.

"Ringside seat, maybe?" he asked. "You think he'd be dumb enough to stick around?"

"I wouldn't doubt it," Claire said. "You don't know him. He's been waiting for this for five years. I'm sure he wanted to see the face of the bitch when she comes over to... hey, he's moving."

The car at the far end of the lot had started rolling, and it was slowly coasting towards the exit of the lot. The lot was split in half by a curbed center access lane that led back to Merchants Road, and the driver had to come towards them to get out of the place.

"Out-of-stater," Claire said. "Front license plate. And look, he's still got his lights off."

The car reached the center access lane, and then turned onto it right underneath one of the yellow vapor lights that illuminated the lot. Will didn't get a very good look at the driver, just a dark outline of a tall guy wearing a baseball cap, but Claire sucked in her breath audibly.

"Holy shit, Will. It's really him."

Will knew there was no way the driver could have heard her, but he guessed that the two of them openly staring at the leaving vehicle made his discovery obvious, because the guy behind the wheel suddenly goosed the engine, and rushed towards the intersection with Merchants, his headlights still dark.

"Son of a bitch," Will said. He looked at the tail end of the car in dumbstruck shock for a moment, and then turned towards Claire, only to find that she was already rushing over to one of the Sheriff's cruisers. He hurried to catch up with her.

"There's your guy, deputy. Pickup truck, New Hampshire plates. He's at the intersection right now... see?"

The deputy looked back into the direction Claire pointed, and Will turned in time to see the driver of the out-of-state pickup jump the curb in front of the blocked intersection, where a fair number of cars were stopped in the lane closest to the curb for a first-row seat at the widening conflagration behind Will and Claire. The driver goosed the engine again and drove the hundred yards to the nearby I-75 ramp on the sidewalk to get around the traffic. Then he rushed up the ramp and finally turned on his headlights just before merging into Interstate traffic.

"His name is Jackson Campbell," Claire said to the deputy, who was already reaching for the mike of his radio once more. "White male, uh, six one, ash blond hair. I'll bet the insurance check for the store that he's heading north on 640 right now."

"North, south, whatever," the deputy shrugged. He gave Claire a reassuring smile.

"The city has a bunch of units on 640 tonight. They're running speed traps and DUI enforcement this weekend. I'll have our folks get on the horn with the city boys, and they'll grab him for us the second he comes through."

"I hope he does something stupid when they pull his ass over," Claire said grimly. "I really do."

"Looks like we're both homeless now," Will said to Claire when the fire department had finally cleared them out of the lot for their own safety. The fire had spread to the neighboring stores before they had gotten it under control, and the heat from the flames was so intense that the asphalt of the sidewalk in front of the stores had started bubbling. They had migrated across the street, where the elevated parking lot of a large gas station offered a good vantage point, and Will had fetched two cups of coffee from the convenience store inside. Oliver had settled down on the back seat, where he was snoozing soundly, his slumber fortified by two convenience store hot dogs.

"Well, not quite," she said. "The house is still standing, but I'll be damned if I go back there right now." She wiped a tear out of the corner of her eye.

"It just feels like rape, you know? Like he raped the place to get back at me. Because I wasn't there to take it myself."

"What a moron," Will said. "Breaking in and tearing up that house was bad enough, but the arson will get him twenty years in whatever shithole they call a state prison here. If someone got killed in that mess, he's looking at life without parole."

"Yeah, well, thinking is not his strong suit," she said. "Let's go grab a hotel room tonight, okay? It's not like he left the place in usable shape anyway."

"I'm sure Bob and Christa would be glad to put us up in the guest room for the night."

"No, don't bother them right now. I don't want to mess up Erica's day with all this drama. Let's not end it on a sour note for her."

"Alright," he conceded. "But I'll have to call them in the morning. They'll turn on the news over breakfast, and you can bet your ass that this is going to make local prime time. I don't want them to think we got charred to a crisp."

They took a room at the Marriott off the exit to Bob's house. By the time they had checked in and claimed the room, it was well past midnight, but the excitement of the evening combined with the effects of the coffee to keep them awake, and they decided to relieve some stress in the most pleasurable way that came to mind.

They were watching late-night television when Claire's cell phone chirped. Will checked his watch while she rolled over to the nightstand to answer the call. It was ten past two in the morning.

"This is Claire." She listened for a moment, and Will heard an assertive voice on the other end of the line.

"Oh, hi, Deputy Armstrong. I'm assuming you're not just calling to check on us."

The voice on the other end of the line laughed, and then said something Will couldn't make out.

"You do?" Claire said. "That's fantastic. Any chance we can go and see that piece of shit? Pardon my French."

There was more laughter, and Will grinned at Claire's excited expression.

"Thanks a bunch, Deputy. I'll stop by tomorrow and thank you in person. Listen, I know it's against the rules to rough up the prisoners, but tell the jailers they should feel free to give him a free dental cleaning with a baton if he starts talking smack, okay?"

She listened to Deputy Armstrong again, and laughed at his reply.

"That's a pity, but I understand. I'll be in after two o'clock, then. Thanks a lot for all your help."

Claire closed her phone and then smiled at Will.

"They got him in the county lockup. Pulled him over two hours ago on I-40, just past Cherry Street. Looks like he was smart enough to try and sit things out at Waffle House for a while, or something."

"Not smart enough," Will said. "He did hang around to admire his handiwork, didn't he? I would have high-tailed it out of Knoxville as soon as I could."

"You wouldn't have busted your ex-wife's house and torched her store, either."

"Probably not," he said. "For one, I was never in the Boy Scouts or in the Army. I wouldn't know how to build a fire if you held a gun to my head. I'd be walking around the store and trying to light books individually with a Zippo or something."

In the morning, Will and Claire checked out before breakfast. There was a twenty-four hour waffle place across the street, and they took a table and ordered some food before digging out their cell phones to make some necessary phone calls.

Claire called her employees, Lauren and Stephanie, to let them know that they didn't need to show up at work on account of the store having been reduced to a smoking pile of rubble. They took the news of their sudden unemployment surprisingly well, both offering to come and help Claire out with whatever she needed done, and Claire graciously declined both offers.

"Those girls are great," Claire said when she finished her conversation with Stephanie. "I need to give them a bit of a bonus, to tide them over until they can find something else."

"I'll miss them," Will agreed. "Lauren's got some major league snark going, and Steph just plays the ditz most of the time."

"I feel like a pig," she said. "I'm still wearing the stuff I put on yesterday morning. I'd go back to the house and get a change of clothes, but I'm sure there's nothing left in one piece."

"Let's go and buy some clothes then," Will suggested. "I wouldn't mind getting out of this shirt myself. I have to call Bob first, though."

"You're shitting me," Bob said. "Burned to the ground?"

"Turn on the local news," Will replied. "It was quite the show last night. The place went up like a warehouse full of kindling."

"Well, it was. All those books--they're probably still busy pouring water onto the mess."

"Can we come over and get changed and stuff at your place? Claire's house looks like a trailer park after the tornado done blew through. Her ex-hubby kind of went berserk on the place."

"Holy fuck," Bob said. "Sounds like you guys had quite the night. Is she alright?" He paused for a second. "Are you all right?"

"Yeah, we're good. He missed us thanks to Erica's party. He's cooling his heels in the Knox County jail right now."

"Man, that's totally Sleeping With The Enemy. Freaks me the fuck out, actually."

"You're not kidding," Will chuckled. "You weren't there last night when we walked into the place. I think the only reason he didn't use a chain saw was that it would have made too much noise, but the end result is close enough. He even pissed on my typewriter, if you can believe that."

Bob laughed out loud, and Will joined in.

"I swear, if I put that kind of stuff into one of my books, people would roll their eyes and say it wasn't believable," Bob said when they had finished guffawing.

"We're going to head over to the mall in a little while to get some clothes and stuff," Will said. "Are you going to be at home around noon?"

"Yeah, I'm working my usual schedule. But you have to be out of your mind if you think that I'll get Christa and Erica out of the house after I tell them what happened last night."

There was something liberating about being reduced to the clothes on one's back. When they were picking out some essentials at the clothing stores in the mall, Claire mentioned that she hadn't worn most of the stuff in her closet in years.

"I swear, he almost did me a favor," she said. "I had all four closets full of stuff, but two of them I haven't even opened since before I got Oliver. It would have taken a few trips to Goodwill to get rid of it all."

"Now we have to cart everything to the dump," Will said, and she shook her head with determination.

"I'm going to hire someone to clean the place out and fix it up, and then it'll go on the market. I would have had to sell it anyway in a few months, and I'm not really interested in cleaning up after that son-of-a-bitch one more time."

They had lunch at the mall, settling down at a table in the middle of the food court with a pair of Nathan's hot dogs and a half-dozen shopping bags each. The place was filled with the chatter of a hundred people, mostly teenagers and older folks, and Will felt completely out of place.

"Why is it that everyone in here is under eighteen or above sixty-five?" he asked Claire, and she laughed.

"Think about it. Famous writers excepted, most adults are at work this time of day."

To read this story you need a Registration + Premier Membership
If you have an account, then please Log In or Register (Why register?)

Buy at Bookapy.com

A Bettered Life

Michael Lindgren

$3.99