Out Of The Ashes. Cynthia Reese

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       CHAPTER THREE

      “DID HE DO IT? Mom! You have to tell me!”

      Kari’s mom didn’t answer, just protectively pulled the opening of her terrycloth robe together with a shaking hand. “I—Kari—I—it burned? Your shop burned?”

      Now Chelle Hendrix tottered past Kari, a hand raking through her bottle-dye blond hair. Kari wheeled around to hear the clatter of the coffee carafe rattling as Chelle managed to pour coffee into a mug, her hand shaking.

      Kari started to speak again, but Chelle held up a finger, then went back to her coffee. She poured a boatload of sugar into it, then a flood of cream. After giving it a brisk, businesslike stir, she held the mug up and took a quaff from it like a man stumbling into an oasis after being stranded in the desert for days.

      Fortified, Chelle tottered back to the kitchen table and sank with a sigh into a chair. “Now tell me. Seriously? Your shop? It burned?”

      “Mom... I am so sorry. The first thing that I thought about was your retirement money.”

      Chelle would have wrinkled her forehead in shock and horror, but her Botoxed facial muscles wouldn’t cooperate. Her throat moved in a visible gulp. “Oh, honey. Don’t you worry about me. Sure, I borrowed against my 401(k), but it’s you who’s been putting all that hard work into making a go of it. How horrible! Now grab a cup of coffee and sit down and tell me all about it.”

      Thinking about coffee made Kari think about Rob, and thinking about Rob made her think about the case he was probably busily building against her as she stood in her mother’s kitchen. “I don’t want coffee. I don’t want to sit down—”

      “Well, you’re giving me a crick in the neck, honey. Sit. If you don’t want coffee, fine, but at least sit.”

      Kari sat. Her mother quickly grasped Kari’s fingers in her own perfectly manicured hands. “Kari, what happened? Did you leave something turned on? No, I know you didn’t—you’re so careful. I’ll bet it was that wiring. I knew that old dump of a building was a firetrap.”

      “No.” Kari swallowed, tried to get the lump in her throat to dislodge. “It was arson. Somebody—” her voice trembled over the word somebody. “Somebody took a propane tank, leaned it against the back door and stuck a lit safety flare in the top of it.”

      Chelle recoiled. For a second, she just stared at Kari with rounded eyes, her hands clenched into fists against her robe. “Kari... Kari...you don’t honestly think...”

      “Where’s Jake, Mom? I need to ask him—”

      “No.” The word was harsh and sharp and brooked no argument. Sometimes her mother dispensed with her dithery ways and allowed an iron maiden to peek out. “No. You will not.”

      “Mom—”

      “He’s back, Kari. He’s back, and he’s doing fine. We’re all—we’re all doing just fine.” Kari’s mom’s eyes grew shiny and wet with tears. “What you’re saying...it just isn’t possible. He was young, Kari. It was a mistake. A stupid, stupid prank that went all wrong and his friends—oh—his friends!” A shuddering sound of disgust escaped her mother’s lips.

      Kari put a palm over her eyes, which felt as raw as if they’d been sandblasted. Now was not the time to argue about Jake. It had been a mistake all right, taking the fall for his crime.

      Kari still remembered standing in front of the judge that day, reciting the words she’d rehearsed for her confession. It was supposed to be simple: she was a juvenile first offender, sure to get off easy for a property crime. It was Jake who would get sent off if he were found guilty—and he was guilty.

      But, her mom had explained, Jake would get sent to real prison—doing real time, since he’d turned eighteen. And her mother assured her that Kari wouldn’t—probation, that’s all, just like Jake had his first and second time before a judge.

      Only the judge hadn’t given Kari probation.

      He’d given her four years in juvie.

      Four years of hell.

      It had taken Kari a long time to even be able to speak to her mother...much less Jake. In fact, it was only in the past six months that Kari had reconciled any small bit with her brother.

      Her mother spoke now in a firm voice. “Kari, Jake wouldn’t have done this. He loves you. And you know he feels awful...just awful about what happened. Why, he was telling me about how that Charlie Kirkman was treating you, how he wanted to ram that man’s words down his throat.” Kari’s mom’s eyes rounded again. “You don’t think Charlie Kirkman did it, do you?”

      “No, I don’t think that.” Kari couldn’t look at her mother for another second. More for something to do than anything else, Kari stood and poured herself a cup of coffee. She’d give anything to have one of her bear claws or Danish rolls to go with this—

      No point in thinking about that.

      “I’m sure Jake will be just as horrified as I am,” Kari’s mother said. “Oh, Kari, grab that box of croissants there. We’ll have some breakfast.”

      Kari followed her mother’s pointing finger to the top of the fridge, where a clear plastic grocery store bakery container held a few croissants. With a sigh, she yanked the things down and plopped them on the Formica tabletop. “You couldn’t have bought some from me, Mom?”

      “Well, actually, these were leftover from the office brunch—I told them we should have had you cater it, but the girls at the office said that there wasn’t enough in petty cash. Besides, they’re not that bad.”

      Kari bit into one. The pastry was tough and greasy, not at all flaky like the croissants she strove to make. She scanned the printed ingredients list: hydrogenated soybean oil, high fructose corn syrup, refined flour, soy flour.

      She dropped the half-eaten pastry on her napkin. It was disappointing to the taste buds, a little stale, nothing like a fresh croissant. A good one was light and flaky and loaded with real butter. So what if they took hours to make? Better to have one really good croissant than a whole bin of these.

      “See?” her mother said. “Not bad at all.”

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