Читать книгу Deadly Deception - Brenda Gunn - Страница 8

PROLOGUE

She was lying on a pristine white sandy beach on the island of St. Martin. It was one of those deliciously hot and sunny Caribbean days, when the aquamarine sky shone like a jewel. Brenda was lying on her back and Glen had brought her an icy Piña Colada to drink.

Suddenly, just as she opened her mouth to take a sip, the gentle wind whipped up, making the beach umbrella beside her sway back and forth spraying sand. Startled, Brenda began to choke.

Her coughing woke her. The Caribbean faded. She opened her eyes but couldn’t see anything through the billowing clouds surrounding her. Her chest began to ache and another severe bout of coughing overtook her. She tried to sit up and catch her breath. That’s when she knew this wasn’t a dream and they weren’t clouds at all, but smoke. The temperature was rising in the room. The smoke grew thicker, leaving a bitter, acrid taste in her mouth.

Wet with perspiration, Brenda felt a trickle of sweat run into the corner of her mouth. It was salty, but her mouth was so parched from the heat that any moisture was welcome. She tried to look around her bedroom, but smoke stung her eyes. She couldn’t see anything. Which direction is the door? Wait! If it’s smoky in here, the fire isn’t from outside the house. I need to find the window so I can get out!

Why did she feel so groggy? What had she drunk last night? It was only one glass of wine. Struggling to her feet, Brenda felt around for the edge of the bed. If she could follow its perimeter, she’d find the window. It was getting tougher to breathe. Her chest hurt, her eyes stung and she was getting weaker by the moment.

Brenda held her hand in front of her face but couldn’t see it through the smoke. This must be what it’s like to be blind. Unable to see, she collided with the wall. She hadn’t realized how dependent she was on her sight. I’ve never been so disoriented, she thought. I have to picture the room in my mind, she told herself. But she couldn’t get her mind to function. It’s as if I’ve been drugged. She tried to pull herself together and felt along the wall, hoping to find some landmarks, but if there were any, she missed them.

She decided the best thing to do was continue following the wall. When she got to the door frame, she realized she’d gone in the wrong direction. The door itself felt like a hot iron. Wafts of black smoke pungent with the smell of charcoal filtered under it, and she could hear timbers crackling and popping on the other side. I have to get out of here fast.

Brenda turned around, stood up and bolted across the room as fast as her wobbly legs would take her. She hoped she was running in a straight line but had no way of knowing. When she hit the end of the wrought iron canopy bed, it knocked the wind out of her. She fell face forward. It took her a few seconds before she could try to get up on her hands and knees and crawl to where the window should be.

Suddenly, there was a loud crash! Then a roar and the door she’d just left disintegrated into a fireball. It was as if a bomb had exploded! Flames rumbled in…

“I’m going to die!” Brenda murmured as she frantically searched for the lamp that sat on a small table next to the window. Where is it? She didn’t have much time! Waving her outstretched arms, she accidentally hit the shade and knocked it over. It crashed to the floor. She felt along the floor in wide sweeping motions. God, please don’t let me die!

Suddenly her fingertip nicked the bottom of the lamp. She grabbed the base and threw it through the window. Fresh air whipped in while the fire swelled at her back. She could smell her hair burning. The air rushing in through the window was fanning the flame. Without a moment to waste, she crashed through the broken window.

Brenda heard the noise of firemen yelling, water splattering on the roof and bouncing off, covering her with a fine mist. She could literally feel it lowering her body temperature. Suddenly, she was being dragged across the lawn, coughing and sputtering. When they had moved her to safety, the paramedics slapped an oxygen mask on her face and told her to breathe. She was trying, but the harder she tried, the more she coughed. And then, there was nothing…

When Brenda opened her eyes, the sun was too bright. Everything was blurry. Where am I? She caught only glimpses of colors and moving forms that must have been people. In the distance, she thought she saw her husband, Glen, with a garden hose standing next to her best friend, Jane, who was busy tying animals’ leashes to far off trees. Then she remembered the fire.

Brenda was numb. She didn’t even feel the paramedics put an intravenous needle in her arm, but she did hear the fire chief yell to his men, “We’ve got to contain the blaze on the west side of the house. Get in there and form a barrier between the flames and the east side of the house before the rest of the structure goes.”

A loud crack hurt her ears. The entire roof above the bedroom crashed to the ground. Brenda felt the ground beneath her vibrate from the noise. Smoke and cinders mushroomed into the sky. Flickering embers floated through the air like fireflies. If it wasn’t so devastating, it would be beautiful, she thought.

Thank you, God, for getting me out of there before the roof caved in. I’d have been trapped.

Tears spilled out of Brenda’s scorched eyes. The salt stung, but the tears were also soothing. She could feel them washing away the smoky grit. When she tried to rub her forehead, she felt her eyebrows. They were wiry from being singed.

Glen’s voice drifted closer to her. She tried to look in that direction but kept slipping in and out of consciousness. The paramedics were trying to keep him away, but he wasn’t cooperating.

“She’s my wife!” Brenda heard him yell. “I’ll stay out of your way, but I’m damned-well going to see her!”

Glen’s shadowy form shoved past the paramedics. He took her limp hand in his, looked at the paramedic and asked in a grim tone, “Is she—?”

“No, she’s hanging in now, but she came close to dying in there. She’s suffering from smoke inhalation and there may have been lung damage. We’re going to take her to the hospital,” the paramedic said.

Brenda looked into Glen’s face and thought she saw tears forming in his eyes. She was so moved by his concern that she tried to reach up to hug him. When she did, she saw the bedroom, bathroom and guest bedroom burning beyond control. She buried her face in Glen’s chest and cried, “All my hard work is going up in flames.”

Glen stroked her hair to comfort her. “Baby, I’m so-o-o sorry.”

The sheriff, Dan Gilbert, who had just arrived on the scene, strode over. He cleared his throat noisily to make his presence known. Glen gently laid Brenda back on the stretcher and looked up at him questioningly.

“Mr. and Mrs. Brumbaugh? I need to speak with you. Do you have insurance?” the huge, stocky man asked in a deep baritone voice.

“My wife works for an insurance company. They’d kill her if she didn’t have plenty of insurance,” Glen answered curtly.

“Do you smoke?” the sheriff asked.

“Glen does, but he wasn’t home,” she wheezed.

“You two have any enemies?” the sheriff asked.

Brenda shook her head no. Even through the oxygen mask, she could smell the foul odor of his rattlesnake skin boots.

“No one that I know of,” Glen said.

Brenda saw the sheriff look at her then Glen. Brenda could tell the sheriff was trying to size them up.

“The fire chief thinks that because of the odor and intense flames, it might have been started by chemicals, so he called me.”

“Chemicals,” Glen echoed.

“It can’t be,” Brenda shook her head.

“More likely it was electrical or gas or something else,” the sheriff shrugged.

Brenda gasped for breath between each word. “It has to be an accident. I can’t think of anybody who’d want to do this to us.”

“Wait a minute.” Glen scratched his chin. “What about the renters at the house your Grandma gave you? They were two months behind on their rent,” Glen said.

Brenda nodded and tried to say something, but Glen put his hand on her shoulder to indicate she should rest.

“Brenda had to get ugly with them yesterday and threatened to evict them,” he told the sheriff.

“I’ll question ’em. Can you think of anybody else—exspouses, angry relatives or neighbors, disgruntled employees?” the sheriff asked.

“There’s this one guy that keeps following me,” Brenda said hoarsely. “He’s one of our company’s clients. He made a pass at me when I was giving him a physical but I turned him down. Also, I had to give the company a negative medical report on him. I don’t know if he’s learned of the bad report yet but it means he he won’t get a million dollar policy. Anyway, ever since the day he came on to me, I’ve been seeing his car everywhere I go, even here at the house.”

“What’s his name?” the sheriff asked.

“Something…Morgan. My boss will know,” she said.

“Say, I saw a blue car with ‘Morgan’ on the license plate just this morning,” Glen said.

“We’ll check it all out,” the sheriff said and walked over to his deputy.

“Mr. Brumbaugh, we’re ready to take your wife to the hospital. You’ll need to take your own car and follow the ambulance,” the paramedic said.

Brenda felt Glen squeeze her hand as he said, “I’ll be right behind you, darlin’.”

As the paramedics lifted Brenda onto a new, stark white stretcher, she saw the devastation the fire had wrought and began to weep again. They raised the stretcher and locked it into place with a snapping sound. As they wheeled her toward the ambulance, Brenda saw that Glen had walked back toward Jane. Their heads were bent together and Jane’s voice wafting back sounded angry. She hoped Jane wasn’t blaming Glen for not having been home. It would be just like her protective best friend. But it wasn’t Glen’s fault, Brenda wanted to tell her. He was fixing a neighbor’s fence to earn some extra money so they could take a long, romantic weekend away. Glen was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

On the way to the hospital, as the ambulance’s siren careened in and out of her ears, Brenda’s groggy mind drifted back to the happiest day of her life.